A second door will admit to the higher terrace of the Boschetto; a tiny wood of ancient ilexes, from which a steep flight of steps leads up Il Parnaso or the 'Belvidere,' an artificial mound formed on an ancient nympheum by Cardinal Ricci, whence, till the recent destruction of the Villa Ludovisi, a most exquisite view might be obtained.

'They asked the porter for the key of the Bosco, which was given, and they entered a grove of ilexes, whose gloomy shade effectually shut out the radiant sunshine that still illuminated the western sky. They then ascended a long and exceedingly steep flight of steps, leading up to a high mound covered with ilexes. Here both stood still, side by side, gazing silently on the city, where dome and bell-tower stood out against a sky of gold; the desolate Monte Mario and its stone pines rising dark to the right. Behind, close at hand, were sombre ilex woods, amid which rose here and there the spire of a cypress or a ruined arch, and on the highest point, the white Villa Ludovisi; beyond stretched the Campagna, girdled by hills melting into light under the evening sky.''Mademoiselle Mori.'

From the door of the Villa Medici is the scene familiar to artists, of a fountain shaded by ilexes, which frame a distant view of S. Peter's.

'Je vois (de la Villa Medici) les quatre cinquièmes de la ville; je compte les sept collines, je parcours les rues régulières qui s'étendent entre le cours et la place d'Espagne, je fais le dénombrement des palais, des églises, des dômes, et des clochers; je m'égare dans le Ghetto et dans le Trastévère. Je ne vois pas des ruines autant que j'en voudrais : elles sont ramassées là-bas, sur ma gauche, aux environs du Forum. Cependant nous avons tout près de nous la colonne Antonine et le mausolée d'Adrien. La vue est fermée agréablement par les pins de la villa Pamphili, qui réunissent leurs larges parasols et font comme une table à mille pieds pour un repas de géants. L'horizon fuit à gauche à des distances infinies; la plaine est nue, onduleuse et bleue comme la mer. Mais si je vous mettais en présence d'un spectacle si étendu et si divers, un seul objet attirerait vos regards, un seul frapperait votre attention: vous n'auriez des yeux que pour Saint-Pierre. Son dôme est moitié dans la ville, moitié dans le ciel. Quand j'ouvre ma fenêtre, vers cinq heures du matin, je vois Rome noyée dans les brouillards de la fièvre seul, le dôme de Saint-Pierre est coloré par la lumière rose du soleil levant.' -About.

The terrace ('La Passeggiata') ends at the Obelisk of the Trinità de' Monti, erected here in 1789 by Pius VI.

'When the Ave Maria sounds, it is time to go to the church of Trinità de' Monti, where French nuns sing; and it is charming to hear them. I declare to heaven that I am become quite tolerant, and listen to bad music with edification; but what can I do? The composition is perfectly ridiculous, the organ-playing even more absurd but it is twilight, and the whole of the small bright church is filled with persons kneeling, lit up by the sinking sun each time that the door is opened; both the singing nuns have the sweetest voices in the world, quite tender and touching, more especially when one of them sings the responses in her melodious voice, which we are accustomed to hear chaunted by priests in a loud, harsh, monotonous tone. The impression is very singular; moreover, it is well known that no one is permitted to see the fair singers, so this caused me to form a strange resolution. I have composed something to suit their voices, which I have observed very minutely, and I mean to send it to them. It will be pleasant

1 The obelisk was formerly in the gardens of Sallust on the Quirinal. Faune in 1548 (Dell' Antichità di Roma), and Pyrrho Ligori in 1553, saw it lying there. Thence it was removed by Clement XII., in 1735, to the small quadrangle near S. John Lateran, where it was seen still prostrate in 1771 (Rossini, Il Mercurio Errante). Pius VI. employed the architect Antinori to erect it in its present position. Its socle remains neglected in the Piazza del Maccao.

The Church of the Trinità de' Monti

35

to hear my chaunt performed by persons I never saw, especially as they must in turn sing it to the barbaro Tedesco," whom they also never beheld.'-Mendels

sohn's Letters.

