DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0100
8/2
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
It is strange to think how quiet these gardens were lying on the day when Pius IX made his
famous proclamation from the great balcony of the Quirinal. This was in the year 1846, and
men are still living who can recall the frenzy of joy, hope and enthusiasm which his announcement
of a political amnesty aroused. The piazza in front of the palace was thronged with a vast
crowd, whose shouts of “ Viva il Papa Re ! ” must have penetrated even to these shady walks.
As still and peaceful it lay in the midst of the excited city with the birds singing in its ilex
groves, on that still greater day, the 20th of September, 1870, when a detachment of soldiers,
with a smith and his assistants, marched up to the palace entrance, and, with only a few scattered
spectators looking on, forced open the doors and took possession in the name of the King of
Italy. What angels of Hope, Justice and Liberty made entry with them ! E. M. P.
The old Papal palace of Monte Cavallo, now the Italian Houses of Parliament, has had a long
history. Paul HI, in 1540, built a small house on Mont Quirinal. It was added to by
Gregory XIII, who bought large gardens from Dukes d’Este. He constructed a block at the end
of the court with an open loggia and an oval staircase with winding steps supported by columns,
and formed a suite of rooms on the first floor as a Papal apartment. The raised centre portion
known as the Torre de Venti was built by Martino Lunghi the elder. Sixtus V and his
successor, Clement VIII, added the portico, forming the left wing of the court by Domenico
Fontana, and began the front block to the Strada Pia. Paul V completed the right-hand side
from the designs of Flaminio Ponzio, this portion containing a grand double staircase. Carlo
Maderna designed the chapel on the first floor, the hall vestibule leading to it and the adjoining
rooms. Wings were added along the Strada Pia by Urban VIII and Alexander VII from
Lorenzo Bernini’s designs, with additions by Ferdinando Fuga for Innocent XIII and Clement
XII. The immense building thus grew up from small beginnings by a natural process of
growth. The fapade to the Strada Pia is fifteen windows wide, being two hundred and
seventy feet in length by one hundred feet in height. A. T. B.
Trevi, which gives its name to one of the fourteen “ regions ” of Rome, means the cross-
roads. In Imperial times the long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan struck across
the street now called Tritone, by the arch of Claudius. The place was called the Fountain of
Trevi long before the present splendid fountain was built. The name is connected now with the
fountain, for who, hearing it, thinks of anything but the great sea-god, the plunging horses, the
ceaseless rush and gush of the Virgin Water below that splendid fapade ? From the days of Agrippa
the water has borne its name—given it in memory of a maiden who, meeting a tired and thirsty
troop of Roman soldiers marching between Palestrina and Tivoli, led them to a secret spring,
hidden in the hills, fresh and ice cold, known only to the shepherds. Agrippa in 733 first brought
this water to Rome for the supply of his baths near the Pantheon, when its advent was celebrated by
fifty-nine days of feasting. It originates on the old Via Collatinus, half way between Tivoli and
Palestrina, and was brought into Rome by a subterranean channel fourteen miles long. The aqueduct
passes near Ponte Nomentano, crosses the Via Nomentana and Via Salaria, and, having traversed
Villa Borghese, divides at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti into two streams, one of which flows
under Via Condotti, while the other debouches at Trevi. In later Roman times it suffered much
from being turned aside to feed the Roman villas outside the walls. It was no one’s business to
preserve its aqueducts at that time, and so it lost its old reputation for purity, which, Pliny says,
caused it at one time to be ranked even higher than the famous Aqua Marcia. Under Trajan the
raids on it were put a stop to, and the water, in nineteen aqueducts, was dispersed over a great part
of the town. Rome, which was accustomed to flood vast spaces for naval combats, and to use
millions of gallons in the public baths, was poorly provided with water in private houses. In
the time of the Empire, and long after, water was carried about by water-carriers. Sixtus V was
the first to inaugurate that system of fountains for which Rome is so famous, and Paul HI
completed the work by carrying the waters of Bracciano to the Janiculum. The water of Trevi
has been proved by analysis to be of great purity, and in 1819 it was still carried in barrels to
many houses and convents in the town. Clement VII, Paul HI and Gregory XIII would never
drink any other, and carried it with them on journeys, even out of Italy.
