(At the corner of the Via di Banchi is a house with a frieze, richly sculptured with lions' heads, &c. On the left is the _Church of San Celso in Banchi_, in front of which Lorenzo Colonna, the protonotary, was murdered by the Orsini and Santa Croce, immediately after the death of Sixtus IV. (1484); and where his mother, finding his head cut off, and seizing it by the hair, shrieked forth her curses upon his enemies.

On the right, further down the street, is the _Church of Sta. Caterina da Siena_, which contains an interesting altar-piece by _Girolamo Genga_, representing the return of Gregory XI. from Avignon, which was due to her influence.)

The house joining the Ponte S. Angelo is said to have been that of the "Violinista," the friend of Raphael, who is familiar to us from his portrait in the Sciarra Palace. Some say that Raphael died while he was on a visit to him. But the best authorities maintain that he died in a house built for him by Bramante, in the Piazza Rusticucci, which was pulled down to enlarge the Piazza of St. Peter's. No. 124, Via Coronari, not far from the Ponte S. Angelo, is shown as the house in which the great painter lived previously to this, and is that which he bequeathed to the chapel in the Pantheon in which he is buried. It was partly rebuilt in 1705, when Carlo Maderno painted on its facade a portrait of Raphael in _chiaro-scuro_, now almost obliterated. The house at present belongs to the canons of Sta. Maria Maggiore.

(The Via _S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini_ leads to the _Church_ of that name, abutting picturesquely into the angle of the Tiber. This is the national church of the Tuscans, and was built at the expense of the city of Florence. In the tribune are tombs of the Falconieri family. Here are several fine pictures; a St. Jerome writing, by _Cigoli_, who is buried in this church; St. Jerome praying before a crucifix, _Tito Santi_[317]

(1538--1603); St. Francis, _Tito Santi_; SS. Cosmo and Damian condemned to martyrdom by fire,--a grand work of _Salvator Rosa_.

"Some of the altar-pieces of Salvator-Rosa (1615-1673), are well conceived and full of effect, especially when they represent a horrible subject, like the martyrdom in S. Giovanni de'

Fiorentini."--Lanzi, ii. 165.

The Chapel of the Crucifix is painted by _Lanfranco_: the third chapel on the right has frescoes by _Tempesta_ on the roof, relating to the history of S. Lorenzo.

The building of this church was begun in the reign of Leo X. by Sansovino, who, for want of space, laid its foundations, at enormous expense, in the bed of the Tiber. While overlooking this, he fell from a scaffold, and being dangerously hurt, was obliged to give up his place to Antonio da Sangallo.[318] Soon after Pope Leo died, and the work, with many others, was suspended during the reign of Adrian VI. Under Clement VII. Sansovino returned, but was driven away, robbed of all his possessions in the sack of Rome, under the Constable de Bourbon. The church was finished by Giacomo della Porta in 1588, but Alessandro Galileo added the facade in 1725.

"En 1488, une affreuse epidemie decimait les malheureux habitants des environs de Rome; les mourants etaient abandonnes, les cadavres restaient sans sepulture. Aussitot quelques Florentins forment une confrerie sous le titre de _la Pitie_, pour rendre aux pestiferes les derniers devoirs de la charite chretienne: c'est a cette confrerie qu'on doit la belle eglise de Saint-Jean des Florentins, a Strada Giulia."--_Gournerie, Rome Chretienne._

The _Ponte S. Angelo_ is the Pons Elius of Hadrian, built as an approach to his mausoleum, and only intended for this, as another public bridge existed close by, at the time of its construction. It is almost entirely ancient, except the parapets. The statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, at the extremity, were erected by Clement VII., in the place of two chapels, in 1530, and the angels, by Clement IX., in 1688. The pedestal of the third angel on the right is a relic of the siege of Rome in 1849, and bears the impress of a cannon-ball.

These angels, which have been called the "breezy maniacs" of Bernini, are only from his designs. The two angels which he executed himself, and intended for this bridge, are now at S. Andrea delle Fratte. The idea of Clement IX. was a fine one, that "an avenue of the heavenly host should be assembled to welcome the pilgrim to the shrine of the great apostle."

Dante saw the bridge of S. Angelo divided lengthways by barriers to facilitate the movement of the crowds going to and from St Peter's on the occasion of the first jubilee, 1300.

"Come i Romani per l'esercito molto, L'anno del giubbileo, su per lo ponte Hanno a passar la gente modo tolto; Che dall' un lato tutti hanno la fronte Verso 'l castello, e vanno a Santo Pietro, Dall' altra sponda vanno verso 'l monte."

_Inferno_, xviii. 29.

