Journey to Italy 9781487533052

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JOURNEY TO ITALY

THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY General Editors Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, University of California at Los Angeles Associate Editor Gianluca Rizzo, Colby College Honorary Chairs Ambassador Gianfranco Facco Bonetti Dr Berardo Paradiso Honorable Anthony J. Scirica Advisory Board Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Francesco Bruni, Università di Venezia Franca D’Agostini, Università di Milano Giorgio Ficara, Università di Torino Hermann Haller, City University of New York Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University Nicoletta Pireddu, Georgetown University Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Università di Venezia Margaret Rosenthal, University of Southern California John Scott, University of Western Australia Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago Agincourt Ltd. Board of Trustees Stefano Albertini Luigi Ballerini Giuseppe Brusa Vivian Cardia Maria Teresa Cometto Lorenzo Mannelli Eugenio Nardelli Berardo Paradiso Nicola Tegoni Anthony Julian Tamburri

THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY

JOURNEY to ITALY

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade Translated, introduced, and annotated by James A. Steintrager

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2020 Toronto  Buffalo  London utorontopress.com Printed in the U.S.A.

ISBN  978-1-4875-0597-4 (cloth)   ISBN  978-1-4875-3306-9 (EPUB) ISBN  978-1-4875-3305-2 (PDF) The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Journey to Italy / Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade ; translated, introduced, and annotated by James A. Steintrager. Other titles: Voyage d’Italie. English Names: Sade, Marquis de, 1740–1814, author. | Steintrager, James A., writer of added commentary, translator. Series: Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian library. Description: Series statement: The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian library | Translation of: Voyage d’Italie. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190232595 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190232676 | ISBN 9781487505974 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781487533069 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781487533052 (PDF) Subjects: LCSH: Sade, Marquis de, 1740–1814 – Travel – Italy. | LCSH: Italy – Social life and customs – 18th century. | LCSH: Italy – Description and travel – Early works to 1800. | LCSH: Authors, French – 18th century – Biography. | LCSH: Authors, French – Travel – Italy. Classification: LCC PQ2063.S3 A78513 2020 | DDC 848/.603 – dc23

This volume is published under the aegis of Agincourt Press Ltd. and with the financial assistance of Dr. Lorenzo Mannelli, Dr. Berardo Paradiso, and Casa Italiana Zerilli - Marimó of New York University.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement du Canada of Canada

Oh, God! I said to myself, breathing in air at once purer and freer. Here I am in that part of Europe that is so interesting and so sought out by curious minds. Here I am in the country of Messalinas and Neros. Tramping on the same soil as these models of crime and debauchery, perhaps I shall be able to imitate simultaneously the infamies of Agrippina’s incestuous son and the lubricious acts of Claudius’s adulterous wife! – Marquis de Sade, L’Histoire de Juliette (1797) Nature, more bizarre than moralists paint her for us, at every moment escapes the dikes that the policies of the former would like to impose on her; uniform in her plans, irregular in her effects, her bosom, ever restless, resembles the hearth of a volcano from which are thrown up in turn either precious stones that serve men’s luxury or flaming spheres that annihilate them; great when she peoples the earth with the likes of Antoninus and Titus; dreadful when she vomits forth the likes of Andronicus and Nero; but always sublime, always majestic, always worthy of our study, of our brushes, and of our respectful admiration, because her plans are unknown to us, because slaves to her caprices and to her needs, it is never upon that which she makes us experience that we ought to settle our feelings for her, but upon her grandeur and upon her energy, whatever the results thereof may be. – Marquis de Sade, “Idée sur les romans” (1800)

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Contents

List of Illustrations  ix Acknowledgments  xi Introduction: A Guide to Sade’s Grand Tour of Italy and the Road to Infamy   Notes on the Text and Translation  cv JOURNEY TO ITALY I Florence and the Start of the Journey from La Coste  3 II Rome  49 III [Environs of Rome:] Journey to Frascati, Grottaferrata, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, Albano, and Ariccia  164 IV Naples  187 V Environs of Naples  260 VI Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome  324 DOSSIERS AND CORRESPONDENCE Dossier I      General Material  381 Dossier II    Florence  429 Dossier III  Rome  484 Correspondence  582 Bibliography  651 Name Index 

675

Subject Index  703 Colour plates follow page 276

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Illustrations

Figures 0.1 Satirical print on Chaupy’s Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace  xxiii 0.2 Etruscan figurines in Doctor Mesny’s cabinet of curiosities  xl 0.3 Grotta del Cane and Lago di Agnano  xlii 0.4 Grotta del Cane  xlii 0.5 Temple at Paestum  lxi 0.6 Winged priapic amulet  lxv 0.7 Empress Messalina working in a brothel  lxxx 0.8 Juliette and Clairwil sacrificing Olympe to the volcano  lxxxv 1.1 Map of Florence  17 1.2 The Farnese Hermaphrodite  32 2.1 Saint Peter’s Basilica  55 2.2 View of the Capitoline Hill, Rome  67 2.3 Engraving of church martyrs  120 4.1 Cockaigne of Naples  191 4.2 Cockaigne of Naples (vignette)  192 5.1 Crypta Neapolitana  262 5.2 Engraving of a spintrian medal  317 Colour Plates (following page 276) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Education of Achilles by Chiron Clemente Susini, anatomical model of a pregnant woman Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Eruption of Vesuvius Guido Reni, Magdalene Stefano Maderno, Martyrdom of Santa Cecilia Jean-Baptiste Tierce, Les ruines de Paestum Group of Pan and goat Gaetano Giulio Zumbo, Corruption of Bodies

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Acknowledgments

Without the initial impetus and ongoing support of Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella this translation would not have seen the light of day. Little did they know that the time spent on it would rival the time its author spent in locked up prison. The conviviality and insights of my fellow translators of Sade, Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn, have been a source of both enjoyment and intellectual sustenance. Tanya Riedel’s close reading and encouragement have been invaluable. Mark Thompson and Janice Evans at the University of Toronto Press provided help and guidance en route, and the astute, sympathetic, learned, not to say inspiring editing of Mirdza Kate Baltais smoothed many a rut.

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Introduction: A Guide to Sade’s Grand Tour of Italy and the Road to Infamy

In the summer of 1775, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), having just turned thirty-five, set off for Italy. It could not be said that, at the time of this trip, Sade’s reputation was one of a wholesome paragon of aristocratic virtue, though he had not yet set his quill to those depictions of obscene excess and bloody debauchery that were to make his name a byword for pleasure in malice. Instead, our marquis was imagining for himself a legitimate career as a man of letters. This was a dream Sade nourished early on and never fully relinquished, as witnessed, above all, by his numerous theatrical pieces – comedies, tragedies, and the mixed form that went simply by the name drame – penned starting around 1770 and through his final years. Most of these works went unperformed, except for Sade’s three-act drama Le Comte Oxtiern, ou Les Dangers du libertinage (Count Oxtiern, or the dangers of libertinism), which did enjoy limited success in 1791 at the Théâtre de Molière.1 Stage pretensions aside, Sade determined, pretty much from the start of his trip to Italy, to pursue his literary aspirations by producing a guidebook for others travelling to that country, whether actually or virtually via the printed word, and he put an astonishing amount of effort into this endeavour. It did not, however, make it to the presses in his lifetime. Sade’s Italian project appeared in print only more than a hundred and fifty years after his death, with the 1967 publication of his Voyage d’Italie, edited by Gilbert Lely and Georges Daumas. A second, more comprehensive transcription, edited by Maurice Lever, was published in 1995.2 Journey to Italy is the first-ever appearance in English of Sade’s entire Italian project. This work is a fascinating window on attitudes to travel, tourism, science, art (especially painting and architecture), culture, politics, religion, sex, and just about anything else in late eighteenth-century Europe. Emphatically, Sade’s Journey to Italy is essential to understanding the author’s path to his lasting notoriety. A major landmark on that route is often dated to 1785, or some ten years after the Italian trip, when Sade penned the first and truly shocking work of his clandestine oeuvre: Les 120 journées de Sodome (The 120 Days of Sodom). He wrote this while in his cell in the Bastille, that famous prison where the French kings incarcerated personages accused of various, sometimes egregious and sometimes apparently innocuous offences.3 Sade would lose track of this manuscript when, to keep him from stirring up trouble, he was abruptly transferred to the mental asylum at Charenton. A few days later, on the afternoon of 14 July

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1789, a crowd of Parisians famously stormed the Bastille, thus marking the beginning of the French Revolution. Written on a makeshift scroll in a miniscule hand, the manuscript somehow survived, though Sade would die unaware of its fate. Like Sade’s Italian project, this tale, in which four repugnant libertines orchestrate and enact a panoply of passions – classed as simple, complex, criminal, and murderous – would not be published until the twentieth century. In the twenty-first, this scroll on which Sade penned Les 120 journées de Sodome would be declared an unlikely “national treasure.”4 Explicit, repeated descriptions of rape and coprophagy do not usually qualify as content for such an honour. While in the Bastille, in 1787, Sade also drafted the manuscript for Les Infortunes de la vertu (The Misfortunes of Virtue),5 the story of a young woman, orphaned and forced on a picaresque voyage during which she is betrayed and brutalized at every turn. It was the kernel of Sade’s first libertine novel that would see publication (anonymously, of course) and one that immediately gained a scandalous reputation: Justine, ou les Malheurs de la vertu (Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue).6 This was in 1791, not long after now citizen Sade was released from more than a decade of incarceration. He had been held at the behest of the présidente de Montreuil – Sade’s mother-in-law – by a lettre de cachet, a device by which the monarch could order detention without trial. If French revolutionaries often had little patience for ci-devant aristocrats, they had less love still for this despised abuse by the Ancien Régime. In his days of freedom, Sade expanded his narrative once again, including episodes in Italy, in his unimaginatively titled La Nouvelle Justine (The new Justine). In a sequel, L’Histoire de Juliette, ou les Prosperités du vice (The story of Juliette, or the boons of vice) (1797–1801), the perpetual victim’s lubricious, wicked sister flourishes while cutting a swath of destruction across Europe.7 A substantial portion of this sequel, too, takes place in Italy, with the eponymous heroine largely following the route that Sade had taken over twenty years before. That his trip to Italy and the writing project associated with it were somehow formative for Sade and his clandestine literary career would seem to be beyond doubt. Exactly how is less obvious, though this introduction should go some way in providing a detailed answer. On the face of it, there was nothing unusual about Sade’s Italian journey, which lasted from July of 1775 into the following June, or nearly a year. Sade was a relatively young man at the time, from a titled, well-established, and respectable Provençal family.8 Making such a trip would have been almost expected of him. The so-called grand tour developed in the seventeenth century as a rite of passage for aristocratic men. It was, to be sure, an expensive and time-consuming operation, undertaken by coach and usually with an entourage including a tutor and valets, at a minimum.9 The average rate of progress, leaving some time for sightseeing, was about ten leagues, or thirty miles in a day, slower in mountainous regions and depending on the weather.10 Costs included not only lodging and meals but also frequent tolls and customs. Brigandage could be a problem in some areas. In addition to money and caution, to come off smoothly the grand tour required letters of recommendation. These would open the doors of private houses, help provide access to luminaries, and ease entry into foreign upper-class society. Travel was intended to cultivate a gentleman’s taste in the fine arts, instil a deeper appreciation of history, enable encounters with eminent minds, and develop a cosmopolitan spirit. The grand tour was a British practice at the outset, but it did not take long for the French aristocracy to follow suit. Further, while the tour was originally broadly Continental, the focus of grand tourists soon became Italy. Not a nation in political terms but rather a congeries of states at this point, Italy was nonetheless deemed a cultural whole. Italy was the very heart of what was understood to be

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the restoration in Europe of the arts and knowledge more broadly after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and the definitive end of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-fifteenth century. In Italy remnants of Antiquity could be found in profusion: mementos of republican virtue, monuments of Imperial glory, and ruins that silently, solemnly announced the inevitability of decline and decay. There were operas, too, along with gaming, masked balls, and intrigues. Not all grand tourists fulfilled in practice the lofty goals that motivated their travel in theory: binge drinking, vandalism, and sex tourism are hardly recent inventions. The Marquis de Sade’s comportment en route was not impeccable, but it was also fairly typical. His curiosity and engagement appear to have been sincere, notwithstanding his frequent scepticism about perceived Italian zealotry. Like many before and after him, Sade found in Italy ample evidence of praiseworthy achievements as well as historical episodes and contemporary customs ripe for cynical asides and supercilious ridicule. Unlike others, Sade could also claim an unusual family connection to the region: Laura de Noves (1310–1348), the muse of Francesco Petrarch’s Canzoniere, was the wife of his ancestor Hugues de Sade. This, at least according to the case made by Donatien’s uncle and childhood instructor, Jacques-François Paul Aldonse de Sade, and not without evidence and logic, in his three-volume biography of the poet entitled Mémoires pour la vie de François Pétrarque (Memoirs on the life of Francesco Petrarch) of 1764. Who Laura really was – or whether she was simply an ideal to which the poet had put a name – is altogether another matter.11 Sade’s uncle, in any case, was a high-ranking cleric of Epicurean bent, and whether he cultivated his nephew’s nascent libertinism has long been a matter of speculation. He would certainly have taught his charge the importance of this family connection to the peninsula. Yet we must bear in mind that neither Sade’s purported link to the most celebrated woman in Italian literary history, barring Dante’s Beatrice, nor even a broader interest in Italian art, history, and culture were the immediate motivations of Sade’s journey: simply put, the Marquis de Sade was on the run. By the summer of 1775, Sade was no stranger to legal proceedings and a policing apparatus increasingly interested in cases of aristocratic malfeasance that previously would have elicited a shrug. In his twenties, the marquis had drawn the attention of the authorities through, among other things, violent behaviour directed at prostitutes. The first significant incident came more than a decade earlier (in 1763), when Sade engaged Jeanne Testard, a fan maker and occasional prostitute, for a session of blasphemous readings and activities. The latter included Sade masturbating on a figure of Christ. Testard apparently refused to whip or be whipped, turned down an enema, would not trample a crucifix, and rejected Sade’s sodomitical advances. She also immediately went to Antoine de Sartine, lieutenant general of the Paris police from 1759 to 1774, and reported her experience. The case that followed introduced Sade to a certain Inspector Louis Marais, in charge of the Paris vice squad and taxed with keeping tabs on wayward nobles. It also led to Sade’s first short stint (several days) in prison. Thanks to his family connections, reports of the case were muted and his punishment mitigated. Such was not to be five years later, when the next scandal erupted. On 3 April 1768, Sade secured the services of a woman named Rose Keller. The exact terms of her employment remain unclear, though the young man’s general intent is easy enough to divine. Keller was Alsatian, thirty-six years old, recently widowed, and of humble means at the best of times. That Easter Sunday when Sade encountered her in Paris, she was begging, soliciting, or perhaps both. He took Keller to the suburb of Arcueil, where he kept a petite maison. Literally, a “small house,” these were common among aristocratic men. They were used for entertainment and enabled concealment. We will never know

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precisely what happened in that petite maison in Arcueil, but the likeliest scenario is that Sade restrained Keller and whipped her until she bled. She claimed more insidious treatment still, involving deliberate incisions and hot wax dripped on her wounds. Sade claimed he applied an unguent. Keller managed to escape and alert the authorities. An already lurid affair grew in the retelling, with Sade eventually portrayed as attempting human vivisection out of inhuman curiosity.12 This was surely nonsense. Be that as it may, Sade did discover that paying off his victim and aristocratic privilege were now insufficient guarantees of freedom. He was to spend several months imprisoned in the Château de Pierre Encise, a fortress near Lyon. The subsequent major scandal was in 1772 and more sordid still. In Marseilles, on the morning of 27 June, Sade engaged four prostitutes.13 According to testimony from the eventual legal case against him, the women were first encouraged to consume some anise candies. These likely contained Spanish fly or cantharides, derived from blister beetles. Of long repute as an aphrodisiac for men, cantharides stimulates the urethra when excreted. It is also dangerously toxic. Latour, Sade’s valet, provided the women with the rather odd explanation that these confections would produce flatulence and that his master would “take the wind in his mouth.”14 Only one of the prostitutes, a Marianne Laverne, consumed the candies. She quickly became ill, although not before whipping the willing Sade on the backside with both a parchment scroll studded with nails and a heather broom. She rejected the proposal, accompanied by monetary incentive, that either he or Latour sodomize her. With Marianne indisposed, Sade turned his attentions to Mariette Borelly. He thrashed her with the broom, and she returned the treatment. He then engaged in intercourse with her while masturbating his valet, who subsequently sodomized him. After this episode, Sade moved on to Rose Coste. The broom was put to work again, while master and servant engaged in manual stimulation. Rose refused a louis d’or to allow either man to sodomize her. Next came Marianne Laugier, known as Mariannette. When the marquis announced his intention to lash her, she noticed the bloodied parchment with nails. She tried to flee but was detained. The other Marianne was then brought into the room. Both women were again offered the pastilles. Laverne, suffering from her initial ingestion, demurred. Marianette initially capitulated, but she spat the candies out immediately. Sade whipped both women with the heather broom. He threw Laverne on the bed, exposed her buttocks, and placed his nose to her rear. The other woman was ordered to approach and to observe. Finally, Sade lay on Laverne’s backside, perhaps sodomizing her, while Latour sodomized him. These were approximately the morning’s activities. Later that evening, Sade engaged another prostitute. Her name was Marguerite Coste. He fed her several of the pastilles, performed anilingus on her, ordered her to break wind in his mouth, and proposed to take her from behind and in a variety of other ways. She consented only to treatment in accordance with “natural laws.”15 She also became seriously ill and was treated for poisoning. It was Marguerite Coste who would set in motion the minions of the law, thus bringing to light the business of that entire June day. Sade fled Marseilles for La Coste, his chateau in the nearby Ventoux. It soon became clear that he was no longer safe in France. He escaped to Italy, travelling as the Count of Mazan, one of his hereditary titles. After a police investigation, Sade was tried in absentia and convicted of poisoning and sodomy. The sentence handed down by the High Court of Provence, on 11 September 1772, was that Sade and his accommodating valet would first make an amende honorable or public act of contrition before the Cathedral of SainteMarie-Majeure in Marseilles: begging pardon of “God, the King, and justice” on their

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knees, wearing nothing but long shirts, barefoot and bare-headed, yellow-wax torches in each hand, and led by the executioner with a rope around their necks. The marquis was condemned to be beheaded; Latour to be hanged and strangled. The two would then both be burned, a traditional punishment recalling the fiery destruction of Sodom, and their ashes “thrown to the wind.”16 Bathetically, both men were also fined. In the end, the executions took place in effigy in a public square in Aix. It seems that the biggest miscalculation that Sade made was less what transpired in Marseilles  – as an aristocrat he was an unlikely candidate for actual execution even given the more stringent policing  – but rather, further alienating his in-laws, who were growing understandably tired of having their reputation besmirched. His choice of travelling companions for the impromptu Italian holiday only made matters worse, for he took with him his sister-in-law Anne-Prospère de Launay, a canoness at the time.17 Although Sade’s wife, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, seems to have eventually forgiven him this and various other transgressions, he had, unsurprisingly, managed to gain the unwavering enmity of his mother-in-law. The details of Sade’s movements at this point in Italy are not entirely clear, although he would later refer in his correspondence to his journey to Venice in the company of Mademoiselle Launay. At some point, the pair split up, apparently not amicably. The sister-in-law returned to La Coste. Sade took a boat from Genoa to Marseilles, where he collected some cash, moved on to Turin, and then to Chambéry, capital of the Duchy of Savoy, at the time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. He had settled close to the city, but having unwisely revealed to his mother-in-law his whereabouts, he was ambushed by order of the king, whom Madame de Montreuil had urged to action. He was imprisoned in the nearby Fortress of Miolans, managed to escape, and spent the next several years as a fugitive. For much of this time, our marquis was not in hiding but enjoying the comforts of La Coste, his chateau. Occasionally, he did have to take evasive action. This included a second trip to Italy, begun in March of 1774, cut short when he thought himself recognized by the French consul in Florence.18 He was back in France by June. Finally, it was Sade’s insistence on holding orgies at La Coste involving jeunes filles or “young girls” from the vicinity that reignited the interest of the authorities and precipitated Sade’s third, and final flight to Italy, in 1775. Again, he adopted his semi-incognito title, but now the Count of Mazan was accompanied not by a comely in-law but only by a valet named Carteron, known as La Jeunesse, and by Louis Charvin, the postmaster of Courthézon in the Vaucluse. Moreover, he now formulated his plan to write a book based on his tour. Sade would continue to work on this project after he had returned to France and was apprehended once again, in 1777, and locked up in the Château de Vincennes, a prison in the Parisian suburbs. He briefly escaped in 1784, was reapprehended, and then placed in the Bastille. There he would stay until the French Revolution temporarily secured his liberty. In late 1793, Sade was incarcerated as a moderate, but released a year later. In 1801, however, Napoleon ordered him detained once more, ostensibly for his libertine writings. Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, would remain a prisoner until his death in 1814. At the time of Sade’s final journey to Italy, he was clearly a libertine in lifestyle. He was committed to sexual licence and considered morality to be, at best, polite convention. We should perhaps bear in mind, however, that Sade’s views and much of his behaviour did not set him apart from fellow aristocratic debauchees and adherents of studied hedonism in his day. Erotic flagellation was a standard part of the libertine repertoire. The titillating effects of the whip had long been remarked, and they featured in seventeenth-century obscene writings such as Aloisiae Sigaeae, Toletanae, Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris

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(Luisa Sigea of Toledo’s sotadical satire on the secrets of love and venery) (1660) by Nicolas Chorier (1612–1692) and (at times loosely) translated into French as L’Académie des dames (The ladies’ academy; 1680), as well as the pseudonymous abbé du Prat’s Vénus dans le cloître (1683) (Venus in the Cloister).19 An early English translation of the latter explains the contrary effect of punishing a certain nun: “She found by Experience, that these Whippings and Flagellations of her Posteriors, rather augmented than diminished her Fire; a rather silly and ineffectual Remedy then against Concupiscence.”20 That the person doing the whipping might also experience a certain frisson in inflicting pain was not lost on these writers either. Flagellation was common in the sex trade, and brothels were well stocked with implements meant to kindle languishing libidos.21 Sade does appear to have pushed the purported pleasures of giving and receiving the whip or similar instrument into dangerous territory. Acts of violence committed against prostitutes were, however, frequent. Finally, while the pleasures of sodomy, especially male penetration of women, are frequently praised in the radical reaches of licentious literature, significant penal risks discouraged (albeit by no means entirely curtailed) participation. Nevertheless, Sade’s obsession with things anal in excess of intercourse certainly appears markedly strange. A hallmark of his mature libertine writings, this obsession was evidently already with him at the time of his evening with Jeanne Testard and later the affaire de Marseilles. Still, to label Sade a sadist at the time that he departed for his last and most comprehensive Italian voyage is somewhat misleading, and not merely qua anachronism. We would have to emphasize the psychologically essential aspects of that category to which (in the twentieth century) he eventually lent his name. But in its original instance sadism, if you will, is not only or not simply a psychological profile and accompanying set of practices. Taking a socio-historical perspective, in eighteenth-century France libertinism was a lifestyle that one could – and Sade most certainly did – choose to follow. By his day, libertinism was informed by philosophical materialism and atheism. Finally, it was also an established genre of satirical and erotic writing. Sade married lifestyle, philosophy, and literary genre to his idiosyncratic personality and to his experiences, and we might say that sadism in its historical particularity names Sade’s libertine writings, encompassing the works penned in the Bastille and afterwards. To reach that point, however, we must pass through Italy, all the while being mindful of why Sade was there in the first place, what he encountered, and what he was reading both during and after his trip, as he continued to work on his Italian manuscript. This manuscript drew extensively on myriad literary, historical, and experiential influences, and it was these that Sade would eventually weaponize in forging a libertine oeuvre at once both sui generis and traceable in its components. Those components are by and large present in the Journey to Italy: they are to be found in the portions of the work that Sade considered more or less complete and also in his various plans and sketches that were never finished or integrated into a work that, with apparent reluctance, Sade eventually abandoned. This is not to suggest some necessity or teleology. On the contrary, to follow Sade’s route through Italy is to witness an accumulation of contingencies that, interacting and conditioned by both internal and external forces, would one day coalesce and congeal. On the Road The Marquis de Sade’s grand tour started with a passage through the Alps at Mongenèvre, into the Piedmont and the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The first city of consequence that he reached but spent little time in was Turin, a city that he would tersely

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characterize in Juliette as “the most regularly laid out and the most boring” in all of Italy.22 The Count of Mazan would likewise hurry through Asti, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, and Bologna on his way to Florence, capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where he arrived in early August 1775, and where he would remain for some two and a half months. Sade’s main contact and guide in Florence would be Barthélemy Mesny, a Frenchman resident in the city, physician to the court, and deeply learned in natural history. As for Sade’s principal misbehaviour during his Italian sojourn, it was seducing one of Mesny’s daughters, Chiara Moldetti. Signora Moldetti was thirty years old, a mother of five, and pregnant at the time of Sade’s visit. She would give birth to a daughter in late December or early January 1776. Sade seems to have charmed the whole family and was even chosen to be the baby’s godfather. He missed the christening, however, and bypassed Florence on his return trip, presumably to avoid a rencontre with the mother. Letters from an increasingly distraught Moldetti, realizing she had been abandoned, as well as from her apparently unsuspecting father, are among the correspondence related to Sade’s Italian journey, gathered in the last chapter of this volume.23 In Florence, Sade would also make the acquaintance of another French compatriot resident in Italy: the well-travelled and prolific hack writer Pierre Ange Goudar (1708–1791).24 Goudar was an erstwhile companion of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (1725–1798), recently resettled in his home town of Venice after many peripatetic years. Like Sade, Casanova drew the attention of the authorities, spent time in prison, in his case for debt and for irreligion, a charge related to his favourite activities. In 1756, he famously escaped from his cell in the Piombi, a prison in the Doge’s Palace in Venice.25 Goudar and Casanova had consorted in London, where the latter had his eyes on a young Irish barwoman named Sarah. In this instance, Casanova failed the seduction thanks to his companion, who had plans of his own for her. Sarah, also found as Sara (dates uncertain), became Goudar’s wife, either legally or in name, and followed him to the Continent for various adventures and misadventures. These included, among others, a precipitous expulsion from Naples in 1774, ostensibly on the grounds of Ange Goudar’s critical assessment in his book Naples: Ce qu’il faut faire pour rendre ce royaume florissant (Naples, what must be done to make this kingdom flourish), published some five years earlier. More likely, however, it was because of Maria Carolina’s jealousy over an affair that her husband, King Ferdinand, was carrying on with Madame Goudar. In any event, the circumstances remain somewhat murky. Neither the monarch nor his spouse were known for their fidelity, and Maria Carolina may, in fact, have feared that Sarah was a conduit for influencing the king politically more than she resented her apparent seduction.26 Sade made Sarah’s acquaintance, too, in Florence, where she  – but in actuality Ange, using her as a cover for his prolixity  – was busy reporting in print on the season’s theatre and other entertainments.27 The two may have had a brief dalliance, and certainly both were experienced in the genre.28 In Florence, Sade would also meet Pierre-François Hugues, self-styled Baron d’Hancarville (1719–1805), another opportunist and an antiquarian with a predilection for the erotic and obscene. D’Hancarville had worked with Sir William Hamilton (1730–1803), the English envoy to the Kingdom of Naples, to catalogue and describe the latter’s horde of vases and other rarities, published in 1766–1767 in four volumes, with English and French on facing pages, as Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton. The antiquities themselves were purchased in 1772 by the British Museum, founded by an act of Parliament in 1753, and the Hamilton acquisition constituted a key part of its early collection.

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Sade left Florence on 21 October 1775 and began the descent to Rome, stopping in Siena, passing through the heart of the Tuscan wine country, and arriving in the capital of the Papal States on the morning of the 27th. Through Doctor Mesny as intermediary, he made the acquaintance in Rome of a young physician named Giuseppe Iberti. Sade called on Iberti not only to guide him around the city but also to undertake for him the role of research assistant of sorts, locating scurrilous writings from Antiquity and other epochs in the Vatican Library. After Sade had left Rome, a letter from Sade to Iberti was intercepted and drew the scrutiny of the Holy Office. Iberti was arrested and incarcerated for almost four months, from September through December of 1776, in the Castel Sant’Angelo (the Mausoleum of Hadrian, converted into a papal fortress and subsequently prison). Sending the young doctor into the grasp of the Inquisition does not seem to have bothered Sade, and he continued to prod Iberti for information from afar, and this correspondence, also to be found in the final chapter of this volume, sketches this situation as well. Sade visited the waterfalls at Tivoli and other sights proximate to Rome, but then shifted his attention further south. He arrived in the capital of the Kingdom of Naples in early January 1776. With the discoveries and initial excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii in the mid-eighteenth century and reports of the majestic, hitherto neglected ruins of Paestum, Campania had become a must-see stop for travellers to Italy.29 The renewed activity of Vesuvius at around the same time further piqued the interest of amateur naturalists and anyone seeking to experience a purportedly sublime landscape. The region overflowed with sights. These included the supposed tomb of Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BCE), better known simply as Virgil in English and Virgile in French; ancient engineering marvels such as the Grotta di Posillipo; and the island of Capri, where the emperor Tiberius (42 BCE–37 CE) is said to have finished his days in splendidly heinous debauchery. These locales together with the realm’s many other attractions would be thoroughly described and sumptuously illustrated in the four volumes of Voyage pittoresque; ou, Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile (Picturesque journey, or description of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily) by the painter and engraver Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non (1727–1791) and published in 1777–1778, shortly after Sade was back home in France. On this part of his Italian travels, Sade’s companion and cicerone was Jean-Baptiste Antoine Tierce (1737–1794), Sade’s senior by less than three years and a landscape painter of minor renown, academically trained in his native Rouen and subsequently Paris. Tierce had lived in Florence, currently resided in Naples, and was Doctor Mesny’s son-in-law. He would provide a handful of illustrations for Saint-Non’s opus, and also numerous sketches and illustrations for what was to have been Sade’s published Italian project. Overwintering in Naples, Sade left that city in May, shipping two chests of antiques and natural curiosities ahead of him to France. With the clear intention of returning home, our marquis began to ascend the peninsula once more, taking in modern and ancient Capua, the Cascata delle Marmore, ancient artificial waterfalls near Terni, and the pilgrimage town of Loreto. Along this entire stretch, the manuscript is increasingly rough and fragmentary. Forging onwards to Rome, Bologna, and Turin, eventually arriving in Grenoble in late June, Sade sent word that he would soon be at La Coste, his chateau.30 He spent the autumn months more or less free and working on his project. Then in early 1777, Sade was lured to Paris to visit his dying mother. By the time he arrived there, on 8 February, she had already passed away. A few days later, Sade was apprehended by Inspector Marais and headed for Vincennes. Both during his Italian journey itself and afterwards, while he continued to work on the manuscript and shape the project, Sade gained insights into his subject matter not only

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through personal contacts and correspondence, but also by consulting extensive printed materials. His main general guidebook was the work by abbé Jérôme Richard (1720?– c. 1800) entitled Description historique et critique de l’Italie, ou Nouveaux Mémoires sur l’état actuel de son gouvernement, des sciences, des arts, du commerce, de la population, & de l’histoire naturelle (Historical and critical description of Italy, or new memoirs on the current state of its government, sciences, arts, commerce, population, and natural history). Verbose book titles of this sort were common in the eighteenth century, and the current instance is relatively terse. Richard’s six-volume opus originally appeared in 1766 and underwent numerous republications, including in 1769, 1770, and 1773, not long before Sade’s departure for his last trip to Italy. We know from page references given in the manuscript that Sade used the first edition, with a Paris and Dijon imprint. Very frequently Sade mentions Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (A Frenchman’s journey in Italy in the years 1765 and 1766) by Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande (1732–1807), with page references confirming that Sade’s was the eight-volume edition published in Yverdon in 1769–1770. Lalande’s travel writing also extended to a voyage to England, although he made his name as an astronomer and authored several works in that field. Less often cited but mentioned and clearly employed was the 1764 publication entitled Nouveaux mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et les italiens, par deux gentilshommes suédois (New memoirs, or observations on Italy and the Italians, by two Swedish gentlemen) by Pierre-Jean Grosley (1718–1785). As that title implies, Grosley initially passed off this work as the collaboration of Scandinavian compatriots and translated from Swedish. It was no such thing, as later editions openly attest. Subsequently, in 1774, Grosley published the work under his own name as Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, données en 1764, sous le nom de deux Gentilshommes Suédois (Observations on Italy and on the Italians, given in 1764 under the name of two Swedish gentlemen). Perhaps he dropped the ruse in order to claim success, for in the last quarter of the eighteenth century Grosley’s guidebook, along with Lalande’s, would be well thumbed by both French grand tourists and those enjoying a virtual voyage at home. Finally, Sade frequently refers to Voyage d’Italie (Journey to Italy) by François Maximilien Misson (1650?–1722), which had first appeared in 1691, was regularly reissued, and dominated the French market for guidebooks to Italy for the better half of the eighteenth century. We know from page numbers that Sade’s edition was from 1743 with an Amsterdam imprint. These four were not the only general guidebooks available to Sade, but they do appear to be the primary ones that he consulted, along with apropos sections of Voyage en France, en Italie et aux îles de l’Archipel, ou lettres écrites de plusieurs endroits de l’Europe et du Levant en 1750, avec des observations de l’auteur sur les diverses productions de la nature et de l’art (Journey to France, to Italy, and to the islands of the Archipelago, or letters written from several places in Europe and the Levant in 1750, with observations by the author on various natural and artistic productions).31 This work was first published anonymously and in English. Traditionally, it has been attributed to a Dr Maihows, but it enjoyed considerably more success in Philippe-Florent de Puisieux’s expanded French translation, published in Paris in 1766, than in the English original.32 Sade also took advantage of city and regional guidebooks. In Rome, Sade appears to have used the guide to the Capitoline Hill and ancient Forum attributed to Giampietro Locatelli (also found as Giovanni Pietro Lucatelli; dates uncertain) and initially published in 1750 as Museo Capitolino o sia Descrizione delle statue, busti, bassirilievi, urne sepolcrali, iscrizioni, ed altri ammirabili, ed erudite Antichità (The Capitoline Museum, or

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description of the statues, busts, bas-reliefs, urns, tombs, inscriptions, and other remarkable and erudite antiquities). Another important source for Sade was a three-volume guide to the ancient points of interest in the vicinity of Rome, and particularly the Tivoli area, by Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy (1720–1798), entitled Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (Discovery of Horace’s country house) (1767–1769). Chaupy was an ordained priest who, having been proscribed in France for his polemical writings, took up residence in Rome and there fashioned himself into an expert antiquarian. His aforementioned work documented the rediscovery of Horace’s Sabine villa near modern Licenza, as well as many other ancient sites in the Roman countryside. Not everyone agreed with Chaupy’s assessments. The celebrated engraver of Roman vedute and fantastic capricci, Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (1720–1778), for instance, made a satirical print against Chaupy that portrayed the site of the supposed villa on the cover of the Frenchman’s work in the unmistakable shape of excrement.33 In the vicinity of Naples, Sade consulted Guida de’ forestieri curiosi di vedere, e di riconoscere le cose più memorabili di Pozzoli, Baja, Cuma, Miseno, Gaeta (Guide for foreigners curious to see and identify the most memorable things in Pozzuoli, Baiae, Cumae, Miseno, Gaeta) by the clergyman Pompeo Sarnelli (1649–1724). It was first published in Naples in 1685 but subsequently translated into French and augmented by Antoine Bulifon. For Naples proper, Sade used Sarnelli’s complementary 1688 guidebook, Guida de’ forestieri, curiosi di vedere, e d’intendere le cose più notabili della regal città di Napoli (Guide for foreigners curious to see and to understand the most noteworthy things in the royal city of Naples), also translated by Bulifon. These late seventeenth-century works were still in print and much used at the time of Sade’s visit to these areas. They existed in bilingual editions, with French and Italian on facing pages. This was presumably helpful for the French traveller without sufficient Italian, and we know from his correspondence that Sade himself was learning the language but frustrated with his fluency, or lack thereof. In a letter to his solicitor of 10 August 1775, our marquis writes: “It’s devilishly hard to make yourself understood here; not a soul speaks French, and I am quite far from speaking Italian yet. Nonetheless, I’m working like a demon on it.”34 An acquaintance tells him that he’ll never attain his goal without taking an Italian mistress. Sade asserts that this is “a means that I will certainly never use.”35 He apparently changed his mind shortly afterwards. Guidebooks were not only something Sade used: the aim of his project was also to provide one. This meant carving out a space in an already crowded market and distinguishing his contribution from those of his rivals. Judging from how often he mentions its deficiencies, Sade saw abbé Richard’s recently published Description historique et critique as his chief competition. Richard, for his part, claimed that what was shockingly lacking and what he hoped to be offering was “a description methodical enough and extensive enough to be of real utility to the traveller,” along with an “accurate idea” of Italy for those unable to make the trip. Richard condemns his predecessors in the Italy guide publishing business for their trite generalities, dressed up and presented as novelties and further tricked out with “satirical jests” and “obscure anecdotes” gleaned from cafés.36 Criticizing what he sees as the common problem of superficial and inaccurate writers on Italy, Richard does not exclude Misson, whose “work has endured for seventy years and is regarded as the most curious and most exact account of Italy that has been made.”37 According to Richard, Misson seems merely to have passed through and that explains why he somehow believed it possible for a traveller to spend only five days in Naples, three in Florence, and even less time in Bologna. Sade will have similar remarks to make about his fellow travel writers

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Figure 0.1. Satirical print on Chaupy’s Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace, from Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini … (1769).

and will insist on the depth and duration of his own explorations at his principal stops in Florence, Rome, and Naples. Such depth was also meant to excuse the partialness of Sade’s account, for he certainly could not claim to have seen all of Italy during his tour, and Venice, in particular, is glaringly missing from the work. Throughout his manuscript, Sade attacks his competitor on precisely the objectives Richard had claimed to fulfil: disputing the utility as well as the accuracy of the guide and complaining vociferously, sarcastically, and in the end, monotonously about the abbé’s errors, omissions, and lapses in judgment. We could certainly read Sade’s numerous asides as evidence of our author’s tetchy disposition, but it is also fair to say that travel guides, now as then, could deserve criticism and their flaws could very well be a source of understandable irritation. Less obviously, guidebooks also reveal partisan stakes and can have a polemical flavour. Richard, a Jesuit, disapproves of Misson’s tendency to “ridicule at times the Catholic religion, and almost always at the expense of the truth.”38 Himself a Huguenot, Misson had no admiration for the Church of Rome. Sade occasionally jests about Richard’s presumed biases, and the abbé’s affiliation helps explain our author’s animus. Moreover, Sade likely appreciated Misson’s often satirical stance on the Church and sought to sharpen such criticisms. Indeed, what Sade ultimately hoped to provide was a philosophical vade mecum that would penetrate deeply and critically into its subject matter. His project would be a guide to Italy, but especially one worthy of the Marquis de Sade’s budding ambition to join the ranks of the lettered and enlightened.

