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Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon - "How and When to Be Your Own Doctor"

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Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete




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, if he chose to excavate, he might bring to
light many more sepulchral chambers, and find his profit in them too, by
disposing of the urns and busts. What struck me as much as anything was
the neatness of these subterranean apartments, which were quite as fit to
sleep in as most of those occupied by living Romans; and, having
undergone no wear and tear, they were in as good condition as on the day
they were built.

In this Columbarium, measuring about twenty feet square, I roughly
estimate that there have been deposited together the remains of at least
seven or eight hundred persons, reckoning two little heaps of bones and
ashes in each pigeon-hole, nine pigeon-holes in each row, and nine rows
on each side, besides those on the middle pier. All difficulty in
finding space for the dead would be obviated by returning to the ancient
fashion of reducing them to ashes,--the only objection, though a very
serious one, being the quantity of fuel that it would require. But
perhaps future chemists may discover some better means of consuming or
dissolving this troublesome mortality of ours.

We got into the carriage again, and, driving farther towards the city,
came to the tomb of the Scipios, of the exterior of which I retain no
very definite idea. It was close upon the Appian Way, however, though
separated from it by a high fence, and accessible through a gateway,
leading into a court. I think the tomb is wholly subterranean, and that
the ground above it is covered with the buildings of a farm-house; but of
this I cannot be certain, as we were led immediately into a dark,
underground passage, by an elderly peasant, of a cheerful and affable
demeanor. As soon as he had brought us into the twilight of the tomb, he
lighted a long wax taper for each of us, and led us groping into blacker
and blacker darkness. Even little R----- followed courageously in the
procession, which looked very picturesque as we glanced backward or
forward, and beheld a twinkling line of seven lights, glimmering faintly
on our faces, and showing nothing beyond. The passages and niches of the
tomb seem to have been hewn and hollowed out of the rock, not built by
any art of masonry; but the walls were very dark, almost black, and our
tapers so dim that I could not gain a sufficient breadth of view to
ascertain what kind of place it was. It was very dark, indeed; the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky could not be darker. The rough-hewn roof was
within touch, and sometimes we had to stoop to avoid hitting our heads;
it was covered with damps, which collected and fell upon us in occasional
drops. The passages, besides being narrow, were so irregular and
crooked, that, after going a little way, it would have been impossible to
return upon our steps without the help of the guide; and we appeared to
be taking quite an extensive ramble underground, though in reality I
suppose the tomb includes no great space. At several turns of our dismal
way, the guide pointed to inscriptions in Roman capitals, commemorating
various members of the Scipio family who were buried here; among them, a
son of Scipio Africanus, who himself had his death and burial in a
foreign land. All these inscriptions, however, are copies,--the
originals, which were really found here, having been removed to the
Vatican. Whether any bones and ashes have been left, or whether any were
found, I do not know. It is not, at all events, a particularly
interesting spot, being such shapeless blackness, and a mere dark hole,
requiring a stronger illumination than that of our tapers to distinguish
it from any other cellar. I did, at one place, see a sort of frieze,
rather roughly sculptured; and, as we returned towards the twilight of
the entrance-passage, I discerned a large spider, who fled hastily away
from our tapers,--the solitary living inhabitant of the tomb of the
Scipios.

One visit that we made, and I think it was before entering the city
gates, I forgot to mention. It was to an old edifice, formerly called
the Temple of Bacchus, but now supposed to have been the Temple of Virtue
and Honor. The interior consists of a vaulted hall, which was converted
from its pagan consecration into a church or chapel, by the early
Christians; and the ancient marble pillars of the temple may still be
seen built in with the brick and stucco of the later occupants. There is
an altar, and other tokens of a Catholic church, and high towards the
ceiling, there are some frescos of saints or angels, very curious
specimens of mediaeval, and earlier than mediaeval art. Nevertheless,
the place impressed me as still rather pagan than Christian. What is
most remarkable about this spot or this vicinity lies in the fact that
the Fountain of Egeria was formerly supposed to be close at hand; indeed,
the custode of the chapel still claims the spot as the identical one
consecrated by the legend. There is a dark grove of trees, not far from
the door of the temple; but Murray, a highly essential nuisance on such
excursions as this, throws such overwhelming doubt, or rather
incredulity, upon the site, that I seized upon it as a pretext for not
going thither. In fact, my small capacity for sight-seeing was already
more than satisfied.

