It is true that a certain prelate, who chanced to see the little door by which the fugitive had escaped into the street left open, began to cry out, 'The pope has escaped! the pope has escaped!' But Prince Gabrielli was beside him; and, clapping his hand upon the mouth of the alarmist, silenced him in time, by whispering, 'Be quiet, Monsignore; be quiet, or we shall be cut to pieces!'

"Near La Riccia, the fugitives found Countess Spaur (who had arranged the whole plan of the escape) waiting with a coach and six horses--in which they pursued their journey to Gaeta, reaching the Neapolitan frontier between five and six in the morning. The pope throughout carried with him the sacrament in the pyx which Pius the Seventh carried when he was taken prisoner to France, and which, as if with prescience of what would happen, had been lately sent to him as a memorial by the Bishop of Avignon."--_Beste._

It is in the Quirinal Palace that the later conclaves have always met for the election of the popes.

"In the afternoon of the last day of the novendiali, as they are called, after the death of a pope, the cardinals assemble (at S.

Sylvestro a Monte Cavallo), and walk in procession, accompanied by their conclavisti, a secretary, a chaplain, and a servant or two, to the great gate of the royal residence, in which one will remain as master and supreme lord. Of course the hill is crowded by persons, lining the avenue kept open for the procession. Cardinals never before seen by them, or not for many years, pass before them; eager eyes scan and measure them, and try to conjecture, from fancied omens in eye, in figure, or in expression, who will be shortly the sovereign of their fair city; and, what is much more, the head of the Catholic Church, from the rising to the setting sun. They all enter equal over the threshold of that gate: they share together the supreme rule, spiritual and temporal: there is still embosomed in them all, the voice yet silent, that will soon sound from one tongue over all the world, and the dormant germ of that authority which will soon again be concentrated in one man alone. To-day they are all equal; perhaps to-morrow one will sit enthroned, and all the rest will kiss his feet; one will be sovereign, and others his subjects; one the shepherd, and the others his flock.

"From the Quirinal Palace stretches out, the length of a whole street, an immense wing, divided in its two upper floors into a great number of small but complete suites of apartments, occupied permanently, or occasionally, by persons attached to the Court.

During conclave these are allotted, literally so, to the cardinals, each of whom lives apart with his own attendants. His food is brought daily from his own house, and is overhauled, and delivered to him in the shape of 'broken victuals,' by the watchful guardians of the _turns_ and lattices, through which alone anything, even conversation, can penetrate into the seclusion of that sacred retreat. For a few hours, the first evening, the doors are left open, and the nobility, the diplomatic body, and, in fact, all presentable persons, may roam from cell to cell, paying a brief compliment to its occupant, perhaps speaking the same good wishes to fifty, which they know can only be accomplished in one. After that, all is closed; a wicket is left accessible for any cardinal to enter, who is not yet arrived; but every aperture is jealously guarded by faithful janitors, judges and prelates of various tribunals, who relieve one another. Every letter even is opened and read, that no communications may be held with the outer world. The very street on which the wing of the conclave looks is barricaded and guarded by a picquet at each end; and as, fortunately, opposite there are no private residences, and all the buildings have access from the back, no inconvenience is thereby created.... In the mean time, within, and unseen from without, _fervet opus_.

"Twice a day the cardinals meet in the chapel belonging to the palace, included in the enclosure, and there, on tickets so arranged that the voter's name cannot be seen, write the name of him for whom they give their suffrage. These papers are examined in their presence, and if the number of votes given to any one do not constitute the majority, they are burnt in such a manner that the smoke, issuing through a flue, is visible to the crowd usually assembled in the square outside. Some day, instead of this usual signal to disperse, the sound of pick and hammer is heard, a small opening is seen in the wall which had temporarily blocked up the great window over the palace gateway. At last the masons of the conclave have opened a rude door, through which steps out on the balcony the first Cardinal Deacon, and proclaims to the many, or to the few, who may happen to be in waiting, that they again possess a sovereign and a pontiff."--_Cardinal Wiseman._

"Sais-tu ce que c'est qu'un conclave? Une reunion de vieillards, moins occupes du ciel que de la terre, et dont quelques-uns se font plus maladifs, plus goutteux, et plus cacochymes qu'ils ne le sont encore, dans l'esperance d'inspirer un vif interet a leurs partisans. Grand nombre d'eminences ne renoncant jamais a la possibilite d'une election, le rival le plus pres de la tombe excite toujours le moins de repugnance. Un rhumatisme est ici un titre a la confiance; l'hydropisie a ses partisans: car l'ambition et la mort comptent sur les memes chances. Le cercueil sert comme de marchepied au trone; et il y a tel pieux candidat qui negocierait avec son concurrent, si la duree du nouveau regne pouvait avoir son terme obligatoire comme celui d'un effet de commerce. Eh! ne sais-tu pas toi-meme que le patre d'Ancone brula gaiement ses bequilles des qu'il eut ceint la tiare; et que Leon X., elu a trente-huit ans, avait eu grand soin de ne guerir d'un mal mortel que le lendemain de son couronnement?"--_Lorenzo Ganganelli (Clement XIV.) a Carlo Bertinazzi, Avril 16, 1769._