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The Philosophical Informant On top of the triumphal column of Trajan (53–117 CE) in Rome there originally stood a statue of the emperor. This disappeared at some point after the fall of the Western Empire. In the sixteenth century, at the behest of Pope Sixtus V (1521–1590) the missing statue was replaced with one of Saint Peter. Concerning the substitution, Sade wonders “if he [Trajan] were to return to Rome, with what astonishment would he see on the monument erected to his glory the statue of a charlatan who was ten-a-penny during the reign of his predecessors?” Probing further, he asks, “With what eye does the philosopher descry this profanation, and how might he see Nero’s buffoon occupy, by the most bizarre blindness, the place intended to honour and to perpetuate for all time the memory of the world’s emperor, who at the time this monument to his glory was being set up, was losing his life in a war essential to the empire?” Of course, these are less hypothetical than rhetorical questions. Sade obviously identifies himself with such a philosopher and assumes that his reader will likewise take up a viewpoint that discerns in the rock upon which the Church was built a clownish huckster and in a pagan ruler an exemplar of national service and virtue. This position was important to Sade, who considered at one point titling his Italian project “The Philosophical Informant.” Sade may have intended the term “philosopher” to entail broadly a critical mindset, yet by the time of his writing, philosophe in French also had a narrower, partisan sense: a philosophe, by then, was considered to be a member of the intellectual, social, and in many respects, political movement that upheld reason as the means to progress and that was highly critical of institutional religion and all that it deemed superstition.39 The movement was multifaceted and certainly had its detractors, expressed, for example, in the anti-philosophical stance of the Jesuit-dominated Journal de Trévoux. For their part, philosophes generally reviled the Jesuits above all – their dangerously intellectual peers – and for his part, Sade, schooled at Paris’s then Jesuit-run Collège Louis-leGrand, had developed a typical philosophical distaste for his former teachers. For some time now, intellectual historians have been wary of placing the European eighteenth century under the rubric of the Enlightenment. The term itself was retroactively applied, and it captures neither the social and cultural complexities and contentions of the era nor the variety of local and regional instantiations of philosophical engagement. But while there never was such a monolith, there certainly was a social network of like-minded thinkers, communicating face to face, via correspondence, and through the medium of print. Among the roots of this movement was the early modern revival of scepticism. A key moment and a work that still informed Sade’s manuscript some three-quarters of a century later was the Dictionnaire historique et critique (Critical and historical dictionary) by Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) and initially published in 1697. An exiled Huguenot, Bayle undertook arguments to undercut institutional Christianity and to emphasize the necessity of faith and the value of tolerance.40 Among eighteenth-century philosophes, such thinking was easily adapted to attacking the Catholic Church and for a general assault on credulity. From an emphasis on the irrationality of faith came rationalist defences of deism and atheism. To the sceptical position was added a good dose of cynicism: priests were not themselves deluded but, rather, hypocritical beneficiaries of lies baldly proffered to benighted believers. The most renowned of such “philosophers” was certainly François-Marie Arouet (1694– 1778), known by the nom de plume Voltaire, whose acid wit was often combined with a taste for ribaldry. Sade cites Voltaire occasionally in the manuscript of Journey to Italy,

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including the scurrilous satirical poem on Joan of Arc and fanaticism, La Pucelle d’Orléans (The Maid of Orleans), and he clearly knew Voltaire’s vast oeuvre well. More broadly, Sade frequently speaks of religious “chimeras [chimères]” – a common philosophical term for the work of misguided imagination – and points out that a “philosophical spirit [esprit philosophique]” is not easily misled. He criticizes or simply insults key historical figures in the development of Christianity, including Jesus, “the new magician of the Jews.” He expends both more ink and more ire on Saint Peter, “today so celebrated and so sanctified in Rome,” but originally “a poor fisherman” and “one of the first idlers that the opportunist Jesus” fashioned into a follower. After the death of his leader, Peter continues the tradition of performing dubious miracles witnessed by few. He is said to have travelled to Rome, where in Nero’s palace he has an “odd combat” with Simon Magus. Here was one fraud fighting against another. Sade finds no credible evidence that Peter made it to Rome at all, “satisfied with catechizing in Judea” or “perhaps in some other unknown corner of Asia.” Anyone who affirms that Peter was bishop of Rome is plain wrong, and later popes who claimed him as “the first pontiff and the first head of the Church” merely took advantage of a “fortunate pun” in which Peter became the foundational rock. His real name was Simon anyway. As for the rank and file of early Christians, Sade mentions the satirist and historian Lucian of Samosata (c. 125–after 180), who describes them as “an assembly of ragged tramps with feral miens, maniacal comportment, sighing, contorting themselves, swearing by the son who had come from the father, predicting a thousand misfortunes for the empire, blaspheming against the emperor and against anyone who did not think like they.”41 To Sade’s philosophical eye, little had changed. Sade did not consider Christianity an entirely foreign imposition on Rome but rather an exacerbation of indigenous tendencies and all-too-human susceptibilities. Romulus thus exploited religious gullibility to found Rome and become its first king. For this argument, Sade drew from Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernment de la République romaine (History of the upheavals undergone by the government of the Roman republic), which discusses the growth of superstition in early Rome and, first published in 1719, was by the clergyman and historian René Aubert de Vertot (1655–1735). Writing of Numa Pompilius (traditionally 753–673 BCE), Rome’s legendary second king, Vertot argues that the ruler instilled fear of the gods and used augurs and haruspices for political ends: “The veneration for these superior Beings, all the more redoubtable to the extent that they were unknown, was a consequence of these prejudices. Rome insensibly filled with superstitions; politics adopted them and put them to pragmatic use to keep a still ferocious people in submission.”42 Vertot was a Premonstratensian and a priest. It made sense that he would treat pagans as prone to false worship. Sade’s philosophical gambit was to blur these lines. He posited that the Church and Christianity as they developed in Europe, and above all in Italy, was an amalgam of endogenous pagan beliefs and exotic oriental credulity. There from the outset, at least for a while, these servile roots competed with more admirable republican values and muscular virtues. Sade reserves particular disdain for the emperor Constantine (c. 272–337), who replaying the “first imposture” to historically disastrous effect, “betrayed his conscience for the sake of politics.” We have Constantine to thank for the “current status” of the “Christian error.” In his mould, modern popes are nothing but corrupt emperors of the Papal States and of greater Christendom. Although Sade will express occasional appreciation for popes as patrons of the arts, on the whole, he offers few good words about the office or its holders. The papal delusion is summed up in Sixtus V’s

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farcical substitution on Trajan’s column. Sade would also note the pagan roots of modern Christian customs such as the Jubilee years that popes occasionally declare. These become an occasion for “debauchery and libertinism,” since all is forgiven in advance and criminal justice is put on hiatus, with even executions suspended for the duration of the celebration. Still, Sade the hedonist must admit that such pontifically sanctioned “moderation” – euphemistic for licence – is “in truth quite praiseworthy.” The critique of institutional religion in the eighteenth century was a widespread philosophical trend with various degrees and varying rhetorical modes. When Sade uses logic and empirical inference to debunk the authenticity and efficacy of relics and other holy artefacts, “these rattles of the infancy of Christianity,” his underlying position is similar to that of Immanuel Kant, who argues in his 1784 essay “Was ist Aufklärung?” (“What is enlightenment?”) that the term signified humanity’s steady emergence from its childhood as a species.43 If we still require political direction from above, we are also moving towards maturity and self-governance. Granted, Sade’s observations tend to be delivered with a Voltairean lip-curl aimed at a populace in need of such mental crutches and at those happy to profit from ongoing infantilism. Sade appears to have considered religious imbecility a constitutive tendency of the Italian nation, its past and present awash in examples. Rome and its territories may be the historical and actual centre of organized religious corruption and fanaticism, but other Italian states, cities, and towns were hardly immune. Florence saw the rise of the monk Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), a “dangerous frenetic,” who “in league with the king of France” led a populist takeover of the city in the late fifteenth century. In contemporary Loreto, the credulous come to marvel at the Santa Casa, the supposed house of the Virgin Mary, transported or angelically translated – to employ the usual term for this feat – from Jerusalem. Naples provides several prime examples of ensanguined fanaticism, savage intolerance, and cynical exploitation. There are the demagogic street preachers inciting violence, as well as processions of flagellants. (Granted that Sade holds the practice of religious flagellation in disdain in the Italian manuscript, this is not without irony given his sexual proclivities and practices.) The celebration of Maundy (Holy) Thursday in the city presents the outside observer with a spectacle that combines ostentation, particularly inappropriate at what should be a time of mortification, with gruesomeness. Aristocrats outfitted in black velvet, covered with diamonds, process in gilded sedan chairs. Finely liveried footmen accompany their bedizened masters to various churches. In one chapel, the entourage visits a mocked-up sepulchre in which there is a facsimile of Christ’s corpse – termed by Sade “the horrific idol” – shrouded in the incense of superstition. The following day, various aspects of the Passion, modelled with “frightening realism,” are paraded through town on litters. For Sade, this bloody display of devotion is revolting. It makes “one despair that the torch of philosophy should ever pierce into a country wherein the thickness of the darkness of superstition still subjugates minds to such a degree.” Sade also considers at length what happens when the vial containing the dried blood of Saint Januarius in Naples is set to miraculously liquefy. Credulity is manipulated and mingles with mob mentality: the people demand a show and turn murderously on suspected non-believers. How extreme was Sade’s stance on religion at the time of his Italian sojourn? Atheism, cryptically expressed, was an increasingly common position in mid-century philosophy, and one that developed in tandem with neo-Epicurean materialism, which sought to derive order and sensibility from atomic interactions and that considered death to be the mere dissolution of atomic bonds. Such materialism will be found in works such as L’homme

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machine (Man, a machine) by Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–1751), published in 1747, as well as Le Rêve de D’Alembert (D’Alembert’s Dream) by Denis Diderot (1713–1784), written in 1769 but published posthumously. There were also strong links between these atheist tendencies, materialism, and the philosophically inclined licentious fiction that had developed in the 1740s. This conjunction was advertised in the very title of one of its most important instances: Thérèse philosophe (Theresa, the philosopher) by Jean-Baptiste Boyer, Marquis d’Argens (1703–1771), published in 1748.44 Boyer d’Argens was a prolific writer in a variety of genres, including philosophical criticism of institutional religion, and his works enjoyed a prime spot on Sade’s bookshelf. His Lettres juives, ou Correspondance philosophique, historique, et critique (Jewish letters, or philosophical, historical, and critical correspondence) (1736–1739), for example, was Sade’s main source of information on Jubilees and their consequences.45 In the second half of the eighteenth century, expressions of atheism became more common and strident. Deism now appeared tepid and noncommittal, at least to some within the radical wing of philosophie. The writings of Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) vociferously combined Voltaire’s bent for exposés of priestcraft with an unequivocal embrace of non-belief. D’Holbach, who was from the Rhenish Palatinate, went to Paris where he ran a salon. The most famous, or infamous of his writings was his Système de la nature (Nature’s system) (1770), which appeared as Sade was coming of philosophical and libertine age. Of course, all such works were anonymously and clandestinely published. Sade does not cite d’Holbach explicitly in the body of his manuscript, nor would we expect him to do so. D’Holbach’s writings are indicated in the dossiers, however, including his Théologie portative ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne. Par M. L’Abbé Bernier (Portable theology, or abridged dictionary of the Christian religion. By M. l’abbé Bernier) (1768), a mock dictionary highlighting the negative aspects of ecclesiastical history. Sade did have other sources in the virulent antiChristianity camp, including L’Antipapisme relevé, ou les Rêves de l’antipapiste (Antipapism revealed, or dreams of the anti-papist) by Henri-Joseph Dulaurens (1719–1793 or 1797), a defrocked monk, satirical poet, and novelist. Among other things, this work, published in 1767, detailed the sodomitical exploits of popes such as Julius III (1487–1555). Sade does not present extended accounts of his views on religion in the drafted chapters of Journey to Italy, but does offer numerous sly and often cutting asides that reveal a radical philosophical viewpoint and confirm that the professed atheism of his later writings was already firmly in place. As he comments in a long note on the geology of granite (of all things): “Each century has brought, so to speak, a different cult. Atheism alone has never varied, and in whatever guise one has deemed fit to depict the gods, there have ever been found philosophers wise enough to feel that Nature has no need of a master and that the one that superstition lends her is only a monster of the imagination.” Politics and Policing The critique of religion was only one facet, albeit a salient one, of the philosophical program, which also aimed at more direct engagement with governance. Sade tends to evince cynicism with regard to political power, but also a simultaneous investment in what would come to be called “enlightened despotism”: the notion that an informed and reasonable ruler is the best hope for well-governed, prosperous state. Voltaire famously joined the court of Frederick II, the Great of Prussia (1712–1786) at the monarch’s bidding and for the purpose of providing sage counsel. Frederick himself was a committed philosophe

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and published, for instance, on the reform of the German language, how to rationalize its grammar and render its expression clearer. The two men ultimately fell out, and Voltaire would lampoon Frederick, comically insinuating the ruler’s homosexuality, in Candide, ou l’Optimisme (1759). At her behest, Diderot spent several months in 1773–1774 at the court of Catherine II, the Great of Russia (1729–1796), who was not without libertine inclinations, and in philosophical conversation with the monarch. Sade was not an established thinker or writer, and his encounters with Italian potentates were cursory or at a remove. He nonetheless celebrated enlightened rule and disparaged shortcomings on this front. He sings the praises of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790, who had attempted to reform the Church of Rome by annexing various prerogatives of the pope and other bishops.46 Sade points out that when Joseph visited the Vatican, the emperor sat on the cathedra, put his hat on his head, and said, “I feel quite comfortable here.” Sade takes the purported occurrence as a sign that the papacy itself might be at an end, and he is clearly pleased with that notion. Sade has measured praise for Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1747–1792) at the time of Sade’s Florentine stay. Leopold had abolished the death penalty, and Sade was a consistent opponent of capital punishment. Given the sentence in Marseilles, his view suggests self-interest, but he was also implicitly following the enlightened position of the Milanese philosopher and jurist Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794), whose profoundly influential Dei delitte e delle pene (1764) (On Crimes and Punishments) he owned in French translation, with commentary by Voltaire.47 Sade describes Leopold as a ruler “as philosophical as he is gentle and humane,” who understands “the price of a man’s life,” and who has grasped that the crime itself is “not destroyed along with the wretch who committed it.”48 Conversely, Sade wishes that Ferdinand IV (1751–1825), the young monarch of the Kingdom of Naples, were of a more philosophical inclination, both for the sake of his people and for posterity. Treating enlightened rule or the apparent lack thereof was only a fraction of what a politically astute philosophical informant needed to cover. Consider how Sade’s perceived chief competitor understood his remit in this regard. In the foreword to his account of Italy, abbé Richard complains that Misson not only had insufficient knowledge of the arts but also failed to discuss many worthwhile topics such as government, population, commerce, different manufactures, and various other facets of Italian society. In short, Jérôme Richard holds that a guidebook equal to its task ought to encompass politics in a manner extending well beyond the top of the hierarchy of a nation. From a historical perspective, Misson’s failure is understandable: he was writing prior to the burgeoning interest in these topics and, in particular, before the watershed marked by that most famous work by the philosophe we know as Montesquieu (1689–1755): De l’esprit des lois (1748) (Spirit of the Laws). Montesquieu’s was a magisterial assessment of the relations between governance, legislation, customs, and national “genius,” that is, the particularity and mindset of a given group of people, both in the past and in the present. In the second half of the eighteenth century, such proto-sociological assessments became increasingly available. We know from the various titles for his project with which Sade toyed in Geneva on 15 August 1776 – fresh from completing his journey to Italy and on his way home – that he believed his task included an endeavour “to note with care the roles of legislation, government, forces, population, and mores always neglected up to the present.” The last term was crucial: mores or mœurs, in philosophical parlance, largely denuded of moral and religious overtones, fell betwixt and between customs and culture in the later anthropological sense. They were akin to what Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), drawing on an ancient Greek term for engrained second

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nature, would famously call habitus: historically, institutionally, and culturally shaped dispositions that act as “a system of cognitive and motivating structures.”49 Abbé Richard had put the matter like this: “To provide a general idea of the mores of a nation means to expose the fundamental principles that order them and the effects that result therefrom in the ordinary conduct of life.”50 There is no reason to think that Sade would have disagreed with this assessment. To be sure, not all factors shaping the genius of a nation were conventional. In particular, the notion that climate (French, climat) had a decisive effect on human behaviour and biology held sway throughout the eighteenth century. Including average temperatures and seasonal variations in a given place, in Sade’s day climate was capaciously conceived, shading off into what we might call more generally the natural environment. Climat was used to explain racial variety, which entailed differences in mores and not simply skin colour and other superficial features, as well as national tendencies.51 The overall Italian reputation was one of indolence, deteriorating the further south one travelled. Confirming the stereotype, abbé Richard observes that in terms of commerce and manufacture, Italians are not as lazy as generally supposed. What languidness exists is largely a factor of natural abundance in a temperate clime. Added to this, charitable institutions inadvertently encourage softness and idleness. Richard tells his readers that the Italian “habit” is not to stockpile or otherwise save but to “live from day to day.”52 This behaviour tempers profit seeking and the hot pursuit of wealth witnessed among traders and labourers elsewhere in Europe. The mindset results in misery when a harvest fails and charities are overwhelmed, as with the famine that struck Naples in 1764. Sade makes similar observations, especially regarding this southern city and its vicinity, where natural bounty produces fallow subjects. As mentioned, Richard is critical of Misson’s lack of attention to mores and related matters, yet he simultaneously excuses himself from precisely the tasks of discovering and examining in detail the fundamental principles that underlie national habits and the particularity of a nation’s genius. He judges these tasks to be beyond his scope and powers. Richard’s superficial humility is driven by the explicit distinction he makes between his approach and that of philosophie. He refuses to indulge in those “bold and wicked reflections that spare nothing to cast as ridiculous that which the Catholic religion has in its practices and ceremonies worthy of respect.”53 Richard considers the morale dominante or the fundamental mindset in Italy to be sacred show: “All that is exterior in religion.”54 He identifies disadvantages to this approach such as a failure to attend to inner reform, but points out that the “peculiarities” this mindset produces are balanced by benefits: the show is sufficiently magnificent to “raise the soul up to its august Creator.”55 Further, while Richard is clear-eyed when it comes to intrigue, backbiting, and political machinations in the Papal States, he does not try to unearth some deeper structure at work. Sade, however, taking up the mantle of philosophe, aimed to illuminate the tangled skein of attitudes, comportment, laws, habits, history, and climate in Italy, and there is evidence of these efforts throughout his manuscript, albeit more in the way of sketches and intermittent attempts than the comprehensive accounting that he sometimes seems to have envisioned. Italian attitudes towards and expressions of religion are certainly part of this endeavour, although many other topics are entwined with the imperative to understand mores. There is, for example, Sade’s examination of cicisbeismo in Florence. This was the convention, common among not only Florentine nobles but also in some other Italian cities as well, by which married women were served and publicly escorted by a male companion or cicisbeo. Our marquis, understandably, sees this institution as a sort of socially sanctioned adultery,

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and while he thought the arrangement worthy of derision, he also tried to grasp its roots and effects. The same imperative is behind his interest in the spectacle of the cuccagna or cockaigne floats in Naples, where the lower orders violently vie for viands presented by the ruler. That Sade could also use his witnessing of such an event to condescend while lingering over a lurid bit of exotica goes without saying – and there was nothing unusual about that in travel writing. Increasingly, mores were considered not simply something to be observed and explained: they required intervention and were deemed a matter for la police or “policing.”56 The term, derived from the Greek polis or city, was initially restricted in reference to urban management. Policing not only included the prevention, containment, and prosecution of criminal activity, legislation, and enforcement but also numerous other concerns such as food supply, sanitation, hygiene, and traffic. The apparatus as such was fairly novel in Sade’s day, emerging in tandem with the absolutist reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV (1638–1715), although the governance and regulation of cities had obviously existed previously in other guises. Paris’s first lieutenant general of the police, serving from 1667 to 1697, was Nicolas de la Reynie. He urged Nicolas de La Mare, the superintendent at the Châtelet court and prison complex in Paris, to undertake a thorough study of the subject, and in 1707, after years of archival research and first-hand experience, de La Mare brought forth the first volume of his Traité de la Police (Treatise on policing) on the history, branches, and proper functioning of urban management. By the middle of the eighteenth century, policing had become entwined with another concept of recent provenance, and that is population, not simply as the number of subjects in a given territory, but as the source of a state’s wealth and power, something to be grown and shaped. Certainly, there were earlier discussions of population, but the crucial work in the eighteenth-century French conversation was L’Ami des hommes, ou Traité de la population (The friend of mankind, or treatise on population) by Victor de Riqueti (often given as Riquetti), Marquis de Mirabeau (1715–1789) and published in 1756. This work was associated with the economic theories of the physiocrats, led by François Quesnay (1694–1774) and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1721–1789), which held that agrarian workers produce the nation’s true riches, whereas merchants produce nothing of tangible value. Policing and population as concerns were not confined to partisan philosophie – on the contrary, there was an often tense relationship between philosophes and physiocrats; they were, however, matters of general intellectual interest, and a philosophical informant such as Sade would certainly need to have a view on them. At various moments in his manuscript of Journey to Italy, Sade addresses two significant issues related to population and policing broadly speaking: religious sequestration and prostitution. Once again, our author’s interests here were not original; rather, he provides insight into some of the most debated matters within and without philosophie. Montesquieu, for example, in his satirical epistolary novel Lettres persanes (1721) (Persian Letters), employed the Oriental harem with its sequestration of women and its eunuch guardians to criticize the Catholic institution of monasteries and convents, their deleterious effects on population, and their distortion of presumed natural sexual relations.57 Sade follows similar lines in his Italian project. Convents take women out of sexual circulation and are noxious to population as the wealth of nations. Condemning the ancient Roman enforcement of capital punishment for Vestals who violated their oath of virginity – “it is odious to punish with death those whose entire crime is to have laboured to give life” – Sade finds in convents “a reflection of this ancient barbarity.” Convents are simply the modern way that humans, “ever blind and superstitious,” sacrifice to a “false divinity,” and thereby harm

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individual humans as well as the interests of humanity and the state. Monastic orders are similarly damaging, and their proliferation in Italy reveals that “the rage to extinguish the human species” is ubiquitous there. Touching more on the matter of political management, Sade argues that monastics are not only biologically but also economically unproductive, all the while enjoying immense wealth. This he traces to the long history of Italy: When the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions and suffered devastation, monks were “granted large territories to cultivate.” This was done out of a “philosophical” principle: idlers were rightly put to work. But, Sade continues, as soon as the lands were fertile and productive, the state ought to have reclaimed them. Instead, the monks were allowed to accumulate wealth and to revert to idleness. With wealth and idleness come debauchery, and so today it is “not rare to see those of them in Italy who maintain, in the heart of their convents” – the term couvent was not gender-specific in eighteenth-century French, just as “convent” was not in English at the time – “a sufficient number of young girls to satisfy their carnal appetites.” These “creatures” are “forever removed from society” and are buried along with “the productive faculty that they have received from nature.” According to Sade, religious sequestration diminishes the population and its productive capacity by at least a third. A tour through Italy is striking for the depopulation of the nation’s towns and cities, above all in the Papal States, “where priesthood and monasticism are the most esteemed and the most in force.” Prostitution, while seemingly at the other end of the spectrum from religious celibacy, ultimately raised similar concerns about population. From the point of view of policing, libertinism was less an immoral or amoral philosophy of pleasure and an accompanying literature than a social ill, and whether as cause or effect, prostitution was its problematically obvious manifestation. Indeed, one danger of sex work in cities was the very publicness of the trade and the corrosive effects of immoral and unhealthy behaviour on display. French policing had been dealing with this problem for a long time and with limited success. De La Mare in his Traité de la Police records that, in France, “public” places of sexual commerce were forced out by law in the sixteenth century, a policy still in force when he was writing. What happened next is that private houses were rented out and certain areas became associated with the sex trade (Faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris is noted as particularly atrocious). The levying of fines and confiscation of rents works to an extent, as does imprisonment of the women in egregious cases. Still, there is no way to stamp out the practice, especially in large cities, no matter the severity of laws, regulations, and punishments: “the petulance of an incorrigible and corrupted youth” in cities triumphs frequently over careful “domestic education by fathers and mothers and over the vigilance of public magistrates and officers.”58 In 1656, de La Mare reports, maisons de force or correctional prisons were established to impose control over young offenders, with men under the age of twentyfive being sent to Bicêtre and women to La Salpêtrière for punishment and disciplining. Needless to say, prostitution did not end there, and publicness remained an issue of grave concern. Sade himself remarks with dismay that, in French cities, “the wretched victims of debauchery” wander “insolently in the evening hours” and openly solicit “passers-by to enjoy their odious favours.” By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the policing apparatus had also become deeply engaged in the surveillance of aristocrats and in controlling not only what happened publicly, but also behind the doors of brothels – known as maisons closes or “closed houses” – and petites maisons. To take a pointed example: on 7 December 1764, vice Inspector Marais reported to Antoine de Sartine about Sade’s latest doings. A year had passed since Jeanne Testard had disclosed to the lieutenant general of

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the police the marquis’s sacrilegious antics, which had led to his short stay in the Château de Vincennes prison. Marais notes that Sade, having been released and accompanied to Provence, had obtained permission to return to Paris in the summer, and there he remained. What was he up to? Marais reports that he has “amused himself by giving 25 louis per month to a young lady named Colette, an actress at the Italian [i.e., Comic Opera], who lives with Monsieur the Marquis of Lignerais, who is accommodating enough to play second fiddle when a good opportunity presents itself to her.”59 Marais continues that Sade, for his part, has begun to realize that he is this “young lady’s dupe” and that “this week he went to vent his spleen at the house of Brissault, whom he insistently asked whether she knew me.”60 Madame Brissault was one of the most reputable procuresses in Paris. Nicknamed La Présidente, at the time she ceded only to Marguerite Gourdan in brothel-keeping renown.61 Brissault assured Sade that she did not know Marais; clearly, the opposite was true. Marais, without going into details, sagely advised her not to “furnish him with a girl to take to a petite maison.”62 Given Sade’s biography, we might imagine that his views on the policing of prostitution would be complicated. Propensities and practices aside, libertinism was not something he would have advertised in print. Given his philosophical intent in Journey to Italy, his observations on prostitution and policing position him as someone striving to be reasonable and ethical about sex work. For instance, he calls the sequestration of prostitutes to a specific quarter “perhaps one of the best regulated parts of policing” in Florence, conducive to public order and peace, as opposed to the case in France. In Rome, however, he is shocked by the openness of clerical licence, where cardinals “publicly” provide examples. Naples is the nadir. Sade finds that it is “physically impossible to imagine” how engrained the problem is there and that the city appears to be beyond redemption. What to do about “a land where the climate, the food, and the general corruption constantly encourage debauchery”? When the sun sets, the streets teem with “unfortunate victims offered up to the brutal embraces of the first comer.” The pleasures available are cheap and varied. Sade adds with a perhaps disingenuous shudder that many of the women soliciting in Naples are not women yet at all: “little girls of four or five offering themselves up for the most horrific debaucheries” and who “provoke you for the vilest sum to indulge in every type of libertinism that imagination can conceive.” The young girls whom Sade witnessed propositioning in Naples not only intimated that anal sex was an option but even begged, “when someone had succumbed to their solicitations, to choose that manner rather than the one Nature prescribes, because the frailty of their age meant that they were not capable of participating in the usual practice to which the Creator has destined their sex.” Boys propose themselves in the same fashion. Indeed, prostitution in Naples is a veritable family affair: mothers offer you their daughters and sons; sisters pimp their brothers, fathers their daughters, and husbands their wives – and all for lucre. Sade wonders, “What becomes of virtue, population, health in a State where the degradation of mores has come to such a point and where the scrappiest temptation of profit suffices to lead to crime and to reverse the very notion of probity, honour, and virtue?” Such “libertinism,” which presses in from every side in Naples, has the unfortunate effect of crowding out “that delicacy, that delicious sentiment born of the union of two hearts born to love and to respect one another and that alone polishes mores and softens them.” If it is a bit surprising to see a dedicated libertine in lifestyle conclude that love is the key to civilized mores, Sade had company. In 1769, Nicolas-Edme Rétif (or Restif), also known as Rétif de la Bretonne (1734–1806), low-rent libertine and copious hack, had published an

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epistolary novel-cum-treatise on the policing of the sex trade called Le Pornographe (The pornographer).63 The title signifies etymologically someone who writes about prostitution, and the work argues that the legalization, sequestration, and hygienic surveillance of the trade would remove it from the public eye, serve as a source of revenue for the state, help maintain a healthy population, and lead to happier marriages.64 Rétif’s solution, whether sincerely intended or not, is an example of the eighteenth-century vogue for “projecting,” that is, promulgating in print rational and often scientific solutions to social problems. Projecting was associated with the rise of policing as population management, and while not detached from enlightened monarchy – in fact, usually calling on the monarch for endorsement and financial support  – projecting often presented solutions that we would deem bureaucratic (in Le Pornographe state employees manage the commerce from their offices or bureaux). As opposed to simply analysing mores, social projectors aimed to intervene and to reform them through changes in legislation, policies, and enforcement. Ange Goudar’s dissection of and recommendations for Naples, naturally rich but socially indolent, was another such work. It had as its fuller title Naples: Ce qu’il faut faire pour rendre ce royaume florissant. Où l’on traite des avantages que le gouvernment peut retirer de sa fertilité, de l’abondance de ses denrées, des facilités pour perfectionner les arts: de sa position favorable pour s’emparer des premières branches du Commerce Étranger, &c, &c. (What must be done to make this kingdom flourish. Wherein are treated the advantages that the government might draw from its fertility, from the abundance of its produce, of its aptitudes for the perfection of the arts, of its favourable position to take hold of the foremost sectors of foreign commerce, etc.). As Sade continued to labour over the Italian manuscript after his return to France, he considered the genre of projecting as a possibility, setting out a plan for a book he would call “Project for a Reform in Italy.” But in a marginal note by this title, Sade writes instead: “I will entitle this piece General Reflections on Italy and place it at the head of the work, after the preliminary discourse.” Perhaps these diminished aspirations resulted from his realization that such an undertaking had already appeared as Di una riforma d’Italia, ossia dei mezzi di riformare i più cattivi costume e le più pernciose legge d’Italia (Concerning a reform of Italy, or ten means of reforming the most harmful Italian customs and its most pernicious laws) by the philosopher Carlo Antonio Pilati (1733–1802) and published in 1767. Pilati’s treatise was soon translated, and appeared in French two years later. Sade took notes  – or rather, extracted literally  – from the work as he was preparing his own manuscript.65 Or maybe he simply did not have the inclination or energy for this sort of writing. Although Sade continued to labour on the Italian manuscript in prison, he became increasingly despairing that his efforts would bear fruit at all. At the top of a notebook full of excerpts and passages, Sade penned that the material was gathered in 1777 and that it “might be used for my work that I will likely never do.” Yet throughout his journey and subsequently, as he continued his research and writing on Italy, our marquis was, surely unbeknownst to himself, gathering material that would deeply inform his licentious fiction. This included notions of projecting and reform, albeit perversely twisted. The Italian Vice Godfrey IV, the Hunchback (1040–1076) was the estranged husband of the indomitable Matilde di Canossa (1046–1115), Margravine of Tuscany. He met his end in a peculiar manner one winter’s day. Godfrey had gone to relieve himself when “an arrow pierced him

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through the anus,” an injury from which he died a few days later. Sade read about this incident in a 1756 book by the playwright and prolific editor and commentator Charles-Hugues Le Febvre de Saint-Marc (1698–1769), with the title Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire générale d’Italie (Chronological summary of the general history of Italy), and the latter, in turn, had drawn on Delle Antichità estensi ed italiane (Concerning the ancient history of the House of Este and of Italy) (1717–1740) by the historian Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750). Sources varied as to who exactly was responsible for Godfrey’s assassination, with Muratori arguing that it was carried out on the orders of Robert, Count of Flanders, and others that the guilty party was ultimately Matilda herself. Sade does not commit himself to a position on exactly who was responsible, but he is certain about the manner of the assassination: “You have to admit that this is a very Italian way to put someone to death.” This was witty allusion, if not in the best taste, to the supposed peninsular penchant for sodomy. The term at this time generally referred to anal sex, although it was not restricted by gender and included both what a later age would deem homosexual and heterosexual acts. In the infamous Sonetti lussuriosi (Lascivious sonnets) (c. 1526) by Pietro Aretino (1492–1556), a woman entreats her lover in no uncertain terms: “In cul lo voglio [I want it in the ass].”66 Sodomy is demanded and desired as proof of passion, although the man responds with qualms – he has no taste for committing this sin, which he deems “prelate’s food.”67 Aretino’s satirical pen cuts in two ways here, humorously skewering both the protocols of courtly love and also clerical hypocrisy. Similar jests will be found elsewhere in obscene early modern Italian satire, for example, La Cazzaria (c. 1525) (The Book of the Prick) by Antonio Vignali, where friars are characterized as “rogues […] devoted to buggery,” and Aretino’s scurrilous dialogues, the Ragionamenti (Arguments) (1534–1536).68 Although literary invocations of sodomy helped spread the Italian reputation in France and beyond, these were entangled with complicated realities. In eighteenth-century France, sodomy was considered a pan-Italian predilection, and Florence’s reputation was particularly robust. This was based, in part, on aristocratic conventions in the city, where in early modernity, male erotic attachments were tolerated and to an extent sanctioned during the period of gioventù or youth, which could be a capacious category.69 On the less refined end of the spectrum, Florence was also known for a lively tearoom trade of sorts, which went through periods of both relative openness and suppression. Sade knew of these cycles from his reading of a 1754 French translation by JeanBaptiste Requier (1715–1799) of the extensive Storia fiorentina (Florentine history) by the historian and poet Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565).70 Written in the middle of the sixteenth century, Varchi’s account was sufficiently unvarnished and provocative that it remained unpublished until 1721. Sade in his preparation of the Italian manuscript made extracts. He noted, for example, that when Niccolò Capponi (1472–1529) was elected gonfaloniere of justice in 1527, he “reformed mores” and specifically “renewed punishments enjoined for sodomy, which was ever the predominant vice of the nation.” Where did matters stand in the later eighteenth century? The Florentine reputation certainly lingered, to the point that some writers thought refutation was in order. Lalande, in his guidebook, remarks that sodomy was no longer prevalent in the city. Explicitly contradicting him, Sade judges the practice to be “still very much in vogue in Florence, above all among the priests and monks.” Whereas Sade considered prostitution in Florence to be relatively well regulated and topographically restricted, here he adds a concern about the public character of male sodomitical comportment: “In the street in the evening, the partisans of this debauchery display themselves with all the more insolence insofar as women are almost never present

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then.” Not that Sade thought that sodomitical desires were not aimed at women as well – and he suggests that women themselves were only slightly less willing to indulge than Aretino’s impassioned lady. He writes of “an old law in Florence, the execution of which is doubtless shrouded in mystery, but which I am assured is of quite ancient provenance”: This law holds that wives, on Fat Thursday, must accord everything to their husbands, without any restrictions, and in case of refusal on their part, the latter can constrain them to submit. A joker claimed, on this topic, that carnival was quite long in Florence or that one had never had much trouble in forcing them to do so. [original emphases]

To explain the toleration of “all vices of impurity” in Florence, which include “incest, adultery, masculine and feminine sodomy,” and more, Sade is referred to – and accepts – the influence of a fundamental means of accounting for the variety of national mores: “The climate, say the upright Tuscans most phlegmatically, excuses our penchants and God who had us born therein will take no offence at the excesses to which the climate impels us” (original emphases). Sade concludes: “Such a law, in our more temperate climates, would perhaps please some depraved husband, but I doubt that we would find as in Florence wives disposed to submit without repugnance.” Perhaps he had Renée-Pélagie, his otherwise forbearing spouse, in mind. If sodomy in Italy was a long-standing and likely ineradicable proclivity, Sade could point to numerous examples. He had witnessed poor young girls and boys offering themselves up to such treatment on the streets of Naples – a supply that implied demand – and he was also aware of literary history. The modern propensity appeared to be an extension of attitudes and comportments associated with decadent Rome and more particularly ancient Greece, the culture of which had indelibly marked the former. Greece provided not just a model of actual and institutionalized behaviours but also a rich literary and iconographic tradition. Examples mentioned in Sade’s manuscript include the tenuous tradition that young Achilles had a pederastic relation with his tutor, the centaur Chiron – a relation that Sade leeringly hints at while contemplating a painting of the pair uncovered at Herculaneum – to Jupiter in the form of an eagle carrying off the handsome boy Ganymede, a name that would become a byword for adolescent passive male sodomites (see Plate 1). Sade remarks of a painting by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, usually known as simply Michelangelo (1475–1564), of the latter subject in the Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome that “the master of the gods […] was starting to get bored with the simple pleasures of the fair sex.” The sexual exploits of Roman emperors likewise provided numerous examples of an enduring Italian trend. Take Heliogabalus (c. 203–222), whose biography by Lucius Cassius Dio (c. 155–c. 235) Sade mentions and who had a penchant that Sade dismisses in a manner that we can only find suspect given his own apparent tastes, namely, the emperor’s “bizarre mania of only wanting to enjoy the pleasures of love as does a woman.” There were also many high-profile and modern examples of sodomites and pederasts that Sade came across in his research. Benedetto Varchi himself, for instance, was a well-rounded humanist who in addition to his celebrated history of Florence wrote amorous sonnets to boys. He was convicted of pederasty in 1545, although the grand duke Cosimo de’ Medici (1519–1574) subsequently pardoned him. There were politicians and princes as well. It had not been long since the alcoholic Gian Gastone de’ Medici (1671–1737), last of his line to hold the title Grand Duke of Tuscany, enjoyed a dubiously close relationship with his valet de chambre and confidante, Giuliano Dami (1683–1750), and cavorted almost openly with

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a gaggle of young men and boys, known as i ruspanti after the ruspo coinage in which they were paid for their services.71 Sade slyly hints at Gian Gastone’s behaviour in the chapter on Florence and notes in the margin simply: “He was accused of pederasty.” Granted, not all of the examples that Sade mentions are Italian. Concerning the seventeenth-century Flemish artist Jerôme Duquesnoy (1602–1654) – Sade confuses his first name for that of his more famous brother François (1597–1643)  – our author remarks that “he excelled mainly in bas-reliefs and in the arabesques required by groups of angels or cherubs” and that “obliged by his work in this genre to make use of young boys that he had stripped bare and placed into poses necessary to him,” was inflamed by their beauty, and “the artist dared surrender himself to a philosophical curiosity the unfortunate experience of which has often made so many proselytes.” Duquesnoy, who made his name in Rome, was convicted of sodomy while undertaking a commission in Ghent and was executed for his crime. Many of Sade’s examples involve the prelates’ supposed tastes and allow him to indulge in philosophical critique. Papal history provided a banquet of intrigue, violence, and debauchery, including sodomy. Sixtus IV, pope from 1471 until his death in 1484, was lampooned in his own era for debauchery, including “effeminate couplings.”72 Sade reiterates accounts that this pontiff not only sanctioned a brothel district in Rome where men could seek out women but also, seeing that “this licence might at best satisfy a third of the capital,” figured out a way to please sodomites as well. After all, the pontiff worried that “more dainty dishes” were needed for aristocrats and hierarchs, “that throng of benefactors and men of the Church, the Monsignori and the cardinals.” For the wealthy and well placed, “folks bored with the ordinary pleasure and whose taste or the disadvantages ever to be feared when associating with the fair sex” – disease, pregnancy, or both – visiting “the newly instituted quarter” was not an option. To offset this concern, the licence further sanctioned permission during the summer months, when the heat drives male passions to such a degree that women alone could not satiate them and whose “physical structure,” in any case, “did not fulfil these nor satisfy them all,” for every man to “exercise as he pleased the natural taste that Italians have for sodomy.” Sade drew here on Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique, and he rightly disputes accounts that Sixtus IV actually signed such a permission. Sade thinks it probable that this supposed permission was an inside joke between the cardinal of Santa Lucia and the pope. He finds the real permission unlikely on several grounds, explaining: Devotees of this crime, the impetuosity of which we are familiar, are neither folks who would be satisfied with three months nor folks to go and ask for permission, and it is incredible, whatever morals we suppose of a pope, to imagine that he would allow this crime. A debauched sovereign can indulge everything – he can tolerate his errors even in others, if you like – but will certainly not authorize them.

Sexual drive was generally esteemed both strong and unruly in the eighteenth century. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), for example, stated that of all the passions that move us, “there is an ardent, impetuous one that renders one sex necessary to the other; a terrible passion that braves all dangers, overcomes all obstacles, and that, in its fury, seems fitted to destroy the human race it is destined to serve.”73 Sade, ignoring the procreative end that Rousseau thought paradoxically at risk, emphasizes the particular impetuosity of sodomitical fervour. Besides, any ruler, be he king or pope, can use his position at the top of the hierarchy to act with an impunity not extended to others.

