It is something of all this that the Eternal City suggests to one as he makes his pilgrimages to shrine and cloister and chapel and Basilica. The mighty Past is eloquent with a thousand voices, and they blend into a choral harmony of promise and prophecy for the nobler future of humanity.

At the foot of the Scala Santa, on either side, are statues of Christ and Judas, and of Christ and Pilate, very interesting groups by Jacometti, and there is also a kneeling statue of Pio Nono.

The statue of Judas is considered one of the most notable of the late modern Italian sculpture.

The Rome of to-day is in strange contrast even to the city that Page and Hawthorne knew, in the comparatively recent past; and the Rome of the ancients is traced only in the churches and the ruins. It is a mot that one hears every language spoken in Rome, except the Italian! So largely has the Seven-hilled City become the pleasure ground of foreign residents. The contrast between the ordinary breakfast-table talk in Rome and in—Boston, for instance, or Washington, is amusing. In the Puritan capital it usually includes the topic of weather predictions and the news in the morning paper, with whatever other of local or personal matters of interest. In Washington, where the very actors and the events that make the nation's history are fairly before one's eyes, the breakfast-table conversation is apt to turn on matters that have not yet got into the papers,—the evening session of the previous night, perhaps, when too long prolonged under the vast dome to admit of its having been noted in the morning press. But in Rome the breakfast-table talk is apt to be of the new excavations just taken from the bed of the Tiber; the question as to whether the head of St. Paul could have touched (at the tragic scene of his execution) at three places so far apart as the tri-fontanes; or a discussion of the marvellous freshness of the mosaics in the interior of the Palace of the Caesars; or, again, of the last night's balls or dinners, and matters most frankly mondaine, and of contemporary life.

The American Embassy, whose location depends on the individual choice of the Ambassador of the time, is now in the old Palazzo del Drago on the corner of the Via Venti Settembre and the Via delle Quattro Fontane. The street floor, like all the old palaces, is not used for living purposes. The portiere, the guards, the corridors, and approaches to the staircases monopolize this space. The piano nobile is the residence of the beautiful and lovely Principessa d'Antuni, the youthful widow of the Principe who was himself a grandson of Marie Christine, the Queen of Spain. The young Princess who was married to him at the age of seventeen, ten years ago, is left with three little children, of whom the only daughter bears the name of her great-grandmother, the Spanish Queen. Perfectly at home in all the romance languages, an accomplished musician, a thinker, a scholar, a student, a lovely figure in life, a beautiful and sympathetic friend is the Princess d'Antuni. She is "of a simplicity," as they say in Italy, investing the dignity of her rank with indescribable grace and sweetness. The two long flights of stairs that lead up to the secundo piano in the Palazzo del Drago—the floor occupied by the American Embassy—have at least a hundred steps to each staircase, yet so broad and easy of ascent as hardly to fatigue one. These flights are carpeted in glowing red, while along the wall are niches in each of which stands an old statue, making the ascent of the guest seem a classic progress.

The Palazzo del Drago has an elevator, but elevator service in Rome is a thing apart, something considered quite too good for human nature's daily food, and the slight power is far too little to permit any number of people to be accommodated, so on any ceremonial occasion the elevator is closed and the guests walk up the two long flights. The total lack of any mastery of mechanical conditions in Italy is very curious.

The grand ball given at the American Embassy just before Ash Wednesday in the winter of 1907 was a very pretty affair. Up the rose-red carpeted stairs the guests walked, the statues looking silently on, but apparently there was no Galatea to step down from her niche and join the happy throng. In the antechamber each guest was asked to write his name in the large autograph books kept for that purpose, and then, passing on, was received by the Ambassador and Ambassadress in the first of the splendid series of salons thrown open for the occasion. At this time it was Mr. and Mrs. Henry White who represented the United States, and won the hearts of all Rome as well, and assisted by their charming daughter, Miss Muriel White, they made this ball an affair to leave its lovely pictures in memory. The scenic setting of an old Roman palace captivates the stranger. It may not impress him as especially comfortable, but it is certainly picturesque, and who would not prefer—at least for the "one night only" of the traditional prima donna announcements—the pictorially picturesque and magnificent to the merely comfortable? The lofty ceilings, painted by artists who have long since vanished from mortal sight, make it impossible to attain the temperature that the American regards as essential to his terrestrial well-being, and as the only sources of heat were the open fireplaces the guests hovered around these and their radii of comfortable warmth were limited. In one salon there was one especially beautiful effect of a great jar of white lilacs placed before a vast mirror at sufficient distance to give the mirror reflection an individuality as a thing apart, and the effect was that of a very garden of paradise. The music was fascinating, the decorations all in good taste, and the occasion was most brilliant,—tres charmante indeed. The American ambassadress was ablaze with her famous diamonds, her corsage being literally covered with them, and her coiffure adorned with a coronet, but the temperature soon forced the ambassadress to partially eclipse her splendor with the little ermine shoulder cape that is an indispensable article for evening dress in Rome. The temperature does not admit the possibility of decollete gowns without some protection, when these resplendent glittering robes that seem woven of the stars are worn. Among the more distinguished guests, aside from the corps diplomatique and the titled nobility of Rome and visiting foreigners, were M. Carolus Duran, the celebrated portrait artist of Paris, and among other interesting people were Miss Elise Emmons of Leamington, England, a grand-niece of Charlotte Cushman. M. Carolus Duran was very magnificent, his breast covered with jewelled orders and decorations from the various societies, academies, and governments that have honored him. He is a short man and has grown quite stout, but he carries himself with inimitable grace and dignity, and in his luminous eyes one still surprises that far-away look which Sargent so wonderfully caught in his portrait of the great French artist, painted in his earlier life.

The number of spacious salons with their easy-chairs and sofas enabled all guests who desired to ensconce themselves luxuriously to do so, and watch the glittering scene. The supper room and the salon for dancing were not more alluring than the salons wherein one could study this brilliant throng of diplomates, titled nobility, distinguished artists, social celebrities, and those who were, in various ways, each persona grata in Rome. Among those at this particular festivity were the American novelist, Frank Hamilton Spearman, with Mrs. Spearman. In late American fiction Mr. Spearman has made for himself a distinctive place as the novelist whose artistic eye has discerned the romance in the new phases of life created by the extensive systems of mountain railroading, and the great irrigation schemes of the far West, which have not only opened up new territory, but have called into evidence new combinations of the qualities most potent in human life,—love, sacrifice, heroism, devotion to duty, and tragedy and comedy as well. In his novels, "The Daughter of a Magnate" and "Whispering Smith," in such vivid and delightful short stories as "The Ghost at Point of Rocks," which appeared in Scribner's Magazine for August of 1907, Mr. Spearman has dramatized the pathos, the wit, the vast and marvellous spirit of enterprise, the desolation of isolated regions, the all-pervading potency and one may almost say intimacy of modern life made possible by the Arabian Nights' dream of wireless telegraphy, "soaring" cars, long-distance telephoning, and lightning express train service in cars that climb the mountains beyond the clouds, or dash through tunnels with ten thousand feet of mountains above them. Mr. Spearman is the novelist par excellence of this intense vie modernite.

On Washington's Birthday, again, the stately salons of the American Embassy in the old Palazzo del Drago were well filled from four to six with an assemblage which expressed its patriotism and devotion to Washington by appearing in its most faultless raiment and in an apparent appreciation of the refreshment tables, from which cake and ices, tea and various other delicacies, were served.

The informal weekly receptions at the Embassy are always delightful, and the dinners and ceremonial entertainments are given with that faultless grace which characterizes the American ambassadress.

The American consulate is always a charming centre in Rome, and in the present residence of Consul-General and Mrs. De Castro, who have domiciled themselves on a lofty floor of a palace in the Via Venti Settembre, commanding beautiful views that make a picture of every window, the consulate is one of the favorite social centres for Americans and other nationalities as well, who enjoy the charming welcome of Mrs. De Castro.

Professor and Mrs. Jesse Benedict Carter, in their lovely home in the Via Gregoriana, add another to the pleasant American centres in the Eternal City, Professor Carter having succeeded Professor Norton as the principal of the American Classical School.