From the Ponte S. Angelo, when the Tiber is low, are visible the remains of the bridge by which the ancient _Via Triumphalis_ crossed the river.

Close by, where Santo Spirito now stands, was the Porta Triumphalis, by which victors entered the city in triumph.

Facing the bridge, is the famous _Castle of S. Angelo_, built by the Emperor Hadrian as his family tomb, because the last niche in the imperial mausoleum of Augustus was filled when the ashes of Nerva were laid there. The first funeral here was that of Elius Verus, the first adopted son of Hadrian, who died before him. The emperor himself died at Baiae, but his remains were transported hither from a temporary tomb at Pozzuoli by his successor Antoninus Pius, by whom the mausoleum was completed in A.D. 140. Here, also, were buried, Antoninus Pius, A.D.

161; Marcus Aurelius, 180; Commodus, 192; and Septimius Severus, in an urn of gold, enclosed in one of alabaster, A.D. 211; Caracalla, in 217, was the last emperor interred here. The well-known lines of Byron:

"Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear'd on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome! How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth."

seem rather applicable to the _Pyramid_ of Caius Cestius than to this mausoleum.

The castle, as it now appears, is but the skeleton of the magnificent tomb of the emperors. Procopius, writing in the sixth century, describes its appearance in his time. "It is built," he says, "of Parian marble; the square blocks fit closely to each other without any cement. It has four equal sides, each a stone's throw in length. In height it rises above the walls of the city. On the summit are statues of men and horses, of admirable workmanship, in Parian marble." Canina, in his "Architectura Romana," gives a restoration of the mausoleum, which shows how it consisted of three storeys: 1, a quadrangular basement, the upper part intersected with Doric pillars, between which were spaces for epitaphs of the dead within, and surmounted at the corners by marble equestrian statues; 2, a circular storey, with fluted Ionic colonnades: 3, a circular storey, surrounded by Corinthian columns, between which were statues. The whole was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, ending in a bronze fir-cone.

"The mausoleum which Hadrian erected for himself on the further bank of the Tiber far outshone the tomb of Augustus, which it nearly confronted. Of the size and dignity which characterized this work of Egyptian massiveness, we may gain a conception from the existing remains; but it requires an effort of imagination to transform the scarred and shapeless bulk before us, into the graceful pile which rose column upon column, surmounted by a gilded dome of span almost unrivalled." _Merivale_, ch. lxvi.

The history of the Mausoleum, in the middle ages, is almost the history of Rome. It was probably first turned into a fortress by Honorius, A.D.

423. From Theodoric it derives the name of "Carcer Theodorici." In 537, it was besieged by Vitiges, when the defending garrison, reduced to the last extremity, hurled down all the magnificent statues which decorated the cornice, upon the besiegers. In A.D. 498 Pope Symmachus removed the bronze fir-cone at the apex of the roof to the court of St. Peter's, whence it was afterwards transferred to the Vatican garden, where it is still to be seen between two bronze peacocks, which probably stood on either side of the entrance.

Belisarius defended the castle against Totila, whose Gothic troops captured and held it for three years, after which it was taken by Narses.

It was in 530 that the event occurred which gave the building its present name. Pope Gregory the Great was leading a penitential procession to St. Peter's, in order to offer up prayers for the staying of the great pestilence which followed the inundation of 589; when, as he was crossing the bridge, even while the people were falling dead around him, he looked up at the mausoleum, and saw an angel on its summit, sheathing a bloody sword,[319] while a choir of angels around chaunted with celestial voices, the anthem, since adopted by the Church in her vesper service--"_Regina cli, laetare--quia quem meruisti portare--resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluja_"--To which the earthly voice of the pope solemnly responded, "_Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluja_."[320]

In the tenth century the fortress was occupied by the infamous Marozia, who, in turn, brought her three husbands (Alberic, Count of Tusculum; Guido, Marquis of Tuscany; and Hugo, King of Italy) thither, to tyrannise with her over Rome. It was within the walls of this building that Alberic, her son by her first husband, waiting upon his royal stepfather at table, threw a bowl of water over him, when Hugo retorted by a blow, which was the signal for an insurrection, the people taking part with Alberic, putting the king to flight, and imprisoning Marozia.

Shut up within these walls, Pope John XI. (931-936), son of Marozia by her first husband, ruled under the guidance of his stronger-minded brother Alberic; here, also, Octavian, son of Alberic, and grandson of Marozia, succeeded in forcing his election as John XII. (being the first pope who took a new name), and scandalised Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery, and incest.

In 974 the castle was seized by Cencio (Crescenzio Nomentano), the consul, who raised up an anti-pope (Boniface VII.) here, with the determination of destroying the temporal power of the popes, and imprisoned and murdered two popes, Benedict VI. (972), and John XIV.

