In 1749, the desire of erecting a chapel to the Beato Nicolo Albergati, led to the church being altered, under Vanvitelli, as we now see it.

The _Church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli_, still most magnificent, is now entered by a rotunda (Laconicum) which contains four monuments of some interest; on the right of the entrance is that of the artist Carlo Maratta, who died 1713; on the left that of Salvator Rosa, who died 1673, with an epitaph by his son, describing him as "Pictorum sui temporis nulli secundum, poetarum omnium temporum principibus parem!"

Beyond, on the right, is the monument of Cardinal Alciati, professor of law at Milan, who procured his hat through the interest of S. Carlo Borromeo, with the epitaph "Virtute vixit, memoria vivit, gloria vivet,"--on the left, that of Cardinal Parisio di Corenza, inscribed, "Corpus humo tegitur, fama per ora volat, spiritus astra tenet." In the chapel on the right are the angels of Peace and Justice, by _Pettrich_; in that on the left Christ appearing to the Magdalen, by _Arrigo Fiamingo_. Against the pier on the right is the grand statue of S.

Bruno, by _Houdon_, of which Clement XIV. (Ganganelli) used to say, "He would speak, if the rule of his Order did not forbid it."

The body of the church is now a perfect gallery of very large pictures, most of which were brought from St. Peter's, where their places have been supplied by mosaic copies. In what is now the right transept, on the right, is the Crucifixion of St. Peter, _Ricciolini_; the Fall of Simon Magus, a copy of _Francesco Vanni_ (the original in St. Peter's); on the left, St. Jerome, with St. Bruno and St. Francis, _Muziano_ (1528--92) (the landscape by _Brill_); and the Miracles of St. Peter, _Baglioni_. This transept ends in the chapel of the Beato Nicolo Albergati, a Carthusian Cardinal, who was sent as legate by Martin V., in 1422, to make a reconciliation between Charles VI. of France and Henry V. of England. The principal miracle ascribed to him, the conversion of bread into coal in order to convince the Emperor of Germany of his divine authority, is represented in the indifferent altar-piece. In the left transept, which ends in the chapel of S. Bruno, are: on the left, St. Basil by the solemnity of the Mass rebuking the Emperor Valens, _Subleyras_; and the Fall of Simon Magus, _Pompeo Battoni_;--on the right, the Immaculate Conception, _P. Bianchi_; and Tabitha raised from the Dead, _P. Costanzi_.

In the tribune are, on the right, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, _Romanelli_; and the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, a grand fresco of _Domenichino_, painted originally on the walls of St. Peter's, and removed here with great skill by the engineer Zabaglia;--on the left, the Death of Ananias and Sapphira, _Pomarancio_; and the Baptism of Christ, _Maratta_.

On the right of the choir is the tomb of Cardinal Antonio Serbelloni; on the left that of Pius IV., Giovanni Angelo Medici (1559-1565), under whose reign the Council of Trent was closed,--uncle of S. Carlo Borromeo, a lively and mundane pope, but the cruel persecutor of the Caraffa nephews of his predecessor, Paul IV., whom he executed in the Castle of S. Angelo.

Of the sixteen columns in this church (45 feet in height, 16 feet in diameter), only the eight in the transept are of ancient Egyptian granite; the rest are in brick, stuccoed in imitation, and were additions of Vanvitelli. On the pavement is a meridian line, laid down in 1703.

"Quand Diocletien faisait travailler les pauvres chretiens a ses etuves, ce n'etait pas son dessein de batir des eglises a leurs successeurs; il ne pensait pas etre fondateur, comme il l'a ete, d'un monastere de Peres Chartreux et d'un monastere de Peres Feuillants.... C'est aux depens de Diocletien, de ses pierres et de son ciment qu'on fait des autels et des chapelles a Jesus-Christ, des dortoirs et des refectoires a ses serviteurs. La providence de Dieu se joue de cette sorte des pensees des hommes, et les evenements sont bien eloignes des intentions quand la terre a un dessein et le ciel un autre."--_Balzac._

The Carthusian convent behind the church (ladies are not admitted) contains several picturesque fountains. That in the great cloister, built from designs of Michael Angel, is surrounded by a group of huge and grand cypresses, said to have been planted by his hand.

