76. Castel Gandolfo: _Claude Lorraine_.

78. Portrait: _Bronzino_.

79. Christ among the Doctors--painted in five days, in 1506: _Albert Durer_.

81. "The mother of Beatrice Cenci"? _Caravaggio_.

82. The Fornarina (with the painter's name on the armlet): _Raphael_.

"The history of this person, to whom Raphael was attached even to his death, is obscure, nor are we very clear with regard to her likenesses. In the tribune at Florence there is a portrait, inscribed with the date 1512, of a very beautiful woman holding the fur trimming of her mantle with her right hand, which is said to represent her. The picture is decidedly by Raphael, but can hardly represent the Fornarina; at least it has no resemblance to this portrait, which has the name of Raphael on the armlet, and of the authenticity of which (particularly with respect to the subject) there can hardly be a doubt. In this the figure is seated, and is uncovered to the waist; she draws a light drapery around her; a shawl is twisted round her head. The execution is beautiful and delicate, although the lines are sufficiently defined; the forms are fine and not without beauty, but at the same time not free from an expression of coarseness and common life. The eyes are large, dark, and full of fire, and seem to speak of brighter days. There are repetitions of this picture, from the school of Raphael, in Roman galleries."--_Kugler._

86. Death of Germanicus: _Poussin._ 88. Seaport: _Claude Lorraine._ 90. Holy Family: _Andrea del Sarto._ 93. Annunciation: _Botticelli._

But the interest of this collection centres entirely around two portraits--that (81) of Lucrezia, the unhappy wife of Francesco Cenci, by _Scipione Gaetani_, and that (85) of Beatrice Cenci, by _Guido Reni_.

"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is most interesting as a just representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of nature. There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features; she seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with folds of white drapery, from which the yellow strings of her golden hair escape, and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched; the lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not repressed, and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping, and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity, which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, is inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another; her nature simple and profound. The crimes and miseries in which she was an actor and sufferer, are as the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the world."--_Shelley's Preface to the Cenci._

"The picture of Beatrice Cenci represents simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which strays a lock or two of what seems a rich, though hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes are large and brown, and meet those of the spectator, evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. There is a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole face is very quiet; there is no distortion or disturbance of any single feature; nor is it easy to see why the expression is not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it is the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived; it involves an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which comes to the observer by a sort of intuition. It is a sorrow that removes this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and sets her in a far-off region, the remoteness of which, while yet her face is so close before us,--makes us shiver as at a spectre. You feel all the time you look at Beatrice, as if she were trying to escape from your gaze. She knows that her sorrow is so strange and immense, that she ought to be solitary for ever both for the world's sake and her own; and this is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, and to know that nothing can be done to help or comfort her, neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than we do. She is a fallen angel--fallen and yet sinless: and it is only this depth of sorrow with its weight and darkness, that keeps her down to earth, and brings her within our view even while it sets her beyond our reach."--_Hawthorne, Transformation._

"The portrait of Beatrice Cenci is a picture almost impossible to be forgotten. Through the transcendent sweetness and beauty of the face, there is a something shining out that haunts me. I see it now, as I see this paper, or my pen. The head is loosely draped in white; the light hair falling down below the linen folds. She has turned suddenly towards you; and there is an expression in the eyes--although they are very tender and gentle--as if the wildness of a momentary terror, or distraction, had been struggled with and overcome, that instant; and nothing but a celestial hope, and a beautiful sorrow, and a desolate earthly helplessness remained.

Some stories say that Guido painted it the night before her execution; some other stories, that he painted it from memory, after having seen her on her way to the scaffold. I am willing to believe that, as you see her on his canvas, so she turned towards him, in the crowd, from the first sight of the axe, and stamped upon his mind a look which he has stamped on mine as though I had stood beside him in the concourse. The guilty palace of the Cenci: blighting a whole quarter of the town, as it stands withering away by grains: had that face, to my fancy, in its dismal porch, and at its black blind windows, and flitting up and down its dreary stairs, and growing out of the darkness of its ghostly galleries.