'In the evenings people go to the Trinità to hear the nuns sing from the organgallery. It sounds like the singing of angels. One sees in the choir troops of young scholars, moving with slow and measured steps, with their long white veils, like a flock of spirits.'-Frederika Bremer.

The Church of the Trinità de' Monti was built by Charles VIII. of France in 1495, at the request of S. Francesco di Paola. In the time of the French Revolution it was plundered, but was restored by Louis XVIII. in 1817. It contained several interesting paintings.

In the second chapel on the left is the Descent from the Cross, the masterpiece of Daniele da Volterra, declared by Nicholas Poussin to be the third picture in the world, but terribly injured by the French in their attempts to remove it.

'We might almost fancy ourselves spectators of the mournful scene,-the Redeemer, while being removed from the cross, gradually sinking down with all that relaxation of limb and utter helplessness which belongs to a dead body; the assistants engaged in their various duties, and thrown into different and contrasted attitudes, intently occupied with the sacred remains which they so reverently gaze upon; the mother of the Lord in a swoon amidst her afflicted companions; the disciple whom He loved standing with outstretched arms, absorbed in contemplating the mysterious spectacle. The truth in the representation of the exposed parts of the body appears to be nature itself. The colouring of the heads and of the whole picture accords precisely with the subject, displaying strength rather than delicacy, a harmony, and in short a degree of skill, of which Michelangelo himself might have been proud, if the picture had been inscribed with his name. And to this I believe the author alluded, when he painted his friend with a looking-glass near, as if to intimate that he might recognise in the picture a reflection of himself.'- Lanzi.

'Daniele da Volterra's Descent from the Cross is one of the celebrated pictures of the world, and has very grand features. The body is not skilfully sustained; nevertheless the number of strong men employed about it makes up in sheer muscle for the absence of skill. Here are four ladders against the cross, stalwart figures standing, ascending, and descending upon each, so that the space between the cross and the ground is absolutely alive with magnificent lines. The Virgin lies on one side, and is like a grand creature struck down by a sudden death-blow. She has fallen, like Ananias in Raffaelle's cartoon, with her head bent backwards, and her arm under her. The crown of thorns has been taken from the dead brow, and rests on the end of one of the ladders.'-Lady Eastlake.

The third chapel on the right contains an Assumption of the Virgin, another work of Daniele da Volterra. The fifth chapel is adorned with frescoes of his school. The sixth has frescoes of the school of Perugino. The frescoes in the right transept are by F. Zuccaro and Pierino del Vaga; in that of the procession of S. Gregory the mausoleum of Hadrian is represented as it appeared in the time of Leo X.

The adjoining Convent of the Sacré Cœur is much frequented as a place of education. The nuns are all persons of rank. When a lady takes the veil, her nearest relations inherit her property, except about £1000, which goes to the convent. The nuns-Dames du Sacré Coeur-are allowed to retain no personal property, but if they still wish to have the use of their books, they give them to the convent library. They receive visitors every afternoon, and quantities of people go to them from curiosity, on the plea of seeking advice.

From the Trinità the two popular streets-Sistina and Gregoriana -branch off; the former leading in a direct line (though the name changes) to S. Maria Maggiore, and thence to S. John Lateran and S. Croce in Gerusalemme. The house adjoining the Trinità was that of Nicholas Poussin; that at the angle of the two streets, called the Tempietto, was once inhabited by Claude Lorraine. At the back of it, towards Via Gregoriana, is a curious porch formed by a monster. The adjoining house (64 Sistina)-formerly known as Palazzo della Regina di Polonia, from Maria Casimira, Queen of Poland, who resided there for some years-was inhabited by the Zuccari family, and has paintings on the ground floor by Federigo Zuccaro. One of the rooms on the second floor was adorned with frescoes by modern German artists (Overbeck, Schadow, Cornelius, Veit) at the expense of the Prussian Consul Bartholdy, but they were all removed to Germany in 1886. At No. 138 a tablet marks the house where Rossini (1790-1857) lived and wrote.

Behind the Via Sistina is the Villa Malta, where, in 1789, the famous Cagliostro held his meetings and practised his so-called miracles of increasing the size of precious stones and turning water into wine.