Mrs. Elihu Vedder, assisted by her accomplished daughter, Miss Anita Vedder, has a pretty fashion of receiving weekly in Mr. Vedder's studio in the Via Flaminia, and these Saturday receptions at the Vedders' are a feature of social life in Rome which are greatly sought. The distinguished artist reserves these afternoons for leisurely conversation, and pictures and sketches are enjoyed the more that they may be enjoyed in the presence of their creator. Miss Vedder has called to life again the almost lost art of tapestry, and her productions of wonderful beauty are considered as among the most desirable in modern decorative art. Among these tapestries are "The Lover's Song," "Salome Dancing before Herod," "The Annunciation," "The Legend of the Unicorn," "The Lovers' Picnic," and "The Lovers." The tapestries were painted in Rome and in the Vedder villa, Torre Quattro Venti on Capri, where the artist and his wife and daughter pass their summers. The established English Church has two chapels in Rome, one the Holy Trinity, of which Rev. Dr. Baldwin is the rector, and the other English chapel in Via del Babuino has for its chaplain Rev. Dr. Nutcombe Oxenham, whose ministry is one of the most helpful factors in Rome. Dr. and Mrs. Oxenham occupy a charming apartment in the Piazza del Popolo, the most picturesque piazza in Rome, with the terraced Pincion hillside crowned by the Villa di Medici on one side, and the "twin churches" on another; and the beautiful salon of Mrs. Oxenham, with its wealth of books and classic engravings and gems of pictures, is one of the homelike interiors in Rome. Mr. and Mrs. Oxenham receive on Wednesdays, and an hour with them and their guests is always a privileged one.

The work of this church, largely through the active co-operation of Mrs. Oxenham, extends into wide charities which are without discrimination as to sect or race,—the only consideration being the human need to be met in the name of Him whose care and love are for each and all.

Among the delightful hostesses of Rome is the American wife of Cavaliere Cortesi, an Italian man of letters, and in their apartment, in one of the notable palaces in the Corso, some of the most brilliant musicals and receptions are given, the "All'Illustrissima Signora" being assisted in the informal serving of tea by the two little fairy daughters, Annunziata and Elizabetta, whose childish loveliness lingers with the habitues of this pleasant home.

In the Palazzo Senni, in the old part of Rome, looking out on Castel San Angelo and the Ponte d'Angelo, across to the dome of St. Peter's, the Listers had their home; and though Mrs. Lister, one of the most distinguished English ladies of Rome, has gone on into the fairer world beyond, her daughter, Miss Roma Lister, sustains the charming hospitalities for which her mother was famous. Her salons on the piano nobile of the palace are rich in souvenirs and rare objects of art. Mrs. Lister, who was of a noted English house, was evidently a favorite with Queen Victoria and the royal family; and her marriage gifts included two drawings by the Queen, both autographed, and a crayon portrait of the Empress Frederick with autographic inscription to Mrs. Lister. Another personal gift was a portrait of Cardinal Newman, with his autograph. A bust of Lady Paget of Florence, the widow of Sir Augustus Paget, formerly the English Ambassador to Italy, is another of the interesting treasures which include, indeed, gifts and offerings from a large number of those eminent in state, in art, in literature, or in the church. The gracious hospitality of Miss Lister is dispensed to groups of cosmopolitan guests, and her dinners and other entertainments are among the most brilliant in Rome.

The Eternal City is not as hospitable to various phases of modern thought as is Florence, in which Theosophy, Christian Science, and psychic investigation flourish with rapidly increasing ardor; but Rome has a Theosophical Society, among whose leaders is the Baroness Rosenkrans, the mother of the distinguished young Danish novelist, and the aunt of Miss Roma Lister. The society has its rooms in the very heart of old Rome, and holds weekly meetings, often with an English lecturer as the speaker of the hour. A Theosophical library, in both English and Italian, is easily accessible, and the meetings are conducted in either language as it chances at the time. The accession of Annie Besant to the presidency of the Theosophical Society, succeeding Colonel Olcott, whose death occurred early in 1907, was most satisfactory to the Roman members. Mrs. Besant is one of the most remarkable women of the day. She is in no sense allied with any fads or freaks; she is essentially a woman of scholarship and poise, of genuine grasp of significant thought and of brilliant eloquence. Theosophy, rightly interpreted, is in no sense antagonistic, but, rather, supplemental to Christianity. It offers the intellectual explanation—the details, so to speak—of the great spiritual truths of the Bible.

Rome seems fairly on its way to become an English-speaking city, so numerous are the Americans and English who throng to Rome in the winter.

There are now at least a dozen large new hotels on the scale of the best modern hotels in New York and Paris, beside the multitude of the older ones which are comfortable and retain all their popularity; yet this increase in accommodation does not equal the increase in demand. In February the tide of travel sets in toward Rome, and from that date until after Easter every nook and niche are filled to overflowing. The demand for apartments in Rome is greater than the supply, although the city is being constantly extended and new buildings are rapidly being erected. It would seem as if, with the present increasingly large number of Americans and English, it might be an admirable financial enterprise for capitalists to come and build comfortable modern apartment hotels. There seems to be no adequate reason why, in this age, people should be compelled to live in these gloomy, dreary, cold, old stone palaces, without elevator service and with no adequate heating, lighting, and running-water facilities. There would seem to be no conceivable reason why these conveniences should not be at hand in Rome as well as in New York. As for the climate, with warm houses to live in, it would be charmingly comfortable, for the deadly cold is not in the temperature out of doors, but only in the interiors. One is warm in the sunshine in the streets, when he is fairly frozen in the house. Mentioning this, however, with wonder that some enterprising American did not begin such building operations, a friend who has lived for sixteen years in Rome replied that the Italians would never permit it; that no foreigner is allowed to come in here and initiate business operations. And the Italians continue building after the old and clumsy fashion of five hundred years ago.

Italy has a curiously pervasive and general suspicion of any latter-day comfort. The new apartment houses of from four to seven stories are largely without any elevator; if there is one it usually only ascends about halfway, and it is so clumsy and slow in its methods, so poorly supported by power, that half the time it does not run at all. The streets of Rome are paved with rough stones; the sidewalks are very narrow; the lighting is inadequate. Bathrooms are rare and insufficient in number, and all interior lighting and heating arrangements lack much that is desirable according to American ideas of comfort.

Still the Eternal City is so impressive in and of itself that sunshine or storm, comfort or the reverse, can hardly affect one's intensity of joy and wonder and mysterious, unanalyzable rapture in it. The twentieth-century Rome is a very different affair from the Rome on which Hawthorne entered one dark, cold, stormy winter night more than half a century ago. In the best modern hotels one may be as comfortable as he likes, with all the fascinations of life added besides. No wonder that Rome is one of the great winter centres, with some of the most interesting people in the world always to be found under the spell of its enchantment.

The Rome of to-day is a curious mixture of ruins and of modern buildings which are neither modern nor mediaeval in their structure, but many of which combine the most picturesque features of the latter with the latest beauty of French and American architectural art. The classic buildings are now largely in unpleasant surroundings; as, for instance, the Pantheon, which is surrounded by a fish market, with unspeakable odors and other repulsive features. "But the portico, with its sixteen Corinthian columns, is forever majestic; the interior, a vast circular cell surmounted by a dome through which alone it is lighted, there being no windows in the walls, is massive and grim, but the magical illumination, the eye constantly revealing the sky above, gives it wonderful beauty. Over the outer portals is the inscription of its erection by Agrippa twenty-seven years before Christ, so it has stood for nearly two thousand years. Colossal statues of Augustus and Agrippa fill niches. In diameter the interior of the Pantheon is one hundred and thirty-two feet, and it is the same in height, which insures the singularly harmonious proportions. The tribune of the High-Altar is cut in the thickness of the wall in the form of a semicircle, and is ornamented, like the door, with four pilasters and two columns of violet marble. The six chapels are also cut in the wall and ornamented by two columns and two pilasters. The columns and the pilasters support the beautiful cornice of white marble; the frieze is of porphyry, and goes round the whole temple. Above this order there is a species of attic with fourteen niches, and the great cornice from which rises the majestic dome. Eight other niches are between the chapels, and these are also with a pediment supported by two Corinthian columns. They are now converted into altars. In this temple are buried several artists, among whom are Raphael, Giovanni da Udine, Baldassare Peruzzi, and Annibale Carracci. Raphael is buried beneath the base of the statue called la Madonna del Sasso, sculptured by Lorenzetti. This church is, however, without paintings or sculptures of much interest. Victor Emmanuel was entombed here on the 20th of January, 1878, and King Umberto on the 9th of August, 1900." One of the imposing ceremonies of Rome is that always celebrated in the Pantheon on March 14, in memory of King Umberto Primo.

A grand catafalque, surmounted by the royal crown, and surrounded by tall candelabra with wax candles, is erected in the centre of the temple, draped with black velvet and gold lace, and lighted with electric lamps. The mass is for a chorus of voices only. All the civil and military authorities, the state dignitaries, and the corps diplomatique to the court of Italy are present. The troops, in full dress uniform, file in the Piazza of the Collegio Romano, Via Pie di Marmo, and the Piazza della Minerva, enclosing thus a large square in the Piazza del Pantheon. The spectacle is one of the most imposing of all Roman ceremonies.

