Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 by Various

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It is the custom in Rome at the great _festas,_ of which Christmas is
one of the principal ones, for each parish to send round the sacrament
to all its sick; and during these days a procession of priest and
attendants may be seen, preceded by their cross and banner, bearing the
holy wafer to the various houses. As they march along, they make the
streets resound with the psalm they sing. Everybody lifts his hat as
they pass, and many among the lower classes kneel upon the pavement.
Frequently the procession is followed by a rout of men, women, and
children, who join in the chanting and responses, pausing with the
priest before the door of the sick person, and accompanying it as it
moves from house to house.

At Christmas, all the Roman world which has a _baiocco_ in its pocket
eats _torone_ and _pan giallo._ The shops of the pastry-cooks and
confectioners are filled with them, mountains of them incumber the
counters, and for days before Christmas crowds of purchasers throng to
buy them. _Torone_ is a sort of hard candy, made of honey and almonds,
and crusted over with crystallized sugar; or in other words, it is a
_nuga_ with a sweet frieze coat;--but _nuga_ is a trifle to it for
consistency. _Pan giallo_ is perhaps so called _quasi lucus,_ it being
neither bread nor yellow. I know no way of giving a clearer notion of
it than by saying that its father is almond-candy and its mother a
plum-pudding. It partakes of the qualities of both its parents. From its
mother it inherits plums and citron, while its father bestows upon it
almonds and consistency. In hardness of character it is half-way between
the two,--having neither the maternal tenderness on the one hand, nor
the paternal stoniness on the other. One does not break one's teeth on
it as over the _torone,_ which is only to be cajoled into masticability
by prolonged suction, and often not then; but the teeth sink into it as
the wagoner's wheels into clayey mire, and every now and then receive a
shock, as from sunken rocks, from the raisin-stones, indurated almonds,
pistachio-nuts, and pine-seeds, which startle the ignorant and innocent
eater with frightful doubts. I carried away one tooth this year over my
first piece; but it was a tooth which had been considerably indebted to
California, and I have forgiven the _pan giallo._ My friend the Conte
Cignale, who partook at the same time of _torone,_ having incautiously
put a large lump into his mouth, found himself compromised thereby to
such an extent as to be at once reduced to silence and retirement behind
his pocket-handkerchief. An unfortunate jest, however, reduced him to
extremities, and, after a vehement struggle for politeness, he was
forced to open the window and give his _torone_ to the pavement--and
the little boys, perhaps. _Chi sa?_ But, despite these dangers and
difficulties, all the world at Rome eats _pan giallo_ and _torone_ at
Christmas,--and a Christmas without them would be an egg without salt.
They are at once a penance and a pleasure. Not content with the _pan
giallo,_ the Romans also import the _pan forte di Siena,_ which is a
blood cousin of the former, and suffers almost nothing from time and
age.

