# Fountains of Papal Rome/Farnese

"At the entrance to this palace stand two rare and vast fountains made of granite stone and brought from the Baths of Titus." Thus wrote John Evelyn in November, 1644. The description holds to this day, although the modern sight-seer will substitute Caracalla for Titus.
The fountains were erected by the Farnese family to add the final touch of distinction to their new palace. They owe their unique combination of original classic features and seventeenth-century taste to the genius and opportunities of Paul III and his grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese II, and to a still later descendant Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. The Pope and the earlier cardinal, men of wide culture and enormous wealth, were the first to excavate and exploit the Baths of Caracalla. The treasures they there found might well have been the loot of some fabulous city, and yet the pearls and gold and rubies brought some twenty years later by Francis Drake to his royal mistress were of small significance compared to the works of art found in those great baths — baths which had been the most sumptuous pleasure-house of imperial Rome. It is the glory of Italy that she knew this at the time. Her great churchmen reverently exhumed those masterpieces of Greek and Roman art and made of them the Farnese Collection — according to a well-known authority the rarest collection ever got together by private individuals, and forming to-day the chief interest in the Museum at Naples.
When the Pope, Paul III (Farnese), began the erection of the great new palace which was to bear his name and fitly domicile the princely family he was founding, he, and his descendants after him, used for its decoration the rare marbles and minor artistic trophies from the baths. No doubt, it seemed to them a happy inspiration to turn these gigantic granite tubs into a pair of fountains; for these notable fountains are, in the last analysis, simply huge bathtubs, rendered imposing by their size, and magnificent by the material out of which they are made. They are seventeen feet long and about three feet deep, and are absolutely devoid of decoration except for the lion's head carved in relief, low down in the middle of each side — and this is merely an ornamental outlet for the water, quite as necessary to the original purpose for which these tubs were made as are the handles carved high up on either side under the curved rim, simulating metal rings through which the bronze staves had been inserted whenever it was found necessary to move the tubs. Carlo and Girolamo Rainaldi, who, in 1612, adapted for Cardinal Odoardo Farnese this furniture of the past to seventeenth-century decorative purposes, could think of no more original design than that of the well-known Italian fountain of their own day. They placed each of the tubs in a large, elegantly curved basin similar to those in the Piazza Navona standing some two feet above the pavement. In the middle of each tub they erected a sumptuous Italian vase, its large, swelling stem, richly carved, upholding an elaborate shallow bowl, oblong in shape, out of which rises as the fountain's final consummation a highly conventional fleur-de-lis, the emblem of the Farnese family. This is overwrought with fine stone traceries, and sends upward from its centre convolution a single slender stream of water. Additional jets, of no artistic value, rise one on either side in each of the lower basins. This modern work is all in travertine.
The combination of the severely classic lines of the baths with the Gothic carving and mediæval emblem of the fleur-de-lis is not good. It is disastrous to the design as a composition and makes these fountains archaeological curiosities rather than artistic creations. Still, the Farnese fountains impose by their qualities of size and strength, and once seen can never be forgotten.
The pleasure derived from the sight of a pair of fountains is not merely double the pleasure that is felt at the sight of one. The two objects, though exactly similar, create by their mutual relation an entirely new set of æsthetic emotions. The feeling for balance and composition is aroused, and this particular pleasure is produced in no small degree by these two fountains. Twin fountains are an unusual feature. There are few of them in the world; and in Rome, whose fountains are perhaps still unnumbered, there are but five — the fountains of St. Peter's, the side fountains of the Piazza del Popolo, the two end fountains of the Piazza Navona, Vansantio's fountains in the Villa Borghese, and these of the Piazza Farnese.
