"La système de construction est le même que dans les villes d'Étrurie et dans la muraille bâtie à Rome par les rois étrusques. Cependant l'appareil est moins régulier. Les murs d'une petite ville du Latium fondée par un aventurier ne pouvaient être aussi soignés que les murs des villes de l'Étrurie, pays tout autrement civilisé. La petite cité de Romulus, bornée au Palatin, n'avait pas l'importance de la Rome des Tarquins, qui couvrait les huit collines.
"Du reste, la construction est étrusque et devait l'être. Romulus n'avait dans sa ville, habitée par des pâtres et des bandits, personne qui fût capable d'en bâtir l'enceinte. Les Étrusques, grands bâtisseurs, étaient de l'autre côté du fleuve. Quelques-uns même l'avaient probablement passé déjà et habitaient le mont Cœlius. Romulus dut s'adresser à eux, et faire faire cet ouvrage par des architects et des maçons étrusques. Ce fut aussi selon le rite de l'Étrurie, pays sacerdotal, que Romulus, suivant en cela l'usage établi dans les cités latines, fit consacer l'enceinte de la ville nouvelle. Il agit en cette circonstance comme agit un paysan romain, quand il appelle un prêtre pour bénir l'emplacement de la maison qu'il veut bâtir.
"Les détails de la cérémonie par laquelle fut inaugurée la première enceinte de Rome nous ont été transmis par Plutarque,[142] et, avec un grand détail par Tacite,[143] qui sans doute avait sous les yeux les livres des pontifes. Nous connaissons avec exactitude le contour que traça la charrue sacrée. Nous pouvons le suivre encore aujourd'hui.
"Romulus attela an taureau blanc et une vache blanche à une charrue dont le soc était d'airain.[144] L'usage de l'airain a précédé à Rome, comme partout, l'usage du fer. Il partit du lieu consacré par l'antique autel d'Hercule, au-dessous de l'angle occidental du Palatin et de la première Rome des Pelasges, et, se dirigeant vers le sud-est, traça son sillon le long de la base de la colline.
"Ceux qui suivaient Romulus, rejetaient les mottes de terre en dedans du sillon, image du Vallum futur. Ce sillon était l'Agger de Servius Tullius en petit. A l'extrémité de la vallée qui sépare le Palatin de l'Aventin, où devait être le grand cirque, et où est aujourd'hui la rue des Cerchi, il prit à gauche, et, contournant la colline, continua, en creusant toujours son sillon, à tracer sans le savoir la route que devaient suivre un jour les triomphes, puis revint au point d'où il était parti. La charrue, l'instrument du labour, le symbole de la vie agricole des enfants de Saturne, avait dessiné le contour de la cité guerrière de Romulus. De même, quand on avait détruit une ville, on faisait passer la charrue sur le sol qu'elle avait occupé. Par là, ce sol devenait sacré, et il n'était pas plus permis de l'habiter qu'il ne l'était de franchir le sillon qu'on creusait autour des villes lors de leur fondation, comme le fit Romulus et comme le firent toujours depuis les fondateurs d'une colonie; car toute colonie était une Rome."—Ampère, Hist. Rome, i. 283.
Close under this, the northern side of the walls of Romulus, ran the Via Nova, down which Marcus Cædicius was returning to the city in the gloaming, when, at this spot, between the sacred grove and the temple of Vesta, he heard a supernatural voice, bidding him to warn the senate of the approach of the Gauls. After the Gauls had invaded Rome, and departed again, an altar and sanctuary recorded the miracle on this site.[145]
At the corner near Sta. Anastasia, are remains of a private house of early times built against the cliff. Near this were the steps called the Stairs of Cacus, leading up to the hut of Faustulus. On the other side the Gradus Pulchri Littoris, the κλη Ακτη of Plutarch, led to the river.[146]
Here a remarkable altar of republican times has been discovered, and remains in situ. It is inscribed SEI DEO SEI DIVAE SAC.—C SEXTIVS C T CALVINUS TR—DE SENATI SENTENTIA RESTITVIT. Some suppose this to be the actual altar mentioned above as erected to the Genius Loci, in consequence of the mysterious warning of the Gallic invasion. The father of the tribune, C. S. Calvinus, mentioned in the inscription, was consul with C. Cassius Longinus, B.C. 124, and is described by Cicero as an elegant orator of a sickly constitution.[147]
Beyond this a number of chambers have been discovered under the steep bank of the Palatine, and retain a quantity of graffiti scratched upon their walls. The most interesting of these, found in the fourth chamber, has been removed to the museum of the Collegio Romano. It is generally believed to have been executed during the reign of Septimius Severus, and to have been done in an idle moment by one of the soldiers occupying these rooms, supposed to have been used as guard-chambers under that emperor. If so, it is perhaps the earliest existing pictorial allusion to the manner of our Saviour's death. It is a caricature evidently executed in ridicule of a Christian fellow-soldier. The figure on the cross has an ass's head, and by the worshipping figure is inscribed in Greek characters, Alexamenos worships his God.
