What Sir Charles Dalrymple Fergusson Saw in Rome in 1825

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Notes:
Page added in May 2024.

(left) Portrait of Sir Charles Fergusson, based on chalk drawings which were made when he was alive; (right) a page of his travel journal in which the Blessing from the façade of St. Peter's is described

(Visit to Villa Adriana - January 1825) (..) Below is a space called a Circus, in wh., added sagely our Guide, were Games transacted. Above from this is a little Place, wh. Vasi says was only so called because it occupies the highest Ground; a Gallery there is for Summer walking. (..) The ruins wh. are near this have been called The Palace of the Imperial Family, but without any certain knowledge of the Fact.
From this passage we learn that Sir Charles Fergusson used Mariano Vasi's Guide of Rome; his account of Rome is interesting chiefly because it touches on the ceremonies which were held for the 1825 Jubilee and because it describes institutions which were ignored by other travellers, e.g. a large orphanage, a prison and a madhouse.

Opening of the Holy Door

24th December, 1824 went (..) at an early hour to St. Peter's. (..) Stood for a long time outside the gate wh. opens to the stairs leading to the Lodge set apart for the Diplomatic Recommendation, so long indeed that the ladies were well nigh worn off their legs. At length the gate was opened, & great was the Rush therein. It was a matter of some difficulty to keep the ladies on their feet, but having seen those whom I had more particularly in my charge safely up the stairs, very amazements at the sort of confusion wh. prevailed below wd. have detained me, if another course had not done so, in order that I might prevent mischief from the fearful crushes wh. took place at the expense of the female part of the crowd each time that the gate was opened. (..) Colquhoun & I thought it as well to go in at length, & found ourselves at a great distance from the Pope but as nothing else was between ourselves & the Holy Door, we saw the whole ceremony pretty well. Long had we to wait here in anxious expectation of the Pope's Arrival. At length the Members of the Apostolical Chamber, with the Canon of St. Peter, came in & the Senator being enthroned, the Cardinal & dignified Prelates ranged themselves round him, opposite the principal Entrance of St. Peter's, ready to receive the Pope himself. The vast crowd of Priests & Holy Men of every sort & Degree - a prodigious & various Crowd, with a vast multitude of Spectators beyond - the buzz & hum of expectation, rising from a crowd wh. cloathed yourself up to the nose, & extended to a great Distance till the extreme limits of the Perspective terminated with the statue of Constantine, wh. alone enabled you to mark its boundary - the armour of the officers of the Svizzeri, small detachments of wh. were every now & then moving in with their long Spears, & many coloured livery - & the Drums of other Regiments beating & Music playing without - add to all this that a Ceremony was about to be performed, wh. for 50 years Rome had not seen, the Intention of wh. was praiseworthy, altho it might be no offspring of sound Judgement or right Principle - that the Holy Year was solemnly to commence on this Day, that wh. preceded the Dawn of our Saviour's Birth, of Christian Gratulation & Religious Triumph. The Idol of the Catholic Church, the Pope arrives clad in Satin & Gold, with a yellow mitre on his Head, but looking very ill & very sulky. He seats himself for a few Moments on his Throne, congratulatory Music plays - he chaunts some hymn of praise, as one may suppose, to thank God for the Arrival of the Day, Choiristers sing, he quits his Throne, & preceded by Attendants bearing torches, & surrounded by the official Dignitaries of the Church, he moves forward with a silver Hammer in his Hand, & strikes the Holy Door nine times I believe, the notes of the Musicians singing joyous songs of Triumph, he turns & re-seats himself on his Throne, when at length, he being comfortably placed his robe around him in due State, a little Bell is rung by the Card. at the side of him, and then at length the Door falls into a box of sand, wh. rises up in clouds, & out of the way of wh. he was certainly quite right to be. But it produced a very poor Effect, the long Delay & then the Instrumentality of the little Bell, an affair of Punch as it were, or at best, of Stage Effect. I now understand that the Door was of Brick, & that the Material is for sale in Parts throughout Rome, each being stamped with the name of the Pontificate, & the Date of the Year. After the Holy Door had fallen, great was the Bustle, the Pope & Cardinals left the Portico, or stairs rather of St. Peter's, & moved in Procession into the Church, where they first went I know not, for what with the pulling down of hangings, the Rush of people inside the Church, whose vociferations mingled with those of the Swiss Guards, who throughout the whole Proceedings had been placed to keep order, & whenever the Master's back was turned, only created Confusion, & increased the Difficulty, or even for Ladies the Risk of finding means of Entrance; then there were those who got over the Barricades in order to reach the interior of the Church, of these I was one, & having at last found my Ladies who told me that they had to peep thro' a grating, & to stand the whole Time & that there had been a good deal of Fainting, & still more Inclination to it, in their vicinity. We proceeded to admire the wonders wh. St. Peter's inner Precincts had to offer. (..) Having seen him pass & repass, we left him, & returned home, heartily tired.