The King, and Queen Elena, and the Dowager Queen Margherita, accompanied by their respective civil and military households, assist at the requiem mass celebrated in the Pantheon, and at a commemoration service, on the same day, in the Royal Chapel of the Sudario, where also assemble the ladies and gentlemen of the Order of the Annunziata.

On the same morning the feast of St. Gregory, Pope and Doctor of the church, is celebrated at his church on the Caelian Hill. He was born of a noble family, and was Prefect of Rome in 573. Pope Pelagius II made him regionary deacon of Rome, and sent him as legate to Constantinople in 578, where he remained till the death of Pelagius, when he was elected Pope (590). He introduced the Gregorian chant. His first great act was to send St. Augustine to convert the Saxons of England to the Christian faith. An inscription in the Church of San Gregorio Magno states that St. Augustine was educated in the abbey which was erected on the site of the present church by Gregory, and that many early archbishops of York and Canterbury were also educated there. It was on the steps of this church that Augustine and his forty monks took leave of Gregory, when setting out for England. He died in 604, after a pontificate of thirteen years and six months. He was buried in the portico of the Vatican Basilica, and his body lies under the altar dedicated to him in this same church. His church, on the Caelian Hill, was built on the site of the monastery founded by him. In the chapel of the triclinium, near the church, the table on which he served the poor is shown. Near the church also is seen his cell, where his marble chair and one of his arms are exhibited.

During the Lenten season of 1907 one of the privileges of Rome was to hear the sermons of Monsignor Vaughn, in the English Catholic Church of San Silvestre. Monsignor Vaughn is the private chaplain of the Pope. His discourses attracted increasing throngs of both Catholic and Protestant hearers. This celebrated prelate is a brother of the late English Cardinal. He is a man of great distinction of presence, of beautiful voice and fascination of manner. One discourse had for its theme the joys of the life that is to come. The spiritual body, he said, has many qualities not pertaining to the physical body. It is immured from all disease and accidents; it is subtle and can pass through any substance which is (apparently) solid to us, as, for instance, when Jesus appeared in the midst of his disciples, "the doors being shut." It is not a clog on the soul, continued Monsignor Vaughn; the spiritual body is the vehicle of the soul and can waft its way through the air; it can walk the air as the physical body walks the earth. It is not—as is the physical body—the prison of the soul, but the companion of the soul. This is all a very enlightened presentation of spiritual truth, and it is little wonder that such preaching attracts large congregations. Holy Week in Rome bears little resemblance now to that of the past. The Pope is not visible in any of the ceremonials in any of the churches; and the impressiveness of former Catholic ceremonials is greatly lessened. Indeed, with the passing of the temporal power of the Pope, the picturesqueness of Rome largely vanished.

Not, assuredly, from any lack of reverence for the colossal cathedral of St. Peter's is that Basilica a resort for Sunday afternoons; it suggests a social reunion, where every one goes, listens as he will to the music of the Papal choir in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and strolls about the vast interior where the promenade of the multitude does not yet disturb in the least the vesper service in the chapel. Here one meets everybody; the general news of the day is exchanged; greeting and salutation and pleasant little conversational interludes mark the afternoon, while the sun sinks behind the splendid pile of the Palazzo Vaticano, and the golden light through the window of the tribune fades into dusk. Can one ever lose out of memory the indescribable charm of this leisurely sauntering, in social enjoyment, in the wonderful interior of St. Peter's?

In the way of the regulation sight-seeing the visitor to Rome compasses most of his duty in this respect on his initial sojourn and goes the rounds that no one ever need dream of repeating. Once for all the visitor to Rome goes down into the Catacombs; makes his appallingly hard journey over Castel San Angelo, into its cells and dungeons, and to the colossal salon in which is Hadrian's tomb; once for a lifetime he climbs St. Peter's dome; drives out to old St. Agnes and descends into the crypt; visits the Church of the Capucines and beholds the ghastly spectacle of the monks' skulls; drives in the Appian Way; visits the Palace of the Caesars, the Baths of Caracalla—a mass of ruins; the Forum; the Temples of Vesta and Isis; the Coliseum, and the classic old Pantheon. These form a kind of skeleton for the regulation sight-seeing of the Eternal City; things which, once done, are checked off with the feeling that the entire duty of the tourist has been fulfilled, and that, henceforth in Rome, there is laid up for him the crown of enjoyment, if not rejoicing; that he may go again and again to study the marvellous treasures of the Vatican galleries, the masterpieces of art in the Raphael stanze in the Vatican, the interesting pictures and sculpture in the many rich churches and galleries. The deadly chill of most of these galleries and churches in the winter is beyond words to describe. It is as if the gloom and chill and darkness of a thousand centuries were there concentrated.

One of the regulation places for the devout sight-seer, who feels responsible to his conscience for improving his privileges, is the Museo Nazionale, or the Tiberine Museum, a large proportion of whose treasures have been excavated in making the new embankments of the Tiber. It is located on the site of the Baths of Diocletian, the great ruins of which surround it in the most uncanny way. Built around a large court, the salons of the museum are entered from the inner cloisters. In the centre of the court is a fountain, and around it are antique fragments of statues, columns, and statuettes found in many places. The famous Ludovisi collection of antique statuary is now permanently placed in this museum,—a collection that includes the "Ludovisi Mars;" "Hercules," with a cornucopia; the "Hermes of Theseus," the "Discobolus Hermes;" the "Venus of Gnidus" as copied by Praxiteles; the "Dying Medusa;" the "Ludovisi Juno," which Winckelmann declares to be the finest head of Juno extant, a Greek work of the fourth century; a "Cupid and Psyche;" the two "Muses of Astronomy" and of "Epic Poetry," "Urania and Calliope;" "an Antoninus;" the largest sarcophagus known; a "Tragic Mask" (colossal) in rosso antico; a bust of "Marcus Aurelius" in bronze, and many other priceless works.

The splendor of scenic setting for art in the magnificent salons of the Casino Borghese has never been surpassed. They are, perhaps, the most impressive of any Roman interior, with lofty, splendidly decorated ceilings and walls, where recess and niche hold priceless sculptures. The splendor of these salons, indeed, quite exceeds description. In the principal one is a group on one wall—a colossal relief—representing Marcus Curtius plunging into the gulf in the Forum. There are busts of the twelve Caesars; there are busts of all the Roman Emperors, with alabaster draperies, placed on pedestals of red granite. There are Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne;" Canova's celebrated statue of Princess Pauline Borghese (the sister of Napoleon I); Bernini's "David" and "AEneas and Anchises;" Thorwaldsen's "Faun;" "Diana," "Isis," "Juno," and many other celebrated classic statues. All the great paintings which were formerly in the Palazzo Borghese—over six hundred in all—are now in this casino. The great work in this collection is Raphael's "Entombment of Christ," painted in his twenty-fourth year. Titian's "Divine and Human Love;" Raphael's portrait of "Caesar Borgia;" Correggio's "Danae;" Domenichino's "Cumaean Sibyl" and "Diana;" Peruzzi's "Venus Leaving the Bath;" Van Dyck's "Crucifixion;" Titian's "Venus and Cupid;" and "Annunciation," by Paul Veronese; Vasari's "Lucrezia Borgia;" Botticelli's "Holy Family and Angels;" Van Dyck's "Entombment;" Carlo Dolce's "Mater Dolorosa," and Sassoferrato's "Three Ages of Man" are among the great masterpieces in this museum.

The Villa Borghese (by which is meant the park) is some three miles in extent, and was laid out some two hundred years ago by Cardinal Borghese. As recently as 1902 it was purchased by the government for three million francs, and its official name is now "Villa Comunale Umberto Primo." These grounds contain fountains, antique statues, tablets, small temples and many inscriptions, with statues of AEsculapius and Apollo, and an Egyptian gateway. They are open all day to every one freely and are one of the great attractions of Rome.

The great palaces of Rome are of later date than those of Florence. There are some eighty principal ones, of which the Palazzos Veneziano, Farnese, Doria, Barberini, Colonna, and the Rospigliosi (containing Guido's famous "Aurora") are the most important. The Farnesina Palace contains some of the most interesting pictures in Rome, and the traditions of the residence of Agostino Chigi, during the pontificate of Leo X, are still found in Rome,—traditions of the lavish magnificence of the entertainments given here to the Pope and the Cardinals.

The Monte Pincio is the famous drive of Roman society, and the promenade around the brow of the hill offers one of the most enchanting views of the world. Near the Trinita di Monti stands the historic Villa Medici, the French Academy of which the great Carolus Duran is now the director. The view across the valley in which lies the Piazza di Spagna, the river to St. Peter's, from the Villa Medici, is one of the finest in Rome.