"The lowest orders of the populace were as intelligently hostile to it [the worship of the Crucified] as were the philosophers. Witness that remarkable caricature of the adoration of our crucified Lord, which was discovered some ten years ago beneath the ruins of the Palatine palace. It is a rough sketch, traced, in all probability, by the hand of some pagan slave in one of the earliest years of the third century of our era. A human figure with an ass's head is represented as fixed to a cross, while another figure in a tunic stands on one side. This figure is addressing himself to the crucified monster, and is making a gesture which was the customary pagan expression of adoration. Underneath there runs a rude inscription: Alexamenos adores his God. Here we are face to face with a touching episode of the life of the Roman Church in the days of Severus or of Caracalla. As under Nero, so, a century and a half later, there were worshippers of Christ in the household of Cæsar. But the paganism of the later date was more intelligently and bitterly hostile to the Church than the paganism which had shed the blood of the apostles. The Gnostic invective which attributed to the Jews the worship of an ass, was applied by pagans indiscriminately to Jews and Christians. Tacitus attributes the custom to a legend respecting services rendered by wild asses to the Israelites in the desert; 'and so, I suppose,' observes Tertullian, 'it was thence presumed that we, as bordering upon the Jewish religion, were taught to worship such a figure.' Such a story, once current, was easily adapted to the purposes of a pagan caricaturist. Whether from ignorance of the forms of Christian worship, or in order to make his parody of it more generally intelligible to its pagan admirers, the draughtsman has ascribed to Alexamenos the gestures of a heathen devotee. But the real object of his parody is too plain to be mistaken. Jesus Christ, we may be sure, had other confessors and worshippers in the Imperial palace as well as Alexamenos. The moral pressure of the advancing Church was felt throughout all ranks of pagan society; ridicule was invoked to do the work of argument; and the moral persecution which crowned all true Christian devotion was often only the prelude to a sterner test of that loyalty to a crucified Lord, which was as insensible to the misrepresentations, as Christian faith was superior to the logic, of heathendom."[148]—Liddon, Bampton Lectures of 1866, lect. vii. p. 593.
These chambers acquire a great additional interest from the belief which many entertain that they are those once occupied by the Prætorian Guard, in which St. Paul was confined.
"The close of the Epistle to the Ephesians contains a remarkable example of the forcible imagery of St. Paul. Considered simply in itself, the description of the Christian's armour is one of the most striking passages in the sacred volume. But if we view it in connection with the circumstances with which the Apostle was surrounded, we find a new and living emphasis in his enumeration of all the parts of the heavenly panoply,—the belt of sincerity and truth, with which the loins are girded for the spiritual war,—the breast-plate of that righteousness, the inseparable links whereof are faith and love,—the strong sandals, with which the feet of Christ's soldiers are made ready, not for such errands of death and despair as those on which the Prætorian soldiers were daily sent, but for the universal message of the gospel of peace,—the large shield of confident trust, wherewith the whole man is protected, and whereon the fiery arrows of the Wicked One fall harmless and dead,—the close-fitting helmet, with which the hope of salvation invests the head of the believer,—and finally the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, which, when wielded by the Great Captain of our Salvation, turned the tempter in the wilderness to flight, while in the hands of His chosen Apostle (with whose memory the sword seems inseparably associated), it became the means of establishing Christianity on the earth.
"All this imagery becomes doubly forcible if we remember that when St. Paul wrote the words he was chained to a soldier, and in the close neighbourhood of military sights and sounds. The appearance of the Prætorian Guards was daily familiar to him; as his 'chains,' on the other hand (so he tells us in the succeeding Epistle), became well known throughout the whole Prætorium! (Phil. i. 13). A difference of opinion has existed as to the precise meaning of the word in this passage. Some have identified it, as in the authorised version, with the house of Cæsar on the Palatine: more commonly it has been supposed to mean that permanent camp of the Prætorian Guards, which Tiberius established on the north of the city, outside the walls. As regards the former opinion, it is true that the word came to be used, almost as we use the word 'palace,' for royal residences generally or for any residences of princely splendour. Yet we never find the word employed for the imperial house at Rome: and we believe the truer view to be that which has been recently advocated, namely, that it denotes here, not the palace itself, but the quarters of that part of the imperial guards, which was in immediate attendance upon the emperor. The emperor was prætor or commander-in-chief of the troops, and it was natural that his immediate guard should be in prætorium near him. It might, indeed, be argued that this military establishment on the Palatine would cease to be necessary, when the Prætorian camp was established: but the purpose of that establishment was to concentrate near the city those cohorts, which had previously been dispersed in other parts of Italy: a local body-guard near the palace would not cease to be necessary: and Josephus, in his account of the imprisonment of Agrippa, speaks of a 'camp' in connection with the 'royal house.' Such we conceive to have been the barrack immediately alluded to by St. Paul: though the connection of these smaller quarters with the general camp was such that he would naturally become known to 'all the rest' of the guards, as well as those who might for the time be connected with the imperial household.
