Palace of the Quirinal

“ The first were also on the Quirinal, and are said to have occupied the greater part of the present Piazza del Quirinale, including the site of the Royal Palace. But as all that is left of them is a fragment of the old boundary-wall here and there, one can form no notion of their size or shape. One may, however, judge of their character by magnificent colossal marble statues of the “Horse-tamers,” which are known to have stood one on each side of the principal entrance, and are believed to remain almost in the place where they stand to-day. ”

“ One might have fancied oneself above some very ancient, abandoned stone quarry, which a few clumps of trees spotted with dark green. Of the ancient city one could see the sunburnt tower of the Capitol, the black cypresses of the Palatine, and the ruins of the palace of Septimius Severus, suggesting the white osseous carcase of some fossil monster, left there by a flood. In front, was enthroned the modern city with the long, renovated buildings of the Quirinal, whose yellow walls stood forth with wondrous crudity amidst the vigorous crests of the garden trees. ”

“ The palace is built very near the site of the ancient fortress of the Colonna family—so celebrated in times of mediæval warfare with the Orsini—of which one lofty tower still remains, in a street leading up to the Quirinal.
The Gallery is shown every day, except Sundays and holidays, from 11 to 3. It is entered by the left wing. The first room is a fine, gloomy old hall, containing the family dais, and hung with decaying Colonna portraits. Then come three rooms covered with tapestries, the last containing a pretty statue of a girl, sometimes called Niobe. Hence we reach the pictures. ”

“ To-day they are all equal; perhaps to-morrow one will sit enthroned, and all the rest will kiss his feet; one will be sovereign, and others his subjects; one the shepherd, and the others his flock.
* * * * * * * *
"From the Quirinal Palace stretches out, the length of a whole street, an immense wing, divided in its two upper floors into a great number of small but complete suites of apartments, occupied permanently, or occasionally, by persons attached to the Court. During conclave these are allotted, literally so, to the cardinals, each of whom lives apart with his own attendants. ”

“ He looked, and saw that the vast circular chamber was of incalculable height, extending up to the very dome of the palace, and shaping itself to the lines of the topmost of the three huge cones. It was a great well of light, playing over strange frescoes of gods and daemons, of constellations and of beasts, and exquisite with all the secret colours of some other way of vision. As high as the eye could see, the precious metals upon the skeleton of the open roof shone in the bright light that was set there—the light on the summit of the king's palace. ”

“ The name of fortress would be more appropriate than any other, for the Old Palace; it is a great mass of stone, without columns, without frontal, without order of architecture. Time has gilded the walls with beautiful vermilion tints which the pure blue of the sky sets off marvelously, and the whole structure has that haughty and romantic aspect which accords well with the idea that one forms for oneself of that old Palace of the Seigneurie, the witness, since the date of its erection in the thirteenth century, of so many intrigues, tumults, violent acts, and crimes. ”

“ The gloomy old fortress of the feudal masters of the town had been replaced, in those later years of the Quattro-cento, by a consummate monument of Quattro-cento taste, a museum of ancient and modern art, the owners of which lived there, gallantly at home, amid the choicer flowers of living humanity. The ducal palace was, in fact, become nothing less than a school of ambitious youth in all the accomplishments alike of war and peace. Raphael's connexion with it seems to have become intimate, and from the first its influence must have overflowed so small a place. ”

“ The Emperor at last made his exit through the great white-and-gold doors, the Imperial chamberlains bowing low as he passed out. Then at two o’clock the Crown Princess managed to slip away from the Imperial circle, and with her rich train sweeping behind her, made her way rapidly through the long, tortuous corridors to his Majesty’s private workroom, known as the White Chamber, on the other side of the great palace. ”

“ In every structure, the base is commonly broad; the monument diminishes in thickness as it encroaches on the sky. The Ducal Palace is the exact opposite of that natural scheme of architecture: the base, pierced by light porticoes surmounted by a gallery of arabesques indented with four-leaved open trefoils, supports an almost bare square mass: one would say it was a fortress built upon pillars, or rather an inverted building planted on its light coping with its thick root in the air. ”

“ Inside, the rooms are large and lofty, and the stairs of greyish marble or even wood; but neither in doors or out are there any fine statues or sculptures.
The Palace of the governor is as I before said, a magnificent building—one that would be an ornament to the finest city in the world. It is built in the form of a horse-shoe, with a handsome cupola in the centre: the portico, as well as both the wings, is supported upon columns. The internal arrangements are as bad as can possibly be imagined; the supper-room being, for instance, a story higher than the ball-room. ”

“ The rest of the ground is occupied with a collection of churches of all shapes and sizes and colours, and towers, and convents, and palaces. One palace, however, surpasses them all in beauty and size, though its shining white walls and richly-carved façade and general bran-new appearance look sadly out of place among all the venerable, grotesque, many-coloured, odd-shaped, Byzantine edifices which are dotted about in its neighbourhood. It looks like some huge intruder into the place, which all the old inhabitants are collecting to put forth again ”

“ Chairs and benches stood against the wall, and these astonished the visitors because neither stairs nor chairs seemed useful in a kingdom where every living thing was supposed to swim and have a fish's tail. In Queen Aquareine's palaces benches for reclining were used, and stairs were wholly unnecessary, but in the Palace of Zog the furniture and fittings were much like those of a house upon earth, and except that every space here was filled with water instead of air, Trot and Cap'n Bill might have imagined themselves in a handsome earthly castle. ”

“ But we have as yet dealt chiefly with the external shell of this mass of architecture which, tall and mighty, raises its once impregnable walls and towers against the sky. The beauty of its interior remains briefly to be touched upon, for the fortress palace had, as Clement left it, some analogy with the great Moorish palace of the Alhambra in that it stood outwardly grim and strong, while within it was a shrine of exquisite and luxurious art. ”

