Having conducted you through the principal buildings of Rome, both ancient and modern, I shall now endeavour to lead you to those of less interest, but which nevertheless deserve some sort of notice; and whose number and extent contribute much to swell the general notion of Roman magnificence. We will begin these walks from the Piazza di Spagna, the neighbourhood of which is the usual residence of foreigners, and especially of the English, and from which I am only separated by the magnificent flight of steps of the TrinitÀ de’ Monti, which I have already described to you. This piazza is adorned with a fountain in the whimsical shape of a boat receiving the water, instead of floating in it. This water is the Acqua Vergine, the channel of which is not sufficiently elevated to make here any considerable display, but this is no sufficient reason for such an absurdity. We will then walk if you please, along the Via Babuina, which the Romans say is now subject to the mal aria, because the French made a garden on the hill above it, to the Piazza del Popolo. I have already said a little about this square, if it may be so called, but I think I may add something more; on one side is the city gate called the Porta del Popolo, and the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, which if not very beautiful in itself, yet will attract strangers by some good paintings, and by its ornaments of the cinque cento, some of which are exquisitely beautiful. It is, I believe, the richest church in the world in specimens of this style, which was evidently taken from that of the ancient sculptured vases; we also see here the chapel of Cardinal Cibo, rich in marbles, but where the combination of black and verd antique produces a gloomy effect; and the little chapel of the Ghigi family, designed by Raphael, and adorned with sculpture by his hand; but I have already given you an account of this little jewel.

The opposite side of the square, presents the opening of three long straight streets, which I long to widen, and to conduct to a suitable termination. The middle one is the Corso, the ancient Via Lata, to which my desire of improving is particularly directed, as it would be very possible to introduce the Capitoline hill into the view along it. This might be crowned with something better than the church of Ara Coeli, and the shabby buildings which now encumber its slopes might easily be removed. At the angles between these three streets, are the two corresponding churches of Santa Maria de’ Miracoli, and Santa Maria di Monte Santo. Now if you ask me whether these are two St. Maries, or only one, really I cannot tell you. The churches are pretty well, but rather commonplace.

On the right hand of this Place, as you enter Rome, are some low buildings, forming, I believe, a corpo di guardia, and perhaps something beside, not at all magnificent. I have seen some designs for completing this part in a manner more worthy of the principal entrance to Rome; but none that I much approve.^[50] On the opposite side is a zig-zag road, leading up the hill to the public gardens; the first part appears to be semicircular, and I think will be handsome, but it is not yet finished. In the middle is a fine obelisk, transported hither from the Circus maximus, which it was brought by Augustus from Egypt to adorn; and a fountain. Here then is a fine collection of objects. It wants but little of including several more, and of becoming such an entrance as the enthusiasm of some of our travellers seems to have imagined it.

From the Piazza (for I leave the walls and gates to a future opportunity) we ascend the Mons Pincius to what are now the public gardens; an improvement for which Rome is indebted to the French. Hence we have a noble view over the modern city, with its domes and palaces, of the Janicular and Vatican hills, of St. Peter’s, which here alone perhaps, shews its whole height, and of the overgrown palace which shoulders it. Thence we follow the line of hills to Monte Mario, rising nearly as high as the summit of the dome of St. Peter’s, and the eye traces the valley of the Tiber to Soracte and the Apennines. Nearer are the woods and buildings of the Villa Borghese, and the house of Raphael, a picturesque object, which however externally, owes its greatest interest to a name; and a bend in the outline of the city exposes to us a portion of the external wall, with a deep road at its foot, crowned by the pine groves of the Villa Ludovisi.