"St. Paul tells us (in the Epistle to the Philippians) that throughout the Prætorian quarter he was well known as a prisoner for the cause of Christ, and he sends special salutations to the Philippian Church from the Christians of the imperial household. These notices bring before us very vividly the moral contrasts by which the Apostle was surrounded. The soldier to whom he was chained to-day might have been in Nero's body-guard yesterday; his comrade who next relieved guard might have been one of the executioners of Octavia, and might have carried her head to Poppæa a few weeks before.
"History has few stronger contrasts than when it shows us Paul preaching Christ under the walls of Nero's palace. Thenceforward there were but two religions in the Roman world; the worship of the emperor, and the worship of the Saviour. The old superstitions had long been worn out; they had lost all hold on educated minds.... Over against the altars of Nero and Poppæa, the voice of a prisoner was daily heard, and daily woke in grovelling souls the consciousness of their divine destiny. Men listened, and knew that self-sacrifice was better than ease, humiliation more exalted than pride, to suffer nobler than to reign. They felt that the only religion which satisfied the needs of man was the religion of sorrow, the religion of self-devotion, the religion of the cross."—Conybeare and Howson.
Hence, we may ascend through some gardens beneath the Villa Mills, to the terrace which surmounts the grand ruins at the end of the Palace of the Cæsars, supposed to be remains of the Palace of Nero, but as no inscriptions have been discovered, no part of it can be identified.[149] These are by far the most picturesque portions of the ruins, and few compositions can be finer than those formed by the huge masses of stately brick arches, laden with a wealth of laurustinus, cytizus, and other flowering shrubs, standing out against the soft hues and delicate blue and pink shadows of the distant Campagna. Beneath the terrace is a fine range of lofty chambers, with a broken statue at the end, through which there is a striking view. One of these ruined halls has been converted into a kind of museum of architectural fragments found in this part of the palace, many of them of great beauty. This was the portion of the palace which longest remained entire, and which was inhabited by Heraclius in the seventh century. Some consider that these ruins were incorporated into the
Septizonium of Severus, so called from its seven stories of building, erected A.D. 198, and finally destroyed by Sixtus V., who carried off its materials for the building of St Peter's. It was erected by Severus at the southern corner of the palace, in order that it might at once strike the eyes of his African compatriots,[150] on their arrival in Rome. He built two other edifices which he called Septizonium, one on the Esquiline near the baths of Titus, and the other on the Via Appia, which he intended as the burial-place of his family, and where his son Geta was actually interred.
The remaining ruins on this division of the hill, supposed to be those of a theatre, a library, &c., have not yet been historically identified. They probably belong to the Palace of Domitian (Imp. A.D. 81—96), who added largely to the buildings on the Palatine. The magnificence of his palace is extolled in the inflated verses of Statius, who describes the imperial dwelling as exciting the jealousy of the abode of Jupiter—as losing itself amongst the stars by its height, and rising above the clouds into the full splendour of the sunshine! Such was the extravagance displayed by Domitian in these buildings, that Plutarch compares him to Midas, who wished everything to be made of gold. This was the scene of many of the tyrannical vagaries of Domitian.
"'Having once made a great feast for the citizens, he proposed,' says Dion, 'to follow it up with an entertainment to a select number of the highest nobility. He fitted up an apartment all in black. The ceiling was black, the walls were black, the pavement was black, and upon it were ranged rows of bare stone seats, black also. The guests were introduced at night without their attendants, and each might see at the head of his couch a column placed, like a tomb-stone, on which his own name was graven, with the cresset lamp above it, such as is suspended in the tombs. Presently there entered a troop of naked boys, blackened, who danced around with horrid movements, and then stood still before them, offering them the fragments of food which are commonly presented to the dead. The guests were paralysed with terror, expecting at every moment to be put to death; and the more, as the others maintained a deep silence, as though they were dead themselves, and Domitian spake of things pertaining to the state of the departed only.' But this funeral feast was not destined to end tragically. Cæsar happened to be in a sportive mood, and when he had sufficiently enjoyed his jest, and had sent his visitors home expecting worse to follow, he bade each to be presented with the silver cup and platter on which his dismal supper had been served, and with the slave, now neatly washed and apparelled, who had waited upon him. Such, said the populace, was the way in which it pleased the emperor to solemnise the funereal banquet of the victims of his defeats in Dacia, and of his persecutions in the city."—Merivale, ch. lxii.
It was in this palace that the murder of Domitian took place:
"Of the three great deities, the august assessors in the Capitol, Minerva was regarded by Domitian as his special patroness. Her image stood by his bedside: his customary oath was by her divinity. But now a dream apprised him that the guardian of his person was disarmed by the guardian of the empire, and that Jupiter had forbidden his daughter to protect her favourite any longer. Scared by these horrors he lost all self-control, and petulantly cried, and the cry was itself a portent: 'Now strike Jove whom he will!' From supernatural terrors he reverted again and again to earthly fears and suspicions. Henceforward the tyrant allowed none to be admitted to his presence without being previously searched; and he caused the ends of the corridor in which he took exercise to be lined with polished marble, to reflect the image of any one behind him; at the same time he inquired anxiously into the horoscope of every chief whom he might fear as a possible rival or successor.
