Here the band plays under the great palm-tree every afternoon except Friday. On Sunday afternoons the Pincio is in what Miss Thackeray describes as "a fashionable halo of sunset and pink parasols"--when immense crowds collect, showing every phase of Roman life; and disperse again as the Ave-Maria bell rings from the churches, either to descend into the city, or to hear benediction sung by the nuns in the Trinita de' Monti.

"When the fashionable hour of rendezvous arrives, the same spot, which a few minutes before was immersed in silence and solitude, changes as it were with the rapidity of a scene in a pantomime to an animated panorama. The scene is rendered not a little ludicrous by the miniature representation of the Ring in Hyde Park in a small compass. An entire revolution of the carriage-drive is performed in the short period of three minutes as near as may be, and the perpetual occurrence of the same physiognomies and the same carriages trotting round and round for two successive hours, necessarily reminds one of the proceedings of a country fair, and children whirling in a roundabout."--_Sir G. Head's 'Tour in Rome.'_

"The Pincian Hill is the favourite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great Britain, and beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation over all that is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them with the shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers of all seasons, and of every clime, abundantly over those smooth, central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and setting great basons of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and covered them with busts of that multitude of worthies,--statesmen, heroes, artists, men of letters and of song,--whom the whole world claims as its chief ornaments, though Italy has produced them all. In a word, the Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost,) to the rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have arrived at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be.

"In this pleasant spot the red-trousered French soldiers are always to be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps, with medals of Algiers or the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing that children do not trample on the flower-beds, nor any youthful lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in his beloved one's hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine,) the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for a cure, into a climate that instils poison into its very purest breath. Here, all day, come nursery maids, burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the far western world. Here, in the sunny afternoon, roll and rumble all kinds of carriages, from the Cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on thorough-bred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population of Rome, the world's great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for their historical interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons in the week, a French military band flings out rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loud as those of her own echoless triumphs."--_Hawthorne._

The garden of the Pincio is very small, but beautifully laid out. At a crossroads is placed an _Obelisk_, brought from Egypt, and which the late discoveries in hieroglyphics show to have been erected there, in the joint names of Hadrian and his empress Sabina, to their beloved Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile A.D. 131.

From the furthest angle of the garden we look down upon the strange fragment of wall known as the _Muro-Torto_.

"Le Muro-Torto offre un souvenir curieux. On nomme ainsi un pan de muraille qui, avant de faire partie du rempart d'Honorius, avait servi a soutenir la terrasse du jardin du Domitius, et qui, du temps de Belisaire, etait deja incline comme il l'est aujourd'hui.

Procope racconte que Belisaire voulait le rebatir, mais que les Romains l'en empecherent, affirmant que ce point n'etait pas expose, parce que Saint Pierre avait promis de le defendre. Procope ajoute: 'Personne n'a ose reparer ce mur, et il reste encore dans le meme etat.' Nous pouvons en dire autant que Procope, et le mur, detache de la colline a laquelle il s'appuyait, reste encore incline et semble pres de tomber. Ce detail du siege de Rome est confirme par l'aspect singulier du Muro-Torto, qui _semble toujours pres de tomber_, et subsiste dans le meme etat depuis quatorze siecles, comme s'il etait soutenu miraculeusement par la main de Saint Pierre. On ne saurait guere trouver pour l'autorite temporel des papes, un meilleur symbole."--_Ampere, Emp._ ii. 397.

"At the furthest point of the Pincio, you look down from the parapet upon the Muro-Torto, a massive fragment of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rise Soracte, and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imagination, but look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its broad surrounding Campagna; no land of dreams, but the broadest page of history, crowded so full with memorable events, that one obliterates another, as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own records till they grew illegible."--_Hawthorne._

In early imperial times the site of the Pincio garden was occupied by the famous villa of Lucullus, who had gained his enormous wealth as general of the Roman armies in Asia.

"The life of Lucullus was like an ancient comedy, where first we see great actions, both political and military, and afterwards feasts, debauches, races by torchlight, and every kind of frivolous amusement. For among frivolous amusements, I cannot but reckon his sumptuous villas, walks, and baths; and still more so the paintings, statues, and other works of art which he collected at immense expense, idly squandering away upon them the vast fortune he amassed in the wars. Insomuch that now, when luxury is so much advanced, the gardens of Lucullus rank with those of the kings, and are esteemed the most magnificent even of these."--_Plutarch._

Here, in his Pincian villa, Lucullus gave his celebrated feast to Cicero and Pompey, merely mentioning to a slave beforehand that he should sup in the hall of Apollo, which was understood as a command to prepare all that was most sumptuous.

