The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860

But pray remember, when you go there, that in the South every arrangement is made for the nine hot months, and not for the three cold and rainy ones you choose to spend there, and perhaps your views may be somewhat modified in respect of this "miserable people," who, you say, "have no idea of comfort,"—meaning, of course, English comfort. Perhaps, I say; for it is in the nature of travellers to come to sudden conclusions upon slight premises, to maintain with obstinacy preconceived notions, and to quarrel with all national traits except their own. And being English, unless you have a friend in India who has made you aware that cane-bottom chairs are India-English, you will be pretty sure to believe that there is no comfort without carpets and coal; or being an American, you will be apt to undervalue a gallery of pictures with only a three-ply carpet on the floor, and to "calculate," that, if they could see your house in Washington Street, they would feel rather ashamed. However, there is a great deal of human nature in mankind, wherever you go,—except in Paris, perhaps, where Nature is rather inhuman and artificial. And when I instance the Englishman and American as making false judgments, let me not be misunderstood as supposing them the only nations in that category. No, no! did not my Parisian acquaintance the other day assure me very gravely, after lamenting the absurdity of the Italians' not speaking French instead of their own language,—"But, Sir, what is this Italian? nothing but bad French!"—and did not another of that same polished nation, in describing his travels to Naples, say, in answer to the question, whether he had seen the grand old temples of Paestum,—"Ah, yes, I have seen Paestum; 'tis a detestable country!—like the Campagna of Rome"? I am perfectly aware that there are differences of opinion.

Let me, then, beg you to remain in Rome during the mouth of May, if you can possibly make your arrangements to do so.

May is the month of the Madonna, and on every festa-day you will see at the corners of the streets a little improvised shrine, or it may be only a festooned print of the Madonna hung against the walls of some house or against the back of a chair, and tended by two or three children, who hold out to you a plate, as you pass, and beg for charity, sometimes, I confess, in the most pertinacious way,—the money thus raised to be expended in oil for the lamps before the Madonna shrines in the streets. The monasteries of nuns are also busy with processions and celebrations in honor of "the Mother of God," which are carried on pleasantly within their precincts and seen only of female friends. Sometimes you will meet a procession of ladies outside the gates following a cross on foot, while their carriages come after in a long file. These are societies which are making the pilgrimage of the Seven Basilicas outside the Walls. They set out early in the morning, stopping in each basilica for a half-hour to say their prayers, and return to Rome at Ave Maria.

Life, too, is altogether changed now. All the windows are wide open, and there is at least one head and shoulders leaning out at every house. And the poorer families are all out on their door-steps, working and chatting together, while their children run about them in the streets, sprawling, playing, and fighting. Many a beautiful theme for the artist is now to be found in these careless and characteristic groups; and curly-headed Saint Johns may be seen in every street, half naked, with great black eyes and rounded arms and legs. It is this which makes Rome so admirable a residence for an artist. All things are easy and careless in the out-of-doors life of the common people,—all poses unsought, all groupings accidental, all action unaffected and unconscious. One meets Nature at every turn,—not braced up in prim forms, not conscious in manners, not made up into the fashionable or the proper, but impulsive, free, and simple. With the whole street looking on, they are as unconscious and natural as if they were where no eye could see them,—ay, and more natural, too, than it is possible for some people to be, even in the privacy of their solitary rooms. They sing at the top of their lungs as they sit on their door-steps at their work, and often shout from house to house across the street a long conversation, and sometimes even read letters from upper windows to their friends below in the street. The men and women who cry their fruits, vegetables, and wares up and down the city, laden with baskets or panniers, and often accompanied by a donkey, stop to chat with group after group, or get into animated debates about prices, or exercise their wits and lungs at once in repartee in a very amusing way. Everybody is in dishabille in the morning, but towards twilight the girls put on their better dresses, and comb their glossy raven hair, heaping it up in great solid braids, and, hanging two long golden ear-rings in their ears and collane round their full necks, come forth conquering and to conquer, and saunter bare-headed up and down the streets, or lounge about the doorways or piazzas in groups, ready to give back to any jeerer as good as he sends. You see them marching along sometimes in a broad platoon of five or six, all their brows as straight as if they had been ruled, and their great dark eyes flashing out under them, ready in a moment for a laugh or a frown. What stalwart creatures they are! What shoulders, bosoms, and backs they have! what a chance for the lungs under those stout busti! and what finished and elegant heads! They are certainly cast in a large mould, with nothing belittled or meagre about them, either in feature or figure.

