Fountains of Papal Rome/Villa Giulia

Villa Giulia is the Italian version of "Kubla Khan," not built by "lofty rhyme," but constructed of actual stone and marble for a pleasure-loving pontiff of the Cinque Cento. The desire to realize the poet's vision is often felt by absolute monarchs. Versailles, San Souci, and the Hermitage show what unlimited power, wealth, and caprice have accomplished in that direction; but none of the northern sovereigns possessed either the climate, soil, historical, poetic, and pictorial setting or the artists, architects, and marvellous art treasures which were at the command of Pope Julius III.

When this pontiff, whose election dates from 1550, decided to build a pleasure-house upon the vineyard in the Via Flaminia, which he had inherited from his uncle, the elder Cardinal Monte, he bought up adjoining property from various landowners, so that his domain finally extended from the Tiber eastward up the Valle Giulia and adjoining slopes of Monte Parioli. The southern boundaries have not yet been fully determined, but those to the north extended as far as the Chapel of St. Andrea, a beautiful little building erected by Vignola to commemorate Pope Julius's (then Cardinal Monte) deliverance from the soldiery at the time of the sack of Rome in 1527. The Via Flaminia was at that time the fashionable drive. It was lined by fine villas and palaces, and Amannati alludes to it as the "beautiful Via Flaminia." The approach to it was from the Piazza del Popolo, then a place of gardens, through the fine Porta del Popolo which, begun so long before under Pope Sixtus IV, had just been finished by Michelangelo and Vignola. The fine avenue extended as far as the Ponte Molle, where it crossed the Tiber, and, after skirting the western slopes of Monte Soracte, began its long march to the north. A little road (called the Via del Arco Oscuro) leading up from the Tiber crossed the Via Flaminia at right angles and climbed up the Valle Giulia, turning abruptly toward the northern spur of Monte Parioli. The original Monte property lay along this little road; and it was at the head of this thoroughfare, where it turned sharply to the north and therefore at some distance from the Via Flaminia and on much higher ground, that Pope Julius decided to build his villa. Its creation quickly became the absorbing passion of his life. The greatest architects of the time were employed upon it and no expense was spared. After Pope Julius's death, the entire place was confiscated by the Camera Apostolica for thirty-seven thousand scudi, the estimated amount of Pope Julius's debts.

The Monte Pope (Julius III belonged to the Roman family of Monte) would leave the Vatican by the passage leading to the Castle of St. Angelo, take there a magnificent barge and be rowed up the great sweep of the Tiber to the landing-place at the foot of the Arco Oscuro. Here a fine flight of steps was constructed leading up to a vaulted pergola which traversed the fields between the Tiber and the Via Flaminia. The pergola was a bower of verdure and terminated in a fine building and gateway bordering the Tiber side of the Via Flaminia. Here it was necessary to cross the great highway in order to begin the ascent of the Arco Oscuro, which led directly to his new villa. The highway was dusty, and the salita or ascent long and steep, and the Pope decided to create a resting-place at this point. He had begun digging for water very early, while cultivating his vineyard, "without ever having had the slightest indication that water could be found there." Eventually he accomplished his purpose, for he succeeded in bringing to his vineyard the leakage waters of the Virgo Aqueduct The "leakage" was very much in the nature of a tap, and the proceeding was highhanded and reprehensible to a degree. In imperial days such tampering with the aqueducts was visited by punishment which Frontinus considered not too severe for so great a crime against the public welfare.

Julius III's pontificate lasted only five years; but in the year following his death the Virgo Aqueduct had already ceased to supply the city, and his successors, Pius IV, Pius V, and Gregory XIII, were obliged to begin and carry on a systematic and thorough restoration and enlargement of the aqueduct. For Julius III the wonderful water was only a perquisite belonging to the "good gift of the papacy," and he devoted his short pontificate to its exploitation and adornment, possibly silencing his scruples by the thought that the construction of a public fountain on this highway justified his manner of obtaining the water. At the two opposite angles of the Via Flaminia and the Arco Oscuro, where the ascent toward his villa began, he erected two fountains, blunting the acute end of each angle by a mostra or high façade from the base of which issued the water. The fountain on the right-hand side was a drinking-trough for horses, while that on the left was one of the most beautiful and interesting fountains in all Rome. It was the work of Bartolomeo Amannati, possibly assisted by Vignola; and very often must the youthful Domenico Fontana have studied it, for the famous "Fontana Fountain" is only a modification of this truly beautiful wort of the dying Renaissance. It is noticeable that Amannati's fountain is not a screen nor a gateway; its mostra stands against a solid background with severely plain wings of the same height flanking it at an angle on either side. This mostra is of peperino in the Corinthian order, the columns supporting a fine classic entablature and pediment. The apex of the pediment was surmounted by a colossal statue of Neptune, and the corners of it terminated in two pedestals carrying, the one a Minerva, and the other a Rome. Between these two figures and the Neptune were two minor pedestals marking the architectural termination of the great central division of the fountain, and on these stood two small obelisks, a feature borrowed by Fontana for his fountain of the Moses- The. arch of the central division held between its Corinthian pillars the huge square slab with the inscription: JULIUS m PONT. MAX. PUBUOB COMMODITATI ANNO HI