(984), within these walls. In 996 another lawful pope, Gregory V., calling in the emperor Otho to his assistance, took the castle, and beheaded Cencio, though he had promised him life if he would surrender.

From this governor the fortress long held the name of Castello de Crescenzio, or Turris Crescentii, by which it is described in mediaeval writings. A second Cencio supported another anti-pope, Cadolaus, here in 1063, against Pope Alexander II. A third Cencio imprisoned Gregory VII.

here in 1084. From this time the possession of the castle was a constant point of contest between popes and anti-popes. In 1313 Arlotto degli Stefaneschi, having demolished most of the other towers in the city, arranged the same fate for S. Angelo, but it was saved by cession to the Orsini. It was from hence, on December 15, 1347, that Rienzi fled to Bohemia, at the end of his first period of power, his wife having previously made her escape disguised as a friar.

"The cause of final ruin to this monument" is described by Nibby to have been the resentment of the citizens against a French governor who espoused the cause of the anti-pope (Clement VII.) against Urban VI. in 1378. It was then that the marble casings were all torn from the walls and used as street pavements.

A drawing of Sangallo of 1465 shows the "upper part of the fortress crowned with high square towers and turreted buildings; a cincture of bastions and massive square towers girding the whole; two square-built bulwarks flanking the extremity of the bridge, which was then so connected with these outworks that passengers would have immediately found themselves inside the fortress after crossing the river.

Marlianus, 1588, describes its double cincture of fortifications--a large round tower at the inner extremity of the bridge; two towers with high pinnacles, and the cross on their summits, the river flowing all around."[321]

The castle began to assume its present aspect under Boniface IX. in 1395. John XXIII., 1411, commenced the covered way to the Vatican, which was finished by Alexander VI.; and roofed by Urban VIII., in 1630. By the last-named pope the great outworks of the fortress were built under Bernini, and furnished with cannon made from the bronze roof of the Pantheon. Under Paul III. the interior was decorated with frescoes, and a colossal marble angel erected on the summit, in the place of a chapel (S. Angelo inter Nubes), built by Boniface IV. The marble angel was exchanged by Benedict XIV. for the existing angel of bronze, by a Dutch artist, Verschaffelt.

"Paul III. voulant justifier le nom donne a cette forteresse, fit placer au sommet de l'edifice une statue de marbre, representant un ange tenant a la main une epee nue. Cet ouvrage de Raphael de Montelupo a ete remplace, du temps de Benoit XIV., par une statue de bronze qui fournit cette belle reponse a un officier francais assiege dans le fort. 'Je me rendrai quand l'ange remettra son epee dans le fourreau.'

" ... Cet ange a l'air naf d'une jeune fille de dix-huit ans, et ne cherche qu'a bien remettre son epee dans le fourreau."--_Stendhal_, i. 33.

"I suppose no one ever looked at this statue critically--at least, for myself, I never could; nor can I remember now whether, as a work of art, it is above or below criticism; perhaps both. With its vast wings, poised in air, as seen against the deep blue skies of Rome, or lighted up by the golden sunset, to me it was ever like what it was intended to represent--like a vision."--_Jameson's Sacred Art_, p. 98.

Of the castle, as we now see it externally, only the quadrangular basement is of the time of Hadrian; the round tower is of that of Urban VIII., its top added by Paul III. The four round towers of the outworks, called after the four Evangelists, are of Nicholas V., 1447.

The _interior_ of the fortress can be visited by an order. Excavations made in 1825 have laid open the sepulchral chamber in the midst of the basement. Here stood, in the centre, the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian, which was stolen by Pope Innocent II. to be used as his own tomb in the Lateran, where it was destroyed by the fire of 1360, the cover alone escaping, which was used for the tomb of Otho II., in the atrium of St. Peter's, and which, after filling this office for seven centuries, is now the baptismal font of that basilica. A spiral passage, thirty feet high, and eleven wide, up which a chariot could be driven, gradually ascends through the solid mass of masonry. There is wonderfully little to be seen. A saloon of the time of Paul III. is adorned with frescoes of the life of Alexander the Great, by _Pierino del Vaga_. This room would be used by the pope in case of his having to take refuge in S. Angelo. An adjoining room, adorned with a stucco frieze of Tritons and Nereids, is that in which Cardinal Caraffa was strangled (1561) under Pius IV., for alleged abuses of authority under his uncle, Paul IV.--his brother, the Marquis Caraffa, being beheaded in the castle the same night. The reputed prison of Beatrice Cenci is shown, but it is very uncertain that she was ever confined here,--also the prison of Cagliostro, and that of Benvenuto Cellini, who escaped, and broke his leg in trying to let himself down by a rope from the ramparts. The statue of the angel by _Montelupo_ is to be seen stowed away in a dark corner. Several horrible _trabocchette_ (oubliettes) are shown.

