An Autobiography

“October 31st.– I went first, with Mamma and Alice, to St. Peter’s, where I studied types, attitudes and costumes. The sight of a Zouave officer kneeling, booted and spurred, his sword by his side, and his face shaded with his hand, is indeed striking, and one knows all those have enrolled themselves for a sacred cause they have at heart – higher even than for love of any particular country. The difference of types among these Zouaves is most interesting. The Belgian and Dutch decidedly predominate. Papa and I went thence for a fascinating stroll of many hours, finding it hard to turn back. We went up to Sant’ Onofrio and then round by the great Farnese Palace. The view from Sant’ Onofrio over Rome is – well, my language is utterly annihilated here. How invigorated I felt, and not a bit tired.”

I have never been able to call up enthusiasm over the Pantheon, low-lying, black and pagan in every line. Why does Byron lash himself into calling it “Pride of Rome”? For the same reason, I suppose, that he laments and sighs over the disappearance of Dodona’s “aged grove and oracle divine.” As if any one cares! The view of Rome from Monte Mario, being the view, should have a place here as we saw it one of those richly-coloured days.

“November 3rd.– My birthday, marked by the customary birthday expedition, this time to Monte Mario. Nothing could be more splendid than looked the Capital of the World as it lay below us when we reached the top of that commanding height. The Campagna lay beyond it, ending in that direction with the Sabine and Alban Mountains, the furthest all white with snow. Buildings, cypresses, pines, formed foreground groups to the silver city as they only can do to such perfection in these parts. In another direction we could see the Campagna with its straight horizon like a calm rosy-brown sea meeting the limpid sky. We drove a long way on the high road across the Campagna Florence-wards. No high walls as in the Florentine drives were here to shut out the views, which unfolded themselves on all sides as we trotted on. We got out of the carriage on the Campagna and strolled about on the brown grass, enjoying the sweet free breeze and the great sweep of country stretching away to the luminous horizon towards the sun, and to the lilac mountains in the other direction. These mountains became tender pink as we went Romewards, and when the city again appeared it was in a richly-coloured light, the Campagna beyond in warm shadow from large chocolate-coloured clouds which were rising heaped up into the sky. A superb effect.”

Here follow many days chiefly given up to studio hunting and “property” seeking for my work, soon to be set up. Models there were in plenty, of course, as Rome was then still the artists’ headquarters. How things have changed!

I began with a ciociara spinning with a distaff in the well-known and very much used-up costume, just for practice, and another peasant girl. Then I painted, at my dear mother’s earnest desire, “The Magnificat” – Mary’s visit to Elizabeth – and on off days my father and I “did” all the pictures contained in various palaces, the Vatican, and the Villa Borghese, filling pages and pages of notes in the old Diary. I felt the value of every day in Rome. Many people might think I ought not to have worked so much in a studio, but I think I divided the time well. I felt I must keep my hand in, and practise with the brush, though how often I was tempted to join the others on some fascinating ramble may be imagined. Soon, however, the rains of a Roman December set in, and Rome became very wet indeed. Our father read us Roman history every evening when there were no visitors. We had a good many, our mother and her music and brightness soon attracting all that was nice in the English and American colonies. Dear old Mr. Severn, he in whose arms Keats died, often took tea with us (we kept our way of having dinner early and tea in the evening), and there was an antiquarian who took interest in nothing whatever except the old Roman walls, and he used to come and hold forth about the “Agger of Servius Tullius” till my head went round. He kept his own on, it seemed to me, by pressing his hand on the bald top of it as he explained to us about that bit of “agger” which he had discovered, and the herring-bone brick of which it was built. Often as I have revisited Rome, I cannot become enthusiastic over the discovery of some old Roman sewer, or bit of hot-water pipe, or horrible stone basin with a hole in the bottom for draining off the blood of sacrificial oxen. I always long to get back into the sunshine and fresh air from the mouldy depths of Pagan Rome when I get caught in a party to whom the antiquarian enthusiasts like to hold forth below the surface of the earth. Alice listens, deferential and controlled, while I fidget, supporting myself on my umbrella, with such a face! Here is a little bit of Papal Rome impossible to-day:

“November 29th.– In the course of our long ramble after my work Papa and I, in the soft evening, came upon a scene which I shall not forget, made by a young priest preaching to a little crowd in the street before the side door of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a Rembrandtesque effect being produced by the two lamps held by a priest at either side of the platform on which the preacher stood. One of these held the large crucifix to which the preacher turned at times, with gestures of rapture such as only an Italian could use in so natural a way. To see him, lighted from below, in his black habit and hear his impassioned voice! All the men were bareheaded, and such as passed by took their hats off. Penetrating as the priest’s voice was, it was now and then quite drowned by the street noises, especially the rattling of wheels on the rough stones.”