On account of ------ I am sorry that we did not see the grotto, for her
enthusiasm is as fresh as the waters of Egeria's well can be, and she has
poetical faith enough to light her cheerfully through all these mists of
incredulity.

Our visits to sepulchral places ended with Scipio's tomb, whence we
returned to our dwelling, and Miss M------ came to dine with us.


March 10th.--On Saturday last, a very rainy day, we went to the Sciarra
Palace, and took U---- with us. It is on the Corso, nearly opposite to
the Piazza Colonna. It has (Heaven be praised!) but four rooms of
pictures, among which, however, are several very celebrated ones. Only a
few of these remain in my memory,--Raphael's "Violin Player," which I am
willing to accept as a good picture; and Leonardo da Vinci's "Vanity and
Modesty," which also I can bring up before my mind's eye, and find it
very beautiful, although one of the faces has an affected smile, which I
have since seen on another picture by the same artist, Joanna of Aragon.
The most striking picture in the collection, I think, is Titian's "Bella
Donna,"--the only one of Titian's works that I have yet seen which makes
an impression on me corresponding with his fame. It is a very splendid
and very scornful lady, as beautiful and as scornful as Gainsborough's
Lady Lyndoch, though of an entirely different type. There were two
Madonnas by Guido, of which I liked the least celebrated one best; and
several pictures by Garofalo, who always produces something noteworthy.
All the pictures lacked the charm (no doubt I am a barbarian to think it
one) of being in brilliant frames, and looked as if it were a long, long
while since they were cleaned or varnished. The light was so scanty,
too, on that heavily clouded day, and in those gloomy old rooms of the
palace, that scarcely anything could be fairly made out.

[I cannot refrain from observing here, that Mr. Hawthorne's inexorable
demand for perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy
pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond
measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the
keenest apprehension. The usual careless observation of people both of
the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect
world. But the insight which Mr. Hawthorne possessed was only equalled
by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived,
from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intellectual. It is not,
therefore, mere love of upholstery that impels him to ask for perfect
settings to priceless gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which
always made me feel that "the New Jerusalem," "even like a jasper stone,
clear as crystal," "where shall in no wise enter anything that defileth,
neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy
him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. It may give an idea of
this exquisite nicety of feeling to mention, that one day he took in his
fingers a half-bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an
infinite joy, remarked, "This is perfect. On earth a flower only can be
perfect."--ED.]

The palace is about two hundred and fifty years old, and looks as if it
had never been a very cheerful place; most shabbily and scantily
furnished, moreover, and as chill as any cellar. There is a small
balcony, looking down on the Corso, which probably has often been filled
with a merry little family party, in the carnivals of days long past. It
has faded frescos, and tarnished gilding, and green blinds, and a few
damask chairs still remain in it.

On Monday we all went to the sculpture-gallery of the Vatican, and saw as
much of the sculpture as we could in the three hours during which the
public are admissible. There were a few things which I really enjoyed,
and a few moments during which I really seemed to see them; but it is in
vain to attempt giving the impression produced by masterpieces of art,
and most in vain when we see them best. They are a language in
themselves, and if they could be expressed as well any way except by
themselves, there would have been no need of expressing those particular
ideas and sentiments by sculpture. I saw the Apollo Belvedere as
something ethereal and godlike; only for a flitting moment, however, and
as if he had alighted from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight,
and then had withdrawn himself again. I felt the Laocoon very
powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange
calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the
sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of Niagara, which
does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and
ever. I have not had so good a day as this (among works of art) since we
came to Rome; and I impute it partly to the magnificence of the
arrangements of the Vatican,--its long vistas and beautiful courts, and
the aspect of immortality which marble statues acquire by being kept free
from dust. A very hungry boy, seeing in one of the cabinets a vast
porphyry vase, forty-four feet in circumference, wished that he had it
full of soup.