The architecture of the garden facade is attributed to Michael Angelo. These gardens have a circuit of more than a mile, laid out in the formal rectangles and densely bordered walks of the Italian custom. All manner of old fragments of sculpture are scattered through them,—a torso, a broken bust, a ruined statue, an old and partly broken fountain,—and entablatures and reliefs are seen in the walls on every hand. No sound of the city ever penetrates into this dense foliage which secludes the gardens of the famous Villa Medici.

One of the features of Roman life is the fashionable drive on Monte Pincio in the late afternoons. An hour or two before sunset the terrace of the Piazza Trinita di Monti begins to be thronged with pedestrians, who lean over the marble balustrade, gazing at the incomparable pictured panorama where the vast dome of St. Peter's, the dense pines of the Villa Pamphilia-Doria on the Janiculum, and the dark cypress groves on Monte Mario loom up against the golden western sky.

Compared with the extensive parks of modern cities the Monte Pincio would prefigure itself as a drive for fairies alone. It comprises a few acres only, thickly decorated with trees and shrubbery, with a casino for the orchestra that plays every afternoon, and a circular carriage drive so limited in extent that the same carriage comes in view every few minutes.

The Eternal City has had so many birthdays that one would fancy them to have become negligible; but it was announced on April 21 of 1907 that the date was a special anniversary, and she took on aspects of festivity. The municipal palaces and museums were hung with tapestries, flags were flying from the Capitol, the municipal guards were all in full dress uniform and the municipal orchestra played in the Piazza Colonna. The historic bell began ringing at eight in the morning in peals that were well calculated to call the Caesars from their tombs and which might, indeed, have been mistaken for the final trumpet calls of Gabriel. But the Romans take their pleasures rather sadly and sternly,—not like the light-hearted Florentines in song and laughter, or with the joyous abandon of the Neapolitans,—so there was no special manifestation on the part of the populace, and the day, cold, gloomy, and cheerless, did not inspire gayety.

When the Republic of Rome was established (on Feb. 9, 1849) a provisional government was appointed. In March of that year Mazzini proposed that the assembly should appoint a Committee of War, and it was decided to send troops to Piedmont. Later a triumvirate, consisting of Mazzini, Saffi, and Armellini, was formed, but disaster was near. In April the French troops landed at Civita Vecchia, and the Italians prepared to defend their country from the control of Louis Napoleon. Mazzini is said to have been "the life and the soul" of this defence. But the Republic was doomed, and when it had fallen the Pope returned, only under the protection of the French. But the French Empire, too, was doomed to fall; and when Garibaldi transferred his successes to Victor Emmanuel, the monarchy was consolidated by the union of Rome with Italy, and the present "Via Venti Settembre" in Rome—the street named to commemorate that 20th of September, 1870, on which the Italian troops entered the city and the Papal reign ended—perpetuates the story of those eventful days. "Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi have been designated, along with Mazzini, as the founders of the modern Italy," said Dr. William Clarke, "but a broad line divides Mazzini from the others." Dr. Clarke sees between Cavour and Mazzini "the everlasting conflict between the idealist and the man of the world. The former," he continues, "stands by the intellect and the conscience; the latter by the limitations of actual fact and the practical difficulties of the case," and Dr. Clarke notes further:—

"It was pre-eminently Mazzini who gave to Italy the breath of a new life, who taught her people constancy in devotion to an ideal good. Prophets are rarely successful in their own day, and so it has been with the prophet of modern Italy. The making of Italy has not proceeded in the way he hoped it would; for the Italians, who are an eminently subtle and diplomatic people, have apparently thought it best to bend to the hard facts by which they have been surrounded. But if, as Emerson teaches, facts are fluid to thought, we may believe that the ideas of Mazzini will yet prevail in the nation of his birth, and that he may yet be regarded as the spiritual father of the future Italian commonwealth. For of him, if of any modern man, we may say that he

'Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream.'"



Between the period of the establishment of the Roman Republic in 1849 and the consummation of United Italy in 1870 the years were rich to the artist, whatever they may have been to philosopher and patriot. The way for the painter and the sculptor seems to have been a flowery and a pictorial one,—a very via buona fortuna, through a golden, artistic atmosphere. The perpetual excursions may lead the serious spectator to wonder where working hours come in, but, at all events, those days are rich in color. Friends grouped together by the unerring law of elective affinities loitered in galleries and churches. San Martina, near the Mamertine prisons, was a point of interest because of Thorwaldsen's bequest to it of the original cast of his beautiful statue of "Christ" which is in Copenhagen. This is, perhaps, the finest work ever conceived by the Danish sculptor, and is one that no visitor of to-day can behold unmoved. Both Canova and Bernini are also represented in this church,—the former by a statue of "Religion" and the latter by a bust of Pietro da Cortona. Beneath the present Church of San Martina is the ancient one containing the shrine of the martyr, under a superb bronze altar. Of this church, Mrs. Jameson says in her "Sacred and Legendary Art":—

"At the foot of the Capitoline Hill, on the left hand as we descend from the Ara Coeli into the Forum, there stood in very ancient times a small chapel, dedicated to St. Martina, a Roman virgin. The veneration paid to her was of very early date, and the Roman people were accustomed to assemble there on the first day of the year. This observance was, however, confined to the people, and was not very general till 1634, an era which connects her in rather an interesting manner with the history of art. In this year, as they were about to repair her chapel, they discovered, walled into the foundations, a sarcophagus of terra cotta, in which was the body of a young female, whose severed head reposed in a separate casket. These remains were very naturally supposed to be those of the saint who had been so long venerated on that spot. The discovery was hailed with the utmost exultation, not by the people only, but by those who led the minds and consciences of the people. The Pope himself, Urban VIII, composed hymns in her praise; and Cardinal Francesco Barberini undertook to rebuild her church."

The painter, Pietro da Cortona, entered into this feeling and at his own expense built the chapel and painted for its altar piece the picture representing the saint in triumph, while the temple in which she has gone to sacrifice falls in ruins from a raging tempest.

In any stray ramble in Rome the sojourner might chance, at any moment, upon obelisk, a pedestal or inscription linked with the great names of the historic past. Hawthorne has recorded how, by mere chance, he turned from the Via delle Quattro Fontane into the Via Quirinale and was thus lured on to an obelisk and a fountain on the pedestal of which on one side was the inscription, "Opus Phidias," and on the other, "Opus Praxiteles," and he exclaims:—

"What a city is this, when one may stumble, by mere chance—at a street corner as it were—on the works of two such sculptors! I do not know the authority," he continues, "on which these statues (Castor and Pollux I presume) are attributed to Phidias and Praxiteles; but they impressed me as noble and godlike, and I feel inclined to take them for what they purport to be."

While the Papal ceremonies are neither so frequent nor so magnificent as in former days, still any hotel guest in Rome is liable, any morning, on coming down to the salle-a-manger for coffee, to find every woman (who is taking her Rome seriously) arrayed in a black robe with a black lace veil on her head. One would fancy they were all a procession of nuns, about to retire from the world into the strict seclusion of the cloister. But it is nothing so momentous. It is only that every lady, with the devotion to spectacles which every visitor in Rome feels, as a matter of course, has secured the pink ticket entitling her to admission to the Vatican Palace to see the "passage" of the Pope, as he makes his way, attended by the Cardinals of the Sacred College, to the Sistine Chapel where his Holiness "creates" new Cardinals. Although rumored that the spectacle will be a gorgeous one, that the Pope will be carried aloft preceded by the silver trumpeters and attended by the Cardinals and the ambassadors and other dignitaries in the full dress of their ceremonial costumes and their orders, the reality is less impressive. Some feminine enthusiasts fare forth at the heroic hour of eight, although the procession is not announced to pass until a quarter after ten (which in Italy should be translated as a quarter after eleven, at the earliest, if not after twelve, which would be the more probable), in order to secure good standing room. For everybody is to stand—of course, comfort being a thing conspicuous only by its absence in Italy! Those of us too well aware by the experiences of previous visits to Italy that no Italian function was ever on time, from the starting of a railway train to the crowning of a king, only betake ourselves to the glories of the Palazzo Vaticano at the hour named, and we have then—as one's prophetic soul or his commonplace memory warned him—to wait more than an hour wedged into a dense crowd of all nationalities, none of whom seem at this particular juncture, at least, to be at all overburdened with good manners. And what went they out for to seek? Instead of an impressive spectacle—a thing to remember for a lifetime—one merely sees Pius X walking, surrounded by his Cardinals in a group,—not a procession,—he alone in the centre with his mitre on his head,—the whole scene hardly lasting over a minute, and as his Holiness is not as tall as most of his Cardinals, he is almost hidden from view. It had been rumored that the Pope was to be borne aloft in the Papal chair, preceded by the traditional white fan and the silver trumpets; but the present Pope is temperamentally inclined to minimize all the ceremonials investing his sacred office.