On Christmas and New Year's day all the servants of your friends present
themselves at your door to wish you a _"buona festa,"_ or a _"buon capo
d'anno."_ This generous expression of good feeling is, however, expected
to be responded to by a more substantial expression on your part, in the
shape of four or five pauls, so that one peculiarly feels the value of a
large visiting-list of acquaintances at this season. To such an extent
is this practice carried, that in the houses of the cardinals and
princes places are sought by servants merely for the vails of the
_festas,_ no other wages being demanded. Especially is this the case
with the higher dignitaries of the Church, whose _maestro di casa_, in
hiring domestics, takes pains to point out to them the advantages of
their situation in this respect. Lest the servants should not be aware
of all these advantages, the times when such requisitions may be
gracefully made and the sums which may be levied are carefully
indicated,--not by the cardinal in person, of course, but by his
underlings; and many of the fellows who carry the umbrella and cling
to the back of the cardinal's coach, covered with shabby gold-lace and
carpet-collars, and looking like great beetles, are really paid by
everybody rather than the _padrone_ they serve. But this is not confined
to the _Eminenze,_ many of whom are, I dare say, wholly ignorant that
such practices exist. The servants of the embassies and all the
noble houses also make the circuit of the principal names on the
visiting-list, at stated occasions, with good wishes for the family. If
one rebel, little care will be taken that letters, cards, and messages
arrive promptly at their destination in the palaces of their _padroni;_
so it is a universal habit to thank them for their politeness, and to
request them to do you the favor to accept a piece of silver in order
to purchase a bottle of wine and drink your health. I never knew one of
them refuse; probably they would not consider it polite to do so. It is
curious to observe the care with which at the embassies a new name is
registered by the servants, who scream it from anteroom to _salon,_ and
how considerately a deputation waits on you at Christmas and New
Year's, or, indeed, whenever you are about to leave Rome to take your
_villeggiatura,_ for the purpose of conveying to you the good wishes of
the season or of invoking for you a _"buon viaggio."_ One young Roman,
a teacher of languages, told me that it cost him annually some twenty
_scudi_ or more, to convey to the servants of his pupils and others his
deep sense of the honor they did him in inquiring for his health at
stated times. But this is a rare case, and owing, probably, to his
peculiar position. A physician in Rome, whom I had occasion to call in
for a slight illness, took an opportunity on his first visit to put a
very considerable _buona mano_ into the hands of my servant, in order to
secure future calls. I cannot, however, say that this is customary; on
the contrary, it is the only case I know, though I have had other Roman
physicians; and this man was in his habits and practice peculiarly
un-Roman. I do not believe it, therefore, to be a Roman trait. On the
other hand, I must say, for my servant's credit, that he told me the
fact with a shrug, and added, that he could not, after all, recommend
the gentleman as a _medico,_ though I was _padrone,_ of course, to do as
I liked.

On Christmas Eve, a _Presepio_ is exhibited in several of the churches.
The most splendid is that of the Ara Celi, where the miraculous Bambino
is kept. It lasts from Christmas to Twelfth Night, during which period
crowds of people flock to see it; and it well repays a visit. The simple
meaning of the term _Presepio_ is a manger, but it is also used in the
Church to signify a representation of the birth of Christ. In the Ara
Celi the whole of one of the side-chapels is devoted to this exhibition.
In the foreground is a grotto, in which is seated the Virgin Mary, with
Joseph at her side and the miraculous Bambino in her lap. Immediately
behind are an ass and an ox. On one side kneel the shepherds and kings
in adoration; and above, God the Father is seen surrounded by clouds of
cherubs and angels playing on instruments, as in the early pictures of
Raphael. In the background is a scenic representation of a pastoral
landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended.
Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palm-trees or
standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and
perspective are admirable. In the middle ground is a crystal fountain of
glass, near which sheep, preternaturally white, and made of real wool
and cotton-wool, are feeding, tended by figures of shepherds carved in
wood. Still nearer come women bearing great baskets of real oranges and
other fruits on their heads. All the nearer figures are full-sized,
carved in wood, painted, and dressed in appropriate robes. The
miraculous Bambino is a painted doll swaddled in a white dress, which is
crusted over with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The Virgin
also wears in her ears superb diamond pendants. Joseph has none; but he
is not a person peculiarly respected in the Church. As far as the Virgin
and Child are concerned, they are so richly dressed that the presents of
the kings and wise men seem rather supererogatory,--like carrying coals
to Newcastle,--unless, indeed, Joseph come in for a share, as it is to
be hoped he does. The general effect of this scenic show is admirable,
and crowds flock to it and press about it all day long. Mothers and
fathers are lifting their little children as high as they can, and until
their arms are ready to break; little maids are pushing, whispering,
and staring in great delight; _contadini_ are gaping at it with a mute
wonderment of admiration and devotion; and Englishmen are discussing
loudly the value of the jewels, and wanting to know, by Jove, whether
those in the crown can be real.

