Fountains of Papal Rome/The Lateran
Modern photographs can still be found of the original fountain of the Lateran. It was the work of Fontana and was placed in this spot after he had erected the obelisk for Sixtus V. The present fountain is quite new and most inadequately replaces the old one which had stood there for over three hundred years. By the close of the nineteenth century the upper basin of Fontana's fountain was badly broken, while the lower one had been held together for some time by iron clamps. The carving was so worn and defaced that the dolphins and eagle were quite shapeless, and the figure of St. John writing in a scroll upon his knee and looking to Heaven for inspiration had long since disappeared. Maggi's engraving of this fountain made in 1618shows it to have been one of the richest ever designed by Fontana. A curious feature in this old fountain was the blending of the insignia of three popes. The pears of Sixtus V were carved in heavy festoons under the huge supporting scrolls of the mostra (which was a screen made low so as to bring the figure of St. John in simple and high relief against one of the square sides of the pedestal), the Borghese eagle poured the water into the shell-shaped upper basin; and finally the Aldobrandini bar of continuous Maltese crosses was used as frieze.
The obelisk of the Lateran was set in its present place by Fontana only two years before the death of Sixtus V, and it is quite probable the fountain was not erected until some years later. Sixtus V rushed the work on the Lateran at top speed; and this obelisk was no sooner in place than Fontana was commissioned to transport its companion to the Piazza del Popolo, The Lateran obelisk was erected in i588. In August, i5go, Sixtus V died. Four popes followed him in rapid succession Urban VII, Gregory XIV, and Innocent IX, all dying so soon that by January 20, 1692, Clement VIII (Aldobrandini) had become Pope; and Fontana may have finished this fountain during the first years of Clement's pontificate, before he fell under that pontiff's displeasure. The frieze on the fountain must have been originally the Montalto or Peretti frieze, which forms so beautiful a finish to the Lateran Palace; but Fontana, while keeping the star of Montalto (one of Sixtus V's emblems) in the corners under the cornice of the screen, changed the design of the intervening space into the Aldobrandini bar. It was a small detail, and the change was a mere matter of custom and policy and involved no disloyalty to the great past in Fontana's life. This would account for the Aldobrandini frieze. The eagle seems at first more difficult to explain. From the accession of Paul V the eagle denotes the Borghese family ; but Paul V did not become Pope until i6o5, and Fontana left Rome for Naples in i5g6. Therefore, the eagle of this fountain cannot have any connection with the Borghese family. Why did Fontana use it instead of the lion's head, which was another of Sixtus V*s emblems and would have made a better architectural outlet for the water ? It must have been because the eagle is the emblem of St. John. In Michelangelo's fresco of the Fourth Evangelist in the Sixtine Chapel the eagle stands with bent head and folded wings close against the figure of the saint who, seated upon the ground, is writing in the scroll supported by his knee. Fontana, or the sculptor who carved for him the figure on the top of the mostra of this fountain, was undoubtedly inspired by Michelangelo's creation. The St. John of the fountain was, according to the old engravings, a beauf ul and youthful figure looking to Heaven for inspiration and writing in the scroll held upon his knee. The eagle was wanting, but Fontana placed him just below the cornice between the curving tails of the dolphins, and adapted him to the purposes of a fountain. The design was original and extremely interesting, as it shows both Sixtus V and Fontana in a new and unusual light They were dominated by the place. The great new Lateran Palace which they had built, the ancient obelisk which they had set up, the fountain which supplied the invaluable Acqua Felice, were all subservient to the venerable basilica of St. John. The piazza and all that it contained were dedicated to St. John, and had been so for seven hundred years. Pope and architect may have felt that in this fountain the insignia of any pontiff were more fittingly kept in a purely subordinate position.
The mostra of the did fountain rested, as the present one does, on the base of the obelisk; and the fine Piranesi engraving of the Piazza of the Lateran shows its position and proportions as well as the admirable balance which it gives to the entire scene.
This obelisk is still the highest in the world, although the lower end was so badly broken and damaged (by fire) that Fontana had to shorten it by three feet. It was also broken in three pieces, and Fontana's device for mending it, which so pleased the Pope, can be traced in various places among the hieroglyphics. When the obelisk was at last erected, Fontana carved his name with his title of knight in Latin on the base, and the three mounts and the star of Sixtus V were fastened to the apex. Above everything was placed the huge bronze cross, for Sixtus V considered the obelisk to be the supreme sinybol of divinity in a great Pagan theology; and by placing the cross on all those which he re-erected, the Pope felt that he was exhibiting in the most picturesque and conspicuous manner the triumph of Christianity.
