LXXI. A bull feast in the Coliseum, CHAP. on horseback, or in chariots, were ennobled by a tilt and tournament of seventy-two of the Roman youth. In the year one thousand three hundred and thirty-two, a bull-feast, after the fashion of the Moors and Spaniards, was celebrated in the Coliseum itself; and the A.D. 1332, living manners are painted in a diary of the times. A Sept. 3. convenient order of benches was restored; and a general proclamation, as far as Rimini and Ravenna, invited the nobles to exercise their skill and courage in this perilous adventure. The Roman ladies were marshalled in three squadrons, and seated in three balconies, which on this day, the third of September, were lined with scarlet cloth. The fair Jacova di Rovere led the matrons from beyond the Tyber, a pure and native race, who still represent the features and character of antiquity. The remainder of the city was divided as usual between the Colonna and Ursini: the two factions were proud of the number and beauty of their female bands: the charms of Savella Ursini are mentioned with praise; and the Colonna regretted the absence of the youngest of their house, who had sprained her ancle in the garden of Nero's tower. The lots of the champions were drawn by an old and respectable citizen; and they descended into the arena, or pit, to encounter the wild bulls, on foot as it should seem, with a single spear. Amidst the crowd, our annalist has selected the names, colours, and devices, of twenty of the most conspicuous knights. Several of the names are the most illustrious of Rome and the ecclesiastical state; Malatesta, Polenta, delle Valle, Cafarello, Savelli, Capoccio, Conti, Annabaldi, Altieri, Corsi; the colours were adapted to their taste and situation; the devices are expressive of hope or despair, and breathe the spirit of gallantry and arms. "I am "alone like the youngest of the Horatii," the confidence of an intrepid stranger: "I live disconsolate," a weeping widower: "I burn under the ashes," a discreet lover: "I adore Lavinia, or Lucretia," the ambiguous de betrayed his master to their ancestors. There was a foot-race of Jewish, as well as of Christian youths (Statuta Urbis, ibidem.) 58 This extraordinary bull feast in the Coliseum is described, from tradition rather than memory, by Ludovico Buonconte Monaldesco, in the most ancient fragments of Roman annals (Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. xii p. 535, 536): and however fanciful they may seem, they are deeply marked with the colours of truth and nature. claration of a modern passion: "My faith is as pure," the motto of a white livery: "Who is stronger than my"self?" of a lion's hide: "If I am drowned in blood, "what a pleasant death," the wish of ferocious courage. The pride or prudence of the Ursini restrained them from the field, which was occupied by three of their hereditary rivals, whose inscriptions denoted the lofty greatness of the Colonna name: "Though sad, I "am strong:" "Strong as I am great:" "If I fall," addressing himself to the spectators, "you fall with "me:"-intimating (says the contemporary writer) that while the other families were the subjects of the Vatican, they alone were the supporters of the Capitol. The combats of the amphitheatre were dangerous and bloody. Every champion successively encountered a wild bull; and the victory may be ascribed to the quadrupeds, since no more than eleven were left on the field, with the loss of nine wounded and eighteen killed on the side of their adversaries. Some of the noblest families might mourn, but the pomp of the funerals, in the churches of St. John Lateran and St. Maria Maggiore, afforded a second holiday to the people. Doubtless it was not in such conflicts that the blood of the Romans should have been shed; yet in blaming their rashness, we are compelled to applaud their gallantry; and the noble volunteers, who display their magnificence, and risk their lives, under the balconies of the fair, excite a more generous sympathy than the thousands of captives and malefactors who were reluctantly dragged to the scene of slaughter”. CHAP. LXXI. This use of the amphitheatre was a rare, perhaps a Injuries, singular, festival: the demand for the materials was a daily and continual want, which the citizens could gra. tify without restraint or remorse. In the fourteenth century, a scandalous act of concord secured to both factions the privilege of extracting stones from the free and common quarry of the Coliseum60; and Poggius laments 59 Muratori has given a separate