Under the rule of the Popes the palace was shown from 12 A.M. to 4 P.M.

on presentation of a ticket, which could easily be obtained through a banker. It was stripped of all historical memorials and contained very few fine pictures, so was little worth visiting. Since the winter of 1870--71 the palace has been appropriated as the residence of the Sardinian Royal Family.

On the landing of the principal staircase, in a bad light, is a very important fresco by _Melozzo da Forli_, a rare master of the Paduan school.[235]

"On the vaulted ceiling of a chapel in the Church of the SS.

Apostoli at Rome, Melozzo executed a work (1472) which, in those times, can have admitted of comparison with few. When the chapel was rebuilt in the eighteenth century some fragments were saved.

That comprehending the Creator between angels was removed to a staircase in the Quirinal palace, while single figures of angels were placed in the sacristy of St. Peter's. These detached portions suffice to show a beauty and fulness of form, and a combination of earthly and spiritual grandeur, comparable in their way to the noblest productions of Titian, although in mode of execution rather recalling Coreggio. Here, as in the cupola frescoes of Coreggio himself, half a century later, we trace that constant effort at true perspective of the figure, hardly in character, perhaps, with high ecclesiastical art; the drapery, also, is of a somewhat formless description; but the grandeur of the principal figure, the grace and freshness of the little adoring cherubs, and the elevated beauty of the angels are expressed with an easy navete, to which only the best works of Mantegna and Signorelli can compare."--_Kugler._

Passing through a great hall, one hundred and ninety feet long, we are shown a number of rooms fitted up by Pius VII. and Gregory XVI. for the papal summer residence. They contain few objects of interest. In one chamber is a Last Supper by _Baroccio_;--in the next a fine tapestry representing the marriage of Louis XIV. The following rooms contain some good Gobelin tapestries.

Several apartments have mosaic pavements, brought hither from pagan edifices. The chamber is shown in which Pius VII. died,--the bed has been changed. In the next room--an audience chamber--he was taken prisoner. Here is a curious ancient pietra-dura of the Annunciation,--the ceiling is painted by Overbeck. In one of the following rooms are some pictures, including--

S. Giorgio: _Pordenone_.

"One picture especially attracted me at the Quirinal; a St. George, the conqueror of the dragon, and deliverer of the maiden. No one could tell me the name of the master, till a modest little man stepped forward, and told me the picture was by Pordenone the Venetian, one of his best works, showing all his merits. This quite explained my liking for it; the picture had struck me, because being best acquainted with the Venetian school, I could best appreciate the merits of one of its masters."--_Goethe, Romische Briefe._

Marriage of S. Catherine: _Battoni_.

St. Peter and St. Paul: _Fra Bartolomeo_.

"The two standing figures of St. Peter and St. Paul, as large as life, were executed during a short residence in Rome. The first was completed by Raphael after Fra Bartolomeo's departure."--_Kugler._

The room which is decorated with a fine modern tapestry of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, has a plaster frieze, being the original cast of the Triumph of Alexander the Great, modelled for Napoleon by _Thorwaldsen_.

One of the last rooms shown is a kind of picture gallery. Among the best works here are:--

Saul and David: _Guercino_.

Ecce Homo: _Domenichino_.

St. Jerome: _Spagnoletto_.

The Flight into Egypt: _Baroccio_.

Here also is a worthless picture of the Battle of Mentana, presented to Pius IX. by the English Catholic ladies.

The _Private Chapel of the Pope_, opening from this gallery, contains a magnificent picture of the Annunciation by _Guido_, and frescoes of the life of the Virgin by _Albani_. The great hall of the Consistory, a bare room with benches, has a fresco of the Virgin and Child by _Carlo Maratta_, over an altar.

The _Gardens of the Quirinal_ can be visited with an order from 8 to 12 A.M. They are in the stiff style of box hedges and clipped avenues, which seems to belong especially to Rome, and which we know to have been popular here even in imperial times. Pliny, in his account of his Tusculan villa, describes his gardens decorated with "figures of different animals, cut in box: evergreens clipped into a thousand different shapes; sometimes into letters forming different names; walls and hedges of cut box, and trees twisted into a variety of forms." But the Quirinal gardens are also worth visiting, on account of the many pretty glimpses they afford of St. Peter's and other distant buildings, and the oddity of some of the devices--an organ played by water, &c. The Casino, built by Fuga, has frescoes by _Orizonti_, _Pompeo Battoni_, and _Pannini_.