On the left of the Piazza del Popolo, the Via Babuino branches off, deriving its name from a mutilated figure on a fountain halfway down, removed since the fall of the Papal Government, one of the many robberies of street interest to be deplored. On the right is the English Church, a feeble work of Street, chiefly erected by the generous exertions of Mrs. Henry Walpole. A few steps farther is the Greek Church of S. Atanasio, attached to a college founded by Gregory XIII. in 1580. In No. 144 John Gibson, the sculptor, died, January 27, 1866.

Behind this street is the Via Margutta, almost entirely inhabited by artists and sculptors, and which till recently contained the Costume Academy of 'Gigi,' well known through many generations of artists, but recently destroyed. Models are now obtained at the Circolo degli Artisti.

'The Via Margutta is a street of studios and stables, crossed at the upper end by a little roofed gallery with a single window, like a shabby Bridge of Sighs. Horses are continually being washed and currycombed outside their stable doors; frequent heaps of immondezzajo make the air unfragrant; and the perspective is frequently damaged by rows of linen suspended across the road from window to window. Unsightly as they are, however, these obstacles in no wise affect the popularity of the Via Margutta, either as a residence for the artist or a lounge for the amateur. Fashionable patrons leave their carriages at the corner, and pick their way daintily among the gutters and dust-heaps. A boar-hunt by Vallatti compensates for an unlucky splash; and a Campagna sunset of Desoulavey glows all the richer for the squalor through which it is approached.'-Barbara's History.

The Vicolo d'Aliberti, which unites the Via Margutta to the Babuino, derives its name from having contained the celebrated Teatro delle Dame, built by M. d'Alibert, equerry to Queen Christina. This was the principal theatre of the eighteenth century, for which

Metastasio wrote his plays, and where the compositions of Porpora, Leo, Durante, Galuppi, Jomelli, &c., were first given to the public.

The Balbuino ends in the ugly but central square of the Piazza di Spagna, where many of the best hotels and shops are situated. Every house is let to foreigners. Even in 1580 Montaigne writes of Rome as 'rappiécée d'estrangiers, une ville où chacun prant sa part de l'oisifveté ecclesiastique.' Hence the Trinità is reached by a magnificent flight of steps, which was built by Alessandro Specchi at the expense of a private individual, M. Gueffier, secretary to the French embassy at Rome under Innocent XIII.

'No art-loving visitor to Rome can ever have passed the noble flight of steps which leads from the Piazza di Spagna to the Church of the Trinità de' Monti without longing to transfer to his sketch-book the picturesque groups of models who there spend their day, basking in the beams of the wintry sun, and eating those little boiled beans whose yellow husks bestrew every place where the lower-class Romans congregate-practising, in short, the dolce far niente. Beppo, the celebrated lame beggar, is no longer to be seen there, having been banished to the steps of the church of S. Agostino; but there is old Felice, with conical hat, brown cloak, and bagpipes, father of half the models on the steps. He has been seen in an artist's studio in Paris, and is reported to have performed on foot the double journey between Rome and that capital. There are two or three younger men in blue jackets and goatskin breeches; as many women in folded linen head-dresses and red or blue skirts; and a sprinkling of children of both sexes, in costumes the miniature fac-similes of their elders. All these speedily learn to recognise a visitor who is interested in that especial branch of art which is embodied in models, and at every turn in the street such a one is met by the flash of white teeth and the gracious sweetness of an Italian smile.'-H. M. B.