The days that follow are filled with my work on “The Visitation,” with few intervals of sight-seeing. Then comes the great ecclesiastical event to be marked in history, which brought all the world to Rome.

“Opening of the Œcumenical Council, December 8th.– A memorable day, this! We got up by candlelight, as at a quarter past seven we were to drive to St. Peter’s. The dreary raining dawn was announced, just as it broke, by the heavy cannon of Castel Sant’ Angelo, the flash of which was reflected in the blue-grey sky long before the sound reached us, and the cannon on the Aventine echoed those of the Castel. How dreary it felt, yet how imposing for any one who has got into the right feeling about this solemn event. On our way we overtook scores of priests on foot, trying to walk clear of the puddles in those thin, buckled shoes of theirs. It must have been trying for the old ones. There were bishops amongst them, too poor to afford a cab. We have seen them day after day thus going to the Vatican meetings. One great blessing the rain brought: it kept hundreds of people from coming to the church, and thus saved many crushings to death, for it is terrible to contemplate, seeing what a crowd there actually was, what it might have been had the building been crammed. Entrance and egress were both at one end of the church. That thought must console me for the terrible toning down and darkening of what, otherwise, would have been a great pageant. So many thousands of wet feet brought something like a lake half way up the floor; so slippery was it that, had the crowd swayed in a panic, it wouldn’t have been very nice.

“Papa and I insinuated ourselves into the hedge of people kept back by Zouaves and Palatine Guards, as we came opposite the statue of St. Peter, and I eventually got fixed three rows back from the soldiers, and was lucky to get in so far. I was jammed between a monk and a short youth of the ‘horsey’ kind. The atmosphere in that warm, wet crowd was trying. I could see into the Council Hall opposite.

“The passage kept clear for the great procession was very wide. On the other side I could see rows of English and American girls and elderly females in the best places, as usual, right to the front, as bold as brass, and didn’t they eye the bishops over through their pince-nez! We must have been waiting two hours before the procession entered the church. I ought to have mentioned that the sacred dark bronze statue of St. Peter was robed in gorgeous golden vestments with a splendid triple crown on its head, making it look like a black Pope, and very life-like from where I saw it. It seemed very strange.

“At last there was a buzz as people perceived the slowly-moving silhouette of the procession as it passed along in a far-off gallery, veiled from us by pink curtains, against the light and very high up, over the entrance. We could see the prelates had all vested by the outlines of the mitres and the high-shouldered look of the figures in stiff copes. As the procession entered the church the ‘Veni Creator’ swelled up majestically and floated through the immense space. The effect of the procession to me was nil; all I could do was to catch a glimpse of each bishop as he passed between the bobbing heads of the men in front of me. All the European and United States Bishops were in white and silver, but now and then there passed Oriental Patriarchs in rich vestments, their picturesque dark faces (two were quite brown) telling so strikingly amongst the pale or rosy Europeans. Each had his solemn secretary, with imperturbable Eastern face, bearing his jewelled crown, something in shape like the dome of a mosque. One Oriental wore a jewel on his dusky forehead, another a black cowl over his head, shading his keen, dark face, the coarse cowl contrasting in a startling way with the delicate splendour of the gold and pink and amber vestments worn over the rough monk’s habit. Still, all this could not be imposing to me, having to squint and crane as I did, seldom being able to see with both eyes at once. I could at intervals see the silvery prelates, most of them with snowy heads, and the dark Easterns mount into their seats in the Council Chamber, our Archbishop Manning amongst them. I had a quite good glimpse of Cardinal Bonaparte, very like the great Napoleon. Of the Pope I saw nothing. He was closely surrounded, as he walked past, by the high-helmeted Noble Guard, and, of course, at that supreme moment every one in front of me strove to get a better sight of him. Then Papa and I gladly struggled our way out of the great crowd and went to seek Mamma, who, very wisely, had not attempted to get a place, but was meekly sitting on the steps of a confessional in a quiet chapel. Mamma then went home, and we went into the crowd again to try and see the Council from a point opposite. We saw it pretty well, the two white banks of mitred bishops on each side and, far back, the little red Pope in the middle. Mass was being sung, all Gregorian, but it was faintly heard from our great distance.