Early in the morning you will see streaming through the streets or gathered together in picturesque groups, some standing, some couching on the pavement, herds of long-haired goats, brown and white and black, which have been driven, or rather which have followed their shepherd, into the city to be milked. The majestical, long-bearded, patriarchal rams shake their bells and parade solemnly round,—while the silken females clatter their little hoofs as they run from the hand of the milker when he has filled his can. The shepherd is kept pretty busy, too, milking at everybody's door; and before the fashionable world is up at nine, the milk is gone and the goats are off.

You may know that it is May by the orange and lemon stands, which are erected in almost every piazza. These are little booths covered with canvas, and fantastically adorned with lemons and oranges intermixed, which, piled into pyramids and disposed about everywhere, have a very gay effect. They are generally placed near a fountain, the water of which is conducted through a canna into the centre of the booth, and there, finding its own level again, makes a little spilling fountain from which the bibite are diluted. Here for a baiocco one buys lemonade or orangeade and all sorts of curious little drinks or bibite, with a feeble taste of anisette or some other herb to take off the mawkishness of the water,—or for a half-baiocco one may have the lemonade without sugar, and in this way it is usually drunk. On all festa-days, little portable tables are carried round the streets, hung to the neck of the limonaro, and set down at convenient spots, or whenever a customer presents himself, and the cries of "Acqua fresca,—limonaro, limonaro,—chi vuol bere?" are heard on all sides; and I can assure you, that, after standing on tiptoe for an hour in the heat and straining your neck and head to get sight of some Church procession, you are glad enough to go to the extravagance of even a lemonade with sugar; and smacking your lips, you bless the institution of the limonaro as one which must have been early instituted by the Good Samaritan. Listen to his own description of himself in one of the popular canzonetti sung about the streets by wandering musicians to the accompaniment of a violin and guitar:—

 
"Ma per altro son uomo ingegnoso,
Non possiedo, ma sono padrone;
Vendo l' acqua con spirto e limone
Finche dura d' estate il calor.
 
 
"Ho an capello di paglia,—ma bello!
Un zinale di sopra fino;
Chi mi osserva nel mio tavolino,
Gli vien sete, se sete non ha.
 
 
"Spaccio spirti, siroppi, acquavite
Fo 'ranciate di nuova invenzione;
Voi vedete quante persone
Chiedon acqua,—e rispondo,—Son quà!"
 

The limonaro is the exponent, the algebraic power, of the Church processions which abound this month; and he is as faithful to them as Boswell to Johnson;—wherever they appear, he is there to console and refresh. Nor is his office a sinecure now; and let us hope that he has his small profits, as well as the Church,—though they spell theirs differently.

The great procession of the year takes place this month on Corpus Domini, and is well worth seeing, as being the very finest and most characteristic of all the Church festivals. It was instituted in honor of the famous miracle at Bolsena, when the wafer dripped blood, and is, therefore, in commemoration of one of the cardinal doctrines of the Roman Church, Transubstantiation, and one of its most theological miracles. The Papal procession takes place in the morning, in the piazza of Saint Peter's; and if you would be sure of it, you must be on the spot as soon as eight o'clock at the latest. The whole circle of the piazza itself is covered with an awning, festooned gayly with garlands of box, under which the procession passes; and the ground is covered with yellow sand, over which box and bay are strewn. The celebration commences with morning mass in the basilica, and that over, the procession issues from one door, and, making the whole circuit of the piazza, returns into the church. First come the Seminaristi, or scholars and attendants of the various hospitals and charity-schools, such as San Michele and Santo Spirito,—all in white. Then follow the brown-cowled, long-bearded Franciscans, the white Carmelites, and the black Benedictines, bearing lighted candles and chanting hoarsely as they go. You may see pass before you now all the members of these different conventual orders that there are in Rome, and have an admirable opportunity to study their physiognomies in mass. If you are a convert to Romanism, you will perhaps find in their bald beads and shaven crowns and bearded faces a noble expression of reverence and humility; but, suffering as I do under the misfortune of being a heretic, I could but remark on their heads an enormous development of the two organs of reverence and firmness, and a singular deficiency in the upper forehead, while there was an almost universal enlargement of the lower jaw and of the base of the brain. Being, unfortunately, a friend of Phrenology, as well as a heretic, I drew no very auspicious augury from these developments; and looking into their faces, the physiognomical traits were narrow-mindedness, bigotry, or cunning. The Benedictine heads showed more intellect and will; the Franciscans more dulness and good-nature.