'Among what may be called the cubs or minor lions of Rome, there was one that amused me mightily. It is always to be found there; and its den is on the great flight of steps that lead from the Piazza di Spagna to the church of the Trinità de' Monti. In plainer words, these steps are the great place of resort for the artists' "models," and there they are constantly waiting to be hired. The first time I went up there I could not conceive why the faces seemed so familiar to me; why they appeared to have beset me, for years, in every possible variety of action and costume; and how it came to pass that they started up before me, in Rome, in the broad day, like so many saddled and bridled nightmares. I soon found that we had made acquaintance, and improved it, for several years on the walls of various Exhibition Galleries. There is one old gentleman with long white hair and an immense beard, who, to my knowledge, has gone half through the catalogues of the Royal Academy. This is the venerable or patriarchal model. He carries a long staff; and every knob and twist in that staff I have seen, faithfully delineated, innumerable times. There is another man in a blue cloak, who always pretends to be asleep in the sun (when there is any), and who, I need not say, is always very wide awake, and very attentive to the disposition of his legs. This is the dolce far niente model. There is another man in a brown cloak, who leans against a wall, with his arms folded in his mantle, and looks out of the corners of his eyes, which are just visible beneath his broad slouched hat. This is the assassin model. There is another man, who constantly looks over his own shoulder, and is always going away, but never goes. This is the haughty or scornful model. As to Domestic Happiness and Holy Families, they should come very cheap, for there are heaps of them, all up the steps; and the cream of the thing is, that they are all the falsest vagabonds in the world, especially made up for the purpose, and having no counterparts in Rome or any other part of the habitable globe.'-Dickens.

'Climb these steps when the sun is setting. From a hundred belfries the bells ring for Ave Maria, and there, across the town, and in a blaze of golden glory, stands the great dome of S. Peter's; and from the terrace of the Villa Medici you can see the whole wonderful view, faintly pencilled Soracte far to your right, and below you and around you the City and the Seven Hills.'-Vera.

The house on the right of the steps, marked by an inscription, is that in which the poet Keats died, February 24, 1821.

The Barcaccia (restored), the fountain at the foot of the steps, executed by Bernini, is a stone boat commemorating the naumachia of Domitian-naval battles which took place in an artificial lake surrounded by a kind of theatre, which once occupied the site of this piazza. In front of the Palazzo di Spagna (the residence of the Spanish ambassador to the Pope, and where Alfieri triumphed in a magnificent representation of his Antigone' under Pius VI.), which gives its name to the square, stands a Column of cipollino, supporting a statue of the Virgin, erected by Pius IX. in 1854, in honour of his new dogma of the Immaculate Conception. At the base are figures of Moses, David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

·

The Piazza di Spagna may be considered as the centre of what is called the English quarter' of Rome, of which the Corso forms the boundary.

'Every winter there is a gay and pleasant English colony in Rome, of course more or less remarkable for rank, fashion and agreeability, with every varying year. Thrown together every day, and night after night; flocking to the same picture galleries, statue galleries, Pincian drives, and church functions, the English colonists at Rome perforce become intimate, in many cases friendly. They have an English library, where the various meets for the week are placarded: on such a day the Vatican galleries are open; the next is the feast of Saint soand-so; on Wednesday there will be music and vespers in the Sistine Chapel; on Thursday the Pope will bless the animals-sheep, horses, and what not; and flocks of English accordingly rush to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with their splendour and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion.'-Thackeray.

The Piazza is closed by the Collegio di Propaganda Fede, founded in 1622 by Gregory XV., but enlarged by Urban VIII., who built the present edifice from plans of Bernini. Like all the buildings erected by this Pope, its chief decorations are the bees of the Barberini. The object of the College is the education of youths of all nations as missionaries.

'The origin of the Propaganda is properly to be sought in an edict of Gregory XIII., by which the direction of Eastern missions was confided to a certain number of cardinals, who were commanded to promote the printing of catechisms in the less known tongues. But the institution was not firmly established; it was unprovided with the requisite means, and was by no means comprehensive in its views. It was at the suggestion of the great preacher Girolami da Narni that the idea was first conceived of extending the above-named institution. At his suggestion a congregation was established in all due form, and by this body regular meetings were to be held for the guidance and conduct of missions in every part of the world. The first funds were advanced by Gregory; his nephew contributed from his private property; and since this institution was in fact adapted to a want, the pressure of which was then felt, it increased in prosperity and splendour. Who does not know the services performed by the Propaganda for the diffusion of philosophical studies? and not this only: the institution has generally laboured (in its earliest years, most successfully, perhaps) to fulfil its vocation in a liberal and noble spirit.'-Ranke, Hist. of the Popes.'

'On y reçoit des jeunes gens nés dans les pays ultramontains et orientaux, où sont les infidèles et les hérétiques; ils y font leur éducation religieuse et civile, et retournent dans leur pays comme missionnaires pour propager la foi.'-A. Du Pays.