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On them magnificently indifferent, the broken sepulchres, the abandoned arches invaded by grass, the vestiges of a gigantic civilization, did not produce the least impression. The coachman pointed out Frascati on the slope of a mountain, Albano, Grotta Ferrata, and Tivoli.
Several valuable accessions were made to it after this date, including the library of the Elector Palatine of Germany, the library of the Dukes of Urbino, the libraries of Christina, Queen of Sweden, of the Ottoboni, commenced by Pope Alexander VIII., and of the Marquis Capponi, and the MSS. taken from the convent of S. Basilio at Grotta Ferrata.
As Murray strongly recommends you to visit this spectacle, at which you are promised a brilliant exhibition of all the costumes of modern Latium, I took an early train to Frascati and measured, in company with a prodigious stream of humble pedestrians, the half-hour's interval to Grotta Ferrata, where the fair is held.
Parisians receive with enthusiasm the news communicated by M. Iswolski, the Russian Ambassador, announcing that three of the five army corps which Germany has in East Prussia have been defeated by the army of General Rennekampf, near Gumbinnen. I drove to-day with the Duke de Loubat, who is a close friend of Cardinal Ferrata, now spoken of as foremost favorite among the Papabili Cardinals.
Had I been in Rome it is more than probable I should have been of their party, for I had never visited Grotto Ferrata, and the company of those with whom I had associated would have induced me to join them without a doubt."
Ireland's lodgings, an English lady who is here with her two daughters, accomplished and highly agreeable people. I was told by them that after I left Rome a most diabolical attempt was made to poison the English artists who had made a party to Grotto Ferrata. They were mistaken by the persons who attempted the deed for Germans.
Monseigneur Ferrata enjoys great popularity not only at Rome but abroad, and is a warm friend of the United States. He has also a keen sense of humor. Not long ago a distinguished member of the French parliament lunched with Monseigneur Ferrata and remarked: "How is it that the Church requires such a long lapse of time before pronouncing a decree of nullity of marriage?"
The celebrated sculptor Bernini, when re-erecting it at the command of Pope Alexander VII. in 1660, had the exceedingly bad taste to balance it on the back of a marble elephant, the work of his pupil Ferrata; on account of which absurd incongruity Bernini received from the satirical Roman populace the nickname of "The Elephant."
I got into an old, local omnibus, pulled by three horses, to drive the two miles to Grotta Ferrata, where the fair was. But the vehicle was hardly about to start up-hill when, with rare unanimity, the horses reared, behaved like mad, and whirled it round four or five times.
After a vain visit to Grotta Ferrata, which was signally disappointing, in spite of the traces of a recent country fair and the historical merits of a church of the Greek rite, with a black-bearded monk coming to show it through a gardened cloister, we were glad to take the tram back to Rome and to get into the snug inside of it.
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