But while I am criticizing them, they are passing by, and a picturesque set of fellows they are. Much as I dislike the conventual creed, I should be sorry to see the costume disappear. Directly on the heels of their poverty come the three splendid triple crowns of the Pope, glittering with gorgeous jewels, and borne in triumph on silken embroidered cushions, and preceded by the court jeweller. After them follow the chapters, canons, and choirs of the seven basilicas, chanting in lofty altos and solid basses and clear ringing tenors from their old Church books, each basilica bearing a typical tent of colored stripes and a wooden campanile and a bell which is constantly rung. Next come the canons of the churches and the monsignori, in splendid dresses and rich capes of beautiful lace falling below their waists; the bishops clad in cloth of silver with mitres on their heads; the cardinals brilliant in gold embroidery and gleaming in the sun; and at last the Pope himself, borne on a platform splendid with silver and gold, with a rich canopy over his head. Beneath this he kneels, or rather, seems to kneel; for, though his splendid draperies and train are skilfully arranged so as to present this semblance, being drawn behind him over two blocks which are so placed as to represent his heels, yet in fact he is seated on a sunken bench or chair, as any careful eye can plainly see. However, kneeling or sitting, just as you will, there he is, before an altar, holding up the ostia, which is the corpus Domini, "the body of God," and surrounded by officers of the Swiss guards in glittering armor, chamberlains in their beautiful black and Spanish dresses with ruffs and swords, attendants in scarlet and purple costumes, and the guardia nobile in their red dress uniforms. Nothing could be more striking than this group. It is the very type of the Church,—pompous, rich, splendid, imposing. After them follow the dragoons mounted,—first a company on black horses, then another on bays, and then a third on grays; foot-soldiers with flashing bayonets bring up the rear, and the procession is over. As the last soldiers enter the church, there is a stir among the gilt equipages of the cardinals which line one side of the piazza,—the horses toss their scarlet plumes, the liveried servants sway as the carriages lumber on, and you may spend a half-hour hunting out your own humble vehicle, if you have one, or throng homeward on foot with the crowd through the Borgo and over the bridge of Sant' Angelo.

This grand procession strikes the note of all the others, and in the afternoon each parish brings out its banners, arrays itself in its choicest dresses, and with pomp and music bears the ostia through the streets, the crowd kneeling before it, and the priests chanting. During the next ottava or eight days, all the processions take place in honor of this festival; and when the week has passed, everything ends with the Papal procession in Saint Peter's piazza, when, without music, and with uncovered heads, the Pope, cardinals, monsignori, canons, and the rest of the priests and officials, make the round of the piazza, bearing great Church banners.

One of the most striking of their celebrations took place this year at the church of San Rocco in the Ripetta, when the church was made splendid with lighted candles and gold bands, and a preacher held forth to a crowded audience in the afternoon. At Ave Maria there was a great procession, with banners, music, and torches, and all the evening the people sauntered to and fro in crowds before the church, where a platform was erected and draped with old tapestries, from which a band played constantly. Do not believe, my dear Presbyterian friend, that these spectacles fail deeply to affect the common mind. So long as human nature remains the same, this splendor and pomp of processions, these lighted torches and ornamented churches, this triumphant music and glad holiday of religion will attract more than your plain conventicles, your ugly meeting-houses, and your compromise with the bass-viol. For my own part, I do not believe that music and painting and all the other arts really belong to the Devil, or that God gave him joy and beauty to deceive with, and kept only the ugly, sour, and sad for himself. We are always better when we are happy; and we are about as sure of being good when we are happy, as of being happy when we are good. Cheerfulness and happiness are, in my humble opinion, duties and habits to be cultivated; but, if you don't think so, I certainly would not deny you the privilege of being wretched: don't let us quarrel about it.