"The victim of superstition had long since, it was said, ascertained too surely the year, the day, the hour which should prove fatal to him. He had learnt too that he was to die by the sword.... The omens were now closing about the victim, and his terrors became more importunate and overwhelming. 'Something,' he exclaimed, 'is about to happen, which men shall talk of all the world over.' Drawing a drop of blood from a pimple on his forehead, 'May this be all,' he added. His attendants, to reassure him, declared that the hour had passed. Embracing the flattering tale with alacrity, and rushing at once to the extreme of confidence, he announced that the danger was over, and that he would bathe and dress for the evening repast. But the danger was just then ripening within the walls of the palace. The mysteries there enacted few, indeed, could penetrate, and the account of Domitian's fall has been coloured by invention and fancy. The story that a child, whom he suffered to attend in his private chamber, found by chance the tablets which he had placed under his pillow, and that the empress, on inspecting them, and finding herself, with his most familiar servants, designated for execution, contrived a plot for his assassination, is one so often repeated as to cause great suspicion. But neither can we accept the version of Philostratus, who would have us believe that the murder of Domitian was the deed of a single traitor, a freedman of Clemens, named Stephanus, who, indignant at his patron's death, and urged to fury by the sentence on his patron's wife, Domitilla, rushed alone into the tyrant's chamber, diverted his attention with a frivolous pretext, and smote him with the sword he bore concealed in his sleeve. It is more likely that the design, however it originated, was common to several of the household, and that means were taken among them to disarm the victim, and baffle his cries for assistance. Stephanus, who is said to have excelled in personal strength, may have been employed to deal the blow; for not more, perhaps, than one attendant would be admitted at once into the presence. Struck in the groin, but not mortally, Domitian snatched at his own weapon, but found the sword removed from its scabbard. He then clutched the assassin's dagger, cutting his own fingers to the bone; then desperately thrust the bloody talons into the eyes of his assailant, and beat his head with a golden goblet, shrieking all the time for help. Thereupon in rushed Parthenius, Maximus, and others, and despatched him as he lay writhing on the pavement."—Merivale, ch. lxii.
Trajan stripped the palace of his predecessors of all its ornaments to adorn the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,[151] but it was restored by Commodus, after a fire which occurred in his reign,[152] and enriched by Heliogabalus,[153] and almost every succeeding emperor, till the time of Theodoric.[154]
'Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!' the Tourist may answer."
A. H. Clough.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CŒLIAN.
S. Gregorio—S. Giovanni e Paolo—Arch of Dolabella—S. Tommaso in Formis—Villa Mattei—Sta. Maria della Navicella—S. Stefano Rotondo—I Santi Quattro Incoronati—S. Clemente.
The Cœlian Hill extends from St. John Lateran to the Vigna of the Porta Capena, and from the Fountain of Egeria to the Convent of S. Gregorio. It is now entirely uninhabited, except by monks of the Camaldolese, Passionist, and Redemptorist Orders, and by the Augustinian Nuns of the Incoronati.
IN the earliest times the name of this hill was Mons Querquetulanus, "The Hill of Oaks," and it was clothed with forest, part of which long remained as the sacred wood of the Camenæ. It first received its name of Cœlius from Cœlius Vibenna, an Etruscan Lucumo of Ardea, who is said to have come to the assistance of Romulus in his war against the Sabine king Tatius, and to have afterwards established himself here. In the reign of Tullus Hostilius the Cœlian assumed some importance, as that king fixed his residence here, and transported hither the Latin population of Alba.
As the Cœlian had a less prominent share in the history of Rome than any of the other hills, it preserves scarcely any historical monuments of pagan times. All those which existed under the republic were destroyed by a great fire which ravaged this hill in the reign of Tiberius,[155] except the Temple of the Nymphs, which once stood in the grove of the Camenæ, and which had been already burnt by Clodius, in order to destroy the records of his falsehoods and debts which it contained.[156] Some small remains in the garden of the Passionist convent are attributed to the temple which Agrippina raised to her husband the Emperor Claudius, and in S. Stefano Rotondo some antiquaries recognize the Macellum of Nero. There are no remains of the palace of the Emperor Tetricus, who lived here, "between the two sacred groves,"[157] in a magnificent captivity under Aurelian, whom he received here at a banquet, at which he exhibited an allegorical picture representing his reception of the empire of Gaul, and his subsequent resignation of it for the simple insignia of a Roman senator.[158]
To the Christian visitor, however, the Cœlian will always prove of the deepest interest—and the slight thread of connection which runs between all its principal objects, as well as their nearness to one another, brings them pleasantly within the limits of a single day's excursion. Many of those who are not mere passing visitors at Rome, will probably find that their chief pleasure lies not amid the well-known sights of the great basilicas and palaces, but in quiet walks through the silent lanes and amid the decaying buildings of these more distant hills.