While this is taking place on one side of the church, on the other is a
very different and quite as singular an exhibition. Around one of the
antique columns of this basilica--which once beheld the splendors and
crimes of the Caesars' palace--a staging is erected, from which little
maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons,
dialogues, and speechifications, in explanation of the _Presepio_
opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and
answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption.
Sometimes the recitation is a piteous description of the agony of the
Saviour and the sufferings of the Madonna,--the greatest stress being,
however, always laid upon the latter. All these little speeches have
been written for them by their priest or some religious friend, been
committed to memory, and practised with the appropriate gestures over
and over again at home. Their little piping voices are sometimes guilty
of such comic breaks and changes, that the crowd about them rustles into
a murmurous laughter. Sometimes also one of the very little preachers
has a _dispitto_, pouts, shakes her shoulders, and refuses to go on with
her part;--another, however, always stands ready on the platform to
supply the vacancy, until friends have coaxed, reasoned, or threatened
the little pouter into obedience. These children are often very
beautiful and graceful, and their comical little gestures and
intonations, their clasping of hands and rolling up of eyes, have a very
amusing and interesting effect. The last time I was there, I was sorry
to see that the French costume had begun to make its appearance. Instead
of the handsome Roman head, with its dark, shining, braided hair, which
is so elegant when uncovered, I saw on two of the children the deforming
bonnet, which could have been invented only to conceal a defect, and
which is never endurable, unless it be perfectly fresh, delicate, and
costly. Nothing is so vulgar as a shabby bonnet. Yet the Romans, despite
their dislike of the French, are beginning to wear it. Ten years ago it
did not exist here among the common people. I know not why it is that
the three ugliest pieces of costume ever invented, the dress-coat, the
trousers, and the bonnet, all of which we owe to the French, have been
accepted all over Europe, to the exclusion of every national costume.
Certainly it is not because they are either useful, elegant, or
commodious.[B]

[Footnote B: That cultivated gentleman, John Evelyn, two centuries ago
wrote some amusing words on this subject. After quoting the witty saying
of Malvezzi,--"I vestimenti negli animali sono molto securi segni della
loro natura, negli nomini del lor cervello,"--he goes on to say, "Be it
excusable in the French to alter and impose the mode on others, 'tis
no less a weakness and a shame in the rest of the world, who have no
dependence on them, to admit them, at least to that degree of levity as
to turn into all their shapes without discrimination; so as when the
freak takes our Monsieurs to appear like so many farces or Jack Puddings
on the stage, all the world should alter shape and play the pantomimes
with them. Methinks a French tailor, with an ell in his hand, looks like
the enchantress Circe over the companions of Ulysses, and changes them
into as many forms.... Something I would indulge to youth; something to
age and humor. But what have we to do with these foreign butterflies? In
God's name, let the change be our own, not borrowed of others; for why
should I dance after a Monsieur's flageolet, that have a set of English
viols for my concert? We need no French inventions for the stage or for
the back."--From a pamphlet entitled _Tyrannus, or the Mode_.

"Si le costume bourgeois," says George Sand, in _Le Peche de M.
Antoine_, "de notre epoque est le plus triste, le plus incommode et
le plus disgracieux, que la mode ait jamais invente, c'est surtout au
milieu des champs que tous ses inconvenients et toutes ses laideurs
revoltent.... Au milieu de ce cadre austere et grandiose, qui transporte
l'imagination au temps de la poesie primitive, apparaisse cette mouche
parasite, le _monsieur_ aux habits noirs, au menton rase, aux mains
gantees, aux jambes maladroites, et ce roi de la societe n'est plus
qu'un accident ridicule, une tache importune dans le tableau. Votre
costume genant et disparate inspire alors la pitie plus que les haillons
du pauvre, on sent que vous etes deplace au grand air, et que votre
livree vous ecrase."]