Procession of the Manger

This being Christmas Day, at 5 o'clock a.m. we went to Santa Maria Maggiore. (..) The Reliquary Crib (Confession) of Santa Maria Maggiore, said to contain wood from the Manger having been gone through, the Ceremony of carrying the Cradles, an Image of the Infant Jesus, with Straw below, & a bit of the Manger as is said in wh. he lay, these last two contained in a sort of Drawer with Grating to render them visible - lines by the Soldiers are made, & the Image proceeded accompanied & followed by robed attendants, in white, is borne from one Chapel to another, in the midst of a solemn chaunt, & authorized & solemnized by the presence of the Prelate - and they moved from the Tribune towards the Door of the Church, or wherever they went to get the Image & Canopy, etc. in order to begin the Procession, each knelt & seemed to pray for a little, the Prelate longer than any. If the ceremonies cd. from their nature be considered as performed with any feeling by the actors presumably in the sense of 'representation' in them, it is a fine & solemn Idea wh. wd. arise in the mind on seeing these Men kneel at such a Moment. They are about on this, the anniversary of our Lord's Birth, to show him as he lay just born to his People along with the representation of the Materials of his Place of Birth. This is the Manger, that the Hay where the Lord lay, and to the Italians, probably to the people of the South in general, there is so great a Need of sensible objects in order to create any sort of concern about these Matters, the kind degree of feeling wh. they possess, & the Life of their mind, is so much dependent on the outwards Senses. They so much need to hear & see in order that they may feel that if these or some such representations, wh. to us appear absurd, were not to take place, they might probably be deprived of that wh. alone originates religious feeling in their Minds. They had come in great crowds to see this. Some near me exclaimed 'how beautiful' but seemed to feel some Disappointment that it was only a vescovo who presided instead of a Cardinal, as they had expected. The Church was splendidly festooned with flowers, illuminated with Chandeliers suspended from the magnificent white marble Pillars of wh. there were 36, & the lights reflecting themselves act. the gilding of the Roof. The gilded Acanthus leaves & flowers wh. wind round the poryphry columns of the splendid Altar Maggiore, and glittering among the recesses, the niches & Chapels of this magnificent Temple, at that silent hour of the morning, when all without, save some Devotion has raised from sleep, is buried in the deepest Reposes, are crowds of Rustic Worshippers assembled to celebrate the blessed nativity of their saviour, & to have the anniversary of his Rising, & striving as it were to rival with the brightness of Artificial light the unparalleled Brilliancy of his glorious Presence.

Blessing from the façade of S. Pietro

Christmas Day. We were obliged to leave the Pope before the Ceremony was quite over, in order to meet him at another point; we therefore went down & up sundry stairs, & at length we reached the Balcony on the left side of the front of St. Peter's, whence we had an excellent view of said Front. The crowd below was pretty considerable but as I understand it, not so much so as it had been on similar occasions. The Soldiers ranged round, kept a clear square - of a part wh. made the most of wh. crowd there was. The Cardinals first appeared in the Balcony above the great Door of the Church, in their white Mitres, at length the Pope himself is borne out, seated on his canopied State Throne, in order that he might bless his People. In the long Row of Balcony where we were, were also Ministers from Foreign Courts, & the many other Strangers, who had come to Rome to witness these extraordinary Ceremonies of the Church; an awning protected us from the Sun, wh. in that situation even on Christmas Day wd. otherwise have been oppressive. The Pope performed the Ceremony with his usual Grace, the Soldiers knelt, & all ought to do so, but I understand many did not - they used then to cheer, but it was profound Silence. The Blessing having been pronounced in presence of the assembled Crowd, a fact wh. I take for granted from the motion of his Holiness's hands, as well as from the kneeling, the Silence on the one hand, & the subsequent rising up & Departure of Blesser & Blessed not the other, the Pope is born away in his Chair as before, wh. had been set down, closing the Ceremony, the Cardinals move off behind him, without a Bow, or any thing - we too, after a few Moments' Delay, retreated, & returned home.

