Palaestra

“ The Palace of the Cæsars was a building of extraordinary spaciousness and splendour, which had grown with the growing power of the emperors. The state entrance was in the Vicus Apollinis, which led into the Via Sacra. It was an Arch, twenty-nine feet high, surmounted by a statue of Apollo and Diana driving a chariot of four horses, the work of Lysias. Passing the Propylæa the visitor entered the sacred area, paved with white marble and surrounded by fifty-two fluted columns of Numidian giallo antico, with its soft tints of rose and gold. ”

“ Singularly unpleasant is the view of the so-called Palazzata, a crescent-shaped row of real palaces, which for nearly a quarter of a league encloses and marks out the roadstead. All were built of stone, and four stories high; of several the whole front, up to the cornice of the roof, is still standing, while others have been thrown down as low as the first, or second, or third story. So that this once splendid line of buildings exhibits at present with its many chasms and perforations, a strangely revolting appearance: for the blue heaven may be seen through almost every window. ”

“ It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. ”

“ They ascended to a vast stone hall with a grand stairway at its further end, that quickly effaced the impression of the entrance. From an antechamber, they passed through five or six rooms hung with tapestries and paintings, and adorned with sculptures, until they arrived at the one where the princess really lived. This last was a huge, dignified, mellow, and splendid apartment, in every way worthy of the palace in which it stood, and of the great lady who occupied it now, no less than of all the great ladies who had occupied it in the past. ”

“ The palace itself was a mile in length, but, not being of corresponding height, had rather the appearance of a vast terrace or range of buildings than of one structure. Its interior was divided into numerous apartments, some of which were of prodigious dimensions and splendidly ornamented; the walls being covered with figures of men, birds, and animals in exquisite relief and richly gilt. A labyrinth of carving, gilding, and the most brilliant colours, red, green, and blue, supplied the place of a ceiling; and the united effect of the whole oppressed the soul with a sense of painful splendour. ”

“ I have never been in that part of the universe; but the royal palace, I am told, is built in a very noble style of architecture, and of the most splendid and costly materials. Gold, diamonds, pearls, and all manner of precious stones, will be your daughter's ordinary playthings. I recommend to you, my dear lady, to give yourself no uneasiness. Proserpina's sense of beauty will be duly gratified, and, even in spite of the lack of sunshine, she will lead a very enviable life. ”

“ When we were clear of the palace, of which we had only seen one hall, we walked across an open space made unutterably dreary by the absence of any vegetation or other sign of life, towards a huge building of glorious proportions that was constructed of black stone or marble. It is impossible for me to give any idea of the frightful solemnity of this domed edifice, for as I think I have said, it alone had a roof, standing there in the midst of that brilliant, unvarying and most unnatural illumination which came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. ”

“ And thus the Palatine became but the venerable base of a monstrous edifice, a thick vegetation of adjoining buildings, each new pile being like a fresh eruption of feverish pride; while the whole, now showing the snowy brightness of white marble and now the glowing hues of coloured marble, ended by crowning Rome and the world with the most extraordinary and most insolent abode of sovereignty—whether palace, temple, basilica, or cathedral—that omnipotence and dominion have ever reared under the heavens. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The old one is most curious; small, dark, low rooms, vaulted ceilings, all most elaborately ornamented in Byzantine style; a small steep, twisting staircase; large porcelain stoves, and absolutely uncomfortable. We saw the dining-room where the Emperor and Empress will dine in state the day of the Coronation. The new palace is quite different—high, light, large rooms, white, which must look beautiful at night lighted by thousands of wax candles. In the great ballroom the two Throne chairs are on a gold dais with great curtains of purple velvet and ermine—very royal looking. ”

“ And as he wandered up and down, he came at last to a great palace, whose doors stood wide open, as much as to say: Come in. So he went in, and passed along, wondering, with echoing steps, from room to room. Then on a sudden he entered a door, and found himself in a vast hall, whose walls were pierced with tall windows, through which the moonlight fell, cold as camphor, on moon-stones that hung in clusters from the roof. And from them the nectar fell slowly, drop by drop, upon the floor. And at the far end of the room, on a golden couch, he saw lying a dead body, covered with a white pall. ”

“ To this façade is joined a palazzino of the Renaissance, in stone and of an entirely different style, its tint of grayish-white marvelously relieved by the dark-red background of old brick-work. This building, with its three gables, its fluted Ionic columns, its caryatides, or rather its Atlases (for they are human figures) , its semicircular window, its niches curved like a shell, its arcades ornamented with figures, its basement of diamond-shaped stones, produces what I may call an architectural discord that is most unexpected and charming. ”

“ At the end of this heroic avenue appeared the palace of Saturn. Ascending a hundred steps of black marble, you stood before a portico supported by twenty columns of the same material and shading a single portal of bronze. Apparently the palace formed an immense quadrangle; a vast tower rising from each corner, and springing from the centre a huge and hooded dome. A crowd of attendants, in grey and sad-coloured raiment, issued from the portal of the palace at the approach of Proserpine, who remarked with strange surprise their singular countenances and demeanour ”