dissertation (the xxixth) to the games of the Italians in the middle ages. 60 In a concise but instructive memoir, the abbé Barthelemy (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 585.) has mentioned this agreement of the factions of the xivth century, de Tiburtino faciendo in the Coliseum, from an original act in the archives of Rome. LXXI. CHAP. that the greater part of these stones had been burnt to lime by the folly of the Romans. To check this abuse, and to prevent the nocturnal crimes that might be perpetrated in the vast and gloomy recess, Engenius the fourth surrounded it with a wall; and, by a charter long extant, granted both the ground and edifice to the monks of an adjacent convent. After his death, the wall was overthrown in a tumult of the people; and had they themselves respected the noblest monument of their fathers, they might have justified the resolve that it should never be degraded to private property. The inside was damaged; but in the middle of the sixteenth century, an æra of taste and learning, the exterior circumference of one thousand six hundred and twelve feet was still entire and inviolate; a triple elevation of fourscore arches, which rose to the height of one hundred and eight feet. Of the present ruin, the nephews of Paul the third are the guilty agents; and every traveller who views the Farnese palace may curse the sacrilege and luxury of these upstart princess. A similar reproach is applied to the Barberini: and the repetition and conse- of injury might be dreaded from every reign, till the Cocration of liseum was placed under the safeguard of religion, by the the Coli seum. Ignorance most liberal of the pontiffs, Benedict the fourteenth, who consecrated a spot which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many Christian martyrs. When Petrarch first gratified his eyes with a view of and bar- those monuments, whose scattered fragments so far surpass the most eloquent descriptions, he was astonished barism of the Ro mans. 61 Coliseum... ob stultitiam Romanorum majori ex parte ad calcem deletum, says the indignant Poggius (p. 17): but his expression, too strong for the present age, must be very tenderly applied to the xvth century. 62 of the Olivetan monks, Montfaucon (p. 142.) affirms this fact from the memorials of Flaminius Vacca (No. 72.) They still hoped, on some future occasion, to revive and vindicate their grant. 63 After measuring the priscus ampitheatri gyrus, Montfaucon (p. 142.) only adds, that it was entire under Paul III: tacendo clamat. Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xiv. p. 371.) more freely reports the guilt of the Farnese pope, and the indignation of the Roman people. Against the nephews of Urban VIII. I have no other evidence than the vulgar saying, "Quod non fe"cerunt Barbari, fecere Barbarini," which was perhaps suggested by the resemblance of the words. 64 As an antiquarian and a priest, Montfaucon thus deprecates the ruin of the Coliseum: Quôd si non suopte merito atque pulchritudine dignum fuisset quod improbas arceret manus, indigna res utique in locum tot martyrum cruore sacrum tantopere sævitum esse, LXXI. at the supine indifferences of the Romans themselves; CHAP. he was humbled rather than elated by the discovery, that, except his friend Rienzi and one of the Colonna, a stranger of the Rhône was more conversant with these antiquities than the nobles and natives of the metropolis". The ignorance and credulity of the Romans are elaborately displayed in the old survey of the city which was composed about the beginning of the thirteenth cen. tury; and, without dwelling on the manifold errors of name and place, the legend of the Capitol may provoke a smile of contempt and indignation. "The Capi"tol," says the anonymous writer, "is so named as "being the head of the world; where the consuls and "senators formerly resided for the government of the "city and the globe. The strong and lofty walls were "covered with glass and gold, and crowned with a roof "of the richest and most curious carving. Below the ci"tadel stood a palace, of gold for the greatest part, de"corated with precious stones, and whose value might "be esteemed at one-third of the world itself. The sta"tues of all the provinces were arranged in order, each "with a small bell suspended from its neck; and such "was the contrivance of art magic, that if the province "rebelled against Rome, the statue turned round to that 65 Yet the Statutes of Rome (1. iii. c. 81. p. 182.) impose a fine of 500 aurei on whosoever shall demolish any ancient edifice, ne ruinis civitas deformetur, et ut antiqua ædificia decorem urbis perpetuo representent. 