Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

William Hazlitt (1778 - 1830) was an essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, art critic, social commentator, and philosopher.
The following Notes of a Journey through France and Italy are reprinted from the columns of the Morning Chronichle. The favourable reception they met with there suggested the idea of the present work. My object has been to describe what I saw or remarked myself; or to give the reader some notion of what he might expect to find in travelling the same road. There is little of history or antiquities or statistics; nor do I regret the want of them, as it may be abundantly supplied from other sources. The only thing I could have wished to expatiate upon more at large is the manners of the country: but to do justice to this, a greater length of time and a more intimate acquaintance with society and the language would be necessary. Perhaps, at some future opportunity, this defect may be remedied.
Author's Preface to Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy in 1824-1825 - London 1826
One of his first notes on Rome says it all: Rome is great only in ruins: the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Arch of Constantino fully answered my expectations; and an air. breathes round her stately avenues, serene, blissful, like the mingled breath of spring and winter, betwixt life and death, betwixt hope and despair.
Popery is the term he used to refer to the Catholic Religion and he never described a Roman church, exception made for St. Peter's which he did not like. His notes might have influenced Charles Dickens who visited Rome twenty years later.

• Aspect of the ancient monuments
• Via Gregoriana
• Domus Aurea
• Coliseum
• Temple of Vesta
• Pantheon
• Jewish Ghetto
• Easter Sunday
• Women of the Campagna
• Titian
• Roman ancient busts

Aspect of the ancient monuments So you pass through cities and stately palaces, and cannot be persuaded that, one day, no trace of them will be left. Italy is not favourable to the look of age or of length of time. The ravages of the climate are less fatal; the oldest places seem rather deserted than mouldering into ruin, and the youth and beauty of surrounding objects mixes itself up even with the traces of devastation and decay. The monuments of antiquity appear to enjoy a green old age in the midst of the smiling productions of modern civilization. The gloom of the seasons does not at any rate add its weight to the gloom of antiquity (see some ruins on the Palatine hill).

Via Gregoriana Pass the Tiber and the gate Del Popolo, and you are in Rome. When there, go any where but to Franks's Hotel, and get a lodging, if possible, on the Via Gregoriana, which overlooks the town and where you can feast the eye and indulge in sentiment, without being poisoned by bad air. The house of Salvator Rosa is at present let out in lodgings. (..) From the window of the house where I lodge, I have a view of the whole city at once: nay, I can see St. Peter's as I lie in bed of a morning. The town is an immense mass of solid stone-buildings, streets, palaces and churches; but it has not the beauty of the environs of Florence.

Domus Aurea The day was close and dry - not a breath stirred. All was calm and silent. It had been cold when we set out, but here the air was soft - of an Elysian temperature, as if the winds did not dare to visit the sanctuaries of the dead too roughly. The daisy sprung beneath our feet - the fruit-trees blossomed within the nodding arches. (..) Close by was Nero's Golden House, where there were seventy thousand statues and pillars, of marble and of silver, and where senates kneeled, and myriads shouted in honour of a frail mortal, as of a God. Come here, oh man! and worship thine own spirit that can hoard up as in a shrine, the treasures of two thousand years, and can create out of the memory of fallen splendours and departed grandeur a solitude deeper than that of desert wildernesses, and pour from the outgoings of thine own thoughts a thunder louder than that of maddening multitudes! No place was ever so still as this; for none was ever the scene of such pomp and triumph! Not far from this are the Baths of Titus; the grass and the poppy (the flower of oblivion) grow over them, and in the vaults below they shew you (by the help of a torch) paintings on the ceiling eighteen hundred years old, birds, and animals, a figure of a slave, a nymph and a huntsman, fresh and elegantly foreshortened, and also the place where the Laocoon was discovered.

Coliseum The Coliseum, or Amphitheatre of Titus, the noblest ruin in Rome, is circular, built of red stone and brick, with arched windows, and the gillyflower and fennel growing on its walls to the very top! one side is nearly perfect. As you pass under it, it seems to raise itself above you, and mingle with the sky in its majestic simplicity, as if earth were a thing too gross for it; it stands almost unconscious of decay, and may still stand for ages - though Mr. Hobhouse has written Annotations upon it!

Temple of Vesta The temple of Vesta is on the Tiber. It is not unlike an hour-glass - or a toad-stool; it is small, but exceedingly beautiful, and has a look of great antiquity.

Pantheon The Pantheon is also as fine as possible. It has the most perfect unity of effect. It was hardly a proper receptacle for the Gods of the Heathens, for it has a simplicity and grandeur like the vaulted cope of Heaven. Compared with these admired remains of former times I must say that the more modern churches, and palaces in Rome are poor, flashy, upstart-looking things.

Jewish Ghetto The Jews are shut up here in a quarter by themselves. I see no reason for it. There was a talk (it being Anno Santo) of shutting them up for the whole of the present year. A soldier stands at the gate, to tell you that this is the Jews' quarter, and to take any thing you choose to give him for this piece of Christian information. A Catholic church stands outside their prison, with a Crucifixion painted on it as a frontispiece, where they are obliged to hear a sermon in behalf of the truth of the Christian religion every Good Friday. On the same day they used to make them run races in the Corso, for the amusement of the rabble (high and low) - now they are compelled to provide horses for the same purpose. Owing to the politeness of the age, they no longer burn them as of yore, and that is something.