After Lucullus--the beautiful Pincian villa belonged to Valerius Asiaticus, and in the reign of Claudius was coveted by his fifth wife, Messalina. She suborned Silius, her son's tutor, to accuse him of a licentious life, and of corrupting the army. Being condemned to death, "Asiaticus declined the counsel of his friends to starve himself, a course which might leave an interval for the chance of pardon; and after the lofty fashion of the ancient Romans, bathed, perfumed, and supped magnificently, and then opened his veins, and let himself bleed to death. Before dying he inspected the pyre prepared for him in his own gardens, and ordered it to be removed to another spot, that an umbrageous plantation which overhung it might not be injured by the flames."

As soon as she heard of his death, Messalina took possession of the villa, and held high revel there with her numerous lovers, with the most favoured of whom, Silius, she had actually gone through the religious rites of marriage in the lifetime of the emperor, who was absent at Ostia. But a conspiracy among the freedmen of the royal household informed the emperor of what was taking place, and at last even Claudius was aroused to a sense of her enormities.

"In her suburban palace, Messalina was abandoning herself to voluptuous transports. The season was mid-autumn, the vintage was in full progress; the wine-press was groaning; the ruddy juice was streaming; women girt with scanty fawnskins danced as drunken Bacchanals around her: while she herself, with her hair loose and disordered, brandished the thyrsus in the midst, and Silius by her side, buskined and crowned with ivy, tossed his head to the flaunting strains of Silenus and the Satyrs. Vettius, one, it seems, of the wanton's less fortunate paramours, attended the ceremony, and climbed in merriment a lofty tree in the garden. When asked what he saw, he replied, 'an awful storm from Ostia'; and whether there was actually such an appearance, or whether the words were spoken at random, they were accepted afterwards as an omen of the catastrophe which quickly followed.

"For now in the midst of these wanton orgies the rumour quickly spread, and swiftly messengers arrived to confirm it, that Claudius knew it all, that Claudius was on his way to Rome, and was coming in anger and vengeance. The lovers part: Silius for the forum and the tribunals; Messalina for the shade of her gardens on the Pincio, the price of the blood of the murdered Asiaticus." Once the empress attempted to go forth to meet Claudius, taking her children with her, and accompanied by Vibidia, the eldest of the vestal virgins, whom she persuaded to intercede for her, but her enemies prevented her gaining access to her husband; Vibidia was satisfied for the moment by vague promises of a later hearing; and upon the arrival of Claudius in Rome, Silius and the other principal lovers of the empress were put to death. "Still Messalina hoped. She had withdrawn again to the gardens of Lucullus, and was there engaged in composing addresses of supplication to her husband, in which her pride and long-accustomed insolence still faintly struggled into her fears. The emperor still paltered with the treason. He had retired to his palace; he had bathed, anointed, and lain down to supper; and, warmed with wine and generous cheer, he had actually despatched a message to the _poor creature_, as he called her, bidding her come the next day, and plead her cause before him. But her enemy Narcissus, knowing how easy might be the passage from compassion to love, glided from the chamber, and boldly ordered a tribune and some centurions to go and slay his victim. 'Such,' he said, 'was the emperor's command'; and his word was obeyed without hesitation. Under the direction of the freedman Euodus, the armed men sought the outcast in her gardens, where she lay prostrate on the ground, by the side of her mother Lepida. While their fortunes flourished, dissensions had existed between the two; but now, in her last distress, the mother had refused to desert her child, and only strove to nerve her resolution to a voluntary death. 'Life,'

she urged, 'is over; nought remains but to look for a decent exit from it.' But the soul of the reprobate was corrupted by her vices; she retained no sense of honour; she continued to weep and groan as if hope still existed; when suddenly the doors were burst open, the tribune and his swordsmen appeared before her, and Euodus assailed her, dumb-stricken as she lay, with contumelious and brutal reproaches. Roused at last to the consciousness of her desperate condition, she took a weapon from one of the men's hands and pressed it trembling against her throat and bosom. Still she wanted resolution to give the thrust, and it was by a blow of the tribune's falchion that the horrid deed was finally accomplished.

The death of Asiaticus was avenged on the very spot; the hot blood of the wanton smoked on the pavement of his gardens, and stained with a deeper hue the variegated marbles of Lucullus."--_Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire._

From the garden of the Pincio a terraced road (beneath which are the long-closed catacombs of St. Felix) leads to the _Villa Medici_, built for Cardinal Ricci da Montepulciano by Annibale Lippi in 1540. Shortly afterwards it passed into the hands of the Medici family, and was greatly enlarged by Cardinal Alessandro de Medici, afterwards Leo XI. In 1801 the Academy for French Art-Students, founded by Louis XIV., was established here. The villa contains a fine collection of casts, open every day except Sunday.