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Religious sequestration provided another such avenue of indulgence, offering physical shelter from the public gaze and a veneer of moral sanctity and abstinence. In philosophical discourse, claustration was also critiqued as dangerously repressive. Sexual urges run strong and deep, and attempts to stop them up would only lead to hypocritical subversions at best and dangerous perversions at worst, either exacerbating whatever strange passion might already be in place or encouraging the same in those not otherwise inclined. In Diderot’s La Religieuse (The Nun), for example, various mothers superior turn out to be hysterical, lesbian, or sadistic, and the younger nuns, easily corrupted under the circumstances, tend to follow suit.74 With its robust Catholicism such distortions were thought to be a particular national problem for Italy, although Sade remarks on the issue in France as well. He comments about a Benedictine convent that Pope Julius II (1443–1513) had transferred to Rome in order to protect the inmates from the depredations of soldiers during the conflicts of the sixteenth century and where the dormitories were fitted with transom windows that communicated with the abbess’s apartment, so that “she could see whether anything indecent went on during the night.” And he adds: “You will see the same thing in the abbey of Saint Victor of Marseilles, albeit there we are talking about men.” Similarly, he remarks that Pope Benedict XII (1285–1342), of French extraction and elected in 1334, repressed the practice of having “young Ganymedes […] in the service of the abbey of Cîteaux.” This time Sade adds: “Doubtless, having been a member of this order, he was familiar with this indecency, and he thought it necessary to repress it, doubtless in order better to hide his own dissoluteness.” Wondering why Italian sovereigns have allowed them to exist, Sade bemoans the “amount of abuse […] born of this encloistered vermin.” Why “compel millions of useless men to vegetate in divisiveness and criminality, in the middle of a cloister, asylum for every dissension and for all those infamies held in utmost horror by nature and by reason”? What Sade has in mind, or so he says, is that in Naples, superiors of these institutions must forbid “not the girls […] but the young boys from entering into the monasteries.” Such precautions and pronouncements, however, are useless. Rarely does Sade offer a glimpse of his personal interest in these matters. Once, concerning the depiction of a Cupid, he jokes that the lovely boy “is almost pretty enough to make one forget about his mother.” Yet he does develop a line of critique that undercuts the philosophical argument that sodomy and related behaviours are fundamentally unnatural and primarily the effect of the institutions in which they are embedded. This more accommodating line of criticism was not uncommon in more libertine expressions such as Thérèse philosophe. Having decried monastic and other clerical abuses, Sade goes on to say that he is not claiming to be a “defender of morality [apologiste des mœurs].” On the contrary, the concomitant of philosophical insight – which targets hypocrisy and harm – is a worldly wisdom that sexual drives in whatever form are natural and ineradicable, that passions are precisely irrational and something that we, in a sense, suffer rather than choose, and that for these reasons the most reasonable path is toleration rather than persecution: Exceedingly philosophical on this score, I am familiar with the errors, the passions, the tastes of men, all moulded from the same clay. I know that we are the masters of nothing, and that a given obsession that such and so finds repugnant is often the sole object of another’s delights. It is not therefore the thing that I condemn in itself; but what revolts me is the pride and the intolerance of these enfrocked men, who while wanting to raise themselves much higher than us, nonetheless share the same weaknesses of nature, are soon enough forced to put themselves at the same level, and this by the impetuosity of the same needs. [emphases added]

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Unforgivable are not the acts themselves, but the hypocrisy and harm inflicted when drives beyond our control are denied. The clergy could be granted indulgence in Sade’s view if only they were open about their wishes and comportment. Sade is even more tolerant with respect to artists. He defends, for example, the “philosophical curiosity” of the pederast Duquesnoy and suggests that the sculptor’s actions merely revealed a dedication to his art and should serve as a “proof of good morals” in this regard, underscored by his avoidance of women qua distraction. Sade jeeringly charges Duquesnoy’s persecutors with superstition. Confusing the “noxious emanations of Sodom” and the “the lake of sulphur that engulfed” the cities of the plain as divine punishment, they see fit to imitate “heavenly wrath” in the form of “human justice” and to immolate an artist who simply employed “little boys for something other than arabesques.” Duquesnoy was prosecuted and executed, as already mentioned, but Sade concludes that “altars should rather have been raised” to the artist honouring “the sublimity of his genius and the lightness of his precious chisel.” For the average run of men, “never will great talents serve to excuse petty faults.” The “zealous” may not understand the calculus at work here, but the philosophical know how to weigh the true value of such talents, credit the difficultly with which they are developed and perfected, and discount any supposed moral transgression accordingly. Given his biography, Sade’s defence of sexual “errors” should not come as a surprise. An intent to commit the crime of sodomy was part of the proceedings related to the Jeanne Testard affair and was a salient feature of his Marseilles adventure. Sade’s leanings were remarkably “Italian,” and then some. As with his view on the death penalty, we should not, however, reduce Sade’s position to self-serving justification. Surely, when he defended as peccadillo at worst the actions of an artist such as Duquesnoy, he was in part defending himself. Likewise, when Sade condemned clerical hypocrisy on sodomy, he was in part demanding why a certain class of men could act with relative impunity and yet insist on condemning others for the same desires and deeds. We may also wonder whether the actions that forced Sade to go on the run were driven by libertine discourse or whether the latter served to justify and explain his actions and desires. The answer is certainly that libertine discourse and Sade’s inclinations mutually informed and shaped one another. There was no way that Sade in the printed and public forum that he imagined for his Italian project could have simply announced or endorsed his sodomitical interests. But that he had these interests – or at the very least he had a “philosophical curiosity” that extended to sexual variety – is clear, and Italy was for the various reasons laid out above a good place to think about them. Twenty-odd years after Sade drafted his Journey to Italy, his heroine Juliette would encounter in regular and boring Turin her first Italian procuress, who inquires concerning her flexibility: “And the ass, my lovely queen?” said signora Diana to me, “And the ass? This is what is quite sought out in Italy; you’ll earn more money with your ass in a month, if you lend it, than in four years, if you only proffer your cunt.”75

Sodomy ever held sway as Italy’s favourite vice, at least in the mind and fiction of the Marquis de Sade. The Virtuoso In Sade’s era, there were two main branches of philosophy as a general, non-partisan term: moral philosophy and natural philosophy. Moral philosophy focused on social relations,

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ethics, and what would eventually be deemed epistemology, while natural philosophy encompassed zoology, geology, chemistry, physics, and so forth. As with epistemology, “sciences” was a later rubric, and when that term was used in the eighteenth century, it simply meant various types and branches of knowledge. To be learned in this period in France meant aspiring to a broad exposure to natural philosophy, at the least. If one could not claim expertise, one required at a very minimum curiosity, to conjure one of the key positive values of the era. No longer suspect as a source of sin, curiosity, as the philosopher and intellectual historian Hans Blumenberg (1920–1996) has argued, was in early modernity undergoing a thorough rehabilitation.76 It was a rehabilitation on which Sade was playing, dangerously, with his extension of “philosophical curiosity” to an interest in criminally liable actions such as sodomy. As an adjective, “curious” was increasingly applied with approbation both to people and to phenomena and objects worthy of attention. Since the sixteenth century, collections of minerals, shells, animal skeletons, and preserved specimens had been set aside in natural history cabinets, dedicated rooms that were the precursors of natural history museums. Also included in such collections were artefacts such as coins, weapons, and antiquities. Broadly, these came to be known as “cabinets of curiosities” in English and in French by the cognate cabinet de curiosités.77 In German, they were called, similarly, Wunderkammern (wonder rooms) or Kunstkammern (arts and artefacts rooms). An important early example is the Kunstkammer in Prague that belonged to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1576 until his death in 1612. Such regal collections became de rigueur, and increasingly private citizens of means and taste would amass and display various items of interest. By the early seventeenth century, readymade cabinets of curiosities were available for purchase.78 The eighteenth century only witnessed an expansion of such collections, among which we can include the British Museum, where William Hamilton’s Italian artefacts wound up. Early in his journey, Sade notes that the natural history cabinet of the Prince of Modena – the Duchy of Modena and Reggio was an independent state at the time  – was well worth a visit. In Florence, he remarks that the current grand duke, Peter Leopold, was then in the process of creating a natural history collection. Sade points out that although the anatomy section, “all in waxwork, is pretty and complete,” the collection would benefit from the addition of works by a local surgeon named Giuseppe Galletti (1738–1819), who in collaboration with the sculptor Giuseppe Ferrini (dates uncertain) and subsequently Clemente Susini (1754–1814), had produced models of “all the different modes of childbirth” and one of a nine-month-old girl that could be disassembled (see Plate 2). Doctor Mesny, Sade’s main contact in Florence, had a renowned private cabinet of natural historical and other curiosities, and his correspondence with Sade makes it clear that he was hoping that the Count of Mazan on his travels in the vicinity of Naples might locate some additional items for it.79 Touring presented a prime opportunity to begin or augment a collection of curiosities, and the chests that Sade had shipped to France from Naples would presumably have been the basis of his own cabinet.80 Sade was well aware that curiosity, an inherently positive value, might have unintended, deleterious effects on sites of historical and natural interest. He believed that collecting, in particular, undermined the value of touristic experience and suggested that conservation would be better served through levying fees. Unfortunately, proprietors tended to discount the potential for long-term revenue and to shortsightedly yield to the temptation of immediate profit: “a tolerant attitude all the more poorly understood on the part of the owners since curiosity diminishes in relation to the destruction of the objects that excite it, and so they will imperceptibly lose the very product that allows them legitimately to tax that curiosity.”

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Figure 0.2. Etruscan figurines in Doctor Mesny’s cabinet of curiosities, from William Hamilton and Pierre-François Hugues d’Hancarville, Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon.ble W.m Hamilton, His Britannick Maiestys Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Court of Naples/Antiquités étrusques, grecques, et romaines tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton, envoyé extraordinaire et plenipotentiaire de. S.M. Britannique en cour de Naples, vol. 3 (1766).

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Sade’s concerns here were not only about the dangers of the commodification of curiosity. He more often points out the damage inflicted to Italy’s ancient patrimony because of superstition, which “every day deprives the curious of a thousand precious pieces,” with nobles as well as the Church elite repurposing antique marbles, columns, metals, and so forth to tastelessly recreate an Imperial luxury to which they can never hope to truly obtain. Generally speaking, the modern Italians of the Christian era are simply the latest Vandals. The rehabilitation of curiosity went hand in hand with the development of empirical methods. Geology was a fast-growing field in the eighteenth century, and Sade, like many other grand tourists and learned readers, was particularly intrigued by geological oddities as evidence of the dynamism of the mineral kingdom. In Europe, moreover, Italy stood out for possibilities of experiencing and studying volcanic activity. Sade’s first such foray comes early in his voyage, when he explores the vicinity of Pietramala in the Piedmont. Here gaseous emanations can be set aflame and rainwater that pools at this spot appears to boil and yet somehow remains cool. Sade describes the composition of the soil and other aspects of these phenomena, although he does not go into much detail. When Sade visits the Lago dei Tartari and an adjacent lake on the route to Tivoli, however, he not only observes that these waters have “petrifying powers” and that the “sports of Nature” thereby produced are sought after by collectors for their cabinets, he also lays down an extended hypothesis about the process of petrifaction. The vicinity of Naples, with its abundant volcanic activity, provides Sade ample opportunity for observation and speculation – from the hot springs of the island of Ischia to the fumaroles of Solfatara near Pozzuoli and the toxic emanations of the Grotta del Cane on the shores of Lake Agnano. The latter was a well-known stop on the grand tour and long featured in guidebooks. Indeed, Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) describes the spot in his Natural History.81 The name, meaning “cave of the dog,” derived from the practice of demonstrating for curious visitors the debilitating and at times deadly powers of this shallow cavity on canines. The expérience du chien or “dog experiment,” as characterized in Les Délices de l’Italie (The delights of Italy), an early eighteenth-century guide and compendium by Alexandre de Rogissart (dates uncertain) and others, worked like this: a dog is brought into the grotto; the person carrying the creature is not affected by this operation, since the emanations dissipate with elevation; the dog is lowered to the ground, convulses, its eyes roll back, it stretches on the ground, and stiffens. At this point, the animal is tossed from the cave, plunged into the nearby lake, and it swims forth, whimpering with joy.82 Dogs were merely customary victims. Accounts in the eighteenth century claimed that when Charles VIII, called the Affable, of France (1470–1498) visited after his conquest of the Kingdom of Naples in 1495, he put an ass to the test, killing the beast. After the French had been driven out, Don Pedro of Toledo (1484–1553), the imperious Spanish viceroy of the kingdom in the early sixteenth century, was said to have made two slaves undergo the treatment. They convulsed and could not be resuscitated.83 The basic procedure seems to have changed little, if at all, by the time of Sade’s visit in 1776. Yet while earlier trials at the Grotta del Cane were certainly curious, by the middle of the eighteenth century, they had become more methodical, scientific, and sceptical. For example, Alexis-Jean-Eustache Taitbout de Marigny (1695–1778), French consul in Naples, wanted to know whether the final step – the reviving plunge of the dog into the lake – was necessary. After experimentation, he concluded that it was not. On the contrary, the plunge risked drowning the creature instead of reviving it. In 1745, the consul reported his findings to the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris, France’s chief learned

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Figure 0.3. Grotta del Cane and Lago di Agnano, from Alexandre de Rogissart et al., Les Délices d’Italie (1709).

Figure 0.4. Grotta del Cane, from Pompeo Sarnelli, La Guida de’ forestieri … di Pozzuoli (1769 ed.).

body, which published them in its annals in 1749.84 A pioneering researcher in the field of electricity, Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700–1770) was consecrated as a deacon in the Roman Catholic Church in 1728 and sought permission to preach, but soon after abandoned his clerical career for one of scientific research and education – yet he apparently enjoyed being referred to as abbé Nollet for the rest of his life. During his tour in the area, Abbé Nollet undertook several experiments in situ. These included testing the temperature of

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the water in the cave (a warm 29 degrees Celsius, whereas the ambient temperature was a moderate 18); placing a candle therein and noting the effects (it was soon extinguished); and placing a dog therein for three minutes and noting how long it took for the creature to revive (two minutes). Nollet did not simply observe, he also carefully took measurements and manipulated variables. He thus tested out the effects not only on a dog but also on a rooster, which vomited up its final supper and promptly expired. Frogs, flies, and beetles survived longer, just as they did when placed in the vacuum of an air pump (one of the crucial experimental machines of the early empiricist era and useful for pedagogical scientific demonstrations85). Nollet also personally entered the cave to suffer its emanations. He reported his findings to the Académie Royale in 1750, which published a summary of his experiments along with his detailed account of the grotto in 1754. In conclusion, Nollet reported that the vapour in the cave contained no inherent toxin, such as arsenic, but rather was either “not at all air” or “not at all an air similar to that of the atmosphere” and that animals exposed to it succumb “not as empoisoned, but merely as if drowned in a fluid incapable of supplying the air that they are lacking.”86 Along the same lines, one of Sade’s competitors in the Italian guidebook business, Lalande, brought back to France “some earth, water, and saline materials” gathered in the cave. He asked a scientist for an analysis, who found no toxins such as copper and arsenic present. These findings, too, were reported to the Académie Royale and subsequently published.87 As it turns out, Nollet’s hypothesis that the pernicious power of the cave was not a suspended toxin but a vapour different from air comes close to the truth: it is simply a concentration of carbon dioxide. Eager to present himself as a curious and keen observer, Sade relishes chances for scientific speculation. Although he does not use the term virtuoso, he presents himself in this guise throughout his manuscript, and in the sense it had at the time: an amateur scientist, ready to forward suppositions about natural phenomena and avid for scientific experience and experiment. In French, there is but a single word for both experience and experiment: expérience. Sade’s own description of the Grotta del Cane and his speculations about its vaporous powers add little to learned discussion of the matter, but he did feel the need to present his expérience as such and couched as learned discourse. In this and other moments where natural history is in question, Sade examines the phenomenon, witnesses, hypothesizes, and seeks épreuves, a term that can mean both trials and proofs. Like abbé Nollet, Sade enters the cave himself to feel its effects, and his experimentalist attitude is thus presented as moderately heroic. In other words, Sade highlights both the personal risk and the nonchalance with which such risk is run in the name of curiosity and discovery. Interestingly, Sade also uses the cave to present his sentimental bona fides: a concern for the animals that undergo the trial and do so, unlike him, unwilling and protesting. Sometimes Sade’s forays into natural philosophy, and especially his longer hypothetical speculations, come close to unintentional parody. They can elicit a smile and sometimes even a smirk. Long before Sade’s Italian journey, Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) in Gulliver’s Travels (1726) had mocked the false selfdeprecation and impenetrable jargon of virtuosi, projectors, and their ilk, taking particular aim at those reporting to the Royal Academy in London.88 In presenting himself as a virtuoso, our marquis evinces what we might call the philosophical imperative: an authentic traveller in his age must perform empiricism, even if acting the part can seem a bit forced at times. The same performative mode is all too briefly on display when Sade approaches the acme of the volcanic experience in Italy: Vesuvius, the striking backdrop of the Bay of

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Naples and helpfully proximate to a major urban area. As the grand tour shifted southward in the second half of the eighteenth century, this mountain became a must-see sight. More intrepid travellers might continue on to Sicily and Etna, but Vesuvius maintained its hold on both the scientific and the aesthetic imagination. The most celebrated ancient description of the volcano and its destructive power was the account by Pliny the Younger (61–100 CE) of his uncle’s demise in the eruption of 79, which buried Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae. Pliny the Elder in this telling is a model of curiosity: stoically unconcerned about the risk to his person, driven to understand natural phenomena no matter the cost, and losing his life in the encounter with detachment and dignity. As his nephew explains, “as everyone else was hastily leaving,” his uncle steered “his course straight for the danger zone”: “He was entirely fearless, describing each new movement and phase of the portent to be noted down exactly as he observed them.”89 Modern Vesuvius watchers never fail to mention this primordial witness in their own accounts, of which there are many. Giovanni Maria Della Torre (1710–1782) provides an overview of these reports, along with firsthand observations and scientific explanations, in his Storia e fenomeni del Vesuvio (History and phenomena of Vesuvius) (1755). The occasion of Della Torre’s book was the lava flow that started in 1751 and another in 1754 that lasted into February of 1755. The Storia e fenomeni was reprinted and updated in 1768, with the inclusion of descriptions of the major eruption of 1767;90 it was translated into French, based on the 1768 version, as Histoire et phenomènes de Vésuve (1771). Sade makes brief mention of Father Della Torre in his notes for his manuscript. The 1767 eruption was also the occasion for the most famous eighteenth-century account in English of the volcano and, indeed, a Continental locus classicus, namely, the first-hand and chronologically unfolding description of the event over a number of days as experienced by William Hamilton. Initially presented as a series of letters to the Royal Society, these would be published in 1772 as Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and Other Volcanoes. Hamilton would subsequently expand his work on southern Italian volcanism to a three-volume set, with colour prints, in his Campi Phlegræi. Observations on the Volcanos of the two Sicilies as They have been communicated to the Royal Society of London (1776–1779). These volumes, published in Naples, were bilingual: English and French, to maximize Hamilton’s reading – and purchasing – public. The first two volumes appeared as a self-contained set in 1776. The third appeared in 1779 with the title: Supplement to the Campi Phlegræi, Being an account of the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the Month of August 1779, Communicated to the Royal Society of London. Sade’s description of the volcano abruptly ends at the beginning of his climb, although he evidently planned to flesh out his description and experience of what he termed “a truly horrible spectacle.” We do have notes that he took to this end, although these are full of lacunae. To better understand Sade’s attraction to Vesuvius and his attitude to the experience in spite of these gaps, a taste of Hamilton’s report of the 1767 event  – its sights, sounds, smells, and the feeling of the ground shaking – is illuminating. In describing the spectacular ejection of glowing rocks that were “perfectly transparent, some of which, I dare say of a ton weight, mounted at least two hundred feet perpendicular” prior to the eruption proper, Hamilton emphasizes not only the excitement but the danger: “Mr Hervey, brother to the Earl of Bristol, was very much wounded in the arm some days before the eruption, having approached too near; and two English gentlemen with him were also hurt.”91 He immediately elaborates on the mesmerizing sight: “It is impossible to describe the beautiful appearance of these girandoles of red hot stones, far surpassing the most

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astonishing artificial fire-work.”92 As Hamilton along with a peasant guide approaches the mountain for better viewing, a new mouth suddenly opens and threatens him directly: A fountain of liquid fire shot up many feet high, and then, like a torrent, rolled on directly towards us. The earth shook, at the same time that a volley of pumice stones fell thick upon us; in an instant, clouds of black smoak [sic] and ashes caused almost a total darkness; the explosions from the top of the mountain were much louder than any thunder I ever heard, and the smell of the sulphur was very offensive. My guide, alarmed, took to his heels; and I must confess, that I was not at my ease.93

Such were the thrills that Campania’s premiere natural attraction promised and occasionally delivered. To make his tour of the vicinity of Naples complete, Sade reports that he decided to climb Vesuvius himself, leaving early in the morning “in order to spend the entire day there and to examine at ease such an extraordinary phenomenon of Nature.” The volcano was quiet the day of his visit. There would not be another eruption until the following year, in 1777, with a more impressive one yet in 1779. Notwithstanding, Sade the virtuoso dutifully retraced the steps of Pliny the Elder, and in the introductory commentary that we have of this expedition he does his best to convey the attitude of simultaneous detachment and engagement that led that earlier avatar of empiricism to his death. He also submits that here Nature creates “sports” – freakish or monstrous occurrences – that tend to destruction but that are nonetheless beautiful to behold. The Tasteful Traveller In his description of Vesuvius, William Hamilton mingles the attitudes of detached scientific observation and engaged aesthetic appreciation. The girandoles are fascinating, dangerous, and beautiful. The eruption proper, with increased threat and enhanced spectacle, inclines to the sublime: a “glorious appearance” and “uncommon scene” that “passes all description.”94 The beautiful and the sublime were the two key aesthetic categories in the eighteenth century, eventually to be joined by the picturesque, each with its own array of characteristics. Although the terms had been in circulation throughout the century, the publication in 1757 of A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful by Edmund Burke (1729–1797) helped to codify a distinction that would become increasingly rigid. It was translated into French in 1765 and influential on the Continent, yet the 1776 inventory of Sade’s extensive personal library at La Coste suggests that he did not himself own a copy of Burke’s work.95 Beauty was associated with gently curved lines, symmetry, harmony, light, and in the concise neoclassical definition given by the philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), displayed “uniformity amidst variety.”96 Sublimity, initially a rhetorical notion, entailed discord, rupture, darkness, and ultimately, the blockage of the perceiver’s perceptual and imaginative powers.97 Indeed, as Hamilton’s narration asserts, the sublime, paradigmatically, lies beyond description. Not that writers and artists eschewed attempts at evoking the sensation in their works. Vesuvius was one of the most painted spots on the grand tour, and visual sublimity along with beauty were certainly the aim of artists such as Pierre-Jacques Volaire (1729–1799), who provided striking examples in his paintings of the eruption of 1771, and Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), who undertook the grand tour in 1773–1775 and painted similar scenes (although he, like Sade, missed a proper eruption). Both deployed contrasts and extremes. Brilliant eruptions of fire

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and bright flows of molten lava served as foils for the obscurity of the mountain and bay at night, cloaked in inchoate clouds of smoke. Inevitably, in such depictions, spectators are placed in the foreground, dangerously proximate to these primordial forces of nature and dwarfed by majestic upheaval (see Plate 3). In his curtailed description of Vesuvius and throughout the Journey to Italy, Sade employs terms such as “superb” and “magnificent” that point in the direction of the sublime. With greater frequency he applies the adjective “beautiful,” and more often than will be evident in translation, where for the sake of variety I have sometimes chosen “handsome,” “comely,” and other synonyms. “Beautiful” is by far Sade’s most common descriptor for paintings, sculptures, buildings, landscapes, spectacles, and events that he deems worthy of positive aesthetic qualification. To be clear, Sade does not employ the term “aesthetics” in this sense nor, in fact, at all. The 1750 publication Aesthetica by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762) is commonly recognized as the text that applied the Greek term for sensation to a differentiated field of philosophical inquiry. This work did not register in France, and to this day is better known for its terminological contribution than for its content. Aesthetica was, however, an important background text for Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) in writing his Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the Power of Judgment), which along with insisting on the specificity of aesthetic or critical judgments, further elaborated, codified, and demarcated both the beautiful and the sublime.98 The reception of Kant’s work was much stronger in Britain than in France, and it was in any case published in 1790, long after Sade was safely back from Italy. There were, however, in French letters in the eighteenth century lively discussions of the nature of the beautiful that could be loosely characterized as aesthetic, including Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (Critical reflections on poetry and painting) (1719) by Jean-Baptiste Dubos (1670–1742) and Les Beaux arts réduits à un même principe (The fine arts reduced to a single principle) (1746) by Charles Batteux (1713–1780). Dubos’s work focuses on the reception of artworks, including literature, and on the spell-binding power of mental agitation. Batteux elaborates the imitation of what was known as la belle nature or “beautiful nature” as the underlying unity of the fine arts. As with Burke’s treatise, Sade does not appear to have owned either of these two, although he surely would have known of them. The details of contemporary debates on the fine arts were seemingly not of particular interest to this otherwise wide-ranging and well-rounded reader. Nonetheless, the preponderance of material in the planned chapters of Sade’s Italian project are concerned with art first and foremost, followed by the aesthetic appreciation of Nature, including beautiful vistas and typical sublime settings such as rugged mountain passes and waterfalls. In terms of artworks, what interested Sade most is formulating his judgment of the relative merits and faults, that is, exercising and demonstrating the acuity of his innate but educable faculty of taste. In this regard, Sade’s approach differs little from that of Baumgarten and most others who considered that the role of the fine arts critic is to judge whether something is beautiful or not and to state why. Demonstrating and discerning good taste or bon goût was the task of both the connoisseur (someone who knows or has familiarity) as well as the amateur (or lover) of the arts. If Sade often appears petulant and dismissive in his criticism of particular artistic examples and individual artists, we must remember that historical appreciation and open-mindedness were less valued and that criticism or the work of discerning, distinguishing, and judging was understandably expected of critics, even if a certain generosity of spirit was also commendable. But what exactly was taste? An early eighteenth-century handbook on miniature painting for autodidacts, attributed to Claude

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Boutet, provides an utterly standard account of how the term was understood, at least as applied to the art in question: This is the manner in which the painter treats his subject, in accordance with the idea that he has of each thing; if he has a grand idea thereof, noble, extraordinary, in a word the most excellent imaginable, he will represent it as such; then you will say that what he has done is “in the grand taste.” But if he is ignorant of what the beauty of bodies consists of, and he does not represent them in accordance with that beautiful idea that one ought to have thereof; then we will say that this is in “bad taste.”99

This definition is unhelpfully tautological. To have good or even grand taste as a painter is to represent an excellent idea excellently, while bad taste is a failure of conception and of execution. The question remains: how, outside of inborn capacity, is one to develop taste, either as an artist or as a critic? Boutet’s response is through “the sight and the study of beautiful nature [la belle nature] and the most beautiful works of the painters who have excelled.”100 Historically speaking, the even shorter answer was: Go to Italy. Italy’s varied landscapes were renowned for their picturesqueness, that is, as worthy of representation – the English term and its French equivalent pittoresque both derive from the Italian pittoresco or “painterly.” For this reason, southern Italy in particular, with its unkempt natural abundance encroaching on myriad vestiges of Antiquity, drew artists and tourists alike in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Capitalizing on this reputation, the title that Saint-Non gave to his descriptive account of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily was Voyage pittoresque. There were also, of course, esteemed canvases and frescoes, particularly from the Cinquecento and early Seicento, along with sculptures and architectural wonders both classical and modern. To see these artefacts, travel was necessary. Otherwise, the main expedient was engravings that could only provide a faint notion of the original. Italy was thus where artists from France and elsewhere in Europe came to contemplate, copy, and sharpen their critical faculties. This expedient was officially recognized in France: the prix de Rome was awarded competitively each year to promising painters, sculptors, and starting in 1720, architects, and it provided fellowship support and lodging at the French Academy in Rome for three years or longer. The academy itself was founded in 1666 during the reign of Louis XIV and was the official institution that oversaw the training of French artists in the city and further afield. The painter Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700–1777), its director since 1751, had just been retired from the position in June of 1775, or mere months before Sade’s visit. The new director, Joseph-Marie Vien (1716– 1809), arrived in the capital of the Papal States on 4 November, nine days after Sade.101 He was Natoire’s pupil, winner of the prix de Rome in 1745, and currently the leading light in the classical revival in painting. Grand tourists were not by and large artists themselves, although they certainly could be. For a trip that was to have significant repercussions for the development of neoclassicism in France, Madame de Pompadour, the famous official mistress of Louis XV, the Beloved (1710–1774) at the time, chose the engraver and art critic Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715–1790), the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713–1780), and the literary and art critic Jean-Bernard Le Blanc (1707–1781) as edifying companions for her brother Abel-François Poisson (1727–1781), the future Marquis de Marigny. Poisson departed in late 1749, first spending time at the French Academy. The group then toured extensively. In 1751, Poisson returned to France to take on the position of general director of the king’s buildings. This was the position for which he had been

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groomed and that he would hold for over two decades. In 1755, he named Soufflot his chief adviser, and the latter went on to design, among other edifices, the grandiose Church of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris (renamed the Panthéon during the Revolution and given over to the secular worship of French men of letters and artists). The tour also led to Cochin’s Voyage d’Italie, ou recueil de notes sur les ouvrages de peinture et de sculpture, qu’on voit dans les principales villes d’Italie (Journey to Italy, or collection of notes on the works of painting and sculpture to be seen in the main cities of Italy), published in 1751, which Sade consulted for information on his own journey. Although it cannot be said that Sade’s library shelves buckled under the weight of theoretical works on the fine arts, he was, nonetheless, a reasonably informed spectator, positioning himself more as an amateur than connoisseur. He employed the established distinctions and conceptual vocabulary of men of good taste, and some familiarity with these will aid the reader who wants to grasp Sade’s approach to the fine arts. I will focus here on painting, the branch that Sade spends the most time describing. The handbook account of painting attributed to Claude Boutet reflects accepted notions, dividing the art into four major parts: invention, disposition, drawing, and coloration. The first two terms were borrowed from the rhetorical tradition. Invention simply meant “finding the object that you want to put in a painting.”102 This may seem obvious in the case of portraits or still lives, but in the most esteemed genre of history painting, an artist required ample reading and erudition to cull successfully from history, of course, as well as from literature, myth, and fables. Concomitantly, a critic required learning to judge. Still in the category of invention, artists would also need to consider whether objects, beyond simply representing themselves, would serve as symbols, allegories, or emblems. Disposition meant the fitting distribution of figures, the “judicious choice of postures,” and ideally “giving to each thing its situation in the place that is most appropriate to it.” The rhetorical tradition insisted on decorum (la convenance or la bienséance in French), which meant suitability of speech to a given situation and audience.103 The notion of disposition, strongly articulated in ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric, became a hallmark of French classical drama in the seventeenth century but was also adapted to the visual arts. Together, invention and disposition make up the overarching category of composition and the theoretical aspect of the fine arts. Practice consisted of two central elements: drawing or design and coloration (in French dessin and coloris, respectively). In the Italian context, the relative importance of disegno and colore had been a topic of intense debate in the sixteenth century, and different centres of artistic production were celebrated for one or the other. Florence was known above all for drawing; Venice for colour. Partisanship on this matter inflected painting and its reception in seventeenth-century France, but by the eighteenth century the two elements were generally treated as equal components. Granted, one might acknowledge the historical contention, and individual artists and canvases might reveal more competence or excellence in a given category. In the handbook attributed to Boutet, we find for the definition of drawing: the representation of the body by “a simple line that marks the contour thereof.”104 The representation of the human body is generally treated as the apex of drawing skill, although the notion was easily extended to include draperie (clothing and fabrics), the representation of architecture, landscapes, and so forth. Drawing required the study of anatomy as well as knowledge of how various passions are expressed, especially on the face. On this topic, the painter Charles Le Brun (1619–1690) had produced an influential essay, published posthumously in 1698, that came with accompanying schematic illustrations.105 Drawing also called for the study of classical models, particularly Greek

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and Roman statuary, and for knowledge of geometry to understand proportionality and perspective. Colour, too, was divided into two parts: under the rubric “local colour” went the knowledge of how different colours affect each other in proximity, and chiaroscuro covered the distribution of light and shade. The rendering of flesh (carnation) also fell under the category of colour. Assembled in a particular work, these elements should add up to vérité or “truth.” A truthful representation is not an objective rendering of whatever subject, but quintessentially of la belle nature. Sade uses the expression “la belle nature” at several points in his manuscript, and he overwhelmingly cleaves to this value. Among other instances, Sade invokes the powerful impact of la belle nature to explain Jerôme Duquesnoy’s pederastic attraction to his models. That he deems this principle “profoundly unrelated to sex” suggests something along the lines of what Kant would subsequently describe as aesthetic disinterest, although the purported effect on Duquesnoy certainly seems to belie the assertion. This investment in la belle nature is something Sade unthinkingly shares with competitor travel writers such as Jérôme Richard. But that the concept could not explain all forms of aesthetic pleasure was something that exercised deeper thinkers on the fine arts. Following Aristotle’s remark in the Poetics that even horrid creatures such as snakes can be pleasing in imitation, Dubos, for one, had argued that things or actions inherently repugnant could please if experienced mediately through artistic representation, which tempers disgust and allows mental stimulation to fill the void of ennui. Even with real spectacles that everyone ought to find horrifying such as gladiatorial combat and public executions, Dubos argues, stimulation may trump aversion. Viewing “the agony of a fellow man who undergoes the rigor of the laws on the scaffold and who is brought to death by frightful torments” causes immediate as well as lingering displeasure, “but the emotive attraction is stronger for many folks than the reflections and counsels of experience.”106 In the course of the eighteenth century, a veritable aesthetics of ugliness would be developed, mainly through the category of the sublime.107 Such an aesthetics of the unattractive and off-putting is something that Sade himself would develop at length in his later writings. In the Italian manuscript, we catch only glimpses thereof. When Sade speaks of the “sublime horror” of the cockaigne violence in Naples, he does so with disapprobation, even if we suspect a modicum of spectatorial pleasure. Aesthetic mediation seemingly makes little difference. Sade reacts to the suite of gruesome martyrdom depictions in Santo Stefano al Monte Celio in Rome with understandable and seemingly genuine disgust, although he does succinctly characterize a painting of Saint John’s head on a platter by Caravaggio (1571–1610) a belle horreur or “lovely horror.” Within the parameters of the beautiful, Sade values above all correction (accuracy). He is generally quite conservative in this regard, not only criticizing compositions, postures, or colours that strike him as inadvertently awkward or otherwise off but eschewing anything maniéré or “mannered” as a fault. If assessment in such terms sounds dry, Sade also praises more sensuous and dynamic characteristics such as agrément (grace) and force (energy and power of expression). In terms of colour, he tends to praise paintings that are frais – a difficult to translate term that usually means “fresh” or “cool,” and that I have often rendered as “vivid.” Lastly, Sade has an abiding but by no means idiosyncratic interest in carnation and an appreciation for adequate, expressive rendering of skin tone. To take a pointed example of how Sade employed some of these elements in his criticism, consider his assessment of Natoire’s fresco of Saint Louis in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, which the artist had undertaken while director of the French Academy in the city. Sade decries the “poor choice of subject,” along with the painting’s “stiff” draperies

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and “incorrect” drawing. He also thought the composition hardly benefited from proximity to so many masterpieces. Sade was happy, nevertheless, to praise Natoire’s “social virtues,” separating the art and the artist from the man. It should be noted that Sade’s rejection of mannerism and his appreciation of verité does not entail an uncritical embrace of idealism or eschewing a trace of realism – or rather what he calls vraisemblance, or verisimilitude. This was a term that he occasionally applied to painting and that he borrowed from dramatic theory. Indeed, respect for la bienséance and for vraisemblance was the essence of classical drama in France, built out of the Renaissance rediscovery and reception of Aristotle’s Poetics – which argued of tragic plots that the poet should prefer “probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.”108 Invoking vraisemblance, for example, Sade remarks of the portrayal by Giovanni Battista Naldini (1535–1591) in Trinità dei Monti in Rome of Saint John baptizing Christ that there is too much youth and delicacy in the face of the saviour, who looks more like “a pretty girl than a Jew.” He similarly judges improbable the flesh colour of a depiction of Mary; she should have been “quite brown.” This was evidently also a philosophical jab at European Christians, who would blanch their idols of oriental taint. Painting is quantitatively the most important branch of the arts in Sade’s manuscript, but there is also considerable qualitative discussion of sculpture and of architecture. Sade encounters and comments on statues that were well-known models of pagan antiquity: the Venus de’ Medici and the Farnese Hercules in Florence; the Laocoön and his Sons (or the Laocoön Group) in the Vatican in Rome; and many more besides. Sade’s journey did not lack for modern masterpieces either, such as Michelangelo’s celebrated Pietà in Saint Peter’s and the baroque fantasia Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598– 1680), in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. Many of the terms of painterly discussion could be extended and adapted to sculpture. Accuracy of anatomy and of attitude or posture stood out. Coloration was relatively insignificant. Polychromic sculpture was not only the medieval but also the classical norm, although the ancient practice was not recognized until after the eighteenth century. Modern artists modelled their works on denuded antiques that were deemed somehow purer. Yet the varied tones and patterns of marble were appreciated, especially in columns and inlay, and Sade demonstrates a fascination with the material that suggests possible psychological interpretations. Was his attraction to a venous yet cold and obdurate material somehow symptomatic? This seems unlikely since expression was what Sade and most other critics in his day held as paramount. Consider Jérôme Richard’s opinion of Bernini’s sculptures. Judging them to be less “elevated” than the sculptures of earlier artists such as Bartolommeo Bandinelli (1488–1560) and the Flemish sculptor known as Giambologna (Jean Boulogne; 1529–1608) and of Baroque contemporaries such as Alessandro Algardi (1598–1654), Richard nevertheless finds Bernini’s works “elegant and graceful” and considers the Saint Teresa group to be a model of “expression.” Similarly, Sade considers Bernini to be the epitome of mannerism, yet praises him still. He, too, deems “the famous statue of the languishing Saint Teresa about to be wounded by the Angel” to be Bernini’s “masterpiece”: a moving rendering of passion and a model of accuracy as far as expression was concerned. For Sade, powerful expression could trump other considerations. Or nearly. Discussing Michelangelo’s Pietà, the sculpture of Mary cradling the dead Christ, in Saint Peter’s, Sade judges that the artist “succeeded in putting so much soul and expression into both of these figures that he almost makes his subject move us, if one could ever be moved by the death of a double-dealer and imposter resting on the lap of a whore.” This example comes from Sade’s notebook on Rome, and we can imagine that he might have toned down his rhetoric had his publication plans for the manuscript come to fruition.