66 In his first visit to Rome (A. D. 1337. See Memoires sur Petrarque, tom. i. p. 322, &c.), Petrarch is struck mute miraculo rerum tantarum, et stuporis mole obrutus.... Præsentia vero, mirum dictû, nihil imminuit: vere major fuit Roma majoresque sunt reliquiæ quam rebar. Jam non orbem ab hâc urbe domitum, sed tam sero domitum, miror (Opp. p. 605. Familiares, ii. 14. Joanni Columnæ). 67 He excepts and praises the rare knowledge of John Colonna. Qui enim bodie magis ignari rerum Romanarum, quam Romani cives? Invitus dico nusquam minus Roma cognoscitur quam Romæ. 68 After the description of the Capitol, he adds, statuæ erant quot sunt mundi provinciæ; et habebat quælibet tintinnabulum ad collum. Et erant ita per magicam artem dispositæ, ut quando aliqua regio Romano Imperio rebellis erat, statim imago illius provinciæ vertebat se contra illam; unde tintinnabulum resonabat quod pendebat ad collum; tuncque vates Capitolii qui erant custodes senatui, &c. He mentions an example of the Saxons, and Suevi, who, after they had been subdued by Agrippa, again rebelled : tintinnabulum sonuit; sacerdos qui erat in speculo in hebdomadâ senatori. bus nuntiavit: Agrippa marched back and reduced the-Persians (Anonym. in Montfaucon, p. 297, 298). 69 The same writer affirms, that Virgil captus a Romanis invisibiliter exiit, ivitque Neapolim. A Roman magician, in the xith century, is introduced by William of Malmsbury (de Gestis Regum Anglorum, 1. ii. p. 86); and in the time of Flaminius Vacca (No. 81. 103.) it was the vulgar belef that the strangers (the Goths) invoked the dæmons for the discovery of hidden treasures. LXXI. CHAP. quarter of the heavens, the bell rang, the prophet of "the Capitol reported the prodigy, and the senate was "admonished of the impending danger." A second example of less importance, though of equal absurdity, may be drawn from the two marble horses, led by two naked youths, which have since been transported from the baths of Constantine to the Quirinal hill. The groundless application of the names of Phidias and Praxiteles may perhaps be excused; but these Grecian sculptors should not have been removed above four hundred years from the age of Pericles to that of Tiberius: they should not have been transformed into two philosophers or magicians, whose nakedness was the symbol of truth and knowledge, who revealed to the emperor his most secret actions; and, after refusing all pecuniary recompense, solicited the honour of leaving this eternal monument of themselves. Thus awake to the power of magic, the Romans were insensible to the beauties of art: no more than five statues were visible to the eyes of Poggius; and of the multitudes which chance or design had buried under the ruins, the resurrection was fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age". The Nile, which now adorns the Vatican, had been explored by some labourers, in digging a vineyard near the temple, or convent, of the Minerva; but the impatient proprietor, who was tormented by some visits of curiosity, restored the unprofitable marble to its former grave". The discovery of a statue of Pompey, ten feet in length, was the occasion of a law-suit. It had been found under a partition-wall: the equitable judge had pronounced, that the head should be separated from the body to satisfy the claims of the contiguous own 70 Anonym. p. 289. Montfaucon (p. 191.) justly observes, that if Alexander be represented, these statues cannot be the work of Phidias (Olym piad lxxxiii.) or Praxiteles (Olympiad civ), who lived before that conqueror (Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiv. 19). 71 William of Malmsbury (l. ii. p. 86, 87.) relates a marvellous discovery (A. D. 1046.) of Pallas, the son of Evander, who had been slain by Turnus; the perpetual light in his sepulchre, a Latin epitaph, the corpse, yet entire, of a young giant, the enormous wound in his breast (pectus perforat ingens), &c. If this fable rests on the slightest foundation, we may pity the bodies, as well as the statues, that were exposed to the air in a barbarous age. 72 Prope porticum Minerva, statua est recubantis, cujus caput integrâ effigie, tantæ magnitudinis, ut signa omnia excedat. Quidam ad plantandos arbores scrobes faciens detexit. Ad hoc visendum cum plures in dies magis concurrerent, strepitum adeuntium fastidiumque pertæsus, horti patronus congestâ humo texit (Poggius de Varietate Fortunæ, p. 12). |