FOOTNOTES
A The Queen’s palace was in the rear of Raphael’s house and faced the Borgo Vecchio. Opposite to it was the palace of Cesare Borgia.
B Sixtus V was severely criticised for substituting his own arms for those of his predecessor, Gregory XIII, in the Quirinal Palace, and after Sixtus’s death the Boncompagni arms were restored to their original place.
C “Ounce” was a mediæval measurement of running water, of which there were once as many varieties in Italy as there were provinces. Some of these are still in use. The Roman oncia d’acqua, or ounce of water, was practically equivalent to four times the quantity of water known as the California “miner’s inch.” This “miner’s inch” amounts to something like sixteen thousand gallons in twenty-four hours, and therefore the grant of two Roman “ounces” gave the Colonna the right to draw from the Fountain of Trevi eight times that amount, or one hundred and twenty-eight thousand gallons every twenty-four hours.
D One of Vignola’s early plans for the Villa Giulia has lately come to light. It shows the main structure much as it is, but with a large wing to left and right, and a long garden running down either side of the central court behind each wing. There are also other differentiations, and it is evident the plan must have entailed a larger and more expensive building than that which was finally erected. The plan measures four by five feet and is beautifully prepared. It is now in the possession of Mr. Lawrence Grant White, of New York.
E This cardinal became Pope Marcellus, for whom Palestrina is said to have written the Mass of Pope Marcellus.
F A curious story related by Wraxall (“Memoirs,” vol. I, p. 183) shows that the Villa Giulia in its eighteenth century period of isolation and decay proved a convenient shelter for secret crimes committed by persons of exalted rank.
G The ornamental detail of the “Sixtine lion” looks as if this fountain, like the Tartarughe, had been finished in the pontificate following Gregory XIII’s—that is, in the pontificate of Sixtus V.
H The fate of the Roman obelisks presents one of the most baffling and fascinating problems of archæology. As no satisfactory explanation of their overthrow and mutilation has ever been given, possibly the theory that they were destroyed by the Romans of the Dark Ages, in search of bronze, is as good a working hypothesis as any other. The idea that they were wrecked by barbarians, and the assumption that they were thrown down by earthquakes are equally untenable. Much curious evidence goes to show that some of the principal obelisks were standing in the sixth and seventh centuries. One stood erect on its pedestal in Charlemagne’s time, while the fall of another can be placed as late as the tenth or eleventh century. Three of the principal obelisks show holes drilled in the shaft for the insertion of levers or crowbars, and have unmistakable marks of fire about the pedestal. Now, the Romans generally re-erected the obelisk, not directly upon its pedestal, but upon bronze crabs (as in the obelisk of the Vatican) or upon brass “dice” (as in the larger of the two obelisks in Constantinople). The Egyptians sheathed the pyramidion of the obelisk with “bright metal” to reflect the rays of the sun, and the Romans crowned the apex, sometimes if not always, with metal ornaments, like the ball upon the Vatican obelisk, which, until it was removed by Sixtus V, was supposed to contain the ashes of Julius Cæsar. The obelisk now in Central Park had been re-erected by the Romans at Alexandria, in this fashion, and one of the bronze crabs was brought to New York with the obelisk, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum. These bronze supports were firmly attached to the obelisk by heavy bronze dowels, one dowel running upward into each corner of the shaft, the other going down into each corner of the pedestal. Between the shaft and the pedestal there was therefore a space, perhaps some four inches in height, through which light was visible. This was seen in the Vatican obelisk, which was still in situ when Fontana drew his plans for changing its location, and in the Central Park obelisk, as described by an eye-witness of its removal. Three historians of Rome’s destruction—Fea, Dyer, and Gibbon—describe the almost incredible ingenuity, labor, and patience exerted by the Romans of the Dark Ages in their search for bronze and other metals. Wherever bronze could be obtained, it was stolen, stripped, or melted, on account of its value and the ease with which it could be transported. During the same historic period, all pagan monuments were deprived of whatever protection they had had as objects of religious veneration. The obelisks standing in spacious and lonely surroundings would have proved an easy prey to bands of clandestine or open marauders. The Roman method of blasting consisted in building a fire against the rock and pouring vinegar, or even water, upon the red-hot stone which then disintegrated. It would have been an easy matter to kindle great fires at every corner of the pedestal which, by the time this kind of destruction became popular, had already lost much of their original height through the gradual rise of the ground level. This method of blasting by fire would account for the all but universal gnawing away, or rough rounding off of the lower corners of the shaft, in which the bronze dowels were so firmly embedded. After the disintegration of the granite the partially melted bronze could be extracted from both shaft and pedestal, but not before the shaft had been thrown over, and this was evidently helped along by the use of levers. When the shaft was prone, it became possible to remove any bronze which had been attached to its summit. With perhaps only one exception, the fallen shafts were always found broken in three pieces, but there seems to be no record of any bronze found in Rome, near the original sites of the obelisks. What bronze there is was on the one Roman obelisk that had not been thrown down (the Vatican obelisk). The original site of this obelisk, in the centre of the old circus of Caligula and Nero, was close to the old Church of St. Peter, and it was furthermore protected, according to Lanciani, by the chapel at its base, called the Chapel of the Crucifixion. When, in 1586, Fontana removed this obelisk to its present position in the centre of the modern Piazza of modern St. Peter’s, he re-erected it upon its original classic Roman crabs, hiding them by the purely decorative Sixtine lions of Prospero Bresciano, as they had been hidden in earlier times by the bronze lions mentioned by Plutarch, and gone since the sack of Rome in 1527. The obelisk in Constantinople, referred to above, is still standing on its four brass “dice.”
I This story is told in another form. In it Cardinal Farnese employs the same ruse to save the life of the young Duke of Parma.
J Suetonius, Bk. I. “And he (Cæsar) mounted the Capitol by torchlight with forty elephants bearing lamps on his right and on his left.”
K The “Memoirs of Madame d’Arblay” relate a touching incident in the life of this exiled Stuart.
Daddy Crump, Fanny Burney’s old gossip, while sojourning in Rome attended a carnival ball at a certain palace, where he saw many notables, among them King James III, as he was always called in Rome, and his two young sons—Prince Charles Edward and Henry, Duke of York. There were numbers of English among the guests, and, characteristically, they did not mingle with the other nationalities, but grouped themselves together in a solid mass at one end of the ballroom. Suddenly, while all were watching the dancers, King James, taking advantage of his mask and official incognito, crossed the room and placed himself in the front rank of his fellow countrymen. The moment was psychic, but the “loyal subjects of the House of Hanover” “took not the slightest notice of him” while he stood as his forebears had stood—an English king among his own people. Daddy Crump relates with smug satisfaction that the “English never moved an eyelid” during those few minutes when their hereditary sovereign assuaged the passionate homesickness of his exile heart with a brief and tragic make-believe.
M Compare the sensations produced by this fountain and those given by the “Rhapsodie Hongroise.”