Mr. John Evelyn also describes in his journal the custom of his day for the Roman gentry to take their airing in the Piazza Farnese, driving or walking before the palace and about the fountains, whose water gave to all the architectural magnificence that touch of freshness and charm essential to the Roman idea of a pleasure-ground. That Evelyn was taken to the Farnese Palace the very first day of his sojourn in Rome is significant. The Roman of 1644 evidently considered this palace and its precincts to be Rome's chief attraction; and this proves that in spite of the efforts of Paul V (Borghese), who had died some twenty years previously (1621), and of Urban VIII (Barberini), then just passing away, the Farnese pontiff, Paul III, dead for a century past, had succeeded in giving and preserving to his family an importance and magnificence hardly to be emulated and impossible to surpass. The bronze and marble tomb of Paul III is in St. Peter's, to the left of the tribune. It contains the dust of as worldly a person, to quote Ranke, as ever Pope had been. Yet if his actions cannot be said to "smell sweet and blossom in the dust," his memory survives in the annals of Rome, fragrant with the love and pride of his people. He was an old, old man when he died in 1549. He had been fifteen years Pope and forty years a cardinal. The date of his birth carries the mind back to the years before Columbus. His education, conducted by Pomponeus Lætus, had begun in the full tide of the High Renaissance. In his early twenties he became a member of the household of Lorenzo the Magnificent, at whose table and in whose gardens he had met the most brilliant men of his time and had heard talk that embraced all that was then known or surmised of art and learning. For Constantinople had fallen to the Turk only a generation before that time, and what had survived of Greek culture, fleeing across the seas to Italy, had found its chief shelter and patronage in the household of the great Medici. While in Florence, young Farnese must have heard Savonarola preach; but no trace of the great Dominican's influence is to be found throughout his long life. The classic spirit enthralled his intellect, and the splendor of the Medici prince captured his imagination. In later years his careful Latinity, his splendid and liberal manner, and his gay and witty conversation, together with his patronage of artists and his passion for the antique, proved how profoundly he had been influenced by the experiences of his early youth. Placed thus in the very heart of a movement which freed the individual from all limitations save those of his own personality and opened the world before him, he early made up his mind to become Pope and to raise his own family, as the Medici had done, to the rank of princes. The ambition was perhaps common, but the ability with which he pursued these aims for upward of sixty years was not common, and their complete achievement was little short of the marvellous. It took him forty years to reach St. Peter's chair, and he occupied it only fifteen; but before he died one of his grandsons had married a daughter of Charles V, the Emperor of Austria; another was betrothed to the daughter of the King of France; and two more were cardinals and multimillionaires. Later on, his descendants married into the royal houses of Portugal and Spain, and the Farnese family passed out of existence only by being merged by marriage into the royal house of the Neapolitan Bourbons. One grandson, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese II, was the chief art patron of his time, and this in an age when there were many such men; and one great-grandson was that Duke of Parma whose fame as a great captain is written in what were, until the second decade of the twentieth century, the bloodiest annals of the Netherlands. To provide a suitable setting for this princely family, the Pope, some five years before his death, began this Farnese Palace. Antonio da San Gallo, the younger, Giacomo della Porta, and Michelangelo designed its façades and cornice. The great structure was completed long after the Pope's death by Alessandro Farnese II. It was recognized at once to be the most sumptuous of the Roman palaces. It stands upon the site of the old Palazzo Ferriz, which was at one time the residence of the Spanish ambassador, and had passed into the possession of the Augustine monks of the Piazza del Popolo. The old Ferriz Palace had been on the Tiber bank, for it was not until Julius II's time that the Strada, or Via Giulia, was cut through, thus separating the palace from the river. Where these fountains now stand as the ornaments of a spacious piazza, there was at that time nothing but a collection of hovels extending as far as the Campo de' Fiori. The far-sighted young cardinal — the Farnese were thrifty, for all their magnificence — bought the old palace from the monks, and lived there in ever-increasing splendor under the successive pontificates of Julius II, Leo X, and Adrian VI.
Finally, under Clement VII, the great sack of the city caused him to fly to the Castle of St. Angelo. As in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, forty-seven years later, only those Huguenot gentlemen survived who were kept in the King's closet, so during the horrors of the sack only those cardinals escaped outrage who were sheltered with the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo. Farnese by this time ranked next to the Pope in importance, and he was, of course, among these. From the Castle he witnessed, with the terrified Clement, the devastation inflicted upon the latter's exquisite pleasure-house on Monte Mario, an act of wanton vandalism committed by the Colonna to spite the Pope. Some ten years later Cardinal Farnese bought this wrecked palace, restored it, and presented it to his daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria, who rested there on her triumphal wedding procession into Rome. It is called after her to this day the Villa Madama.