"The recollection of Rome will come back, after many years, in images of long delicious strolls, in musing loneliness, through the deserted ways of the ancient city; of climbing among its hills, over ruins, to reach some vantage-ground for mapping out the subjacent territory, and looking beyond on the glorious chains of greater and lesser mountains, clad in their imperial hues of gold and purple; and then, perhaps, of solemn entrance into the cool solitude of an open basilica, where your thought now rests, as your body then did, after the silent evening prayer, and brings forward from many well-remembered nooks, every local inscription, every lovely monument of art, the characteristic feature of each, or the great names with which it is associated. The Liberian speaks to you of Bethlehem and its treasured mysteries; the Sessorian of Calvary and its touching relics. Baronius gives you his injunctions on Christian architecture inscribed, as a legacy, in his title of Fasciola; St. Dominic lives in the fresh paintings of a faithful disciple, on the walls of the opposite church of St. Xystus; there stands the chair and there hangs the hat of St. Charles, as if he had just left his own church, from which he calls himself in his signature to letters 'the Cardinal of St. Praxedes;' near it, in a sister church, is fresh the memory of St. Justin Martyr, addressing his apologies for Christianity to heathen emperor and senate, and of Pudens and his British spouse; and, far beyond the city gates, the cheerful Philip[159] is seen kneeling at S. Sebastiano, waiting for the door to the Platonia to be opened for him, that he may watch the night through in the martyr's dormitory."—Wiseman's Life of Leo XII.
"For myself, I must say that I know nothing to compare with a pilgrimage among the antique churches scattered over the Esquiline, the Cœlian, and the Aventine Hills. They stand apart, each in its solitude, amid gardens, and vineyards, and heaps of nameless ruins;—here a group of cypresses, there a lofty pine or solitary palm; the tutelary saint, perhaps some Sant' Achilleo, or Santa Bibiana, whom we never heard of before,—an altar rich in precious marbles,—columns of porphyry,—the old frescoes dropping from the walls,—the everlasting colossal mosaics looking down so solemn, so dim, so spectral;—these grow upon us, until at each succeeding visit they themselves, and the associations by which they are surrounded, become a part of our daily life, and may be said to hallow that daily life when considered in a right spirit. True, what is most sacred, what is most poetical, is often desecrated to the fancy by the intrusion of those prosaic realities which easily strike prosaic minds; by disgust at the foolish fabrications which those who recite them do not believe, by lying inscriptions, by tawdry pictures, by tasteless and even profane restorations;—by much that saddens, much that offends, much that disappoints;—but then so much remains! So much to awaken, to elevate, to touch the heart; so much that will not pass away from the memory, so much that makes a part of our after-life."—Mrs. Jameson.
We may pass under the Arch of Constantine, or through the pleasant sunny walks known as the Parco di San Gregorio,—planted by the French during their first occupation of Rome, but which may almost be regarded as a remnant of the sacred grove of the Camenæ which once occupied this site.
The further gate of the Parco opens on a small triangular piazza, whence a broad flight of steps lead up to the Church of S. Gregorio, to the English pilgrim one of the most interesting spots in Rome, for it was at the head of these steps that St. Augustine took his last farewell of Gregory the Great, and, kneeling on this green-sward below, the first missionaries of England received the parting blessing of the great pontiff, as he stood on the height in the gateway. As we enter the portico (built 1633, by Card. Scipio Borghese,) we see on either side two world-famous inscriptions.
On the right:
Adsta hospes
et lege.
Hic olim fuit M. Gregori domus
Ipse in monasterium convertit,
Ubi monasticen professus est
Et diu abbas præfuit.
Monachi primum Benedictini
Mox Græci tenuere
Dein Benedictini iterum
Post varios casos
Quum jamdiu
Esset commendatum
Et poene desertum.
Anno MDLXXIII
Camaldulenses inducti
Qui et industria sua
Et ope plurium
R. E. Cardinalium
Quorum hic monumenta exstant,
Favente etiam Clemente XI. P. M.
Templum et adjacentes ædes
In hanc quam cernis formam
Restituerunt.
On the left:
| Ex hoc monasterio | |
| Prodierunt. | |
| S. | Gregorius, M. Fundator et Parens |
| S. | Eleutherius, A.B. Hilarion, A.B. |
| S. | Augustinus. Anglor. Apostol. |
| S. | Laurentius. Cantuar. Archiep. |
| S. | Mellitus. Londinen. Ep. mox. Archiep. Cantuar. |
| S. | Justus. Ep. Roffensis. |
| S. | Paulinus. Ep. Eborac. |
| S. | Maximianus. Syracusan. Ep. |
| SS. | Antonius, Merulus, et Joannes, Monachi. |
| St. | Petrus. A.B. Cantuar. |
| Marinianus. Archiep. Raven. | |
| Probus. Xenodochi. Jerosolymit. | |
| Curator. A. S. Gregori. Elect. | |
| Sabinus Callipodit. Ep. | |
| Gregorius. Diac. Card. S. Eustach. | |
| Hic. Etiam. Diu. Vixit. M. Gregori | |
| Mater. S. Silvia. Hoc. Maxime | |
| Colenda. Quod. Tantum. Pietatis | |
| Sapientiæ. Et. Doctrinæ. Lumen Pepererit. |
"Cette ville incomparable renferme peu de sites plus attrayants et plus dignes d'éternelle mémoire. Le sanctuaire occupe l'angle occidental du mont Cœlius.... Il est à égale distance du grand Cirque, des Thermes de Caracalla et du Colisée, tout proche de l'église des saints martyrs Jean et Paul. Le berceau du christianisme de l'Angleterre touche ainsi au sol trempé par le sang de tant de milliers de martyrs. En face s'élève le mont Palatin, berceau de Rome païenne, encore couvert des vastes débris du palais des Césars.... Où est donc l'Anglais digne de ce nom qui, en portant son regard du Palatin au Colisée, pourrait contempler sans émotion ce coin de terre d'où lui sont venus la foi, le nom chrétien et la Bible dont il est si fier. Voilà où les enfants esclaves de ses aïeux étaient recueillis et sauvés! Sur ces pierres s'agenouillaient ceux qui ont fait sa patrie chrétienne! Sous ces voûtes a été conçu par une âme sainte, confié à Dieu, béni par Dieu, accepté et accompli par d'humbles et généreux chrétiens, le grand dessein! Par ces degrés sont descendus les quarante moines qui ont porté à l'Angleterre la parole de Dieu, la lumière de l'Évangile, la succession apostolique et la règle de Saint-Benoît!"—Montalembert, Moines d'Occident.