“ The King's Palace in the City is totally destroyed, with all the Jewels, Furniture, &c. The India Warehouses adjoining, full of rich Goods, are all consumed. The Custom-house, piled up with Bales upon Bales, is all destroyed ”

“ Upon this promontory the king had caused to be built a huge platform which was ascended by the broadest flight of steps in the whole world, so easy of gradation that a man might easily have ridden up and then down again without danger to his horse. Upon the platform was raised the palace, a mighty structure resting on the vast columned porticoes and halls, built entirely of polished black marble, that contrasted strangely with the green slopes of the hills above and with the bright colours of the rose-gardens. ”

“ Next there presented itself to my sight a stately royal palace or castle, with walls that seemed built of clear transparent crystal; and through two great doors that opened wide therein, I saw coming forth and advancing towards me a venerable old man, clad in a long gown of mulberry-coloured serge that trailed upon the ground. On his shoulders and breast he had a green satin collegiate hood, and covering his head a black Milanese bonnet, and his snow-white beard fell below his girdle. ”

“ It was built in the Turkish fashion and its exterior was singularly beautiful and imposing. Huge palm trees surrounded it; they were planted in regular rows upon a vast lawn that was adorned with costly statues and fountains, while at intervals were scattered great flower beds filled with choice exotics and blooming plants of endless variety. A wide graveled walk and carriage-road led to the palace, the main entrance to which was flanked on either side by columns of dark-veined marble. The edifice itself was of green stone, and sparkled in the sunlight like a colossal emerald. ”

“ The first impression created by the interior aspect of the Crystal Palace, is one of admiration. Magnificent indeed is the lofty dome of the transept, arching over glorious old trees, oriental shrubbery, statuary, fountains, and masses of gorgeous flowers; the brilliant perspective of the central aisle, with its double lines of galleries, stretching away on either hand, and traversed by countless avenues, every point of the vast expanse presenting its own special subject of interest, and challenging the beholder's gaze. ”

“ Behind the closely-drawn, heavily-embroidered curtains of his vast state-bed, lies the little Monseigneur, most desperately ill. Notwithstanding the gay and brilliant sunshine that floods the palace, in the open fireplace of Monseigneur’s bedchamber there is a blazing scented fire of logs piled; while all the windows, with their stained armorial bearings, and all the heavy tapestry hangings over the narrow doorways that lead to garde-robe and oratory and corridor, are mercilessly closed. ”

“ The spacious courtyard of the palace was completely covered by a gigantic awning. Rows of the Infantry of the Guard lined the approaches, and with their bright steel bayonets increased the splendour and the security of the occasion. The well-lit streets were crowded with the curious populace. The great hall of the palace, at all times imposing and magnificent, displayed a greater pomp when filled with a gaily dressed company. ”

“ A sharp word of command, a second bugle note, and then all was quiet again, save for the slow, measured tread of the sentries at each angle of the ponderous palace.
From without all looked grim and gloomy, in keeping with that strange fate that follows the hapless Hapsbourgs; yet beyond those black walls, in the farther wing of the Imperial palace were life and gaiety and music; indeed there was presented perhaps the most magnificent scene in all Europe. ”

“ Opposite stands the huge flat-roofed palace, putting forward two great rectangular arms and looking, with its closed windows and its foundations of almost unreduced rock, like some ghost of a sample of a ruder Babylon. In the wide court-like space between the wings is a fine old white marble fountain that never plays. Its dusty idleness completes the general air of abandonment. ”

“ Of the massive walls little has been destroyed either by time or by the many vicissitudes through which the great building has passed. Of all the architecture that one sees in this country the Popes' Palace is the most like those huge, enduring, almost brutally strong, buildings that the Romans left behind them. ”

“ Oswald and Corinne, having seen the Capitoline Hill the day before, began their walks by Mount Palatine; it was entirely occupied by the palace of the Cæsars, called the golden palace. This hill offers nothing to our view, at present, but the ruins of that palace. The four sides of it were built by Augustus Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero; but the stones, covered with fertile plants, are all that now remain of it: Nature has there resumed her empire over the labours of man, and the beauty of the flowers consoles us for the destruction of the palace. ”

“ And finally, many years later, a last palace was added to all the others—that of Septimius Severus: again a building of pride, with arches supporting lofty halls, terraced storeys, towers o'er-topping the roofs, a perfect Babylonian pile, rising up at the extreme point of the mount in view of the Appian Way, so that the emperor's compatriots—those from the province of Africa, where he was born—might, on reaching the horizon, marvel at his fortune and worship him in his glory. ”

“ Suddenly there is presented to his sight a strong castle or gorgeous palace with walls of massy gold, turrets of diamond and gates of jacinth; in short, so marvellous is its structure that though the materials of which it is built are nothing less than diamonds, carbuncles, rubies, pearls, gold, and emeralds, the workmanship is still more rare. ”

“ On both banks, façades altogether charming and beautifully diversified succeed one another without interruption. After an architecture of the Renaissance with its columns comes a palace of the Middle Ages in Gothic Arab style, of which the Ducal Palace is the prototype, with its balconies, lancet windows, trefoils, and acroteria. Further along is a façade adorned with marble placques of various colors, garnished with medallions and consoles ”

“ The palace which was her home surpassed in architectural grandeur and in all the appliances of voluptuous indulgence any abode which had ever before been reared upon earth. Obsequious servants and fawning courtiers anticipated her wishes, and her chariot with its glittering outriders swept like a meteor through the enchanting drives which art, aided by the wealth of a realm, had constructed, and yet probably there was not a woman in the whole realm, in garret or hut or furrowed field, who bore a heavier heart than that which throbbed within the bosom of the queen. ”