From the public gardens we pass to what was the Villa Medici, but is now the residence of the French academy: here are apartments and working rooms provided for the students, and a noble gallery of casts in sculpture and architecture, for their use; here also the annual performances are exhibited, previously to their being sent to Paris. The back-front of the building has been much admired. It attracts however more praise for the ancient bas-reliefs with which it is adorned, some of which are very beautiful, than for its architecture. That architecture is well suited to receive such pieces of sculpture; but perhaps it is not very good taste, or very good judgment, to decorate a building in this way, as the sculptures suffer from the constant exposure. A little summer-house in the gardens contains a pair of the most beautiful pilaster ornaments in existence. I prefer them to those at the entrance of the gallery at Florence; but these also have suffered, and are suffering.

The next object is the Church of the TrinitÀ de’ Monti, standing at the head of the magnificent staircase I have so often mentioned, and with a fine obelisk in front, taken from the circus of Sallust. The church is not very beautiful, but the adjoining convent contains the celebrated Taking down from the Cross, by Daniel di Volterra. Thence, passing close under my lodging, which I believe is in the house inhabited by NiccolÒ Poussin, and close by the residence of Claude Lorraine, and by a house which the latter has introduced several times in his paintings, we keep the Via Sistina, which would lead us in a straight line by a small descent, to the Piazza Barberini, in the upper part of the hollow which separates the Pincian hill from the Quirinal; but turning to the left, we may visit by the way the Capuchin church and convent, famous for the St. Michael of Guido, an excellent figure, but as is the case in many of Guido’s paintings, the bright blue of the cuirass is rather out of harmony; this is probably owing to the use of a colour which has not deepened with the rest. There are likewise some other good paintings, and amongst them one which is said to be the masterpiece of Pietro da Cortona, but his frigid productions will not please, after the glow and animation of Guido and Domenichino. The cemetery of the convent contains mummies and skeletons, dressed, and sitting in niches. Skulls, lamps, roses, and arabesques; all of which are formed entirely by the disposition of human bones, constitute the ornaments of a suite of small rooms. Our conductor, a Capuchin, seemed to find the exhibition very diverting.

From this church we descend into the Piazza Barberini, in the lower part of which is a fountain, composed of a triton, supported on four dolphins, and blowing up the water, “invenzione,” says the Guide-book, “assai stimata di Bernini.” For my part, I have no taste for monsters. The water rises with considerable force, and in windy weather often exhibits the prismatic colours. We ascend the Quirinal hill along a continuation of the Via Sistina, to the Quattro Fontane; where we cross the long straight street leading to the Porta Pia, and marked at the other end by the obelisk and figures of Monte Cavallo. We descend from the Quattro Fontane, and after a slight depression pass by a still more trifling rise on to the Viminal, of whose existence you are hardly sensible, unless you are looking out for it, since the depression is almost equally trifling towards the Esquiline. If however, instead of going up the Viminal, you descend to the most depressed part of the Via delle Quattro Fontane, by the Via di San Vitale, you will be more sensible of the descent; and if you get into the gardens and vineyards on the left, some substructions marking the brow of a hill, exhibit the Viminal, not indeed as a large or high hill, but as one which might even still be counted among the seven little eminences of Rome. On the other side also, the Via Santa Pudenziana leads into an evident hollow. The succession of these hills is perhaps more evident, if instead of passing by the Quattro Fontane, we go from the Piazza Trajana, along the Via Magnanapoli, and passing by the Villa Aldobrandini, continue along the Vie di San Lorenzo and Santa Maria Maggiore.

The Esquiline is more conspicuous, and its ascent towards the church of Santa Maria Maggiore is marked by rows of trees, and crowned with an obelisk, standing at the back of the church. It is a very extensive hill, now almost entirely occupied by gardens and vineyards. Passing in front of the church just mentioned, we arrive at that of St. Antony, where once a year, the ceremony of blessing the horses is performed; and afterwards at a fragment of brick and rubble, called the trophies of Marius, because here were found the marble trophies known by that name, now standing on the balustrades of the square of the Capitol; but it is in fact, as antiquaries are tolerably well agreed, the Castello, or as we should say, not very correctly, the head of the Marcian aqueduct. In returning we may pass by the Arch of Gallienus, a plain building, with no other ornament than what arises from the employment of two Corinthian pilasters; and visit the churches of St. Praxedes, (without obtaining any portion of the indulgences promised to those who frequent it) of San Martino de’ Monti, and San Pietro in Vinculis, which I have already described. They are all seated near the brow of the Esquiline.