Rather let us turn to the Artists' Festival, which takes place in this month, and is one of the great attractions of the season. Formerly, this festival took place at Cerbara, an ancient Etruscan town on the Campagna, of which only certain subterranean caves remain. But during the revolutionary days which followed the disasters of 1848, it was suspended for two or three years by the interdict of the Papal government, and when it was again instituted, the place of meeting was changed to Fidenae, the site of another Etruscan town, with similar subterranean excavations, which were made the head-quarters of the festival. But the new railway to Bologna having been laid out directly over this ground, the artists have been again driven away, and this year the festa was held, for the first time, in the grove of Egeria, one of the most beautiful spots on the whole Campagna,—and here it is to be hoped it will have an abiding rest.

This festival was instituted by the German artists, and, though the artists of all nations now join in it, the Germans still remain its special patrons and directors. Early in the morning, the artists rendezvous at an appointed osteria outside the walls, dressed in every sort of grotesque and ludicrous costume which can be imagined. All the old dresses which can be rummaged out of the studios or theatres, or pieced together from masking wardrobes, are now in requisition. Indians and Chinese, ancient warriors and mediaeval heroes, militia-men and Punches, generals in top-boots and pigtails, doctors in gigantic wigs and small-clothes, Falstaffs and justices "with fair round belly with good capon lined," magnificent foolscaps, wooden swords with terrible inscriptions, gigantic chapeaus with plumes made of vegetables, in a word, every imaginable absurdity is to be seen. Arrived at the place of rendezvous, they all breakfast, and then the line of march is arranged. A great wooden cart, adorned with quaint devices, garlanded with laurel and bay, bears the president and committee. This is drawn by great white oxen, who are decorated with wreaths and flowers and gay trappings, and from it floats the noble banner of Cerbara or Fidenae. After this follows a strange and motley train,—some mounted on donkeys, some on horses, and some afoot,—and the line of march is taken up for the grove of Egeria. What mad jests and wild fun now take place it is impossible to describe; suffice it to say, that all are right glad of a little rest when they reach their destination.

Now begin to stream out from the city hundreds of carriages,—for all the world will be abroad to-day to see,—and soon the green slopes are swarming with gay crowds. Some bring with them a hamper of provisions and wine, and, spreading them on the grass, lunch and dine when and where they will; but those who would dine with the artists must have the order of the mezzo baiocco hanging to their buttonhole, which is distributed previously in Rome to all the artists who purchase tickets. Some few there are who also bear upon their breasts the nobler medal of troppo merito, gained on previous days, and those are looked upon with due reverence.

But before dinner or lunch there is a high ceremony to take place,—the great feature of the day. It is the mock-heroic play. This year it was the meeting of Numa with the nymph Egeria at the grotto; and thither went the festive procession; and the priest, befilletted and draped in white, burned upon the altar as a sacrifice a great toy sheep, whose offence "smelt to heaven"; and then from the niches suddenly appeared Numa, a gallant youth in spectacles, and Egeria, a Spanish artist with white dress and fillet, who made vows over the smoking sheep, and then were escorted back to the sacred grove with festal music by a joyous, turbulent crowd.