Behind the villa is a beautiful _Garden_ (which can be visited on application to the porter). The terrace, which looks down upon the Villa Borghese, is bordered by ancient sarcophagi, and has a colossal statue of Rome. The garden side of the villa has sometimes been ascribed to Michael Angelo.

"La plus grande coquetterie de la maison, c'est la facade posterieure. Elle tient son rang parmi les chefs-d'uvre de la Renaissance. On dirait que l'architecte a epuise une mine de bas-reliefs grecs et romains pour en tapisser son palais. Le jardin est de la meme epoque: il date du temps ou l'aristocratie romaine professait le plus profond dedain pour les fleurs. On n'y voit que des massifs de verdure, alignes avec un soin scrupuleux. Six pelouses, entourees de haies a hauteur d'appui, s'etendent devant la villa et laissent courir la vue jusqu'au mont Soracte, qui ferme l'horizon. A gauche, quatre fois quatre carres de gazon s'encadrent dans de hautes murailles de lauriers, de buis gigantesques et de chenes verts. Les murailles se rejoignent au-dessus des allees et les enveloppent d'une ombre fraiche et mysterieuse. A droite, une terrasse d'une style noble encadre un bois de chenes verts, tordus et eventres par le temps. J'y vais quelquefois travailler a l'ombre; et le merle rivalise avec le rossignol au-dessus de ma tete, comme un beau chantre de village peut rivaliser avec Mario ou Roger. Un peu plus loin, une vigne toute rustique s'etend jusqu'a la porte Pinciana, ou Belisaire a mendie, dit-on. Les jardins petits et grands sont semes de statues, d'Hermes, et de marbres de toute sorte. L'eau coule dans des sarcophages antiques ou jaillit dans des vasques de marbre: le marbre et l'eau sont les deux luxes de Rome."--_About, Rome Contemporaine._

"The grounds of the Villa Medici are laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of stone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with long vistas, overshadowed by ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths the visitor finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble statues that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In the more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see fountains and flower-beds; and, in their season, a profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze."--_Hawthorne._

A second door will admit to the higher terrace of _the Boschetto_; a tiny wood of ancient ilexes, from which a steep flight of steps leads to the "Belvidere," whence there is a beautiful view.

"They asked the porter for the key of the Bosco, which was given, and they entered a grove of ilexes, whose gloomy shade effectually shut out the radiant sunshine that still illuminated the western sky. They then ascended a long and exceedingly steep flight of steps, leading up to a high mound covered with ilexes.

"Here both stood still, side by side, gazing silently on the city, where dome and bell-tower stood out against a sky of gold; the desolate Monte Mario and its stone pines rising dark to the right.

Behind, close at hand, were sombre ilex woods, amid which rose here and there the spire of a cypress or a ruined arch, and on the highest point, the white Villa Ludovisi; beyond, stretched the Campagna, girdled by hills melting into light under the evening sky."--_Mademoiselle Mori._

From the door of the Villa Medici is the scene familiar to artists, of a fountain shaded by ilexes, which frame a distant view of St Peter's.

"Je vois (de la Villa Medici) les quatre cinquiemes de la ville; je compte les sept collines, je parcours les rues regulieres qui s'etendent entre le cours et la place d'Espagne, je fais le d'enombrement des palais, des eglises, des domes, et des clochers; je m'egare dans le Ghetto et dans la Trastevere. Je ne vois pas des ruines autant que j'en voudrais: elles sont ramassees la-bas, sur ma gauche, aux environs du Forum. Cependant nous avons tout pres de nous la colonne Antonine et la mausolee d'Adrien. La vue est fermee agreablement par les pins de la villa Pamphili, qui reunissent leurs larges parasols et font comme une table a mille pieds pour un repas de geants. L'horizon fuit a gauche a des distances infinies; la plaine est nue, onduleuse et bleue comme la mer. Mais si je vous mettais en presence d'un spectacle si etendu et si divers, en seul objet attirerait vos regards, un seul frapperait votre attention: vous n'auriez des yeux que pour Saint Pierre. Son dome est moitie dans la ville, moitie dans la ciel. Quand j'ouvre ma fenetre, vers cinq heures du matin, je vois Rome noyee dans les brouillards de la fievre: seul, le dome de Saint-Pierre est colore par la lumiere rose du soleil levant."--_About._

The terrace ("La Passeggiata") ends at the _Obelisk of the Trinita de'

Monti_, erected here in 1822 by Pius VII., who found it near the Church of Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme.

