CHAPTER X.

Grotta Ferrata-Frescati-Greek Convent-Villa Aldobrandini-Tusculum-Rome-Petrifying Lake-Lago di Bagni-Adrian's Villa.

IMMEDIATELY On our arrival at a very good inn at Albano, we took a caratelle, with post horses, and, leaving the town by the villa of Pompey on the left, and that of Domitian on the right, we drove down a lane, bordered by ilex of extraordinary size, towards Castle Gandolfo, peeping under and between their pendant branches upon the wide-spread Campagna. The houses of the little village of Marino stand prettily clustered on the hill. We entered the church of Saint Barnabé. The picture on the high altar is a very fine Guido. The dead Saviour, with a countenance of wonderfully expressed suffering, majesty, and love, is reposing on the lap of the Father, who appears gazing as on one (to use a Scriptural phrase) “in whom he took delight ere the morning stars sang for joy." The spirit, in the form of a dove, hovers over. One determines at once that it is not a subject for any mortal hand, yet the execution is magnificent. Through delightful woods, carpeted with lilac anemone, oxalis, and sweet flowers, we drove to Grotta Ferrata, once the favourite villa of Cicero. It stood on one of the beautiful hills of the Alban range, and the site is now occupied by a Greek convent of the order of Saint Basil,—an order very famous

in the east, and which still continues so in Greece. The habit of the Monks is plain black, consisting of a long cassock, and a large gown with long sleeves. On their head, they wear a hood, which reaches very low. They wear no linen; sleep without sheets, on straw; fast often, and eat no flesh.

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St. Basil retired into solitude in the time of Julian the Apostate. He had delighted in the learning of Athens; but exclaimed at last, "Even Athens itself is a vain felicity." He drew over his friend Gregory; and these two friends formed the rules of that monasticism which has overrun the world. He affirmed, that faith is not the effect of geometrical conclusions, but the result of the energy of the spirit;" insisted on the practice of good works, saying, "Wretched men, to practise no good works but with ink and paper;" and in speaking of charitable actions, said, "Those who rely on divine providence are like the springs of the earth, which are not dried up by drawing from them, but send forth their waters with greater force." Chrysostom was his friend; and St. Basil expired at length Bishop of Cæsarea. A monk of his order, with a composed and placid countenance, led us into the chapel of their monastery, painted by Domenichino. His subjects were the acts of St. Bartholomew and St. Nil, who, about the year 1000, settled here to avoid the Arabs who desolated Calabria. The most celebrated of these pictures is the relieving of a child from convulsions, by means of a drop of oil taken from a lamp burning before a picture of the Virgin." The design, the composition, the colouring, the expression, are admirable. The confident yet prayerful look of St. Nil to the Virgin-the distress of the child-the half doubting multitude, are all

finely portrayed; but it shares the common irremediable fault of all such pictures-that it propagates error.

St. Nil receiving the Emperor Otho at the head of his community is a very interesting fresco. On the altare maggiore is a bijou by Annibale Carracci. On the opposite side of the road are some pillars taken from the baths of Cicero. In this village of Grotta Ferrata, we observed several booths made of green broom, recalling the origin of the name of the next village, "Frescati," from frasche," boughs, with which the exiles are said to have formed their huts when they left Tusculum; and to me recalling a far more interesting scene, when the Jews returned to Jerusalem, and kept the feast of tabernacles, Ezra reading in the book of the law, "And they found written in the book of the law, which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths, in the first of the seventh month; and that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the Mount and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. So the people went forth and brought them, and made themselves booths, and there was very great gladness. Also, day by day, from the first day unto the last, he read in the book of the law of God." In the valley. runs the little stream Marrana, formed from the Julian and Crabian waters. We passed through a row of planes to the villa Braciano, belonging to Torlonia, the banker at Rome. Its grounds reminded us of England; and from thence we drove to the villa Aldobrandini, overhanging Frescati, called also the Belvedere. It belongs to the Principe Borghese,

VOL. II.

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