"Il semble que la vie ne sert ici qu'a contempler la mort--les hommes qui existent ainsi sont pourtant les memes a qui la guerre et toute son activite suffirait a peine s'ils y etaient accoutumes.

C'est un sujet inepuisable de reflexion que les differentes combinaisons de la destinee humaine sur la terre. Il se passe dans l'interieur de l'ame mille accidents, il se forme mille habitudes, qui font de chaque individu un monde et son histoire."--_Madame de Stael._

On a line with the monastery is a Prison for Women--then an Institution for Deaf, Dumb, and Blind--then the ugly _Fountain of the Termini_ (designed by Fontana), sometimes called Fontanone dell' Acqua Felice, (Felice, from Fra Felice, the name by which Sixtus V. was known before his papacy,) to which the Acqua Felice was brought from Colonna 22 miles distant in the Alban hills, in 1583, by Sixtus V. It is surmounted by a hideous statue of Moses by _Prospero Bresciano_, who is said to have died of vexation at the ridicule it excited when uncovered. The side statues, of Aaron and Gideon, are by _Giov. Batt. della Porta_ and _Flaminio Vacca_.

Opposite this, in the Via della Porta Pia, is the _Church of Sta. Maria della Vittoria_, built in 1605, by Carlo Maderno, for Paul V. Its facade was added from designs of Giov. Batt. Soria, by Cardinal Borghese, in payment to the monks of the adjoining Carmelite convent, for the statue of the Hermaphrodite, which had been found in their vineyard.

The name of the church commemorates an image of the Virgin, burnt in 1833, which was revered as having been instrumental in gaining the victory for the Catholic imperial troops over the Protestant Frederick and Elizabeth of Bohemia, at the battle of the White Mountain, near Prague. The third chapel on the left contains the Trinity, by _Guercino_; a Crucifixion, by _Guido_; and a portrait of Cardinal Cornaro, _Guido_. The altar-piece of the second chapel on the right, representing St. Francis receiving the Infant Christ from the Virgin, is by _Domenichino_, as are two frescoes on the side walls. In the left transept, above an altar adorned with a gilt bronze-relief of the Last Supper, by Cav. d'Arpino, is a group representing Sta. Teresa transfixed by the dart of the Angel of Death, by _Bernini_. The following criticisms upon it are fair specimens of the contrast between English and French taste.

"All the Spanish pictures of Sta. Theresa sin in their materialism; but the grossest example--the most offensive--is the marble group of Bernini, in the Santa Maria della Vittoria at Rome. The head of Sta. Theresa is that of a languishing nymph, the angel is a sort of Eros; the whole has been significantly described as 'a parody of Divine love.' The vehicle, white marble,--its place in a Christian church,--enhance all its vileness. The least destructive, the least prudish in matters of art, would here willingly throw the first stone."--_Mrs. Jameson's Monastic Orders_, p. 421.

"La sainte Therese de Bernin est adorable! couchee, evanouie d'amour les mains, les pieds nus pendants, les yeux demiclos, elle s'est laissee tomber de bonheur et d'extase. Son visage est maigri, mais combien noble! C'est la vraie grande dame qui a seche dans les feux, dans les larmes, en attendant celui qu'elle aime. Jusqu'aux draperies tortillees, jusqu'a l'allanguissement des mains defaillantes, jusqu'au soupir qui meurt sur ses levres entr'ouvertes, il n'y a rien en elle ni autour d'elle qui n'exprime l'angoisse volupteuse et le divin elancement de son transport. On ne peut pas rendre avec des mots une attitude si enivree et si touchante. Renversee sur le dos, elle pame, tout son etre se dissout; le moment poignant arrive, elle gemit; c'est son dernier gemissement, la sensation est trop forte. L'ange cependant, un jeune page de quatorze ans, en legere tunique, la poitrine decouverte jusqu'au dessous du sein, arrive gracieux, aimable; c'est le plus joli page de grand seigneur qui vient faire le bonheur d'une vassal trop tendre. Un sourire demi-complaisant, demi-malin, creuse des fossettes dans ses fraiches joues luisantes; sa fleche d'or a la main indique le tressaillement delicieux et terrible dont il va secouer tous les nerfs de ce corps charmant, ardent, qui s'etale devant sa main. On n'a jamais fait ce roman si seduisant et si tendre."--_Taine, Voyage en Italie._