The history is written in the painting; written, in the dying girl's face, by Nature's own hand. And oh! how in that one touch she puts to flight (instead of making kin) the puny world that claims to be related to her, in right of poor conventional forgeries!"--_Dickens._

"Five days had been passed by Beatrice in the secret prisons of the Torre Savella, when, at an early hour in the morning, her advocate, Farinacci, entered her sad abode. With him appeared a young man of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in the fashion of a writer in the courts of justice of that day. Unheeded by Beatrice, he sat regarding her at a little distance with fixed attention. She had risen from her miserable pallet, but, unlike the wretched inmate of a dungeon, she seemed a being from a brighter sphere. Her eyes were of liquid softness, her forehead large and clear, her countenance of angelic purity, mysteriously beautiful. Around her head a fold of white muslin had been carelessly wrapped, from whence in rich luxuriance fell her fair and waving hair. Profound sorrow imparted an air of touching sensibility to her lovely features. With all the eagerness of hope, she begged Farinacci to tell her frankly if his visit foreboded good, and assured him of her gratitude for the anxiety he evinced, to save her life and that of her family.

"Farinacci conversed with her for some time, while at a distance sat his companion, sketching the features of Beatrice. Turning round, she observed this with displeasure and surprise; Farinacci explained that this seeming writer was the celebrated painter, Guido Reni, who, earnestly desiring her picture, had entreated to be introduced into the prison for the purpose of obtaining so rich an acquisition. At first unwilling, but afterwards consenting, she turned and said, 'Signor Guido, your renown might make me desirous of knowing you, but how will you undervalue me in my present situation. From the fatality that surrounds me, you will judge me guilty. Perhaps my face will tell you I am not wicked; it will show you, too, that I now languish in this prison, which I may quit, only to ascend the scaffold. Your great name, and my sad story, may make my portrait interesting, and,' she added, with touching simplicity, 'the picture will awaken compassion if you write on one of its angles the word, _innocente_.' The great artist set himself to work, and produced the picture now in the Palazzo Barberini, a picture that rivets the attention of every beholder, which, once seen, ever after hovers over the memory with an interest the most harrowing and mysterious."--_From "Beatrice Cenci, Storia del Secolo XVI., Raccontata dal D.A.A., Firenze." Whiteside's Translation._

There is a pretty old-fashioned garden belonging to this palace, at one corner of which--overhanging an old statue--was the celebrated _Barberini Pine_, often drawn by artists from the Via Sterrata at the back of the garden, where statue and pine combined well with the Church of S. Caio; but, alas, this magnificent tree was cut down in 1872.

At the back of the palace-court, behind the arched bridge leading to the garden, is--let into the wall--an inscription which formed part of the dedication of an arch erected to Claudius by the senate and people, in honour of the conquest of Britain. The letters were inlaid with bronze.

It was found near the Palazzo Sciarra, where the arch is supposed to have stood.

Ascending to the summit of the hill, we find four ugly statues of river-gods, lying over the _Quattro Fontane_, from which the street takes its name.

On the left is the _Palazzo Albani_, recently restored by Queen Christina of Spain.

"In one of its rooms is a very ancient painting of Jupiter and Ganymede, in a very uncommon style, uniting considerable grandeur of conception, great force and decision, and a deep tone and colour which produce great effect. It is said to be Grecian."--_Eaton's Rome._

The opposite church, _S. Carlo a Quattro Fontane_, is worth observing from the fact that the whole building, church and convent, corresponds with one of the four piers supporting the cupola of St. Peter's. Here was formed the point of attack against the Quirinal Palace, November 16, 1848, which caused the flight of Pius IX., and the downfall of his government. From a window of this convent the shot was fired which killed Monsignor Palma, one of the pontifical secretaries, and a writer on ecclesiastical history--who had unfortunately exposed himself at one of the windows opposite. The church contains two pictures by _Mignard_ relating to the history of S. Carlo.

