82 THE GARDENS OF ITALY. 



It is strange to think how quiet these gardens were lying on the day when Pius IX made his 

 famous proclamation from the great balcony of the Quirinal. This was in the year 1846, and 

 men are still living who can recall the frenzy of joy, hope and enthusiasm which his announcement 

 of a political amnesty aroused. The piazza in front of the palace was thronged with a vast 

 crowd, whose shouts of " Viva il Papa Re ! ' must have penetrated even to these shady walks. 

 As still and peaceful it lay in the midst of the excited city with the birds singing in its ilex 

 groves, on that still greater day, the 2Oth of September, 1870, when a detachment of soldiers, 

 with a smith and his assistants, marched up to the palace entrance, and, with only a few scattered 

 spectators looking on, forced open the doors and took possession in the name of the King of 

 Italy. What angels of Hope, Justice and Liberty made entry with them ! E. M. P. 



The old Papal palace of Monte Cavallo, now the Italian Houses of Parliament, has had a long 

 history. Paul III, in 1540, built a small house on Mont Quirinal. It was added to by 

 Gregory XIII, who bought large gardens from Dukes d'Este. He constructed a block at the end 

 of the court with an open loggia and an oval staircase with winding steps supported by columns, 

 and formed a suite of rooms on the first floor as a Papal apartment. The raised centre portion 

 known as the Torre de Venti was built by Martino Lunghi the elder. Sixtus V and his 

 successor, Clement VIII, added the portico, forming the left wing of the court by Domenico 

 Fontana, and began the front block to the Strada Pia. Paul V completed the right-hand side 

 from the designs of Flaminio Ponzio, this portion containing a grand double staircase. Carlo 

 Maderna designed the chapel on the first floor, the hall vestibule leading to it and the adjoining 

 rooms. Wings were added along the Strada Pia by Urban VIII and Alexander VII from 

 Lorenzo Bernini's designs, with additions by Ferdinando Fuga for Innocent XIII and Clement 

 XII. The immense building thus grew up from small beginnings by a natural process of 

 growth. The facade to the Strada Pia is fifteen windows wide, being two hundred and 

 seventy feet in length by one hundred feet in height. A. T. B. 



Trevi, which gives its name to one of the fourteen " regions " of Rome, means the cross- 

 roads. In Imperial times the long street leading straight from the Forum of Trajan struck across 

 the street now called Tritone, by the arch of Claudius. The place was called the Fountain of 

 Trevi long before the present splendid fountain was built. The name is connected now with the 

 fountain, for who, hearing it, thinks of anything but the great sea-god, the plunging horses, the 

 ceaseless rush and gush of the Virgin Water below that splendid fa9ade ? From the days of Agrippa 

 the water has borne its name given it in memory of a maiden who, meeting a tired and thirsty 

 troop of Roman soldiers marching between Palestrina and Tivoli, led them to a secret spring, 

 hidden in the hills, fresh and ice cold, known only to the shepherds. Agrippa in 733 first brought 

 this water to Rome for the supply of his baths near the Pantheon, when its advent was celebrated by 

 fifty-nine days of feasting. It originates on the old Via Collatinus, half way between Tivoli and 

 Palestrina, and was brought into Rome by a subterranean channel fourteen miles long. The aqueduct 

 passes near Ponte Nomentano, crosses the Via Nomentana and Via Salaria, and, having traversed 

 Villa Borghese, divides at the foot of the Trinita dei Monti into two streams, one of which flows 

 under Via Condotti, while the other debouches at Trevi. In later Roman times it suffered much 

 from being turned aside to feed the Roman villas outside the walls. It was no one's business to 

 preserve its aqueducts at that time, and so it lost its old reputation for purity, which, Pliny says, 

 caused it at one time to be ranked even higher than the famous Aqua Marcia. Under Trajan the 

 raids on it were put a stop to, and the water, in nineteen aqueducts, was dispersed over a great part 

 of the town. Rome, which was accustomed to flood vast spaces for naval combats, and to use 

 millions of gallons in the public baths, was poorly provided with water in private houses. In 

 the time of the Empire, and long after, water was carried about by water-carriers. Sixtus V was 

 the first to inaugurate that system of fountains for which Rome is so famous, and Paul III 

 completed the work by carrying the waters of Bracciano to the Janiculum. The water of Trevi 

 has been proved by analysis to be of great purity, and in 1819 it was still carried in barrels to 

 many houses and convents in the town. Clement VII, Paul III and Gregory XIII would never 

 drink any other, and carried it with them on journeys, even out of Italy. 