“No council business was being done to-day; it was only the Mass to open the meeting. The crowd was most interesting. Surely every nation was represented in it. An officer of the 42nd Highlanders had an excellent effect. What shall I do in London, with its dead level of monotony? Oh! dear, oh! dear. I was quite loth to go home. And so the council is opened. God speed!”

The Ghetto was in existence in those days, so I have even experienced the sight of that. Very horrible, packed with “red-haired, blear-eyed creatures, with loose lips and long, baggy noses.” Thus I describe them in this warren, during our drive one day. What a “sventramento” that must have been when the Italians cleared away and cleaned up all that congested horror. Wide, wind-swept spaces and a shining, though hideous, synagogue met my astonished gaze when next I went there and couldn’t find the Ghetto.

At the end of the year La Signorina Elizabetta Thompson had to apply to his Eminenza Riverendissima Cardinal Berardi, Minister of Public Works, to announce her intention of sending the “Magnificat” to the Pope’s international exhibition. At that picture I worked hard, my mother being my model for Our Lady, and an old ciociara from the Trinità steps for St. Elizabeth. How it rained that December! But we had radiant sunshine in between the days when the streets were all running with red-brown rivulets, through which the horses splashed as if fording a stream.

“January 25th, 1870.– I finished my ‘Magnificat’ to-day. Yet ought I to say I ceased to paint at it, for ‘finish’ suggests something far beyond what this picture is. Well, I shall enjoy being on the loose now. To stroll about Rome after having passed through a picture is perfect enjoyment. I should feel very uncomfortable at the present time if I had, up till now, done nothing but lionise. I have no hope of my picture being accepted now, but still it is pleasant to think that I have worked hard.

“February 3rd.– I took my picture to the Calcografia place, as warned to do. There, in dusty horror, it awaits the selecting committee’s review, which takes place to-morrow. Mamma and I held it manfully in the little open carriage to keep it from tumbling out, our arms stretched to their utmost. Lots of men were shuffling about in that dusty place with pictures of all sizes. But, oh! what a scene of horror was that collection of daubs. Oh! mercy on us.

“February 5th.– My ‘Magnificat’ is accepted. First, off goes Mamma with Celestina to the Calcografia to learn the fate of the picture, and bring it back triumphant, she and the maid holding it steady in the little open carriage. Soon after, off we go to the Palazzo Poli to see nice Mr. Severn, who says he is so proud of me, and will do all he can to help me in art matters, to see whether he could make the exhibition people hang my picture well, as we were told the artists had to see to that themselves if they wanted it well done. I, for my part, would leave it to them and rather shirk a place on the line, for my picture is depressingly unsatisfactory to me, but Mamma, for whom I have painted it, loves it, and wants it well placed ‘so that the Pope may see it’! From thence off we go to the abode of the Minister of Commerce, Cardinal B., for my pass. We were there told, to our dismay, that we could not take the picture ourselves to the exhibition, as it was held in the cloisters of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and no permission had yet been given to admit women before the opening. But I knew that between Papa and Mr. Severn the picture would be seen to inside the cloistered walls. After lunch, off goes Papa with my pass, we following in the little open carriage as before, holding the old picture before us with straining arms and knitted brows, very much jolted and bumped. We are stopped at the cloisters, and told to drive out again, and there we pull up, our faces turned in the opposite direction. The hood of the carriage suddenly collapses, and we are revealed, unable to let go the picture, with the soldiers collected about the place grinning. Papa arrives, and he and two facchini come to the rescue, and then disappear with the picture amongst the forbidden regions enclosed in the gloomy ruins of Diocletian’s Baths. Papa, on returning home, told me how charmed old Severn, who was there, was with the picture, and even Podesti, the judge, after some criticisms, and in no way ready to give it a good place, said to Severn he had expected the signorina’s picture to be rubbish (porcheria). I suppose because it was a woman’s work. He retracted, and said he would like to see me.