Turning down Via del Quirinale, on the left is _S. Andrea a Monte Cavallo_ (on the supposed site of the temple of Quirinus), erected, as it is told by an inscription inside, by Camillo Pamphili, nephew of Innocent X., from designs of Bernini. It has a Corinthian facade and a projecting semicircular portico with Ionic columns. The interior is oval. It is exceedingly rich, being almost entirely lined with red marble streaked with white (Sicilian jasper), divided by white marble pillars supporting a gilt cupola. The high altar--supposed to cover the body of St. Zeno--between really magnificent pillars, is surmounted by a fine picture, by _Borgognone_, of the crucifixion of St. Andrew. Near this is the tomb, by _Festa_, of Emmanuel IV., king of Sardinia, who abdicated his throne in 1802, to become a Jesuit monk in the adjoining convent, where he died in 1818. On the right is the chapel of Santa Croce, with three pictures of the passion and death of Christ by _Brandini_; and that of St. Francis Xavier, with three pictures by _Baciccio_, representing the saint preaching,--baptizing an Indian queen,--and lying dead in the island of Sancian in China. On the left is the chapel of the Virgin, with pictures, by _David_, of the three great Jesuit saints--St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Borgia, and St.

Luigi Gonzaga--adoring the Virgin, and, by _Gerard de la Nuit_, of the Adoration of the Shepherds and of the Magi; and lastly the chapel of S.

Stanislas Kostka, containing his shrine of gold and lapis-lazuli, under an exceedingly rich altar, which is adorned with a beautiful picture by _Carlo Maratta_, representing the saint receiving the Infant Jesus from the arms of his mother. At the sides of the chapel are two other pictures by _Maratta_, one of which represents S. Stanislas "bathing with water his breast inflamed with divine love," the other his receiving the host from the hands of an angel. These are the three principal incidents in the story of the young S. Stanislas, who belonged to a noble Polish family and abandoned the world to shut himself up here, saying, "I am not born for the good things of this world; that which my heart desires is the good things of eternity."

"I have long ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splendid interiors of churches; but methinks this little, little temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other. Its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and above that another little dome, both of which are magnificently frescoed. Around the base of the larger dome is wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs--cherub and angel all of pure white marble. The oval centre of the church is walled round with precious and lustrous marble, of a red-veined variety, interspersed with columns and pilasters of white; and there are arches, opening through this rich wall, forming chapels, which the architect seems to have striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the main body of the church. The pavement is one star of various tinted marble."--_Hawthorne, Notes on Italy._

The adjoining _Convent of the Noviciate of the Order of Jesus_ contains the room in which S. Stanislas Kostka died, at the age of eighteen, with his reclining statue by _Le Gros_, the body in white, his dress (that of a novice) in black, and the couch upon which he lies in yellow marble.

Behind his statue is a picture of a celestial vision which consoled him in his last moments. On the day of his death, November 13, the convent is thrown open, and mass is said without ceasing in this chamber, which is visited by thousands.

"La petite chambre de S. Stanislas Kostka, est un de ces lieux ou la priere nait spontanement dans le cur, et s'en echappe comme par un cours naturel."--_Veuillot, Parfum de Rome._[233]

In the convent garden is shown the fountain where "the angels used to bathe the breast of S. Stanislas burning with the love of Christ."

Passing the Benedictine convent, with a courtyard containing an old sarcophagus as a fountain, and a humble church decorated with rude frescoes of St. Benedict and Sta. Scholastica, we reach a small and popular church, rich in marbles, belonging to the _Perpetua Adoratrice del Divin Sacramento del Altare_, founded by sister Maddalena of the Incarnation, who died 1829, and is buried on the right of the entrance.

Here the low monotonous chant of the perpetual adoration may be constantly heard.

The _Piazza of the Monte Cavallo_ has in its centre the red granite obelisk (ninety-five feet high with its base) erected here by Antinori in 1781, for Pius VI. It was originally brought from Egypt by Claudius, A.D. 57, together with the obelisk now in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and they were both first placed at the entrance of the mausoleum of Augustus. At its base are the colossal statues found in the baths of Constantine, of the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux reining in their horses.

These statues give a name to the district. Their bases bear the names of Phidias and Praxiteles, and though their claim to be the work of such distinguished sculptors is doubtful, they are certainly of Greek origin.

Copies of these statues at Berlin have received the nicknames of Gehemmter Fortschritt, and Beforderter Ruckschritt,--Progress checked and Retrogression encouraged.