Yet there is always a thrill in entering the Vatican. To ascend that splendid Scala Regia designed by Bernini, with one of the most ingeniously treated perspective effects to be found, it may be, in the entire world; to cross this Scala with its interesting frescoes by Salviati and others; to see at near range the picturesque Swiss Guard,—surely any pretext to enjoy such a morning is easily accepted of whatever occurrence one may grasp in order to obtain the hour.

One curious feature of the past is to-day equally in evidence in Rome. Strolling at any time into the Church of San Agostino one beholds a curious spectacle. It is in this church that is placed the beautiful bronze statue of the Virgin and Child by Sansovino. It is approached by a platform on which is placed a stool that enables one to mount and thus reach the foot of the statue, which is kissed and the wish of the devotee is offered. This Madonna is believed to have the power to grant each wish and prayer; to heal the sick; restore the blind, the deaf, and the lame; to grant immunity from loss or illness; to grant success and prosperity. The poor Madonna must have her hands full with these avalanches of petitions, but she sits calmly in state and, if the striking testimony of votive offerings can be credited, she is most amiable in granting the prayers of her devotees. For she is hung with priceless jewels; necklaces, brooches, bracelets, diamond and ruby and sapphire rings on her fingers, she is a blaze of splendor. Around this statue there is a perpetual crowd, whatever hour of day one chances to wander in, and from prince to beggar the bronze foot is kissed, as each waits his turn to mount the stool and prefer his secret wish. The walls of the church are covered with the votive offerings to the Madonna for her aid,—rich jewels, orders, tablets,—offerings of all kinds. In this church is entombed the body of Santa Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, placed in an urn of verd-antique, in a special chapel beautifully decorated. After preferring one's secret wish to the Virgin one must wander on to the Fontane de Trevi and throw his penny into the water to insure his return to Rome, and then he may rest, mens conscia recti!

Although Holy Week in Rome has less ceremonial observance in these latter days than those of the impressive scenes so vividly portrayed by Mme. de Stael in "Corinne," it still attracts a multitude of visitors and offers much to touch and thrill the life of the spirit, quite irrespective as to whether the visitor be of the Catholic or Protestant faith. In the great essentials of Christianity, all followers of Christ unite. The Pope does not now take part in public services on Easter, and that scene of the Pontifical blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's given to the multitude below who throng the piazza remains only in memory and in record. But the stately and solemn services of Good Friday in the vast and grand interior of St. Peter's are an experience to linger forever in memory. The three hours' service—the chanting of the Miserere—was a scene to impress the imagination. This service is held in the late afternoon of Good Friday, in the tribune of St. Peter's, the extreme end of the church where the vast window of yellow glass gives a perpetually golden light. The chair believed to have been that of St. Peter's is here placed, enclosed in ivory and supported by statues of four Fathers of the church, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, and St. Athanasius, from a design of Bernini.

In the tribune is the tomb of Urban VIII (who was Matteo Barberini), of which the redundant decoration tells the story that it is also Bernini's work. Opposite this tomb is that of Paul III, by della Porta, under the supervision of Michael Angelo, it is said, and the beauty and dignity of the bronze figure of the aged Pope, in the act of giving the benediction, quite confirm this tradition. On a tablet in the wall of the tribune are engraved the names of all the bishops and prelates who, in 1854, accepted the belief of the Immaculate Conception,—this tablet being placed by the order of Pio Nono.

In this tribune on the late afternoon of the Good Friday of 1907 the seats were filled with worshippers to listen to the three hours' chant of the Miserere. Princes and peasants sat side by side, and an immense throng who could not find seats stood, often wandering away in the dim distances of the cathedral and ever and again returning. The high altar, where Canova's beautiful figure of the kneeling Pope always enchains the visitor, was, as usual, surrounded. The lights burned—these perpetual lamps—and the moving throng went and came. The scene grew mystic, dream-like, as the solemn music floated on the air.

The Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, on the left of the cathedral, was made into the sepulchre that day, and anything more beautiful than the myriad altar lights and the flowers could not be imagined. At the altar black-robed nuns were kneeling, and all over the chapel, kneeling on the floor, were people of all grades and ranks of life, from the duchess and princess to the beggar woman with a ragged shawl on her shoulders and her baby in her arms. St. Peter's was nearly filled all that day with people, not crowded, but apparently thronged in almost every part.

The altar in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament was one mass of deep red roses. The chapel was completely darkened, but the blaze of myriads of tall candles illuminated the roses and the black-robed nuns and the black-robed devotees. It was a scene never to be forgotten.

Even in the latter-day Rome, historic names are not wanting. One of these, the Princess Christina Bonaparte, nee Ruspoli, died in 1907 in her Roman villa in Via Venti Settembre. She was the widow of Prince Napoleon Charles Bonaparte and a cousin of the Empress Eugenie. With her husband in Paris until 1870, she fled (whilst her husband was fighting at Metz) as soon as the Commune was proclaimed. The princess was considered a beautiful woman and her portrait had been painted by Ernest Hebert, but it was lost when the Palace of the Tuileries was destroyed in 1870.

With this princess dies the name of the Bonaparte family. Her daughters, Donna Maria Gotti-Bonaparte and Princess Maria della Moskowa, were often with her in Rome.

The Palazzo Bonaparte is very near Porta Pia. Although called a palace, it is simply a plain house of some five stories, with narrow halls and stone staircases, no elevator, no electric lights. The princess occupied the first floor, while the apartments above were let to various families.

With the exception of the royal palaces there are few in which suites are not obtainable for residence by any one who desires them.



It was at a pleasant dejeuner one spring day in Rome that the project was launched, that we should go motoring that afternoon to Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Lago di Nemi, and all that wonderful region. We were lunching with a friend who had a charming apartment in one of the sumptuous old palaces of Rome, where, in a niche on the marble staircase, the statue of Caesar Augustus stood,—a copy of the famous statue in the Capitoline,—where lofty, decorated ceilings, old paintings and sculptures adorned the rooms, and where from the windows we looked out on the tragedy-haunted Castel San Angelo, with the dome of San Pietro in the background. Our friend who invited us to fly in his motor had brought his touring car over from America. The one note of new luxury now is for travellers to journey with their touring cars. In a year or two more it will be airships or soaring machines. On this wonderful May afternoon, all azure and gold, we started off in the great, luxurious touring car which was arranged even to carry two trunks, with a safe in it for the deposit of valuables, a hamper for refreshments, and, indeed, almost every conceivable convenience. On we flew through Rome, past the great Basilica of San Maria Maggiore; past the wonderful pile of San Giovanni Laterano, with the colossal statues of the apostles surmounting the facade; through the Porta San Giovanni into the narrow, walled lane leading out on the Campagna; on, on, to the Alban hills. We flew past olive orchards and vineyards, and the vast green pasture lands of the Campagna whose vivid green was ablaze with scarlet poppies. Far away to the west there was a white shining line—the line of the sea.

At Frascati we stopped at the Villa Torlonia, the country place of the ducal family, whose grand Roman palazzo is in the Bocca di Leone in the old part of Rome. The Torlonia have an only daughter, Donna Teresa, whose debutante ball a year ago is said to have been the most magnificent entertainment in Rome for fifty years. A writer, in a recent article on the nobility of Rome, said of this family:—

"The Torlonia figure repeatedly in the novels of Thackeray, who was never tired of portraying them. They have been most useful citizens, and since the days of the old army contractor, who founded the house, have augmented the family wealth by judicious investments, especially in connection with the draining and reclaiming of the marsh lands that abound in the former Papal States. They have contracted matrimonial alliances with the Colonna, with the Borghese, the Belmonte, the Doria, and the Sforza."

The Villa Torlonia at Frascati is a very large estate with extensive gardens, terraces, and a cascade of three falls on the hillside, which is turned on (the water) at pleasure. The house, however, is a shabby-looking affair, a two or three story, rambling, yellow structure, which, at Newport, would not be considered too good for the gardener.

After the usual fashion of the Italians who seldom travel, the Torlonia, wealthy as they are, simply remove from their palace in Rome to their villa at Frascati instead of travelling to Switzerland, Germany, or elsewhere in the summer.

The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland were the guests of the Torlonia that day, the entire party enjoying themselves al fresco, and the beautiful cascade pouring down within the near distance.

