If The
Fountains Are Not So Fine, They Are Still Very Fine, And The Pincian
Hill Overtops One Side Of The Place, With Foliaged Drives And Gardened
Walks Descending Into It.
Everything of importance that did not happen elsewhere in Rome seems to
have happened in the Piazza del Popolo,
And I may name as a few of its
attractions for investors the facts that it was here Sulla's funeral
pyre was kindled; that Nero was buried on the left side of it, and out
of his tomb grew a huge walnut-tree, the haunt of demoniacal crows till
the Madonna appeared to Paschal II. and bade him cut it down; that the
arch-heretic Luther sojourned in the Augustinian convent here while in
Rome; that the dignitaries of Church and State received Christina of
Sweden here when, after her conversion, she visited the city; that
Lucrezia Borgia celebrated her betrothal in one of the churches; that it
used to be a favorite place for executing brigands, whose wives then
became artists' models, and whose sons, if they were like Cardinal
Antonelli, became princes of the Church. So I learn from Hare in his
_Walks in Rome,_ and, if he enables me to boast the rivalry of the
Piazza Navona in no such array of merits, still I will not deny my love
for it. Certainly it was not a favorite place for executing brigands,
but the miracle which saved St. Agnes from, cruel shame was wrought in
the vaulted chambers under the church of her name there, and that is
something beyond all the wonders of the Piazza del Popolo for its pathos
and for its poetry. But, if the Piazza Navona had no other claim on me,
I should find a peculiar pleasure in the old custom of stopping the
escapes from its fountains and flooding with water the place I saw
flooded with sun, for the patricians to wade and drive about in during
the very hot weather and eat ices and drink coffee, while the plebeians
looked sumptuously down on them from the galleries built around the
lake.
XI
IN AND ABOUT THE VATICAN
It would be a very bold or very incompetent observer of the Roman
situation who should venture upon a decided opinion of the relations of
the monarchy and the papacy. You hear it said with intimations of
special authority in the matter, that both king and pope are well
content with the situation, and it is clearly explained how and why they
are so; but I did not understand how or why at the moment of the
explanation, or else I have now forgotten whatever was clear in it. I
believe, however, it was to the effect that the pope willingly remained
self-prisoned in the Vatican because, if he came out, he might not only
invalidate a future claim upon the sovereign dignity which the Italian
occupation had invaded, but he might incur risks from the more
unfriendly extremists which would at least be very offensive.
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