The niches on either side of this slab once contained statues, one of Happiness and the other of Abundance, a design embodied two hundred years later in the background of the Fountain of Trevi. The basin for receiving the water did not extend across the full width of the mostra, but was, and is (for this still remains), a noble white granite conca standing at the foot of the central division under the inscription. It originally received the water from a beautiful antique head of Apollo. All tins is described in a letter written by the architect himself, Amannati, from Rome in i555, and there follows a description of the arcade behind the fountain. This consists of three loggias with Corinthian columns, making a semihexagonal design and carrying a vaulted roof ornamented by pictures and exquisite stucco work. This was where "his Holiness got repose without incommoding the public," which, on the other side of the wall, refreshed itself and its beasts of burden from the public fountain. The columns were joined together by a balustrade, and the three-sided colonnade held in its embrace a large fish-pond with various jets d'eau. Beyond this architectural loveliness stretched long walks bordered with fruit-trees and espaliers, and up these paths the Pope walked when, refreshed after his long journey from the Vatican, and eager to see what his workmen had concluded over night, he finally decided to go on to the villa on the hill. This beautiful fountain and its loggias have suffered more than customary outrage from time, neglect, and stupidity. There would seem to be no vile use to which the loggias have not been put; and the superimposition of the Casino of Pope Pius IV, which is now recognized to be the work of Piero Logorio, has entirely altered the proportions and beauty of the public fountain. The fate of Pope Julius's creation, from the time of his death until 1900, is poorly outlined in the vanous half-obliterated escutcheons and inscriptions which now ornament the fountain and its superstructure! Casino. As the villa and all the land about it had been immediately sequestered by the Apostolic Chamber in spite of the protests of Julius III's legal heirs before a tardy compensation was awarded them, this portion of the Monte property was divided by Pope Pius IV between a son of the Duke of Tuscany "who was to have the usufruct for his lifetime "and his own two nephews, Carlo and Federigo Borromeo. A sister of these Borromeo brothers married a Colonna, and the property was bestowed upon her as dowry. It remained in that family until 1900, when it was purchased by the present owner, Cavaliere Giuseppe Balestra, who already owned the adjoining "villa on the high ground, which might have been a part of the original Villa Giulia, since it corresponds to that land which Julius III had acquired from Cardinal Poggio and Cardinal San ViteUeschi. The Medici escutcheon may have been placed there either by the Duke of Tuscany or by Pius IV. The Pope was of very humble Milanese origin and had no connection whatever with the great family whose name he happened to have; but after he became Pope, the Duke Cosimo I, who found it to his interest to have the Pope on his side, permitted him to use the escutcheon. Contrary to the decent Roman custom, the original inscription of Julius III was removed in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, by that one of the Colonna who inherited the property after the death of the last descendant of the earlier branch. He placed his own, the present, inscription in place of it, sparing the inscription to Carlo Borromeo, either because of Borromeo's connection with the Colonna family or because of the great veneration felt by everyone for the memory of tlae sainted young cardinal. It was also at this time that the beautiful antique head of Apollo was replaced by the Colonna escutcheon and the sculptured trophies. The inscription on the small tablet under the spring of the arch relates that in 1760 Pope Benedict XIV gave to the Colonna family the right to draw "two ounces" of water daily from the receiving-tank of the Trevi Fountain foi use in their Roman palace as a recompense to them for their gift to the public of the Trevi Water in this old fountain. Those who visit the Villa Giulia in the morning hours may see the Campagna carts on their way back from Rome drawn up before the public fountain of Pope Julius III, and the sleepy drivers, tired horses, and responsible little dogs refreshing themselves with the water.