Close by is the handsome _Church of Sta. Susanna_, rebuilt by _Carlo Maderno_, for Sixtus V., on the site of an oratory founded by Pope Caius (A.D. 283), in the house of his brother Gabinus, who was martyred with his daughter Susanna because she refused to break her vow of virginity by a marriage with Maximianus Galerus, adopted son of the Emperor Diocletian, to whom this family were related. The bodies of these martyrs are said to rest beneath the high altar. The side chapel of St.

Laurence was presented by Camilla Peretti, the sister of Sixtus V., together with a dowry of fifty scudi, to be paid every year to the nine best girls in the parish, on the festival of Sta. Susanna. The frescoes of the story of Susanna and the Elders, painted here on the side walls, from the analogy of names, are by _Baldassare Croce_; those in the tribune are by _Cesare Nebbia_.

Opposite this, is the Cistercian convent and _Church of S. Bernardo_, a rotunda of the Baths of Diocletian, turned into a church in 1598, by Caterina Sforza, Contessa di Santa Fiora.

Hence the Via della Porta Pia leads to the Quattro Fontane. On the left is the small _Church of S. Caio_, which encloses the tomb of that pope, inscribed "Sancti Caii, Papae, martyris ossa." Further, on the left, is the great recently suppressed convent of the Carmelites, and the _Church of Sta. Teresa_. The right of the street is bordered by the orange-shaded wall of the Barberini garden.

Between S. Caio and Sta. Teresa, is the _Studio of Overbeck_, the venerable German devotional painter, who died 1869. His daughter allows visitors to be admitted on Sunday afternoons.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ESQUILINE.

Golden House of Nero--Baths of Titus and Trajan--S. Pietro in Vincoli--Frangipani Tower--House of Lucrezia Borgia--S. Martino al Monte--Sta. Lucia in Selce--Sta. Prassede--Santissimo Redentore--Arch of Gallienus--Trophies of Marius--Sta.

Bibiana--Temple of Minerva Medica--S. Eusebio--S. Antonio Abbate--Sta. Maria Maggiore.

The Esquiline, which is the largest of the so-called 'hills of Rome,' is not a distinct hill, but simply a projection of the Campagna. "The Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Clian stretch out towards the Tiber, like four fingers of a hand, of which the plain whence they detach themselves represents the vast palm. This hand has seized the world."[250]

Varro says that the name Esquiline was derived from the word _excultus_, because of the ornamental groves which were planted on this hill by Servius Tullius,--such as the Lucus Querquetulanus, Fagutalis, and Esquilinus.[251] The sacred wood of the Argiletum long remained on the lower slope of the hill, where the Via Sta. Maria dei Monti now is.

The Esquiline, which is still unhealthy, must have been so in ancient times, for among its temples were those dedicated to Fever, near Sta.

Maria Maggiore--to Juno Mephitis,[252] near a pool which emitted poisonous exhalations--and to Venus Libitina,[253] for the registration of deaths, and arrangement of funerals. As the hill was in the hands of the Sabines, its early divinities were Sabine. Besides those already mentioned, it had an altar of the Sabine sun-god Janus, dedicated together with an altar to Juno by the survivor of the Horatii,[254] and a temple of Juno Lucina, the goddess of birth and light.

"Monte sub Esquilio multis incaeduus annis Junonis magnae nomine lucus erat."

_Ovid, Fast._ ii. 435.

This hill has two heights. That which is crowned by Santa Maria Maggiore was formerly called _Cispius_, where Servius Tullius had a palace; that which is occupied by S. Pietro in Vincoli was formerly called _Oppius_, where Tarquinius Superbus lived. It was in returning to his palace on the former (and not on the latter height, as generally maintained) that Servius Tullius was murdered.

The most important buildings of the Esquiline, in the later republican and in imperial times, were on the slope of the hill behind the Forum, and near the Coliseum, in the fashionable quarter called Carinae,--the "rich Carinae,"

"Passimque armenta videbant Romanoque Foro et lautis mugire Carinis."