I must take you a little way back, in order to see what is vulgarly styled the Temple of Pallas, which some antiquaries suppose to be the Forum of Nerva, and Palladio considers as a fragment of a court surrounding the temple of Nerva. So lately as 1614 Inigo Jones saw some of the temple itself remaining, but it was pulled down shortly afterwards by Paul V. to make use of the marble. In the present day, two marble columns are seen in front of a wall of large blocks of peperino, and above them an entablature and a continued pedestal, which break round the columns. This pedestal, as well as the frieze, is enriched with sculpture, and on its face, in the space between the two columns, is a figure of Pallas, and the other reliefs are supposed to represent the arts of which she was patroness; an arch is seen in the back wall, but filled up with similar masonry, and not corresponding to the situation of the columns. The mouldings are over-ornamented; the dentils and corona are too small, and the sima is too large. These particulars, and the disposition of the columns, announce the decline of art, but in its earliest stage, for the sculpture, and the mouldings and ornaments are in general very good, and the whole has been well executed. Inigo Jones, on the authority of Xiphilin, says that it was built by Apollodorus, before Trajan was emperor.

Our next object is the Arco de’ Pantani, and the massive wall at the back of the temple of Mars Ultor, supposed to have inclosed the forum of Hadrian; and we will pass through the arch, and see the remains of the temple itself, consisting of part of the wall of the cell, and three columns and a pilaster of white marble. The entablature of this piece also remains, and the soffite of the peristyle; and above it, and resting in great measure on two of the columns, is the tower of a convent, the work of the middle ages. Within the convent are said to be some remains of the internal peristyle, but as it is inhabited by nuns, they cannot be seen. These outside parts are valuable, not only for the excellence of their design and workmanship, which are among the best in Rome, but also as exhibiting some particulars not elsewhere to be seen. The separate portions of the leaves of these Corinthian capitals are divided into four points, instead of as usual into five, and the points of the lower division in some instances pass under those of the upper, instead of lying upon them, as is the case in all other examples. A bead and fillet along the wall mark the height of the capital; the marble rafters of the soffite rest on the architrave, there being one to each column. This I take to be the regular Roman practice, while the Greeks made them smaller and more numerous, and placed them over the frieze. They are ornamented with a fret on their under surface, and one large panel, with a fine rose in the centre, occupies the space between them.