On the roof, from which there is a beautiful view, are many modern prisons, where prisoners suffer terribly from the summer sun beating upon their flat roofs.

Among the sculptures found here were the Barberini Faun, now at Munich, the Dancing Faun, at Florence, and the Bust of Hadrian at the Vatican.

The sepulchral inscriptions of the Antonines existed till 1572, when they were cut up by Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni), and the marble used to decorate a chapel in St Peter's! The magnificent Easter display of fireworks (from an idea of Michael Angelo, carried out by Bernini), called the girandola, used to be exhibited here, but now takes place at S. Pietro in Montorio, or from the Pincio. From 1849 to 1870, the castle was occupied by French troops, and their banner floated here, except on great festivals, when it was exchanged for that of the pope.

Running behind, and crossing the back streets of the Borgo, is the covered passage intended for the escape of the popes to the castle. It was used by Alexander VI. when invaded by Charles VIII. in 1494, and twice by Clement VII. (Giulio di Medici), who fled, in 1527, from Moncada, viceroy of Naples, and in May, 1527, during the terrible sack of Rome by the troops of the Constable de Bourbon.

"Pendant que l'on se battait, Clement VII. etait en prieres devant l'autel de sa chapelle au Vatican, detail singulier chez un homme qui avait commence sa carriere par etre militaire. Lorsque les cris des mourants lui annoncerent la prise de la ville, il s'enfuit du Vatican au chateau St. Ange par le long corridor qui s'eleve au-dessus des plus hautes maisons. L'historien Paul-Jove, qui suivait Clement VII., relevait sa longue robe pour qu'il put marcher plus vite, et lorsque le pape fut arrive au pont qui le laissait a decouvert pour un instant, Paul-Jove le couvrit de son manteau et de son chapeau violet, de peur qu'il ne fut reconnu a son rochet blanc et ajuste par quelque soldat bon tireur.

"Pendant cette longue fuite le long du corridor, Clement VII.

apercevait au-dessous de lui, par les petites fenetres, ses sujets poursuivis par les soldats vainqueurs qui deja se repandaient dans les rues. Ils ne faisaient aucun quartier a personne, et tuaient a coups de pique tout ce qu'ils pouvaient atteindre."--_Stendhal_, i.

388.

"The Escape" consists of two passages; the upper open like a loggia, the lower covered, and only lighted by loop-holes. The keys of both are kept by the pope himself.

S. Angelo is at the entrance of _the Borgo_, promised at the Italian invasion of September, 1870, as the sanctuary of the papacy, the tiny sovereignty where the temporal sway of the popes should remain undisturbed,--the sole relic left to them of all their ancient dominions. The Borgo, or _Leonine City_, is surrounded by walls of its own, which were begun in A.D. 846, by Pope Leo IV., for the better defence of St. Peter's from the Saracens, who had been carrying their devastations up to the very walls of Rome. These walls, 10,800 feet in circumference, were completed in four years by labourers summoned from every town and monastery of the Roman states. Pope Leo himself daily encouraged their exertions by his presence. In 852 the walls were solemnly consecrated by a vast procession of the whole Roman clergy barefooted, their heads strewn with ashes, who sprinkled them with holy water, while the pope offered a prayer composed by himself,[322] at each of the three gates.

The adjoining Piazza Pia is decorated with a fountain erected by Pius IX. The principal of the streets which meet here is the Via del Borgo Nuovo, the main artery to St. Peter's. On its left is the _Church of Sta. Maria Traspontina_, built 1566, containing two columns which bear inscriptions, stating that they were those to which St. Peter and St.

Paul were respectively attached, when they suffered flagellation by order of Nero!

This church occupies the site of a Pyramid supposed to have been erected to Scipio Africanus, who died at Liternum, B.C. 183, and which was regarded in the middle ages as the tomb of Romulus. Its sides were once coated with marble, which was stripped off by Donus I. This pyramid is represented on the bronze doors of St Peter's.

A little further is the _Palazzo Giraud_, belonging to Prince Torlonia.

It was built, 1506, by Bramante, for Cardinal Adriano da Corneto,[323]

who gave it to Henry VIII., by whom it was given to Cardinal Campeggio.

Thus it was for a short time the residence of the English ambassador before the Reformation. Innocent XII. converted it into a college for priests, by whom it was sold to the Marquis Giraud.