^22 . THE CA11NIVAL AT ROME. 



streets are swept by galley-slaves or convicts sentenced to that office, 

 and criminals are publicly decapitated, perhaps as a warning to 

 others to make a discreet use of the coming license. Even the mo- 

 nastic world relax their severities ; and religious orders who pass 

 the rest of the year in seclusion may now be seen enjoying liberty 

 and fresh air, and indulging in a walk or a drive. Here passes a 

 hackney coach containing three or four nuns ; there a procession of 

 pretty novices, neatly dressed in black, steals by on its way to some 

 garden or villa well watched and guarded, however, by one or 

 two nuns of authority, who bring up the rear. And at night a heavy 

 brick-red capacious carriage, which claims a prelate for its owner, 

 may occasionally be seen about the theatres, conveying, doubtless, not 

 himself, but his suite and household, to hear an opera and see a 

 ballet. 



These are a few of the symptoms of that explosion which is to fire 

 off at one burst the long-subdued gaiety of the Roman populace. 

 The day before the carnival men on norseback, in an antique red and 

 yellow dress, parade about the town with eight banners, which are 

 the prizes of the horse-race on each day, calling fora drink-money at 

 the houses of the principal officers engaged in the festivities. One 

 banner is cloth of gold about three yards long, another cloth of sil- 

 ver, a third of crimson, a fourth of scarlet velvet, the rest of in- 

 ferior silks ; but on each is painted or embroidered a victorious horse, 

 and a sort of streamer at the top is decorated with the pope's arms. 



But, in order to convey a clear idea of the carnival, it will first be 

 necessary to describe, with some minuteness, the Corso, the street 

 where it is held, and in which all the fashion as well as^ the humour 

 of Rome are, for the time, concentrated. 



In almost every large town in Italy there is one long narrow street 

 called the Corso, from the horse-races which are held there at this 

 season; but I know few cities except Rome where the Corso is the 

 principal thoroughfare, and where, on other occasions also, the 

 greatest bustle and movement is to be found. Here, on every saint's 

 day and Sunday, through the cooler part of the year, a procession of 

 carriages regularly passes up and down from about three in the after- 

 noon till sunset, the foot-pavement is crowded with well-dressed 

 men ; and this display is so much a thing of course that guards are 

 stationed to prevent any of the carriages from breaking the line, or 

 interrupting the regular course of this whirlpool of men and horses. 

 In short, the Corso is the Hyde Park of Rome. 



But this Hyde Park is a long-, straight, narrow street, about three- 

 quarters of a mile in length, and terminated at one end by the Piazza 

 del Populo, the principal entrance to Rome, and at the other end by 

 the Piazza di Venezia. At about the middle of its course it passes 

 by another square called the Piazza Colonna, from the beautiful his- 

 torical column of Antoninus Pius which rises in its centre. On the 

 Sunday promenade these three squares form a sort of eddy to the 

 tide which runs through the Corso. Here they turn, drive off, or fall 

 in, as it may be : and without these spaces for rallying the narrow- 

 ness of the Corso would render it a scene of inextricable confusion. 

 So great is the passion for this drive among all classes in Rome that 



