Italian galleries are at a disadvantage as compared with English ones, inasmuch as the pictures are not nearly such splendid articles of upholstery; though, very likely, having undergone less cleaning and varnishing, they may retain more perfectly the finer touches of the masters. Nevertheless, I miss the mellow glow, the rich and mild external lustre, and even the brilliant frames of the pictures I have seen in England. You feel that they have had loving care taken of them; even if spoiled, it is because they have been valued so much. But these pictures in Italian galleries look rusty and lustreless, as far as the exterior is concerned; and, really, the splendor of the painting, as a production of intellect and feeling, has a good deal of difficulty in shining through such clouds.
There is a picture at the Capitol, the "Rape of Europa," by Paul Veronese, that would glow with wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a magnificent frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish; and it is a kind of picture that would not be desecrated, as some deeper and holier ones might be, by any splendor of external adornment that could be bestowed on it. It is deplorable and disheartening to see it in faded and shabby plight—this joyous, exuberant, warm, voluptuous work. There is the head of a cow, thrust into the picture, and staring with wild, ludicrous wonder at the godlike bull, so as to introduce quite a new sentiment.
Here, and at the Borghese Palace, there were some pictures by Garofalo, an artist of whom I never heard before, but who seemed to have been a man of power. A picture by Marie Subleyras—a miniature copy from one by her husband, of the woman anointing the feet of Christ—is most delicately and beautifully finished, and would be an ornament to a drawing-room; a thing that could not truly be said of one in a hundred of these grim masterpieces. When they were painted life was not what it is now, and the artists had not the same ends in view. … . It depresses the spirits to go from picture to picture, leaving a portion of your vital sympathy at every one, so that you come, with a kind of half-torpid desperation, to the end. On our way down the staircase we saw several noteworthy bas-reliefs, and among them a very ancient one of Curtius plunging on horseback into the chasm in the Forum. It seems to me, however, that old sculpture affects the spirits even more dolefully than old painting; it strikes colder to the heart, and lies heavier upon it, being marble, than if it were merely canvas.
My wife went to revisit the museum, which we had already seen, on the other side of the piazza; but, being cold, I left her there, and went out to ramble in the sun; for it was now brightly, though fitfully, shining again. I walked through the Forum (where a thorn thrust itself out and tore the sleeve of my talma) and under the Arch of Titus, towards the Coliseum. About a score of French drummers were beating a long, loud roll-call, at the base of the Coliseum, and under its arches; and a score of trumpeters responded to these, from the rising ground opposite the Arch of Constantine; and the echoes of the old Roman ruins, especially those of the Palace of the Caesars, responded to this martial uproar of the barbarians. There seemed to be no cause for it; but the drummers beat, and the trumpeters blew, as long as I was within hearing.
I walked along the Appian Way as far as the Baths of Caracalla. The Palace of the Caesars, which I have never yet explored, appears to be crowned by the walls of a convent, built, no doubt, out of some of the fragments that would suffice to build a city; and I think there is another convent among the baths. The Catholics have taken a peculiar pleasure in planting themselves in the very citadels of paganism, whether temples or palaces. There has been a good deal of enjoyment in the destruction of old Rome. I often think so when I see the elaborate pains that have been taken to smash and demolish some beautiful column, for no purpose whatever, except the mere delight of annihilating a noble piece of work. There is something in the impulse with which one sympathizes; though I am afraid the destroyers were not sufficiently aware of the mischief they did to enjoy it fully. Probably, too, the early Christians were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan temples, before the happy thought occurred of converting them into churches.
March 3d.—This morning was U——'s birthday, and we celebrated it by taking a barouche, and driving (the whole family) out on the Appian Way as far as the tomb of Cecilia Metella. For the first time since we came to Rome, the weather was really warm—a kind of heat producing languor and disinclination to active movement, though still a little breeze which was stirring threw an occasional coolness over us, and made us distrust the almost sultry atmosphere. I cannot think the Roman climate healthy in any of its moods that I have experienced.
Close on the other side of the road are the ruins of a Gothic chapel, little more than a few bare walls and painted windows, and some other fragmentary structures which we did not particularly examine. U—— and I clambered through a gap in the wall, extending from the basement of the tomb, and thus, getting into the field beyond, went quite round the mausoleum and the remains of the castle connected with it. The latter, though still high and stalwart, showed few or no architectural features of interest, being built, I think, principally of large bricks, and not to be compared to English ruins as a beautiful or venerable object.
A little way beyond Cecilia Metella's tomb, the road still shows a specimen of the ancient Roman pavement, composed of broad, flat flagstones, a good deal cracked and worn, but sound enough, probably, to outlast the little cubes which make the other portions of the road so uncomfortable. We turned back from this point and soon re-entered the gate of St. Sebastian, which is flanked by two small towers, and just within which is the old triumphal arch of Drusus—a sturdy construction, much dilapidated as regards its architectural beauty, but rendered far more picturesque than it could have been in its best days by a crown of verdure on its head. Probably so much of the dust of the highway has risen in clouds and settled there, that sufficient soil for shrubbery to root itself has thus been collected, by small annual contributions, in the course of two thousand years. A little farther towards the city we turned aside from the Appian Way, and came to the site of some ancient Columbaria, close by what seemed to partake of the character of a villa and a farm-house. A man came out of the house and unlocked a door in a low building, apparently quite modern; but on entering we found ourselves looking into a large, square chamber, sunk entirely beneath the surface of the ground. A very narrow and steep staircase of stone, and evidently ancient, descended into this chamber; and, going down, we found the walls hollowed on all sides into little semicircular niches, of which, I believe, there were nine rows, one above another, and nine niches in each row. Thus they looked somewhat like the little entrances to a pigeon-house, and hence the name of Columbarium. Each semicircular niche was about a foot in its semidiameter. In the centre of this subterranean chamber was a solid square column, or pier, rising to the roof, and containing other niches of the same pattern, besides one that was high and deep, rising to the height of a man from the floor on each of the four sides. In every one of the semicircular niches were two round holes covered with an earthen plate, and in each hole were ashes and little fragments of bones—the ashes and bones of the dead, whose names were inscribed in Roman capitals on marble slabs inlaid into the wall over each individual niche. Very likely the great ones in the central pier had contained statues, or busts, or large urns; indeed, I remember that some such things were there, as well as bas-reliefs in the walls; but hardly more than the general aspect of this strange place remains in my mind. It was the Columbarium of the connections or dependants of the Caesars; and the impression left on me was, that this mode of disposing of the dead was infinitely preferable to any which has been adopted since that day. The handful or two of dry dust and bits of dry bones in each of the small round holes had nothing disgusting in them, and they are no drier now than they were when first deposited there. I would rather have my ashes scattered over the soil to help the growth of the grass and daisies; but still I should not murmur much at having them decently pigeon-holed in a Roman tomb.
After ascending out of this chamber of the dead, we looked down into another similar one, containing the ashes of Pompey's household, which was discovered only a very few years ago. Its arrangement was the same as that first described, except that it had no central pier with a passage round it, as the former had.
While we were down in the first chamber the proprietor of the spot—a half-gentlemanly and very affable kind of person—came to us, and explained the arrangements of the Columbarium, though, indeed, we understood them better by their own aspect than by his explanation. The whole soil around his dwelling is elevated much above the level of the road, and it is probable that,