If we turn to the left on issuing from the palace, we reach--on the left--the entrance to the courtyard of the vast _Palazzo Rospigliosi_, built by Flaminio Ponzio, in 1603, for Cardinal Scipio Borghese, on a portion of the site of the Baths of Constantine. It was inhabited by Cardinal Bentivoglio, and sold by him to Cardinal Mazarin, who enlarged it from designs of Carlo Maderno. From his time to 1704 it was inhabited by French ambassadors, and it then passed to the Rospigliosi family. The present Prince Rospigliosi inhabits the second floor, his brother, Prince Pallavicini, the first.

The palace itself (well known from its hospitalities) is not shown, but the _Casino_ is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It is situated at the end of a very small but pretty garden planted with magnolias, and consists of three chambers. On the roof of the central room is the famous Aurora of Guido.

"Guido's Aurora is the very type of haste and impetus; for surely no man ever imagined such hurry and tumult, such sounding and clashing. Painters maintain that it is lighted from two sides,--they have my full permission to light theirs from three if it will improve them, but the difference lies elsewhere."--_Mendelssohn's Letters_, p. 91.

"This is the noblest work of Guido. It is embodied poetry. The Hours, that hand in hand encircle the car of Phbus, advance with rapid pace. The paler, milder forms of those gentle sisters who rule over declining day, and the glowing glance of those who bask in the meridian blaze, resplendent in the hues of heaven,--are of no mortal grace and beauty; but they are eclipsed by Aurora herself, who sails on the golden clouds before them, shedding 'showers of shadowing roses' on the rejoicing earth; her celestial presence diffusing gladness, and light, and beauty around. Above the heads of the heavenly coursers, hovers the morning star, in the form of a youthful cherub, bearing his flaming torch. Nothing is more admirable in this beautiful composition than the motion given to the whole. The smooth and rapid step of the circling Hours as they tread on the fleecy clouds; the fiery steeds; the whirling wheels of the car; the torch of Lucifer, blown back by the velocity of his advance; and the form of Aurora, borne through the ambient air, till you almost fear she should float from your sight."--_Eaton's Rome._

"The work of Guido is more poetic than that of Guercino, and luminous, and soft, and harmonious. Cupid, Aurora, Phbus, form a climax of beauty, and the Hours seem as light as the clouds on which they dance."--_Forsyth._

Lanzi points out that Guido always took the Venus de Medici and the Niobe as his favourite models, and that there is scarcely one of his large pictures in which the Niobe or one of her sons is not introduced, yet with such dexterity, that the theft is scarcely perceptible.

The frescoes of the frieze are by _Tempesta;_ the landscapes by _Paul Brill_. In the hall are busts, statues, and a bronze horse found in the ruins of the Baths.

There is a small collection of pictures--the only work of real importance being the beautiful _Daniele di Volterra_ of our Saviour bearing his cross, in the room on the left. In the same room are two large pictures, David triumphing with the head of Goliath, _Domenichino_; and Perseus rescuing Andromeda, _Guido_. In the room on the right are, Adam gathering fig-leaves for Eve, in a Paradise which is crowded with animals like a menagerie, _Domenichino_; and Samson pulling down the pillars upon the Philistines, _Ludovico Caracci_.

A second small garden belonging to this palace is well worth seeing in May from the wealth of camellias, azaleas, and roses, with which it is filled.

Opposite the Rospigliosi Palace, by ringing at a gate in the wall, we gain admission to the _Colonna Gardens_ (connected with the palace in the Piazza SS. Apostoli, by a series of bridges across the intervening street). Here, on a lofty terrace which has a fine view towards the Capitol, and overshadowed by grand cypresses, are the colossal remains of the _Temple of the Sun_ (huge fragments of cornice) built by Aurelian (A.D. 270--75). At the other end of the terrace, looking down through two barns into a kind of pit, we can see some remains of the _Baths of Constantine_--built A.D. 326--and of the great staircase which led up to them from the valley below. The portico of these baths remained erect till the time of Clement XII. (1730--40), and was adorned with four marble statues, of which two--those of the two Constantines--may now be seen on the terrace of the Capitol.

Beneath the magnificent cypress-trees on the slope of the hill are several fine sarcophagi. Only the stem is preserved of the grand historical pine-tree, which was planted on the day on which Cola di Rienzi died, and which was one of the great ornaments of the city till 1848, when it was broken in a storm.

Just beyond the end of the garden, are the great _Convent_ and _Church of S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo_--belonging to the Missionaries of St.