Yesterday, we went to the Pamfili Doria Palace, which, I believe, is the
most splendid in Rome. The entrance is from the Corso into a court,
surrounded by a colonnade, and having a space of luxuriant verdure and
ornamental shrubbery in the centre. The apartments containing pictures
and sculptures are fifteen in number, and run quite round the court in
the first piano,--all the rooms, halls, and galleries of beautiful
proportion, with vaulted roofs, some of which glow with frescos; and all
are colder and more comfortless than can possibly be imagined without
having been in them. The pictures, most of them, interested me very
little. I am of opinion that good pictures are quite as rare as good
poets; and I do not see why we should pique ourselves on admiring any but
the very best. One in a thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause
of men, from generation to generation, till its colors fade or blacken
out of sight, and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in
garrets, or painted over by newer artists, just as tolerable poets are
shelved when their little day is over. Nevertheless, there was one long
gallery containing many pictures that I should be glad to see again under
more favorable circumstances, that is, separately, and where I might
contemplate them quite undisturbed, reclining in an easy-chair. At one
end of the long vista of this gallery is a bust of the present Prince
Doria, a smooth, sharp-nosed, rather handsome young man, and at the other
end his princess, an English lady of the Talbot family, apparently a
blonde, with a simple and sweet expression. There is a noble and
striking portrait of the old Venetian admiral, Andrea Doria, by Sebastian
del Piombo, and some other portraits and busts of the family.

In the whole immense range of rooms I saw but a single fireplace, and
that so deep in the wall that no amount of blaze would raise the
atmosphere of the room ten degrees. If the builder of the palace, or any
of his successors, have committed crimes worthy of Tophet, it would be a
still worse punishment for him to wander perpetually through this suite
of rooms on the cold floors of polished brick tiles or marble or mosaic,
growing a little chiller and chiller through every moment of eternity,--
or, at least, till the palace crumbles down upon him.

Neither would it assuage his torment in the least to be compelled to gaze
up at the dark old pictures,--the ugly ghosts of what may once have been
beautiful. I am not going to try any more to receive pleasure from a
faded, tarnished, lustreless picture, especially if it be a landscape.
There were two or three landscapes of Claude in this palace, which I
doubt not would have been exquisite if they had been in the condition of
those in the British National Gallery; but here they looked most forlorn,
and even their sunshine was sunless. The merits of historical painting
may be quite independent of the attributes that give pleasure, and a
superficial ugliness may even heighten the effect; but not so of
landscapes.


Via Porta, Palazzo Larazani, March 11th.--To-day we called at Mr.
Thompson's studio, and . . . . he had on the easel a little picture of
St. Peter released from prison by the angel, which I saw once before. It
is very beautiful indeed, and deeply and spiritually conceived, and I
wish I could afford to have it finished for myself. I looked again, too,
at his Georgian slave, and admired it as much as at first view; so very
warm and rich it is, so sensuously beautiful, and with an expression of
higher life and feeling within. I do not think there is a better painter
than Mr. Thompson living,--among Americans at least; not one so earnest,
faithful, and religious in his worship of art. I had rather look at his
pictures than at any except the very finest of the old masters, and,
taking into consideration only the comparative pleasure to be derived, I
would not except more than one or two of those. In painting, as in
literature, I suspect there is something in the productions of the day
that takes the fancy more than the works of any past age,--not greater
merit, nor nearly so great, but better suited to this very present time.

After leaving him, we went to the Piazza de' Termini, near the Baths of
Diocletian, and found our way with some difficulty to Crawford's studio.
It occupies several great rooms, connected with the offices of the Villa
Negroni; and all these rooms were full of plaster casts and a few works
in marble,--principally portions of his huge Washington monument, which
he left unfinished at his death. Close by the door at which we entered
stood a gigantic figure of Mason, in bag-wig, and the coat, waistcoat,
breeches, and knee and shoe buckles of the last century, the enlargement
of these unheroic matters to far more than heroic size having a very odd
effect. There was a figure of Jefferson on the same scale; another of
Patrick Henry, besides a horse's head, and other portions of the
equestrian group which is to cover the summit of the monument. In one of
the rooms was a model of the monument itself, on a scale, I should think,
of about an inch to afoot. It did not impress me as having grown out of
any great and genuine idea in the artist's mind, but as being merely an
ingenious contrivance enough. There were also casts of statues that
seemed to be intended for some other monument referring to Revolutionary
times and personages; and with these were intermixed some ideal statues
or groups,--a naked boy playing marbles, very beautiful; a girl with
flowers; the cast of his Orpheus, of which I long ago saw the marble
statue; Adam and Eve; Flora,--all with a good deal of merit, no doubt,
but not a single one that justifies Crawford's reputation, or that
satisfies me of his genius. They are but commonplaces in marble and
plaster, such as we should not tolerate on a printed page. He seems to
have been a respectable man, highly respectable, but no more, although
those who knew him seem to have rated him much higher. It is said that
he exclaimed, not very long before his death, that he had fifteen years
of good work still in him; and he appears to have considered all his life
and labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great things that he
was to achieve hereafter. I should say, on the contrary, that he was a
man who had done his best, and had done it early; for his Orpheus is
quite as good as anything else we saw in his studio.