"When the Ave Maria sounds, it is time to go to the church of Trinita de' Monti, where French nuns sing; and it is charming to hear them. I declare to heaven that I am become quite tolerant, and listen to bad music with edification; but what can I do? The composition is perfectly ridiculous, the organ-playing even more absurd: but it is twilight, and the whole of the small bright church is filled with persons kneeling, lit up by the sinking sun each time that the door is opened; both the singing nuns have the sweetest voices in the world, quite tender and touching, more especially when one of them sings the responses in her melodious voice, which we are accustomed to hear chaunted by priests in a loud, harsh, monotonous tone. The impression is very singular; moreover, it is well known that no one is permitted to see the fair singers, so this caused me to form a strange resolution. I have composed something to suit their voices, which I have observed very minutely, and I mean to send it to them. It will be pleasant to hear my chaunt performed by persons I never saw, especially as they must in turn sing it to the 'barbaro Tedescho,' whom they also never beheld."--_Mendelssohn's Letters._

"In the evenings people go to the Trinita to hear the nuns sing from the organ-gallery. It sounds like the singing of angels. One sees in the choir troops of young scholars, moving with slow and measured steps, with their long white veils, like a flock of spirits."--_Frederika Bremer._

_The Church of the Trinita de' Monti_ was built in 1495 by Charles VIII.

of France, at the request of S. Francesco di Paola. At the time of the French revolution it was plundered, but was restored by Louis XVIII. in 1817. It contains several interesting paintings.

In the second chapel on the left is the Descent from the Cross, the masterpiece of _Daniele da Volterra_, declared by Nicholas Poussin to be the third picture in the world, but terribly injured by the French in their attempts to remove it.

"We might almost fancy ourselves spectators of the mournful scene,--the Redeemer, while being removed from the cross, gradually sinking down with all that relaxation of limb and utter helplessness which belongs to a dead body; the assistants engaged in their various duties, and thrown into different and contrasted attitudes, intently occupied with the sacred remains which they so reverently gaze upon; the mother of the Lord in a swoon amidst her afflicted companions; the disciple whom he loved standing with outstretched arms, absorbed in contemplating the mysterious spectacle. The truth in the representation of the exposed parts of the body appears to be nature itself. The colouring of the heads and of the whole picture accords precisely with the subject, displaying strength rather than delicacy, a harmony, and in short a degree of skill, of which M. Angelo himself might have been proud, if the picture had been inscribed with his name. And to this I believe the author alluded, when he painted his friend with a looking-glass near it, as if to intimate that he might recognize in the picture a reflection of himself."--_Lanzi._

"Daniele da Volterra's Descent from the Cross is one of the celebrated pictures of the world, and has very grand features. The body is not skilfully sustained; nevertheless the number of strong men employed about it makes up in sheer muscle for the absence of skill. Here are four ladders against the cross, stalwart figures standing, ascending, and descending upon each, so that the space between the cross and the ground is absolutely alive with magnificent lines. The Virgin lies on one side, and is like a grand creature struck down by a sudden death-blow. She has fallen, like Ananias in Raphael's cartoon, with her head bent backwards, and her arm under her. The crown of thorns has been taken from the dead brow, and rests on the end of one of the ladders."--_Lady Eastlake._

The third chapel on the right contains an Assumption of the Virgin, another work of _Daniele da Volterra_. The fifth chapel is adorned with frescoes of his school. The sixth has frescoes of the school of _Perugino_. The frescoes in the right transept are by _F. Zuccaro_ and _Pierino del Vaga_; in that of the Procession of St. Gregory the mausoleum of Hadrian is represented as it appeared in the time of Leo X.

The adjoining _Convent of the Sacre Cur_ is much frequented as a place of education. The nuns are all persons of rank. When a lady takes the veil, her nearest relations inherit her property, except about 1000_l._, which goes to the convent. The nuns are allowed to retain no personal property, but if they wish still to have the use of their books, they give them to the convent library. They receive visitors every afternoon, and quantities of people go to them from curiosity, on the plea of seeking advice.

