DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0106
88
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
Cardinal Scipione, the stately, genial art patron, lived and died here, and 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, who died 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 to it,
drew it 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 few 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
but to make its vast
dreariness the vaster and
more dreary.
Long before the ori-
ginal 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, insti-
tuted by Elagabalus, an
assembly of the fashion-
able Roman matrons of
the day, presided over
by the mother of the
Emperor. They met to
determine how every
98.—VIEW IN THE ENCLOSED GARDEN OF THE PALAZZO BORGHESE,
ROME, SHOWING TWO OF THE FOUNTAINS.
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 on this spot to record his triumph over Zenobia, the fallen
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
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
Cardinal Scipione, the stately, genial art patron, lived and died here, and 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, who died 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 to it,
drew it 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 few 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
but to make its vast
dreariness the vaster and
more dreary.
Long before the ori-
ginal 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, insti-
tuted by Elagabalus, an
assembly of the fashion-
able Roman matrons of
the day, presided over
by the mother of the
Emperor. They met to
determine how every
98.—VIEW IN THE ENCLOSED GARDEN OF THE PALAZZO BORGHESE,
ROME, SHOWING TWO OF THE FOUNTAINS.
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 on this spot to record his triumph over Zenobia, the fallen
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