To This End I Ought To Have Thrown A Copper Coin Into The Fountain Of
Trevi As We Passed It.
You may return to Rome without doing this, but it
is well known that if you do it you are sure to come back.
The Fountain
of Trevi is alone worth coming back for, and I could not see that it
poured scanter streams than it formerly poured over brimming brinks or
from the clefts of the artificial rocks that spread in fine disorder
about the feet of its sea-gods and sea-horses; but they who mourn the
old papal rule accuse the present Italian government of stinting the
supply of water. To me there seemed no stint of water in any of the
fountains of Rome. In some a mere wasteful spilth seems the sole design
of the artist, as in the Fontana Paolina on the Janiculum, where the
cold wash of its deluge seemed to add a piercing chill to our windy
afternoon. The other fountains have each a quaint grace or absolute
charm or pleasing absurdity, whether the waters shower over groups of
more or less irrelevant statuary in their basins or spout into the air
in columns unfurling flags of spray and keeping the pavement about them
green with tender mould. The most sympathetic is the Fountain of the
Triton, who blows the water through his wreathed horn and on the coldest
day seems not to mind its refluent splash on his mossy back; in fact, he
seems rather to like it.
He is one of many tritons, rivers, sea-gods, and aqueous allegories
similarly employed in Rome and similarly indifferent to what flesh and
blood might find the hardship of their calling. I had rashly said to
myself that their respective fountains needed the sun on them to be just
what one could wish, but the first gray days taught me better. Then the
thinly clouded sky dropped a softened light over their glitter and
sparkle and gave them a spirituality as much removed from the suggestion
of physical cold as any diaphanous apparition would suggest. Then they
seemed rapt into a finer beauty than that of earth, though I will not
pretend that they were alike beautiful. No fountain can be quite ugly,
but some fountains can be quite stupid, like, for instance, those which
give its pretty name to the Street of the Four Fountains and which
consist of two extremely plain Virtues and two very dull old Rivers,
diagonally dozing at each other over their urns in niches of the four
converging edifices. They are not quite so idiotic under their
disproportionate foliage as the conventional Egyptian lions of the
Fountain of Moses, with manes like the wigs of so many lord chancellors,
and with thin streams of water drooling from the tubes between their
lips. But these are the exceptional fountains; there are few sculptured
or architectural designs which the showering or spouting water does not
retrieve from error; and in Rome the water (deliciously potable) is so
abundant that it has force to do almost anything for beauty, even where,
as in the Fontana Paolina, it is merely a torrent tumbling over a
facade. It is lavished everywhere; in the Piazza Navona alone there are
three fountains, but then the Piazza Navona is very long, and three
fountains are few enough for it, even though one is that famous Fountain
of Bernini, in which he has made one of the usual rivers - the Nile, I
believe - holding his hand before his eyes in mock terror of the ungainly
facade of a rival architect's church opposite, lest it shall fall and
crush him. That, however, is the least merit of the fountain; and
without any fountain the Piazza Navona would be charming; it is such a
vast lake of sunshine and is so wide as well as long, and is so mellowed
with such rich browns and golden grays in the noble edifices.
I do not know, now, what all the edifices are, but there are churches,
more than one, and palaces, and the reader can find their names in any
of the guidebooks. If I were buying piazzas in Rome I should begin with
the Navona, but there are enough to suit all purses and tastes. The
fountains would be thrown in, I suppose, along with the churches and
palaces; but I really never inquired, and, in fact, not having carried
out my plan of visiting them all, I am in no position to advise
intending purchasers. What I can say is that if you are in a hurry to
inspect, that kind of property, and in immediate need of a piazza, you
cannot do better than take the wagon for touring Rome. In two days you
can visit every piazza worth having, including the Piazza di Spagna,
where there is a fountain in the form of a marble galley in which you
can embark for any fairyland you like, through the Via del Babuino and
the Piazza del Popolo. Come to think of it, I am not so sure but I would
as soon have the Piazza del Popolo as the Piazza Navona. 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.
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