If one visit the Ara Celi during the afternoon of one of these _festas_,
the scene is very striking. The flight of one hundred and twenty-four
steps, which once led to the temple of Venus and Rome, is then thronged
by merchants of Madonna wares, who spread them out over the steps and
hang them against the walls and balustrades. Here are to be seen all
sorts of curious little colored prints of the Madonna and Child of the
most ordinary quality, little bags, pewter medals, and crosses stamped
with the same figures and to be worn on the neck,--all offered at once
for the sum of one _baiocco_. Here also are framed pictures of the
Saints, of the Nativity, and, in a word, of all sorts of religious
subjects appertaining to the season. Little wax dolls, clad in
cotton-wool to represent the Saviour, and sheep made of the same
materials, are also sold by the basketful. Children and _contadine_ are
busy buying them, and there is a deafening roar all up and down the
steps of "_Mezzo baiocco, bello colorito, mezzo baiocco, la
Santissima Concezione Incoronata,"--"Diario Romano, Lunario Romano
Nuovo,"--"Ritratto colorito, medaglia e quadruccio, un baiocco tutti,
un baiocco tutti,"--"Bambinelli di cera, un baiocco_."[C] None of
the prices are higher than one _baiocco_, except to strangers,--and
generally several articles are held up together, enumerated, and
proffered with a loud voice for this sum. Meanwhile men, women,
children, priests, beggars, soldiers, and _villani_ are crowding up and
down, and we crowd with them.

[Footnote C: "A half-_baiocco_, beautifully colored,--a half-_baiocco_,
the Holy Conception Crowned." "Roman Diary,--New Roman Almanac."
"Colored portrait, medal, and little picture, one _baiocco_, all."
"Little children in wax, one _baiocco_."]

At last, ascending, we reach the door which faces towards the west.
We lift the great leathern curtain and push into the church. A faint
perfume of incense salutes the nostrils. The golden sunset bursts in as
the curtain sways forward, illuminates the mosaic floor, catches on the
rich golden ceiling, and flashes here and there over the crowd on some
brilliant costume or shaven head. All sorts of people are thronging
there,--some kneeling before the shrine of the Madonna, which gleams
with its hundreds of silver votive hearts, legs, and arms,--some
listening to the preaching,--some crowding round the chapel of the
_Presepio_,--old women, haggard and wrinkled, come tottering along with
their _scaldini_ of coals, drop down on their knees to pray, and, as you
pass, interpolate in their prayers a parenthesis of begging. The church
is not architecturally handsome; but it is eminently picturesque, with
its relics of centuries, its mosaic pulpits and floor, its frescoes of
Pinturicchio and Pesaro, its antique columns, its rich golden ceiling,
its Gothic mausoleum to the Savelli, and its medieval tombs. A dim,
dingy look is over all,--but it is the dimness of faded splendor; and
one cannot stand there, knowing the history of the church, its exceeding
antiquity, and the changes it has undergone since it was a Roman temple,
without a peculiar sense of interest and pleasure.

It was here that Romulus, in the gray dawning of Rome, built the temple
of Jupiter Feretrius. Here the _spolia opima_ were deposited. Here the
triumphal processions of the Emperors and generals ended. Here the
victors paused before making their vows, until the message came from
the Mamertine Prisons below to announce that their noblest prisoner and
victim, while the clang of their triumph and his defeat rose ringing in
his ears as the procession ascended the steps, had expiated with death
the crime of being the enemy of Rome. Over these very steps,--nineteen
centuries ago, the first great Caesar climbed on his knees after his
first triumph. At their base, Rienzi, "last of the Roman tribunes,"
fell. And, if the tradition of the Church is to be trusted, it was on
the site of the present high altar that Augustus erected the "_Ara
primogenito Dei_" to commemorate the Delphic prophecy of the coming of
our Saviour. Standing on a spot so thronged with memories, the dullest
imagination takes fire. The forms and scenes of the past rise from their
graves and pass before us, and the actual and visionary are mingled
together in strange poetic confusion. Truly, as Walpole says, "memory
sees more than our eyes in this country."