Last year, however, at Fidenae, it was better. We had a travesty of the taking of Troy, which was eminently ludicrous, and which deserves a better description than I can give. Troy was a space inclosed within paper barriers, about breast-high, painted "to present a wall," and within these were the Trojans, clad in red, and all wearing gigantic paper helmets. There was old Priam, in spectacles, with his crown and robes,—Laocoön, in white, with a white wool beard and wig,—Ulysses, in a long, yellow beard and mantle,—and Aeneas, with a bald head, in a blue, long-tailed coat, and tall dickey, looking like the traditional Englishman in the circus who comes to hire the horse. The Grecians were encamped at a short distance. All had round, basket-work shields,—some with their names painted on them in great letters, and some with an odd device, such as a cat or pig. There were Ulysses, Agamemnon, Ajax, Nestor, Patroclus, Diomedes, Achilles, "all honorable men." The drama commenced with the issuing of Paris and Helen from the walls of Troy,—he in a tall, black French hat, girdled with a gilt crown, and she in a white dress, with a great wig hanging round her face in a profusion of carrotty curls. Queer figures enough they were, as they stepped along together, caricaturing love in a pantomime, he making terrible demonstrations of his ardent passion, and she finally falling on his neck in rapture. This over, they seated themselves near by two large pasteboard rocks, he sitting on his shield and taking out his flute to play to her, while she brought forth her knitting and ogled him as he played. While they were thus engaged, came creeping up with the stage stride of a double step, and dragging one foot behind him, Menelaus, whom Thersites had, meantime, been taunting, by pointing at him two great ox-horns. He walked all round the lovers, pantomiming rage and jealousy in the accredited ballet style, and then, suddenly approaching, crushed poor Paris's great black hat down over his eyes. Both, very much frightened, then took to their heels and rushed into the city, while Menelaus, after shaking Paris's shield, in defiance, at the walls, retired to the Grecian camp. Then came the preparations for battle. The Trojans leaned over their paper battlements, with their fingers to their noses, twiddling them in scorn, while the Greeks shook their fists back at them. The battle now commenced on the "ringing-plains of Troy," and was eminently absurd. Paris, in hat and pantaloons, (à la mode de Paris,) soon showed the white feather, and incontinently fled. Everybody hit nowhere, fiercely striking the ground or the shields, and always carefully avoiding, as on the stage, to hit in the right place. At last, however, Patroclus was killed, whereupon the battle was suspended, and a grand tableau of surprise and horror took place, from which at last they recovered, and the Greeks prepared to carry him off on their shoulders. Then terrible to behold was the grief of Achilles. Homer himself would have wept to see him. He flung himself on the body, and shrieked, and tore his hair, and violently shook the corpse, which, under such demonstrations, now and then kicked up. Finally, he rises and challenges Hector to single combat, and out comes the valiant Trojan, and a duel ensues with wooden axes. Such blows and counter blows were never seen, only they never hit, but often whirled the warrior who dealt them completely round; they tumbled over their own blows, panted with feigned rage, lost their robes and great pasteboard helmets, and were even more absurd than Richmond and Richard ever were on the country boards at a fifth-rate theatre. But Hector is at last slain and borne away, and a ludicrous lay figure is laid out to represent him, with bunged-up eyes and a general flabbiness of body and want of features, charming to behold. On their necks the Trojans bear him to their walls, and with a sudden jerk pitch him over them head first, and he tumbles, in a heap, into the city. Then Ulysses harangues the Greeks. He has brought out a quarteruola barrel of wine, which, with most expressive pantomime, he shows to be the wooden horse that must be carried into Troy. His proposition is joyfully accepted, and, accompanied by all, he rolls the cask up to the walls, and, flourishing a tin cup in one hand, invites the Trojans to partake. At first there is confusion in the city, and fingers are twiddled over the walls, but after a time all go out and drink, and become ludicrously drunk, and stagger about, embracing each other in the most maudlin style. Even Helen herself comes out, gets tipsy with the rest, and dances about like the most disreputable of Maenades. A great scena, however, takes place as they are about to drink. Laocoön, got up in white wool, appears, and violently endeavors to dissuade them, but in vain. In the midst of his harangue, a long string of blown up sausage-skins is dragged in for the serpent, and suddenly cast about his neck. His sons and he then form a group, the sausage-snake is twined about them,—only the old story is reversed, and he bites the serpent instead of the serpent biting him,—and all die in agony, travestying the ancient group.

