82 
THE GARDES S OF ITAJ.Y. 
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 20th 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. IM. P. 
The old Papal palace of Monte Cavallo, now the Italian Houses of Parliament, has had a long 
history. Paul HI, in 1^40, built a small house on Mont Quirinal. It was added to by 
Gregory XHI, 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 VHI, 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 I'laminio 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 VHI and Alexander VII from 
Lorenzo Bernini’s designs, with additions by Ferdinando Fuga for Innocent XHI 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 facade ? 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 suflFered 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 puritv, and in 1819 it was still carried in barrels to 
many houses and convents in the town. Clement VII, Paul HI and Gregory XHI would never 
drink any other, and carried it with them on journeys, even out of Italy. 
