In January a festival is held here, when speeches are recited by the pupils in all their different languages. The public is admitted by tickets.
The Via Ripetta leaves the Piazza del Popolo on the right. Passing, on the right, a large building belonging to the Academy of St. Luke, we reach, on the right, the Quay of the Ripetta, a pretty architectural construction of Clement XI. in 1707.
Hence, a clumsy ferry-boat gives access to a walk which leads to St. Peter's (by Porta Angelica) through the fields at the back of S. Angelo. These fields are of historic interest, being the Prata Quinctia of Cincinnatus.
"L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the only hope of the Roman people, lived beyond the Tiber, opposite the place where the Navalia are, where he cultivated the four acres of ground which are now called the Quinctian meadows. There the messengers of the senate found him leaning on his spade, either digging a trench or ploughing, but certainly occupied in some field labour. The salutation, 'May it be well with you and the republic,' was given and returned in the usual form, and he was requested to put on his toga to receive a message from the senate. Amazed, and asking if anything was wrong, he desired his wife Racilia to fetch his toga from the cottage, and having wiped off the sweat and dust with which he was covered, he came forward dressed in his toga to the messengers, who saluted him as dictator, and congratulated him."—Livy, iii. 26.
The churches on the left of the Ripetta are, first, SS. Rocco e Martino, built 1657, by Antonio de Rossi, with a hospital adjoining it.
"The lying-in hospital adjoins the Church of San Rocco. It contains seventy beds, furnished with curtains and screens, so as to separate them effectually. Females are admitted without giving their name, their country, or their condition in life; and such is the delicacy observed in their regard, that they are at liberty to wear a veil, so as to remain unknown even to their attendants, in order to save the honour of their families, and prevent abortion, suicide, or infanticide. Even should death ensue, the deceased remains unknown. The children are conveyed to Santo Spirito; and the mother who wishes to retain her offspring, affixes a distinctive mark, by which it may be recognised and recovered. To remove all disquietude from the minds of those who may enter, the establishment is exempt from all civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and its threshold is never crossed except by persons connected with the establishment."—Dr. Donovan.
Then, opposite the quay, S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni, built for Sixtus V. by Fontana. It contains, near the altar, a striking figure of St. Jerome, seated, with a book upon his knees.
We will now follow the Corso, which, in spite of its narrowness and bad side-pavements, is the finest street in Rome. It is greatly to be regretted that this street, which is nearly a mile long, should lead to nothing, instead of ending at the steps of the Capitol, which would have produced a striking effect. It follows the line of the ancient Via Flaminia, and in consequence was once spanned by four triumphal arches—of Marcus Aurelius, Domitian, Claudius, and Gordian—but all these have disappeared. The Corso is perfectly lined with balconies, which, during the carnival, are filled with gay groups of maskers flinging confetti. These balconies are a relic of imperial times, having been invented at Rome, where they were originally called "Mœniana," from the tribune Mœnius, who designed them to accommodate spectators of processions in the streets below.
"The Corso is a street a mile long; a street of shops, and palaces, and private houses, sometimes opening into a broad piazza. There are verandahs and balconies, of all shapes and sizes, to almost every house—not on one story alone, but often to one room or another on every story—put there in general with so little order or regularity, that if, year after year, and season after season, it had rained balconies, hailed balconies, snowed balconies, blown balconies, they could scarcely have come into existence in a more disorderly manner."—Dickens.
On the left of the Corso is the Augustine Church of Gesù e Maria, with a façade by Rinaldi. Almost opposite, is the Church of S. Giacomo degli Incurabili, by Carlo Maderno. It is attached to a surgical hospital for 350 patients. In the adjoining Strada S. Giacomo was the studio of Canova, recognizable by fragments of bas-reliefs engrafted in its walls.
Three streets beyond this (on right) is the Via de' Pontefici (so called from a series of papal portraits, now destroyed, which formerly existed on the walls of one of its houses), where (No. 57R) is the entrance to the remains of the Mausoleum of Augustus.
"Hard by the banks of the Tiber, in the grassy meadows where the Roman youths met in athletic and martial exercises, there rose a lofty marble tower with three retiring stages, each of which had its terrace covered with earth and planted with cypresses. These stages were pierced with numerous chambers, destined to receive, row within row, and story upon story, the remains of every member of the imperial family, with many thousands of their slaves and freedmen. In the centre of that massive mound the great founder of the empire was to sleep his last sleep, while his statue was ordained to rise conspicuous on its summit, and satiate its everlasting gaze with the view of his beloved city."—Merivale.
The first funeral here was that of Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, and first husband of his daughter Julia, who died of malaria at Baiæ, B.C. 23.
| "Quantos ille virûm magnam Mavortis ad urbem |
| Campus aget gemitus! vel quæ, Tiberine, videbis |
| Funera, cum tumulum præterlabere recentem! |
| Nec puer Iliacâ quisquam de gente Latinos |
| In tantum spe tollet avos; nec Romula quondam |
| Ullo se tantum tellus jactabit alumno. |
| Heu pietas, heu prisca fides, invictaque bello |
| Dextera! non illi se quisquam impune tulisset |
| Obvius armato, seu quum pedes iret in hostem, |
| Seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos. |
| Heu, miserande puer! si qua fata aspera rumpas, |
| Tu Marcellus eris." |
| Æneid, vi. 873. |
The next member of the family buried here was Agrippa, the second husband of Julia, ob. 12 B.C. Then came Octavia, sister of the emperor and widow of Antony, honoured by a public funeral, at which orations were delivered by Augustus himself, and Drusus, son of the empress Livia. Her body was carried to the tomb by Tiberius (afterwards emperor) and Drusus, the two sons of the empress. Drusus (B.C. 9) died in a German campaign by a fall from his horse, and was brought back hither for interment. In A.D. 14 the great Augustus died at Nola, and his body was burnt here on a funeral pile so gigantic, that the widowed Livia, dishevelled and ungirt, with bare feet, attended by the principal Roman senators, had to watch it for five days and nights, before it cooled sufficiently for them to collect the ashes of the emperor. At the moment of its being lighted an eagle was let loose from the summit of the pyre, under which form a senator, named Numerius Atticus, was induced, by a gift from Livia equivalent to 250,000 francs, to swear that he saw the spirit of Augustus fly away to heaven. Then came Germanicus, son of the first Drusus, and nephew of Tiberius, ob. A.D. 19, at Antioch, where he was believed to have been poisoned by Piso and his wife Plancina. Then, in A.D. 23, Drusus, son of Tiberius, poisoned by his wife, Livilla, and her lover, Sejanus: then the empress, Livia, who died A.D. 29, at the age of 86. Agrippina, widow of Germanicus (ob. A.D. 33), starved to death, and her two sons, Nero and Drusus, also murdered by Tiberius, were long excluded from the family sepulchre, but were eventually brought hither by the youngest brother Caius, afterwards the emperor Caligula. Tiberius, who died A.D. 37, at the villa of Lucullus at Misenum, was brought here for burial.