From the Trinita the two popular streets--Sistina and Gregoriana--branch off; the former leading in a direct line (though the name changes) to Sta. Maria Maggiore, and thence to St. John Lateran and Sta. Croce in Gerusalemme. The house adjoining the Trinita was that of Nicholas Poussin; that at the angle of the two streets, called the _Tempietto_, was once inhabited by Claude Lorraine. The adjoining house (64 Sistina)--formerly known as Palazzo della Regina di Polonia, from Maria Casimira, Queen of Poland, who resided there for some years--was inhabited by the Zuccari family, and has paintings on the ground-floor by _Federigo Zuccaro_. One of the rooms on the first-floor was adorned with frescoes by modern German artists at the expense of the Prussian consul Bartholdy, viz.:--

The Selling of Joseph: _Overbeck._ Joseph and Potiphar's Wife: _Veit._ Meeting of Joseph and his Brethren: _Cornelius._ The Seven Lean Years: _Overbeck._ Joseph interprets the Dreams in Prison: _Schadow._ The Brethren bring Joseph's Coat to Jacob: _Schadow._ Joseph interprets the Dreams of Pharaoh: _Cornelius._ The Seven Plentiful Years: _Veit._

On the left of the Piazza del Popolo, the _Via Babuino_ branches off, deriving its name from the mutilated figure on a fountain halfway down.

On the right is the Greek _Church of S. Atanasio_, attached to a college founded by Gregory XIII. in 1580.

"To-day, the feast of the Epiphany, I have witnessed mass according to the Greek rite. The ceremonies appear to be more stately, more severe, more significant, and at the same time more popular, than those of the Latin rite."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._

Behind this street is the _Via Margutta_, almost entirely inhabited by artists and sculptors.

"The Via Margutta is a street of studios and stables, crossed at the upper end by a little roofed gallery with a single window, like a shabby Bridge of Sighs. Horses are continually being washed and currycombed outside their stable doors; frequent heaps of _immondeazzajo_ make the air unfragrant; and the perspective is frequently damaged by rows of linen suspended across the road from window to window. Unsightly as they are, however, these obstacles in no wise affect the popularity of the Via Margutta, either as a residence for the artist, or a lounge for the amateur. Fashionable patrons leave their carriages at the corner, and pick their way daintily among the gutters and dust-heaps. A boar-hunt by Vallatti compensates for an unlucky splash; and a campagna sunset of Desoulavey glows all the richer for the squalor through which it is approached."--_Barbara's History._

In this street also is situated the _Costume Academy_.

"Imagine a great barn of a room, with dingy walls half covered with chalk studies of the figure in all possible attitudes. Opposite the door is a low platform with revolving top, and beside it an _ecorche_, or plaster figure bereft of skin, so as to exhibit the muscles. Ranges of benches, raised one above the other, occupy the remainder of the room; and if you were to look in at about eight o'clock on a winter's evening, you would find them tenanted by a multitude of young artists, mostly in their shirt sleeves, with perhaps three or four ladies, all disposed around the model, who stands upon the platform in one of the picturesque costumes of Southern Italy, with a cluster of eight lamps, intensified by a powerful reflector, immediately above his or her unlucky head.

The costumes are regulated by Church times and seasons. During Lent the models were mediaeval dresses; during the winter and carnival, Italian costumes of the present day; and with Easter begin mere draperies, _pieghe_, or folds, as they are technically called.

Every evening the subject for the next night is chalked up on a black board beside the platform; for the next _two_ nights rather; for each model poses for two evenings; the position of his feet being chalked upon the platform, so as to secure the same attitude on the second evening. Consequently, four hours are allowed for each drawing.... The _pieghe_ are only for a single time, as it would be impossible to secure the same folds twice over.... The expense of attending the Academy, including attendance, each person's share in the model, and his own especial lamp, amounts to 2_d._ an evening, or a scudo and a half (about 6_s._ 6_d._) a month; marvellously cheap, it most be confessed."--_H. M. B._, in _Once a Week_.

The Babuino ends in the ugly but central square of the _Piazza di Spagna_, where many of the best hotels and shops are situated. Hence the Trinita is reached by a magnificent flight of steps (disgracefully ill kept), which was built by Alessandro Specchi at the expense of a private individual, M. Gueffier, secretary to the French embassy at Rome, under Innocent XIII.

"No art-loving visitor to Rome can ever have passed the noble flight of steps which leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of the Trinita de' Monti without longing to transfer to his sketch-book the picturesque groups of models who there spend their day, basking in the beams of the wintry sun, and eating those little boiled beans whose yellow husks bestrew every place where the lower class Romans congregate--practising, in short, the 'dolce far niente.' Beppo, the celebrated lame beggar, is no longer to be seen there, having been banished to the steps of the Church of St.

Agostino; but there is old Felice, with conical hat, brown cloak, and bagpipes, father of half the models on the steps. He has been seen in an artist's studio in Paris, and is reported to have performed on foot the double journey between Rome and that capital.