People were at work chiselling several statues in marble from the plaster
models,--a very interesting process, and which I should think a doubtful
and hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no risk of mischief,
and that the model is sure to be accurately repeated in the marble.
These persons, who do what is considered the mechanical part of the
business, are often themselves sculptors, and of higher reputation than
those who employ them.

It is rather sad to think that Crawford died before he could see his
ideas in the marble, where they gleam with so pure and celestial a light
as compared with the plaster. There is almost as much difference as
between flesh and spirit.

The floor of one of the rooms was burdened with immense packages,
containing parts of the Washington monument, ready to be forwarded to its
destination. When finished, and set up, it will probably make a very
splendid appearance, by its height, its mass, its skilful execution; and
will produce a moral effect through its images of illustrious men, and
the associations that connect it with our Revolutionary history; but I do
not think it will owe much to artistic force of thought or depth of
feeling. It is certainly, in one sense, a very foolish and illogical
piece of work,--Washington, mounted on an uneasy steed, on a very narrow
space, aloft in the air, whence a single step of the horse backward,
forward, or on either side, must precipitate him; and several of his
contemporaries standing beneath him, not looking up to wonder at his
predicament, but each intent on manifesting his own personality to the
world around. They have nothing to do with one another, nor with
Washington, nor with any great purpose which all are to work out
together.


March 14th.--On Friday evening I dined at Mr. T. B. Read's, the poet and
artist, with a party composed of painters and sculptors,--the only
exceptions being the American banker and an American tourist who has
given Mr. Read a commission. Next to me at table sat Mr. Gibson, the
English sculptor, who, I suppose, stands foremost in his profession at
this day. He must be quite an old man now, for it was whispered about
the table that he is known to have been in Rome forty-two years ago, and
he himself spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here, before he
once returned home. I should hardly take him to be sixty, however,
his hair being more dark than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his
features unwithered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is somewhat
venerable. . . . .

He has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a bachelor, has
doubtless spent a calm life among his clay and marble, meddling little
with the world, and entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio.
He did not talk a great deal; but enough to show that he is still an
Englishman in many sturdy traits, though his accent has something foreign
about it. His conversation was chiefly about India, and other topics of
the day, together with a few reminiscences of people in Liverpool, where
he once resided. There was a kind of simplicity both in his manner and
matter, and nothing very remarkable in the latter. . . . .

The gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the
Pre-Raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare
none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old
Pre-Raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely
omit in their imitations. In his own art, he said the aim should be to
find out the principles on which the Greek sculptors wrought, and to do
the work of this day on those principles and in their spirit; a fair
doctrine enough, I should think, but which Mr. Gibson can scarcely be
said to practise. . . . . The difference between the Pre-Raphaelites and
himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists and realists, in a
certain sense, and he a pagan idealist. Methinks they have hold of the
best end of the matter.


March 18th.--To-day, it being very bright and mild, we set out, at noon,
for an expedition to the Temple of Vesta, though I did not feel much
inclined for walking, having been ill and feverish for two or three days
past with a cold, which keeps renewing itself faster than I can get rid
of it. We kept along on this side of the Corso, and crossed the Forum,
skirting along the Capitoline Hill, and thence towards the Circus
Maximus. On our way, looking down a cross street, we saw a heavy arch,
and, on examination, made it out to be the Arch of Janus Quadrifrons,
standing in the Forum Boarium. Its base is now considerably below the
level of the surrounding soil, and there is a church or basilica close
by, and some mean edifices looking down upon it. There is something
satisfactory in this arch, from the immense solidity of its structure.
It gives the idea, in the first place, of a solid mass constructed of
huge blocks of marble, which time can never wear away, nor earthquakes
shake down; and then this solid mass is penetrated by two arched
passages, meeting in the centre. There are empty niches, three in a row,
and, I think, two rows on each face; but there seems to have been very
little effort to make it a beautiful object. On the top is some
brickwork, the remains of a mediaeval fortress built by the Frangipanis,
looking very frail and temporary being brought thus in contact with the
antique strength of the arch.

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