Promenade to Ponte Milvio

26th December Sunday. Drove & walked afternoon on the Pincian, & to the Ponte Molle. Betwn. Rome & this Bridge, in the afternoon of Sundays in Autumn & Winter & beginning of Spring, there is always a great Crowd of promenaders on foot & in Carriages. It is at two Miles distant from the Gate of the Porta del Popolo - and in coming to Rome (..) you pass the Tiber by this Bridge - called anciently Milvius , or Molvius, & probably from the last of these corrupted it into its present name. (..) Part of the bridge is ancient. Near the middle of the 15th Century it was restored by Pope Nicolas the 5th. From that period until the year 1805, its two extremities were left of wood, & moveable for the security of the City, but Pius the 7th, considering that such was but a meagre source of safety, & that shd. it be needed or cd. it be used to any avail by the Romans, [it] wd. at all events be ineffectual without other support, caused the Bridge to be reconstructed of more solid Materials, & (..) then also the old Tower was formed into a Triumphal Arch, mentioning what the Pope had done. Valadier was the Archtc. You are no sooner across the Bridge on your way to the Town when you see or perhaps may not observe little temple on your left, of round form, with a small statue of St. Andrew the Apostle within it placed there. by Pope Pius II, in memory it is said of his having come there to meet the head of the Saint wh. was bringing to Rome from Peloponnesus. A mile farther on the left also is a little Church wh. Julius the 3rd erected to the same Apostle, in consideration of his having been delivered fro the hands of the Imperiality, in the year 1527, on St. Andrew's Day. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola is the Architect, & in point of taste, it is one of the most correct structures of modern Rome, tho' any but an experienced Eye might fail to note it, for in approaching Rome, a small Church is not exactly what is most likely to fix attention, if at least it is yr. first visit.

Death of Miss Bathurst

26th December Sunday. Near the Ponte Molle it was, that the unfortunate death of Miss Bathurst by the accident of her horse taking fright, & falling into the water backwards with her, took place, when it is supposed as probable that she was hit in the struggling of the animal for its own safety, wh. it obtained, but her body was not found for many days after, at some distance. The French Ambassador, Duke de Laval Montmorency, leant over the bridge the while night weeping, & did not return to Town till 5 o'clock next morning, the Gate del Popolo being kept open for him. He had been unable to afford any assistance from distress, offering any sum that she might be saved, & many plunged in vain into the River, wh. was at that time much swollen, & had thus softened & rendered slippery the banks. The Tiber is in fact the most destructive river to its banks that probably exists, it constantly is begrimed with acquired Dirt, & at its Mouth it deposes to a prodigious extent, causing as it is supposed the retreat of the Mediterranean from the Coast of Ostia & Laurentum.

Washing of the Feet at Ospizio dei Pellegrini

Dec. 1824. The Ceremony wh. we witnessed of washing the Feet of the Pilgrims, was very curious - inasmuch as the principal of the Official Cardinals, Monsignore as he is called, the Duke of Lucca, a Sovereign Prince &c., do not hesitate to perform this wh. certainly appears a menial office. These pilgrims come to Rome from distant territories to do honour to the occasion of the holy Year, and to advantage, as they imagine, their own Souls, and partly I presume in acknowledgement of the labour they have undergone, partly to show that the highest nobles & church Dignitaries consider every Servant of God, & every son of the Pope, as his Brother & his Equal - inasmuch as there is so great a Difference betwn. the exertions made by the poor Pilgrim & by the rich Noble, this is to be repaid by an act of evident sympathy & voluntary humiliation on the part of the latter, so the Feet being washed & wiped by the Prince or the Prelate, Prayers being all the while recited to Jesus, Mary & Joseph, & at the end thanks being returned in general, the Pilgrims are seated at Supper & the Noble waits on him, receives the dishes, brings them to Table, & assists him as if he were his Servant. With all this honour there are very few Pilgrims during the present Year, & not the whole the immense Diminution of Worshippers of the Pope's ordinances now, as compared with former Times, (..) whereas altho' certainly now on the Ponte d'Angelo there is a tolerable Crowd just at the time when the ceremonies are about to be performed. (..) The Pope is much disappointed at the small number or arrivals of the kind this year, it is howv. hoped that more will be here at Easter, when I really must be back.