Hard by was the house of Sta. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory, of which the ruins still remain, opposite to the church of S. Giovanni e Paolo, and in the little garden which still exists, we may believe that he played as a child under his mother's care. Close to his mother's home he founded the monastery of St. Andrew, where he dwelt for many years as a monk, employed in writing homilies, and in the enjoyment of visionary conversation with the Virgin, whom he believed to answer him in person from her picture before which he knelt. "To this monastery he presented his own portrait, with those of his father and mother, which were probably in existence 300 years after his death; and this portrait of himself probably furnished that peculiar type of physiognomy which we trace in all the best representations of him."[160] During the life of penance and poverty which was led here by St. Gregory, he sold all his goods for the benefit of the poor, retaining nothing but a silver bason given him by his mother. One day a poor shipwrecked sailor came several times to beg in the cell where he was writing, and as he had no money, he gave him instead this one remaining treasure. A long time after, St. Gregory saw the same shipwrecked sailor reappear in the form of his guardian angel, who told him that God had henceforth destined him to rule his church, and become the successor of St. Peter, whose charity he had imitated.[161]
"Un moine (A.D. 590) va monter pour la première fois sur la chaire apostolique. Ce moine, le plus illustre de tous ceux qui ont compté parmi les souverains pontifes, y rayonnera d'un éclat qu'aucun de ses prédécesseurs n'a égalé et qui rejaillera comme une sanction suprême, sur l'institut dont il est issu. Grégoire, le seul parmi les hommes avec le Pape Léon Ier qui ait reçu à la fois, du consentement universel, le double surnom de Saint et de Grand, sera l'eternel honneur de l'Ordre bénédictin comme de la papauté. Par son génie, mais surtout par le charme et l'ascendant de sa vertu, il organisera le domaine temporel des papes, il développera et régularisera leur souveraineté spirituelle, il fondera leur paternelle suprématie sur les royautés naissantes et les nations nouvelles qui vont devenir les grands peuples de l'avenir, et s'appeler la France, l'Espagne, l'Angleterre. A vrai dire, c'est lui qui inaugure le moyen âge, la société moderne et la civilisation chrétienne."—Montalembert.
The church of St. Gregory is approached by a cloistered court filled with monuments. On the left is that of Sir Edward Carne, one of the commissioners to obtain the opinion of foreign universities respecting the divorce of Henry VIII. from Catherine of Arragon, ambassador to Charles V., and afterwards to the court of Rome. He was recalled when the embassy was suppressed by Elizabeth, but was kept at Rome by Paul IV., who had conceived a great affection for him, and he died here in 1561. Another monument, of an exile for the catholic faith, is that of Robert Pecham, who died 1567, inscribed:
"Roberto Pecham Anglo, equite aurato, Philippi et Mariæ Angliæ et Hispan regibus olim a consiliis genere religione virtute præclaro qui cum patriam suam a fede catholica deficientem adspicere sine summo dolore non posset, relictis omnibus quæ in hac vita carissima esse solent, in voluntarium profectus exilium, post sex annis pauperibus Christi heredibus testamento institutis, sanctissime e vita migravit."
The Church, rebuilt in 1734, under Francesco Ferrari, has sixteen ancient granite columns and a fine Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. Among its monuments we may observe that of Cardinal Zurla, a learned writer on geographical subjects, who was abbot of the adjoining convent. It was a curious characteristic of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II. (1503-13), that her friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in this church, and to inscribe upon her tomb: "Imperia, cortisana Romana, quæ digna tanto nomine, raræ inter homines formæ specimen dedit. Vixit annos xxvi. dies xii. obiit 1511, die 15 Augusti,"—but this monument has now been removed.