So far the picture created more than three hundred and fif ty years ago remains the same ; fundamental customs do not change in Rome* But on the other side of the wall, where once sat and talked the joyous Pope and his company, what ruin and desolation ! Some day the Italian Government will sweep the crumbling loggias free from dust and rubbish and tear away the protecting foliage, not redeeming but unmasking the desecration of the centuries. To-day the dark water in the rough garden tanks, the unpruned trees and wild flowers, the old mule stabled under the ruined loggias where hay is stored, the mysterious gloom of the vaulted roof above the Corinthian capitals and everywhere black shadows of impenetrable depth make up a scene whose like can in all probability be found only among the engravings of PiranesL The Villa Giulia proper is designated in the old Italian books as Tlnvenzione nella Vigna Giulia, and the literal English translation of invention not inappropriately describes this truly marvellous creation. Amannati, Vasari, Vignola, and even the aged Michelangelo spent themselves upon the architectural devices by which this pleasure-house became a place of almost fabulous beauty. Consummate knowledge of perspective was employed in making the building, which is not at all large, seem so, and the only defect in the entire design is, as might have been expected, the Pope's fault, for Julius insisted upon working into the loggias in the rear of the upper court of the fountain a gift of columns, beautiful in themselves but too small for the surrounding proportions, thus making that part of the construction appear insignificant and inferior to the rest. The Pope's changing caprice wearied even the good-natured Vasari, who has left the record that "there was no getting the villa done"; and it was not long before Vignola, a man of genuine and independent genius, wearied utterly of serving such a master and went off with the great Cardinal Farnese to build the latter's villa of Caprarola, where he could work at peace and for an appreciative and sympathetic patron.

The last remains of Aurdian's Temple of the Sun were presented by Prince Colonna to the Pope and went into the fabric of the villa, and a great collection of portrait busts of the Emperors, found in the villa of Hadrian, helped to adorn the loggias and niches. The villa was filled with rare marbles, tables, statues, and vases, and the marble colunms of the central loggia were so lustrous that Amannati says they mirrored every one who entered there. As the villa is constructed on the hillside, various levels are the natural result, and this feature has been used with diverse and happy effects. The various courts are all on different planes while, with the one exception of the grand double stairway in the central court, all the stairs are cunningly concealed so that there is no suggestion of physical effort as the eye passes from one plane to another. The vaulted roofs of the long semicircular galleries and various rooms were decorated with paintings or with stucco work of the most exquisite perfection. Traces of this last are still to be seen above the niches containing the colossal river-gods, the Tiber and the AJTLO (Amannati was a Florentine). The place was truly a Palace of Art. Nothing but beauty was permitted to enter it. Stables, offices, and kitchens were placed outside the villa, and the one house which stood within the villa grounds that of the keeper or custodian was designed and decorated with great care, so that, according to Amannati, the entire invention was of such beauty that it was in itself "good enough for any great prince." Nothing remains of this splendor but the bare shell, and this has been so tampered with that it is only from old plans or from outlines of restoration by Letarouilly and Stern that a true conception can be obtained of the villa of Pope Julius III. It is necessary to know, for instance, that the front court, now a commonplace garden, was originally a great paved cortile filled with statuary now in the Vatican or scattered far and wide over Italy. The loggia leading up and out of this court was originally closed and entered by doors. The shallow, broad stairway leading down from the right-hand garden under the terraces was put in for the benefit of the cavalry quartered there during a petty war of the eighteenth century, when the horses were taken down to drink at the Nymphseum I The present gardens in no wise represent the beautiful formal gardens which stretched there on either side of the various courts, and the present walls cannot possibly enclose that space which was once filled with orange groves and every sort of device for fastidious delight. Somewhere in those grounds, probably on the right hand, there was a monticello or little hill from which could be seen the Tiber, the Seven Hills, the "beautiful Strada Flaminia," the Vatican, and the vast erection of new St. Peter's overtopping and gradually engulfing the old basilica, the view extending even to the sea. Under the high ground still held in place by a great retaining wall were grottos beautifully decorated by stucco and painting and icy cold even in summer. In the woods, where the Italian pastime of snaring birds was carefully provided for, there were accommodations for every kind of animal, and everywhere there were fountains, marble seats, and antique garden statuary.

Louis XIV, for whom careful plans of the villa were drawn, wisely made no attempt to copy the enchanted palace of Italy. Versailles makes up in size for the beauty of color, architecture, vegetation, and art treasures here formed into one beautiful whole by Pope Julius III. The shape of the Villa Giulia is significant* It is a series of gardens, loggias, and courts, one enclosing the other, each richer in ornamentation, more ravishing in beauty t^m the last, until finally the heart of the creation is reached, and the "secret fountain" of the Acqua Vergine is discovered flowing out of the shadow and from a hidden source into a sunlit Nymphs&um of marvellous beauty and again mysteriously disappearing into the shadow. The Fountain of the Virgins, as it came to be called, was felt by its creator, Amannati, to be beyond the power of description. Writing to a friend in Padua, soon after Pope Julius's death, he describes the entire villa in extraordinary detail, noting the attitude even of many of the statues; but when, after pages of description, he has brought his reader to the lowest court of all, his pen fails him and he says that unless he can paint a picture of this court and fountain he will never be able to give his friend "any conception of this, the loveliest, richest, and most marvellous place in the entire creation." Amannati saw it in its first splendor. The caryatides were perfect, white, and gleaming, and perhaps beautiful. The niches round about were filled with marble boys carrying urns upon their shoulders from which the water was poured into the semicircular stream at their feet. It is impossible to tell from the description of the old pictures what, if any, statue filled the central niche behind the virgins. At present the niche holds a great white marble swan, now almost hidden by fern, from whose bill the water trickles into the black pool beneath. The pavement, made of every conceivable kind of marble, glowed like a jewel. The balustrade above held graceful statues and on either side of the court just above stood a great plane-tree, giving delicious verdure and shade. Then, as now, the water came from large reservoirs hidden beneath the upper terrace to the east of the fountain; then, as now, it was carried off over gentle, roughpaved inclines; then, as now, it fell steeply into a subterranean cavern the entire construction producing waves of cool air and a ripple and murmur of water exquisitely refreshing to both eye and ear. It is almost necessary to forgive Pope Julius his attack upon the aqueduct. Never before or since has the Acqua Vergine received such poetic treatment.

Nothing remains of this beauty but the water and the masonry. Pope Julius was hardly buried before the spoliation of his villa began. Like the Pope's beautiful resting-place behind the public fountain, the Nymphaeum has endured three centuries of vile usage and neglect Nowhere in Rome is it more necessary to use imagination than in the Villa Giulia. The visitor should descend into the lowest court on a day of brilliant sunshine and, standing before the Fountain of the Virgins, replace for himself the lost lustre of the columns, the whiteness of the balustrades, the rich coloring of mural paintings and stucco, and the gleam of antique statuary. He should see the flickering shadows cast by the great plane-trees across the marble pavement, and hear the birds twittering or calling from the aviaries which were in the loggia wall above the river-gods. He must fancy the fitful music of stringed instruments, the perfume from the orange groves drifting over the garden walls where sat the monkeys and brilliant tropical birds. He must feel the languid stir or deep repose of long, indolent, luxurious summer days, and through it all, he must be conscious of the water* Only so will he be able to form some adequate conception of what the "secret fountain" must have been in the days of Pope Julius III. The highest charm of the beautiful creation lay in its presentation of contrast translated into a medium suitable to every sense. It was an age of contrast, sharp and constant. No feature in the crowded Italian life of those two centuries is so striking as this. Fame and obloquy; triumphant health and the lazar-house; honor and exile; the luxury of an Agostino Chigi and the squalor of the beggar at his doors; compassion and fiendish cruelty, young Cardinal Borromeo's sanctity on the one hand, and on the other unblushing licentiousness; beauty to which all but divine honors were paid, and hideous deformity; these lay open to the eye on every side. There seemed to be no transition. The “ secret fountain," with its light and shade, its rest and motion, sound and silence, its art and nature, was the poetic expression of life as it was known by the men for whom it was created.

The records of those days are never free from blood, and at least one assassination is connected with the building of this house of mirth* Baronino, an associate of Vignola and Amannati, leaving the villa with a friend on a certain evening, was set upon as he turned into the Via Flaminia and stabbed to death. The angle in the walls made by the public fountain and the fact that it was a natural place for loiterers probably suggested the choice of the spot. The assassin's identity was either never discovered or never revealed and the crime went unpunished, for Cellini was not the only lucky rascal Artists especially carried their lives in their hands, and genius was as open to violence as it was to fame.

Historians and moralists accord scant justice and no mercy to Julius III. He is represented by them as spending his life in senseless and indolent pleasures. Yet he had begun his pontificate with some show of earnestness. He had reopened the Council of Trent, and had attempted to play a part in the diplomacy of Europe. That after two years he wearied of these arduous labors might have been because he had sufficient wit to perceive that, for his time at least, the Papal See would have to be a tool in the hands of Austria. His devotion to the creation of Ms villa was perhaps the only outlet for the activities of a nature too slight to cope with the stern and sinister century ou which his lot had fallen. Long days spent with Vignola, Amannati, and Vasari, and above all, with the aged but undaunted Michelangelo himself, for whom this Pope felt a loving veneration, must have had a zest and stimulating quality sufficient to make the Pope's life in this villa something more than the sybaritic enjoyment of mere sensuous beauty.

Beyond a doubt, the construction of his villa became an obsession with the Pope. He gradually abandoned all other avocations and duties. It was at the villa that he held his audiences, received ambassadors, and gave his suppers, at which last his wit was said to be of less fine quality than were his vintages. He even had a medal struck, with his own head on one side and on the other the front elevation of the Villa Giulia, with the inscription, "Fons Virgirribus."

One fatal day a pet monkey savagely attacked the Pope. He was rescued by a lad of sixteen whom he soon after made a cardinal. The scandal was very great. Prelates and laymen alike felt this to be going too far. The Pope might lay himself open to censure but not to ridicule. Here in the midst of the beauty created by Pope Julius, men's eyes began to turn toward the slightly grim, ascetic figure of Cardinal della Croce, great Roman patrician and true saint, who, as if to give the final note to this life of vivid contrast, moved about in the gay papal court, reserved, austere, devoted to a life of such sanctity that the Pope himself felt uncomfortable in his presence.

The villa was still far from finished when Julius III's short pontificate came to an end. The Conclave almost unanimously chose as Ms successor their saintly brother, Cardinal della Croce. The world had entered upon a new phase. Northern Europe had brought the spirit of the Reformation to the gates of Rome, and men were ashamed of Pope Julius III, whose misfortune it had been to live half a century too late.

The Villa Giulia passed into the ownership of the popes and remained there until it was taken over by the state in the present government. It was eventually finished by Popes Pius IV and Pius V, but the art treasures were scattered far and wide. During many pontificates it was used for the stopping place of ambassadors and other great personages who spent the night there before making their ceremonial entrance into Rome. Perhaps the presence of so much water and luxurious vegetation made the place peculiarly sensitive to mould and decay. Even as early as i585 it was not considered healthful- Sbctus V, with the restless caprice of the poor sleeper, wished to spend a night there, but was forbidden to do so by his physician. As it was papal property, no private individual ever had the chance to take over the beautiful old building and gardens and keep them in repair; and those popes whose tastes might have led them to restore it built pleasurehouses or palaces for themselves. Gregory XIII began the Quirinal Palace, and not infrequently for his villegiatura visited the magnificent villa of Mondragone at Frascati which Cardinal Altemps had already begun to build. Shrtus V built his Villa Montalto, the new Lateran Palace, and finished the Quirinal Palace. Clement VIII contented himself with the Quirinal; but his great cardinal nephew, Peter Aldobrandini, founded the magnificent Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati. The Medici Leo XI devoted himself to the Villa Medici. Paul V did indeed make a restoration, using much stucco, which can easily be distinguished from the beautiful work of the original period, but that Pope's interest was really given to the great villa which his nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, was creating out of the old Villa Cenci.

Finally, late in the eighteenth century, the papal chair was occupied by a man of culture who felt the charm of the old Cincpie Cento villa in the Valle Giulia, and tried to rescue it from total ruin. This was the Ganganelli Pope, Clement XIV, the founder of the Clementine sculpture gallery in the Vatican. Clement XIV's investigation of Pope Julius III's villa showed that the aqueducts were ruined, the walls crumbled by water, the pavements cracked by fire, while all the wood and iron work was broken or rusted, and the exquisite paintings, stucco, and gilding spoiled by smoke and damp. The papal architect, Raphael Stern, made careful and elaborate drawings from old plans, with a view to a genuine restoration, as Pius VI (who, in 1774, succeeded Clement XIV) carried on the work. This Pope also felt the fascination of the marvellous, all but ruined pleasure-house, and decided to make it his autumn residence, but it was too late I Pope Pius VI was carried off by the French Revolutionary forces in 1798 and died a prisoner in the French fortress of Valence. From that time forward, the villa fell more and more into decay. Its pitiful condition might have furnished material for endless sermons on the vanity of life, and the ruin of its exquisite decorations fills all artists and lovers of the beautiful with indignant regret. It has been a veterinary hospital, a cavalry barracks, a storehouse for hay no desecration has been spared it. At last the present government rescued what was left of it and converted it into a museum of antiquities, giving the last ironic touch to its fate by filling the rooms built to minister to the joy and pride of life, with ancient coffins and relics of the dead.