From this we may proceed to the Baths of Paulus Æmylius; a well-known fragment, which every body agrees was no bath, and had nothing to do with Paulus Æmylius. Desdogetz has given it a place in his work, but it certainly does not deserve to be introduced among the principal antiquities of Rome. Little remains but a semicircle of brick walls, with pilasters also of brick. It has been supposed to have formed part of the forum of Trajan, with which it does not correspond by its situation; and in character it differs still more from that noble work. It may have been the porticus absidata, which is found in the Regionaries near the forum of Nerva, or it may have been twenty other things. Hence we pass to the Forum of Trajan, where recent excavations have occasioned great discoveries. Marble pavement in its original situation, steps, foundations of walls, numerous fragments of granite columns, and four of the Corinthian bases belonging to them, remain in their places, and these, with the help of several pieces of travertine, also unmoved, and evidently intended to receive similar bases, have enabled the directors to put the fragments in proper situations. What is principally laid open is the Basilica, and for this it was necessary to destroy several houses and two convents. The width of the part now exposed is believed to be about half the length of the basilica. Of the libraries, antiquaries have thought that they distinguished some vestiges near the column, but very little of the situation has been examined, and nothing of that of the temple of Trajan, erected afterwards by Hadrian. The remains of some piers were found on the north side of the column, and indications of their having been altered, and partly removed, in order, as is imagined, to make room for the access to this temple. Two churches and a palace are in the way of any further researches in the part where if anywhere, the remains of such a temple would probably be found; and independently of this, the great extent of the ground required to be excavated, in order to display the whole design, and the difficulty and expense of preserving it after it is exposed, deprives one of all hope of seeing it executed. The column still remains erect; a noble monument of the taste and skill of the architect Apollodorus. It may seem that one column of this sort is very much like another, and that there is little room for the merit of the architect, but if you were to go two or three times from this to the column of Antoninus, and return to that of Trajan, you would feel the great superiority of the latter, though it might puzzle you not a little, to find out in what that superiority consisted. This magnificent column must always have been conspicuous as it is now, rising above the basilica, and all the buildings of the forum; but the pedestal could hardly be seen, except from the confined little court in which it stood. This apparent disproportion is one of the secrets of effect in architecture. You shew large and lofty buildings, from large spaces it is true, but you should also endeavour sometimes to bring great things into contrast with little spaces. Nothing impresses the idea of size more strongly, and when again you see an edifice from a larger space, and perhaps over the tops of smaller buildings, the imagination carries on the idea of size to all its accompaniments. The fragments of granite columns which I have mentioned are most of them broken parts of shafts, each of which has consisted of a single stone, but some of them are a complete stone, which has formed only part of a shaft; and in this case it appears that the Romans, instead of making a flat and horizontal joint, formed a variously, and irregularly undulating surface on the one piece, and cut the other to correspond with it; a laborious and difficult process, of which the object seems to be merely to hide the joint, for the strength of the column would not be increased by it. The fragments of ornament dug up here, are inserted in the wall which surrounds the excavation; many of them are of the highest beauty. Every morsel we see of the works of Apollodorus makes us regret that we do not see more of them. Yet in the plan there are evidences of risalti, and of arrangements in some parts like that of a triumphal arch. This nicknackery seems hardly consistent with the Greek style of the artist, or with the exquisite taste exhibited in the mouldings and ornaments. The disposition of the basilica is supposed to have been the same as that of the church of St. Paul, and the dimensions not very different. The different modes of pavement indicate what parts have been covered, and what exposed.

I said there were two churches in the way of this excavation; they are both at one end of the Piazza. The one, del nome di Maria, does not demand much attention. The other, designed by Sangallo, and dedicated to Santa Maria di Loreto, is said to have given in its double cupola, the model of that in the Vatican. It is an octagonal church, with broken pilasters at the angles. Three square recesses, and a deeper one for the altar, mark in some degree the form of a cross; four niches occupy the remaining sides. The disposition is pleasing, but the minor parts are not well managed, and it is over-ornamented, especially about the niches. The gilding is badly disposed, and being too equally scattered all over, looks spotty, and not rich. Thus in the cavetto of the cornice, which occupies the place of a sima, the roses and husks which ornament it are gilt, and a little ornament surrounding the roses left white; the modillions are partly gilt, partly white; in the ovolo, the eggs and darts are gilt, the band round the eggs is white; in the ogee a similar arrangement is observed; the fillets of the columns are gilt, the flutes white; thus every part has a portion of gilding, none is entirely gilt; and this equality of distribution produces no effect, or rather I should say it has a flat and disagreeable one. This church contains one of the finest productions of modern sculpture, in the statue of Santa Susanna; a very graceful figure, with a beautiful expression of countenance. It is the work of Francis du Quesnoy, who is called here il Fiamingo.

Making a little diversion to the left, to the foot of the Capitoline hill, we find the sepulchre of C. Publicius Bibulus, remarkable, not so much for its architecture, for that is not particularly fine, but for its date. The inscription is not Publicio, but Poplico, but however his name was spelt, he is supposed to have been tribune of the people in the year of Rome 543, and a strenuous opposer of the authority and influence of the patricians. The building is a small edifice of peperino, probably square, but one sees only the front, which is ornamented by four pilasters of a sort of Doric order, plain and simple, but on the whole well proportioned, and it appears to have been neatly executed.