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Although Sade frequently discusses examples of architecture, both sacred and profane, his observations, on the whole, do not suggest a robust engagement with the secondary literature. He makes no mention in the manuscript of Vitruvius (c. 80/70 BCE–after c. 15 BCE), the most important of classical architectural theorists. Based on correspondence related to the Journey to Italy project, he had only second-hand knowledge of the influential illustrations of and writings on architecture by Sebastiano Serlio (1475–c. 1554), the publication of which began in 1537. Similarly, there is no evidence that Sade had direct knowledge of I quattro libri dell’architettura (The four books of architecture) (1570) by Andrea Palladio (1508–1580), which built on Vitruvius and profoundly influenced the classical revival in Europe – a revival that Sade otherwise appreciated. His grasp of architectural terminology is generally solid, however, even if his architectural descriptions include some of the more confounding, occasionally incoherent passages in the manuscript. He once confuses Doric and Ionic orders; this was likely a momentary lapse. He makes no terminological distinction between nave and aisles in churches, but in this he is not alone. It appears that most of Sade’s architectural knowledge came from Essai sur l’architecture (Essay on architecture) (1753) by the Jesuit priest and architectural theorist Marc-Antoine Laugier (1713–1769), which included a glossary of terms and illustrative plates. Sade did own a copy of this work, and his descriptions and especially his critical assessments are redolent of Laugier’s work and views. That Laugier was a Jesuit could apparently be overlooked when it came to assessing architectural beauty and flaws. To take one case, which comes up on occasion in the manuscript, Sade condemns the use or abuse of pilasters – instead of proper free-standing round columns – which Laugier had likewise criticized at length: “Pilasters are naught but a poor representation of columns; their angles herald the constriction of art, and they deviate noticeably from the simplicity of nature,” and so on in this vein.109 Sade similarly – if more pointedly – attacks the “stupidity of the architect” who, commissioned with the renovation of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, “swallowed up some superb granite columns under heavy and massive pilasters that shrink the building and make it quite awkward looking.” Throughout his planned guidebook, Sade makes sure to stress his empirical accuracy by disputing and debunking claims about measurements. Has the length of a bridge, for example, been provided correctly? How could an author such as Jérôme Richard, to mention Sade’s favourite but by no means only target of criticism, claim precision and yet err so frequently and so egregiously? Sade also gamely takes sides and sets out to solve a protracted architectural debate: Does Saint Peter’s appear smaller and less majestic than its actual size should entail, and if so, why is this the case? Sade’s main point of reference on the matter appears to have been Lalande’s Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766, which puts forth the counterintuitive assertion, cited by our author, that the “miracle of the beautiful proportions of Saint Peter’s … is to produce not a single feeling at first sight.” Who would perversely deny, Sade derisively opines, “that it is better to be little and appear great than to be great and appear little”? Well before Lalande, the topic of Saint Peter’s proportions and impact had been argued, among other instances, in the pages of the journal Mémoires pour l’Histoire des Sciences & des beaux arts (Memoirs for the history of the sciences and fine arts; better known simply as the Mémoires de Trévoux) between 1709 and 1712, with the architectural theorist and historian Jean-Louis de Cordemoy (1655–1714) taking sides against the engineer, explorer, and polymath AmédéeFrançois Frézier (1682–1773).110

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The matter was still unresolved in the 1780s, when the art historian and critic Francesco Milizia (1725–1798) considered why people still dispute whether Saint Peter’s is “even the same size as the cathedral of Milan or that of London [i.e., Christopher Wren’s Saint Paul’s]” – it is demonstrably larger – and concluded that the problem comes down to the proscription in “modern architecture” of isolated columns, which enhance the impression of size, and the use instead of pillars and blocks, which instead produce buildings that seem “cumbrous, thick, squat, heavy, and small.”111 Milizia concludes that Pope Paul V (1550–1621) had wanted to create something large but had inadvertently ended up with the opposite effect. Sade would hardly have disputed this assessment, which laid the blame not on the architect but firmly on a pontiff and his misguided quest for sublunary magnificence. Modern Art, Sentimental Aesthetics, and the “Interesting” Like his contemporaries, the Marquis de Sade tended to think of history as falling into two broad epochs, the antique or ancient and the moderne. This conception was particularly strong for the history of art. Each epoch included – or includes, in the case of the modern – cycles of emergence, progress, peak, and decline. This cyclical view could be inserted, however paradoxically, into an account of overarching progress. Sade will on occasion pronounce a more nihilist version of the cyclical as eternal “monotony”: since humanity does not essentially change, a good look at history reveals “the same events repeating themselves, the same crimes, the same virtues, the destruction of some, the rise of others.” Generally, however, Sade sticks to the epochal model, and he is quite specific about when the ancient artistic acme took place, which he pointedly situates in relation to the ascension of the first Roman emperor and, secondarily, to the opening of the Christian era, thus between “Augustus, year I and the 30th of Jesus Christ,” when “the arts had reached their perfection.” By the time of the emperor Constantine, they were in a state of decline, not to truly reappear until the middle of the fifteenth century. Sade is again specific: “the taking of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453.” Progress in the arts, in a sense, begins anew in Italy at this time, with the Florentine painters Cenni di Pepo, known as Cimabue (c. 1240–c. 1302) and his pupil Giotto di Bondone, known simply as Giotto (1266–1377), mentioned in the manuscript as constituting the first glimpses of what will rapidly become “advances in the arts.” Consciously or not, Sade here follows Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), who recounts the fall of the arts with Rome, their tenuous survival in the Byzantine Empire, and their re-emergence in Italy, in his Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects), first published in 1550.112 In eighteenth-century France, this view was simply a historiographical given. The Academy of Dijon assumed that everyone would understand what was meant by “re-establishment” when they posed the question in 1749 whether the “re-establishment of the sciences and arts contributed to the purification of mores” in their annual essay competition. Jean-Jacques Rousseau certainly thwarted expectations when he answered in the negative in his prize-winning response. He repeated the standard narrative, however, when he explained that it was the “stupefied Moslem, the eternal scourge of letters” who, altogether inadvertently, brought about the rebirth of the sciences and the arts: “The fall of the throne of Constantinople brought into Italy the debris of ancient Greece,” and “France in turn was enriched by these precious spoils.”113 Adumbrated in Rousseau’s telling is the notion of a translatio imperii of arts and letters. In the broadest of terms, the geographical and temporal shift in empires went from birth in Egypt to Greece and especially Athens and on

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to Rome. If Italy was the place of modern rebirth and even perfection, the common French assessment was that Italy’s national apex occurred in the sixteenth century and decline had set in by the seventeenth and eighteenth. Needless to say, France had inherited the throne, even if study in Italy was still required. This assumption is often in evidence in Sade’s manuscript and was shared by most French writers on the topic. None other than abbé Richard blames misguided religious belief – “bizarre manners of thinking” – as heralding the “decadence of the arts” and shackling “taste and genius” in Italy.114 Richard gives as examples the orders from on high to cover Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel, and the sight of an artist wetting “his palette and brush with tears” as he is forced to censor a painting by Raphael (1483–1520) in which the infant Jesus “appeared too nude.”115 Italian artists had once wed classical and pagan appreciation of the unadorned human form to Christianity; whether by inclination or by order, they do so no longer. But as usual, Richard hesitates to indict religion as the root cause and holds that such decline is simply part of the nature of things: “Let’s not seek the reason elsewhere than in a certain logic of periodic upheavals [un certain ordre de révolutions], which at times makes the talents of one region pass into another, at times suspends them in inactivity, in a swelling that barely allows us to glimpse the seed in those who seem to make the most efforts, to give them a new existence.”116 For whatever reason, Richard was nonetheless certain that art in Italy was experiencing “a sort of annihilation” and that the revolution had moved on.117 On this point, Sade and his principal antagonist are, once again, in perfect accord. What falls between the ancient and the modern is evidently that nebulous category of the “medieval.” Although not a term that Sade employs as such, his conception is clear enough. Sade does not find this period altogether uninteresting, and in the course of his manuscript he does delve into the political and ecclesiastical history of medieval Italy. But he has little regard for art from this era, which he tends to find “more peculiar than pleasing.” In describing an arch made to honour Constantine by the Senate and people of Rome on his return from victory over Maxentius, Sade finds that the base, made during “an era when the arts had begun to flee Rome,” “already gives off a whiff of the Gothic.” The top of the structure, however, belonged formerly to Trajan’s arch and was thus built during “a more enlightened [éclairé] century.” Sade’s nemesis Richard likewise had no regard for “Gothic irregularities,” although he also held that for a traveller to appreciate art not only is broad education and an understanding of technical aspects required, but also a willingness “not to confuse the different tastes and epochs.”118 The eighteenth century did witness a halting reassessment of medieval art – both Soufflot and Cordemoy, for example, appreciate aspects of Gothic architecture – and the emergence of the notion that artworks should be judged in relation to historical context; nevertheless, the classicist ideal of Antiquity reborn was still regnant.119 Beauty was generally held to conform to universal standards, even as some room was granted for individual, national, and other sources of variation. Relativity of taste or what in the later eighteenth century was characterized in French as caprice was rejected, although radical libertines, including Sade in his licentious writing career, would experiment with exactly this notion as a source of hedonistic variety and flexibility.120 In his Italian manuscript, Sade does not yet embrace historical relativity let alone the capricious with regard to art, still he will occasionally describe palaeo-Christian and subsequent church architecture in a posture of learned detachment and not without a suspicion of appreciation. As for grasping the historical specificity of eighteenth-century French aesthetics, we must note the premium placed on the subjective impact of artworks, landscapes, and literature. At work is a long trajectory that in the seventeenth century witnessed increasing

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interest in the passions, the rise of sentimentality towards the mid-eighteenth, and as physiological theories were increasingly blended in from the mid-century onwards, sensibility as a valued nervous susceptibility to both art and life.121 These concepts have been most thoroughly studied in terms of the novel and print culture, where the works of Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) stand out: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the Story of a Young Lady (1747), and The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753). Antoine François Prévost’s translations of these novels were well known in France. Sade owned all three Richardsons, and they indelibly shaped his libertine writings, which both adopted and inverted the sentimental paradigm and theories of sensibility.122 In the visual arts, a sign of good taste is not simply that one nods in approval on account of coloration, design, or accuracy of imitation. Diderot writes in his Essais sur la peinture (Essays on painting) of 1766 that the happy spectator marries “taste” and “sensibility,” for the two can be separated. Such a spectator does not “coldly” state that something is beautiful; he is “moved, transported, drunk.”123 According to Diderot, expression is “the image of a feeling [l’image d’un sentiment].”124 It was valued precisely insofar as the passion depicted was also experienced by the perceiver. But whereas Charles Le Brun was invested in the panoply of human passions, including anger and despair, sentimentality and sensibility in eighteenth-century visual arts tended to emphasize gentle passions such as sympathy, as in the lachrymose canvases of Diderot’s favourite, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and love. Sentimentality was, in fact, usually tinged with an eroticism that ranged from subtle insinuation to open salaciousness. Sade could not help but draw out eroticism in the paintings and sculptures that he viewed, and he often added a dose of philosophical critique. Like many others, he saw something other than divinity at work in Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa: “The piece is sublime thanks to the air of truth that characterizes it, but one must really firmly set in mind upon seeing it that she is a saint, because from the ecstatic look of Teresa, from the fire that burns in her face, it would be easy to err.” Sade smirks about a painting of the Madonna and Child in the church of Sant’Eusebio all’Esquilino in Rome that he would “gladly join the cult of Mary, if such a pretty one were promised me.” He adds that all painters in Italy “seem to enjoy giving delicious characteristics to this modern Venus of the Christians.” How can pious men concentrate on the Son when the Mother is so enticing? Sade ties his aesthetic appreciation of such works to another aspect of taste that was never explicitly discussed or formalized but that nonetheless developed and expanded in the eighteenth century, namely, intérêt or “interest.” This idea pinpoints what a represented object does to and, after a fashion, for the viewer. It could simply mean “profit,” and this sense lingers in the aesthetic context.125 The term “interesting” could be and often was used casually and innocuously; however, it also named the linkage of the sentimental to the erotic, where the object of pity is simultaneously the object of desire and even of fantasized violation. Diderot, contemplating a Greuze painting of an adolescent lamenting her dead songbird – a symbol of lost virginity – asks his implied male reader to admit that she is both beautiful and “interesting,” and then adds: “I have no love for inflicting suffering; in spite of that, I wouldn’t be too displeased to be the cause of her pain.”126 Known best for his maudlin adaptation of history painting to bourgeois family settings, Greuze also produced frankly lecherous depictions of young girls in dishabille  – canvases liberated from the symbolic ambiguity of dead birds. Paintings of the repentant Mary Magdalene, a paradigmatic sexualized sufferer, could elicit similar outbursts of prurient sentimentality. On a Magdalene painted by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée (1724–1805) and displayed in the Paris Salon of 1765, Diderot would remark that if she anointed Jesus’s feet and dried

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them with her hair and he “felt no movement of the flesh,” then he was not a man after all.127 In the same vein, on a Magdalene by Guido Reni (1575–1642) in the Barberini Palace in Rome, Sade remarks that “this great master has deployed all the grace and truth of his art,” and then leering expands that “looking at such a lovely sinner, one would be rather tempted to bring her back to her old errors than those new chimerical virtues that seem to occupy her thoughts!” (see Plate 4). Sade praises the work of Reni throughout the Italian manuscript, and the painter remained a favourite of his throughout his career. Sade’s compatriots tended to agree. This artist was known in France simply as Le Guide (rendered “Guido” in this translation, although “the Guido” would be equally apt). The esteem for Reni in eighteenth-century France stemmed from his suitability to sentimental discourse. Reni was the interesting painter par excellence. Perhaps the most “interesting” work that Sade encounters on his entire voyage is, nonetheless, the sculpture by Stefano Maderno (c. 1576–1636) of the martyred Saint Cecilia, murdered in her bath (see Plate 5). This is not the gut-wrenching gruesomeness of other martyrdom depictions that Sade views with distaste and considers as evidence of Christianity’s sanguinary voyeurism. The saint is prone and could perhaps be mistaken as slumbering were it not for the evidence of three slashes: “The marks of her wounds will be seen on her beautiful, completely uncovered neck.” Sade judges that the artist has accurately captured the “violent death” of the martyr in the posture he has chosen. He also notes how the delicate drapery of her bathing chemise reveals to the ravished viewer “her contours.” It is a delicacy that Sade calls “sublime.” Cecilia, recumbent and dead, is nonetheless alluring: “The artist has preserved all the graces of his model and the death that freezes her seems, if this is possible, to only make her more interesting [intéressante].” It is clear she is a corpse, yet “you inhale still all the delicacy and all the svelteness of a young person seventeen or eighteen years old and as interesting as she is pretty [aussi intéressante que jolie].” So “truthful” is Maderno’s work that you cannot help but be moved – cannot help but take an interest in the interesting. Sade concludes somewhat inchoately: “I think that such a representation, glimpsed by someone who might have had some lively interest [quelque vif intérêt] in the unfortunate model who might have experienced the same fate, would be liable perhaps to produce a stronger impression still than the cadaver itself. The effect could be dangerous.” The implication seems to be that such a sexualized representation of a dead woman might inspire necrophilia, or is it perhaps even murder? Sade excuses himself for lingering over this piece, concluding that Maderno’s Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia is “the modern object in Rome that gave me the most pleasure and made me feel a most lively sensation.” A final aspect of what we can broadly characterize as sentimental spectatorship was the appreciation of ruins. A brief consideration of An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful by Uvedale Price (1747–1829) will be helpful. Price’s book was published in 1794, so it obviously had no influence on Sade’s Italian travels. What the work did do was render explicit and help codify an aesthetic category that had long circulated as part of what might be called, loosely following Wittgenstein, the language games of both the arts and travel writing.128 For Price, the picturesque, while self-standing, was positioned intermediate to the other two categories: where the sublime favoured ruptures and the beautiful featured gentle curves, picturesque lines broke symmetry but without violence; where the sublime favoured darkness and the beautiful light, the picturesque was dappled and grey. One of Price’s crucial examples of the picturesque is processual: a classical structure, white, harmonious, and regular falls into ruin; smooth

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surfaces roughen; columns become encrusted, moss-covered, or entangled in vines.129 Ruins were everywhere in Italy, not only adding picturesqueness to painterly landscapes but in the midst of cities, particularly Rome. The remnants of Classical Antiquity were not only objects to be appreciated as models of beauty and magnificence, but also for enjoyably morbid contemplation. As Sade writes of what to expect from a visit to ancient Capua, there you will “consider with pleasure the fragments of its splendour.” These ruins were some distance from the modern city, and at the time of Sade’s visit, carriages awaited visitors to whisk them off to this site. There were artists who featured such sights and catered to the well-heeled tourist trade. The best-known French artist specializing in the subject was Hubert Robert (1733–1808), a purveyor of “sweet melancholy,” to cite Diderot on the painter and what he termed the visual “poetics of ruins.”130 Robert spent over a decade in Rome in the middle of the century, including at the French Academy. He forayed into the countryside in search of material, and in 1760 accompanied Saint-Non to Pompeii. There was also Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765), a vedutisto (landscape painter) whom Jérôme Richard thought a good example of a living Italian artist and who concentrated on Roman antiquities and ruins, often adding fantastic elements. Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s engraved depictions of the city and its environs were similar in this regard, and his prints made reasonable souvenirs. How widely appreciated Piranesi was at the time that Sade made his journey, near the end of the artist’s career, is unclear. Sade mentions Piranesi only once in the manuscript, and not as an engraver but as an architect and specifically as the renovator of the Church of Santa Maria del Priorato in Rome. Piranesi for Sade is merely he “who has filled this temple with decorations taken from Antiquity but placed haphazardly and presented with a harshness that tires the eyes and will ever displease.” Balancing the insistence on reason and progress, the melancholic contemplation of ruins was an important minor strain of enlightened thought. In depictions of ruins, the artist would often include the figure of a lone tourist or, more commonly still, labourers or peasants at rest or play. This pastoral touch contrasted both civilized complexity with rural simplicity and ancient glory with contemporary decadence. Sade maintains that the modern reality was often less poignant. In the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine Hill, where once the residence of emperors had stood, he remarks that there are “fragments of columns, friezes, pilasters, of great delicacy and singularly precious workmanship.” Then, commingling pensive reflection with more than a soupçon of aristocratic disdain, Sade observes that “benches and tables” have been fashioned from these remnants and that “the most vile populace today comes and gets drunk on fragments of the habitation of the masters of the universe.” More grandiosely, the contemplation of ruins undermined any notion of progress or the triumph of reason and instead underscored inevitable and universal decline. About the Palatine Hill, Sade writes: How many sad reflections present themselves to the imagination when we consider what remains of so much grandeur? Some scattered ashes, some bases of crumbling walls – this is all that remains for us today of those proud emperors, which the entire earth did not satisfy, and of their sumptuous abodes. Death and time have not respected them more than they have the allotment of the pauper and his humble hut.

The iconographic tradition of the memento mori was, of course, of long standing, as was the poetic theme of tempus edax or “time, the eater.” These notions were fitted onto the minor Enlightenment strain and could have a distinctly political cast, as when Sade opines

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that time is the leveller of “the fateful distinctions of this life.”131 Sade also used ruins as an occasion to critique religious systems and their false promises, his neo-Epicurean atheism showing through. Continuing his reflection on the ruins of empire on the Palatine Hill, he takes a bold stand and invites his reader’s acquiescence: “More philosophical than those who fabricate these systems, which provide so little consolation, let us dare to believe that if new rewards do not await us, at least we do not have new pains to fear, and that the utter destruction of our being is the quittance that Nature owes us.” New Views on Antiquity The artistic and structural remnants of the Roman Empire crowd the entirety of Sade’s route. These remnants provide not only material for sweetly melancholic contemplation and nihilistic consolation, but they are also opportunities to uncover the past and to expatiate on ancient political and cultural history. The city of Rome, of course, and its environs is particularly rich in evidence of past glory. Our marquis visits the remains of the palace grounds and the Forum on the Capitoline Hill, the triumphal arches and imperially imported Egyptian obelisks, what was left of the Circus Maximus, the famous chariot racetrack, and of course, the Colosseum, the despoilment of which – for the construction of modern edifices  – Sade bemoans. In the surrounding area, there are numerous other sights. Sade describes fragments he sees along the Appian Way as well as the remains of various country estates including the villa of Emperor Hadrian (76–138 CE), the Sabine estate of Horace (65–8 BCE), and the purported villa of Gaius Cilnius Maecenas (68–8 BCE), the celebrated literary patron. He presents these with his by now well-thumbed copy of Chaupy’s Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (1767–1769) as ready reference. Campania likewise abounds with ruined villas, along with baths, engineering marvels such as the Grotta di Posillipo or Crypta Neapolitana, an ancient tunnel running under Posillipo Hill, near Naples, and entire cities, such as ancient Capua, with its amphitheatre rivalling Rome’s in size. As he goes along, Sade proffers measurements and descriptions of archaeological remains that he asserts are more accurate than those provided by his rivals in the guidebook business, and he digs into ancient sources in search of proof about the capacities, purposes, and identities of various structures. In preparing his manuscript, Sade made ample use of ancient historians, with Titus Livius, known simply as Livy (64 or 59 BCE–2 or 17 CE), being prominent for the early history of Rome and Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, known as Suetonius (69–122 CE), from whom he took copious notes, for the Imperial era. Unfortunately, although Sade provides page references in two instances, which edition of Livy he used remains unknown to us. The main options in French translation were Les Décades de Tite-Live (The decades of Titus Livy) by the dramatic author and historiographer Pierre du Ryer (1606–1658), first published in 1653 and often reprinted, as well as the more recent Histoire Romaine de TiteLive (Roman history of Titus Livy) by the humanist and translator François Guérin (1681– 1751), which first came out in 1738, but neither appears to be the translation that Sade consulted and cited. There were more recent options for translations of Suetonius. These include Les douze Césars (The twelve Caesars) (1770) by the playwright, writer, and literary critic Jean-François de La Harpe (1739–1803), and Histoire des douze Césars, de Suétone (History of the twelve Caesars, by Suetonius) (1771) by the philosopher and historian Jean-Baptiste-Claude Deslisle de Sales (1751–1861) but published under the pseudonym Henri Ophellot de La Pause. We do know from internal references in his manuscript that

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Sade’s Suetonius was the older standard by the prolific seventeenth-century translator and multilingual Sulpician priest, Jean Baudoin (1662–1698). Baudoin’s Suétone Tranquille, De la vie des douze Césars (Suetonius Tranquillus, on the lives of the twelve Caesars) was originally published in 1611. These were hardly our author’s only ancient sources. There are references in Sade’s manuscript to a wide variety of historians and biographers, including Dionysius of Halicarnassus (c. 60 BCE–after 7 BCE), Plutarch (c. 46–c. 120 CE), Tacitus (56–c. 120 CE), and Cassius Dio, as well as to geographical and cultural writings from Seneca (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, Strabo (64 or 63 BCE– c. 24 CE), and numerous others. Sade consulted broadly on early modern European political, Italian, and ecclesiastical history, and similarly made ample use of early modern sources on ancient Rome. Chief among the latter were Vertot’s Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la république romaine and the twelve-volume work by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Crevier (1693–1765) entitled Histoire des empereurs romains, depuis Auguste jusqu’à Constantin (1749–1755) (History of the Roman emperors, from Augustus to Constantine) (1755–1761). Sade’s manuscript also cites a range of classical literary texts. Our marquis advises that if you are heading to the Kingdom of Naples, “Virgil is the traveller whom you have need to have in hand while traversing this happy countryside where he made his hero roam.” Virgil still enjoyed more esteem than Homer in terms of epic poetry, the highest of literary genres, and tracking geographical references in The Aeneid is something in which Sade and other tourists indulged. Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics provided useful lenses through which to view the countryside and agricultural labour. The poet’s supposed tomb in the Campanian countryside just outside of Naples was an important stop on the southern Italian grand tour. Here visitors might collect a leaf from the venerable bay tree that grew on the spot. Sade does treat the site as something of a tourist trap, however, and reasonably doubts the ancientness of the tree, which serves as a source of revenue for the local caretaker.132 The epistles, odes, and satires of Horace are intermittent points of reference, as are Martial’s epigrams. If Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English and French as simply Martial (born sometime between 38 and 41 CE, died sometime between 102 and 104), is mainly recalled for pungent insults and character evisceration, his short, witty observations are often inoffensive and contain tidbits of trivial yet interesting information. Where, for example, was the best olive oil made? Answer: Venafrum or present-day Venafro, as it turns out. Chaupy uses references from not just Horace, but also Cicero (106–43 BCE), Juvenal (50 CE–second century CE), Publius Papinius Statius (45–96 CE), as well as others to illuminate the archaeological record and to track down the identity of villas and other structures in the vicinity of Rome. Similarly, Sade mines literary authors for evidence and information about locations, place names, wines, regional specialties, and the like. Sade employs both his ancient and modern sources in conjunction with his own firsthand examination of sites – another instance of empiricism of sorts – to formulate historical and archaeological conjectures that have vraisemblance, once again adapting this term from dramatic theory to his subject at hand. He puts forward explanations that seem to him truthlike (verisimilitudinous rather than assuredly true) because one cannot be certain of the past, and the evidence is not always good. I have often translated vraisemblable, the adjective corresponding to vraisemblance, as “probable” or “likely.” In Rome, for example, Sade is discussing a temple at the time held to be dedicated to Minerva Medica because a statue of the goddess was found nearby. But Sade demurs, stating that a number of different

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statues of gods and godlike beings have been found in the vicinity, including Pomona, Hercules, Adonis, Venus, and Hadrian’s “lovely favourite boy,” Antinoüs. The more probable hypothesis is that the structure was a pantheon, either a copy of or model for Agrippa’s temple, otherwise known as the Pantheon in Rome. Or again, discussing the ruins of a temple near Lake Averno that some claim was dedicated to Juno and others to Apollo, Sade tells us that, lacking the discovery of an inscription that would decide the matter with certainty, he would opt for Pluto, since the nearby marsh was consecrated to the Lord of the Underworld, the entrance of which was purported to have been close by. This is the more likely hypothesis. Nevertheless, we must be ready to admit that when assigning probabilities is not possible, conjectures should not be made. Concerning the various country villas in the vicinity of Baiae that belonged to luminaries such as Caesar, Pompey, the consul Gaius Marius, the senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso, and others, Sade asserts that assigning correct ownership is impossible, and this in spite of Tacitus’s precise indications. The upheaval in the interim has been too great. Sade maintains that he is “more frank” and “less interested perhaps” in passing off his “reveries as hypotheses [conjectures]” than those “writers of romances” – his fellow travel guide authors – who set them down as certainties. In cases such as this, Sade explains that he will simply state that he has “seen some ruins.” Some ancient sites stand out more than others on Sade’s Italian journey. One of the archaeological highlights of Campania that had come to attention in the middle of the eighteenth century and was still growing in fame at the time Sade visited was the ancient seaside town of Paestum, with its three, largely intact Doric temple structures. The somewhat squat columns and simple capitals of these structures, solid and soberly majestic, were key to the Doric revival in later eighteenth-century architecture. First, however, resistance to the engrained notion that Greek architecture was frankly primitive and unattractive compared with Roman had to be overcome.133 Originally Poseidonia, the town was part of Magna Graecia, comprising ancient Greek settlements in southern Italy that included Sybaris, which became synonymous with voluptuary indulgence; Cumae, with its famous sibyl; Elea, home of the pre-Socratic philosophers Zeno and Parmenides; and Neapolis, that is, “new city,” of which modern Naples is a corruption. Various claims were made in Sade’s day about exactly who had rediscovered Paestum, located some fifty miles south of the capital, hardly hidden, but also off the well-trod path. In his Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, the travel writer Pierre-Jean Grosley reported that it was a Neapolitan art student who first heralded Paestum’s splendour in 1755 – a story that circulated widely, at least in French.134 This was clearly incorrect or at least a gross exaggeration. In 1745, La Lucania, an account by Giuseppe Antonini (1683–1765) of the ancient Oscan and Hellenistic area of the southern peninsula, provided a long description of the site, referring copiously to ancient and modern sources.135 Antonini, for instance, notes that the German geographer Philipp Clüver (1580–1622), in his Italia Antiqua (Ancient Italy), published posthumously in 1624, claimed that the city was also known as Nettunia, after the god Neptune. Antonini rejects “con buona pace [with all due respect]” the opinion of “so great a man.”136 In 1750, moreover, Jacques-Germain Soufflot, who was then on tour with Madame de Pompadour’s brother, visited and surveyed the site in the company of fellow French architect Gabriel Pierre Martin Dumont (1713?–1794).137 This visit would eventually lead to Dumont’s illustrated, albeit inexact, account Suite de plans, coupes, profils, elevations … de trois temples antiques dans le Bourgade de Poesto qui est la Ville Poestum de Pline (Series of site plans, cross sections, side views, elevations … of three ancient temples in the village of Poesto, which is Pliny’s town of Paestum) (1764).

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No matter who exactly was responsible for its fame, what is clear is that interest in Paestum took off in the mid-eighteenth century. Printed and illustrated accounts accumulated in the years prior to Sade’s visit. These included The Ruins of Paestum, otherwise Posidonia, in Magna Graecia (1768) by Thomas Major (1720–1799) and The Ruins of Poestum, or Posidonia, a City of Magna Graecia in the Kingdom of Naples, Containing a Description and Views of the Remaining Antiquities (1767), published anonymously but attributed to physician John Berkenhout (1726–1791), which drew on Dumont, among others. Sade most likely used Dumont’s similarly titled Les Ruines de Pæstum, autrement Posidonia, Ville de l’ancienne Grande Grèce, au Royaume de Naples (The ruins of Paestum otherwise Poseidonia, city of ancient Magna Graecia in the Kingdom of Naples) (1769), which presented itself as a free translation of Berkenhout’s work and featured numerous engravings of both views and plans. The most celebrated illustrations of the site were to become Piranesi’s engravings, made in the year or so following Sade’s 1776 visit. At that point, Paestum was increasingly on the grand tourist’s map, although, as Sade points out, still difficult and costly of access. Given the likelihood that not many of his readers would be able to visit in person, here Sade provides more detailed descriptions and measurements than usual. He also forwards a dubious hypothesis that this is where the “inventor of the Corinthian capital” worked, and thus “it would be quite possible that it was in Poseidonia that architecture began to take some steps forward [des progrès].” This hypothesis is based on an inscription at the site on which is found the name Callimachus. The same name belonged to a fifth-century BCE sculptor and architect whom Vitruvius claims as the inventor of the Corinthian order.138 As Laugier explains in his Essai sur l’architecture: “Everyone knows the story of the sculptor Callimachus. The first notion of the Corinthian capital came from his chance encounter with a vase around which an acanthus plant had carelessly raised its leaves and stems.”139 Why Sade considers the Callimachus at Paestum to be the same as the one who is thought to have worked primarily in Athens and, obviously, in Corinth, and to have developed the most ornate of the three classical orders is not evident. Aware that he was out of his depth, Sade notes in the margin: “Read up thoroughly on architecture before asserting this.” What Sade’s assertion nonetheless does reveal is an ongoing resistance to the simple grandeur of the Doric: the Corinthian order and increasing complexity is clearly deemed a sign of progress in the arts. For Sade, Paestum’s simplicity may have been magnificent and beautiful in its way, but the structures were also but preliminary indications of the true architectural greatness to come (see Plate 6). Sade visits three other sites in Campania that were very much eighteenth-century discoveries: the ancient towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and of lesser renown, Stabiae. All three had been buried in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. The date of the discovery of Herculaneum varies slightly depending on the source, but the early 1700s is certain enough for the initial findings. One of the first accounts of the town was Lettres sur l’état actuel de la ville souterraine d’Herculée, et sur les causes de son ensevelissement sous les ruines du Vésuve (Letters on the current state of the underground city of Herculaneum, and on the causes of its burial beneath the ruins of Vesuvius) (1750) by Charles de Brosses (1709–1777). According to de Brosses, at the beginning of the century some villagers from the vicinity of Portici were digging a well and unearthed variously coloured marble. Then, in 1711, the prince of Elbeuf, who required “powdered marble for the production of stucco for a country house he was having built in Portici,” ordered excavations at the same spot.140 At that point, “a temple decorated with columns and statues” was discovered. De Brosses reports that the latter were carried off and sent to Prince Eugene of

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Figure 0.5. Temple at Paestum, from Gabriel Pierre Martin Dumont, Les Ruines de Paestum (1769).

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Savoy. Emmanuel Maurice de Lorraine-Guise, duc d’Elbeuf, was lieutenant general in the cavalry of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I (1678–1711), and then resident in Naples. The excavations that he began, however, soon came to a halt, with d’Elbeuf returning to France. They began again in earnest and on a larger scale in 1738, and this time with royal impetus. The work was overseen by Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre (1702–1780), a Spanish military engineer in the employ of the young King Charles of Naples and Sicily (1716–1788), crowned in 1735 (he would abdicate in 1759 to become Charles III of Spain). Alcubierre also reconnoitred the vicinity for other buried sites, and excavations for what was discovered to be Pompeii began in 1748. Encouraged by the discoveries at Herculaneum, the sovereign ordered a systematic examination of the Pompeii site. The amphitheatre, theatre, and other parts of the city were unearthed, although work slowed. Excavations at Stabiae, which was discovered shortly after Pompeii in 1749, were barely pursued during the eighteenth century. Sade observes that when he visited Stabiae only some three or four houses had been uncovered. The work at Stabiae was abandoned in 1782, not long after Sade’s visit, and the town would have to wait until the middle of the twentieth century to be discovered once again. The Bourbon rulers were often subject to accusations of neglect, and Sade echoes common complaints about the pace and care of the excavations. If he found that the work at Stabiae was proceeding slowly, he deems the small size of the contingent working at Pompeii “appalling.” He lays the blame on Ferdinand IV of Naples (1751–1825), Charles’s son and successor, an “incurious prince,” whose lack of a principal enlightened value – curiosity  – translates into a lack of financial commitment and care. Nevertheless, both the current monarch and his predecessor were protective of their properties.141 Maybe thanks to the memory of the duke of Elbeuf’s earlier private enterprise, control over the Herculaneum site seems to have been particularly tight. The architect Jérôme Charles Bellicard (1726–1786) wrote the preface to the English edition of Observations upon the antiquities of the town of Herculaneum, discovered at the foot of Mount Vesuvius: with some reflections on the painting and sculpture of the ancients: and a short description of the antiquities in the neighbourhood of Naples (1754), which included descriptions by Charles-Nicolas Cochin of paintings and sculptures unearthed at the site. Bellicard informs us that while he would provide plans for the main buildings of the town, he would be unable to give dimensions, “for the inspectors of the works, and those who conducted the digging, had so severe orders on that subject, that they would never indulge me an opportunity.”142 Bellicard also explains that the illustrations of paintings that he provides from previously published material were “engraved after designs made from memory,” although “they pretty accurately represent the composition of the subjects, and even the principal defects for which the originals are blamed.”143 He includes some drawings by his own hand, likewise made from memory. Artists were evidently banned from working in situ. In 1755, King Charles set up a museum at his new palace in Portici, where objects excavated at Herculaneum and elsewhere in the region were gathered for restoration and viewing. Sade points out that when he visited the museum during the reign of young Ferdinand IV, who had turned twenty-five during Sade’s stay in Naples (he had been crowned in 1759 at the age of eight and the regency, overseen by the powerful minister Bernardo Tanucci [1698–1783], had ended in 1767), visitors were tightly regulated and forbidden to take notes or make sketches. More than simply ensuring that objects were not expropriated, the Neapolitan rulers were interested in controlling the flow of information, including images, related to the excavations. Starting in 1757 and continuing until

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1792, the eight-volume, illustrated Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte (The antiquities of Herculaneum revealed) was published. Commissioned by Charles, continued during his son’s regency and afterwards, these volumes were overseen and penned by a scholarly committee and illustrated by multiple engravers. Given as royal gifts only, they were not easily consulted, although illicit versions arose soon enough. Notable in this regard is an English translation by the botanist Thomas Martyn (1735–1825) and the poet, essayist, travel writer and divine John Lettice (1737–1832) of an earlier catalogue of the findings, accompanied by illustrations after the Antichità di Erolano Esposte and published in London in 1773 under the title The Antiquities of Herculaneum.144 The images were thus just starting to circulate more widely at the time of Sade’s visit in 1776. Indeed, a French translation and presentation would not appear until 1780, as Les Antiquités d’Herculanum avec leurs explications en françois (The antiquities of Herculaneum with explanations thereof in French), published in Paris, with engravings by François-Anne David (1741– 1824) and explanatory text by the poet, philosopher, and unabashed atheist Pierre Sylvain Maréchal (1750–1803). One revelation of the Campanian excavations was ancient painting. The rich trove of frescoes, along with bronzes, was an important focus of the Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, with five of its eight volumes dedicated entirely to this subject. These discoveries would become another key shaper of the classical revival; their initial reception, however, was far from ecstatic. Cochin, for example, did not hold the paintings of Herculaneum in high regard, and finds they are not examples of the best Hellenistic artists. Typically, Sade himself judges a lack of accuracy in the paintings he saw at Pompeii and in the royal museum. A painting of a satyr accosting a surprised young woman with a kiss “is not without expressiveness, although mediocrely drawn.” Concerning a satyr who wishes to play with a boy, Sade is impressed with the power of expression of the former and the ingenuousness of the latter, adding that you can see “quite well that the one desires that which he knows will give him much pleasure, and that the other has not yet learned to dread that which he does not know will cause him much pain.” I have already noted Sade’s similar take on the painting of Achilles and his mentor Chiron discovered at Herculaneum. Sodomy, it seems, is never far from Sade’s mind. Along with expression, Sade appreciates the remarkably intact vividness of the paintings unearthed at Stabiae, which struck him as even more vibrant than those at Pompeii. Vividness or vibrancy was an important quality in judging coloration. Though perhaps more important still were the subjects depicted, which included examples bawdy and at times frankly obscene – objects that would appeal to the curious libertine mind. The standout instance for Sade is the statue of a satyr and a goat captured in flagrante delicto unearthed at Pompeii and removed to the Portici residence of the realm’s royal sculptor Joseph Canart (1713–1791) (see Plate 7). This was the most secret and singular piece of the entire, extensive collection. For Sade the lurid subject matter does not appear to detract from the excellence of the work, which suffers none of the faults of the ancient paintings: It is a marble group about a foot and a half high that depicts a satyr enjoying a she-goat. It would be hard to put more soul and expressiveness than the artist has done, as much in all the movements and muscles of the satyr as in those of the she-goat. Her tongue on the edge of her lips expresses all the pleasure she feels, and the lively manner that the satyr holds her by her little beard contributes not a little to the heat. All is in action in this lovely piece, all is on fire; the most exact purity of style characterizes it.

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Sade comments that, thanks to “the moral austerity of Marquis Tanucci,” access to this statue is severely restricted, requiring permission that the king grudgingly and but rarely gives. Not everyone, he states, will be able to judge the work, and we may legitimately wonder if Sade provided a first-hand account. Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) was Pope Clement XIII’s prefect of antiquities and a key figure in the elevation of the assessment of Greek classical art and sculpture, in particular. Concerning his visit in 1762 to Herculaneum and the museum at Portici, Winckelmann reports that, while granted access by a compliant guard to some restricted items in the collection, he was unable to see this “obscene object [unzüchtige Figur],” reputed to be “quite beautiful.” He knew that “written permission in the king’s own hand” would be required and explains that he did not wish to be the first to request an exception from this rule.145 As for “that handful of Englishmen who brag” that they have seen it, Winckelmann contends that they lie.146 Perhaps Sade was trying to impress as well, or maybe access to the sculpture had become somewhat laxer in the intervening years. Beyond artworks, what the excavations provided was the most complete and preserved material culture of the ancient Roman lifeworld – or at least a particular stratum of this world. Certainly, libertine aspects of this world could be posited, but more than this what Sade and other observers saw was a society and culture that on the surface appeared to be radically other than Christian modernity, including – or most especially – with regard to religion and sexuality. As Sade informs, regarding some of the contents of the museum, these included various sacrificial implements, such as “vases, patens, an altar, bowls, tripods, of which one among others was used for sacrifices to Priapus.” Sade adds that “three lovely figures of this god, characterized in a singular manner, support it.” That singular manner is ithyphallic. Sade argues that the number and variety of priapic figures found in another room confirm the importance of this deity at Herculaneum. One of them even takes the form of a terracotta drinking vessel. Sade’s sexually enlightened aside at this point is that young people today are frightened of Priapus’s image, whereas once it was familiar and respected from infancy on. Our marquis was hardly alone in his fascination with the priapic figures unearthed in the vicinity of Naples. At this moment, something like a full-fledged comparative anthropology was beginning to unfold, and these apparent oddities, which turned out to be universally prevalent, were a key topic of examination. D’Hancarville’s Recherches sur l’origine, l’esprit, et les progrès des arts de la Grèce; sur leur connexion avec les arts et la religion des plus anciens peuples connus; sur les monumens antiques de l’Inde, de la Perse, du reste de l’Asie, de l’Europe et d’Égypte (Research on the origin, spirit, and progress of the arts of Greece; on their connection with the arts and religion of the most ancient known peoples; on the ancient monuments of India, Persia, the rest of Asia, of Europe, and of Egypt) (1785), for example, sought out commonalities and connections between phallic worship and representations in Greece, Hellenistic Italy, Persia, and India. The museum at Portici provided important evidence. In 1786, the classical scholar and archaeologist Richard Payne Knight (1751–1824), who toured extensively in Italy, published his controversial account of pagan phallic idolatry, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, which drew explicitly on d’Hancarville’s earlier studies. Against a literalist interpretation of these ancient sects, both men argue for symbolism in Greek and Egyptian worship. In Payne’s words, “the organ of generation” figured forth the “great characteristic attribute,” that is, power, of the creator.147 Further, Payne explains, ancient phallic rites were not essentially “ludicrous or licentious,” but rather these “matters of very curious enquiry” were ultimately grounded in reason and reality: “nothing can be more

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Figure 0.6. Winged priapic amulet, engraved by François-Anne David, from Pierre Sylvain Maréchal, Antiquités d’Herculanum (1780).