Castle of Pope Julius II

31st December. This Day I went down to Ostia. It is at a distance of about 16 Miles from Rome. (..) Soon after leaving the City, past the ruins of the Cathedral of St. Paul, wh. was burnt in 1823, you become aware of the deserted character of the Country - scarce a Tree, for miles not the face of a human Being. In the Winter, you have Cattle & Buffalos grazing & wading, in the Summer, all return to the Mountains, flying from the Pestilence wh. tyrannises & destroys in the plain. But I found no sense of Sadness in this solitude. (..) You approach modern Ostia by means of a long flat bridge with a paved roadway, wh. is made across the marsh, here deep, & of course impassable without such artificial assistance. (..) At modern Ostia, you have a Tower or Castle of the middle ages, 1st part built by Pius 4th, part by Giulius the 2nd, the lower part by the latter, the upper by the former. The hard & compact appearance of the bricks deceive you at first into a belief of the much greater antiquity of the building, did the Gothic of m. age not convince you of its being of a later Date. (..) The Castle is in quite a deserted & ruinous state, you wind up a stair of stone, & on the first floor find sundry dark Rooms with bars to the windows, running one beyond another, always with borrowed light, this also being much intercepted by the window bars, till at length you come to complete darkness, there being still howv. space beyond - above stairs are other Rooms, larger & lighter; there was a third story wh. now possesses nothing but a part of its stair; the view is from the battlements of the second story. The Town is of a very few houses with a Church & Inn, but it has no appearance of Misery, there is nothing sad in it except its Solitude.

Scala Santa

1st Jan 1825. The pilgrims are informed that it will be for them still better if they go up the Scala Santa on their knees. This Scala Santa is on the left of the Cathedral of St. John Lateran, & is represented to have been that of Pilate's Judgement Hall, down wh. our Saviour was pushed; consequently it is held in great Veneration & from within the iron Gate, you see Crowds of people labouring on their knees up a number of steps, probably 50 at least, the noise the knees make is pretty considerable. The Stair is crowded with old & young, but generally, with the poor, to whom chiefly the superstitious Observances of the Catholic Religion are now matters of Respect, at least those of them wh. demand labour - all sign with the cross on entering the Church with Holy Water, bow & genuflect to the Images of Madonna &c., perhaps kiss St. Peter's Toe, & kneel in apparent thoughtfulness for a certain period before that altar that is fashionable, or convenient - but you will not see many well dressed people crawling up a Stair on their knees, or parting it from one extreme of the City to the other, reciting nonsensical Latin. These are pleasures left to the Poor, from whom I doubt not that ultimately they may be gradually separated also, & cast to the Dunghill, with the villainous Abettors of the System of Fraud & Quackery wh. characterises all that is peculiar in the Roman Catholic doctrines.

Smell of Trastevere

January 1825. The smells wh. assault you on the Travestere are really overpowering - it was the same in old Rome. All the Trades wh. were not admitted into the town itself were here practiced freely. It is the foot of the Janiculum. It is moreover said that the Character of the people is very high & revengeful, & that they hold the rest of the World in contempt. Of the latter, I doubt not a few bayocchi wd. smooth down the asperities, the former I can believe.

