Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton (1786-1869) studied at Cambridge where he befriended Lord Byron with whom he travelled in Spain, Greece and Turkey in 1809. In 1816 he visited Rome and in 1818 he published Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold: containing Dissertations on the Ruins of Rome; and an essay on Italian literature. The book is not a travel account, but a comment to Byron's stanzas on Rome providing information on the monuments mentioned by the poet; it includes however some interesting notes on the excavations which were carried out by the French and by Pope Pius VII in addition to some remarks on the City. Hobhouse held many government positions during his long life and he returned to Italy many times. In 1861 he published for John Murray Italy; Remarks made in several visits, from the year 1816 to 1854 which includes a revised edition of Dissertations on the Ruins of Rome.
The following excerpts are from the 1818 text.

• Porta del Popolo
• Piazza del Popolo
• Roman guides
• Sarcophagus of Scipio
• Pantheon
• Tombs along Via Appia
• Pompeii
• Cecilia Metella
• Orti Farnesiani
• Tempio della Concordia
• Palatine
• S. Bonaventura
• Colonna Traiana
• Basilica Ulpia
• Tempio della Pace (Basilica di Massenzio)
• Campidoglio
• Castel Sant'Angelo

Porta del Popolo The gate of the city is seen immediately on crossing the river (at Ponte Milvio) at the end of a vista two miles in length; and the suburb is not composed of mean dwellings, but a fine road with a wide pavement passes between the walls of vineyards and orchards, with here and there neat summer-houses, or arched gateways rising on either hand, and becoming more frequent with the nearer approach to the city. The Flaminian gate, although it is thought unworthy of Rome and Michael Angelo, will content those who are not fastidious. An entrance, not an arch of triumph, is sufficient for the modern capital.

Piazza del Popolo The stranger (..) may ascend at once by the new road winding up the Pincian mount, and enjoy from that eminence the view of a city, which, whatever may be the faults of its architectural details, is, when seen in the mass, incomparably the handsomest in the world. (..) The first footstep within the venerable walls will have shewn him the name and the magnificence of Augustus, and the three long narrow streets branching from this obelisk, like the theatre of Palladio, will have imposed upon his fancy with an air of antiquity congenial to the soil.

Roman guides Not a few persons of liberal education are in the exercise of a lucrative profession, having for object the instruction and conduct of travellers amidst the wrecks of the old town and the museums of the new.

Sarcophagus of Scipio This may be; but the handsome though plain sarcophagus of Barbatus may, by those of a certain taste, be thought more attractive than any of the masterpieces of the Vatican. The eloquent simple inscription becomes the virtues and the fellow countrymen of the defunct, and instructs us more than a chapter of Livy in the style and language of the republican Romans. The vault itself has been emptied of the slabs and inscriptions, and the copies fixed in the spot where they were found, may be thought ill to supply the place of the originals. The local impression would have been stronger; but the preservation of the precious relics would have been less sure in the vault than in the museum.

Pantheon The period at which the sepulchres were emptied of their ashes must have been, first, that in which the Christians prowled about in every quarter for relics, and thought a church could not be consecrated without such a recommendation. Eight and twenty cart-loads of relics could not be procured for the Pantheon without some diligence and damage to the repositories of the pretended saints; and we know that the eagerness of the search extended to sepulchres where the symbols of martyrdom were very equivocal, or not to be discovered at all.

Tombs along Via Appia The museums have stripped these populous cemeteries of their memorials. (..) A more judicious plan has lately been adopted at the instance of the Marquis Canova, who has adjusted some of the fragments, and the inscription of the sepulchre of the Servilian family and raised them where they were found.

Pompeii It may be observed that the great approaches to the cities were not marked by tombs alone, but partly by suburban villas, and tradesmen's houses, and semicircular seats. Thus they were frequented as public walks, and the beauty of the sepulchres, together with the religion of the people, and the wisdom of the higher orders, prevented any melancholy reflections from being suggested by the receptacles of the dead. Those who have seen the street of the tombs at Pompej will feel the truth of this observation.

Cecilia Metella The common people have been more attentive to the ornaments of the sculptor than to the memory of the matron, for the metopes of the frieze, or a single ox's head with the Gaetani arms, gave to this tower during the middle ages the name of Capo di Bove. (..) The destroyer of the adjoining fortress was Sixtus Quintus, the Hercules of modern Rome, who dislodged every Cacus and cleared the Pontifical states of their dens.

Orti Farnesiani The Farnese family were ambitious of a summer house in the imperial precincts. They levelled, they built, and they planted (..) and the master pieces of ancient sculpture, statues, reliefs, and coloured marbles, were drawn (..) for the embellishment of the rising villa. Following antiquaries (..) were pleased to remark that these peopled gardens had succeeded to the solitude of the long neglected hill. The extinction or aggrandisement of the Farnese dukes stripped this retreat as well as the palace of the family of all its treasures. Naples was fated to be enriched by the plunder of Rome. The Palatine villa was abandoned, and in less than half a century has fallen to the ground.