"At the time when the _Mirabilia Romae_ were published, that is, about the thirteenth century, these statues were believed to represent the young philosophers, Praxiteles and Phidias, who came to Rome during the reign of Tiberius, and promised to tell him his most secret words and actions provided he would honour them with a monument. Having performed their promise, they obtained these statues, which represent them naked, because all human science was naked and open to their eyes. From this fable, wild and absurd as it is, we may nevertheless draw the inference that the statues had been handed down from time immemorial as the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, though those artists had in the lapse of ages been metamorphosed into philosophers. May we not also assume the existence of a tradition that the statues were brought to Rome in the reign of Tiberius? In the middle ages the group appears to have been accompanied by a statue of Medusa, sitting at their feet, and having before her a shell. According to the text of the _Mirabilia_, as given by Montfaucon in his _Diarium Italicum_, this figure represented the Church. The snakes which surrounded her typified the volumes of Scripture, which nobody could approach unless he had first been washed--that is, baptized--in the water of the shell. But the Prague MS. of the _Mirabilia_ interprets the female figure to represent Science, and the serpents to typify the disputed questions with which she is concerned."--_Dyer's Hist. of the City of Rome._

"L'imitation du grand style de Phidias est visible dans plusieurs sculptures qu'il a inspirees, et surtout dans les colosses de Castor et Pollux, domptant des chevaux, qui ont fait donner a une partie du mont Quirinal le nom de _Monte Cavallo_.

"Il ne faut faire aucune attention aux inscriptions qui attribuent un des deux colosses a Phidias et l'autre a Praxitele, Praxitele dont le style n'a rien a faire ici; son nom a ete inscrit sur la base de l'une des deux statues, comme Phedre le reprochait deja a des faussaires du temps d'Auguste, qui croyaient augmenter le merite d'un nouvel ouvrage en y mettant le nom de Praxitele. Quelle que soit l'epoque ou les colosses de Monte Cavallo ont ete executes, malgre quelques differences, on doit affirmer que les deux originaux etaient de la meme ecole, de l'ecole de Phidias."--_Ampere, Hist. Romaine_, iii. 252.

"Chacun des deux heros dompte d'une seule main un cheval fougueux qui se cabre. Ces formes colossales, cette lutte de l'homme avec les animaux, donnent, comme tous les ouvrages des anciens, une admirable idee de la puissance physique de la nature humaine."--_Mad. de Stael._

"Ye too, marvellous Twain, that erect on the Monte Cavallo Stand by your rearing steeds in the grace of your motionless movement, Stand with your upstretched arms and tranquil regardant faces, Stand as instinct with life in the might of immutable manhood,-- O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas."

_A. H. Clough._

"Before me were the two Monte Cavallo statues, towering gigantically above the pygmies of the present day, and looking like Titans in the act of threatening heaven. Over my head the stars were just beginning to look out, and might have been taken for guardian angels keeping watch over the temples below. Behind, and on my left, were palaces; on my right, gardens, and hills beyond, with the orange tints of sunset over them still glowing in the distance. Within a stone's throw of me, in the midst of objects thus glorious in themselves, and thus in harmony with each other, was stuck an unplaned post, on which glimmered a paper lantern.

Such is Rome."--_Guesses at Truth._

Close by is a fountain playing into a fine bason of Egyptian granite, brought hither by Pius VII. from the Forum, where it had long been used for watering cattle.

On the left, is the _Palace of the Consulta_, built in 1730 by Clement XII. (Corsini), from designs of Fuga. Before its gates, under the old regime, some of the Papal Guardia Nobile were always to be seen sunning themselves in a uniform so resplendent that it could scarcely be believed that the pay of this "noble guard" of the Pope amounted only to 5 6_s._ 3_d._ a month!

On the right, is the immense _Palace of the Quirinal_, which also extends along one whole side of the street we have been pursuing.

"That palace-building, ruin-destroying pope, Paul IV., began to erect the enormous palace on the Quirinal Hill; and the prolongation of his labours, by a long series of successive pontiffs, has made it one of the largest and ugliest buildings extant."--_Eaton's Rome._

The chief, indeed almost the only, interest of this palace arises from its having been the favourite residence of Pius VII.

(Chiaramonte). It was here that he was taken prisoner by the French. General Radet forced his way into the pope's room on the night of June 6, 1809, and, while excusing himself for being the messenger, hastily intimated to the pontiff, in the name of the emperor, that he must at once abdicate his temporal sovereignty.

Pius absolutely refused, upon which he was forced to descend the staircase, and found a coach waiting at the entrance of the palace.