“February 14th.– I began another picture to-day, after all my resolutions to the contrary, the subject, two Roman shepherds playing at ‘Morra’, sitting on a fallen pillar, a third contadino, in a cloak, looking on. I posed my first model, putting a light background to him, the effect being capital, he coming rich and dusky against it. He soon understood I wanted energy thrown into the action. I shall delight in this subject, because the hands figure so conspicuously in the game.

“February 15th.– I went up alone to the Trinità to choose the other young man for my ‘Morra,’ and, after a little inspection of the group of lolling Romagnoli, gave the apple to one with a finely-cut profile and black hair, the other models, male and female, clustering round to hear, and many bystanders and the Zouave sentry, hard by, looking on.”

On one evening in this eventful Roman period I had the opportunity of seeing the famous race of the riderless horses (the barberi), which closed the Carnival doings. The impression remains with me quite vividly to this day. The colour, the movement; the fast-deepening twilight; the historic associations of that vast Piazza del Popolo, where I see the great obelisk retaining, on its upper part, the last flush from the west; the impetuous waters of the fountains at its base in cool shadow; St. Peter’s dome away to the left – this is the setting. Then I hear the clatter of the dragoon’s horses as the detachment forms up for clearing the course. The stands, at the foot of the obelisk, are full, some of the crowd in carnival costume and with masks. A sharp word of command rings out in the chilly air. Away go the dragoons, down the narrow Corso and back, at full gallop, splitting the surging crowd with theatrical effect. The line is clear. Now comes the moment of expectancy! At that unique starting post, the obelisk upon which Moses in Egypt may have looked as upon an interesting monument of antiquity in pre-Exodus days, there appear eleven highly-nervous barbs, tricked out with plumes and painted with white spots and stripes. The convicts who lead them in (each man, one may say, carrying his life in his hand) are trying, with iron grip, to keep their horses quiet, for the spiked balls and other irritants are now unfastened and dangling loose from the horses’ backs. But one terrified beast comes on “kicking against the pricks” already. The whole pack become wild. The more they plunge, the more the balls bang and prick. One furious creature, wrenching itself free, whirls round in the wrong direction. But there is no time to lose; the restraining rope must be cut. A gun booms; there is a shout and clapping of hands. Ten of the horses, with heads down, get off in a bunch, shooting straight as arrows for the Corso; the eleventh slips on the cobbles, rolls over and, recovering itself, tears after its pals, straining every nerve. I hear a voice shout “E capace di vincere!” (“He is fit to win!”) and in an instant the lot are engulfed in that dark, narrow street, the squibs on their backs going off like pistol shots, and the crackling bits of metallic tinsel, getting detached, fly back in a shower of light. The sparks from the iron heels splash out in red fire through the dusk. The course is just one mile – the whole length of the straight street. At the winning post a great sheet is stretched across the way, through which some of the horses burst, to be captured some days afterwards while roaming about the open spaces of the Campagna. It is the dense crowd, forming two walls along the course, that forces the horses to keep the centre. This was the last of the barberi. They were more frightened than hurt, yet I am not sorry that these races have been abolished.

Here follow records of expeditions in weather of spring freshness – to catacombs, along the Via Appia, to the wild Campagna, and all the delights of that Roman time when the lark inspires the poet. I got on well with my “Morra” picture, which wasn’t bad, and which has a niche in my art career, because it turned out to be the first picture I sold, which joyful event happened in London.