“ But I expect that on the terraced roof of this palace you will build me a large hall crowned with a dome, and having four equal fronts; and that instead of layers of bricks, the walls be formed of massy gold and silver, laid alternately: that each front shall contain six windows, the lattices of all of which (except one, which must be left unfinished) shall be so enriched in the most tasteful workmanship, with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, that they shall exceed anything of the kind ever seen in the world. I would have an inner and outer court in front of the palace, and a spacious garden ”

“ The palazzo itself was a building of great beauty, and stood in grounds of great extent.
The contessa, who was a widow, had a princely fortune, and she spent it lavishly too.
Upon the night of the masquerade the gardens were brilliantly lighted.
Upon the miniature lake there was a fairy gondola, with a coloured lantern dangling at the prow, and hung with curtains of pale blue silk gauze. ”

“ The principal apartments are on the northern side of the palace, opening upon a portico of Corinthian columns, running its entire length and which would not disgrace Palmyra itself. At the eastern extremity, are the rooms common to the family; in the centre, a spacious hall, in the adorning of which, by every form of art, I have exhausted my knowledge and taste in such things; and at the western extremity, my library, where at this moment I sit, and where I have gathered around me all in letters and art that I most esteem. This room I have decorated for myself and Julia—not for others. ”

“ On Sundays and saints' days, after hearing high mass, my mother and my stepfather took me to the Palais Royal for a walk. The gardens were then far more spacious and beautiful than they are now, strangled and straightened by the houses enclosing them. There was a very broad and long avenue on the left arched by gigantic trees, which formed a vault impenetrable to the rays of the sun. There good society assembled in its best clothes. The opera house was hard by the palace. ”

“ Such is the picture of many a palace that one may see to-day in Venice and Genoa and Florence and Rome.
If any of my readers feel a touch of envy at the tale of such magnificence, it may comfort them to hear, that probably their own American homes, though much less splendid, are a great deal more comfortable. These palaces were not built for comfort, but for pride and for show. They are well enough for courts and for state occasions, but not for ordinary life. They have few of those comforts which we consider indispensable in our American homes. It is almost impossible to keep them warm. ”

“ The palace has not been long completed; the additions made by Charles the Third agree not ill with the original edifice. It is a comfortable, though not a magnificent abode; walls thick, windows cheerfully glazed in two panels, neat low chimney-pieces in many of the apartments; few traces of the days of the Philips; scarce any furniture that bespeak an ancient family. A flimsy modern style, half Italian, half French, prevails. Even the pictures are, in point of subjects, preservation, originality, and masters, as strangely jumbled together as in the dominions of an auctioneer. ”

“ May 21st.—Mamma and I went, yesterday forenoon, to the Spada Palace, which we found among the intricacies of Central Rome; a dark and massive old edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on which are adorned with statues in niches, and sculptured ornaments. A woman led us up a staircase, and ushered us into a great gloomy hall, square and lofty, and wearing a very gray and ancient aspect, its walls being painted in chiaroscuro, apparently a great many years ago. ”

“ The Hermitage, of which the world has read and heard so much, is a spacious building adjoining the Winter Palace, with which it is connected by a covered gallery, and is of itself five hundred feet long. It is not, as its name might indicate, a solitude, but a grand and elaborate palace in itself, built by Catherine II. for a picture-gallery, a museum, and a resort of pleasure. It contains to-day one of the largest as well as the most precious collections of paintings in the world, not excepting those of Rome, Florence, or Paris. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Remove from beneath them the orange sails of the fishing-boats, the black gliding of the gondolas, the cumbered decks and rough crews of the barges of traffic, and the fretfulness of the green water along their foundations, and the Renaissance palaces possess no more interest than those of London or Paris. But the Gothic palaces are picturesque in themselves, and wield over us an independent power. ”

“ The staircase in the palace is marble. The only piece of furniture in the whole palace is a small clock. I don't think I ever saw anything so unlike the residence of a king: there appears to be nothing but gold, marble, glass, and paintings. A man shows the rooms, to whom you give something; both times I was there it was full of people.
[Pg 131] We went through the gardens to the Grand Trianon. The rooms are all on one floor. They look very different to the rooms of the other palace, but amusing in their way. ”

“ The Palais Royal is a world in itself of all that is splendid and seducing, but with all these things a poor man has but a sorry time of it. Of the Italian Opera and of Verge I dare only read the carte, and content myself with a chop at Richard’s and the Opéra Comique. ”

“ The Crystal Palace gleamed in the sunshine; but I do not think a very impressive edifice can be built of glass,—light and airy, to be sure, but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. It is unlike anything else in England; uncongenial with the English character, without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, unsusceptible of ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age.
The train of carriages stops within the domain of the palace, where there is a long ascending corridor up into the edifice. ”

“ The modern portions of the Palace are entirely commonplace and cheerful. The east wing, visible from where I am seated writing, might have been designed by Baron Haussmann: a long stretch of yellow façade—dazzling to the sight just now, in the morning sunshine—with a French roof, of slate, and a box of gay-tinted flowers in each of its countless windows.
Behind the Palace there is a large and very lovely garden, reserved to the uses of the Royal Household; and beyond that, the Dunayskiy Prospekt, a park that covers about sixty acres, and is open to the public. ”