Spedale de' Pazzi

January 10th. We began this day by visiting the Ospedale dei Pazzi or a madhouse. It seems to be well kept, & the persons confined in it are generally pretty quiet, wh. although it may not imply less misery, but possibly more, in the Individual confined, is generally a less painful object for the Visitor. There are not above two furious persons in the Establishment, and the madness of one of them, an Englishman I believe of considerable fortune, seemed to be originally the offspring of Drink. He wd. not eat, & they had chained him, because, say they, if we do not do so, he not only refused to eat, but wants to be off, whereas only one of these can result if he is chained. His Complexion was high, & his eyes fiery. There was an Englishman in another cell whom Colquhoun saw, & told me was quite stupid or sulky, & wd. not say a word; and another Englishman with whom I had some conversation - he said he had come to Rome because he had told men & women in Ireland that he wd. do so, & by means of a Passport wh. had taken him several time between London & Paris, & had at length brought him here, where after two years' stay, the soldier had tapped him on the shoulder, & then he was brought to where he now is. He seemed very proud of a glass, with wh. he ever & anon looked at the passers-by - saluting them obsequiously. But he was latterly inclined to return questions or question, when I had tried him for a good deal as to what had taken place after his Arrival at Rome - the extent of his sleeping in the Streets, & getting no Employment, I did learn, & I greatly incline to believe that the poor Wretch has been reduced to his present condition by extreme Poverty & Suffering.

Carcere Nuovo

January 11th. This day we visited the Carcere Nuovo, by means of a formal permission written for & obtained from the Cardinal Governor of the City. The building is in the Strada Giulia, near the Ponte St. Angelo, and is of great extents. There are I think 3 stories, in the lowest of wh. are public Rooms, Court, & Kitchen, while on the second & third are also public Rooms, but moreover the bed Rooms, & places of separate Confinements, with the rooms for criminals processes, one for the announcing of & Sentence of Death; a Chapel, & accommodation for the Gaolers. You enter a Passage, & on yr. right a little way in, it is the Room for Clerks, & Secretaries of the Prison, to the Chief of whom it was requisite to show the Governor's permission, & then immediate orders were given that we shd. be attended round the whole establishment. From this thro' a door opposite to the front we proceeded & saw many prisoners in open Court; we were naturally induced to ask if all these were for the same Crime, & whether there was a separation of criminals of diff. degree - we were told none, excepting in the case of accusations of capital offences, when until Trial there was complete solitude, as well as during it - & after Trial, if conviction & the last Condemnation were the Result, as this was always executed the Morning after it had been announced to the culprit, there was of course no opportunity for communication with fellow prisoners; if acquitted, they naturally are dismissed from Gaol, but if conviction ensues & a sentence of anything less than Death is pronounced, the Man often appeals from it, wh. if received (as in the case of a Stranger it almost always is, in that of a Roman rarely, because held to be needless & merely dilatory) rescues him from a subsequent sentence of Death, & therefore, during the delay, wh. is often of several years, he is allowed in the prison as many privileges as the mere Pickpocket. We saw a man who we were told had many years ago stabbed another, & who had been condemned to the Galleys; he had appealed & was among the rest, certainly none of them very nice looking Boys, but at the same time, as I understood, none of them known to be guilty of as great a crime as he. I understood him to say that 8 or 9 years had elapsed since his conviction & subsequent appeal. This is an Evil of some Magnitude, since the probability is from the long confinement he has already undergone, any ulterior Punishment will be trifling. I speak, according to the views of those Matters here, where such an act of Criminality is sooner forgiven than a seditious or anticatholic word, a liberal opinion, or the Possession of a correct Edition of the Bible. With regard to the form & Process in Matters Criminal - a man is accused of a Crime committed within the Roman Territory; the Judges assemble with a Notary, in a private Room under the same Roof as the Prison & order the accused to be brought before them. He comes, all the world being removed from sound or sight of what goes on, excepting those now assembled. The Judges question him & the Notary takes down these with his Answers. This preliminary Proceeding being concluded, the Gaoler is sent for, & he remanded to his solitary Cell. By enquiry, by personal examination, & by every means wh. from the result of the examination of the accused, from known or suspected facts appeared to afford a Prospect of eliciting the Truth, the Witnesses, who are to be regularly examined, are obtained - these are then, one after the other, before Judges & Notary alone, questioned as to their knowledge of the facts &c. I presume (for this who knows but from Report) and this being finished, a Copy of the same is reduced into writing, & sent to an advocate, a public officer, employed by the Government for the Defence of accused Persons, and this individual is entitled, not to summon peremptorily the attendance Witnesses for the Prosecution (wh. is conducted as appears by the Judges themselves, since they take only charge of the Matter of Accusation & not at all of the Matters of Defence) but to examine any evidence in favour of the Criminal wh. he can obtain, as well as is writing, to state anything that occurs to him favourable to the cause of the accused Person. This being done, he sends the whole back to to the Judges, who meet privately, & deliberate concerning the Decision to wh. they shall come upon the whole Matter; if this is acquittal, the Result is of course the Dismissal of the Accused - if Condemnation to Death, he is conducted, as I presume, to a lone bare Room, into wh., from its close barring, the Light of the Sun never penetrates, and here at Midnight the Appointed Judge comes & solemnly announces to him the fatal Doom; a Roman born, his Fate is fixed; Appeal is hopeless, the next Morning he is to suffer. From a side Door, just out of the Cells, enters here a Priest, who now has a Duty & Interest inducing him to work on the Mind of the poor Wretch, importunes him to confess his Transgressions, to repent, to pray for Pardon, gives him the Sacrament, &c. & in short never quits him, until the last Moment of his Existence. This is the State of the Case, & what are the Conclusions to be drawn from the System, viewed in its Details, & in its general Features, it is not necessary for me to particularise. Passing along one of the Upper Galleries, below wh. are confined various Delinquents, we heard a singing very loudly & joyously. The Gaoler motioned us back & entered into Conversation with him, they cracked a few jokes together, & parted good friends, when he said to us - That Man had the case of a Lady of Rank & was corporal of a Detachment conducting her to Rome, when from jealousy or Fury of some kind, he shot her, thus betraying his Trust, & committing a savage Murder; but when he was brought before the Judges, lo & behold, he was mad - answered incoherently - & produced the impression that he had lost his Senses. He was remanded, & soon became Sane again. Summoned a second, third, fourth time, he is always mad - remanded, he is Sane at each interval - but here he is, unpunished, untried, secure & unmolested - because he is not only a villain, but a clever villain. We wd. not be so deceived in Gt. Britain. We were shown a place of vast height over wh. a Priest, accused of some offence, having taken the opportunity of not being so closely guarded as usual, & thus escaped from his Rooms, deliberately threw himself, his whole bones being disjointed before he reached the bottom, & then he dashed in pieces, for it is a height of 250 feet at least, & pointed stones at the bottom!