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monstrous and indecent, if considered in its plain and obvious meaning, or as a part of the Christian worship,” than this rite, but in it will be found “a very natural symbol of a very natural and philosophical system of religions, if considered according to its original use and intention.”148 Neither Payne’s nor d’Hancarville’s works were sources for Sade. Their publication post-dated his visit to Naples by a decade. They are, however, useful examples of anthropological and historical interest in pagan practices and, below the surface and sometimes more openly, their ongoing presence in Christian practices and beliefs – something that intrigued Sade, too. Indeed, Payne’s work was prefaced by a 1781 letter from Sir William Hamilton on the persistence of these pagan customs and their integration into Christian ritual in modern Italy, with particular reference to celebrations held in the town of Isernia, near Naples, that include wax ex-votos of male sexual organs. It also contained a letter from an anonymous Italian correspondent on the same. Such rituals confirmed the notion that Christianity had not so much exiled pagan idolatry as syncretically absorbed it. In far-flung locales like southern Italy, such absorption was partial at best. Inventing Sadism The Libertine Renaissance In rejecting the notion that the re-establishment of the arts and sciences had led to the purification of mores, Rousseau states that ancient Rome, “founded by a shepherd and made famous by fieldworkers,” had already begun to degenerate by the time of the Republicanera poet Quintus Ennius (239–169 BCE) and the playwright Publius Terentius Afer, better known in English simply as Terence (185–159 BCE). With the empire, literature and society would both take a turn for the worse: “But after the likes of Ovid [43 BCE–17/18 CE], Catullus [84–c. 54 BCE], Martial, and that crowd of obscene writers whose names alone offend modesty, Rome, formerly the temple of virtue, became a theater of crime, the disgrace of nations, and the plaything of barbarians.”149 Rousseau’s comments confirm that what the Renaissance rediscovered was a rich and varied classical tradition. This tradition included epics, odes, and pastorals, but also the erotic and frankly obscene. The printing press in conjunction with translation into vernacular languages was simultaneously making such material increasingly available. Michel de Marolles (1600–1681) was a collector of prints, salon participant, the abbot of Villeloin, and a prolific translator. Marolles rendered into French many classical works, including the following: Statius’s esteemed epic The Thebiad; the comedies of Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE); the materialist and Epicurean didactic poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by Titus Lucretius Carus, or simply Lucretius (99–c. 55 BCE); and much more, including numerous writings by Ovid, among them the bawdy Ars amatoria (Art of Love), as well as Catullus’s boldly lascivious lyrics, and Martial’s witty and often licentious epigrams. These were precisely the authors and sorts of writings that Rousseau, perhaps disingenuously, disparaged. Although an abbot, Marolles clearly did not shy away from texts that might be considered indecorous and even morally dangerous. Nevertheless, he chose not to put his name on his translation of Martial, which appeared with royal imprimatur in 1655 in a bilingual edition as Toutes les Épigrammes de Martial en Latin et en François (All of Martial’s epigrams in Latin and in French) and included a biography of the author and copious annotations. In his prefatory remarks, he notes that the majority of Martial’s epigrams are not obscene. For those that are, Marolles explains that he has “either improved the expression

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thereof, by lending them quite often other conceptions than those present in the original text” or “suppressed them entirely.”150 The Latin, however, he left intact as “outside of my jurisdiction.”151 It may be helpful to consider briefly what sort of material the translator excised, what an erudite reader would have accessed, and what a reader of French alone would have missed. Marolles declared the first truly reprehensible rhetorically and morally dubious jibe that the reader would encounter in Martial’s works to be epigram 28 of book 2. In Latin, followed by modern English translation, it reads: Rideto multum qui te, Sextille, cinaedum   dixerit et digitum porrigito medium. sed nec pedico es nec tu, Sextille, fututor,   calda Vetustinae nec tibi bucca placet. ex istis nihil es, fateor, Sextille. quid ergo es?   nescio, sed tu scis res superesse duas. (Laugh heartily at whoever calls you a cinaedus, Sextillus, and show him your middle finger. And you are not one to fuck either asses or cunts, Sextillus, nor do the warm cheeks of Vetustina give you pleasure. I admit it, Sextillus: you are none of these. So what, then, are you? I don’t know, but you know that two things are left.)152

The Latin text is given in Marolle’s edition in toto. His translation is truncated thus: Have a good laugh at whoever says that you prostitute yourself, Sextillus, and show him your middle finger.153

An accompanying note curtly explains that this epigram is “unbearable,” that it “cannot be translated,” and merely clarifies that “it was an insult to raise the middle finger at someone.”154 Some things, at least, do not change. Marolles’s assertion of untranslatability evidently intends the epigram’s moral ineffability, but there is also a cultural and linguistic problem. In particular, both English and French lack precise equivalents for a Latin sexual vocabulary that insinuates Roman concerns about male passivity. Cinaedus, an insult, was used for “an effeminate man who most likely, though not necessarily always, played the receptive role in anal intercourse.”155 The term derived from Greek, and the most common contemporary translation appears to be “queen,” although “bottom” would be another option. These concerns about passivity explain what amounts to the epigram’s punchline. We do not know the identity of Vetustina, although her name suggests old age; the epigram clearly implies that taking pleasure from her would only be in the form of fellatio. As for Sextillus – a diminutive form of the name Sextus – only two options remain: he is either a fellator, a man who performs oral sex on other men, or a cunnilingus, a man who does the same on women. Like cinaedus, both would be degrading sexual identities from the Roman perspective. A thorough understanding of Latin and of Roman mores was required to grasp the meaning and feel the impact of writers such as Martial. And while we should not underestimate what erudite minds in the early modern era did comprehend, bear in mind that Sade was not a classical scholar. He was a well-read amateur who clearly had some Latin but whose knowledge came by and large from translations, some of which were more accurate and complete than others. If his use of classical writers in the Italian manuscript was primarily

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confined to clarifying and appreciating historical and archaeological sites and less interested in licence – why would it be, given the nature of his project? – his readings nonetheless added to a storehouse of material that he would activate in his libertine writing career. Ancient literature and practices also provided him with cultural evidence for his moral relativism. For example, Sade will cite from an epigram of Martial’s in his Juliette in justification of male-male sodomy: “A woman acts in vain – in vain she turns over / She will always be a woman.”156 Along with Martial, this classical storehouse included Juvenal’s excoriating and often lewd satires and Petronius’s depiction of obscene decadence in the age of the Roman emperor Nero (37–68 CE) in the Satyricon (both are cited in the Italian manuscript; both were also translated by Marolles, although there were other options by Sade’s day). Indeed, one simply cannot understand Sade’s later writings without an appreciation of the large dose of satire, broadly speaking, that informs them. His travels in Italy catalyzed, if they did not necessarily give rise to, Sade’s interest in the genre and style, from the gently corrective Horace to the lacerating Juvenal, not to mention their lesserknown precursor, the Roman poet and satirist Persius (34–62 CE). Sade’s Italian research also informed him about ancient relations to satire: Fescennine Verses, salty dialogic banter initially associated with weddings; and Atellanae, farcical and often lewd comedies. Both became sufficiently licentious, anti-authoritarian, and sacrilegious that Roman law eventually intervened. Satire and its relations provided content and form for Sade’s libertine writings. Still, his largest cache of classical material came from historians, among them Livy, Tacitus, Cassio Dio, Suetonius, and others. Sade would subsequently borrow from them: referring to, refashioning, and updating some of the more outrageous episodes of Antiquity. When the Marquis de Sade began to pen his licentious writings in earnest in the Bastille, some ten years after his flight to Italy in the summer of 1775, libertine writing was a well-established, if clandestine, genre in France. Such works, themselves informed by the rediscovery of the classical tradition in its variety, were other models for him. Already considered classics in the genre in the eighteenth century were the explicit dialogues L’École des filles (The school for girls) (1655) by an unknown author or authors, Chorier’s Aloisiae Sigaeae and its French translation L’Académie des dames, and the fictitious abbé du Prat’s Vénus dans le cloître, detailing the sexual education of nuns.157 Sade carried the pedagogical references in the titles and content of these works in the full appellation of his first licentious outpouring: Les 120 journées de Sodome, ou L’École du libertinage (The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage). He likewise followed their heuristic, dialogic format in his subsequent work La Philosophie dans le boudoir (1795) (Philosophy in the Bedroom), which recounts the initiation and training of a young aristocratic woman – the aptly named Eugénie, that is, “well-born” or, stretching etymology, “born for pleasure” – into radical libertine ways.158 It is the last major dialogue in the libertine corpus. All these works looked to an Italian predecessor in the whores’ dialogues of Pietro Aretino, I Ragionamenti. The inventory of Sade’s library in 1776 reveals an edition in the original Italian of this work, presumably purchased en route, under the title Capricciosi et piacevoli ragionamenti di M. Pietro Aretino (Fantastical and pleasant arguments of Mr Pietro Aretino), which appears to have been printed in Amsterdam in 1660. (The place of publication with clandestine works is a notoriously slippery affair, and many licentious publications provide humorously misleading information such as Cythera, the birthplace of Venus.)159 For Aretino’s dialogues, there was classical precedent in the comic conversations of courtesans that Lucian had depicted in the second century.160 In his dedication, Aretino explicitly mentions “the salacious works” of Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial, thus clear inspirations as well.161

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Sade, in his Italian manuscript, briefly indicates that he also knew of – if he had certainly not seen an illustrated version – Aretino’s earlier Sonetti lussuriosi and their arch commentary on sixteen modi or sexual postures by the painter Giulio Romano (c. 1499–1546) and engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1470/82–c. 1534). This was a rare work, indeed, with most of the originals destroyed, along with the engraved printing plates, by order of the pope (Clement VII) himself, in 1527. The only known extant version today is a single pirated copy with woodcut prints, and it is incomplete.162 In this case, the author and artists drew on a rich pagan iconography and literary tradition. Ovid, for example, in his Ars amatoria had described some of the “thousand modes of love [mille modi veneris]” and how they should be decorously adapted to body type and situation.163 Sade knew from the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, which disclosed in detail aspects of sybaritic paganism, that in Antiquity these traditions ran deep. He explains that the museum in Portici, for example, had on display “bacchanalias” depicting “postures as surprising as they are peculiar and evidence of a truly disordered imagination.” It was Aretino’s name, however, that would become indissolubly associated in libertinism with the enumeration and description of sexual positions. Later libertines sometimes forgot the deep classical roots of their philosophy, lifestyle, and know-how. Sade, for one, remained acutely aware of the storehouse of Antiquity and how its varied contents had informed a sometimes scurrilous literary modernity. Justifications In truth, Aretino’s lewd sonnets are actually much more humorous and satirical than erotic in tenor and content. The notion that Aretino’s elaboration of i modi was pedagogical in intent probably has more to do with the author’s descriptions and characterizations in his dialogues, where a convent newcomer receives for her edification a book “crammed with pictures of people amusing themselves in the modes and postures performed by the learned nuns” of this establishment.164 Yet here, too, the author’s aim was not amatory instruction but jocular critique. Social satire was, in fact, a major mode of the literary re-establishment, of which Aretino’s prose works provide one of the finest and sharpest examples. Satire would remain, moreover, a significant aspect of libertine writing in the eighteenth century and was rhetorically suited to the wave of licentious works in the 1740s and afterwards that entwined licence and philosophie in the partisan sense. Clandestine writings with sexual content became vehicles for atheism and materialism hedonically expressed. If humans were sensible machines, as La Mettrie had contended in his neo-Epicurean L’homme machine (1747), then what better proof of this hypothesis than not only depicting these mechanisms in play but inducing involuntary responses in readers through these very depictions?165 Sade folded the tradition of philosophical critique and often snide cynicism copiously into his later writings, along with the libertine-cum-philosophical gambit of demonstrating the force of bodily materialism through the elicitation of response. Such philosophical fare is prominent throughout Sade’s mature works, where villainous and usually murderous lechers never fail to hold forth on the vacuity of morality and the selfevident value of pleasure, no matter the sort. Thus, in La Philosophie dans le boudoir, learned digressions on atheism and sensibility preface practical lessons in debauchery. Or is debauchery, in fact, a digression from philosophy? This mode of philosophizing was something that Sade borrowed from Voltaire, d’Holbach, and other philosophes, and in his Italian project he began to explore and sharpen his own rhetorical practices in this regard.

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There are numerous examples in the text. One choice instance has Sade commenting on a church, the extensive bureaucratic hierarchy of which enjoys significant wealth. Such riches have never led these clerics to succour the suffering populace in times of crisis, a fact that is hardly astonishing if you know what lies in a “priest’s heart” – like Pandora’s box, a repository of evils. As for the existence of priestly virtues, Sade affirms that these are incompatible with “serving a God whose essence is whim and freakery.” After all, “by what right would the servants be better than the master?” Yet perhaps there is a glimmer of hope for the future: “When will the universe, in disabusing itself of the idol, annihilate those who serve it? And when will philosophy triumphant on the altars of superstition enjoy in full the worship of humanity and owed only to its beneficent torch?” All that is required for insertion into Sade’s later writings is a rejection of the standard assumption that when the corrupting powers of priestcraft and credulity are removed, humanity will be revealed as beneficent and philosophy’s triumph benign. Similarly, the insertion of relatively subtle if surprisingly frank apologias in the Italian manuscript for – to take the most obvious case – sodomy presage the robust defences of all manner of perversities in Sade’s later writings. These will include activities that most people would find morally or viscerally repugnant: torture, murder, and the consumption of all manner of bodily ejecta. Such so-called errors are but idiosyncratic tastes. They are no less natural or permissible for being off-putting to most and certainly not wicked. Evil is neither a reasonable nor a natural category. It was not just philosophical critique that entered Sade’s later works through his Italian journey. The personae of the policymaker or so-called projector and the virtuoso are firmly woven into his licentious writings. The former is most obvious in the case of the pamphlet inserted into La Philosophie dans le boudoir, which includes a mock project for the reform of laws and governance in France. This pamphlet pours derision on sincere politico-economic concerns about the size and health of the population. Among other items, it recommends the legalization and complete deregulation of prostitution and this regardless of gender or age. Sade’s earlier presentation of the horrors of the Neapolitan sex trade were now given his approbation, although perhaps only in indelicate jest.166 Sade would also maintain a strong interest in anatomy and experiment. The anatomical models that were being built with the oversight of the surgeon Giuseppe Galletti by the waxwork artists and sculptors Giuseppe Ferrini and Clemente Susini, with their lifelike representation of the stages of pregnancy, intrigued Sade at the time of his visit to Florence. In both Justine and at greater length in La Nouvelle Justine, he would put anatomists and surgeons into action with two characters, named Rodin and Rombeau, who for a time hold the antiheroine captive. Among other atrocities, these two contrive to undertake the vivisection of Rombeau’s daughter in order to better understand the organs and nature of generation. Rombeau exhorts his companion to consider how such an operation “will be useful for anatomy,” which will never “reach its final degree of perfection, until the examination of the vessels [of reproduction] is undertaken on a child fourteen or fifteen years old, having died a cruel death.”167 Rodin agrees, and notes that historically the tribe of Hippocrates has never hesitated to undertake such experiments. He adds, alluding to paintings that Sade had seen during his Italian tour, “All artists have thought the same: when Michelangelo wanted to depict Christ naturally, did he worry his conscience about crucifying a young man and copying him in anguish? Guido’s sublime ‘Magdalene in tears’ was taken from a lovely girl whom the students of this great man had whipped atrociously; everyone knows that she died from this.”168 Sade first invoked these justifications in his Italian manuscript. Contemplating a painting attributed to Michelangelo of the crucified Christ in the Charterhouse at Naples, “which

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we are told was veritably drawn from life,” he remarks that such an act would be “a quite simple matter in the eyes of an artist philosopher.” Sade goes on to argue that a careful inspection of the painting reveals that the model must have been “bound and tied,” but as to whether the artist “truly crucified him in order to grasp, from nature itself, those precious moments of truth that one can only find therein,” our author has his doubts. The expression captured in the painting does not lend credence to those who would claim that the crucifixion had been actually carried out.169 Sade opines that maybe Michelangelo would have done better to have gone to such an extreme. Sadly, the artist “had his prejudices, and prejudice was and always will be the reef of true talent.” In a longer note on this painting in the working notes for his book project, Sade clarifies that he would not condone “such a violent and intolerable excess for an art as frivolous as painting,” but that what could make a crime of the sort acceptable “would be the art of surgery”: an art necessary to human preservation and for the perfection of which an experiment done in a living state would perhaps shed light on a huge number of doubts and conjectures, which never will be on account of the foolish and ridiculous timidity that prevents sacrificing a villain whose life is good for nothing, to learn perhaps how to preserve those of a hundred thousand subjects useful to the State.

We have not reached the point where “philosophy” is sufficiently developed that we would see this moral calculus whereby the worthless and “obscure” are justifiably annihilated for the sake of the many. But if, in his Italian manuscript, Sade apparently recants concerning the ultimate sacrifice to art, he nevertheless would allow artists considerable moral leeway. He remarks of Titian’s Venus in Florence that the model “served him in more than one way”: “These are the sorts of physical furniture that an artist and a man of letters cannot easily do without.” Paraphrasing Lucretius, he remarks that with these sorts of outlets at one’s disposal, “Nature is satisfied and one’s head is not unsettled.”170 We have already seen that Sade cleaved to the same Epicurean-cum-utilitarian exceptionalism with regard to Jerôme Duquesnoy’s pederastic curiosity. The topos of philosophically justifiable murder remained a favourite of Sade’s throughout his career. In Juliette, he would even demonstrate that he was not ungrateful to his erstwhile companion and correspondent Giuseppe Iberti by casting him briefly as a ­character  – “the prettiest, wittiest, most lovable doctor in Rome” – who maintains that there is nothing criminal about using the inmates of almshouses for experiments and that, on the contrary, it is a boon to society.171 Sade added a footnote, using the informal tu form of address: Allow me to render you this homage, charming friend, whom I will never forget; you are the only one whose name I have decided not to disguise in these memoirs. The role of philosopher that I have you play here, suits you too well for you not to pardon me for pointing you out to the entire universe.172

It is hard to imagine that Iberti appreciated the compliment. Perhaps most intriguing of all, however, is that in the fictional episode of the curious surgeons and anatomists Rodin and Rombeau, Sade not only cast his characters as virtuosi, but he also incorporated his own self-presentation as an amateur scientist. This was a role that Sade performed in the pages of the Italian manuscript, now combined with his own depiction in the scurrilous press as a human vivisector – or vivo-disséqueur in Rétif de la Bretonne’s characterization of Sade – in the aftermath of the affaire d’Arcueil and based

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on the purported details of his treatment of Rose Keller.173 As for that hint of sympathy for suffering animals that Sade expressed in his account of the Grotta del Cane, where he attempted to balance his persona as scientifically detached virtuoso with that of sentimental observer, this he would in his licentious writings both elaborate and undermine. To a large extent, notions of nervous sensibility arose out of animal experimentation before they were joined to sentimental discourse and turned around to critique scientists, especially amateur experimenters. Sade gave this yet another twist, where the sensible response of a spectator to another’s pain is stripped of the moral quality of pity and converted into erotic charge. In a grand, overarching way, one could say that what Sade’s licentious works represent are experiments in nervous sensitivity and what they do is test such response in his readers. They are a satirical extension – both mischievous and malicious – of Samuel Richardson’s literary techniques and a flagitious twisting of philosophical libertinism’s elicitation of sexual excitement as proof of its materialist thesis.174 Violence This takes us to the heart of Sade’s peculiar literary libertinism or the historical particularity of sadism. In terms of sexual explicitness, Sade’s mature works are more or less equivalent to novels of the radical phase of libertine expression in France. This period stretches from roughly the 1780s through the French Revolution. It includes works, published anonymously, by André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat (1739–1800) and Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti de Mirabeau (1749–1791), along with a host of other writers whose identities remain unknown. Mirabeau was in many respects Sade’s doppelganger. He was an aristocrat from Provence, the son of Victor Riqueti de Mirabeau, famed for his work on population. Mirabeau fils would pursue a libertine lifestyle, to the chagrin of his family and others affected by his wayward comportment. Like Sade, he was also prone to occasional violence. In 1775, he had an affair with a young married aristocrat named Sophie de Monnier, and the two fled to the Netherlands. They were tried in absentia, and Mirabeau was sentenced to death for seduction and kidnapping. Eventually captured, Sophie was condemned to a convent and Mirabeau imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes by lettre de cachet in 1777, at the same time as Sade was there. The two men despised one another. Before becoming one of the key figures and rhetors of the Revolution – he died in 1791 at the age of forty-two, in the midst of the epochal uprising – Mirabeau pursued a lurid libertine publication career. Like Sade’s, his licentious writings include descriptions and robust defences of sodomy. Unlike Sade’s, they are not violent nor do they obsessively incorporate excreta into the carousals. In Juliette, Sade would even have his eponymous heroine complain of one key radical libertine work, Le Rideau levé, ou L’Éducation de Laure (The raised curtain, or the education of Laura) (1786) – traditionally attributed to Mirabeau, although Sade gives no indication that he thought the anonymously published work was penned by his nemesis – that, while the novel hinted at “uxoricide” and incest and was “full of imagination,” it was an opportunity manqué. In particular, it failed to “put into action the cruel tastes of which it gave but a notion in the preface.”175 Juliette adds that “tremblers” exasperate her, and that she would prefer that they would write nothing at all than provide us with “half-notions.”176 Sade was clearly no such trembler. Although his writings are doubtless part of the radical phase of libertinism, their particularity stems from Sade’s linkage of sexual graphicness and exaggeration to the bodily grotesque and horrific cruelty. This begins with the grisly and wilfully repulsive Les 120 journées de Sodome and does not abate. If flagellation had

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long held a place in libertine writing and practice, violent encounters could be part of libertine plotlines, and scatology never entirely absent, Sade was venturing into new territory for libertinism and forging that amalgam that I have described as sadism proper. The biography of the Marquis de Sade suggests that an irascible and at times violent temperament pre-existed his libertine writing output. Young Sade does not, however, particularly stand out on the roll call of tempestuous, imperious, and cruel aristocrats. Further, while his mature writings may have been unique in the combination, Sade is no sudden “block of abyss” – as some of his philosophical apologists would have it – nor are his writings so unique that we must approach them as diabolical marvels, existentialist gambits, or surrealist paradigms.177 It is here that the passage through Italy is crucial, for this journey provided Sade the writer with numerous cases of violence and often sexualized violence that could and did inform his libertine literary oeuvre. Classical mythology and literature overflows with grotesque brutalities such as the flaying of Marsyas. As for sexual violence, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which Sade uses as a guide for ancient iconography and modern reinterpretations, has erotic encounter, pursuit, and rape as a running thread. Ancient art drew unstintingly from these wells, and Sade encountered numerous examples on his travels. He admires as “singularly expressive,” for example, an ancient, albeit restored, statue in the Villa Ludovisi in Rome of Pan attempting to rape a nymph. Modern artists took inspiration from the same sources, and Sade similarly praises the expressiveness of Bernini’s Rape of Proserpina, the statue of Pluto carrying off Proserpina, in that same collection. Not that Christian history and iconography were lacking in this regard. Evocative biblical instances of violence that are mentioned in the Italian manuscript include Jael driving a nail into Sisera’s head and the decapitations of Holofernes and John the Baptist (Caravaggio’s “lovely horror”). He critically judges the visceral cruelties of the Passion and the Crucifixion, and he notes plenty of other examples of gory persecution. Like Marsyas, Saint Bartholomew was flayed, his horrific demise represented in painting and sculpture. Indeed, depictions of martyrdom were everywhere to be found on Sade’s route through Italy, including the alarming instances in the Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, “one of the most frightful collections of horrors that could possibly be gathered.” Sade singles out from this collection “a young female saint whose executioners are tearing off her breast.” Such are the sorts of scenes that our author will recall and reinvent with glee in his later works. In La Nouvelle Justine, for example, Nero is said to have “voluptuously shredded […] the pretty nipples of Saint Cecilia” and “the lovely buttocks of sister Agatha, who had, both of them, the idiocy of believing in Christ.”178 Sade’s own characters will commit acts much the same. Italian history over the long run is replete with not only examples of mythical and artistically represented violence, but real examples, too. Abbé Richard lets us know that the traveller to Italy will find in its ruins unequivocal proof that here knowledge and know-how flourished. At the same time, he declares, “how many monuments of ambition, of jealousy, of intrigue and perfidy, how many bloody scenes, truly dishonouring humanity, do not these fragments of antiquity recall […]?”179 Sade in his manuscript guide to Italy likewise contemplates ancient magnificence alongside the ancient cruelties of warfare, criminal justice, and, of course, corruption and decadence. The ambiguous heritage of Rome would become an unambiguous source for him in his later writings. Most obvious was the ancient appreciation for the gladiatorial arena. Sade finds a reflection of this taste in modern Italy in the public execution of criminals, noting with philosophically progressive disdain that this is “still one of the most popular spectacles in Rome, even among women.” Sade does

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not openly embrace what had taken place in the Colosseum, but he does point out to us the vast “difference between our spectacles” and those of Rome: the “bloody scenes” may have been barbarous, “but at least such games did not enervate courage as ours do, where the mere pantomime of an actor killing himself makes us cry.” Roman mores allowed them “to witness death calmly,” and while Sade grants his implied reader’s insistence that they were “ferocious,” “they were great, and we, we are, I agree, very human – but very small.” This contrast between the tender humanity of early modern Europeans, on the one hand, and the greatness of the ancients, on the other, was a refrain in much otherwise sentimentally inclined moral philosophy. Such greatness included not only the stomach to witness suffering without compassion, but often a penchant for outright cruelty. Diderot in his art criticism, where he otherwise lionized the lachrymose Greuze, would write that he hates “all those little base acts that only reveal an abject soul,” but that he does not despise “great crimes,” for they make for “beautiful paintings and beautiful tragedies.” He adds, “Great and sublime actions and great crimes carry the same imprint of energy.”180 Diderot mentions Marcus Aurelius (121–180 CE) as an example of virtuous heroism and Cesare Borgia (1475–1507) as an epigone of the villainous variety. Sade likewise will find plenty of examples of violence not only in ancient Rome, but also in more recent Italian history. Regarding violence, two instances in Journey to Italy that might be overlooked are of some note. First, in a fascinating case for euhemerism, Sade likens the myth of the Minotaur to the story of a modern and real monster: Gilles de Rais, or Retz (1404–1440), a wealthy nobleman, war hero comrade of Joan of Arc, marshal of France, and a serial killer who sodomized his child victims (purportedly a hundred or so of them) before committing ritual murder. Sade reflects that all myths must have some origin, and he surmises that the combination of man and bull in the Minotaur, symbolizing moral monstrosity through physical hybridity, ultimately points to an earlier “Marshal de Rais.” It was the “frenzied passions” of Rais that brought him “to that barbarous derangement that finds charm in the destruction of the object that satisfies our senses or rather that tastes none except in excesses of the most considered cruelty.” Sade’s later writings will develop at length this notion of “considered cruelty”: cruelty committed not out of anger or immediate instinct but indulged reflexively and for pleasure. In Justine, the eponymous heroine exclaims credulously when an inmate in the convent where she has landed explains the penchants of the four odious monks that oversee the establishment: “Good heavens! Murder, the most execrable of crimes would thus be for them as for the famous Marshal de Retz a sort of voluptuous pleasure [jouissance], the cruelty of which, exalting their perfidious imagination, might plunge their senses into a livelier drunkenness?”181 In his Italian manuscript, Sade deems such monsters to be sports of Nature that happily only appear once in a thousand years. Many of his libertine protagonists are explained precisely as such freaks, monstrous in the sense of rare, but no less natural for that. In Juliette, Gilles de Retz ends up on a list of historical villains that include emperors Nero, Tiberius, and Heliogabalus, all of whom derived sexual enjoyment from the spectacle of pain. If “fools” object that these are “monsters,” the designation is merely conventional: “Yes, according to our mores and our way of thinking, but relative to the grand designs that Nature has for us, they were naught but instruments of her intents.”182 Second, there is the case of the small bow that Sade observes among other weapons in the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. This device belonged to “a Spaniard whose sole pleasure consisted in shooting, by means of this bow – without any other intention than that of gratuitous destruction – several poisoned pins into the streets and into crowds where he found

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himself, or in public places, or as people were exiting church.” Sade finds that “this bizarre mania to do evil for the sole pleasure of doing it is one of the least understood of human passions and consequently the least analysed, and yet I would dare to think it possible that it should be classed with the common deliria of our imagination.” Common perhaps, but at the time of composing his companion to Italy, Sade also – paradoxically – considers this delirium sufficiently rare that he need not analyse its mechanisms. The topic evidently appealed to him sufficiently, however, that he would subsequently return to it ad nauseum. These interesting examples aside, the greatest single source of what might be called sublime violence comes from the Roman emperors. In general, there was a sort of cruel utilitarianism to Imperial projects, with sacrifices of the labourers calculatedly built into engineering projects, for example. Ancient wonders and horrors go together. Sade’s observations in this regard echo his notion that science and art require a certain tolerance – an allowance for necessary cruelty and licence  – if progress is to be made or worthy and magnificent objects created. The specific emperors who fascinated Sade most, nonetheless, were those whose decadence and perfidy stood in stark contrast to the Stoic virtues of, say, a Marcus Aurelius. For their exploits, Sade culled from the Imperial biographies of Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius, from whom he took copious notes. On Nero, for example, Sade draws from Tacitus and considers what the emperor “out of a barbaric principle much more than a religious one” did on Marius Hill in Rome, where he “entertained himself by lighting his gardens with the bodies of Christians, positioned at intervals to be used as torches.” He will return to Tacitus’s description in an explanatory note – a note that also recounts Lucian’s characterization of early Christians in Rome as a ragtag assortment of feral and fanatic vagabonds  – when his heroine Juliette visits Marius Hill and sees where Nero “amused himself by illuminating his gardens with the bodies of the first Christians.”183 Juliette wishes she could witness such a spectacle, for she, too, despises the “infamous sect.”184 In Journey to Italy, Sade’s philosophical critique on this matter stops just shy of such a pronouncement: he wonders whether “the present-day despots will perhaps revive on the same spot, over which they now rule” such an inhuman spectacle and fate “for those who might undertake to attack the religious structure that serves as the foundation of their throne.” Sade almost invariably positions popes as latter-day emperors, and they provide their own examples of horrific violence. An outstanding case is Urban VI (c. 1318–1389), a central figure in the Great, or Western Schism, and in Sade’s cutting characterization “villainous in the manner of Nero.” On seeing the remnants of Urban VI’s sarcophagus in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Sade points out that one cannot help “but recall his horrific cruelty towards the six cardinals who were not of his party and whom he had arrested and condemned to such horrific torture that he could not find anyone to carry out his barbarous plans.” Sade expands on the cruelty of this pontiff in a note, where he adds that Urban VI ordered the executioner of Luigi Donato, cardinal of Venice, to “torture him until I hear his cries” (original emphasis). This supreme pontiff then strolled calmly in the gardens nearby the dungeon where the act was taking place, breviary in hand, listening in apparent satisfaction. Like their ancient Roman precursors, the exploits of many popes who fascinate Sade are a juxtaposition and often combination of violence and sex. Of Alexander VI (1431–1503), pope from 1492 until his death, Sade concludes that he can only be compared to “the likes of Tiberius and Caligula.” Our author informs his reader that this pope was a Spaniard, native of Valencia, and bore the name Borja from his mother’s side. Italianized, this name became Borgia. Hardly celibate, he fathered numerous children, including the infamous Cesare Borgia. Sade tells

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us that Pope Alexander VI had four sons, among them Cesare, and also a daughter with “a Roman woman named Vanozza.” He elaborates that “in their infancy” all five children were made to serve their father’s “incestuous and sodomitical passions.” This pope also raped and murdered his male and female political rivals alike. More picturesquely, he once hosted an “infamous supper” that involved fifty courtesans. They first danced naked, and then after this dancing candelabras were positioned on the floor and chestnuts were scattered about, which the nude courtesans on their hands and knees proceeded to gather up, weaving through the burning tapers. Sade explains that there is an account of this dinner that “can still be seen in the Vatican archives,” “the description of which has been handed down to us by Burchard.” The reference here is to Johann Burchard (c. 1450–1506), papal master of ceremonies in the Vatican, who had chronicled in Latin the covert history of the papacy. Sade’s actual source, however, was the translation and recapitulation of these records in Mémoires secrets (Secret memoirs) by Boyer d’Argens.185 Such was clearly the sort of material that Sade hoped his friend Iberti would unearth for him, although the Inquisition curtailed that poor doctor’s mission. These sorts of antics and episodes, moreover, were evidently what Sade had in mind when he subsequently cast the reigning pontiff in his own day, Pope Pius VI (1717–1799), as an inhuman libertine extraordinaire in the pages of Juliette. This pontiff’s given name, which Sade uses in his novel, was Giovanni Angelo Braschi; he was elected on 15 February 1775, donned the tiara a week later, and took possession of the cathedra on 30 November, with our marquis in attendance at the ceremony. In Juliette, Pius VI sodomizes the heroine, dines on a fulsome mélange of dainties and her excrement, and declares of his sanguinary and voluptuary tastes, “Blood must flow for orgies to be good. Seated on Tiberius’s throne, I imitate him in my sensual pleasures, and, following his example, I know not a more delicious discharge than one in which sighs are mingled with the plaintive tones of death.”186 Extraterritorialities Sade’s philosophical concern about monastic and conventual perversion and the deleterious effects on population of religious claustration also provided content for his later writings. To Sade’s thinking Italian monasticism and its “odious cupidity” was implicated in seduction, “murders,” “abductions, rapes, acts of sodomy, poisoning, adultery, swindling, incest,” and overall “injustice.” These crimes are “always unpunished because of the unpardonable toleration of the laws against these wretches.” They are also precisely the crimes that Sade would later depict in meticulous detail  – and as often enough carried out by monks. In fact, for Sade there is a hazy line between libertine and monk, or rather, no distinction whatsoever except that the latter is hypocritical and his criminal behaviour is overlooked, whereas the former is more open, honest, and liable to be persecuted and ­prosecuted – as Sade felt himself unfairly to have been persecuted and prosecuted. Sade hardly invented this parallelism, and plenty of licentious libertine tales were set behind monastery doors or convent gates, from Vénus dans le cloître in the late seventeenth century through numerous eighteenth-century examples. The most philosophical version is probably from Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier de Chartreux (Story of Dom Bugger, the Carthusian’s porter) (1741) – possibly authored by Gervaise de la Touche (1715–1782), a lawyer at the parlement in Paris – where a hidden harem of nuns deep within a monastery and known as la piscine or “the pool” serves the lubricious desires of monks. According to that author, the nuns themselves tasted a freedom in this enclosure that a life of marriage on the outside would have never have afforded them.187

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In his licentious writings, Sade would simply fold together the various aspects of monastic criminality – viciousness and sexual depravity – with the claustrophobic atmospherics of the monastery as setting. Italy was where he began to work out the poetics of isolated and carceral spaces that would become an essential feature of his oeuvre. He evinces a fascination with zones outside of policing powers – lawless or extraterritorial zones, such as the catacombs under the Church of San Lorenzo in Rome, which are narrow, twisting, and rumoured to stretch all the way to the sea (albeit few people, opines our author, would be curious enough to test this hypothesis). Of these “impenetrable subterranean passages,” Sade opines that they “would surely be perfect safe havens for crime if the monks of the building above had some inclination to commit it.” He supposes them “upright fellows,” but says that his confidence in this view would falter should he have something on him “that might excite their cupidity.” These extraterritorial spaces need not be monastic or conventual, however. Sade describes, for instance, the vaults of a ruined ancient estate on the outskirts of Rome that “today constitute an asylum for debauchery and crime.” Or consider this passage about Florence, which foreshadows Sade’s libertine novels with precision: “The thick and remote walls of the vast palaces of the nobility hide, it is said, plenty of horrors. And how many unfortunate young women, brought furtively and under cover of night into these criminal enclosures have left therein their honour and health? Shortly before my arrival, an eight-year-old child had lost her life a fortnight after suffering forced indecencies in one of those palaces.” Sade claims that this sort of trade was facilitated by two women who had been recently arrested and that an “enormous number of girls had been victims of their seductions.” One girl, but ten years old, had been submitted to “the brutal and anti-natural caprices of a Florentine lord who had left her completely maimed.” Anti-natural in this context simply means sodomitical. At the same time, there was plenty in the archaeological remains of Roman and Hellenistic antiquity to inspire a touring hedonist. There were ruins throughout Campania, in particular, that recalled an earlier era of luxury, excess, and licence, such as “that famous city of Baiae, centre of delights and of sensual pleasure, where the Romans came to surrender themselves to debauchery of the most audacious and varied sorts.” Examining the remnants of rooms that he assumes belonged to “one of those voluptuary houses located in this charming city,” Sade spells it right out: “It was here that, in the loveliest of locations, sheltered from all the inclemency of the air and enjoying a wonderful coolness, our heroes of Antiquity were no longer but libertines.” The libertine spot par excellence, however, is the island of Capri, where the emperor Tiberius, “master of the universe,” withdrew during the last days of his reign to indulge in all manner of vice and “voluptuous deviations of his senses.” Following an account by Tacitus, Sade reports that the emperor “was not content with the willing victims that his emissaries placed all over Italy brought for his lust, but even had children abducted from the bosom of their families by his slaves when they refused to hand them over politely.” These are the tactics that Sade’s four repellent protagonists will use in Les 120 journées de Sodome to build their harem, and the similarities between Tiberius’s libertine idyll and Sade’s first licentious – and in many ways most shocking – work hardly end here. In particular, there is the sheer grotesquerie of Tiberius’s pleasures, which find an echo in Sade’s mature writing. Suetonius detailed preposterous extravagances such as a pool stocked with young boys who were instructed to lick and nibble at the emperor’s genitals as he swam past. The tyrant also reputedly had himself fellated by unweaned infants.188 The emperor held debauched court in a grotto with seats fashioned into the rock. There he could watch troops of boys and girls engage in all manner

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of venery. This grotto was linked to hidden chambers where Tiberius could enact his fantasies, once his imagination had been fired. In Les 120 journées de Sodome, the protagonists listen to tales of lubricity, watch their victims perform the same, and then retreat to recesses where they mimic these stimulating spectacles – that is, they mimic them if they are able, for Sade’s protagonists include not only indefatigable, superhuman libertines, but also those who like Tiberius, are etiolated by their excesses and on the brink of utter impotence. In short, the Isle of Capri contributed crucial characteristics to Sade’s imaginary Chateau Silling, the setting for sadism’s seminal document. Hidden in the Black Forest, far from publicity and the law, Silling is a phantasmagoric amalgam of Sade’s own Chateau La Coste, where we know him to have been up to various misdeeds, the prison cell in which he spent years as the self-perceived victim of his mother-in-law and of a monarchical power that he could hardly deem enlightened, and the emperor Tiberius’s sun-soaked, carnal, and vicious retreat.189 Paragons Tiberius’s sojourn on Capri also provided Sade with a model of suffering femininity that will be familiar to anyone who has read his novel Justine or its relations. In Suetonius’s biography of the emperor, Mallonia was a married woman who captured Tiberius’s attention on the island.190 When she rejected his embraces, he forced himself on her in his preferred manner as a superannuated debauchee: cunnilingus. As Martial elsewhere makes clear, this action was considered degradingly passive, and Tiberius was reputedly mocked for his ways in an Atellan Farce. In any case, when Mallonia’s resistance continued, her tormenter mocked up a trial, and she ended up taking her own life, stabbing herself. Similar to Lucretia, but the details of her plight more sordid, Mallonia is a paragon of sexual virtue that Sade will explore in terms of characterization and psychology in his later writings. As usual, Sade discovers Christian counterparts as well, and these he more openly derides in the pages of Journey to Italy. The best example is Agnes, who as a Christian, is “sent by the prefect of Rome to be raped” in the brothel district, which Sade notes, is the site of contemporary Piazza Navona. Of Agnes and her ilk, Sade explains that these “young virgins made such a fuss about modesty” and the “moral dissoluteness” of the Romans was “at such a high degree” that their “reckless sensuality increased with the barbaric pleasure of wresting from these young victims that which they deemed most precious.” In legend, Agnes is rescued by an angel just as a young man is about to ravish her. The young man is struck dead, but miraculously resuscitated thanks to Agnes’s prayers. This is the sort of myth of supernatural rescue and redemption that Sade will emphatically reject in his libertine writings as mere fiction. Nobody ever comes to save the persecuted Justine – except to torture her the more. Murderers and rapists are unrepentant and generally go unpunished. In novels, poetic justice or the lack thereof is an authorial decision. The former is rarely a feature of reality; the latter is almost a given. Further, Justine sticks to her virtue to the point that the reader cannot help but surmise that she is complicit and takes pleasure both in the acts to which she is submitted and in her own pain and humiliation – the narrative occasionally hints openly in this direction. Of Agnes and her alleged rapist, Sade similarly and cynically implies that all that happened was that the two had copulated and that the young man simply succumbed to a post-coital syncope: he was “exhausted from the pleasures that he had just tasted with the young saint,” who had “barely […] left childhood” and had, after all, “the most interesting face.” Mallonia, Agnes, and others like them that

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Sade encountered while researching his guide to Italy are key precursors and models for what we might call the Justine-type. In them all, Sade found an opportunity to satirize selfrighteous, hypocritical, and repressed sufferers and, more intriguingly, the social expectations and contradictions that create them. If in terms of more chronologically proximate literary genealogies, Justine appears close kin to Richardson’s sentimental heroines – Pamela and even more so the kidnapped and raped Clarissa, a sort of modernized Lucretia who dies of chagrin – there is also in Justine an element of Henry Fielding’s send-up of Richardson in the character of the gold-digging, faux sentimental, and seductive mock prude Shamela (rhymes, of course, with Pamela). For his part, Sade never denies the force of sexual drive in women, and he tends to ridicule attempts to control it. Coming across chastity belts on display in Florence, he labels the devices an invention of “Italian jealousy.” He adds that they lead to outcomes opposite the intended one: suppression only exacerbates female impetuousness; sexual control so asserted is the more inevitably thwarted. In the Italian manuscript, some women stand out as heroic in this regard. Matilde di Canossa purportedly separated from her second husband, Welf V of Bavaria (1072–1120), when he proved unable to perform his conjugal duties. The Margravine of Tuscany displayed herself naked before him on a table, wagging her rump, and when he still did not react in a manner she thought appropriate, she gave him a slap and exited in a fury. Sade sifts through various historical accounts of Matilde and decides that Welf’s impotence, as described, was the most likely or vraisemblable reason that she dismissed her husband. But Sade’s best model for heroic female sexuality was, once again, classical: Messalina, the lascivious third wife of Emperor Claudius (10 BCE–54 CE). In Rome, Sade comes across the ruins of chambers that recall to him the lupanars where the empress in Juvenal’s telling would surreptitiously prostitute herself under the name Lycisca or She-Wolf. She would always be the last to depart, in the words of the Roman satirist, “exhausted by the men but not yet satisfied.”191 Sade expands that it was here that Messalina “challenged the entire city of Rome to venereal combat.” He stops short of open admiration, telling his reader that he must limit “reflections too risqué for your delicacy, yet not expansive enough, I will admit, for the ardour of my imagination.” The satirical persona in Juvenal’s work was criticizing Messalina as the nadir of female perversity and decadence. Juvenal’s sixth satire is an over-the-top rant against the sexual mores of contemporary Roman women, advising suicide or homosexuality as better options than marriage. In his licentious writings, however, Sade will hold Messalina out as a positive role model. She is mentioned on numerous occasions across Sade’s libertine oeuvre. For example, in La Philosophie dans le boudoir, the empress is invoked when the debauched instructor Madame de Saint-Ange explains to her young charge, Eugénie, that if she wants to approach immortality that “it is by fucking, my dear, that you will remain in men’s memory.” Lucretia and her sort are soon forgotten, whereas the likes of Messalina and Theodora  – the sixth-century Byzantine empress also reputed to have worked in a brothel – enjoyed themselves when alive and are still recalled with pleasure.192 In Juliette, both Messalina and Theodora return as “the most celebrated whores of Antiquity,” and the heroine exhorted to pattern herself on them. At the moment that Juliette sets off on her Italian travels – following in Sade’s own footsteps, but with considerably more action on the road – Messalina, along with Emperor Caligula (12–41 CE), is mentioned as an inspiration once more. Later in Juliette, Pope Pius VI in the chamber reserved for his carnal pleasures in the Vatican hangs a painting of the empress that “flatters his penchants”: “Close to Teresa in Ecstasy was seen Messalina being sodomized.”193

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Figure 0.7. Empress Messalina working in a brothel, from Anon. [Jacques Joseph Coiny?], L’Arétin d’Augustin Carrache (1799).