These outlying towns, Frascati, Albano, Castel Gandolfo, and Lago di Nemi, the picturesque group in the Alban Mountains, are some sixteen to eighteen miles from Rome. These Alban hills rise like an island from the vast plain of the Campagna, the highest point being some three thousand feet above sea level. They are covered with villages and castles and villas, and have in all a population of some fifty thousand. The region is volcanic, and the beautiful Lago di Nemi and Lago di Albano were the craters of extinct volcanoes. All this region was the haunt of Cicero, Virgil, and Livy. At Tusculum, near Frascati, are the remains of Cicero's villa, and also of an ancient theatre hewn out of solid rock. The view to the west toward Rome is most beautiful. The dome of St. Peter's crowns the Eternal City; and the Campagna—a sea of green—is as infinite in sight as is the Mediterranean. There are splendid villas and estates in these Alban hills that belong to the Roman nobility, and here the Pope has his summer palace. "The Alban Mount is also full of historical and legendary interest," says a writer on the country around Rome. "The Latin tribe, one of the constituent elements of the Roman people, had here its seat. Upon the highest peak of the range was the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where all the tribes of Latin blood, the Romans included, met every year to worship; and where the victorious generals of the Republic repaired to offer praises and acknowledgments. In these mountain glens undoubtedly most of that ballad literature of Rome, the loss of which Macaulay so eloquently laments and so successfully restores, had its origin. Nor need the scholar be reminded that this is the scene of the most original and vigorous portions of the AEneid of Virgil; nor how the genius of the poet, which rather languidly recounts the traditions borrowed from Greece, wakes to new life, when he feels his feet upon his own soil and deals with Latin names and Latin legends."

The Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati is celebrated for its fantastic waterworks in elaborate fountains and cascades. In the gardens a statue of Pan with a pipe of reeds and one of a satyr with a trumpet are made to play (both the pipe and the trumpet) by water. The hydraulic engineer must have found in Frascati his earthly paradise, for he commanded the water to leap into foam and spray in the air, to rush down marble terraces, and to form itself into obelisks of liquid silver.

At Grotto Ferrata is a vast monastery of monks of the Order of Basilio (Greek), a monastery so colossal as to be mistaken for a fortress. The chapel has frescoes by Domenichino. At Castel Gandolfo is the summer Papal palace, that has not been occupied by a Pope since the overthrowing of the temporal power in 1870. It has a beautiful and commanding view toward Rome. It was built by Urban VIII.

All the magic of Italy is in this picturesque excursion. In the vast grounds of the Villa Barberini are the ruins of the ancient palace and gardens of Domitian. On one hillside is a broken wall; a long avenue of ilex trees reveals here and there fragments of mosaic pavement. Crumbling niches hold fragments of statues. The hill itself is still pierced with the long tunnels driven through it by Domitian that he might pass unseen,—presumably safe from his enemies,—from the palace to the gardens. From the parapet, Rome is seen across the shining Campagna and the dome of Michael Angelo gleams against the blue Italian sky.

"The wreck is beautiful," writes Mrs. Humphry Ward, in "Eleanor," of this romantic spot; "for it is masked in the gloom of the overhanging trees; or hidden behind dropping veils of ivy; or lit up by straggling patches of broom and cytisus that thrust themselves through the gaps in the Roman brickwork and shine golden in the dark. At the foot of the wall, along its whole length, runs a low marble conduit that held the sweetest, liveliest water. Lilies of the valley grow beside it, breathing scent into the shadowed air; while on the outer or garden side of the path the grass is purple with long-stalked violets, or pink with the sharp heads of the cyclamen. And a little farther, from the same grass, there shoots up, in happy neglect, tall camellia trees, ragged and laden, strewing the ground red and white beneath them. And above the camellias again the famous stone-pines of the villa climb into the high air, overlooking the plain and the sea, peering at Rome and Soracte."

One could wander all day in the strange ruins of the old Barberini grounds, and in the vast spaces of the gardens and through the Villa Doria.

The beauty of the avenue of ilex trees through which we flew from Castel Gandolfo to Lago di Nemi surpasses description. This lake, some four miles in circumference, lies in a crater hollow, with precipitous hills surrounding it, the water so clear that the ancients called it the "Mirror of Diana." In it was constructed an artificial island in the design of a Roman state barge.

Over the long viaduct at Ariccia we flew; everywhere in the little town people, donkeys—an almost indistinguishable mass—filled the narrow streets; and thus on to Genzano and the Lago di Nemi, with its fabled fleet at the bottom.

The Chigi woods, that fill the deep ravine under the great viaduct at Ariccia, were in the most brilliant emerald green. Past these forests lay the vast stretch of the Pontine Marshes; and turning toward Rome again, the splendor of the sunset flamed in the sky. One could but recall Mrs. Humphry Ward's vivid picture of a storm seen over this part of the Campagna:—

"The sunset was rushing to its height through every possible phase of violence and splendor. From the Mediterranean, storm clouds were rising fast to the assault and conquest of the upper sky, which still above the hills shone blue and tranquil. But the northwest wind and the sea were leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning veils of cloud across it—skirmishers that foretold the black and serried lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest shapes again—in long spaces resting on the sea—the heaven was at peace, shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene, above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange massing and curving of the clouds. Between their blackness and the deep purple of the Campagna rose the city—pale phantom—upholding one great dome, and one only, to view of night and the world. Round and above and behind, beneath the long flat arch of the storm, glowed a furnace of scarlet light. The buildings of the city were faint specks within its fierce intensity, dimly visible through a sea of fire. St. Peter's alone, without visible foundation or support, had consistence, form, identity; and between the city and the hills, waves of blue and purple shade, forerunners of the night, stole over the Campagna towards the higher ground. But the hills themselves were still shining, still clad in rose and amethyst, caught in gentler repetition from the wildness of the west. Pale rose even the olive gardens; rose the rich brown fallows, the emerging farms; while drawn across the Campagna from north to south, as though some mighty brush had just laid it there for sheer lust of color, sheer joy in the mating it with the rose,—one long strip of sharpest, purest green."

The Villa Falconieri, in Frascati, which was built by Cardinal Ruffini, with the old ilex tree preserved in the portals, has recently been purchased by the Emperor of Germany, who proposes to transform it into an Academy for the accommodation of German students in Rome. These national academies draw their corresponding numbers of students from the nations thus represented, and contribute to the cosmopolitan aspects of Rome. The American Academy in Rome is now being transferred from the Ludovisi quarter to a large and convenient building outside Porta Pia.

Perhaps the eminently social quality of Roman life may be indirectly due to the lack of library privileges which is a conspicuous defect in Rome. The Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, under the courteous administration of Commendatore Conte Guili, has, it is true, a collection of over half a million volumes and thousands of very rare and valuable manuscripts. It has a large public reading room, and books are loaned on the signature of any embassy or consulate; yet this library, while offering peculiar advantages to theological and other special students and readers, does not afford any extended privileges to the general reader of modern English and American publications. It is located in a grim and forbidding old stone palace, approached by an obscure lane from the Corso, where, as there is no sidewalk, the pedestrian shares the narrow, dark, cold, stone-paved little street with carts, donkeys, peasants, and beggars.

The great monument to King Victor Emmanuel, of mingled architecture and sculpture, a colossal structure of white marble with arches and pillars forming beautiful colonnades, the capital of each column heavily carved, and the sculpture, which is being done by a number of artists, will be of the most artistic and beautiful order. This memorial will occupy an entire block, and it is located very near the Capitol. All the old buildings in the vicinity will be torn down to give a fine vista for this transcendently noble and sumptuous memorial.

The directors of this work aim to have it completed and ready to be unveiled in 1911, the jubilee year of Italy's resurrection as a united country.

Encircled by the old Aurelian wall and near the great pyramid that marks the tomb of Caius Cestius, who died 12 B.C., lies the Protestant cemetery of Rome, full of bloom and fragrance and beauty, under the dark, solemn cypress trees that stand like ever-watchful sentinels. When Keats was buried here (in 1820), Shelley wrote of "the romantic and lovely cemetery ... under the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and the mossy walls and towers now mouldering and desolate which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered even in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death," he added, "to think of being buried in so sweet a place."