All, being now drunk, go in, and Ulysses with them. A quantity of straw is kindled, the smoke rises, the Greeks approach and dash in the paper walls with clubs, and all is confusion. Then Aeneas, in his blue long-tailed circus-coat, broad white hat, and tall shirt-collar, carries off old Anchises on his shoulders with a cigar in his mouth, and bears him to a painted section of a vessel, which is rocked to and fro by hand, as if violently agitated by the waves. Aeneas and Anchises enter the boat, or rather stand behind it so as to conceal their legs, and off it sets, rocked to and fro constantly,—Aeolus and Tramontana following behind, with bellows to blow up a wind, and Fair Weather, with his name written on big back, accompanying them. The violent motion, however, soon makes Aeneas sick, and as he leans over the side in a helpless and melancholy manner, and almost gives up the ghost, as well as more material things, the crowd burst into laughter. However, at last they reach two painted rocks, and found Latium, and a general rejoicing takes place.—The donkey who was to have ended all by dragging the body of Hector round the walls came too late, and this part of the programme did not take place.

So much of the entertainment over, preparations are made for dinner. In the grove of Egeria the plates are spread in circles, while all the company sing part-songs and dance. At last all is ready, the signal is given, and the feast takes place after the most rustic manner. Great barrels of wine covered with green branches stand at one side, from which flagons are filled and passed round, and the good appetites soon make direful gaps in the beef and mighty plates of lettuce. After this, and a little sauntering about for digestion's sake, come the afternoon sports. And there are donkey races, and tilting at a ring, and foot-races, and running in sacks. Nothing can be more picturesque than the scene, with its motley masqueraders, its crowds of spectators seated along the slopes, its little tents here and there, its races in the valley, and, above all, the glorious mountains looking down from the distance. Not till the golden light slopes over the Campagna, gilding the skeletons of aqueducts, and drawing a delicate veil of beauty over the mountains, can we tear ourselves away, and rattle back in our carriage to Rome.

The wealthy Roman families, who have villas in the immediate vicinity of Rome, now leave the city to spend a month in them and breathe the fresh air of spring. Many and many a tradesman who is well to do in the world has a little vigna outside the gates, where he raises vegetables and grapes and other fruits; and every festa-day you will be sure to find him and his family out in his little villetta, wandering about the grounds or sitting beneath his arbors, smoking and chatting with his children around him. His friends who have no villas of their own here visit him, and often there is a considerable company thus collected, who, if one may judge from their cheerful countenances and much laughter, enjoy themselves mightily. Knock at any of these villa-gates, and, if you happen to have the acquaintance of the owner, or are evidently a stranger of respectability, you will be received with much hospitality, invited to partake of the fruit and wine, and overwhelmed with thanks for your gentilezza when you take your leave; for the Italians are a most good-natured and social people, and nothing pleases them better than a stranger who breaks the common round of topics by accounts of his own land. Everything new is to them wonderful, just as it is to a child. They are credulous of everything you tell them about America, which is to them in some measure what it was to the English in the days of Raleigh, Drake, and Hawkins, and say "Per Bacco!" to every new statement. And they are so magnificently ignorant, that you have carte blanche for your stories. Never did I know any one staggered by anything I chose to say, but once. I was walking with my respectable old padrone, Nisi, about his little garden one day, when an ambition to know something about America inflamed his breast.

"Are there any mountains?" he asked.

I told him "Yes," and, with a chuckle of delight, he cried,—

"Per Bacco! And have you any cities?"

"Yes, a few little ones,"—for I thought I would sing small, contrary to the general "'Ercles vein" of my countrymen. He was evidently pleased that they were small, and, swelling with natural pride, said,—

"Large as Rome, of course, they could not be"; then, after a moment, he added, interrogatively, "And rivers, too,—have you any rivers?"

"A few," I answered.

"But not as large as our Tiber," he replied,—feeling assured, that, if the cities were smaller than Rome, as a necessary consequence, the rivers that flowed by them must be in the same category.

The bait now offered was too tempting. I measured my respectable and somewhat obese friend carefully with my eye, for a moment, and then hurled this terrible fact at him:—

"We have some rivers three thousand miles long."

The effect was awful. He stood and stared at me, as if petrified, for a moment. Then the blood rushed into his face, and, turning on his heel, he took off his hat, said suddenly, "Buona sera," and carried my fact and his opinions together up into his private room. I am afraid that Don Pietro decided, on consideration, that I had been taking unwarrantable liberties with him, and exceeding all proper bounds, in my attempt to impose on his good-nature. From that time forward he asked me no more questions about America.