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Ultimately, models for Sade’s libertine heroines needed not only voracious sexual appetites, but also to demonstrate a cruel demeanour and a strong affinity for violence. Sade came across various avatars of the latter in his research for Journey to Italy. Alongside shimmying naked in front of her hapless second husband, Matilde di Canossa did not shy from violence: suspect in the assassination of her first husband Godfrey the Hunchback, she was also famously militaristic. Similarly, Queen Joanna I of Angevin Naples (1328–1382) was four-times married, oversaw numerous military conflicts, and was known for her violent streak. Pietro Giannone (1676–1748), a philosopher, historian jurist, and Sade’s source on Joanna, claimed that she was behind the strangulation of her first husband, Andrew of Calabria (1327–1345), son of King Charles I of Hungary (1288–1342).194 Perhaps the best precursor of female perfidy was Tullia, daughter of Rome’s sixth king, Servius Tullius (assassinated 535 BCE). In Livy’s account, Tullia and her husband Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (died 495 BCE), the seventh and last king of Rome, first slayed their own siblings, who would otherwise vie with them for power. Next Tullia encouraged her husband to murder her father so that he, Lucius, could ascend to the throne. Sade notes in his visit to Rome that “you pass by the very spot where the barbarous Tullia, returning from the Senate where she had decided to appear in order to encourage Lucius, her husband, to get rid of Tullius, her father, and to rule in his stead, forced the driver of her carriage to roll over the corpse” – of her own father. Sade claims that “it is fortunate for humanity that Nature no longer produces such monsters.” Nevertheless, in his licentious writings, he would happily produce such monsters himself.195 The amoral and consciously ruthless contrast to the Justine-type, we might here posit the Juliette-type as a latterday, grotesque version of the Venus of Cnidus (or Knidos), a statue supposedly modelled on various beautiful women, whose best features were artfully and effectively combined.196 Sade’s composite of sexuality and cruelty is, moreover, not so much a negation as an inversion of the sentimental model of femininity that was at the heart of the sadistic investment in the “interesting.” Where the “interesting” woman modelled an eroticized suffering that piqued both the pity and the libido of the observer – compounding sensible stimulation – the pitiless one combined virtuosic detachment with a joy in inflicting pain. Notwithstanding the existence of certain historical exemplars, female cruelty for Sade was not limited to heroic freaks; for Sade, it was generalizable. Having noted in passing in his Italian manuscript that women seemed particularly fond of attending public executions in contemporary Rome, Sade would return precisely to this point in La Nouvelle Justine, once again linking the gladiatorial spectacles of the ancients and modern penal entertainment. Today’s women flock to witness what are deemed juridical assassinations: “They therefore have more of a penchant for cruelty than we do, and this because they have a more sensible physiology [l’organisation plus sensible]. This is what fools fail to grasp.”197 Here we glimpse one of the most intriguing and ambiguous heritages of Sade’s Journey to Italy, namely, his discovery and depiction of divergent models of femininity. Sade encounters and often lingers over women who defy prevalent cultural and literary notions of sexual virtue and whose actions belie the thesis of female humanity as the tremulous embodiment of sensibility. For Sade, women are far from passive vessels or inherently pitiful; they are highly attuned and active seekers of sexual pleasure and of cruel delight. Fictions The Marquis de Sade’s reputation has long been that of extreme misogyny. Considering the rapes, mutilations, and murders of women that are the hallmark of his writings from

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Les 120 journées de Sodome forward, this reputation is entirely understandable. For good reasons many feminists have excoriated him. Moralists have argued for Sade’s works to be banned or, at the very least, handled with care and their content not wished away as philosophical allegory or reduced to formal play.198 The reality of the Marquis de Sade’s oeuvre, permit me to say, is more complicated. In the reception of Sade in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a biographical, psychologizing strand that found in the marquis misogyny, but also a profound identification with his long-suffering and endlessly displaced anti-heroine Justine.199 Far-fetched as it may seem on the face of it, this identification has some verisimilitude. However deserving of opprobrium we may think him or his writings, did Sade not see himself as persecuted by his mother-in-law and malign authorities, forced on the run, and unjustly incarcerated? In certain respects, Sade’s actual journey to Italy and its aftermath does mirror his multifariously martyred character’s experiences, albeit in extravagantly hyperbolic terms. At the same time, Sade evidently projected onto Juliette, ruthless and liberated, an idealized self: like her sister ever in transit, but roaming without a care and enjoying at will her various preferences and the radical libertine freedom denied her author. In short, the road as a narrative device is crucial to the centrepieces of Sade’s mature career as a licentious writer: Justine, La Nouvelle Justine, and Juliette. With their meandering structure and repetitive episodes, these works follow a logic of amplification rather than one of psychological development or revelation. In this regard, they owe much to the picaresque, the other great modern tradition of the novel, alongside and predating the sentimental with its archetypically epistolary format.200 Initially associated with Spain and the seminal, anonymously published La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (The life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of his fortunes and adversities) (1554), with its roguish anti-hero and sadeian extended title, the picaresque continued to thrive and adapt in the eighteenth century. Standout examples in Sade’s day include The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771) by Thomas Smollett (1721–1771), much of which takes place in Italy, and Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste et son maître (1796) (Jacques the Fatalist and His Master). Composed starting in the 1760s, published partially in serial installments in the late 1770s and as a whole only posthumously, playful and philosophically risky, Diderot’s novel puts forward an argument for determinism that is jocular kin to the sordid fatalism of Sade’s tales – not without their dark and absurdist comedy. Violence, often painfully slapstick, was essential to the picaresque as a form of brutal, satirical critique of inexorable social oppression. The genre was also replete with bodily humour, frequently grotesque and scatological, which Sade easily adapted to his idiosyncratic anal interests. In the eighteenth century, travel writing and the picaresque existed in uneasy symbiosis. For Humphry Clinker, Smollett draws on his voyages on the Continent, chronicled in his Travels in France and Italy (1766). He, like Sade transitioning from his Italian guidebook to his later fiction, changed much in moving from one genre to another. Precisely what most travel writers suppressed were the picaresque moments of their voyages: encounters with banditti, road mishaps, dubious sexual encounters, getting ripped off, disgusting meals, and lice-infested lodgings. Or rather, these picaresque moments occasionally bubbled to the surface, providing comic relief and a dose of realism. Moreover, who truly believed that the grand tour was nothing but art, natural beauty, the satisfaction of scientific curiosity, and cosmopolitan cultivation? If such moments do briefly pierce the façade of smooth travel, the picaresque is nothing but the bumps. In this regard, Sade’s lewd, bloody, and excremental adventures might be seen as a transmogrification of travel writing: they developed

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the genre’s picaresque possibilities via the discourse of philosophical libertinism and a thorough steeping in the cruelties and aberrancies encountered in his research. There were other literary precedents and paradigms that Sade began to explore in his Italian project that would add to the symbiosis that is sadism. Although there was no genre or subgenre of the sentimental novel that went by the name “Gothic” – a later coinage – there was a vogue for the strange and at times terrifying in poetry, drama, and prose fiction that in France was known as “English” taste. One of the most influential works in this trend was the lugubrious lengthy poem The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742–1745), often referred to as Night-Thoughts, by Edward Young (1683–1765), and translated into French as simply Les Nuits d’Young (Young’s Nights). There were also prose imitators of the supposedly dark English tales as well as dramatic conjurers of the English stage, which was known in France to be bloody and horrific. The prolific François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d’Arnaud (1718–1805) wrote in both genres, generally eschewing outright violence for lugubrious atmospherics. His tragedy Euphémie, ou Le Triomphe de la religion (Euphémie, or the triumph of religion) (1768), for example, is set in a gloomy convent. D’Arnaud’s prose works included novellas such as Anne Bell, histoire angloise (Anne Bell, an English tale) (1770), where the abused heroine at one point traverses a “vast cemetery,” is overcome with exhaustion, and takes a seat “under the vault of an ancient monument that you might have thought the asylum of death itself.”201 There she breathes in the “sombre horror” and glimpses at the “back of this tunnel of sorts, a long line of tombs and sepulchres that came to an end in a deep pit in which were heaped and confounded piles of bones and fragments of coffins.”202 Sade registers a similar appreciation for darkness and morbidity in the posed skeletons that he sees in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome, an installation that may have been the handiwork of a German monk but that Sade judges to be “worthy of an English brain.” Years later Sade would go on to praise the Gothic genre or what he described as these “new novels, the entire merit of which just about consists of witchcraft and phantasmagoria,” in his critical essay “Idée sur les romans” (Thoughts on the novel) of 1800.203 He considered The Monk (1796) by Matthew Lewis (1775–1818), to be the peak of the genre, better than the “bizarre flights of brilliant imagination” of Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), although Sade was not without apparent admiration for these dark whimsies as well.204 Our marquis was thus certainly not alone in his regard for dark atmospherics. Other writers, exposed to Italy either through their travels or simply adapting what they had read in travelogues and guidebooks, pursued similar routes. The pulsing backdrop of Radcliffe’s The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797) is the vicinity of Naples, where the volcano on a still night on the bay sets the scene, visually and aurally, through invocation. Vesuvius breathes like a sleeping beast, with “hollow murmurs” and an occasional “groan,” and releases “at intervals its sudden flame on the horizon,” then reverts to darkness. The solemn scene induces a “particular awe” and pensiveness.205 Like Sade, Radcliffe was drawn in her fiction to the dark spaces of Catholicism, to the criminal aspects of fanaticism, and put in play evocative ruins, sublime Nature, and a victimized and maligned heroine whose will is tested at every turn: kidnapped, kept against her will in a cruel convent, and generally abused. In his libertine works, Sade merely took to extremes these devices that others had used, but the seed had long since been planted. In Justine, Juliette and other of his licentious writings, the examples that Sade encountered and described in his Journey to Italy would be mingled with and reflect his own carceral reality. They presumably served as a protest against and escape from this reality as well.

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Given the satirical thrust of Sade’s libertine quill, we might consider his take on the Gothic novel as less an extension than as a subversion, just as he undermined the discourse of sensibility by stretching and twisting its fibres. His licentious works would not only take Radcliffeian devices to gruesome and graphic extremes – flaying the genre to reveal the underlying nervous anatomy in excruciating detail – they would also reveal themselves to be the savage kin of Jane Austen’s ironization of Gothic topoi and tropes, as in Northanger Abbey (1803, published in 1817). The acme of such ironization is the damage that Sade inflicts on the enlightened notion of Nature as beneficent force and guide. Those who would affirm this notion, as it turns out, merely suffer from a peculiar form of human credulity: believing one’s own fabulations as if they were empirically tested and philosophically true. Certainly, others had had their doubts. Voltaire’s Candide was famously a response to the fatuousness of the theodicy of Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) when, for example, it came to facing the devastation wreaked on Lisbon by the earthquake that struck that city in 1755. Volcanic Italy provided Sade with ample evidence and numerous examples of Nature as a mephitic force. The Grotta del Cane was toxic to life and the sulphurous exhalations of the Campi Flegrei confirmed that what the credulous call Hell was a natural phenomenon. Why would the happy abundance of Campanian fields be a better model for humanity than the former? In La Nouvelle Justine, an Italian chemist named Almani, in observing Mount Etna’s destructive powers, explains that he will not have anything to do with being Nature’s lover in the philosophical vein but rather aspires to serving as her executioner: “Study her, follow her, this atrocious Nature, you will never see her create but to destroy, never arrive at her ends but by murders, and, like the Minotaur, never fatten herself but on the unhappiness and destruction of men.”206 Sade’s heroes and heroines in general identify with and mimic Nature’s malign powers. Such identification marks the culmination of Juliette’s grand tour of Italy: visiting Vesuvius. Like her creator, she sets out “early in the morning” to climb the volcano. The night before she had but little rest, engaging instead in various wanton and degenerate activities. In any case, Juliette avers, “One doesn’t sleep when planning a crime.”207 Her accomplice is a fellow female reprobate and Englishwoman named Clairwil, based perhaps on the lovely Sarah Goudar.208 Their victim is Olympe, herself their former partner in libertinism. It would seem that the author allows Juliette to fill in details of the climb that are missing in his Italian manuscript. She remarks that the trip up the mountain is “an awful chore”: “always in ash up to your neck, four steps forward and six steps back, and constantly fearful of being swallowed up alive by some lava flow.”209 At the edge of the caldera, Juliette and Clairwil strip their sacrifice. They “molest her lovely chest,” “cudgel her charming ass,” “prick her buttocks,” and Juliette “bites her clitoris until it bleeds.” After two hours of torture, the treacherous women grab Olympe by the ropes that bind her and toss her into the volcano. Like the vicious Pope Urban VI enjoying the screams of his tortured enemy, they listen to “the sound of her body strike and tumble jerkingly on the sharp angles that bounced it from one to the other, ripping her to shreds.”210 This aural feast sends the women ecstatically into each other’s arms, uttering “lubricious words” spiced with “a few blasphemies,” as they enjoy themselves utterly.211 Sade’s journey to Italy was not made under the best of personal circumstances, and there was plenty that dismayed or disappointed the Count of Mazan. Vesuvius, for example, did not put on its most sublime and destructive spectacle for him. Yet there was much that he enjoyed and appreciated on his grand tour, and as it turned out, this was the last time for many years that he was to truly taste freedom. When Sade returned to climb the volcano

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Figure 0.8. Juliette and Clairwil sacrificing Olympe to the volcano, from Marquis de Sade, L’Histoire de Juliette (1797). By permission of the British Library Board/Shelfmark P.C.27a.37.

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in print, some twenty years later, he seized an opportunity to rewrite this episode from his life in fictional terms. That he projected himself onto Juliette, whose bacchanals make the affaire de Marseilles look like innocent play, appears clear. Her journey, including the trek up Vesuvius, was to an extent a fanciful correction of Sade’s reality. More ambiguously, that there was also a glimmer of him in Olympe – betrayed, tortured, and tattered – seems less a correction of reality than an admission of fiction’s utter impotence to put the world right. In any case, before his full realization that malign powers, at least in his estimation, were working to ensure a lengthy incarceration, Sade had already gathered significant material on ancient lubricity and cruelty – not to mention on later ecclesiastical and secular malfeasance and decadence  – to amply inform his subsequent licentious writings. These began to take concrete shape in 1785, and it is worth emphasizing that Les 120 journées de Sodome  – the outrageous first burst of his truly sadistic writing activity  – was, like the Journey to Italy, also planned, partially composed, and never completed. Relinquishing the hope that he would return to his philosophical travelogue once he was released and become a proper man of letters, Sade began, instead, to forge the clandestine literary career that would eventually secure his name for posterity. These two projects are not only proximate: they are temporally, thematically, generically, biographically, and, in the end, psychologically utterly entangled, and in this grey space of dawning despair, sadism was born. NOTES 1 The play is included in vol. 15 of Sade, Œuvres complètes, ed. Annie Le Brun and Jean-Jacques Pauvert (Paris: Pauvert, 1986–1991), 7–114. A contemporary review found “interest and energy in this play,” while judging the depiction of Count Oxtiern, the title character, to be “revoltingly atrocious.” Besides, on the second night of the performance, some joker had yelled out “Lower the curtain!” at the beginning of act II – an exclamation that was mistakenly taken as an order by the “theatre boy” and led to unhappy tumult. In the end, however, the applause of the majority drowned out the tepid protests of the minority. As reported under the rubric “Théâtre de Molière,” in La Gazette nationale, ou Le Moniteur Universel, no. 310 (6 Nov. 1791): 1293–4. 2 Sade, Voyage d’Italie: précédé des Premières œuvres; suivi de Opuscules sur le théâtre, eds. Gilbert Lely and Georges Daumas. (Paris: Tchou, 1967); Sade, Voyage d’Italie, 2 vols., ed. Maurice Lever (Paris: Fayard, 1995). A new French edition of the Voyage d’Italie, edited by Michel Delon, is not as comprehensive as the Lever edition but has a more thorough critical apparatus; it was published while the translation presented here was in production (Paris: Flammarion, 2019). 3 Les 120 journées de Sodome, ou L’École du libertinage, written in 1785, in vol. 1 of D.A.F. Marquis de Sade, Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1990). Unless otherwise specified, all translations from Sade’s Œuvres, and other French works, are my own. The only available English translation for decades was Austryn Wainhouse and Richard Seaver’s somewhat quirky rendering in The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings (New York: Grove Press, 1966). Will McMorran and Thomas Wynn’s recent translation finally provides the English reader with a punctilious critical edition; see their The 120 Days of Sodom (London: Penguin, 2016). Throughout this introduction, I have drawn on the following biographies of Sade: Francine du Plessix Gray, At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life (New York: Penguin, 1998); Ronald Hayman, Marquis de Sade: The Genius of Passion [1978] (London: Tauris Park, 2003); Maurice Lever, Sade: A Biography, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (San Diego: Harvest, 1994); and

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Neil Schaeffer, The Marquis de Sade: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999). Where I have relied more heavily on any one of these, this will be indicated in the notes. 4 By officially classing the manuscript as a trésor national, the French Ministry of Culture blocked the auction of the manuscript, barred its exportation, and made Sade’s infamous work part of the French patrimony. See the Ministry’s press release of 19 December 2017, “Classement en tant que Trésors nationaux, d’un manuscript du Marquis de Sade et d’un ensemble d’écrits d’André Breton.” The press release describes the manuscript and its value in these terms: “the handwritten manuscript of Donation-Alphonse-François de SADE, Les 120 Journées de Sodome, ou L’école du libertinage, paper scroll 11.3 cm wide and 1.12 long [sic for 12.10 metres long], 1785. This manuscript, notable for its peculiar format, a function of the conditions of its creation in a cell at the time of the incarceration of the Marquis de Sade in the Bastille, its considerably turbulent journey, its inflammatory reputation, and its influence on a number of twentieth-century French writers, is of major importance in Sade’s oeuvre, insofar as it is his first veritable work, simultaneously the most radical and the most monumental, in spite of being unfinished” (my translation). 5 Available in English as The Misfortunes of Virtue and Other Tales, trans. David Coward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 6 Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue, trans. John Phillips (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Like Les 120 journées de Sodome, this work was previously only available in English in a 1965 translation by Seaver and Wainhouse; see Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings (New York: Grove Press, 1965). The English titles of the first version of the Justine tale and the considerably longer published version of 1791 both include the word “misfortunes”; the French titles, however, are slightly different, with the earlier using infortunes [misfortunes] and the later malheurs [misfortunes, adversities, woes]. All three versions in French are collected in vol. 2 of Sade, Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1995). La Nouvelle Justine has never been translated into English. 7 L’Histoire de Juliette will be found in vol. 3 of Sade, Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1998). An English version exists as Juliette, trans. Austryn Wainhouse (New York: Grove Press, 1968). 8 Alice M. Laborde provides a useful account, with accompanying documentation, of Sade’s lineage in her Généalogie et patrimoine du marquis de Sade, vol. 1 of Correspondances du marquis de Sade et des ses proches enrichies de documents, notes et commentaires (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991). 9 See Pierre Chessex, “Grand Tour,” in Michel Delon, ed., Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, trans. Gwen Wells (New York: Routledge, 2013), 622–5. 10 According to the travel recommendations of Jérôme Richard, one of Sade’s principal guides (see infra), in his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Dijon and Paris, 1766), 1:cxix. 11 See the introduction to Francesco Petrarch, Petrarch’s Lyric Poems: The “Rime sparse” and Other Lyrics, trans. and ed. by Robert M. Durling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 4–7. 12 For an extended account of the affaire d’Arcueil, Sade’s depiction in the press as a human vivisector, and his subsequent literary responses to these characterizations, see James A. Steintrager, Cruel Delight: Enlightenment Culture and the Inhuman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 87–145. 13 For the blow-by-blow of the affaire de Marseilles, I have mainly relied on Maurice Lever’s account in Sade: A Biography (195–216), albeit with the understanding that details come from perspectival testimony and that the author’s access and omniscience are informed constructs.

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1 4 Cited in Lever, Sade: A Biography, 195. 15 Ibid. 16 See Alice M. Laborde, ed., Le procès en cassation d’Aix-en-Provence, vol. 12 of Correspondances du marquis de Sade et de ses proches enrichies de documents, notes et commentaires (Geneva: Slatkine, 1998), 19. 17 Sade had evidently seduced his sister-in-law, who had taken up residence in La Coste, prior to the journey. That Anne-Prospère de Launay travelled with Sade to Italy has long been asserted by his biographers, including the first important one, Gilbert Lely. See Lely’s The Marquis de Sade: A Biography, trans. Alec Brown (New York: Grove Press, 1962), 131; originally published in French in two volumes, 1952 and 1957. Lely’s evidence came from assertions in correspondence that were considerably less conclusive than his account would suggest, as Alice Laborde points out in Le procès en cassation d’Aix-en-Provence (40). The current biographical consensus is that, although Anne-Prospère was not in Sade’s company when he was arrested in Chambéry, and while Sade had picked up another female companion on his travels whose identity remains unknown, his sister-in-law did accompany him initially, and she returned to France without him by early October of 1772. See Lever, Sade, 213–16; Schaeffer, Marquis de Sade, 141. 18 As reported in Laborde, Le procès en cassation d’Aix-en-Provence, 69. 19 Chorier’s spurious attribution in his title was to Luisa Sigea de Velasco (1522–1560), born in the province of Toledo, a Spanish humanist and woman of letters. Sotades was a third-century BCE Greek poet of obscene verse, thus the adjective “sotadical.” As for Vénus dans le cloître, ou La Religieuse en chemise, to give the full title, it is sometimes attributed to abbé Jean Barrin (1640–1718), cantor at Nantes Cathedral.   On these first-wave books of obscene libertinism, see Lynn Hunt, “Introduction: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500–1800,” in Lynn Hunt, ed., The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500–1800 (New York: Zone, 1996), 27–31. On L’École de filles in particular, see Joan DeJean, The Reinvention of Obscenity: Sex, Lies, and Tabloids in Early Modern France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 56–83. 20 In Bradford K. Mudge, ed., When Flesh Becomes Word: An Anthology of Early EighteenthCentury Libertine Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 199. Mudge’s anthology includes translations of both Venus dans le cloître as Venus in the Cloister: or, The Nun in her Smock (1725, 145–232), and Chorier’s so-called satire, severely abridged, as A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid (1740, 235–56). 21 See Schaeffer, Marquis de Sade, 61. For an in-depth account of the erotics of flagellation in early modern Europe, including libertine literature, see Niklaus Largier, In Praise of the Whip: The Cultural History of Arousal, trans. Graham Harman (New York: Zone, 2007), 221–332. 22 Sade, Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 3:685. 23 Sade’s correspondence with Dr Mesny continued well after his return from Italy and into his imprisonment. He complains in a letter to his wife, dated 1 June 1777, that she has “ridiculously” taken a month to get a letter from Mesny to him; in a letter dated 9 June, he then thanks her for “the letters from Italy that you have had passed along to me.” See Sade, Lettres et mélanges littéraires écrits à Vincennes et à la Bastille, ed. Georges Daumas and Gilbert Lely (Paris: Borderie, 1980), 1:56. The Italian project was obviously still very much on Sade’s mind at this point. 24 On this character, see Jean-Claude Hauc, Ange Goudar: Un aventurier des Lumières (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004), including discussion of the author’s relationship with Sade in Florence (143–5).

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25 Casanova provided an account of the exploit in his Histoire de ma fuite des prisons de la République de Venise qu’on appelle les Plombs [Story of my escape from the prison of the Republic of Venice known as the Leads] (Leipzig, 1787). 26 See Hauc, Ange Goudar, 138–40. 27 Goudar’s literary output was truly immense. For an effort to track it, see Francis L. Mars, “Ange Goudar, cet inconnu (1708–1791): Essai bio-bibliographique sur un aventurier polygraphe du XVIIIe siècle,” in Casanova Gleanings 9 (1966): 1–65. On the question of the authorship of Sarah Goudar’s purported works, see Hauc, Ange Goudar, 136–7. 28 Maurice Lever, basing his view on mentions of Sarah in Sade’s correspondence with Dr Mesny, states that the affair took place (Sade, 263–4). More circumspect, Neil Schaeffer asserts a distinct possibility rather than a fact (Marquis de Sade, 201 and 528n12). 29 On the shift in tourism in the 1770s from Florence and Venice to Rome, Naples, and further south, see Chessex, “Grand Tour,” 625. On the importance of excavations in the vicinity of Naples in establishing the kingdom as a new centre for the appreciation of antique art, see Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 74–8. 30 See Hayman, Marquis de Sade, 98. 31 Sade also owned a copy of Richard Lassels, Voyage of Italy, or a Compleat Journey through Italy (1670) in French translation as Voyage d’Italie, contenant les mœurs du peuple, la description des villes, & tout ce qu’il y a de beau & de curieux, 2 vols. (Paris, 1682). This was a seminal work of the grand tour, although Sade never mentions the author or the work in the manuscript. See Alice M. Laborde, La bibliothèque du marquis de Sade au château de La Coste (en 1776) (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 77. 32 The original English title was A Tour through Several Parts of Europe and the East; Especially the Following Places: Bologne, Paris and Its Environs, Nemours and Lyons, Avignon, Aix in Provence, Marseilles, Toulon, Genoa, Vicenza, Venice, Rome, Naples, Leghorn and Pisa, Florence, Bologna, Crete, Candia, and Other Places; In a Series of Letters by a Distinguished Gentleman Containing the Writer’s Observations on the Productions of Nature, the Monuments of Art and the Manners of the Inhabitants, 2 vols. (London, 1760). The first edition was apparently published in 1750. The attribution to Dr Maihows seems to first appear in the bibliographer Jacques-Charles Brunet’s Manuel de libraire et de l’amateur de livres (Paris: Brunet/ Leblanc, 1810), 3:232; and specifically with reference to Puisieux’s translation. A laconic entry and cross reference in Antoine-Alexandre Barbier’s Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, 2nd ed. (Paris: Barrois l’Aîné, 1822–1827), implies that this is a corruption of Matthews, although who the latter might be remains equally uncertain (4:382 and 4:393). 33 The print appeared in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi desunte dell’architettura Egizia, Etrusca, e Greca con un Ragionamento Apologetico in defesa dell’Architettura Egizia, e Toscana [Various ways of adorning chimneys and all other parts of buildings taken from Egyptian, Etruscan, and Greek architecture, with an apologia in defence of Egyptian and Tuscan architecture] (Rome, 1769). On Piranesi and his reception of Chaupy’s work, see Bernard D. Frischer, “Ramsay’s ‘Enquiry’: Text and Context,” in Bernhard D. Frischer and Iain Gordon Brown, eds., Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace’s Villa (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 85–7. 34 Sade, Correspondance. 1759–1814, vol. 12 of Œuvres complètes du Marquis de Sade, ed. Gilbert Lely (Paris: Au Cercle du livre précieux, 1967), 79; hereafter Sade, Œuvres complètes. 35 Ibid. For his part, Richard reasonably claimed that to make the most of your tour, you ought to learn Italian: you can ask for explanations, enjoy the pleasures of conversation, will have access

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to the latest news, and you will not feel like an “automaton” at social gatherings (Description historique et critique, 1:cx). He does remark that French is widely spoken in Europe, including Italy, but that most people you encounter will not speak it unless forced to do so. Dialects can be a problem on occasion, but usually not much of one, as “the Italian people everywhere generally understand pure and correct Italian” (1:cxiii). 36 Richard, Description historique et critique, unpaginated foreword. 37 Ibid., 1:xi. 38 Ibid. 39 On the recognition that philosophe had taken on a partisan signification by the 1750s, which is confirmed by Charles Palissot de Montenoy’s satirical and highly successful comedy Les Philosophes in 1760, and that philosophie was now a contested term, see Derek Beales, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 60–3. The most useful account of the development of partisan philosophie and its relation to the historical abstraction “Enlightenment” is, in my view, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, “Who Were the Philosophes?” in his Making Sense in Life and Literature, trans. Glen Burns (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 133–77. 40 See Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 283–302. 41 Lucian’s account of Christians in The Passing of Peregrinus says nothing about their prognostications about the empire but rather emphasizes their ridiculous beliefs and gullibility. The following is from Lucian, trans. A.M. Harmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936): The poor wretches have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody, most of them. Furthermore, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property. So if any charlatan and trickster, able to profit by occasions, comes among them, he quickly acquires sudden wealth by imposing upon simple folk. (5:15) 42 René Aubert de Vertot, Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la république romaine, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1727), 1:28–9. Sade’s argument, which is Nietzschean avant la lettre, is that only when Christianity and its priestly hypocrisies become insinuated in Rome and eventually Europe as a whole do matters become almost irreversibly untenable and require something like a superman to overcome them – or, in Sade’s case, a superwoman in the form of his Juliette. Again, these were views Sade largely shared with other spokesmen of radical philosophie, although he made quite different literary inferences from them. 43 See “An Answer to the Question: ‘What Is Enlightenment?’” in Immanuel Kant, Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss and trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 54–60. 44 See Robert Darnton, The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), 86–114; and Margaret C. Jacob, “The Materialist World of Pornography,” in Hunt, ed., Invention of Pornography, 157–202. 45 See Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens, Lettres juives, ou Corréspondence philosophique, historique, et critique (Amsterdam, 1736), 1:79. 46 As Derek Beales remarks, in his Enlightenment and Reform, the “philosophes had claimed Joseph for themselves since the 1760s” (74). Sade’s view of Joseph is entirely in tune with his

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attempt to cast himself as a member of the philosophical party, even if the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor and philosophie as a partisan movement is complex (see Beales, 74–9). 47 Laborde, Bibliothèque du marquis de Sade, 97. 48 Alice M. Laborde, noting Sade’s praise for the enlightened ruler of Florence, maintains that the fugitive met the grand duke; the manuscript of Sade’s Italian journey provides no evidence of direct contact with Leopold, nor have I seen correspondence that would confirm this (ibid., 75). 49 Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 53. 50 Richard, Description historique et critique, 1:xxxv. 51 On climate in relation to racial difference in eighteenth-century Europe, see the following: Roxann Wheeler, The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 1–48; David Bindman, Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 58–70; and Andrew S. Curran, The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 83–5 and passim. 52 Richard, Description historique et critique, 1:cviii. 53 Ibid., 1:xxxv. 54 Ibid., 1:xxxvi. 55 Ibid., 1:xli. 56 For a general history of policing in France, see Robert Muchembled, La Société police. Politique et politesse en France du XV e au XX e siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1998). On eighteenth-century Paris in particular, see Alan Williams, The Police of Paris, 1718–1789 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979). Michel Foucault also deals with the rise of policing extensively in Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978, trans. Graham Burchell (New York: Picador, 2007), esp. 311–61. Foucault’s overarching arguments about bio-power and particularly the roles of surveillance and disciplining agencies in modern societies that he made in the 1970s resonate with the development of this apparatus in seventeenthand eighteenth-century France. 57 On Montesquieu and the representation of harems as political and cultural critique, see Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook, Epistolary Bodies: Gender and Genre in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of Letters (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 30–70; Ruth Bernard Yeazell, Harems of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 66–73; and James A. Steintrager, The Autonomy of Pleasure: Libertines, License, and Sexual Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 85–92. 58 Nicolas de La Mare, Traité de la Police, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1729), 1:447. 59 Alice M. Laborde, ed., Le marquis de Sade et son père, vol. 3 of Correspondances du marquis de Sade et de ses proches enrichies de documents, notes et commentaires (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 267–8. For Sade’s passionate and importunate love letters to the actress, who seems to have initially rebuffed his advances, see ibid., 268–75. For biographical accounts of his affair with Colet, whose name Marais spells Colette, see Gray, At Home with the Marquis de Sade, 71–4; Lever, Sade, 126–30; Schaeffer, Marquis de Sade, 71–5. 60 Laborde, Le marquis de Sade et son père, 268. 61 For a lively early twentieth-century account of La Brissault, her husband, and their business, see Gaston Capon, Les maisons closes au XVIII e siècle (Paris: H. Daragon, 1903), 162–71. The author notes that La Brissault kept two brothels: one on the outskirts of town near the Barrière Blanche; another in Paris proper, initially on the rue Tire-Boudin and later on the rue Française,

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conveniently located just across from the Comédie-Italienne or Italian Comic Opera (162). The rue Tire-Boudin (literally “Sausage-Yank Street”) was long associated with prostitution. This was also a slightly more decorous appellation than the original rue Tire-Vit (“Prick-Yank Street”). It is now called rue Marie-Stuart, and urban legend had it that the initial euphemistic change came about when Mary Stuart, briefly wife of François II and queen consort of France, innocently asked the name of the street and, out of decency, a substitution was made. See Germain-François Poullain de Saint-Foix, Essais historiques sur Paris (London, 1767), 1:248. 62 Laborde, Le marquis de Sade et son père, 268. 63 A modern edition of Nicolas Edme Rétif de la Bretonne’s Le Pornographe is included in Œuvres érotiques de Restif de la Bretonne, vol. 2 of L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Fayard, 1985). 64 On Rétif’s project in relation to other such works of the organization and control of prostitution written in eighteenth-century France, see Pamela Cheek, Sexual Antipodes: Enlightenment Globalization and the Placing of Sex (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 104–20; Steintrager, Autonomy of Pleasure, 100–27; and Amy S. Wyngaard, Bad Books: Rétif de la Bretonne, Sexuality, and Pornography (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2013), 47–76. 65 Translated as Carlo Antonio Pilati, Projet d’une Réforme à faire en Italie, ou Moyens de corriger les abus les plus dangereux, & de réformer les Loix les plus pernicieuses, établies en Italie (Amsterdam, 1769). 66 My slightly modified rendering of what Bette Talvacchia has as “I want it in my rear,” in her excellent analysis of Aretino and more broadly the postures tradition in art history and literature, in Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 213. Talvacchia’s book provides all of the extant sonnets in the original Italian, translations, and the woodcut illustrations. 67 Ibid. 68 Antonio Vignali, La Cazzaria: The Book of the Prick, ed. and trans. by Ian Frederick Moulton (London: Routledge, 2003), 88. For a modern translation of I Ragionamenti, see Pietro Aretino, Aretino’s Dialogues, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). 69 See Guido Ruggiero, Machiavelli in Love: Self, Sex, and Society in the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 24–8. 70 Sade’s source and reference is Benedetto Varchi, Histoire des Révolutions de Florence, sous les Médicis, trans. Jean-Baptiste Requier (Paris, 1764), 1:213. For a recent account of Florentine sodomy laws and their inconsistent enforcement by the Office of the Night, see Michael Rocke, Forbidden Friendship: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), esp. 228–35. 71 On Gian Gastone and the grand tour, see G.S. Rousseau, “The Pursuit of Homosexuality in the Eighteenth Century: ‘Utterly Confused Category’ and/or Rich Repository,” in Robert P. Maccubbin, ed., ’Tis Nature’s Fault: Unauthorized Sexuality during the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 159. 72 Baptista Spagnuoli Mantuanus, Prima pars operum in qua sunt Alphonsus, etc. (n.p., 1507), n.p. 73 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress, introduction and annotation by David Wootton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2011), 64. 74 Composed over many years and completed around 1780, the work was published posthumously in 1796. For a recent translation of this work, see Denis Diderot, The Nun, trans. Russell Goulbourne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 75 Sade, Œuvres, 3:686.

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76 Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983). See also Barbara M. Benedict, Curiosity: A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001). For an analysis of how the rehabilitation of curiosity had a complex relation to empiricism and animal experimentation, as well as to Sade’s biography and writings, see Steintrager, Cruel Delight, 37–83 and 115–24. 77 The term cabinet de curiosités was widely in use at the time of Sade’s journey, as was the rubric “natural history.” See, e.g., the title of Johann Vollrath Bacmeister’s account of an important Russian collection: Essai sur la Bibliothèque et le Cabinet de curiosités et d’histoire naturelle de l’Académie des Sciences à Saint Petersbourg [Essay on the library and the cabinet of curiosities and of natural history of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg] (n.p. [St Petersburg], 1776). An example of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism, Bacmeister was a German, resident in St Petersburg and employed at the Russian imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences (founded in 1724), and here publishing in French (as was the official bulletin of the Academy). 78 On the development of these collections, see Paula Findlen, “Inventing Nature: Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinets of Curiosity,” in Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), 297–323. 79 Sade recommends Mesny’s cabinet of curiosities to travellers in the chapter on Florence, and he is not alone in mentioning this collection. Antoine Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville in his listing of various cabinets that include interesting specimens of shells, notes in Florence the collection of “M. Mesny, a French national,” in his La Conchyliologie, ou Histoire naturelle des coquilles (Paris, 1780), 1:839. Johann Jakob Ferber, more interested in minerals than shells, remarks his regret at missing the cabinet of Bartholomée Mesny when he passed through Florence, as the Frenchman was visiting his homeland; see Lettres sur la minéralogie et sur divers autres objects de l’histoire naturelle de l’Italie, trans. Mr le B. de Dietrich (Strasbourg, 1776), 395. Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande also notes, in vol. 2 of his Voyage d’un François en Italie, fait dans les années 1765 & 1766 (Yverdon, 1769), that “one of the lovely collections of natural history to be found in Florence is that of Mr Mesny, skilled physician, Director of the Hospitals of Tuscany, as well as of the Pitti Palace’s pharmacy, [known as the] Speziaria.” He adds that this “cabinet is put together intelligently and carefully” and that it contains “quite interesting specimens of natural history.” He concludes that “the professor is a lovable man, with whom the curious will find all manner of satisfaction” (2:371). 80 We know from an undated letter, likely written between 1775 and 1777, to his solicitor Gaspard-François-Xavier Gaufridy that Sade planned such a cabinet. In the letter, he also mentions petrifactions that he had purchased on the cheap in Marseilles. See Sade, Lettres inédites et documents, ed. Jean-Louis Debauve (Paris: Pauvert, 1990), 188. 81 Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, Volume 1, books 1–2, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1938), mentions “the lethal breaths either emitted from chasms or due to the mere formation of the ground, in some places fatal only to birds, as in the region of Soracte near Rome, in others to all living creatures except man, and sometimes to man also, as in the territory of Sinuessa and of Pozzuoli – the places called breathing holes, or by other people jaws of hell – ditches that exhale a deadly breath [ut in Sinuessano agro et Puteolano, quae spiracula vocant, alii Charonea, scrobes mortiferum spiritum exhalantes]” (338–9). There are notes on the grotto, including a description of the usual experiment, in a translation of this work that came out shortly before Sade’s trip. See Pliny the Elder, Histoire naturelle de Pline (Paris, 1771), 1:418.

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82 See Alexandre de Rogissart et al., Les Délices de l’Italie, Qui contiennent une Description exacte du Pays, des principales Villes, de toutes les Antiquitez, & de toutes les raretez, qui s’y trouvent (Leiden, 1709), 5:94–5. 83 The killing of the slaves and of the ass are mentioned in Rogissart (ibid., 5:95). Both incidents are also reported in an overview of the grotto and its powers in Alleon Dulac, Mélanges d’histoire naturelle (Lyon, 1765), 3:372–5. 84 See Anon., Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences. Année MDCCXLV. Avec les Mémoires de Mathémathique & de Physique, pour la même année (Paris, 1749), 16–17. On Taitbout de Marigny’s identity and service, see Anne Mézin, Les consuls de France au siècle des lumières (1715–1792) (Paris: Ministère des affaires étrangères, 1980), 556–7. 85 An experimental apparatus compellingly studied in relation to seventeenth-century intellectual history in Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). In the eighteenth century, the air pump remained an important part of the empiricist arsenal and was also used for pedagogical purposes. Joseph Wright of Derby’s celebrated painting Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) shows the apparatus being demonstrated before a group of amateurs. 86 Anon., Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences. Année MDCCL. Avec les Mémoires de Mathémathique & de Physique, pour la même année (Paris, 1754), 77. The citation above is from a first-hand account by Jean-Antoine Nollet, priest and pioneering researcher in the field of electricity, given in his “Suite des expériences et observations faits en differens endroits de l’Italie,” in the Mémoires de Mathémathique & de Physique part of the volume (54–106), which has separate pagination from the Histoire. The first set of abbé Nollet’s observations on Italy had been published the previous year. 87 See Anon., Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences. Année MDCCLXX. Avec les Mémoires de Mathémathique & de Physique, pour la même année (Paris, 1773), 67. 88 The “Royal Academy of Projectors” in Lagado, the capital of the imaginary island of Balnibari, is full of deluded experimentalists who misguidedly impose rational solutions on social problems and attempt ridiculous scientific procedures such as “extracting Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers.” See Jonathan Swift, The Essential Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Claude Rawson and Ian Higgins (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010), 426. Along with the Royal Philosophical Society, Swift is taking aim at what he deemed provincial imitations such as the Dublin Philosophical Society. 89 Pliny the Younger, The Letters of Pliny, Volume I: Books 1–7, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 428–9. 90 The additional material in the expanded edition had initially been published in separate pamphlets as Supplemento alla storia del Vesuvio [Supplement to the history of Vesuvius] (Naples, 1761), which covered the 1760 eruption, and as Incendio del Vesuvio accaduto li 19 d’ottobre del 1767 [Eruption of Vesuvius that occurred on 19 October 1767] (Naples, 1767). For a recent account of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Vesuvius watchers, including Della Torre, see Sean Cocco, Watching Vesuvius: A History of Science and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013). 91 William Hamilton, Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, and Other Volcanoes (London, 1772), 7–8. 92 Ibid., 8. 93 Ibid., 27. 94 Ibid., 11. 95 See Laborde, Bibliothèque du marquis de Sade, where the work is notable in its absence.

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  96 Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, ed. Wolfgang Leidhold (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), 28.   97 A much-discussed notion in aesthetic, literary, and intellectual history, the widespread and increasingly intense early modern interest in the sublime can be traced to Nicolas BoileauDespréaux’s translation and publication of (pseudo-) Longinus’s rhetorical treatise on the topic as the Traité du sublime ou du merveilleux dans le discours (Paris, 1674).   98 It was Kant who above all insisted on and theorized the sublime as the blockage of the powers of imagination. See Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 128–48.   99 Anon. [Claude Boutet?], Traité de la peinture en mignature, pour apprendre aisément à peindre sans maître (The Hague, 1708), 241. This is a new and augmented edition, and covers painting more generally, in addition to the focus on miniature. The dedication is signed “C.B.,” although the attribution to Claude Boutet, about whom little is known, is debatable. 100 Ibid. 101 This arrival date is confirmed in a letter from Vien himself. See Anatole de Montaiglon and Jules Guiffrey, eds., Correspondance des directeurs de l’Académie de France à Rome (Paris: Jean Schemit, 1904), 13:156. Between Natoire and Vien, Noël Hallé (1711–1781) briefly served as director, reporting to his superiors in France that he had left France on 8 June, had belatedly arrived at seven in the morning on 3 July, and that the accommodations he had inherited from the departing director were in shambolic condition (13:93). 102 Anon., Traité de la peinture en mignature, 11. 103 As Wendy Olmsted, in her Rhetoric: An Historical Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006), defines the classical notion of decorum: “the appropriateness of style to the matter and purpose at hand. This decorum was not fixed; rather it worked dynamically through the art of the speaker” (26). 104 Anon., Traité de la peinture en mignature, 12. 105 Charles Le Brun initially gave his account of how to draw the passions in a lecture in 1668. The work was first published as Conférence de M. Le Brun, premier peintre du roi, chancelier et directeur de l’Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, sur l’expression générale et particulière, enrichie de figures gravées par B. Picart (Amsterdam and Paris, 1698). It is better known under the title Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions, which first appeared as the work’s title in an Amsterdam imprint from 1702. 106 René Dubos, Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (Paris, 1719), 1:12. 107 See Herbert Dieckmann, “Die Abscheuliche und Schreckliche in der Kunsttheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in Hans Robert Jauß, ed., Die nicht mehr schönen Künste: Grenzphänomene des Ästhetischen (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1968), 271–317; Carsten Zelle, “Angenehmes Grauen”: Literaturhistorische Beiträge zur Ästhetik des Schrecklichen im achtzehnten Jahrhundert (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1987). 108 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, trans. and ed. by S.H. Butcher (New York: Dover, 1951), 95. The importance of verisimilitude was elaborated in Aristotle’s early modern reception by, among others: Julius Caesar Scaliger in his Poetices libri septem (1561) and François Hédelin, abbé d’Aubignac, who in his Pratique du théâtre dedicates a chapter to the topic (1657). Julius Caesar Scaliger or Scaligerus was the Latinized form of Giulio Cesare della Scala, who was Italian by birth but spent the bulk of his career in Agen in southwest France. 109 Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture. Nouvelle edition, revue, corrigée, & augmentée; avec un dictionnaire des termes (Paris, 1755), 16–17.