Tempio della Concordia We cannot trust much to the objects of the Roman Forum. It will have been seen that when Middleton was at Rome in 1725 the eight columns under the Capitol with the inscription "Senatus Populusque Romanus incendio consumptum restituit" were usually supposed those of the Ciceronian Temple of Concord. In fact they had gone by that name in the fifteenth century, when seen by Poggio Bracciolini, who witnessed the destruction of the cell and part of the portico. (..) The late excavations have not cleared the doubts which obscure these superb remains.

Palatine Your walks in the Palatine ruins, if it be one of the many days when the labourers do not work, will be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the brambles in the corridores, or burst unawares through the hole of some shivered fragments into one of the half buried chambers which the peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jackasses, or as huts for those who watch the gardens. The smoke of their wood fires has not hidden the stuccoes and deeply indented mouldings of the imperial roofs.

S. Bonaventura Religion is still triumphant after the fall of the palace of the Caesars, the towers of feudal lords, and the villas of papal princes. The church and contiguous monastery of St. Bonaventura, preserve a spark of life upon the site of the town of Romulus. The only lane which crosses the Palatine, leads to this church between dead walls, where the stations of the via crucis divert the attention from the fall of the Caesars, to the sublimer and more humiliating sufferings of God himself.

Colonna Traiana The stranger, at the first sight of the column, naturally expects to find that the inscription will refer to the virtues, or at least the victories, of the prince whose exploits are sculptured upon it, but he reads only that the pillar was raised to show how much of the hill, and to what height had, with infinite labour, been cleared away.

Basilica Ulpia The Forum of Trajan served, amongst other purposes, to perpetuate the memory of the good and great. (..) We know that Marcus Aurelius erected statues in this Forum to all those who fell in the German war and that Alexander Severus transferred thither those of other celebrated personages from other sites. (..) The same place was devoted to the labours and the rewards of literary heroes; here the poets and others recited their compositions perhaps in the Ulpian library (..) and here their images were allowed a place amongst conquerors and monarchs. (..) Fragments of statues and pedestals were dug up in the great excavation, but only five inscriptions, of which four were copies of each other and in honour of Trajan, were discovered. (..) The late excavation enables us at last to tread the floor of ancient Rome. The replacing the fragments of the columns on their bases, and the judicious arrangement of the other marbles, has created an effect little inferior to the wonders of Pompej.

Tempio della Pace (Basilica di Massenzio) The three vaults would certainly seem part of the Temple of Peace. (..) Even Nardini has no doubts here. But the modern antiquaries are determined to dispute about what part of the temple these huge vaults may be said to represent; a treasury, a Pinacotheca, perhaps a bath, or any other building of the Forum of Peace. The great excavations in 1812 discovered immense masses of marble, but nothing to assist conjecture. This part of Rome must have been abandoned for many centuries, in order to form the accretion of soil at the back of these vaults, which slopes into an embankment of hanging gardens.

Campidoglio The genius of Michael Angelo was employed to make the ancient citadel not only accessible, but inviting. The broad and easy ascent, the façade and steps of the senatorial palace; the lateral edifices, have accomplished this object; but they accord ill with our preconceptions of the Roman Capitol. (..) As, however, the stranger cannot have the satisfaction of climbing the Capitol by the ancient triumphal road, whose exact position has not been ascertained, he should pay his first visit on the other side, by the modern approach, where the colossal figures and the trophies of Marius in front, and the equestrian Aurelius rising before him as he mounts, have an air of ancient grandeur suitable to the sensations inspired by the genius of the place.

Castel Sant'Angelo In 1379 (at the time of Antipope Clement VII) the people of Rome stript off the marbles and destroyed tbe square base, and would, conformably to their decree, have torn down the round tower itself, but were unable from the compact solidity of the fabric. (..) The resistance of the naked tower, when actually exposed to the triumphant rage of a whole people, must augment our respect for this indissoluble structure. The efforts of the Romans are still visible in the jutting blocks which mark where the corresponding portion of the basement has been torn away. (..) The fate of the modern city, and even of the papal power, has in some measure depended upon the castle of Saint Angelo. (..) Of such importance was this fort to the pontiffs that the taking of it is, by an ecclesiastical writer, ranked with a famine, an eclipse, and an earthquake. (..) The Caesar Crescentius seized and refortified the castle so strongly, that it was called afterwards his rock or tower and all the efforts of an imperial army, commanded by Otho III. in person, were insufficient to dislodge him. (..) The interior of the castle is scarcely worth a visit, except it be for the sake of mounting to the summit, and enjoying the prospect of the windings of the Tyber.

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)
• 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)