Vincent de Paul--in which the Cardinals meet before going in procession to the Conclave. It contains a few rather good pictures. The cupola of the second chapel has frescoes by _Domenichino_, of David dancing before the Ark,--the Queen of Sheba and Solomon,--Judith with the head of Holofernes,--and Esther fainting before Ahasueras. These are considered by Lanzi as some of the finest frescoes of the master. In the left transept is a chapel containing a picture of the Assumption, painted on slate, considered the masterpiece of _Scipione Gaetani_. The last chapel but one on the left has a ceiling by _Cav. d'Arpino_, and frescoes on the walls by _Polidoro da Caravaggio_. The picture over the altar, representing St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena, is by _Mariotto Albertinelli_. Cardinal Bentivoglio--who wrote the history of the wars in Flanders, and lived in the Rospigliosi Palace--is buried here.

We now reach the height of Maganaopoli, from which the isthmus which joined the Quirinal to the Capitoline was cut away by Trajan. Here is a cross-ways. On the right is a descent to the Forum of Trajan, at the side of which is the villa of Cardinal Antonelli, and beyond it, the handsome modern palace of Count Trapani, cousin to the King of Naples.

Opposite, is the _Church of Sta. Caterina di Siena_, possessing some frescoes attributed, on doubtful grounds, to the rare master _Timoteo della Vite_. Adjoining, is a large convent, enclosed within the precincts of which is the tall brick mediaeval tower, sometimes called the Tower of Nero, but generally known as the _Torre delle Milizie_, _i.e._ the Roman Militia. It was erected by the sons of Peter Alexius, a baron attached to the party of the Senator Pandolfo de Suburra. The lower part is said to have been built in 1210, the upper in 1294 and 1330.

"People pass through two regular courses of study at Rome,--the first in learning, and the second in unlearning.

"'This is the tower of Nero, from which he saw the city in flames,--and this is the temple of Concord,--and this is the temple of Castor and Pollux,--and this is the temple of Vesta,--and these are the baths of Paulus-aemilius,'--and so on, says your lacquey.

"'This is not the tower of Nero,--nor that the temple of Castor and Pollux,--nor the other the temple of Concord,--nor are any of these things what they are called,' says your antiquary."--_Eaton's Rome._

The Convent of Sta. Caterina was built by the celebrated Vittoria Colonna, who requested the advice of Michael Angelo on the subject, and was told that she had better make the ancient "Torre" into a belfry. A very curious account of the interview in which this subject was discussed, and which took place in the Church of S. Silvestro a Monte Cavallo, is left us in the memoirs of Francesco d'Olanda, a Portuguese painter, who was himself present at the conversation.

Near this point are two other fine mediaeval towers. One is to the right of the descent to the Forum of Trajan, being that of the Colonnas, now called _Tor di Babele_, ornamented with three beautiful fragments of sculptured frieze, one of them bearing the device of the Colonna, a crowned column rising from a wreath. The other tower, immediately facing us, is called _Torre del Grillo_, from the ancient family of that name.

Opposite Sta. Caterina is the handsome _Church of SS. Domenico e Sisto_, approached by a good double twisted staircase. Over the second altar on the left is a picture of the marriage of St. Catherine by _Allegrani_, and, on the anniversary of her (visionary) marriage (July 19), the dried hand of the saint is exhibited here to the unspeakable comfort of the faithful.

Turning by this church into the Via Maganaopoli (formerly Baganaopoli, a corruption of Balnea Pauli--Baths of Emilius Paulus), we pass on the left the _Palazzo Aldobrandini_, with a bright pleasant-looking court and handsome fountain. The present Prince Aldobrandini is brother of Prince Borghese. Of this family was S. Pietro Aldobrandini, generally known as S. Pietro Igneo, who was canonized because, in 1067, he walked unhurt, crucifix in hand, through a burning fiery furnace ten feet long before the church door of Settimo, near Florence, to prove an accusation of simony which he had brought against Pietro di Pavia, bishop of that city.

In the Via di Mazzarini, in the hollow between the Quirinal and Viminal, is the _Convent of Sta. Agata in Suburra_, through the courtyard of which we enter the _Church of Sta. Agata dei Goti_. A tradition declares that this (like S. Sabba on the Aventine) is on the site of a house of Sta. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, who consecrated the church after it had been plundered by the Goths, and dedicated it to Sta.

Agata. It was rebuilt by Ricimer, the king-maker, in A.D. 472. Twelve ancient granite columns and a handsome opus-alexandrinum pavement are its only signs of antiquity. The church now belongs to the Irish Seminary. In the left aisle is the monument of Daniel O'Connell, with bas-reliefs by Benzoni, inscribed:--