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110 Françoise Fichet discusses and provides excerpts from this debate in her La théorie architecturale à l’âge Classique: Essai d’anthologie critique (Liège: Pierre Mardaga, 1995), 281–92 and 333–46. Prior to the exchange in the Mémoires de Trévoux, Jean-Louis de Cordemoy had presented some gentle criticisms of Saint Peter’s in his recently published Nouveau traité de toute l’architecture, utile aux entrepreneurs, aux ouvriers, et à ceux qui font bâtir [New treatise on the whole of architecture, useful for contractors, workers, and those responsible for building] (Paris, 1706), see 170–87. 111 From the French translation of Francesco Milizia’s work, L’art de voir dans les beaux-arts [The art of seeing the fine arts] (Paris, 1798), 224. The title of the original Italian work is Dell’arte di vedere nelle belle arti del disegno secondo i principii di Sulzer e di Mengs [On the art of seeing in fine arts of drawing based on the principles of Sulzer and Mengs] (Venice, 1781). Kant, in his Critique of the Power of Judgment, was still referring to this debate in critical aesthetics, where he considers “the bewilderment or sort of embarrassment that is said to seize the spectator on first entering St Peter’s in Rome”: “For here there is a feeling of the inadequacy of his imagination for presenting the ideas of a whole, in which the imagination reaches its maximum and, in the effort to extend it, sinks back into itself, but is thereby transported into an emotionally moving satisfaction” (136). 112 See Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, trans. George Bull (New York: Penguin, 1987), 1:25–56. 113 Rousseau, Basic Political Writings, 6. 114 Richard, Description historique et critique, 1:lxxi. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid., 1:lxx. 117 Ibid., 1:lxix. 118 Ibid., 1:xcii and 1:xcvi. 119 David Hume, e.g., tries to account for historical, national, and other variations in attributions of beauty in his essay “Of the Standard of Taste,” in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), 171–86. The temporalizing position was most carefully elaborated in Johann Gottfried Herder’s writings and aesthetic re-evaluations of the 1770s, most importantly in the initial sections of Von Deutscher Art und Kunst [On German Style and Art]. See also the following: German Literary and Aesthetic Criticism: The Romantic Ironists and Goethe, ed. Kathleen Wheeler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 5; Stephen Gaukroger, “The Role of Aesthetics in Herder’s Anthropology,” in Anik Waldow and Nigel DeSouza, eds., Herder: Philosophy and Anthropology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 100–3. 120 On the libertine adoption and use of caprice as a (non-)principle that justifies any manner of sexual pleasure, see Steintrager, Autonomy of Pleasure, 246–59. 121 Solid general works on sensibility, with a bias to Britain, include the following: Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction (London: Methuen, 1986); G.J. Barker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); and Ann Jessie van Sant, EighteenthCentury Sensibility and the Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). For the French context more specifically, see Anne Vila, Enlightenment and Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature and Medicine of Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). Both van Sant and Vila situate Sade in relation to the discourse of sensibility, as does Steintrager, Cruel Delight (see esp. 95–114). 122 The relation between Sade’s novels and sentimental literature has long been remarked; for a notable early example, see R.F. Brissenden, Virtue in Distress: Studies in the Novel of Sentiment from Richardson to Sade (London: Macmillan, 1974).

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1 23 Denis Diderot, Œuvres esthétiques, ed. Paul Vernière (Paris: Bordas, 1988), 739. 124 Ibid., 696. 125 The notion of aesthetic interest is perhaps most easily grasped through its negation in Kant’s aesthetic theory, where proper judgments of beauty are deemed interesselos (disinterested or, more literally, interest-less). Kant thereby sought to remove from aesthetic judgment in the case of beauty any pathological – i.e., passionate and subjective – taint. If the satisfaction felt in a representation is linked to its possible existence, what we have is desire; we ought only to speak of beauty when an object triggers a sort of formal, empty, and harmonious play of the faculties of imagination and judgment, in which we may be said to have a disinterested interest insofar as such play is experienced as pleasing (see Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, 90–6). Kant obviously rejects eroticism with such assertions, and provides examples of what beauty-triggering objects tend to be either natural or utterly uncompelling and trivial, such as arabesques and the like – “designs à la grecque, foliage for borders or on wallpaper, etc.” (114). Sade, for his part, intriguingly crosses the wires in the case of Duquesnoy: the boys who pose for him are reduced to arabesques, but the beauty of these forms turns out to be sexually attractive. As I have argued elsewhere, the fundamental contrast between Kant and at least later Sade – although we catch a glimpse already – is that one upholds disinterested interest and the other interested disinterest or what we might call the paradox of detached sensibility. See Steintrager, Cruel Delight, 143. 126 Diderot, Œuvres esthétiques, 536. There is likely a glimpse here of Catullus’s poem that begins: “Mourn, ye Graces and Loves, and all you whom the Graces love. My lady’s sparrow is dead [passer mortuus est meae puellae, / passer deliciae meae puellae], whom she loved more than her very eyes.” See Catullus and Tibullus, Catullus. Tibullus. Pervigilium Veneris, trans. F.W. Cornish, J.P. Postgate, and J.W. Mackail, revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 4–5. 127 Denis Diderot, Salon de 1765, ed. Else Marie Bukdahl and Annette Lorenceau (Paris: Hermann, 1984), 92. Little known or appreciated today, Lagrenée would succeed Vien as the director of the French Academy in Rome, serving from 1781 to 1787. 128 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 4. On the longer history of the picturesque in France, especially with regard to verse, see Wil Munsters, La poétique du pittoresque en France de 1700 à 1830 (Geneva: Droz, 1991). 129 Uvedale Price, in An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful (London, 1794), writes: “A temple or palace of Grecian architecture in its perfect entire state, and its surface and colour smooth and even, either in painting or reality, is beautiful; in ruin it is picturesque. Observe the process by which time (the great author of such changes) converts a beautiful object into a picturesque one. First, by means of weather stains, partial incrustations, mosses, &c. it at the same time takes off from the uniformity of its surface and of its colour; that is, gives it a degree of roughness, and variety of tint. Next, the various accidents of weather loosen the stones themselves; they tumble in irregular masses upon what was perhaps smooth turf or pavement, or nicely trimmed walks and shrubberies, now mixed and overgrown with wild plants and creepers, that crawl over and shoot among the fallen ruins” (46–9). 130 Diderot, Œuvres esthétiques, 641. 131 Inferring from ruins to a politics of equality had been hinted at since at least Rousseau and would receive its fullest treatment in abolitionist and cosmopolitan meditations of Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney’s Les Ruines, ou Méditations sur les révolutions des empires (Paris, 1791).

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132 See Melissa Calaresu, “Looking for Virgil’s Tomb: The End of the Grand Tour and the Cosmopolitan Ideal in Europe,” in Jas Elsner and Joan Pau Rubiés, eds., Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel (London: Reaktion Books, 1999), 138–61. 133 On Paestum, these works, and the Doric revival, see James Stevens Curl, Georgian Architecture (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 2002), 74–6. For a recent scholarly account, see Giovanna Ceserani’s Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the Making of Modern Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 134 In Grosley’s account, the Neapolitan art student is vacationing in his hometown of Capaccio when he comes across the ruins of Paestum, at the time part of a plot being used by a tenant farmer for pasturing his animals. Inquiring locally about the ruins, he discovers that as long as anyone can remember, the land was uncultivated and abandoned until the tenant farmer set up there some twelve years ago. He had scavenged the site and unearthed enough valuable finds that he had been able to buy the land. After the student’s report, interest grew and the site now attracts “crowds.” See Pierre-Jean Grosley, Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie (London, 1764), 3:87–9. Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, citing Grosley, repeats the story almost verbatim in his Voyage d’un françois en Italie (Yverdon, 1770), 7:106–7. 135 See Giuseppe Antonini, La Lucania (Naples, 1745), 213–79. 136 Ibid., 218. 137 Having initially followed Grosley on the rediscovery of Paestum, Lalande would later modify his account, taking note of Antonini’s discussion of the site and mentioning Soufflot and Marigny’s visit in 1750, although still crediting the student for finding the site proper and its current celebrity. See Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage en Italie, conténant l’Histoire & les Anecdotes les plus singulières de l’Italie (Paris, 1786), 7:594–5. He would subsequently revise his account once more to place Soufflot and Marigny’s visit in 1760, which, although incorrect, does make sense of the supposed sequence of rediscovery. See Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage en Italie, conténant l’histoire & les anecdotes les plus singulières de l’Italie & sa description (Yverdon, 1788), 6:197. 138 See Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Ingrid D. Rowland, commentary and illustrations by Thomas Noble Howe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 55 (in book 4, chapter 1). 139 Laugier, Essai sur l’architecture, 87. 140 Charles de Brosses, Lettres sur l’état actuel de la ville souterraine d’Herculée, et sur les causes de son ensevelissement sous les ruines du Vésuve (Dijon, 1750), 60. 141 On these discoveries and the protectiveness and attitudes of Charles of Naples and his son Ferdinand, see Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, 74–6. 142 Jérôme Charles Bellicard and Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Observations upon the antiquities of the town of Herculaneum, discovered at the foot of Mount Vesuvius: with some reflections on the painting and sculpture of the ancients: and a short description of the antiquities in the neighbourhood of Naples (London, 1754), iv. It appears that the English edition of this work was published the year before the French one. 143 Ibid., 58. 144 A detailed account of the cataloging of the excavations, including the earlier and unsatisfying work of Ottavio Antonio Bayardi in the 1750s and the publication history of Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, will be found in Carol C. Mattusch with Henry Lie, The Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum: Life and Afterlife of a Sculpture Collection (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2005), 65–75. See also Claire R. Lyons and Marcia Reed, “The Visible and the Visual: Pompeii and Herculaneum in the Getty Research Collection,” in Victoria C. Gardner Coates

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and Jon L. Seydl, eds., Antiquity Rediscovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007), 137–42; and Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, 75–6. 145 Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Sendschreiben von den Herculanischen Entdeckungen. An den Hochgebohrnen Herrn, Herrn Heinrich Reichsgrafen von Brühl (Dresden, 1762), 34. This work was soon after translated into French as Lettre de M. l’abbé Winckelmann, antiquaire de sa Sainteté, à Monsieru le comte de Brühl, chambellan du roi de Pologne, Électeur de Saxe, sur les découvertes d’Herculanum (Dresden, 1764). 146 Ibid. 147 Richard Payne Knight, An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, Lately Existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples: in Two Letters … to which is added, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its Connexion with the mystic Theology of the Ancients (London, 1786), 27. 148 Ibid., 24–5. 149 Rousseau, Basic Political Writings, 9. 150 Martial, Toutes les Épigrammes de Martial en Latin et en François, avec de petites nottes, trans. Michel de Marolles (Paris, 1655), 1:n.p. 151 Ibid. 152 Martial, Epigrams. Book Two, ed., trans., and commentary by Craig A. Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 108–9; original emphasis. I have drawn from Williams’s illuminating commentary on this epigram (see 108–11). 153 Toutes les Épigrammes de Martial, 1:156. 154 Ibid., 157. 155 Martial, Epigrams. Book Two, 110. 156 Sade, Œuvres, 3:623. Sade’s citation renders lines from book 11, epigrams of Martial. The full epigram in D.R. Shacklton Baily’s translation of Martial, Epigrams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1993) reads:

Catching me with a boy, wife, you upbraid me harshly and point out that you too have an arse. How often did Juno say the same to her wanton Thunderer! Nonetheless, he lies with a strapping Ganymede. The Tirynthian [i.e., Hercules] used to lay aside his bow and bend Hylas [his young male companion] over: do you think Megara [Theban princess and Hercules’s wife] had no buttocks? Fugitive Daphne tormented Phoebus: the Oebalian [i.e., Spartan] boy bade those flames vanish. Though Briseis often lay with her back to Aeacus’s son [i.e., Achilles, the grandson of Aeacus], his smooth friend was closer to him. So kindly don’t give masculine names to your belongings, wife, and think of yourself as having two cunts. (3:39)

  This epigram is not provided in its entirety in Latin in Toutes les Épigrammes de Martial, although its coarse concluding lines are; no French version is provided at all, with the comment that it is one of those epigrams that is “untranslatable” (morally, one supposes) (2:307). Sade’s apparent source is, moreover, a translation of Chorier’s Aloisiae Sigaeae, Toletanae, Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris that was published either during or shortly after his voyage. Here, in a lesson on the classical tradition, we find the exact lines that our author provides in Juliette as part of a loose translation of the epigram that explains that Juno cannot always please Jupiter because, in spite of the options she can provide him, he is sometimes simply “tired of Womankind [las du Féminin],” from anon. [Nicolas Chorier], Nouvelle Traduction du Mursius, connu sous le nom d’Aloïsia, ou De l’Académie des Dames [Cythera [!], 1776], 2:23.

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157 On the authorship of L’École des filles, sometimes attributed to a certain Michel Millot, see DeJean, The Reinvention of Obscenity (63–5, 151–2n9, and 153–4n22). 158 A critical edition in French of this work is included in Sade, Œuvres, vol. 3 (Paris: Gallimard, 1998). To my mind, the best English translation of this work remains Richard Seaver and Austryn Wainhouse in Sade, Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings (New York: Grove, 1965), although there is a more recent version: see Sade, Philosophy in the Boudoir, trans. Joachim Neugroschel (New York: Penguin, 2006). 159 See Laborde, Bibliothèque du marquis de Sade, 55. 160 See Lucian, Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches, trans. Keith Sidwell (London: Penguin, 2004), 157–89. 161 Aretino’s Dialogues, 4. 162 See Romano Giulio, Marcantonio Raimondi, Pietro Aretino, and Count Jean-FrédéricMaximilien de Waldeck, I Modi: The Sixteen Pleasures. An Erotic Album of the Renaissance, trans., ed., and commentary by Lynne Lawner (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988), 3 and 10–15; Talvacchia, Taking Positions, 71–84. 163 Ovid, The Art of Love and Other Poems, trans. J.H. Mozley and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 172–3. 164 Aretino is also not so obliquely referring in this instance to the illustrations for which he had provided commentary in his Sonetti lussuriosi [Aretino’s dialogues, 44]. 165 On the relation of La Mettrie and licentious libertinism, see Darnton, Forbidden Best-Sellers, 95. Again, the general connection between materialist philosophy and libertinism is laid out in Margaret C. Jacobs, “The Materialist World of Pornography,” in Hunt, Invention of Pornography, 157–202. 166 On the parodical elements of Sade’s licentious works, including La Philosophie dans le boudoir and the faux pamphlet mentioned above, see Lucienne Frappier-Mazur, Writing the Orgy: Power and Parody in Sade, trans. Gillian C. Gill (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996). 167 Sade, Œuvres, 2:555. 168 Ibid. On Guido Reni (1575–1542), Michelangelo, and the justification of human vivisection in Sade, see Steintrager, Cruel Delight, 92–5 and 131–45. On these topics in relation to the Italian project, see also Maurice Lever’s introduction to Sade, Voyage d’Italie, 1:31–3. 169 Sade here echoes the opinion of abbé Jérôme Richard, likely his source on the story: “Among the paintings is a Christ nailed to the cross that one is assured is a Michelangelo original, made based on a man crucified and expiring – a fable that the view alone of this canvas proves to be false.” See Richard’s Description historique et critique de l’Italie, 4:175–6. François Maximilien Misson, earlier reporting the same, in his Voyage d’Italie (Paris, 1743), likewise states that the claim “reeks of fable, but they very much insist here on passing this off as a truth” (2:94). Young Michelangelo did dissect corpses awaiting burial – a practice approved by Niccolò Bichiellini, the prior of Santo Spirito in Florence – for training purposes. See George Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995), 25–6; and Martin Gayford, Michelangelo: His Epic Life (London: Penguin, 2013), 152–4 and 261–2. Michelangelo would retain his interest in anatomy and dissection, and he was far from the only Renaissance artist to hone his skills in accurate representation in this manner. 170 Lucretius warns of the love’s disturbance and recommends draining off desire by visiting prostitutes in the following terms: “it is fitting to flee from images, to scare away what feeds love, to turn the mind in other directions, to cast the collected liquid into any body, and not to retain it, being wrapped once for all in the love of one, nor to cherish care and certain pain for

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yourself. For the sore quickens and becomes inveterate by feeding, daily the madness takes on and the tribulation grows heavier, if you do not confuse the first wounds by new blows, and cure them in time while fresh by wandering with Venus light-o’-love [volgivagaque vagus Venere], or turn your thoughts in some other direction.” See Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, trans. W.H.D. Rouse, revised by Martin Ferguson Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 358–9 [bk4, ll.1063–72]. 171 Sade, Œuvres, 3:834. 172 Ibid. 173 On the affaire d’Arcueil and Sade’s depiction as a human vivisector, see Steintrager, Cruel Delight, 87–95. On the depiction of vivisection in Sade’s licentious writings, see also van Sant, Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel, 72–8. On the medical and anatomical gaze in Sade, see David B. Morris, The Culture of Pain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), esp. 225–8 and 233–4. 174 This is, in nuce, van Sant’s argument, in her Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel, about Sade’s rhetorical strategies and his elicitation of reader response (74–80). 175 Sade, Œuvres, 3:591. Sade was aware of Mirabeau’s output, and in this same digression in Juliette on libertine writings, the heroine, evidently the author’s mouthpiece here, states that she does not consider even Mirabeau’s licentious writings to be adequate: “he wanted to be a libertine, in order to be something, and he is and will nevertheless be nothing at all his entire life” (ibid.). A note with a cutting reference to Mirabeau’s actions during the Revolution adds: “Not even a legislator assuredly; one of the best proofs of the delirium and madness that characterized, in France, the year 1789, is the ridiculous enthusiasm that this vile spy of the monarchy inspired. What idea remains today of this man, immoral and sorely lacking in wit? That of a scoundrel, a traitor, and an ignoramus” (ibid.).   Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, Le Rideau levé, ou L’Éducation de Laure (Cythera [spurious], 1786) was definitely published anonymously, although Mirabeau has been the attribution for ages – since the Revolution, at least – and this is pretty sure, although sometimes questioned. An easier to locate, modern edition will be found in Œuvres érotiques de Mirabeau. L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. 1, ed. Charles Hirsch (Paris: Fayard, 1984). 176 Sade, Œuvres, 3:591. 177 I have borrowed the expression from the title of Annie Le Brun’s book-length introduction to Sade’s complete works in the Jean-Jacques Pauvert edition: Soudain, un bloc d’abîme, Sade: Introduction aux œuvres complètes (Paris: Pauvert, 1986). 178 Sade, Œuvres, 3:862. 179 Richard, Description historique et critique, 1:ix. 180 Diderot, Œuvres esthétiques, 532. Michael Fried discusses this passage in Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and the Beholder in the Age of Diderot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 80–1. See also Michel Delon, “La beauté du crime,” Europe 661 (1984): 73–83. 181 Sade, Œuvres, 2:251. Sade’s source on Gilles de Rais in the Italian manuscript is Claude Villaret, Histoire de France, Depuis l’établissement de la Monarchie, jusqu’au regne de Louis XIV (Paris, 1767), 15:294. His reading on the topic clearly continued, and in Justine, Sade refers the curious reader to “l’histoire de Bretagne de Dom Lobineau,” a reference to GuyAlexis Lobineau’s Histoire de Bretagne (Paris, 1707), which discusses Gilles de Rais’s life and crimes (1:614–17). In La Nouvelle Justine, Sade adds a longer note on this figure and slightly – tellingly – expands Justine’s outraged exclamation so that murder acts on the monks

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as an irritation of “both their nerves and their perfidious imagination,” just as it was for Gilles de Rais a sort of jouissance (Sade, Œuvres, 2:654–5). 182 Sade, Œuvres, 3:428. 183 Ibid., 3:863. 184 Ibid. 185 Johann Burchard’s account will be found in his Specimen Historiæ Arcanæ sive Anecdotæ de Vita Alexandri VI Papae (Hanover, 1696), 77–82; Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens’s retelling is in his Histoire de l’esprit humain ou mémoires secrets et universels de la république des lettres (Berlin, 1767), 7:277–8. 186 Sade, Œuvres, 3:868. Sade attempted to procure a private audience with Pius VI via a new friend in Rome, Cardinal de Bernis (whom Sade would also put into action in Juliette, not without some justification), but he apparently failed in this endeavour. See Gray, At Home with the Marquis de Sade, 170–1. 187 See Anon. [Gervaise de la Touche?], Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier de Chartreux, in Œuvres anonymes du XVIII e siècle (I) (Paris: Fayard, 1985), 172 ff. 188 For the original Latin and a modern English translation of Tiberius’s debaucheries on Capri, see Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe, revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1:370–5. 189 As McMorran and Wynn note, in their translation and edition of the Les 120 journées de Sodome, the Chateau Silling is mysteriously moved from Switzerland, its initial location as indicated in the text, to Germany and the Black Forest (403). 190 See Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe and revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1:372–5. 191 Juvenal and Persius, Juvenal and Persius, trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 245. 192 Sade, Œuvres, 3:38. 193 Ibid., 3:853. 194 Sade visits the tomb of Andrew in Naples and reads of Joanna in Pietro Giannone, Histoire civile du royaume de Naples (The Hague, 1742), 3:296–301. 195 He will add to his arsenal other nations and races – e.g., Zinga a cruel Angolan queen and Zoë a wicked Chinese empress – but the Italian models, both ancient and modern, will retain crucial spots in Sade’s pantheon. 196 According to Lucian’s account of Praxiteles’s celebrated sculpture. See Lucian, trans. A.M. Harmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 4:264–7. 197 Sade, Œuvres, 2:1070. 198 Andrea Dworkin, in her Pornography: Men Possessing Women (New York: Perigree, 1981), makes the strongest case against the author and the man, dismissing – not unreasonably – the claims of “Sade’s literary friends,” who would find a positive model of freedom in Juliette (94). For Dworkin, Sade merely reveals what she characterizes as the violent core of pornography: “In Sade, the authentic equation is revealed: the power of the pornographer is the power of the rapist/batterer is the power of the man” (100). Many feminists, from Simone de Beauvoir to Jane Gallop, however, have argued for the value of reading Sade, which is not to say that they endorse his views (although they often do reveal an ambivalent appreciation of his writings). See, e.g., Simone de Beauvoir, “Must We Burn Sade?” in Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, 3–64; and Jane Gallop, Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter’s Seduction (London: Macmillan, 1982), 82–91. For the moralist’s position on banning Sade, see Roger Shattuck, Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996), 283–99.

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199 In Wainhouse and Seaver’s foreword to The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings, e.g., we find implied, clearly enough, an identification between the author and his character Justine: “The life of the Marquis de Sade was an incredible series of misfortunes, and what is perhaps most incredible of all was his capacity to withstand them” (x). They subsequently spell out this identification when they characterize Justine as Sade’s “spiritual autobiography” (xi). 200 Roland Barthes, in his Sade/Fourier/Loyola, trans. Richard Miller (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), somewhat offhandedly remarks that “no one ever calls Sade a picaresque novelist (one of the rare ones in French literature)” (149). Barthes adds by way of explanation: “The apparent reason for this ‘oversight’ is that the Sadian adventurer (Juliette, Justine) is always traversing one sole adventure, and this adventure is vulgar” (ibid.). I consider Barthes’s assessment overstated, yet it is probably true that the picaresque aspects of Sade’s novels have been underappreciated. 201 François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d’Arnaud, Anne Bell, Histoire angloise (Yverdon, 1770), 52. Baculard borrowed the name of his lamentable heroine – a noble, she falls for a commoner, becomes pregnant, contracts a secret marriage, has a child, is widowed, and so forth – but hardly the plot from a real English incident and court case that had scandalized in 1760. Ann Bell or Sharpe was a London prostitute who most likely died of complications from stab wounds and lacerations about the anus received in a bagnio. The accused, an aristocrat, was acquitted. See Dan Cruickshank, The Secret History of Georgian London (London: Windmill Books, 2010), 413–35. 202 Ibid. 203 Sade, Œuvres complètes du marquis de Sade (Paris: Pauvert, 1988), 10:73. 204 Ibid. 205 Ann Radcliffe, The Italian [1797], ed. Frederick Garber, revised with an introduction and notes by Nick Groom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 12. 206 Sade, Œuvres, 2:778. 207 Ibid., 3:1100. 208 See Hauc, Ange Goudar, 143; Maurice Lever’s introduction to Sade, Voyage d’Italie, 1:14. 209 Sade, Œuvres, 3:1101. 210 Ibid., 3:1102. 211 Ibid.

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Notes on the Text and Translation

The translation presented here under Sade’s working title “Voyage d’Italie” (Journey to Italy) was a project in progress when Sade abandoned it. Chapters on Florence, Rome, the environs of Rome, and for the better part, Naples had been drafted, edited, and copied out by his valet, La Jeunesse. Chapters on the environs of Naples, which include some of the most interesting material in the entire manuscript, and on the route from Naples to Rome (or vice versa) had also been drafted, but they are fragmentary and riddled with errors. We know that La Jeunesse was still copying out the manuscript with the aid of Sade’s wife, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, in early 1779. At this point, Sade despondently claimed there was no urgency to the business, as he would only need the work after his release from prison. This release Sade thought imminent, unaware that he still had a decade to go before the Revolution would, at least temporarily, secure his liberty. Renée-Pélagie encouraged her husband to forge ahead and not lose heart. Her uxorial confidence appears to have been misplaced; the project languished. The first French publication of Sade’s manuscript, Voyage d’Italie, edited by Gilbert Lely and George Daumas, appeared only in 1967. It comprised just the fully drafted chapters on Florence, Rome, the environs of Rome, and most of the chapter on Naples.1 The source text for my translation, Journey to Italy, is the first volume of Maurice Lever’s Voyage d’Italie from 1995, which presents all of the material that the Marquis de Sade had gathered and redacted for his proposed book on what he saw and experienced in Italy, along with his exploratory drafts, fragments, summations, and selected excerpts from published sources that he was using for context and comparison with his own observations. It also includes correspondence addressed to Sade, both during but more especially after his trip, related to his travels in Italy and to the developing manuscript. Lever’s second volume is a collection of sketches for the work by Jean-Baptiste Tierce, artist and Sade’s companion and guide in Naples and its vicinity; these are not included here.2 I have also not translated Lever’s introduction, and I have greatly expanded the explanatory and critical notes, which are almost entirely original. These notes are numerous and function in various ways: they identify and clarify sometimes obscure geographical, historical, literary, and artistic mentions; they provide elucidations and comparisons from other Italian travel guides; and they give a thorough account

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of Sade’s many textual sources. These sources include, certainly, travel writers such as Jérôme Richard and Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, both of whom Sade resorts to frequently, alongside many others. Sade also delves into numerous political and ecclesiastical histories relevant to his voyage, not to mention scientific publications, periodicals, and much more. Unsurprisingly, he turns to biographical and geographical dictionaries and similar reference works. Less expectedly perhaps, he demonstrates a broad and exceptionally expansive commitment to classical learning, highlighting historians and biographers – Livy and Suetonius, above all. With this critical apparatus, I have sought to provide a rich and deep understanding not only of Sade’s text, but also of its diverse contexts. Among other things, I hope this apparatus reveals just how enthusiastic and engaged an amateur scholar the Marquis de Sade was and helps readers today grasp the workings and development of a truly curious mind. Indeed, although the sources in the manuscript presented herein are mainly focused on the project to provide a philosophical Italian guidebook, what emerges simultaneously is a panorama of the pre-Revolutionary publishing business through the eyes of an au courant and avid, if idiosyncratic, bibliophile and intellectual. Let me add that unless otherwise made obvious, any translations in this volume that are from other non-English sources are my own. Sade’s sentences in the manuscript are occasionally convoluted and unclear; the later chapters and dossiers are unpolished and frequently disjointed. On the whole, I have opted for silent correction of solecisms while trying to preserve some of the syntactic flavour of the source texts. On rare occasions, I have simply had to render what Sade seems to have had in mind. Evident errors and lacunae are pointed out in the explanatory notes. When an item is glossed in brackets, I have used “i.e.” to indicate a simple clarification and “viz.” to indicate a correction. Sade usually but not always gallicizes Italian place names and just as often people’s names, too. To provide the flavour of the original, I have followed his practice for place names by anglicizing them, although Italian references are provided in brackets the first time they appear for ease of identification. On occasion, I have also provided Sade’s original French in brackets, where a particular word choice or turn of phrase is illuminating or amusing. For people’s names, I have generally adhered to Italian forms, except where English or Latin forms are already common, as is the case, for example, with the adopted names of popes, European royalty, and Roman emperors and writers. The reader will encounter neither Tibère nor Tiberio, but the familiar Tiberius. For the names of artists, I follow Sade’s usually abbreviated forms, common at the time, although I provide entire names or glosses of bynames in brackets the first time a particular artist’s name appears in a given chapter. I have not followed this practice when abbreviated forms are still common – not Michelangelo Buonarroti, except in those cases when Sade himself so styles the man, let alone Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, but simply Michelangelo. Some French words or terms really do not work well translated. For example, abbé can mean either priest or abbot. Although many of Sade’s sources, interestingly enough, were abbés, very few were abbots, that is, heads of monasteries. Notably, Jérôme Richard, who Sade mentions again and again, was an abbé though not an abbot. Sade’s uncle, JacquesFrançois-Paul-Aldonce de Sade, who wrote on Petrarch, served as a libertine role model for his nephew, and went by abbé de Sade, was in fact, an abbot – or, more precisely, a commendatory abbot – of the Abbaye Saint-Léger d’Ébreuil in Auvergne. The French parlement, although the origin of “parliament” in English, does not mean a legislative body and so cannot be translated as equivalent. The thirteen parlements in preRevolutionary France, of which the most powerful was located in Paris, were the highest

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law courts and courts of appeal in that country, though responsible also for registering royal laws and edicts. Thus, in my translation parlement will remain as in French. The reader will also come across obsolete or otherwise dated meanings and usages. Appartement, or apartment, for example, is simply the equivalent of a room within a palace or other large residence and never has the modern sense of a set of rooms composing a private dwelling within a building, or in British usage, a “flat.” In the plural, the term usually indicates a suite of rooms, and I have often translated it as such. Appartements were often private quarters or set apart, although one might also speak of apartments for receiving guests. One of the pleasures of reading the Journey to Italy is getting a glimpse into the different manners that residential life, particularly of the nobility, was spatially and culturally organized. For his part, Sade frequently comments on Italian mores in this regard. Astute readers will note that although he occasionally uses the designation “basilica” and seems to understand that the term indicates a church granted particular duties and privileges, Sade will almost invariably simply call such a structure a “church” or even a “cathedral.” This is not an idiosyncrasy, and Sade’s fellow French travel writers such as Jérôme Richard and François Maximilien Misson likewise write of the Église de St Pierre de Rome, that is, Church of Saint Peter’s in Rome and not the Basilica. I have maintained the custom of the era in this regard, but occasionally indicate in brackets or in a note the current usage and correct designation. Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade’s initial conception was a guide to the sights and mores of Italy in epistolary form. Correspondence was a key feature of aristocratic and educated life in the eighteenth century and one that famously shaped the development of the sentimental novel, where the epistolary format enables thick description of interiority. Travel writers at the time also frequently turned to the simulacrum of letters as an understandable means of organizing their works.3 For most of the relatively polished portion of the manuscript, Sade addresses as his implied reader a certain “Madame Countess.” This was an artifice that he had used for his first foray into travel writing, a considerably shorter work describing his voyage to the Low Countries and the cities of Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Utrecht in the last months of 1769.4 Here, about halfway through the chapter on Naples, Sade inconsistently begins to address a “dear count” rather than “countess.” The shift seems to indicate a change in plans or, more precisely, an increased seriousness of purpose. The letters will now be even more philosophical, less conversational. In notes related to the project, Sade tells himself that “this Voyage will be presented as a letter by a philosopher who has travelled, who imparts his reflections to a friend who wants to make the same voyage as he.” He elsewhere reminds himself that a traveller – by which he means a travel writer – “must speak little of himself,” personal anecdotes detract from the goal of a good guide, which is to familiarize the reader with “the spirit [esprit] or the mores of the nation through which he travels.” Both of these instructions to the writer bespeak this increased seriousness. Yet Sade never settled on a final form, and although he may have intended to pursue a more muscular philosophical tone and to expunge the conversational, the manuscript and its attendant documents reveal a text and an author in the making. All parts of Journey to Italy are marked up with considerable marginalia and notes – these are provided in the footnotes and indicated as such – further evidence of the evolving nature of the work. Sade is here experimenting with voice, rhetoric, genre, and, indeed, basic organization. At one point, for example, he considers keeping to the epistolary format, but instead of dedicating each letter to a major urban area or its environs, subdividing these by letter

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into significant categories. Thus, Rome would be divided into separate letters on arrival and on churches, then a letter on palaces, on country estates and their surrounding areas, followed by mores and customs. The dossiers suggest that a more treatise-like project was tempting him as well, which would have included a thorough accounting of Italy’s history, its current governance and mores, and plans for reform. This ambitious project eventually transformed into a preface – that was never drafted. All the same, Sade took copious notes on ancient Roman history, as well as on medieval Italian history, and he kept up his correspondence with his contacts in Italy with the aim of fleshing out details and adding intellectual heft. Doctors Mesny and Iberti were of particular help in this regard, and their letters to Sade are included among the relevant correspondence that makes up the final chapter of the present volume. Sade’s prodding of Iberti for licentious archival material from ancient and likely papal history may indicate a plan to write a separate work, essentially on libertinism from a philosophical viewpoint, or he may have hoped to fold this material into the Journey to Italy. The Marquis de Sade may have abandoned his Italian project, yet his subsequent writings amply attest that his preparations and research for it were hardly a dead loss for him. For us, the manuscript translated here provides not only insight into the formation and evolution of its notorious author, but also an entrée into the multifaceted world of preRevolutionary life and letters, along with a vivid, meandering, standard, quirky, trenchant, and entertaining account of how and why Italian art, culture, history, and geography played such a prominent role therein. NOTES 1 Sade, Voyage d’Italie: précédé des Premières œuvres; suivi de Opuscules sur le théâtre, eds. Gilbert Lely and Georges Daumas (Paris: Tchou, 1967). 2 Sade, Voyage d’Italie, ed. Maurice Lever (Paris: Fayard, 1995). 3 For example, the anonymously published [Jean-Baptiste-Marie Guidi] Lettres contentant un journal d’un voyage fait à Rome en 1773 [Letters containing a journal of a voyage made to Rome in 1773] (Geneva, 1783). It begins with the assertions that there are few original guides to Italy and that this one has a straightforward genealogy: “son of Lalande, who was son of Richard, who was son of Misson, and so forth” (1:xi). 4 See Schaeffer, The Marquis de Sade: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 105–6.

Chapter I

Florence and the Start of the Journey from La Coste1

First Letter to Madam the Countess of …2 The indulgence with which you have welcomed my “Voyage to Holland,” madam countess, has emboldened me to offer you my travels in Italy, which are treated in entirely the same manner. Do not expect to find herein exact and detailed descriptions of all the beauties that this lovely land possesses. So many others before me have treated them that I could only hope to offer you redundancies. Further, more time than I have put into them would be necessary for an exact description. This collection of writings will thus be a simple itinerary in which I will restrict myself to pointing out those striking beauties about which it is impossible not to speak, mingled with some reflections on mores. When you expressed your desire for my “Voyage to Holland,” it was within these bounds that your desires appeared limited. I have not pressed any further in this case, and whatever might be their public success, as long as they receive your approval, I will consider myself only too happy and my ambition will extend no further. After having left you on the 17th of July 1775, we spent the night two leagues from Céreste in very pretty farmhouse. We were nevertheless rather uncomfortable, considering that these folk are not accustomed to putting up strangers, and that they only did so in order to accommodate us. The countryside here is squeezed between two mountains. It is a sort of valley through which one goes having once left Apt; to your right flow the rapids of Cavalon. The river remains on this side all the way to the vicinity of Céreste. Messieurs de Brancas are the lords of Céreste. Their chateau, which appears to have once had its share of beauty, is today abandoned. A superb avenue of walnut trees leads up to it, providing almost a half-league of the most agreeable shade. On the 18th, I dined at Peyruis and I slept in another farmhouse close to Sisteron. The countryside here remains very mountainous. It seems nonetheless well cultivated in those places that allow it to be. You see more wooded areas in this part of Provence than in any other. The route passes under the walls of Forcalquier, seat of justice for the region. The antiquity of this town is well known. I know not whether it was ever more considerable, but it looks today quite middling. I did not stop there.

1 Manuscript notebook of 109 pages; entirely in Sade’s hand. 2 Marginal note: “All of the amplifications made to this section of the route are in the travel notebook that La Jeunesse was copying in Grenoble.”

4

Journey to Italy

On the 19th, we found ourselves of a sudden in the village of La Saulce, situated three leagues inside of Gap. This land belongs to the Marquise of Sassenage, who, parenthetically, does not appear to be very beloved there.3 All day long, we traversed frightful roads, on which there is a constant risk that the wagons will be broken. This country seems to have suffered horribly from some ancient earthquake. You see mountains overturned, profound ravines that they have left behind by their separation, and everywhere a soil that is black and burned like that you find in the proximity of volcanoes. The entire day, we had the Durance River to our right, and we almost always cleaved to its banks. La Saulce is directly on the banks of the river. It waters the fields and pastures of that community, and as it has been divided into sundry canals, it forms a variety of particularly cool and pleasant spots. In the entirety of this right-hand part of the village of La Saulce, the highest mountains of Dauphiné border its left side. There are sundry little habitations on the peaks of these mountains, from which the peasants never descend except to sell cheeses and fulfil their religious duties, for there is no parish in these sorts of deserts. Close to La Saulce, there is one of these little villages, named Fouillouse. These good people have only ten houses, but they live in utter unity, grow and raise their food on their mountain for the year, without recourse to anyone else. They have a consul. This sort of tiny republic provides the villages of the plain with a model of community and mores, and if they are not useful to anyone else, at least they are in a position to do without the rest of the world. They are only seen on Sundays; they go to mass, to vespers, and then climb back up their rock. These mountain folk raised in me the notion of the golden age; they are barely familiar with laws and less so with crime. Has man really needed society and police to make him better? And egoism, the first and perhaps only law of Nature, does it not suffice to lead us to happiness? You may grant that thought, madam, whatever weight you like. With wits such as yours, there is no need to be explicit. And so we continue our journey. We went through Gap on the 20th at 8 o’clock in the morning. This little town struck me as pretty enough. We had dinner at Chorges, a little village situated in a pleasant spot at the foot of a very high and very peculiar chain of mountains, at the bottom of which the Durance still flows, over which you pass several times in various directions and on little rickety wooden bridges. I arrived at Embrun the same day, and slept there. Not only Nature but also art fortifies this town. The Piedmont regiment was in garrison there, a part of which still occupied Mont-Dauphin, and the general staff along with the remainder of the corps was at Briançon. The town, built upon a rocky outcrop, is not much of anything: the roads are narrow, the houses poorly built, there is naught but a rather large military exercise field, and even this is not regularly shaped. The best inn is the Petit Paris. One is comfortable enough, but there is the inconvenience – and this goes for the entire town – of not having stables, so that you are obliged to leave your horses and carriages outside and, furthermore, to pay to have them guarded. The archbishopric is beautiful, the garden pleasant, but above 3 Marie-Françoise-Camille de Sassenage (1705–1786) was the only child of Charles-Louis-Alphonse, Baron de Sassenage, in the Dauphiné. She was married, at the age of 13, to her first cousin Charles-François, Baron de Sassenage (1704–1762), known as the Marquis de Sassenage. He was one of the menins of the Dauphin, one of six noble men officially attached to the heir apparent of the French crown. He became the lieutenant general of the Dauphiné in 1730, a post that he resigned in 1746. Three years later, he was made a knight of Orders of the King, and knight of Honour of the Dauphine (i.e., the wife of the heir apparent).   In his youth, Sade’s father had socialized at the private home of the Sassenage family in Paris. After spending most of her life in Versailles and Paris, Madame de Sassenage returned to the Dauphiné’s capital of Grenoble in 1771, shortly before Sade’s journey through the region.