And this is one great charm of Rome,--that it animates the dead figures
of its history. On the spot where they lived and acted, the Caesars
change from the manikins of books to living men; and Virgil, Horace, and
Cicero grow to be realities, as we walk down the Sacred Way and over
the very pavement they may once have trod. The conversations "De Claris
Oratoribus" and the "Tusculan Questions" seem like the talk of the last
generation, as we wander on the heights of Tusculum, or over the grounds
of that charming villa on the banks of the Liris, which the great Roman
orator so graphically describes in his treatise "De Legibus." The
landscape of Horace has not changed. Still in the winter you may see
the dazzling peak of the "_gelidus Algidus_" and "_ut alta stet
nive candidum Soracte_"; and wandering at Tivoli in the summer, his
description,

"Domus Albuneae resonantis,
Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobililius pomaria rivis,"

is as true and fresh as if his words were of yesterday. Could one better
his compliment to any Roman Lalage of to-day than to call her "_dulce
ridentem_"? In all its losses, Rome has not lost the sweet smile of its
people. Would you like to know the modern rules for agriculture in Rome,
read the "Georgics"; there is so little to alter, that it is not worth
mentioning. So, too, at Rome, the Emperors become as familiar as the
Popes. Who does not know the curly-headed Marcus Aurelius, with his
lifted brow and projecting eyes, from the full, round beauty of his
youth to the more haggard look of his latest years? Are there any modern
portraits more familiar than the pensive, wedge-like head of Augustus,
with his sharp-cut lips and nose,--or the dull phiz of Hadrian, with his
hair combed down over his low forehead,--or the vain, perking face of
Lucius Verus, with his thin nose, low brow, and profusion of curls,--or
the brutal bull head of Caracalla,--or the bestial, bloated features of
Vitellius?

These men, who were but lay-figures to us at school, mere pegs of names
to hang historic robes upon, thus interpreted by the living history of
their portraits, the incidental illustrations of the places where they
lived and moved and died, and the buildings and monuments they erected,
become like the men of yesterday. Art has made them our contemporaries.
They are as near to us as Pius VII. and Napoleon. I never drive out
of the old Nomentan Gate without remembering the ghastly flight of
Nero,--his recognition there by an old centurion,--his damp, drear
hiding-place underground, where, shuddering and quoting Greek, he waited
for his executioners,--and his subsequent terrible and cowardly death,
as narrated by Tacitus and Suetonius; and it seems nearer to me, more
vivid, and more actual, than the death of Rossi in the court of the
Cancelleria. I never drive by the Caesars' palaces, without recalling
the ghastly jest of Tiberius, when he sent for some fifteen of the
Senators at dead of night and commanded their presence; and when they,
trembling with fear, and expecting nothing less than that their heads
were all to fall, had been kept waiting for an hour, the door opened,
and he, nearly naked, appeared with a fiddle in his hand, and, after
fiddling and dancing to his quaking audience for an hour, dismissed them
to their homes uninjured. The air seems to keep a sort of spiritual
scent or trail of these old deeds, and to make them more real here than
elsewhere. The old horrors of the Amphitheatre can be made real to any
person of imaginative mind in the Colosseum. He has but to lend himself
to the contagion of the place, and he will see the circle of ten
thousand eager eyes thirsting for his blood, fill up the ruined benches
and arched tiers as of yore, and hear the savage murmur of human voices,
worse than the dull roar of the beasts below. The past still lives in
these old walls. It is in vain to say that the ghosts of history do not
haunt their ancient habitations. Places, as well as persons, have lives
and influences; and the horror of murder will not away from a spot.
Haunted by its crimes, oppressed and debilitated by the fierce excesses
of its Empire, Rome, silent, grave, and meditative, sighs over its past,
wrapped in the penitent robes of the Church.