This obelisk, which is of red granite, was found hy accident lying prone and buried in the marshy ground of the Circus Maximus. Near by was another, the one which now stands in the Piazza del Popolo. Fontana employed five hundred men in raising and removing the obelisk of the Lateran. Of these men, three hundred were employed day and night keeping out the water which poured in on all sides. This stream is now thought to have been the brook Crabra, the "goat brook" of Tusculum, described by Frontinus,which, in the general decay of mediaeval times, had become one of the "lost waters" of Rome. The difficulties encountered in transporting the obelisk up the rough sides and through the old streets of the Quirinal Hill were numerous. The obelisk of the Piazza del Popolo was removed from the same place and set up on its present site for the sum of ten thousand three hundred and thirty-one scudi; whereas this obelisk of the Lateran cost the papal treasury twenty-four thousand six hundred and eleven scudi.
It was originally brought to Rome in the early days of the Christian era. Twenty-seven years after Constantine had transferred the seat of government to his own new capital of Byzantium, his successor, Constantine II, visited Rome. He visited Rome like any foreign prince and was profoundly impressed by the magnificence and majesty of his discarded capital. A not unnatural instinct prompted him to leave some memorial of himself among the monuments and trophies of his heroic predecessors ; and for this purpose he sent for the obelisk which Thotmes III had originally placed before the great temple of Thebes. It was brought to Rome and placed in the Circus Maxim us. Its subsecpient history and the causes of the fall of this last of the imperial obelisks are still lost in the mystery which hangs over so much of mediaeval Rome.[1] The original pedestal had been too damaged by fire to admit of using it again; so Sixtus V gave permission to Domenico Fontana to make the new pedestal out of the materials of an old arch which Domenico was to destroy for this purpose. The permission was given in writing, for Domenico Fontana had found that it was necessary to be aimed with written instructions from the Pope whenever he began one of his devastating raids upon the antiquities of the city. The city government had endured such pillage and destruction at the hands of the great Pope's great architect that all the past vandalism of private individuals seemed slight in comparison. They protested in vain against most of the destruction upon which Shrtus V had set his heart, and neither princes nor magistrates could save the old pontifical residence of the Lateran which had stood since the seventh century on this very piazza. It was a marvellous rambling pile of buildings churches, monasteries, shrines, loggias, colonnades, oratories, banqueting rooms and halls filled with mosaics, pictures, and frescoes and, according to a great authority, the most wonderful museum of mediaeval art that ever existed. This priceless record of the past was ruthlessly demolished and razed to the ground in a few months' time by order of Pope Sixtus V. It is difficult to understand his motives for this particular action, since it was not the history of Paganism but of his own predecessors that he was destroying. The populace never forgot, or forgave him this destruction, involving as it did the loss of the Oratory of the Holy Cross. An exquisite example of early Christian architecture, built in the shape of a Greek cross, this oratory was held in peculiar veneration by all classes; and the Roman people might not unnaturally conclude that the wanton destruction of anything at once so beautiful and so sacred as this oratory could only be ascribed to the promptings of the devil himself. Posterity can hardly accept Pope Sixtus V's fountain, even with its obelisk, as an adequate substitute for the three fountains of rare marble in the atrium of this oratory which perished by order of the Pope.
The Church of St. John Lateran was under the protection of the Kings of France, as the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore was under the protection of the Kings of Spain, St. Peter's under that of the Emperor of Austria, and St. Paul's Beyond the Walls under the protection of the English sovereign. In the pontificate of Clement VIII, when the papacy began to turn toward France in its foreign policy, the work of embellishing the Lateran cost Rome and indeed large portions of the surrounding country untold treasures in costly marbles and gilt bronzes. The first were sawed into slabs for the transept of the Church; and the Altar of the Sacrament owes its magnificence to the many hundred bronzes which, together with portions of the bronze beams of the Pantheon, went to the smelting furnaces. In Sixtus V's time, however, the old church was still comparatively simple; and it was in this old Church of the Lateran, probably during his pontificate, that Stradefla's prayer ( u Pity, oh, Saviour!") was sung, while hired assassins waited in the outside darkness to take the composer's life. As the service was long, the bravos stepped inside the church to enjoy the music before committing the murder. There, in the wavering light of the altar candles and under the subtle influence of the incense, they became so impressed by the pathetic beauty of that marvellous Aria di Chiesa that they felt it impossible to put out of existence the man who could write such music; and in the darkness and silence that followed the close of the divine melody they themselves warned Stradella of the plot against his life and abetted his escape.
Of late years this legend has been discredited; but in such a case as this it is well to remember the attitude taken by the writer of "The Renaissance in Italy/' "I would rather accept/ 9 says Symonds, "sixteenthcentury tradition with Vasari than reject it with German or English speculators of to-day. I regard the present tendency to mistrust tradition, only because it is tradition, as in the highest sense uncritical."
Over the door of the Vatican Library is a fresco map of Sixtine Rome, It portrays not what Sixtus V actually left, but what he at one time intended to leave. In this fresco a great thoroughfare runs from the Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza Laterano, and at each end of the magnificent vista stands an obelisk erected by the Pope. Such a street laid out to-day would lead along the Via Babuino, the Piazza di Spagna and the Via Due Macelli, and, passing through the tunnel, come out on the Via Merulana, and reach the Piazza Laterano after traversing the eastern slope of the Esquiline and the new streets between it and the basilica. Sixtus V abandoned the idea as the great thoroughfare would have cut its way directly through the precincts of the Quirinal, and he had determined to make that spot his own abode, not only because he loved it but because he recognized the sovereign quality of the situation of Monte CavaHo in the Rome which he was reconstructing.
