DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19775#0101
THE COLONNA GARDENS,
ROME.
CvTG before the original stronghold of the
Colonnas was built, almost on the site of
their present palace, the " Little Senate "
was established here. It was a woman's
senate, instituted by Elagabalus, an assembly of
the fashionable Roman matrons of the day, presided
over by the mother of the Emperor. They met to
determine how every matron in Rome might dress,
to whom she was to yield precedence, by whom
she might be kissed ; deciding which ladies might
drive in chariots and which must content themselves
with carts, whether horses, mules, or oxen were
permitted, which ladies might wear shoes adorned
with gold or set with precious stones. We can
imagine the shrill discussions, the gossip, the
jealousies of the " Little Senate." Aurelian swept
it away fifty years later, when he built his Temple
of the Sun here to record his triumph over Zenobia,
Queen of Palmyra. The temple was enriched with
gems, and with fifteen thousand pounds in weight
of gold. Much of it was still standing in the
seventeenth century, and it is still doubtful whether
the pieces of gigantic cornice which lie on the
upper terrace formed part of it, or belonged to a
portico of a later period. From this spot started
the long procession, memorable even in the annals
of Roman triumphs, with the proud and beautiful
Queen, decked with jewels and chained with golden
chains to her chariot. From the mediaeval palace
of the Colonnas, Isabella d'Este looked down upon
the sack of Rome, and on these terraces in the late
years of the Renaissance, the good, the beautiful,
the learned Vittoria Colonna walked and conversed
with Cardinal Bembo, with Ariosto and Bernardo
Tasso, and above all with Michael Angelo. Here
for five years, in the height of her beauty and
happiness, and in the heyday of her husband's
triumph, she held her court and gathered round
her all that Italy had of choice to offer, and here,
too, she came back, a widowed, childless, heart-
broken woman, to die, with the great Florentine
painter sitting by her bed, holding her hand,
helping her to recollect her last prayer, her
faithful servant to the last, in what Condivi calls
" that most pure and beautiful friendship."
Torquato Tasso ran about these gardens as a
little boy, for his father writes that he does not
wish the children to go into the country in the
summer as they get too hot, hut that the duke
has lent him the Boccaccio vineyard, as it was then
called, " and we have been here a week and shall
stay all the summer in this good air."
There is another woman who is recalled by the
wide gates, the courtyard, the gardens as they are
to-day. She who was mistress of the splendours of
the palace in the eighteenth century—Maria
Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin, and wife of
Lorenzo Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples. A
woman whose life was full of romance, stranger
than fiction.
When Mazarin went to Paris and became
the Minister of the young Louis XIV., and the
adviser and passionate lover of the King's mother,
Anne of Austria, he sent for his nieces, Maria,
Olympe, and Hortense, and proposed to arrange
good marriages for them. Maria has left an
account of her life, " La verite dans son jour,"
which gives interesting and entertaining details of
her history.
Less beautiful than Hortense, afterwards
Duchess of Mazarin, Maria was clever, spirituel/e,
and fascinating in no ordinary degree. Beginning
by being thin and brown, her looks improved,
and a miniature by Mignard represents her with
large, sparkling dark eyes, crisp, curling black
nair, a n espiegle expression, and exquisite shoulders,
exposed in the most hasarde fashion of the day.
Louis XIV. fell in love with her. He had
at first been attracted by her sister Olympe, but
when she became Comtesse de Soissons in 1657,
his continued visits to the Comtesse were prompted
by his growing affection for Maria. The young
girl's influence over the young King became
daily stronger. She was even then one of the
most cultivated women of the time, and she
made him read and share all her tastes and ideas.
They met continually in the easiest manner. In
Paris she was foremost in all the most brilliant
fetes, the King always at her side, and when he
was seized with a dangerous illness in camp the
following summer, her anxiety and affection could
not be concealed. During his convalescence they
rode and walked for hours together, and Maria,
who had been described in memoirs of the day
( 92 )
ROME.