Villa Adriana

January 12th. This day at an early hour I went to Tivoli with Colquhoun. (..) After the Empr. had made the circuit of the various provinces of the Empire, he became desirous to preserve in this villa, a specimen of what he had seen. Accordingly he constructed a Lyceum, and academy, a Pritaneum , & a Pecile all of wh. he had seen in Athens. He made there a valley of Tempe in imitation of that in Thessaly , the Canopus, like that in Alexandria, and lastly the Tartarus & Elysian fields of the mythology. (..) It is about 7 miles round, and altho' the picturesque ruins wh. adorn it are daily diminishing in size & number for the sake of the ground wh. they cover, yet there still remains enough to furnish numerous traces of the singular variety & extent of this self contained miscellany of the peculiarities of the Roman World. (..) Traversing the Court of the Pecile, you come to the Barracks of the Imperial Guards. There are in there 200 Rooms - in rows, one above the other. Without these must have been two galleries supported with pilasters or pillars serving as means of general communication. Inside, every Room is separate, & there is no means of entering any but by means of the corridors, as may be seen in the convents of our Days; consequently, & as clearly appears from the irregularity of its structure, the internal communication betwn. the rooms themselves is modern (..) The building called the Canopus was intended to imitate the Egyptian Temple in the City of that name, & was dedicated to Seraphis; its name is sufftly well justified by the discovery of sundry Egyptian Statues, or such as appertain to the worship of that God, wh. are now to be seen at the Capitol, in the room called the Sala del Canopo. The plain before the building was covered with water, & within it are still seen the room of the priests, & a painted corridor, by wh. canals passed.