In 1540, when the old Palazzo Ferriz was destroyed to make room for the Palazzo Farnese, the workmen came as usual upon traces of earlier times. Modern archaeologists have discovered that the mosaic pavement under the right wing of the palace was a part of the flooring of the Barracks of the "Red Squadron of Charioteers." It has been generally supposed that the new palace was built of stone from the Coliseum, but its materials came from numerous and varied sources. The great travertine blocks were quarried at Tivoli; and Paul III obtained permission to demolish and use for his building the partly ruined battlemented monastery of St. Lorenzo Outside the Walls. After this quarry was exhausted, his nephews obtained the ruins of Porto, the Baths of Caracalla, and what was still more important the remains of the greatest temple of imperial Rome — Aurelian's Temple of the Sun, which, at that date still towered one hundred feet above the Colonna gardens.
Contemporary artists sketched these various structures as the masons destroyed them, so that students of the present day can form some idea of their classic grandeur, and can judge for themselves the value of the Farnese Palace on the one hand and on the other that of the imperial baths and temple, and the mediæval monastery, out of which it is built.
The great new palace made necessary the great new square in front of it; hut years before this the Pope had begun that regeneration of Rome for which he is so gratefully remembered.
The entry into Rome of Charles V, on the 5th of April, 1534, first aroused the Romans to the deplorable condition of their city, and, under the Pope's enlightened guidance, the preparations for the imperial visitor took the form of permanent and far-reaching municipal improvements, which improvements were carried on throughout the entire period of Paul III's pontificate. The enlarging of such great thoroughfares as the Babuino and Condotti date from this time, as does also the modern Corso, this last finally superseding the Via Giulia as the fashionable resort. Paul III preferred the old Palazzo di Venezia at its foot to any other residence, and he connected it with the Campidoglio by the great viaduct, lately destroyed; while for him Michelangelo designed the Campanile of the Senate House. A great Roman of the present day asserts that the fifteen years of Paul III's pontificate comprise one of the happiest periods in the city's life.
When Margaret of Austria rode through the Porta del Popolo, "two hours before sunset, dressed in white satin embroidered in pearls and gold," it was not merely a curious crowd who met and welcomed her. That concourse of citizens represented the self-respect of the Romans, risen from the abasement of a decade, and eager to prove to the daughter of the world's greatest sovereign their worthiness to be her subjects. They could not know that Margaret felt contempt for her youthful husband, nor that in the long duel between Paul III and the Emperor of Austria she stood not for Rome but for Austria, saying once when her assistance was sought that she had rather cut off her children's heads than ask her father to do anything that displeased him! These were matters for the Farnese to deal with. So far as Rome was concerned, with the entry of the Emperor's daughter, its place among the cities of the world became once more important and imposing.
Charles V might despise the upstart Farnese as Francis I had laughed at Cesare Borgia, but the selfmade Italians of the Renaissance — churchmen, merchants, and condottieri, were forces which hereditary monarchy could not do without. Spain had the riches of the New World; France and England were breeding the manhood of Europe; but Italy held the keys to the past — to the culture for which men's souls longed. The time was not yet — in 1540 — although it was close at hand, when Italy's deliberate choice of evil rather than good finally made her, by weakening and corrupting her, a captive to Spain. Time was not yet; and in that last lingering glow of her greatness and freedom the old Pope, Paul III, moves as her incarnate spirit. To a figure slight and stately, though with stooping shoulders, was united a shrewd and kindly countenance, with a massive nose and flowing beard, mobile lips and piercing eyes. His voice was modulated, and his manner gracious and noble. This outer man held guard over a mind so crafty and tenacious, so secretive and resourceful, that to the Venetian ambassador — ever the most astute observer — he remained a fascinating and baffling enigma; while for Cardinal Mendoza and the Emperor he was an antagonist whom, for all their secret Austrian contempt and bitter hatred, they could not afford to ignore.