Besides, here one feels that the modern Romans are only the children of
their ancient fathers, with the same characteristics,--softened, indeed,
and worn down by time, just as the sharp traits of the old marbles have
worn away; but still the same people,--proud, passionate, lazy, jealous,
vindictive, easy, patient, and able. The Popes are but Church
pictures of the Emperors,--a different robe, but the same nature
beneath;--Alexander the VI. was but a second Tiberius--Pius the VII.,
a modern Augustus. When I speak of the Roman people, I do not mean the
class of hangers-on upon the foreigners, but the Trasteverini and the
inhabitants of the provinces and mountains. No one can go through the
Trastevere when the people are roused, without feeling that they are the
same as those who listened to Marcus Antonius and Brutus, when the bier
of Caesar was brought into the streets,--and as those who fought with
the Colonna and stabbed Rienzi at the foot of the Capitol steps. The
Ciceruacchio of '48 was but an ancient Tribune of the People, in the
primitive sense of that title. I like, too, to parallel the anecdote of
Caius Marius, when, after his ruin, he concealed himself in the marshes,
and astonished his captors, who expected to find him weak of heart, by
the magnificent self-assertion of "I am Caius Marius," with the story
which is told of Stefano Colonna. After this great captain met with his
sad reverses, and, deprived of all his possessions, fled from Rome, an
attendant asked him,--"What fortress have you now?" He placed his hand
on his heart and answered,--"_Eccola!_" The same blood evidently ran in
the veins of both these men; and well might Petrarca call Colonna "a
phoenix risen from the ashes of the ancient Romans."

But, somehow or other, I have wandered strangely from my subject.
_Scusi_,--but what has all this to do with the Bambino?

The Santissimo Bambino is a very round-faced and expressionless doll,
carved, as the legend goes, from a tree on the Mount of Olives, by a
Franciscan pilgrim, and painted by Saint Luke while the pilgrim slept.
It is difficult to say which was the worse artist of the two, the
sculptor or the painter. But Saint Luke's pictures generally do not
give us a high idea of his skill as a painter. The legend is a
charming anachronism, unless, indeed, Saint Luke was only a spiritual
presence;--but, as the whole incident was miraculous, the greater the
anachronism, the greater the miracle. The Bambino, however he came into
existence, is invested, according to the assertions of priests and the
belief of the common people, with wonderful powers in curing the sick;
and his practice is as lucrative as any physician's in Rome. His aid is
in constant requisition in severe cases, and certain it is that a cure
not unfrequently follows upon his visit; but as the regular physicians
always cease their attendance upon his entrance, and blood-letting
and calomel are consequently intermitted, perhaps the cure is not so
miraculous as it might at first seem. He is borne by the priests in
state to his patients; and during the Triumvirate of '49, the Pope's
carriage was given to him and his attendants. I was assured by the
priest who exhibited him to me at the church, that, on one occasion,
having been stolen by some irreverent hand from his ordinary
abiding-place in one of the side-chapels, he returned alone, by himself,
at night, to console his guardians and to resume his functions. Great
honors are paid to him. He wears jewels which a Colonna might envy,
and not a square inch of his body is without a splendid gem. On festal
occasions, like Christmas, he wears a coronet as brilliant as the
triple crown of the Pope, and, lying in the Madonna's arms in the
representation of the Nativity, he is adored by the people until
Epiphany. Then, after the performance of Mass, a procession of priests,
accompanied by a band of music, makes the tour of the church and
proceeds to the chapel of the _Presepio_, where the bishop, with great
solemnity, removes him from his Mother's arms. At this moment, the music
bursts forth into a triumphant march, a jubilant strain over the birth
of Christ, and he is borne through the doors of the church to the great
steps. There the bishop elevates the Holy Bambino before the crowds
who throng the steps, and they fall upon their knees. This is thrice
repeated, and the wonderful image is then conveyed to its original
chapel, and the ceremony is over.

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