DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19775#0109
PALAZZO BORGHESE,
ROME.
IT is impossible for modern ideas of grandeur to
compete with those of the Renaissance and the
seventeenth century in Italy. The Borghese,
during the years of their power, acquired
eighty estates in the Campagna of Rome. Cardinal
Scipione, having a villa at the gates of Rome as
magnificent as the chief palace of most great nobles,
kept it as a summer-house and lived chiefly in the
immense palace in the town. It was begun in
1590 by Cardinal Deza from the designs of Martino
Lunghi, and finished by order of the great Borghese
Pope, Paul V., by Flaminio Ponzio. The archi-
tecture still has something of Renaissance beauty.
The courtyard is surrounded by a colonnade, and
an airy loggia arches across the garden entrance,
such as one might see in a fresco by Pintoricchio.
Under the cloistered granite columns, against which
are set several ancient colossal statues, we pass into
the little garden. It is screened from the court-
yard by pedestals set in pairs, on which stand small
Roman statues ; we can fancy the connoisseur
Cardinal deciding that they were poor works, not
worthy of gracing his choice collection, but that
they would do well enough for the garden. Two
low fountains play on either side of the wide iron
gate through which you enter the garden. It is
locked now and no one passes down the shallow
steps, and the garden is the emporium of a dealer
in antiquities. In the old times it must have been
the ideal of a little town garden, shut in with high
walls, into which are built three huge fantastic
fountain pieces in the baroque style — tasteless
things, yet not without a certain barbaric grace.
The canopies supported by young men, crowned
with baskets of flowers, cupids rioting with ropes
of flowers, goddesses holding out alluring arms,
are florid but effective. The banksias fling their
careless foliage over the walls, and the arums grow
thick and tall in the old sarcophagi ; but inside
the palace the rooms still retain their painted
mirrors, their cupids by Giro Ferri, and their
wreaths by Mario di Fiori, though the celebrated
pictures and statues have been taken away.
Cardinal Scipione, the stately, genial art patron,
lived and died here, and how many others of his
house ; but, perhaps, the vision that comes most
clearly before English eyes is of the lovely and
beloved Princess Gwendoline, a daughter of the
noble house of Talbot, wedded in 1835 to Prince
Camillo Borghese, and dying five years later, after
three days' illness, of diphtheria. She was buried
in the Borghese Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore, and
half Rome followed her to her grave. The piazza
outside the palace could hardly contain the crowd
assembled, when at midnight the great gates were
thrown open and the funeral procession issued.
Forty young Romans in deep mourning took the
horses from the funeral car and, yoking themselves
'J o
to it, drew her up the hill. A great cortege of
rich and poor followed, "so that it seemed as
though a whole people were bearing her to her
last resting-place," and from all the windows, as
she passed, flowers were showered down upon her.
The mourning was universal, but the horror and
pity redoubled when, within a tew days, three of
her children were laid beside their mother, leaving
only one little girl. Poor husband, poor father,
poor motherless babe, left alone in the splendour
of the palace. The recollection seems to make
its vast dreariness seem vaster and more dreary.
(
[Oil
)
ROME.
IT is impossible for modern ideas of grandeur to
compete with those of the Renaissance and the
seventeenth century in Italy. The Borghese,
during the years of their power, acquired
eighty estates in the Campagna of Rome. Cardinal
Scipione, having a villa at the gates of Rome as
magnificent as the chief palace of most great nobles,
kept it as a summer-house and lived chiefly in the
immense palace in the town. It was begun in
1590 by Cardinal Deza from the designs of Martino
Lunghi, and finished by order of the great Borghese
Pope, Paul V., by Flaminio Ponzio. The archi-
tecture still has something of Renaissance beauty.
The courtyard is surrounded by a colonnade, and
an airy loggia arches across the garden entrance,
such as one might see in a fresco by Pintoricchio.
Under the cloistered granite columns, against which
are set several ancient colossal statues, we pass into
the little garden. It is screened from the court-
yard by pedestals set in pairs, on which stand small
Roman statues ; we can fancy the connoisseur
Cardinal deciding that they were poor works, not
worthy of gracing his choice collection, but that
they would do well enough for the garden. Two
low fountains play on either side of the wide iron
gate through which you enter the garden. It is
locked now and no one passes down the shallow
steps, and the garden is the emporium of a dealer
in antiquities. In the old times it must have been
the ideal of a little town garden, shut in with high
walls, into which are built three huge fantastic
fountain pieces in the baroque style — tasteless
things, yet not without a certain barbaric grace.
The canopies supported by young men, crowned
with baskets of flowers, cupids rioting with ropes
of flowers, goddesses holding out alluring arms,
are florid but effective. The banksias fling their
careless foliage over the walls, and the arums grow
thick and tall in the old sarcophagi ; but inside
the palace the rooms still retain their painted
mirrors, their cupids by Giro Ferri, and their
wreaths by Mario di Fiori, though the celebrated
pictures and statues have been taken away.
Cardinal Scipione, the stately, genial art patron,
lived and died here, and how many others of his
house ; but, perhaps, the vision that comes most
clearly before English eyes is of the lovely and
beloved Princess Gwendoline, a daughter of the
noble house of Talbot, wedded in 1835 to Prince
Camillo Borghese, and dying five years later, after
three days' illness, of diphtheria. She was buried
in the Borghese Chapel in S. Maria Maggiore, and
half Rome followed her to her grave. The piazza
outside the palace could hardly contain the crowd
assembled, when at midnight the great gates were
thrown open and the funeral procession issued.
Forty young Romans in deep mourning took the
horses from the funeral car and, yoking themselves
'J o
to it, drew her up the hill. A great cortege of
rich and poor followed, "so that it seemed as
though a whole people were bearing her to her
last resting-place," and from all the windows, as
she passed, flowers were showered down upon her.
The mourning was universal, but the horror and
pity redoubled when, within a tew days, three of
her children were laid beside their mother, leaving
only one little girl. Poor husband, poor father,
poor motherless babe, left alone in the splendour
of the palace. The recollection seems to make
its vast dreariness seem vaster and more dreary.
(
[Oil
)