Chapter I: Fontana Pubblica DI Giulio III

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,

* * * * *

So twice five miles of fertile ground with walls and towers were
girdled round.
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, where blossomed
many an incense-bearing tree,

* * * * *

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice....”

The 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 high-handed 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 work 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 III PONT. MAX. PUBLICÆ
COMMODITATI ANNO III

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 this is described in a letter written by the architect himself, Amannati, from Rome in 1555, 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 Ligorio, 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 various half-obliterated escutcheons and inscriptions which now ornament the fountain and its superstructural 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 Vitelleschi. 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,[B] 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 Borroraeo’s connection with the Colonna family or because of the great veneration felt by everyone for the memory of the 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 1750 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 for use in their Roman palace as a recompense to them for their gift to the public of the Trevi Water in this old fountain.[C]

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 fifty 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 Piranesi.