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
It is strange to think how quiet these gardens were lying on the day when Pius IX made his
famous proclamation from the great balcony of the Quirinal. This was in the year 1846, and
men are still living who can recall the frenzy of joy, hope and enthusiasm which his announcement
of a political amnesty aroused. The piazza in front of the palace was thronged with a vast
crowd, whose shouts of “ Viva il Papa Re ! ” must have penetrated even to these shady walks.
As still and peaceful it lay in the midst of the excited city with the birds singing in its ilex
groves, on that still greater day, the 20th of September, 1870, when a detachment of soldiers,
with a smith and his assistants, marched up to the palace entrance, and, with only a few scattered
spectators looking on, forced open the doors and took possession in the name of the King of
Italy. What angels of Hope, Justice and Liberty made entry with them ! E. M. P.
The old Papal palace of Monte Cavallo, now the Italian Houses of Parliament, has had a long
history. Paul HI, in 1540, built a small house on Mont Quirinal. It was added to by
Gregory XIII, who bought large gardens from Dukes d’Este. He constructed a block at the end
of the court with an open loggia and an oval staircase with winding steps supported by columns,
and formed a suite of rooms on the first floor as a Papal apartment. The raised centre portion
known as the Torre de Venti was built by Martino Lunghi the elder. Sixtus V and his
successor, Clement VIII, added the portico, forming the left wing of the court by Domenico
Fontana, and began the front block to the Strada Pia. Paul V completed the right-hand side
from the designs of Flaminio Ponzio, this portion containing a grand double staircase. Carlo
Maderna designed the chapel on the first floor, the hall vestibule leading to it and the adjoining
rooms. Wings were added along the Strada Pia by Urban VIII and Alexander VII from
Lorenzo Bernini’s designs, with additions by Ferdinando Fuga for Innocent XIII and Clement
XII. The immense building thus grew up from small beginnings by a natural process of
growth. The fapade to the Strada Pia is fifteen windows wide, being two hundred and
seventy feet in length by one hundred feet in height. A. T. B.
Trevi, which gives its name to one of the fourteen “ regions ” of Rome, means the cross-
roads. In Imperial times the long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan struck across
the street now called Tritone, by the arch of Claudius. The place was called the Fountain of
Trevi long before the present splendid fountain was built. The name is connected now with the
fountain, for who, hearing it, thinks of anything but the great sea-god, the plunging horses, the
ceaseless rush and gush of the Virgin Water below that splendid fapade ? From the days of Agrippa
the water has borne its name—given it in memory of a maiden who, meeting a tired and thirsty
troop of Roman soldiers marching between Palestrina and Tivoli, led them to a secret spring,
hidden in the hills, fresh and ice cold, known only to the shepherds. Agrippa in 733 first brought
this water to Rome for the supply of his baths near the Pantheon, when its advent was celebrated by
fifty-nine days of feasting. It originates on the old Via Collatinus, half way between Tivoli and
Palestrina, and was brought into Rome by a subterranean channel fourteen miles long. The aqueduct
passes near Ponte Nomentano, crosses the Via Nomentana and Via Salaria, and, having traversed
Villa Borghese, divides at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti into two streams, one of which flows
under Via Condotti, while the other debouches at Trevi. In later Roman times it suffered much
from being turned aside to feed the Roman villas outside the walls. It was no one’s business to
preserve its aqueducts at that time, and so it lost its old reputation for purity, which, Pliny says,
caused it at one time to be ranked even higher than the famous Aqua Marcia. Under Trajan the
raids on it were put a stop to, and the water, in nineteen aqueducts, was dispersed over a great part
of the town. Rome, which was accustomed to flood vast spaces for naval combats, and to use
millions of gallons in the public baths, was poorly provided with water in private houses. In
the time of the Empire, and long after, water was carried about by water-carriers. Sixtus V was
the first to inaugurate that system of fountains for which Rome is so famous, and Paul HI
completed the work by carrying the waters of Bracciano to the Janiculum. The water of Trevi
has been proved by analysis to be of great purity, and in 1819 it was still carried in barrels to
many houses and convents in the town. Clement VII, Paul HI and Gregory XIII would never
drink any other, and carried it with them on journeys, even out of Italy.