At the end of the right aisle is a picture by Badalocchi, commemorating a miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation. It will be observed that in this and in most other representations of St. Gregory, a dove is perched upon his shoulder, and whispering into his ear. This is commemorative of the impression that every word and act of the saint was directly inspired by the Holy Ghost; a belief first engendered by the happy promptitude of Peter, his arch-deacon, who invented the story to save the beloved library of his master which was about to be destroyed after his death by the people, in a pitiful spirit of revenge, because they fancied that a famine which was decimating them, had been brought about by the extravagance of Gregory.[162] An altar beneath this picture is decorated with marble reliefs, representing the same miracle, and also the story of the soul of the Emperor Trajan being freed from purgatory by the intercession of Gregory. (Chap. IV.)
A low door near this leads into the monastic cell of St. Gregory, containing his marble chair, and the spot where his bed lay, inscribed:
Gregorius modica membra quiete levat."
Here also an immense collection of minute relics of saints are exposed to the veneration of the credulous.
On the opposite side of the church is the Salviati Chapel, the burial-place of that noble family, modernized in 1690 by Carlo Maderno. Over the altar is a copy of Annibale Caracci's picture of St. Gregory, which once existed here, but is now in England. On the right is the picture of the Madonna, "which spoke to St. Gregory," and which is said to have become suddenly impressed upon the wall after a vision in which she appeared to him;—on the left is a beautiful marble ciborium.
Hence a sacristan will admit the visitor into the Garden of Sta. Silvia, whence there is a grand view over the opposite Palatine.
"To stand here on the summit of the flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the ruined Palace of the Cæsars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of thoughts. There, before us, the Palatine Hill—pagan Rome in the dust; here, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Cæsars, and first set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness."—Mrs. Jameson.
Here are three Chapels, restored by the historian Cardinal Baronius, in the sixteenth century. The first, of Sta. Silvia, contains a fresco of the Almighty with a choir of angels, by Guido, and beneath it a beautiful statue of the venerable saint (especially invoked against convulsions), by Niccolo Cordieri—one of the best statues of saints in Rome. The second chapel, of St. Andrew, contains the two famous rival frescoes of Guido and Domenichino. Guido has represented St. Andrew kneeling in reverent thankfulness at first sight of the cross on which he was to suffer; Domenichino—a more painful subject—the flagellation of the saint. Of these paintings Annibale Caracci observed that "Guido's was the painting of the Master; but Domenichino's the painting of the scholar who knew more than the master." The beautiful group of figures in the corner, where a terrified child is hiding its face in its mother's dress, is introduced in several other pictures of Domenichino.
"It is a well-known anecdote that a poor old woman stood for a long time before the story of Domenichino, pointing it out bit by bit and explaining it to a child who was with her,—and that she then turned to the story told by Guido, admired the landscape, and went away. It is added that when Annibale Caracci heard of this, it seemed to him in itself a sufficient reason for giving the preference to the former work. It is also said that when Domenichino was painting one of the executioners, he worked himself up into a fury with threatening words and gestures, and that Annibale, surprising him in this condition, embraced him, saying: 'Domenico, to-day you have taught me a lesson, which is that a painter, like an orator, must first feel himself that which he would represent to others.'"—Lanzi, v. 82.
"In historical pictures Domenichino is often cold and studied, especially in the principal subject, while on the other hand, the subordinate persons have much grace, and a noble character of beauty. Thus, in the scourging of St. Andrew, a group of women thrust back by the executioners is of the highest beauty. Guido's fresco is of high merit—St. Andrew, on his way to execution, sees the cross before him in the distance, and falls upon his knees in adoration,—the executioners and spectators regard him with astonishment."—Kugler.
The third chapel, of Sta. Barbara, contains a grand statue of St. Gregory by Niccolo Cordieri[163] (where the whispering dove is again represented), and the table at which he daily fed twelve poor pilgrims after washing their feet. The Roman breviary tells how on one occasion an angel appeared at the feast as the thirteenth guest. This story,—the sending forth of St. Augustine,—and other events of St. Gregory's life, are represented in rude frescoes upon the walls by Viviani.
The adjoining Convent (modern) is of vast size, and is now occupied by Camaldolese monks, though in the time of St. Gregory it belonged to the Benedictines. In its situation it is beautiful and quiet, and must have been so even in the time of St. Gregory, who often regretted the seclusion which he was compelled to quit.
"Un jour, plus accablé que jamais par le poids des affaires séculières, il s'était retiré dans un lieu secret pour s'y livrer dans un long silence à sa tristesse, et y fut rejoint par le diàcre Pierre, son élève, son ami d'enfance et le compagnon de ses chères études. 'Vous est-il donc arrivé quelque chagrin nouveau,' lui dit le jeune homme, 'pour que vous soyez ainsi plus triste qu'à l'ordinaire.' 'Mon chagrin,' lui répondit le pontife, 'est celui de tous mes jours, toujours vieux par l'usage, et toujours nouveau par sa croissance quotidienne. Ma pauvre âme se rappelle ce qu'elle était autrefois, dans notre monastère, quand elle planait sur tout ce qui passe, sur tout ce qui change; quand elle ne songeait qu'au ciel; quand elle franchissait par la contemplation le cloître de ce corps qui l'enserre; quand elle aimait d'avance la mort comme l'entrée de la vie. Et maintenant il lui faut, à cause de ma charge pastorale, supporter les mille affaires des hommes du siècle et se souiller dans cette poussière. Et quand, après s'être ainsi répandue au dehors, elle veut retrouver sa retraite intérieure, elle n'y revient qu'amoindrie. Je médite sur tout ce que je souffre et sur tout ce que j'ai perdu. Me voici, battu par l'océan et tout brisé par la tempête; quand je pense à ma vie d'autrefois, il me semble regarder en arrière vers le rivage. Et ce qu'il y a de plus triste, c'est qu'ainsi ballotté par l'orage, je puis à peine entrevoir le port que j'ai quitté.'"—Montalembert, Moines d'Occident.