Hence we pass into the Piazza de’ Santi Apostoli, where the great palace of the Colonna family has, externally, neither beauty nor magnificence; and the entrance is very ill-disposed. Inside, I should fill my letter if I only were to sketch a slight description of the treasures of art which it contains; but if I spare you this, I must nevertheless say a word about the magnificent gallery, to which it would be difficult to find a parallel. It is, according to the Guide-book, 208 feet long, and 25 wide, but at each end, a portion nearly square, is separated from the rest of the room by two columns, and two pilasters of giallo antico, the most beautiful for the purposes of architecture of all the coloured marbles. These support an arch. The ceiling is coved without any flat part, and altogether painted, without any ribs, or appearance of solid architecture. In the lower part, the ornaments are gold on a white ground. There are two ranges of windows on each side, which is too many, especially for the pictures, and without pictures the room would not look half so well. It has a most rich and noble effect, which you will not understand from description; I only regret that I cannot send it to London for you to look at.

The gardens of this palace occupy the slope of the Quirinal, and there is a casino belonging to them in the Piazza di Monte Cavallo, which would be a large house in England. Within their circuit are the remains called the baths of Constantine, (though they exhibit nothing analogous to what we have of the other baths) and here also lie the disjecta membra, attributed sometimes to one, and sometimes to another, of what the ancients have described to us as the largest buildings in Rome. The site of the baths is supposed to have extended over a great part of the Quirinal hill, and to be now covered by I know not how many palaces. The remains I have just mentioned, contained two lofty stories of vaulted halls above ground, and exhibit some traces of a third. A raking line seen in one part, with a range of arches following it, seems to announce a great flight of steps; but how the rooms were disposed, or to what purpose they were applied, can only be guessed at. The marble fragments were not found where they now lie, but I believe where the Consulta has been since built. They consist of parts of an entablature of Parian marble. Palladio made out from them Aurelian’s temple of the Sun, with twelve columns in front; but the style and workmanship are far too good for the age of Aurelian, and more suited to that of Nero. The blocks are of an immense size, and the whole entablature must have been near 16 feet in height, which would imply a column of 6½ feet in diameter. The ornaments are full and rich, and exhibit that luxury of finish, which I have before noticed in the temple of Jupiter Tonans, with an execution, perhaps not quite so good. The extent of plain surface close to him appears to have offended the eye of the workman, and he has covered the ovoli and part of the foliage with very neat parallel striÆ.

Our next object will be the Fountain of Trevi, attached to one end of the Palazzo Conti, which seems to make part of the ornament of the fountain. Plenty of fault may be found both with the architecture, and with the sculpture; yet on the whole it is very magnificent, and with its profusion of bright water, makes a most noble object, such as are seen in Rome, and in Rome alone. The rocks, and jets of water below, are admirably disposed, and if the banks are sometimes dirty, we must not fix our attention on them. Milizia considers it as a fault, that you nowhere see the whole body of water at once, but this is on the contrary an advantage, as it leaves the imagination more at liberty.

If we leave the Colonna gardens by the gate on Monte Cavallo, we find ourselves near the Rospigliosi Palace, where there is a fine collection of paintings. From the palace we may pass into a small garden, with a casino at the end of it, formed of an open loggia between two wings, and ornamented with bas-reliefs; which must have had originally an elegant appearance. The arches of the loggia are now filled up, and all beauty of the composition destroyed; yet you cannot regret it when you enter, and contemplate on its ceiling, the exquisite Aurora of Guido, whose dancing hours tread so lightly on the clouds, that they seem quite sufficiently supported; and the whole is so living and so graceful, that in spite of yourself, you gaze till your neck is stiff.