In the old cemetery (immediately adjoining the pyramid and separated from the new one by a wall) is the grave of Keats (who died in 1821) with its unique inscription, "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Beside it is that of his friend, Joseph Severn, who died in 1829, and near these the grave of John Bell, the famous writer on surgery and anatomy. In the new or more modern cemetery the visitor lingers by the graves of Shelley and his friend, Trelawney; August Goethe (the son of the poet); of William and Mary Howitt, who died in 1879 and 1888. Not merely, however, do the names of Keats and Shelley allure the visitor to poetic meditations; but here lie the earthly forms of many a poet, painter, and sculptor of our own country, with their wives and children, who have sought in the Eternal City the atmosphere for art and who, enamoured by the loveliness of Rome, continued there for all their remaining years. These graves, these sculptured memorials, are eloquent with the joys, the sorrows, the achievements and the failures, the success and the defeat, of the artistic life in a foreign land. Many of these memorial sculptures are the work of the husband or the father, into which is inseparably joined the personal tenderness to the artist's skill. Especially noticeable are the graves of the wives of three American sculptors,—William Wetmore Story, Richard S. Greenough, and Franklin Simmons. Each of these is marked by a memorial sculpture created by the husband, and the three different conceptions of these sculptors are interesting to contrast. That of Mr. Story is of an angel with outspread wings, kneeling, her head bowed in the utter despair and desolation of hopeless sorrow. The figure has the greatest delicacy of beauty and refinement and tenderness; but it is the grief that has no support of faith, the grief that has no vision of divine consolation. On the memorial monument is simply the name, Emelyn Story, born in Boston, 1820, died in Rome in 1898, and the note that it is the last work of W. W. Story, in memory of his beloved wife. Here, also, is Mr. Story buried, his name and dates of birth and death (1819-1901) alone being inscribed.

At the tomb of Sarah B. Greenough, the wife of Richard S. Greenough, the monument is designed to represent Psyche escaping from the bondage of mortality. This Psyche is emerging from her garments and she holds in her hand a lamp. On this is the inscription: "Her loss was that as of a keystone to an arch."

Mrs. Greenough was a very accomplished musician, and she had the unique honor of having been made a member of the "Arcadians."

The memorial sculpture over the grave of Mrs. Franklin Simmons is, as elsewhere noted, the work of her husband, a figure called "The Angel of the Resurrection." The angel is represented as a male figure (Gabriel) holding in the left hand a golden trumpet while the right is outstretched. His wings are spread, his face partly turned to the right. The form is partially draped and in every detail is instinct with a complete harmony; every fold of the drapery, every curve of the body, and the lofty and triumphant expression of the face in its ineffable glory of achievement proclaim the triumph of immortality. It stands on a pedestal that gives it, from the base of the pedestal to the tip of the outstretched wings, a height of some twenty-one feet. This monument, seen against a background of dark cypress trees, speaks the word of positive and complete faith in the divine promise of eternal life.

"Then life is—to wake, not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, In the heaven's height—far and steep."

The visitor lingers over the grave of that interesting painter, J. Rollin Tilton, whose landscapes from Egypt and Italian scenes were so vivid and picturesque.

Richard Henry Dana, the elder, born in Boston in 1815, came to Rome to die in 1882.

Very near the tomb of William Wetmore and Emelyn Story is that of Constance Fenimore Woolson. Over the graves of William and Mary Howitt is the inscription: "Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me."

On the wall just back of the new tomb erected over the ashes of Shelley by Onslow Ford in 1891 is a memorial tablet placed to Frederick W. H. Myers, bearing this inscription:—

"This tablet is placed to the memory of Frederick William Henry Myers, born at Keswick, Cumberland, Feb. 6, 1843; died in Rome, Jan. 17, 1901. 'He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest him long life ever and forever.'"

Over the grave of John Addington Symonds, whose best monument is in his admirable History of the Renaissance in Italy, is a Latin inscription written by Professor Jowett of Oxford, and a stanza from the Greek of Cleanthes, translated by Mr. Symonds as follows:—

"Lead thou, our God, law, reason, motion, life; All names for Thee alike are vain and hollow; Lead me, for I will follow without strife, Or, if I strive, still more I blindly follow."

John Addington Symonds, who certainly ranks as the most gifted interpreter of Italy, in her art, her legends and associations, and her landscape loveliness, died in the Rome he so loved in 1893. His wife was ill in Venice, but his daughter, Margaret,—his inseparable companion and his helper in his work,—was with him. It is Miss Symonds who prefaced a memorial volume to her father with the exquisite lines:—

"O Love; we two shall go no longer To lands of summer beyond the sea."

Near the graves of Keats and of his friend, Joseph Severn, are those of Augustus William Hare and John Gibson, the sculptor, who died in 1868. Some ten years before Hawthorne, meeting Gibson at a dinner given by T. Buchanan Read, wrote of him that it was whispered about the table that he had been in Rome for forty-two years and that he had a quiet, self-contained aspect as of one who had spent a calm life among his clay and marble.

Dwight Benton, an American painter and writer, who was for some time in the diplomatic service and whose home had been in Rome for more than a quarter of a century, lies buried here. For many years he was the editor of The Roman World, which still sustains the interesting character that marked it during his editorship. Of his work in art a friend wrote:—

"In painting, as in literature, Dwight Benton took his inspiration from nature. His paintings of Italian scenery are true and faithful representations of its character and atmospheric effects. His tramps on the Roman Campagna were long and often tiring, but he worked with all an artist's enthusiasm, unmindful of cold, rain, and even hunger. He would delight, as all true artists, in an old convent, a tree, a tower, a cross, which he would reproduce with a peculiar and striking perfection of tone and color. In his paintings of Keats's and Shelley's tombs, not only are the slabs and marble there, but there, also, in all their naturalness, are the stately pines and cypresses above, with the sunshine and shadows alternating between them, and in the background the turreted top of St. Paul's Gateway, the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, all lending effect and picturesqueness to the whole."

The present King of Italy purchased one of Mr. Benton's paintings, called "Giornata di tristezza."

While art abounds in Rome, less can be said for literature. There is a large and admirable selected Italian library in connection with the Collegio Romano; but while these books circulate, under certain conditions, to visitors, and the courtesy of the librarian and his staff is generously kind, the location and the Italian methods render it a matter of some difficulty to avail one's self of its resources. In the Piazza di Spagna there are two circulating libraries, but although one of these claims twenty-five thousand volumes, the majority are of mediocre fiction and almost none, if any, of the important modern works are to be found here. The visitor who is a subscriber to this library passes into a small, dark room, where one window looking on the street hardly does more than make the darkness visible, and he must take the catalogue to the window and stand in order to decipher the list, which is hardly, indeed, worth the trouble, as there are very few volumes of any pretension to importance in the collection, and of late years no additions, apparently, have ever been made. The other circulating library, while far preferable, is still in crowded rooms and the assortment is limited. The visitor in Rome who cares for reading matter looks forward with delight to Florence, with its noble circulating library, to which access is so easy and whose conduct in all ways is so convenient and grateful to the guest.

In Rome, however, one finds his romance embodied in life and his history written in the streets and in the marvellous structures. His poetry is in her art, her ruins, her magical loveliness of hillside vistas, her infinite views over the Campagna, her sapphire skies, and her luminous, golden atmosphere.



"Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles, And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits Her sapphire gates, Beguiling to her bright estates."

"Oh, Signor! thine the amber hand, And mine the distant sea Obedient to the least command Thine eyes impose on me."



III

DAY-DREAMS IN NAPLES, AMALFI, AND CAPRI

"With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where summer sings but never dies."

Naples is the paradise of excursions. It is set in the heart of incomparable loveliness. Over its sapphire sea one sails away—to the Fortunate Isles, or some others equally alluring. Its heights and adjacent mountains offer views that one might well cross the ocean to enjoy. Its atmosphere is full of classic interest; of song, and story, and legend, and romance; of history, too, which in its tragic and exciting episodes is not less vivid in color and in strange studies of human life than is any romance. Naples is the city of fascination. Rome is stately and impressive; Florence is all beauty and enchantment; Genoa is picturesque; Venice is a dream city; but Naples is simply—fascinating. There is the common life of the streets and the populace continually en scene; the people who are at home on the sunny side in winter, or the shady side in summer; there is the social life of the nobility, which is brilliant and vivacious. The excursions, of which Naples is the centre, are the chief interest to travellers, and these, while possible in winter, are far more enjoyable in the early spring. Still even in midwinter the days are sunny, and while the air is crisp and cool, it is not cold. The grass is as green as in June; but the foliage and flowers are more or less withered. Naples has the high and the lower town, the former the more desirable, and the fine hotels perched on the terraces, with the view all over the Bay of Naples, Capri, Sorrento, and Vesuvius, offer a vista hardly to be duplicated in the entire world. The lower town has its fine hotels on the water's edge, with a beautiful view over the bay, less enchanting than when seen from above. The Bay of Naples is enclosed in two semicircular arms that extend far out at sea, the southern reaching nearly to Capri, while near the termination of the northern,

"Fair Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles."