The Fontana fountain of the Lateran is not included by Baglioni in his list of Fontana's works; but that list which is embodied in his account of Fontana's life is manifestly incomplete. The fountain was engraved in full detail as early as 1618 by Maggi; and later engravings were made of it by Cruyl, Millotte, and Falda. These designs were so comprehensive that it would have been an extremely simple matter to entirely reconstruct the old fountain, more especially as the mostra and old basins were still in place, and there could have been no difficulty in ascertaining the proportions. Had this been done, the pictorial effect and, above all, the historical interest of the Piazza of St. John Lateran would have been greatly enhanced. The old fountain disappeared in the general submersion of papal Rome. Its modern substitute is a mere paraphrase, and the eagle seems intentionally to represent the eagle of imperial Rome rather than the emblem of St. John.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ The fate of the Roman obelisks presents one of the most baffling and fascinating problems of archaeology. As no satisfactory explanation of their overthrow and mutilation has ever been given, possibly the theory that they were destroyed by the Romans of the Dark Ages, in search of bronze, is as good a working hypothesis as any other. The idea that they were wrecked by barbarians, and the assumption that they were thrown down by earthquakes are equally untenable. Much curious evidence goes to show that some of the principal obeliskswere standing in the sixth and seventh centuries. One stood erect on its pedestal in Charlemagne's time, while the fall of another can be placed as late as the tenth or eleventh century. Three of the principal obelisks show holes drilled in the shaft for the insertion of levers or crowbars, and have unmistakable marks of fire about the pedestal. Now, the Romans generally re-erected the obelisk, not directly upon its pedestal, but upon bronze crabs (as in the obelisk of the Vatican) or upon brass "dice" (as in the larger of the two obelisks in Constantinople). The Egyptians sheathed the pyramidion of the obelisk with " bright metal " to reflect the rays of the sun, and the Romans crowned the apex, sometimes if not always, with metal ornaments, like the ball upon the Vatican obelisk, which, until it was removed by Sixtus V, was supposed to contain the ashes of Julius Caesar. The obelisk now in Central Park had been re-erected by the Ramans at Alexandria, in this fashion, and one of the bronze crabs was brought to New York with the obelisk, and is now in the Metropolitan Museum. These bronze supports were firmly attached to the obelisk by heavy bronze dowels, one dowel running upward into each corner of the shaft, the other going down into each coiner of the pedestal. Between the shaft and the pedestal there was therefore a space, perhaps some four inches in height, through which light was visible. This was seen in the Vatican obelisk, which was still in situ when Fontana drew his plans for changing its location, and in the Central Park obelisk, as described by an eye-witness of its removal. Three historians of Rome's destruction Fea, Dyer, and Gibboir describe the almost incredible ingenuity, labor, and patience exerted by the Romans of the Dark Ages in their search for bronze and other metals. Wherever bronze could be obtained, it was stolen, stripped, or melted, on account of its value and the ease with which it could be transported. During the same historic period, all pagan monuments were deprived of whatever protection they had had as objects of religious veneration. The obelisks standing in spacious and lonely surroundings would have proved an easy prey to bands of clandestine or open marauders. The Roman method of blasting consisted in building a fire against the rock and pouring vinegar, or even water, upon the red-hot stone which then disintegrated. It would have been an easy matter to kindle great fires at every corner of the pedestal which, by the time this kind of destruction became popular, had already lost much of their original height through the gradual rise of the ground level. This method of blasting by fire would account for the all but universal gnawing away, or rough rounding off of the lower corners of the shaft, in which the bronze dowels were so firmly embedded. After the disintegration of the granite the partially melted bronze could be extracted from both shaft and pedestal, but not before the shaft had been thrown over, and this was evidently helped along by the use of levers. When the shaft was prone, it became possible to remove any bronze which had been attached to its summit. With perhaps only one exception, the fallen shafts were always found broken in three pieces, but there seems to be no record of any bronze found in Rome, near the original sites of the obelisks. What bronze there is was on the one Roman obelisk that had not been thrown down (the Vatican obelisk). The original site of this obelisk, in the centre of the old circus of Caligula and Nero, was dose to the old Church of St. Peter, and it was furthermore protected, according to Lantiani, by the chapel at its base, called the Chapel of theCrucifibdon. When, in 1586, Fontana removed this obelisk to its present position in the centre of the modern Piazza of modern St. Peter's, he re-erected it upon its original classic Roman crabs, hiding them by the purely decorative Sixtme lions of Prospero Bresciano, as they had been hidden in earlier times by the bronze lions mentioned by Plutarch, and gone since the sack of Rome in 1527. The obelisk in Constantinople, referred to above, is still standing on its four brass "dice."