“March 25th. – A brilliant day, full of colour. This is a great feast, the Annunciation, and I gave up work to see the Pope come in grand procession to the Church of the Minerva with his Cross Bearer on a white mule, and all the cardinals, bishops, ambassadors and officials in carriages of antique magnificence, a spectacle of great pomp, and nowhere else to be seen. We did it in this wise. At nine we drove to the Minerva, the sun very brilliant and the air very cold, and soon posted ourselves on the steps of the church in the midst of a tight crowd, I quite helpless in a knot of French soldiers of the Legion, who chaffed each other good-humouredly over my head. The piazza, in the midst of which rises the funny little obelisk on the elephant’s back, swarmed with people, black being quite the exception in that motley crowd. Zouaves and the Legion formed a square to keep the piazza open, and dragoons pranced officiously about, as is their wont. Every balcony was thronged with gay ladies and full-dressed officers (some most gallant and smart Austrians were at a window near us), and crimson cloth and brocade flapped from every window, here in powerful sunshine, there in effective shadow. Some dark, Florentine-coloured houses opposite, mostly in shade, as they were between us and the sun, had a strong effect against the bright sky, their crimson cloths and gaily dressed ladies relieving their dark masses, and their beautiful roofs and chimneys making a lovely sky line.

“Presently the gilt and painted coaches of the cardinals began to arrive, huge, high-swung vehicles drawn by very fat black horses dressed out with gold and crimson trappings, but the servants and coachmen, in spite of their extra full get-up, having that inimitable shabby-genteel appearance which belongs exclusively to them. The Prior of the Dominicans, to which order this church belongs, stood outside the archway through which the Pope and all went into the church after alighting from their coaches. He was there to welcome them, and, oh! the number of bows he must have made, and his mouth must have ached again with all those wide smiles. Near him also stood the Noble Guards and all the general officers, plastered over with orders; and all these, too, saluted and salaamed as each ecclesiastical bigwig grandly and courteously swept by under the archway, glowing in his scarlet and shining in his purple. The carriages pulled up at the spot of all others best suited to us. Everything was filled with light, the cardinals glowing like rubies inside their coaches, even their faces all aglow with the red reflections thrown up from their ardent robes. But there presently came a sight which I could hardly stand; it was eloquent of the olden time and filled the mind with a strange feeling of awe and solemnity, as though long ages had rolled back and by a miracle the dead time had been revived and shown to us for a brief and precious moment. On a sleek white mule came a prelate, all in pure lilac, his grey head bare to the sunshine and carrying in his right hand the gold and jewelled Cross. The trappings of the mule were black and gold, a large black, square cloth thrown over its back in the mediæval fashion. The Cross, which was large and must have weighed considerably, was very conspicuous. The beauty of the colour of mule and rider, the black and gold housings of that white beast, the lilac of the rider’s robes, and the tender glory of the embossed Cross – how these things enchant me! An attendant took the Cross as the priest dismounted. Then a flourish of modern Zouave bugles and a sharp roll of the drum intruded the forgotten present day on our notice, and soon on came the gallant gendarmerie and dragoons, and then the coach of His Holiness, seeming to bubble over with molten gold in the sunshine. Its six black horses ambled fatly along, all but the wheelers trailing their long, red traces almost on the ground, as seems to be the ecclesiastical fashion in harness (only the wheelers really pull), and guided by bedizened postillions in wigs decidedly like those worn by English Q.C.’s. Flowers were showered down on this coach from the windows, and much cheering rang in the fresh, clear air. I see now in my mind’s eye the out-thrust chins and long, bare necks of a clump of enthusiastic Zouaves shouting with all their hearts under the Pope’s carriage windows in divers tongues. But the English ‘Long live the Pope King,’ though given with a will, did not travel as far as the open ‘Viva il Papa Rè’ or ‘Vive le Pape Roi.’ I put in my British ‘Hurrah!’ as did Papa, splendidly, just as three old and very fat cardinals had painfully got down from His Holiness’s high coach and he himself had begun to emerge. We could see him quite well in the coach, because the sides were more glass than gilding, and very assiduously did the kind-looking old man bless the people right and left as he drove up. He had on his head, not the skull cap I have hitherto seen him in, which allows his silver locks to be seen, but the old-lady-like headgear so familiar to me from pictures, notably several portraits of Leo X. at Florence, which covers the ears and is bound with ermine. It makes the lower part of the face look very large, and is not becoming. After getting down he stood a long time receiving homage from many grandees, and smiled and beamed with kindness on everybody. Then we all bundled into the church, but as every one there was standing on, instead of sitting on, the chairs, we could see nothing of the ceremonies. We struggled out, after listening a little to the singing, and Papa and I strolled delightedly to St. Peter’s, on whose great piazza we awaited the return of the procession. It was very beautiful, winding along towards us, with my white mule and all, over that vast space.”