Far out at sea the sun shines dazzlingly on the blue Mediterranean. The landscape is full of those curious formations that are always inherent in volcanic regions. The region surrounding Naples is abrupt, picturesque, with the same irregular outline of hills that characterizes the elevations in the Tonto basin in Arizona. The vegetation is of the tropical type. The cactus is common, although it grows to no such monstrous heights as in Arizona. Orange and lemon groves prevail as far as the eye can see. On every height towns and villages crown the crests and sweep in winding terraces around the hillsides. Olive orchards abound. Castles and ruins gleam white in the sunshine on the ledge of rocky precipices. The curved shores shine like broken lines of silver, with deep indentations at Naples and at Castellammare. Between these two points rises Vesuvius, the thin blue smoke constantly curling from the summit that, since the eruption of 1906, has lost much of its elevation. In many places there is hardly the width of a roadway between the low mountains and the coast, but the cliffs are tropically luxurious in vegetation. Everywhere the habitations of the people crowd the space. From the monasteries and the castles that crown the heights, both distant and near to the clustered villages of the plain and those clinging to the hillsides, the scene is one unending panorama of human life. For Naples is only the focussing point of these densely populated regions of Southern Italy. The city stretches along the coast on both sides her semicircular bay; but the terraced hills, the stretches of land beyond, and every peak and valley are thickly sown with human habitations. Its commanding heights, two of which rise in the middle of the town, and its beautiful mirrored expanse of water give to it the most unparalleled variety and beauty of landscape loveliness.

"What words can analyze," says George S. Hillard, "the parts and details of this matchless panorama, or unravel that magic web of beauty into which palaces, villas, forests, gardens, vineyards, the mountains, and the sea are woven? What pen can paint the soft curves, the gentle undulations, the flowing outlines, the craggy steeps, and the far-seen heights, which, in their combination, are so full of grace and, at the same time, expression? Words here are imperfect instruments, and must yield their place to the pencil and the graver. But no canvas can reproduce the light and color which play round this enchanting region. No skill can catch the changing hues of the distant mountains, the star-points of the playing waves, the films of purple and green which spread themselves over the calm waters, the sunsets of gold and orange, and the aerial veils of rose and amethyst which drop upon the hills from the skies of morning and evening. The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus seems to have described Naples, when he speaks of 'the pride of the height, the clear firmament, the beauty of heaven, with his glorious show.' 'See Naples and then die,' is a well-known Italian saying; but it should read, 'See Naples and then live.' One glance at such a scene stamps upon the memory an image which, forever after, gives a new value to life."



Naples gives to the visitor the impression of being a city without a past. If she has a history, it is not written in her streets. She is poetic and picturesque, not historic. The heights of Capodimonte and Sant'Elmo divide her into unequal parts, and there is the old Naples which only the antiquarian or the political economist would wish to see, and the new and modern city which is such a miracle of beauty that one longs to stay forever, and fails to wonder that the siren sought these shores. Naples has either been very much misrepresented as to its prevailing manners and customs, or else it has changed within the past decade, for, as a rule, the gentle courtesy and kindness of the people are especially appealing. Augustus often sojourned in Naples, and it was an especially poetic haunt of Virgil, whose tomb is here. Although the poverty and the primitive life of the great masses of the people have been widely discussed, it is yet true that Naples has a very charming social life, and that the University is a centre of learning and culture. One of the oldest universities in Europe, it has a faculty of over one hundred and twenty professors and more than five thousand students. A large and valuable library, and a mineralogical collection which specialists from all over the world come to study, are among the treasures of this University, which was founded in the early part of the thirteenth century by Emperor Frederick William II. There is now in process of erection a new group of buildings which will embody the latest laboratory and library and other privileges. Archaeology is, naturally, a special feature of the University of Naples, and the proximity to Pompeii, Herculaneum, and to the wonderful Pompeian collection in the Museum of Naples affords peculiar and unrivalled advantages to students. A bust of Thomas Aquinas, during his life a lecturer at this University, is one of the interesting treasures. The Archives of the Kingdom of Naples attract many a scholar and savant to this city. There are in this collection (which is kept in the monastery adjoining the Church of San Severino) over forty thousand Greek manuscripts, some of which date back to the year 700. The Naples Museum is the great repository of all Pompeian art, and it is rich in sculpture; but it is badly arranged and the vast series of galleries and the long flights of stairs make any study of its work so fatiguing that a visit to it might rank as one of the seven labors of Hercules.

In the royal museum of the Palazzo di Capodimonte, which is located on the beautiful height bearing that name, there are some pictures that are well worth visiting, not because they are particularly good art, but because of the interest attaching to the subjects. This gallery is largely the work of modern Neapolitan artists. Here is the celebrated picture of Michael Angelo bending over the dead body of Vittoria Colonna, kissing only her hand, and haunted by the after-regret that he did not kiss her forehead. Virginia Lebrun has here portraits of Maria Theresa and of the Duchess of Parma; there is one canvas (by Celentano) showing Benvenuto Cellini at the Castel Sant'Angelo; a scene depicting the death of Caesar and a few others of some degree of interest.

Curiously, Naples has never produced great art. Salvator Rosa was, to be sure, a Neapolitan, but his is almost the only name that has made itself immortal in the art of this city. Domenico Morelli, who has recently died, made himself felt as an original painter with certain claims that arrested attention. He is not a draughtsman, but he is a colorist of passionate intensity; he has original power and, more than all, he has a curious endowment of what may be called artistic clairvoyance. Transporting himself by the magic of thought to places on which his eye never rested, he yet sees as in vision their special characteristics. In one of his most important works, the motive of which is the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, he has painted the desert with a startling reality. Here is a great plain, the stony, parched Judean plain, with the very feeling of its desolation pervading the atmosphere. The Royal Chapel in Naples was decorated by Morelli, the ceiling painted with an "Assumption of the Virgin," which stands alone in all the interpretations of this theme; not by virtue of superior artistic excellence,—on the contrary its art does not make a strong appeal,—but by its originality of treatment. The "Salve Regina" and the "Da Scala d'Oro" are among the more interesting works of this artist, whose recent death has removed a figure of exceptional character in modern art, one who had, pre-eminently, the courage of his convictions. Some few years ago Morelli's "Temptation of St. Anthony" was exhibited in both Paris and Florence, and was generally condemned, perhaps because not wholly understood. The form of the temptation was supposed to be the shapes taken by a morbid and diseased imagination; but while as a psychological conception it was not without value, it was yet far from attractive as a work of art. The finest conception, perhaps, ever depicted of the temptation of St. Anthony—a subject that has haunted many an artist—is that painted by the late Carl Guthers of Washington, a lofty and gifted spirit whose too brief stay on earth ended in the early months of 1907. In this picture the temptation of the saint appears as a vision of all that is purest and sweetest in life,—wife, children, home; it was from all this peace and loveliness that St. Anthony turned, sacrificing personal happiness to the duty of consecrated service to his Master, in the exquisite conception of Mr. Guthers. Edoardo Dalbano is the typical leader of the Neapolitan school of painting of the present day, and his fascinating picture, called the "Isle of Sirens," representing the sirens singing in the sunlit Bay of Naples, might well be held as the keynote to all this enchanting region. Surely, if the sirens sing not in those blue waters, it were useless to search elsewhere for them. Buono is an artist of the Neapolitan shores, who paints its fisher-folk; Brancaccio catches the very spirit and animated atmosphere of the street scenes of Naples; Campriani and Pratello are landscapists of note; Esposito, too, despite his Spanish name, is a Neapolitan marine painter whose work is often most arresting in its power to catch the flickering sunshine over blue water that bathes the rocks rising out of the sea,—these isles of the sirens from which float the melodies that enchanted Odysseus.

The traveller may be surprised to find that in size Naples ranks fourth on the European Continent,—Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, only, exceeding it. Naples should be, not only a port, a pleasure haunt, and a paradise for excursions, but one of the great cities of the world in commercial and in social importance. It has one of the finest natural harbors of the world; it has a beautiful and attractive adjoining country in which to extend, indefinitely, its residence and trade districts; it has the most enchanting fairyland of views that ever were seen this side the ethereal world; it has an atmosphere of song and story and a climate that is far from being objectionable. Naples is seldom the possessor of a higher temperature in summer than is New York or Boston; the winters are mild, and they offer weeks of sunny loveliness when Rome is swept by the icy tramontana from the snow-clad Alban hills. Naples offers, too, exceedingly good facilities for living; the groups of excellent hotels, both on the terraces and on the water's edge in the lower town and along the Villa Nazionale, offer every comfort, and the politeness and courtesy of the Neapolitans, as a rule, are among the alluring features of this enchanting city.