CvTG before the original stronghold of the
Colonnas was built, almost on the site of
their present palace, the " Little Senate "
was established here. It was a woman's
senate, instituted by Elagabalus, an assembly of
the fashionable Roman matrons of the day, presided
over by the mother of the Emperor. They met to
determine how every matron in Rome might dress,
to whom she was to yield precedence, by whom
she might be kissed ; deciding which ladies might
drive in chariots and which must content themselves
with carts, whether horses, mules, or oxen were
permitted, which ladies might wear shoes adorned
with gold or set with precious stones. We can
imagine the shrill discussions, the gossip, the
jealousies of the " Little Senate." Aurelian swept
it away fifty years later, when he built his Temple
of the Sun here to record his triumph over Zenobia,
Queen of Palmyra. The temple was enriched with
gems, and with fifteen thousand pounds in weight
of gold. Much of it was still standing in the
seventeenth century, and it is still doubtful whether
the pieces of gigantic cornice which lie on the
upper terrace formed part of it, or belonged to a
portico of a later period. From this spot started
the long procession, memorable even in the annals
of Roman triumphs, with the proud and beautiful
Queen, decked with jewels and chained with golden
chains to her chariot. From the mediaeval palace
of the Colonnas, Isabella d'Este looked down upon
the sack of Rome, and on these terraces in the late
years of the Renaissance, the good, the beautiful,
the learned Vittoria Colonna walked and conversed
with Cardinal Bembo, with Ariosto and Bernardo
Tasso, and above all with Michael Angelo. Here
for five years, in the height of her beauty and
happiness, and in the heyday of her husband's
triumph, she held her court and gathered round
her all that Italy had of choice to offer, and here,
too, she came back, a widowed, childless, heart-
broken woman, to die, with the great Florentine
painter sitting by her bed, holding her hand,
helping her to recollect her last prayer, her
faithful servant to the last, in what Condivi calls
" that most pure and beautiful friendship."
Torquato Tasso ran about these gardens as a
little boy, for his father writes that he does not
wish the children to go into the country in the
summer as they get too hot, hut that the duke
has lent him the Boccaccio vineyard, as it was then
called, " and we have been here a week and shall
stay all the summer in this good air."
There is another woman who is recalled by the
wide gates, the courtyard, the gardens as they are
to-day. She who was mistress of the splendours of
the palace in the eighteenth century—Maria
Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin, and wife of
Lorenzo Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples. A
woman whose life was full of romance, stranger
than fiction.
When Mazarin went to Paris and became
the Minister of the young Louis XIV., and the
adviser and passionate lover of the King's mother,
Anne of Austria, he sent for his nieces, Maria,
Olympe, and Hortense, and proposed to arrange
good marriages for them. Maria has left an
account of her life, " La verite dans son jour,"
which gives interesting and entertaining details of
her history.
Less beautiful than Hortense, afterwards
Duchess of Mazarin, Maria was clever, spirituel/e,
and fascinating in no ordinary degree. Beginning
by being thin and brown, her looks improved,
and a miniature by Mignard represents her with
large, sparkling dark eyes, crisp, curling black
nair, a n espiegle expression, and exquisite shoulders,
exposed in the most hasarde fashion of the day.
Louis XIV. fell in love with her. He had
at first been attracted by her sister Olympe, but
when she became Comtesse de Soissons in 1657,
his continued visits to the Comtesse were prompted
by his growing affection for Maria. The young
girl's influence over the young King became
daily stronger. She was even then one of the
most cultivated women of the time, and she
made him read and share all her tastes and ideas.
They met continually in the easiest manner. In
Paris she was foremost in all the most brilliant
fetes, the King always at her side, and when he
was seized with a dangerous illness in camp the
following summer, her anxiety and affection could
not be concealed. During his convalescence they
rode and walked for hours together, and Maria,
who had been described in memoirs of the day
( 92 )