Easter Sunday I was lucky enough to see the Pope here on Easter Sunday. He seems a harmless, infirm, fretful old man. (..) I was also lucky enough to see St. Peter's illuminated to the very top (a project of Michael Angelo's) in the evening. It was finest at first, as the kindled lights blended with the fading twilight. It seemed doubtful whether it were an artificial illumination, the work of carpenters and torch-bearers, or the reflection of an invisible sun. One half of the cross shone with the richest gold, and rows of lamps gave light as from a sky. At length a shower of fairy lights burst out at a signal in all directions, and covered the whole building. It looked better at a distance than when we went nearer it. It continued blazing all night. What an effect it must have upon the country round! Now and then a life or so is lost in lighting up the huge fabric, but what is this to the glory of the church and the salvation of souls, to which it no doubt tends? I can easily conceive some of the wild groups that I saw in the streets the following day to have been led by delight and wonder from their mountain-haunts, or even from the bandits' cave, to worship at this new starry glory, rising from the earth. The whole of the immense space before St. Peter's was in the afternoon crowded with people to see the Pope give his benediction. The rich dresses of the country people, the strong features and orderly behaviour of all, gave this assemblage a decided superiority over any thing of the kind I had seen in England.

Women of the Campagna The young women that come here from Gensano and Albano, and that are known by their scarlet boddices and white head-dresses and handsome good-humoured faces, are the finest specimens I have ever seen of human nature. They are like creatures that have breathed the air of Heaven till the sun has ripened them into perfect beauty, health, and goodness. They are universally admired in Rome. (..) Little troops and whole families men, women, and children, from the Campagna and neighbouring districts of Rome, throng the streets during Easter and Lent, who come to visit the shrine of some favourite Saint, repeating their Aves aloud and telling their beads with all the earnestness imaginable.

Titian Sacred and Profane Love by Titian at Galleria Borghese Titian's Sacred and Profane Love has a peculiar and inexpressible charm about it. It is something between portrait and allegory, a mixture of history and landscape, simple and yet quaint, fantastical yet without meaning to be so, but as if a sudden thought had struck the painter, and he could not help attempting to execute it out of curiosity, and finishing it from the delight it gave him. It is full of sweetness and solemnity.

Roman ancient busts I find nothing so delightful as these old Roman heads of Senators, Warriors, Philosophers. They have all the freshness of truth and nature. They shew something substantial in mortality. They are the only things that do not crush and overturn our sense of personal identity; and are a fine relief to the mouldering relics of antiquity, and to the momentary littleness of modern things.

Travellers covered in this section

• Introductory page
• Gregory Martin's "Roma Sancta", a description of Christian Rome in 1581
• Fynes Moryson's An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Years Travel .. in Italy .. in 1594
• John Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence related to his stay in Rome in 1644
• Francis Mortoft's Journal of his travels in France and Italy in 1659
• John Ray's Observations (..) made in a journey through part of (..) Italy in 1663
• Richard Lassels' The Voyage of Italy, or a Compleat Journey through Italy in ca 1668
• Joseph Addison's Remarks on several parts of Italy, in the years 1701, 1702, 1703
• Jonathan and Jonathan Richardson's Account of Some of the Statues, etc. in Italy - 1722
• Edward Wright's Observations made in France, Italy &c. in the years 1720, 1721 and 1722.
• Excerpts from John Dyer's The Ruins of Rome written in 1740
• Thomas Gray's Letters from France and Italy in 1739-1741
• James Boswell's Letters on the Grand Tour in 1765
• Tobias Smollett's Travels through France and Italy in 1765
• John Moore's View of Society and Manners in Italy (in 1775) - publ. 1781
• John Chetwode Eustace's Classical Tour of Italy (in 1802) - publ. 1813
• Joseph Forsyth's Remarks on Antiquities, Arts, and Letters in Italy in 1802-1803
• John Cam Hobhouse's Dissertations on the Ruins of Rome in 1818
• Henry Matthews' Diary of an Invalid (in 1817-1818)
• Anna Jameson's Diary of an Ennuyée (in 1821-1822) - publ. 1826
• Sir Charles Fergusson's Travel Notes a Journey Through Italy in 1824-1825
• William Hazlitt's Notes of a Journey Through France and Italy in 1824-1825
• Samuel Rogers' Italy - publ. in 1830 with illustrations by J.M. William Turner
• Hans Christian Andersen's The Improvisatore - 1834 (Engl. translation 1845)
• William Gardiner's Sights in Italy in 1846-1847
• George Stillman Hillard's Six Months in Italy in ca 1847-1848

Read What Dante Saw.
Read What Goethe Saw.
Read What Lord Byron Saw.
Read What Charles Dickens Saw.
Read What Henry James Saw.
Read What Mark Twain Saw.
Read What William Dean Howells Saw.
Read Dan Brown's Spaghetti Bolognaise (excerpts from Angels and Demons)