Here the pope paused, his face streaming with tears, and, standing in the starlit piazza, solemnly extended his arms in benediction over his sleeping people. Then he entered the carriage, followed by Cardinal Pacca, and was hurried away to exile.... "Whirled away through the heat and dust of an Italian summer's day, without an attendant, without linen, without his spectacles--fevered and wearied, he never for a moment lost his serenity. Cardinal Pacca tells us, that when they had just started on this most dismal of journeys, the pope asked him if he had any money. The secretary of state replied that he had had no opportunity of providing himself.

'We then drew forth our purses,' continues the cardinal, 'and notwithstanding the state of affliction we were in at being thus torn away from Rome, and all that was dear to us, we could hardly compose our countenances, on finding the contents of each purse to consist--of the pope's, of a papetto (10_d._), and of mine, of three grossi (7_d._). We had precisely thirty-five baiocchi between us. The pope, extending his hand, showed his papetto to General Radet, saying, at the same time, 'Look here--this is all I possess.'"[234].... Six years after, Napoleon was sent to St.

Helena, and Pius VII. returned in triumph to Rome!

It was from this same palace that Pius IX.--who has never inhabited it since--made his escape to Gaeta during the revolution of 1848, when the siege of the Quirinal by the insurgents had succeeded in extorting the appointment of a democratic ministry.

"On the afternoon of the 24th of November, the Duc d'Harcourt had arrived at the Quirinal in his coach as ambassador of France, and craved an audience of the sovereign. The guards wondered that he stayed so long; but they knew not that he sat reading the newspapers in the papal study, while the pope had retired to his bed-room to change his dress. Here his major-domo, Filippani, had laid out the black cassock and dress of an ordinary priest. The pontiff took off his purple stole and white pontifical robe, and came forth in the simple garb he had worn in his quiet youth. The Duc d'Harcourt threw himself on his knees exclaiming, 'Go forth, holy Father; divine wisdom inspires this counsel, divine power will lead it to a happy end.' By secret passages and narrow staircases, Pius IX. and his trusty servant passed unseen to a little door, used only occasionally for the Swiss guards, and by which they were to leave the palace. They reached it, and bethought them that the key had been forgotten! Filippani hastened back to the papal apartment to fetch it; and returning unquestioned to the wicket, found the pontiff on his knees, and quite absorbed in prayer. The wards were rusty, and the key turned with difficulty; but the door was opened at last, and the holy fugitive and his servant quickly entered a poor hackney coach that was waiting for them outside.

Here, again, they ran risk of being discovered through the thoughtless adherence to old etiquette of the other servant, who stood by the coach, and who, having let down the steps, knelt, as usual, before he shut the door.

"The pope wore a dark great coat over his priest's cassock, a low-crowned round hat, and a broad brown woollen neckcloth outside his straight Roman collar. Filippani had on his usual loose cloak; but under this he carried the three-cornered hat of the pope, a bundle of the most private and secret papers, the papal seals, the breviary, the cross-embroidered slippers, a small quantity of linen, and a little box full of gold medals stamped with the likeness of his Holiness. From the inside of the carriage, he directed the coachman to follow many winding and diverging streets, in the hope of misleading the spies, who were known to swarm at every corner. Beside the Church of SS. Pietro e Marcellino, in the deserted quarter beyond the Coliseum, they found the Bavarian minister, Count Spaur, waiting in his own private carriage, and imagining every danger which could have detained them so long. The sovereign pressed the hand of his faithful Filippani, and entered the Count's carriage. Silently they drove on through the old gate of Rome,--Count Spaur having there shown the passport of the Bavarian minister going to Naples on affairs of state.

"Meanwhile the Duc d'Harcourt grew tired of reading the newspapers in the pope's study; and when he thought that his Holiness must be far beyond the walls of Rome, he left the palace, and taking post-horses, hastened with all speed to overtake the fugitive on the road to Civita Vecchia, whither he believed him to be flying.

As he left the study in the Quirinal, a prelate entered with a large bundle of ecclesiastical papers, on which, he said, he had to confer with the pope; then his chamberlain went in to read to him his breviary, and the office of the day. The rooms were lighted up, and the supper taken in as usual; and at length it was stated that his Holiness, feeling somewhat unwell, had retired to rest; and his attendants, and the guard of honour, were dismissed for the night.