Pope Gregory XVI. was for some years abbot of this convent, to which he was afterwards a generous benefactor;—regretting always, like his great predecessor, the peace of his monastic life. His last words to his cardinals, who were imploring him, for political purposes, to conceal his danger, were singularly expressive of this—"Per Dio lasciatemi!—voglio morire da frate, non da sovrano." The last great ceremony enacted at S. Gregorio was when Cardinal Wiseman consecrated the mitred abbot of English Cistercians,—Dr. Manning preaching at the same time on the prospects of English Catholicism.
Ascending the steep paved lane between S. Gregorio and the Parco, the picturesque church on the left with the arcaded apse and tall campanile (c. A.D. 1206), inlaid with coloured tiles and marbles, is that of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, two officers in the household of the Christian princess Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, in whose time they occupied a position of great influence and trust. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he attempted to persuade them to sacrifice to idols, but they refused, saying, "Our lives are at the disposal of the emperor, but our souls and our faith belong to our God." Then Julian, fearing to bring them to public martyrdom, lest their popularity should cause a rebellion and the example of their well-known fortitude be an encouragement to others, sent off soldiers to behead them privately in their own house. Hence the inscription on the spot, "Locus martyrii SS. Joannis et Paoli in ædibus propriis." The church was built by Pammachus, the friend of St. Jerome, on the site of the house of the saints. It is entered by a portico adorned with eight ancient granite columns, interesting as having been erected by the English pope, Nicholas Breakspear, A.D. 1158. The interior, in the basilica form, has sixteen ancient columns and a beautiful Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. In the centre of the floor is a stone, railed off, upon which it is said that the saints were beheaded. Their bodies are contained in a porphyry urn under the high altar. In early times these were the only bodies of saints preserved within the walls of Rome (the rest being in the catacombs). In the Sacramentary of St. Leo, in the Preface of SS. John and Paul, it is said, "Of Thy merciful providence Thou hast vouchsafed to crown not only the circuit of the city with the glorious passions of the martyrs, but also to hide in the very heart of the city itself the victorious limbs of St. John and St. Paul."[164]
Above the tribune are frescoes by Pomerancio. A splendid chapel on the right was built 1868;—two of its alabaster pillars were the gift of Pius IX. Beneath the altar on the left of the tribune is preserved the embalmed body of St. Paul of the Cross (who died 1776), founder of the Order of Passionists, who inhabit the adjoining convent. The aged face bears a beautiful expression of repose;—the body is dressed in the robe which clothed it when living.[165]
Male visitors are admitted through the convent to its large and beautiful Garden, which overhangs the steep side of the Cœlian towards the Coliseum, of which there is a fine view between its ancient cypresses. Here, on a site near the monastery, are some remains believed to be those of the temple built by Agrippina (c. A.D. 57), daughter of Germanicus, to the honour of her deified husband (and uncle) Claudius, after she had sent him to Olympus by feeding him with poisonous mushrooms. This temple was pulled down by Nero, who wished to efface the memory of his predecessor, on the pretext that it interfered with his Golden House; but was rebuilt under Vespasian. In this garden also is the entrance to the vast substructions known as the Vivarium, whence the wild beasts who devoured the early Christian martyrs were frightened by burning tow down a subterranean passage into the arena.
The famous Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice was founded by emigrants from this convent. The memory of these saints was so much honoured up to the time of Pope Gregory the Great, that the eve of their festival was an obligatory fast. Their fête (June 26) is still kept with great solemnities on the Cœlian, when the railing round their place of execution is wreathed and laden with flowers. When the "station" is held at their church, the apse is illuminated.
Continuing to follow the lane up the Cœlian, we reach the richly tinted brick Arch of Dolabella, erected, A.D. 10, by the consuls P. Cornelius Dolabella and Caius Julius Silanus. Nero, building his aqueduct to the palace of the Cæsars, made use of this, which already existed, and included it in his line of arches.
Above the arch is a Hermitage, revered as that where S. Giovanni di Matha lived, and where he died in 1213. Before he came to reside here he had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!
Passing beneath the gateway, we emerge upon the picturesque irregular Piazza of the Navicella, the central point of the Cœlian, which is surrounded by a most interesting group of buildings, and which contains an isolated fragment of the aqueduct of Nero, dear to artists from its colour. Behind this, under the trees, is the little marble Navicella, which is supposed to have been originally a votive offering of a sailor to Jupiter Redux, whose temple stood near this; but which was adapted by Leo X. as a Christian emblem of the Church,—the boat of St. Peter.