Oil making

January 12th. There is at Tivoli, an oil Manufactory, wh. on our way top some Villas, we took a look of - observed the Process of making it, & asked some questions about the price of the oil. The olives are put into a sort of vat of a small size, within wh. is turned round as well as on its own axis, as round the vat a sort of wooden wheel, with flappers, teeth, a larger & lesser wheel, this being pressed for some time, & no doubt much of the juice squeezed out, wh. of course remains in the vat. The Olives are taken out in lumps very like what wet peat might be supposed to be. They then undergo another process, in order to get as much of the juice out as may be.

San Michele

January 20th. Went at an early hour & in the midst of heavy Rain to the Hospital San Michele, wh. is intended for near inferm old Men & for the Education of poor Boys & Girls, the former of whom are instructed in Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Engraving, & Paper Drawing - in Printing, Engraving, Shoemaking, &c. They enter here at 8 years old, & being supported by the establishment & taught their Trade leave it at 20. People who have already subscribed, obtain by the payment of 4 crowns admission & Education for one child; others having shares send what number the amount of their subscription may enable them, without paying any thing more. Book Binding is another trade cultivated here. Spoke to the Principal, the making of Helmets for the Police occupies exclusively a particular set of workmen, to whom is allowed an exclusive right of manufacturing them (The price was 2 or 3 scudi, the man said of each Chacol) . We went to the infirmaries, Dormitories, Refectories, Kitchens. In the Engraving Room, a boy had carved a Head in Brass very well; I cd. not help complimenting him. The Painters seemed a desperate Hope. The Melancholy Effects of Failure in these Professions is Starvation to the unfortunate Parties, as of course when they are 20 it is late to change their Trade - tho' Provision can be made for such chances. There is in this Establishment no mathematical Master, & while there are betwn. 30 & 40 scholars in the various Arts of Design, there is only one Master for Design. Good jolly Priests alternately went round with us. We went from this & the Rooms where the Girls who are taken particularly Good care of, & their apartments kept clean, & well aired. We went to the house of Correction adding - this is for Children, who are not to be restrained by Parental Authority, or whose offences are of a grave Stamp. A particular Cardinal is at the Head of it, the same who rules the other house, with the power howv. in the Governor of the city to send any children not having any claim on the Establishment, by paying a certain sum. We saw some of the young Culprits at work, & regular Raffs they appeared. One of them apart from the rest was confined for killing his brother in law, he having severely beaten & nearly killed his father, & the young one 24 hours after stabbed the aggressor. He had been condemned here for 5 years, but was to leave the day after the following, having been only confined 26 months - the Govnr. had respited him from the remainder, his father & friends having interceded for him. He was 16 years old, and when we doubted him being so young, as in fact he looked like 21, & we said so - he replied in a gay tone, I shd. be "vecchio" then. There are places apart for the Private & Domestic Offences. The Estabt. is in some respects a very good one, but is susceptible of much improvement.

S. Paolo fuori le Mura

January 20th. We afterwards rode to see the Ruins of St. Paul - there remains the mosaic of the front outside, many of the Pillars of the Naves, the Inner one tolerably entire but the left side of the centre nave has none except the base of its Pillars rem'g. There are remains of many Heads on the Walls of Popes, apparently, as of sundry other frescoes. The Cipolino and granite are shattered by the Heat. The tribune with its Mosaic is tolerably entire, as also another of much the same general appearance as that of the Tribune, but it is within the wall wh. separates it from the great nave. There are 5 naves - 1 large & 2 lesser on each side, these supported by Corinthinan marble Pillars; then there is a cross nave athwart the Tribune, wh. pillars bound, & another parallel to it bounded on its other side by a partition, wh. is broken by the pillars that form the naves of the Church lengthways, & of course meet the cross ones at right angles. On the side next the Town is a portico, & on that next the Sabine Hills marks of the Gothic Windows, not seen from the inside, & wh., if we had attended to him, a Soldier wd. have prevented us from discovering without. The side of the Church opposite to this is not seen, on account of a Monastery built agst. it, as well as other interruptions to clear view in the shop of tall reeds. There is moreover here a Cloister wh. had a double Square of elegant piloni on a low wall separating a Court from a Portico - these Piloni are sometimes spiral, sometimes smooth, but always elegant & of Doric order.

Travellers covered in this section

Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller