Mrs. Charles MacVeagh

“ Gregory XIII had begun life as a Bolognese lawyer.He had been called to Rome by Paul III the very yearLoyola founded the Society of Jesus. He had gone toSpain as Papal legate under Paul IV, had been createdcardinal by Pius IV, and at the age of seventy wasmade Pope. His life had peculiarly fitted him to appreciate Jesuit ideals. His belief in educational institutions, his keen interest in geography and the remotecorners of the earth, the correctness of his private lifeafter his elevation, his previous worldliness, and hissecular training, all combined to make him the JesuitPope. ”

“ Four days earlier, and during themarch on Rome, the other commander of the besiegingarmy, the veteran George Freundsberg, had died of astroke of apoplexy brought on by the mutinous conduct of his troops; so that, without leaders, forty thousand of the worst soldiery of Europe were turned loosewithin the city walls turned loose to recoup themselves for their long arrears of wages out of everythingwhich the taste, learning, and moral sense of civilizedman has always held most precious. ”

“ As Romenumbered her pilgrims by the thousands in any year,and by the tens of thousands during the years of thePapal Jubilee, a goodly profit was derived from thefees paid by the pilgrims to the custodian of the column,and the monks could therefore always count upon mating an advantageous lease. Gregory XIII, in erectingthis fountain, must have thought primarily of the comfort and interest of the pilgrims. As the traveller ofto-day remembers the fountain of Trevi, so the pilgrim of the sixteenth century remembered the fountain by the side of the Column of St. ”

“ When, during the pontificate of Paul IIIshe began to revive, it was plain to all men that shewas not, and could never be, the same. life came backto her at last, not through aesthetic but through ethicalchannels. ”

“ The vase in the centre is represented in an oldengraving by Falda as being much lower than thepresent one and carved in crowded leaflike convolutions, like the vase of the Scossa Cavalli fountain. By 1829 this bit of old travertine sculpture had become so misshapen that the artist StoccM, by order ofLeo XII, replaced it by the present Carrara vase, adding at that time to either end of the trough the smallgroups of shells and dolphins. ”

“ Rathermust they have enhanced it, as the white doves whichare perched upon its rim make the charm of the"Pliny's Vase/ 9 Giacomo della Porta is the first fountain builder of modern Rome, and the fountains whichhe did for Gregory XIII all constructed for TreviWater are still among the loveliest the city holds.The passion for fountain building began in the secondhalf of the Cinque Cento. ”