_Virgil, aen._ viii. 361.

of which the principal street probably occupied the site of the present Via del Colosseo. At the entrance of this suburb, where the fine mediaeval Torre dei Conti now stands, was the house of Spurius Cassius (Consul B.C. 493), which was confiscated and demolished, and the ground ordained to be always kept vacant, because he was suspected of aiming at regal power. Here, however, or very nearly on this site, the _aedes Telluris_, or temple of Tellus, was erected _c._ B.C. 269,[255]--a building of sufficient importance for the senate, summoned by Antony, to assemble in it. The quarter immediately surrounding this temple acquired the name of _In Tellure_, which is still retained by several of its modern churches.[256] Near this temple--"in tellure," lived Pompey, in a famous though small historical house, which he adorned on the outside with rostra in memory of his naval victories, and which was painted within to look like a forest with trees and birds, much probably as the chambers are painted which were discovered a few years ago in the villa of Livia.[257] Here Julia, the daughter of Julius Caesar, and wife of Pompey, died. After the death of Pompey this house was bought by the luxurious Antony. The difference between its two masters is pourtrayed by Cicero, who describes the severe comfort of the house of Pompey contrasted with the voluptuous luxury of its second master, and winds up his oration by exclaiming, "I pity even the roofs and the walls under the change." At a later period the same house was the favourite residence of Antoninus Pius. Hard by, in the Carinae, the favourite residence of Roman knights, lived the father of Cicero, and hence the young Tullius went to listen in the forum to the orators whom he was one day to surpass.[258] Also in the Carinae, but nearer the site of the Coliseum, was the magnificent house of the wealthy Vedius Pollio, which he bequeathed to Augustus, who pulled it down, and built the portico of Livia on its site:

"Disce tamen, veniens aetas, ubi Livia nunc est Porticus, immensae tecta fuisse domus.

Urbis opus domus una fuit; spatiumque tenebat, Quo brevius muris oppida multa tenent.

Haec aequata solo est, nullo sub crimine regni, Sed quia luxuria visa nocere sua.

Sustinuit tantas operum subvertere moles, Totque suas heres perdere Caesar opes."

_Ovid, Fast._ vi. 639.

At its opposite extremity the Carinae was united to the unfashionable and plebeian quarter of the _Suburra_, occupying the valley formed by the convergence of the Esquiline, Quirinal, and Viminal--which is still crowded with a teeming population. In one of the small streets leading from the Vicus Cyprius (between the Esquiline and Viminal) towards the Carinae, was the _Tigellum Sororis_, which was extant--repaired at the public expense--till the fifth century. This, "the Sister's Beam,"

commemorated the well-known story of the last of the Horatii, who, returning from the slaughter of the Curiatii, and being met by his sister, bewailing one of the dead to whom she was betrothed, stabbed her in his anger. He was condemned to death, but at the prayer of his father his crime was expiated by his passing under the yoke of "the Sister's Beam." On one side of the Tigellum Sororis was an altar to Juno Sororis; on the other an altar to Janus Curiatius.[259]

During the empire several poets had their residence on the Esquiline.

Virgil lived there, near the gardens of Maecenas, which covered the slopes between the Esquiline and Viminal. Propertius had a house there, as we learn from himself--

"I, puer, et citus haec aliqua propone columna Et dominum Esquiliis scribe habitare tuum."

_Propert. Eleg._ iv. 23.

It is believed, but without certainty, that Horace also lived upon the Esquiline. He was constantly there in the villa of Maecenas, where he was buried, and which he has described in his poems both in its original state as a desecrated cemetery, and again after his friend had converted it into a beautiful garden.

"Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque Aggere in aprico spatiari, quo modo tristes Albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum."

_Sat._ i.

The house of Maecenas, the great patron of the poets of the Augustan age, probably occupied a site above the Carinae, where the baths of Titus afterwards were. It was a lofty and magnificent edifice, and is described by Horace, who calls it--

"Fastidiosam desere copiam, et Molem propinquam nubibus arduis: Omitte mirari beatae Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae."

_Od._ iii. 29.