It was remarked that the Pope never wished to hear or to speak of his predecessor. He felt that the election of Clement VII had robbed him of fourteen years of the papacy. Posterity may well share his prejudice, for it seems safe to assume that, had Paul III been Pope in 1627, Bourbon's soldiers would never have got within sight of the city walls; there would have been, in fact, no sack of Rome. The Pope felt with all the force of his Italian nature the danger to Italy from the side of Spain. Better patriot than priest, he had made secret treaties with the Protestants as a weapon against the Spaniard; and while no one realized more keenly than he the necessity of reforms in the Church, yet he dreaded them lest they might in any way weaken the strength of the papacy. His singular ability to unite the fortunes of his family with profitable political undertakings runs throughout his long life; but this nepotism, which no pope ever carried further, and for which he has been unsparingly censured by historians, represents the kindliest strain in his nature. It was the human side; and it was the direct cause of his death. In a dispute over retaining the Duchy of Parma in his family, the Pope's grandson, Octavius, opposed the old pontiff. Paul felt this ingratitude deeply, and spoke openly about it to the Venetian ambassador. The day after All Saints' Day, 1549, the old man repaired to his villa on Monte Cavallo "to ease his mind," and from there he sent for Alessandro Farnese II. He came, this magnificent young cardinal, handsome, courtly, the great art patron, the lover of scholars and poets, the finest flower of the Farnese, a grandson and namesake of whom Paul III was justly proud. The cardinal was the Pope's darling, and from him Paul felt he could expect support and sympathy. The interview, however, soon became stormy. High words passed. The Pope flew into a rage and snatched the biretta from the cardinal's head. He had discovered that Alessandro also was carrying on a secret counterplot against him, and the discovery broke the old man's heart. Such a violent attack of anger at the age of eighty-three brought on an illness from which he had neither the strength nor the wish to recover, and in a week's time Paul III was dead. Even after his death the Romans loved him a rare tribute to any pope and all Rome went to kiss his feet. He had been the first Roman to occupy St Peter's chair in over one hundred years, and the Romans felt his virtues and his failings to be their own. Fifteen years before, they had carried him on their shoulders into old St. Peter's for his coronation, and now they buried him there. His tomb cost twenty-four thousand Roman crowns, and is the masterpiece of Guglielmo della Porta. The two recumbent statues upon it are said to be after a sketch by Michelangelo. The connection of Michelangelo's name with the tomb is interesting, but of greater interest is the romantic legend which surrounds the statue of the younger woman. This figure, once called Truth and now known to be Justice, is said to be the portrait of Paul III's sister, and this recalls the fact that the fortunes of the princely family of the Farnese rest upon no more honorable basis than the passion of Alexander VI (Borgia) for this sister, the beautiful Giulia Farnese. No one can study the statue on the tomb without understanding how it was that this magnificent creature seemed to the men of her time the flesh-and-blood presentment of those Pagan goddesses whom they all, secretly or openly, worshipped. The superb body is now concealed by Bernini's hideous leaden draperies, but the carelessly waving hair and tiny ear have witchery even in the marble, while the face possesses that solemnity of perfect beauty found only in the masterpieces of the Greeks. Never before or since was such a price paid for the Red Hat! Alexander VI made the young brother, Alessandro Farnese, aged twenty-five, a cardinal, and Giulia Farnese went to reign in those Borgia apartments, decorated by all the genius of Pinturicchio, and at once the pride and disgrace of the Vatican. The young cardinal was nicknamed the Petticoat Cardinal; but he seems to have felt no compunction at the transaction. With the Romans, as with the Parisians, ridicule is the most powerful engine of destruction; and the fact that Alessandro Farnese lived this sobriquet down, proves, as nothing else can prove, the hold he had upon the Roman people.
Any account of Paul III would be incomplete without some reference to his extraordinary belief in astrology. It was quite a recognized fact that he never even considered any scheme, public or private, before consulting the planets. If the heavenly bodies were not in favorable conjunction, the enterprise was given up, or as nearly given up as was possible to so obstinate and tenacious a mind. In his own time this singular characteristic was felt to be incongruous and rather disgraceful; but it is easy for the modern spirit to understand, and even condone, the weakness. Surely, it was not strange that such a man, with such a life, should feel that "the stars in their courses fought" for him.
The impression made upon the mind by the Farnese fountains is not pleasing. They are certainly "rare and vast," but as fountains they are not a success. The form overshadows the substance; for the single jet of water thrown upward over the structural part of the fountain is not adequate, and is lost in the effect produced upon the eye by the huge tubs turned black by the deposits of the Acqua Paola; while the water falling back into these receptacles is caught as in a prison, the overflow from the upper to the lower basins being not sufficient to give an idea of a copious stream. The monster granite baths have a sepulchral effect. They seem more lite coffins made to hold the bones of departed heroes than like basins for receiving and distributing living water. During more than two centuries these fountains bore witness to the magnificence of the Farnese family; but as that magnificence had been sought and held for reasons as purely personal and selfish as men have ever known, it had no real value or significance for the world. No memories of patriotism or ghost of romance hangs over these fountains, or over the palace which they guard. The family and the splendor once were, and now are not; and all the sunshine which daily floods the spacious piazza fails to reanimate the majestic vacancy of the facade, or to lift the gloom from the dejected and sombre fountains.