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all, the view is delightful. The garden ends in a terrace overlooking the Durance. You see it flowing more than six hundred feet below, snaking through the greenest of meadows, which it divides into different parcels, further subdivided by trees and gardens, which form the prettiest landscape imaginable. The horizon is hemmed in by the chain of mountains of the Dauphiné, at the base of which the river flows, and that will come to an end with the Alps. On the 21st, we dined at Saint-Crépin, a village that is midway on the path to Briançon. We left the fortress of Mont-Dauphin to our right, which looked to me impregnable thanks to its situation. The roads from Embrun to Saint-Crépin are poor and dangerous. The Durance crosses your path several more times, more often than not bathing the right side of the route. From Saint-Crépin to Briançon, you pass through several villages that were burned down a year ago and which the inhabitants are rebuilding, thanks to favours and alms from the king. At around six in the evening, I passed under the ramparts of Briançon. This town, situated in the gorge, absolutely defends the Alpine passage. On two rocky outcrops, one to the right and the other to the left of the gorge, sit two forts that defend the entryway. Art and Nature have conspired to give this place the name “the key of France,” and a casual examination is all you need to be convinced of the accuracy of this designation. I had intended to stay overnight in the town. A minor difficulty with respect to entry on account of a bridge that was being repaired and across which we were forbidden to go forced me to go and speak to the commander. Monsieur Audiffret – such is the name of this upright military man – after having given me a glimpse of the dangers of the Montgenèvre route, advised me, since I was absolutely set on going that way, not to sleep at Briançon but instead to continue a quarter-league further, to the house of a certain Prat, king’s consul at the village of La Vachette, which is situated almost at the foot of the mountain. I followed his advice, and with his recommendation in hand, I betook myself to this Prat, at whose house I slept. This truly upright and dutiful man took upon himself all of the care and burden of my passage. He himself escorted me, along with his horse, which he insisted that I ride. All of my belongings were loaded onto mules; twelve men total, of which four looked after the mules and eight after the carriage. Such was the support that Prat judged necessary to get us through. At this point, I would be lacking in courtesy if I forgot to say a word about the forthright and good curate in this little spot. When I arose, he came to pay me a visit, conveyed to me the trustworthiness of the peasants who were to escort me, wished to say a mass for me before my departure, and insisted that I take breakfast at his place. Finally, we began our march at around six o’clock in the morning. My postillon, who was not detached from the horses and who was assured that it would be possible to climb with them, shuddered. You begin to ascend Montgenèvre almost immediately upon leaving the village of La Vachette. Here, you are approximately in the same position and have the same viewpoints as with the beginning of the ascent of Mont Cenis starting from Lanslebourg. Although mighty steep, the road is nicely kept up for the entire section under French control. You ascend a half-league abruptly, as I just mentioned, but it is not so steep that you are obliged to undo the carriages and to make use of horses other than your own. The hired men block the wheels with chocks made for the purpose of preventing you from rolling backwards. Moreover, while these suffice to keep you safe from any accident, this precaution is indispensable. The precipice on the right-hand side is of the greatest depth and you would risk everything if the carriage happened to roll backwards unintentionally. The fall would be about three hundred feet. Three-quarters of a league from La Vachette, directly above the

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spot with the steepest ascent, is the source of the Durance River. It appears to spring from beneath the pathway. This river, which causes so much damage in Provence, is not, at its origin, more than an arm’s breadth. It springs forth onto a small patch of grass of an extraordinary coolness. I drank of the water here, but it seemed to me both so cold and so raw that I barred my men from drinking any, for I was afraid that it might discomfort them. The part directly above the precipice is covered with a very dense woods of larch, a source of manna, of which there is a certain trade in this part of the country.4 Every one of the viewpoints from this mountain is extremely picturesque. The little bit of plain that you can see is quite cultivated and intermingled with remarkably verdant and lush meadows. To the left and higher than your own position, the mountain, the valley, the Enrouye, Mount Infernet and Mount Château, conjoined, are all above you.5 At the top of the mountain, that is, after about one land league, you find yourself on a plain, and it is at the entrance to this little plain that the village of Montgenèvre, from which the mountain takes its name, is located. Shortly before arriving at the village, and generally speaking throughout the expanse of the plain, the air is so cool that you are obliged to double your clothing, even during the hottest season. Montgenèvre is a rather insignificant village, but this was formerly not the case. Humbert, the last dauphin of the Viennois, lived here and turned it into his pleasure garden.6 You can still see a house on the doors of which is his coat of arms and that everyone claims was his palace. He had desired that after his death this house be turned into a hospice. As with the one at Mont Cenis, travellers, mendicants, and pilgrims are received here. All of the lands dependant on this house, as well as its estates, passed to the king, and to this day they are still part of the crown’s domains. It is easy to recognize them thanks to the scant care with which they are maintained, a fact that makes the local inhabitants shudder, for they are too poor not to feel the value of the land and not to suffer from the lack of cultivation to which it is left. To the right of Montgenèvre can be seen the placement of Hannibal’s camp. As you know, madam countess, it was via this mountain that he penetrated into Italy. The plain on which he made his camp is one league in width. It is called the Gondran Pass. He was defeated at the meeting of two mountains – called the Great and the Little Collette – that can be seen facing you to the right.7 Across from this you can make 4 Larch “manna” is a sweet syrup obtained from incisions made in the base of the tree. It was a local speciality around Briançon; its use was primarily pharmaceutical, as with other “mannas” once gathered in southern Europe, such as the ash “manna” of Calabria and Sicily. 5 Although Sade merely states “L’Enrouye” without qualification, his description indicates that he has in mind the mountain crest of that name rather than the ravine and stream running down it. 6 Humbert II de la Tour-du-Pin (1312–1355), was the dauphin of Viennois from 1333 to 1349. The title, meaning “dolphin” and originally a nickname based upon the presence of the animal of their coat of arms, named the heriditary rulers of the region around Vienne, which eventually became known as the Dauphiné. These lands were within the territories of both France and the Holy Roman Empire. In 1349, Humbert II sold his lands and titles to Philip VI, called the Fortunate, of France (1293–1350), with the emperor’s stipulation that the French heir apparent take the title of dauphin and that these lands and titles could never be united with France. 7 Marginal note: “He passed through there, but was not defeated there.” The exact route that the Carthaginian commander and his army took in their passage of the Alps in 218 BCE is not known. The last major battle that Hannibal lost on the peninsula was, in fact, at Tarentum in 209 BCE. Notwithstanding, the Second Punic War in Italy did not so much end with a decisive defeat, as by attrition and with Hannibal’s recall to Carthage to take up the battle against Roman forces under the leadership of Publius Cornelius Scipio, later Scipio Africanus.

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out the former Fort Bœuf. You pass alongside the latter into the Gimont Pass, which takes you around the two Collettes. To the left of the village is the Beisses Chain, mountains that are higher still than the plain of Montgenèvre. This chain is two leagues long and comes to an end in the Piedmont. The village of Montgenèvre is riddled with tunnels that are, it is thought, of the greatest antiquity. They stretch forth from the Briançon side and occupy, it is said, a part of the route. The plain of Montgenèvre is three-quarters of a league. At a quarter-league from the village are the markers of the two states. A league further you reach the village of Claviere, the first Piedmontese possession that you encounter. There are a couple of customs employees here, but they do not search you because those at the base of the mountain are responsible for your visit. The village of Claviere has at most some twenty households. At a quarter-league from this first Piedmontese inhabitation there is a chapel dedicated to Saint Gervasius. This chapel is sufficiently old that it is claimed it is here that the first Christians, persecuted, came in secret to celebrate their mysteries. From here you can see San Sicario, ordinarily the first camp for French entering into the Piedmont. It is from the Chapel of Saint Gervasius that you begin to descend – or rather to fall headlong down. The path here is so steep that a man on foot has quite a bit of trouble staying on it. The drop-off is terrifying and you would be lost for good if, by mischance, you lost your foothold. It is a spectacle as curious as it is frightful to see how the helpers that were hired at La Vachette proceed to lower the carriages. They unhitch them at the Chapel of Saint Gervasius, form themselves into a team of around twelve, and haul them themselves with ropes. They do this with a speed that makes your hair stand on end. The danger that these wretches run is all the greater insofar as they lower the carriage by hand and without following any pathway. If one of them ran into a single stone, and if this stone made him fall, he would inevitably either be crushed under the wheel or launched into the abyss. This, in turn, might lead to the fall of carriage and, even worse and almost certainly, of all the men hitched on. We were fortunate enough, however, not to have had any greater accident than a sprain for one of these helpers and a light leg abrasion for another. As soon as we had made the descent, Prat, the general of our little army, who had valorously seen to everything, came up to me and said that, afraid of frightening me, he had not wanted me to see the danger for what it actually was, but that, in fact, my carriage was the third that he had seen pass over this awful mountain. This frightful descent, which starting from the chapel extends about a league, is called “The Tourniquet,” but only half of it is truly dangerous. By the way, it is a policy of the king of Sardinia to allow this passage to deteriorate, even though it would be quite useful for all communications with the southern French provinces and even with Spain. By this policy, he restricts entry into his territories via Mont Cenis alone and consequently via his good friends the Savoyards, who would die of starvation otherwise. We made this leg of the journey on the 22nd. That very day, we dined at Cesana, a village that is right at the base of Montgenèvre. There you are obliged to have your belongings searched. Once this has been done and you have taken care to retain a bill of completion from the clerk, you are officially exempted from making the trip to Turin. Here we sent   On Hannibal’s journey in this region and historical accounts thereof, see Dexter Hoyos, “Crossing the Durance with Hannibal and Livy: The Route to the Pass,” Klio: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte, vol. 88, no. 2 (2006): 408–65.

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back a part of our retinue and only kept the leader and two or three others, along with their mules, as the roads were still not very good up until Susa. Truly, you do not begrudge the money given to these wretches, and when you reflect on the dangers that they have run, you see that the forty sols given to each, and the same amount for their mules, is insufficient to recompense them either for the troubles that they have had or the fatal calamities risked. Yet they are quite happy with this paltry salary, and if you add a twelve sol piece as a tip, they heap blessings upon you and beg you let them know when you will return so that they can be waiting at the base of the mountain to greet you. Cesana is not welcoming. Little accustomed to receiving strangers and by nature ill at ease, they have nothing to offer you but bread and cheese. Two Piedmontese gentlemen who had come to this village to breathe the mountain air had the courtesy to extend a dinner invitation to me, but fear of tarrying too long forced me to decline. It was late and there was still plenty of road ahead before Salbertrand. It is here that you must sleep if you want to be in a position the following day to make it by the third day to Turin at an early hour. I departed, still escorted as I mentioned, by a few men and a few mules. As you advance, the gorge begins to open and reveals charming meadows and views as pleasant as they are picturesque. In the midst of these meadows you pass through the village of Oulx.8 This village is wealthy; its position is charming. The remainder of the route takes you through a rather spacious plain, which is nonetheless tightly hemmed in by mountains. The Dora River, which like the Durance springs from Montgenèvre, waters this plain and eventually joins the Po in Turin. Upon the chain of mountains that flanks you to the right, you can make out quite clearly the Assietta Entrenchment. It is positioned on the crest of a mountain that appears unassailable. You know, madam countess, the story of the misplaced obstinacy and doggedness – the result, it is said, of a bottle of Spanish wine – that caused the death of the Chevalier de Belle-Isle and seven thousand of our best Frenchmen in an attack on these entrenchments.9 They were defended by the regiment of the Piedmontese guards. Everyone and, above all, the people of these parts, agree that this attack was all the more imprudent since it was futile. There are routes through the mountain here that Belle-Isle should have known about, by which one could penetrate as far as the Exilles Fort without disturbing this outpost. They even assert that properly escorted, you might arrive at the gates of Turin, leaving behind you Assietta, Exilles, Susa, and all of the fortifications of the king of Sardinia. Would not have Belle-Isle done better to risk his troops in such an attempt than to have made stubborn bravura crush them? A single glance at these mountains makes the possibility of such a manoeuvre clear, and there is no lack of folk in this area who are willing to lead the way in order to prove it. Yet such excursions are forbidden and frowned upon by the sovereign. And still, what good can this policy do at a time when the quantity of our alliances with this court seems to ensure a peace of such long duration?

8 Marginal note: “See my notebook.” 9 Louis Charles Armand Fouquet, known as the Chevalier de Belle-Isle (1693–1747), was in command of the French troops at the time of their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Assietta on 19 July 1747, by the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). Dossier I (General Material) also includes notes on this episode provided by someone purportedly present at the battle (see p. 407 herein).

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Facing the mountain on which is located the fort of Assietta, on the same side of the chain, was the French camp. The paths that exist today and which link one mountain to another were their work [i.e., the work of the French]. This plan of attack has something frightful about it when considered with detachment, and all of the courage and the spirit of our troops was required in order to carry it out. As to their defeat, it seems that the distinct advantage of the Piedmontese position should have made it inevitable. Nonetheless, Belle-Isle planted the French flag on the crest of this entrenchment three times; three times he heard the cry to fall back. But his courage was his downfall. Tired of his obstinacy, a grenadier fired a shot that laid him low. Salbertrand is not the most welcoming of places. A few of the townspeople contributed their provisions to the innkeeper so that he might furnish something for me to sup on, but I was none the better for it. On the 23rd, that is, the next day, we crossed the Exilles Gorge. It seemed to me that the fort, which was undergoing construction, is strengthened equally by Nature and by its position. However, it is placed low and one can approach within the range of three rifle shots and still be safeguarded from cannon fire. I have no doubt that if war were to come, they would undertake exterior constructions to cover it and that they would build primarily on the section of the mountains to the left, via which one can reach the crest without fearing fire from the enclosure, and from which crest one could truly vex the fort if one were able to establish artillery, which I do not think impossible. I arrived at Susa rather early. The carriage was reloaded. We dismissed our mules, our helpers, and our brave and honourable captain Prat. We dined at Bussoleno and slept at Sant’Ambrogio. Up until Susa, French is still spoken. You even come across those who are still French in spirit. You know, madam countess, that it has not been long since they ceased to number among our own. They were given to the king of Sardinia in exchange for the valley of Barcelonnette – an exchange in which we surely did not come out on top.10 Susa marks the start of the main road. Here Piedmontese is spoken. I will speak neither of the history nor of the antiquity of this town, dinned into your ears by every traveller. Sant’Ambrogio, where we slept, is a handsome village through which the main road passes. You see here a modern church of the most pleasing construction. On the 25th, I arrived at Turin rather early. This town, of which I will speak less insofar as I stopped there but briefly, appeared to me beautifully constructed. The churches here are magnificent, the roads attractive, almost all aligned, and all the houses built at the same level. The late king was mad about beautifying his town. You are assured that the current one is no less zealous in this regard. The king’s palace is quite vast and comfortable, but not much to look at. The garden, which is constricted by the city’s fortifications, is very limited, but it is so pleasantly designed that you do not perceive its lack of expanse. It is the work of the celebrated Le Nôtre.11 The palace of the prince of Piedmont, located in the same area as that of the monarch, is a most exceedingly beautiful piece of architecture. 10 As part of the Peace of Utrecht, which brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, the valley of Barcelonnette, now part of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department, was traded to France. 11 André Le Nôtre (1613–1700) was France’s pre-eminent landscape architect in the seventeenth century. Responsible for the grounds of the Palace of Versailles, designed for his patron Louis XIV, Le Nôtre played a key role in the spread of the French formal garden in Europe.

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That of the prince of Carignano appears vast, but it is made of brick and has about it nothing either magnificent or pleasant. The mores in Turin continue during the current reign to be of the greatest austerity. When I passed through, they were making preparations in that city for the marriage of Madame Clotilde, daughter of the last dauphin of France and sister of Louis XVI, with the prince of Piedmont, eldest son of the reigning king.12 These preparations appeared brilliant to me. The best inn in Turin is the Hôtel d’Angleterre. Like all great inns, it is boisterous, but you are well lodged and well served there.13 On the 25th, I left Turin and slept at a post house within the borders of Asti, some three leagues from this town, which was not possible to reach given that we had gone astray on leaving Turin and we did not take the shortest route. This post house is located in the most pleasant of countrysides, and could be entirely mistaken for a quite pretty chateau. The interior, however, does not correspond to the exterior, and in particular, the food served there is repulsive. On the 26th, I dined at Asti. This town, fallen prodigiously from its former splendour, is almost no longer anything today. Here you will see some remainders of fortifications that are not at all maintained. In July of 1775 when I passed through, the king of Sardinia did not have a garrison here. Two pretty churches may be seen in this town, among others that of the nuns, painted and decorated with such fine taste that you might take it for opera decor rather than a temple to the divinity.14 The same day, I slept in Alessandria, called “of straw” because the first fortifications that were built here were constructed of straw and clay.15 This town is girded by a simple wall 12 Marie Clotilde of France (1759–1802) was the daughter of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), who was the son of Louis XV but died before he could become king. She was married by proxy at Versailles to Carlo Emanuele Ferdinando Maria di Savoia, Prince of Piedmont, on 27 Aug. 1775; the official wedding took place in Turin later that year. Charles Emmanuel would subsequently become king of Sardinia and Marie Clotilde queen. 13 Marginal note: “Provide an outline of what must be seen in Turin.” The Hôtel d’Angleterre hosted other famous guests, including Thomas Jefferson, who spent two nights there in April of 1787. See Nick Skubic, “Thomas Jefferson: Travels through Europe,” in Lowell B. Catlett, ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Free Mind (Las Cruces: Flat Hat Society Press, 2004), 74. 14 Marginal note: “Its name?” Sade provides insufficient information to identify this reference with certainty. There are several churches in Asti, among which the most important are the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta e San Gottardo (a Lombard Romanesque and Gothic edifice) and the Collegiata di San Secondo (Gothic). The interior of the former was decorated with lavish frescoes by Carlo Innocenzo Carloni (1687–1775) and others in the late 1760s and early 1770s; it appears the most probable reference. 15 Alessandria della Paglia. Sade’s likely source was Jérôme Richard, who in his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), states that from its foundation in the twelfth century by inhabitants of Milan, Cremona, and Piacenza, who were on the side of Pope Alexander III and against Frederick Barbarossa, i.e., Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Ghibellines or party of the latter “called this new city Alexandria of Straw, since the initial walls of the enclosure were built with straw mixed with clay” (1:95).   In his Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain (London, 1760), Johann Georg Keyssler explains quite otherwise, although his assertion is the less likely: “Alessandria (called in Latin Alexandria Statelliorum) where the inhabitants, for want of wood, use straw to heat their ovens for baking bread, from that circumstance has got the nick-name of Alessandria della Paglia; and not from the emperors of Germany being anciently crowned there with a diadem made of straw, according to an absurd fable” (1:440). Keyssler’s work was originally published in German as Neueste Reisen durch Deutschland, Böhmen, Ungarn, die Schweiz, Italien und Lothringen (Hanover, 1751); the English translation went through several editions, with modifications and silent additions, in the eighteenth century.

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and a sizeable ditch. The citadel, however, separated from the town by the Tanaro River, which is spanned by a lovely bridge, is well fortified. This town has a bishopric. There was, when I passed through, a rather large garrison. It seemed to me quite populous, and I counted more than forty marching legions. The done thing here is to arrive and to parade oneself on the military exercise place. The coaches line up there, the officers ascend to the gallery, and there the entirety of Piedmontese gallantry is on display. The main square is large but poorly built. When I passed through, a pretty enough building was being constructed there, but that alone will not make it any more attractive. The cathedral, Gothic and without exterior decoration, takes up all by itself almost the entirety of one side of the length and hides an attractive town hall, which is situated in a sort of prolongation of the square. Concerning the construction of this town hall, it is stunning to see that the first order of columns is infinitely inferior to the second. This flaw is shocking beyond measure, above all, in a modern building and one that would otherwise lay claim to a certain beauty. In Alessandria, I had to stay in the Hôtel d’Angleterre. This is the best inn, and its rooms are pretty and well appointed, the food fairly delicate for the region, the inn itself of decent appearance; the prices, however, are excessive. Leaving Alessandria, I dined at Tortona, an important location for the king of Sardinia, as much for its proximity to Genoa as to Parma and Piacenza. The garrison there is usually numerous. When I passed through, it was employed in the construction of a citadel above the town. The work had been going on for two years and seemed to me in the advanced stages. Leaving Tortona, we slept at Voghera, the last stop in the Piedmont. Ordinarily the cavalry is stationed here. The fortifications here appear to have been something in their day but they are now completely abandoned. Leaving Voghera, I dined at San Giovanni and slept at Piacenza. Entering and exiting towns in the States of Parma – since names must be given, passports shown, and coaches searched – is the sort of inquisition that, truth be told, is only a bit of a bother, for in Italy money will generally solve all problems. But these little tributes do become a bit expensive in the long run. Piacenza is the most important town in the States of Parma. It is a large and depopulated town. Its inhabitants are scoundrels and zealots, as in all of Italy. A few attractive palaces can be seen here, along with deserted streets and some miserable squares. Equestrian statues of Ranuccio and Alessandro Farnese, the former dukes of Parma, adorn one such square. These are pretty enough pieces, which nonetheless have some flaws. I found a rather striking one in the motion of the young duke’s horse’s foot, and the way in which the elder duke holds his horse is terribly awkward. The ducal palace is ancient, yet the rooms are numerous and nicely spaced. Inside the palace is a pretty enough performance space; it has six tiers of boxes and serves in the summer for opera buffa. Although I did not see it, there is another one for the winter that is, I am told, smaller. Not a single piece of furniture remains in this palace. When Don Carlos passed from the Duchy of Parma to the Neapolitan throne, he took everything with him, right down to the paintings and ceiling decorations. It belonged to him as the last heir of the House of Farnese.16 16 Marginal note: “In Naples, at Capo di Monte.” Don Carlos is Charles III of Spain (1716–1788). When his uncle Antonio Farnese died without heirs, he found himself Duke of Parma and Piacenza at the age of 15 and as Charles I. In 1734, the duke conquered Naples and Sicily, becoming Charles VII of Naples and

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At Piacenza, you must also see the lovely Augustinian monastery. It has three cloisters and is truly vast. The architect of the monastery, as well as of the superb church, is Vignola.17 The best inn in Piacenza is the San Marco, but they are well and truly scoundrels. Everyone, including the local domestics whose services are proferred to foreigners, is in collusion with the owners of the house to rob you. I would therefore recommend avoiding this cut-throat establishment, which is easy enough to do by simply asking at the town gates for the name of another inn. Leaving Piacenza, I dined at Borgo San Donnino [modern Fidenza], a town famous for the martyrdom of Saint Domninus. The church itself was built upon the very place of his execution.18 The last princess of Parma sadly spends her final days here as a simple private person, the brilliance of the throne reduced to memory and regret.19 From there, I slept in Parma, a grand and beautiful town, in which I did not stop long enough to be able to describe it. I only saw that famous performance space that is said to be the most beautiful in Italy and in which naumachiae were once given.20 Today it is quite run down. From this one, you pass on to another, infinitely smaller, that serves for ordinary shows. The latter is utterly in our French taste. The prince resides in a borrowed house.21

Charles V of Sicily. He succeeded to the Spanish throne in 1759, ceding rule of Naples and Sicily to his third surviving son, Ferdinand, who thus became Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. 17 Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507–1573) was a key sixteenth-century architect of the Mannerist style in Italy. His chief works include the Villa Farnese in Caprarola, Viterbo, and the Church of the Gesù in Rome. His publications on architecture also helped to codify classical style.   Although sources well into the nineteenth century list the sixteenth-century Chiesa di Sant’Agostino (mentioned above) as the work of Vignola, recent scholarship does not confirm this attribution nor is it clear who the architect, in fact, was. Sade’s source, again, is likely Jérôme Richard, who notes in his section on Piacenza that the Church of the Augustinians “built by Vignola” is, in his view, “the most beautiful” in the town; it “has five aisles, which make the greatest impact and give this church a feeling of stateliness and grandeur that ordinary constructions do not have” (Description, 2:7–8); in subsequent editions, oddly, Richard reverses his assessment.   The church was considered a model by key French architectural theorists in the mideighteenth century, with both Jacques-Germain Soufflot and Jacques-François Blondel in 1761–1762 praising its structural lightness. See Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, 1750–1950 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1998 [1965]), 97–8. 18 Traditionally, Saint Domninus of Fidenza was the chamberlain of Emperor Maximian, a convert to Christianity, and martyred c. 296 CE. Decapitated, he retrieved his head and placed it upon the spot where the cathedral bearing his name would be built. 19 Sade’s reference is to Enrichetta d’Este of Modena (1702–1777), wife of Antonio Farnese, Duke of Parma (1679–1731). The marriage was childless, although at the time of Antonio’s death, Enrichetta was declared pregnant, briefly setting off a succession crisis until it was discovered that she was not, in fact, with child. With this, the direct Farnese line came to an end. Rule of the Duchy of Parma passed to the then 15-yearold Don Carlos, future Charles III of Spain, of the House of Bourbon and whose mother Elizabeth was a Farnese (see n16). He ruled from 1731 to 1735, before becoming king of Naples and Sicily. At this point, rule of the duchy was ceded to the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. In 1748, the duchy was ceded back to the Bourbons at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle at the conclusion of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748. As for Enrichetta, her second marriage, to Landgrave Leopold von Hesse-Darmstadt (1708–1764), was also without issue. 20 The Teatro Farnese, constructed between 1618 and 1628 by Giovanni Battista Aleotti (1546–1636). 21 Ferdinand, Duke of Parma (1751–1802), notable in Enlightenment history for being educated by the philosophe Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–1780).

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He is having a new palace built that will be, it is said, quite beautiful, but its construction is hardly advancing. In Parma you must see a new church painted by Franceschini and which is, in my opinion, the most enjoyable there is to see in Italy in terms of design, decoration, and painting.22 All of the arts seem to have been reunited to create this masterpiece. Having departed Parma, I dined at Reggio. In the morning spent making this trip, you pass through four different customs houses where you must pay: one at the exit of the town; another a few miles further along, where at the end of a bridge you must once again pay to go over; the third is at the entrance to the States of Modena, where your baggage is stamped and you are given a new permission note; and the fourth and last is at the entrance to Reggio. You get through well enough with a bit of money, as I remarked a moment ago. But this way of making travellers contribute is no less bothersome than disagreeable. Reggio is a pretty enough town with an open feeling. The road that cuts through it is long, wide, and well built. A few attractive churches can be seen in this town. The hereditary princess of Modena, estranged from her husband, holds her court here.23 From there I travelled to Modena, where I slept. This is a large and pretty town. The main street, in the taste of that of Parma, is long, wide, and graced by pretty buildings. The palace of the prince is at the edge of town, situated on a little square that did not seem suitably large for it. It is rather spacious and the architecture looks nice. In front of the right wing is a statue of the prince, made of an extremely white stone, on a marble pedestal. The buildings in the rest of the town are not as well constructed as those along the main street, but the ensemble is not inconsiderable.24 You must see the arsenal and the natural history cabinet of the prince; the whole thing is in miniature, but maintained with a care and tidiness that I have seen nowhere else.25 From Modena, I continued to Bologna. Since I did not stop in this town, I am unable to describe it for you. The good abbé Richard, however, who has dilated on this subject, will be able to satisfy your curiosity on this score – at least if you read him without putting too much faith in the details.26 For example, it is not, as he claims, at the head of the bridge that

22 Marginal note: “Its name?” Sade provides insufficient information to identify this structure definitively. As for the artist, Sade would have meant Marcantonio Franceschini (1648–1729) or perhaps his son Giacomo Franceschini (1672–1745); not the unrelated Baldassare Franceschini (1611–1689). There is no evidence, however, that any of these painted a “new church” in Parma. It seems probable that Sade actually intended Antonio Bresciani (1720–1817), whose paintings grace many churches in Parma; in this case, the neoclassical Chiesa di San Pietro, begun in 1707 and completed in 1762, is the most likely candidate. The façade was the work of the French architect, active in Parma, Ennemond Alexandre Petitot (1727–1801). 23 Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina (1725–1790), Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara. Her marriage to the philandering Ercole III d’Este, Duke of Modena (1727–1803), was strained. In 1769, she founded the Accademia di belli arti di Carrara. 24 Sade notes “I believe it to be entirely of marble” in the margin, and then adds, “It is completely marble.” 25 This is Sade’s first brief mention of a natural history cabinet or so-called cabinet of curiosities (see the introduction to this volume). In the mid-seventeenth century, the Duke of Modena had attempted to buy outright Manfredo Settala’s extensive cabinet in Milan, an indication of how important a status symbol these collections had already become. See Paula Findlen, “Inventing Nature: Commerce, Art, and Science in the Early Modern Cabinets of Curiosity,” in Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), 300. Although this particular purchase fell through, Modenese rulers, like others, clearly continued with such endeavours well into the eighteenth century, in miniature if need be. 26 Marginal note: “Hateful.”

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you come across the first barrier of the Ecclesiastical State, but rather at the town’s gate. Further, these superbly maintained bridges of the Ecclesiastical State that he so praises are, regardless of the fact that they are, in fact, pretty poorly maintained, only supported by the constant contributions that are imposed on those who use them. All the details provided by this traveller are pretty much in the same taste. I leave it up to you, madam, to determine how much faith you should put in them. Upon leaving Bologna, you begin to ascend the Apennines, the mountain chain that bisects Italy and that stretches to the southernmost reaches of the country. To do this trip properly, you should leave Bologna very early in the morning, dine in Loiano, and sleep in Pietramala, in order to be able to examine the volcano, which is hard to make out at night. I was not able to make the trip in this fashion; the steep mountains prevented me from going so far. I dined in a hamlet in the mountains and slept in Scaricalasino.27 These mountains, quite long and steep, everywhere provide picturesque overlooks and breathtaking views. There are certain places where the beautiful Lombardy plain appears in its entirety on one side and the Adriatic on the other. It would not be an exaggeration to say that with a telescope you could see some fifty leagues without a single obstacle. Scaricalasino is a little spot in the mountains. There you will find a rather tawdry inn, but also a pretty Olivetan monastery where they are eager to welcome strangers and where they have a pretty hostel for pilgrims. Leaving Scaricalasino, I dined at Pietramala. One mile from the village, in a sort of dry and burned little plain, the volcano appears. The terrain that surrounds it is sandy, uncultivated, and full of stones. As you approach, you feel the excessive heat and odour of copper and of coal that is exhaled for more than a hundred paces around. When you get right up to it, you see the hearth that burns continually but with greater ardour when it rains. This hearth is at present only about fifteen to twenty feet around. But the totality of its circumference can be about double this, a fact of which you can convince yourself by taking a pick to the ground in the area that I have specified. As one digs into the ground in this circuit, fire appears and seems to light up beneath the instrument used to dig into it. Earth taken from the middle of the hearth is cooked, consumed, and black. That taken from the surrounding area, although within the enclosure of the volcano, is like clay and sufficiently liquid that it can be formed into whatever shape you please. The former has the same smell as the volcano, which is not the case for the earth that is already calcinated. The flame that leaps from the hearth is extremely hot; it burns and consumes in an instant anything material that you might throw in. Its colour is violet and about the same as that of burning alcohol. To the right of Pietramala, at the foot of the mountains that border this part of the region, another volcano of the same sort is pointed out. The meadow in which it is located is dry, burned, and covered with crevices. This one does not always burn. It can be lit when desired by an ember or a candle, and then it leaps into lively flame. When it rains and the sort of hollow that forms it is filled, it lights of its own, burns more ardently, and is easier seen. Then you may observe a quite extraordinary phenomenon: the water that fills the hole rises up and boils above the surface of the hole, and it does so without losing a whit of its 27 “Scaricalasino” or “Scarica l’asino,” as Sade has it, was a name given to the village of Monghidoro. It means to “unpack the donkey,” possibly referring to the need to rest pack animals after the steep ascent or, more likely, to unloading them for the purpose of weighing goods passing between the Bolognese and Florentine territories. It was the site of an Olivetan monastery, of which only the cloisters remain today.

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coolness. It is to be feared that these volcanoes, the strength of which tends to grow exponentially, may someday cause as many ravages in Tuscany as Vesuvius in the Kingdom of Naples. The great upheaval of the land that one sees in the region, from Scaricalasino up to Pietramala, and the earthquakes felt in Florence, are, we are told, already the effects of this. The inn at Pietramala is truly cut-throat, and as it requires no more than a half hour to observe the two volcanoes, I would advise leaving your men and carriage outside rather than entering that infamous house, where you risk being robbed or worse if you slept there. Having left Pietramala, I slept in Maschere in a very decent inn, the only one on the right side of the route, and I arrived in Florence the following day at around four in the afternoon. Florence is the capital of Tuscany. It is the work of Sulla’s soldiers, who first named it Fluentia and then Florentia in 645 on the Roman calendar. It was beautified on orders given by the triumvirate and destroyed by Totila, the king of the Goths. After the destruction of the Kingdom of Lombardy, Charlemagne had it rebuilt. It grew at the expense of the town of Fiesole, which is situated across from it and today is a mere nothing. You know, madam countess, that Tuscany is the country of the ancient Etruscans, so famous for the art of divination. You will find, however, divergent opinions on this subject, and some assert that these peoples were but a colony of Greeks. After its growth under the reign of Charlemagne, it became a republic. Several powerful families fomented factions and fought for the reins of empire. In the end, the Medici won the day. Up until 1737, this family, which originally were naught but merchants, reigned without interruption under seven princes.28 The depraved morals of Gian Gastone deprived him of successors and caused governance to pass into other hands.29 François, Duke of Lorraine, father of the reigning emperor, acquired this duchy via the transfer by the heirs of the House of Medici. He allowed pretty much the same form of government to subsist, and he himself came to take possession of it. He remained there for six months and established a regency upon his departure, at the head of which he placed the prince de Craon. After him came the Count de Richcourt, who remained there twenty years and died in Lorraine from an apoplexy suffered in Florence. Then came Marshal Botta, who remained there for nine years and who, on the 23rd of August 1765, put into place Peter Leopold, Archduke of Austria, brother of the emperor who today reigns.30 This prince is, we are told, full of wit and knowledge; he loves the arts, but some complain that he does little to encourage them. He is said to be possessed with the desire to make his subjects happy, yet the means that he uses to this end do not meet with praise. There are those who would not be unhappy if he were still under the influence of his mother’s counsel, but he threw off this particular yoke to such an extent that he

28 Marginal note: “This house reigned for two hundred [years].” 29 Marginal note: “He was accused of pederasty.” Gian Gastone de’ Medici (1671–1737) was the last duke of Tuscany of his house. An abject alcoholic, irreligious, and constantly accompanied by a group of young men who flattered his sexual proclivities, he would have made a fine model for Sade’s more revolting libertines, albeit in many respects Gian Gastone was a more sympathetic character (see the introduction to this volume). 30 Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard (1747–1792) was the grand duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He would briefly reign as Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II after the death of his elder brother Joseph Benedikt August Johann Anton Michael Adam (1741–1790), who was Holy Roman Emperor as Joseph II from 1765.

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even mistreated or exiled from his court those he believed to be this princess’s agents.31 One would have to spend more time in this region than I did to accurately judge the real reasons for the Florentines’ discontent. It is possible that they still deplore the loss of the princes of their nation and that they are pained to see themselves submitted to a foreign power. Judging from the outside, however, the prince’s confidence seems to announce the uprightness of his positions. Every day he can be seen, without arms or retainers, taking walks in the environs of the country retreat where he lives by preference, situated about a mile from Florence, and he even enters the city in this simple manner, listens to everyone, hands out many alms, spends little on his pleasures, hands down fitting and prompt justice, and makes reign in his states and, above all, in Florence a security and careful policing that would strike any foreigner. To see everything, to be familiar with everything, to keep himself informed of the smallest occurrence, mindful that nothing should escape his attention, are these the attributes of a bad ruler? And at the age of twenty-eight, with despotic power over his states, could not the passions, without a strong grounding in virtue, lead him into a thousand reefs that, it seems to me, would better justify the Tuscans’ complaints? My opinion is therefore that you ought to ignore half of these and to consider – if you wish, with sincere intent, to console yourself regarding the truth of the other half – that when one does alone and so young what this prince does, you are one day sure to find under such rule the most perfect happiness side by side with the sweetest tranquillity. The city of Florence is situated at the foot of the Apennines. It is divided by the Arno, an incommodious river like all those in these mountains, for they are almost dry in the summer and always dangerous in the winter. This river divides the city into two almost equal parts that are joined by four bridges that would make an attractive sight if one of them, namely, il Ponte Vecchio, had not been built. This one upsets the perspective and creates an unpleasant effect. Along the banks of the river are clean, wide, and nicely constructed quays. The city is entirely surrounded by a large wall, flanked by several old towers. On the interior is a rampart that girds the city, but this is neither pretty nor wide and is seldom used for promenades. Said to be six miles around and with a population of fourteen thousand, this city is divided into four quarters: Holy Cross [Santa Croce], Saint John [San Giovanni], Saint Mary [Santa Maria Novella], and Holy Spirit [Santo Spirito]. It is full of superb buildings, in Gothic taste though and hardly flattering to the eye, of which the most attractive palaces are all bumpily rusticated and made of a brown stone that gives them a sombre air. Their ancient windows, their prodigious height, all that does 31 Sade notes: “The Baron of Saint-Odile was of this number. He was ambassador to Rome; he was disgraced from the Grand Duke for the reasons detailed above, and returned to die of chagrin in a village in Provence.” As Sade further notes, the early years of Peter Leopold’s rule as grand duke were marked by the guardianship of his mother and her appointed counsellors. In 1770, he negotiated an end to this tutelage and there followed a court purge. Mathieu-Dominique Charles Poirot de la Blandier, Baron de Saint-Odile (c. 1715–1775), served as Tuscan ambassador to Rome from 1752 until his dismissal in 1774; he died shortly afterwards in Aixen-Provence. Around 1760, and in partnership with Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy, he oversaw the first excavations of the site of Horace’s country villa in Licenza. See Bernard D. Frischer, “Ramsay’s ‘Enquiry’: Text and Context,” in Bernard D. Frischer and Iain Gordon Brown, eds., Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace’s Villa (Farnham: Ashgate, 2001), 73–104.

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Figure 1.1. Map of Florence, from Gaetano Cambiagi, Guida al forestiero per osservare con metodo le rarità e bellezze della città di Firenze (1793).

little to make them an agreeable sight, but they nonetheless have a good deal of nobility and magnificence. You see in this city many beautiful squares, beautiful statues, many antique columns and fragments, a superb triumphal arch, which is however modern, made for the entrance of the emperor, a large number of public buildings dedicated to health, to the arts, to religion and to the sciences, and in general an infinity of beautiful things that a curious person could not examine too closely. The exteriors of the churches are less beautiful than in other towns in Italy. It seems as if one only had a care for their interiors, and there are very few that have façades.32 The 32 Sade notes: “The Church of Saint Gaetano is almost the only one. And here still, the portal is squeezed by the street and less visible than those of all the others, which are not decorated.”

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portals of the majority are made of brick and announce that the work is yet to be finished. Otherwise these churches are generally vast and of a form as attractive as it is majestic. Several are filled with paintings by the greatest masters. Yet the most curious of all is the Church of Saint Lawrence.33 There, you must not miss the new sacristy. This little piece encapsulates that which is most admirable in Michelangelo’s works. You will also see two tombs of the greatest beauty. The first of these is the Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours. The attributes are those of day and night personified. Although unfinished, it is not possible to see anything more alive and beautiful. The second is that of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Dawn and Twilight are his emblems. One does not tire of contemplating these pieces, and, after having seen them, the only regret that remains is that so great a master left such monuments incomplete. You can easily imagine that no one would be so bold as to try to finish the job.34 Behind the choir of this church the Chapel of the Medici can be seen. This was begun in 1604 during the reign of Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. It is not possible to see anything more magnificent or admirable. The revetment of the wall up until the cornice consists entirely of precious stones. Everywhere you see the most beautiful jaspers, oriental agates, lapis lazuli, and chalcedonies shining, and this beautiful labour will be completed by the main altar, currently still under construction. The form of this chapel is noble. The ornamentations that have been prepared for it will be most magnificent, and it will be, without doubt, the most beautiful chapel in the universe when its is brought to completion. The question remains as to when this will happen.35 This is something, I believe, that we will never know, at least judging from the slowness of the work, totally abandoned, even at the moment that I have the honour of writing to you. The famous manuscript library, called the Medicea Laurenziana, adjoins the church.36 It holds in its collection unquestionably the rarest manuscripts in the world. You may see there the original of the Cicero that Petrarch copied out by hand and that he had found in Vercelli. This copy itself can be seen there as well. You may also see letters in the hand of this great priest with the addresses, the entire originals, just as he sent them. This remarkably preserved manuscript is rarely shown for fear of damaging it. At the head of collection of songs by the same author, also in manuscript, portraits of Laura and Petrarch may be 33 In fact, the Basilica di San Lorenzo and not simply a church. As remarked in the introduction to this volume, Sade and his fellow French travel writers paid little regard to the distinction, and more often than not used the term église or church, even in the case of Saint Peter’s in Rome. 34 Michelangelo began work on the new sacristy, including the design of the tombs, in 1520. He was frustrated with the supervision of the site and with other aspects of the project, which dragged on for many years until the artist, in spite of entreaties, finally abandoned it. See George Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995), 149–52, 180–7, and 368. 35 Marginal note: “To this day there are only two completed tombs.” 36 The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or Laurentian Library was opened by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1571. Although the collection predates the building, the original architectural commission by Giulio de’ Medici, subsequently Pope Clement VII, was given to Michelangelo in 1523. When Michelangelo left Florence for Rome in 1534, the project was continued by Niccolò Tribolo (1500–1550), Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574), and Bartolomeo Ammannati (1511–1592).

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seen. The poet is in profile and looks much the same as in the portraits that we have of him. Laura is in three-quarters profile and looks nothing like the profile portraits that we have of her. Also significant among these famous manuscripts is a Horace that likewise belonged to Petrarch, a Virgil from the fifth century with corrections by the hand of the consul Ruffius Aprenianus Asterius. The former, being the most ancient, is only rarely shown and is enclosed in a lockbox. There is a Tacitus that has been the basis of all later editions, both manuscript and printed. Finally, it would be impossible to detail all the treasures that this famous library holds. I do not think that there is a more complete or prettier collection anywhere else in the world.37 The shape of the library is unique. It is a very long room; the aisle runs down the centre, and on the right and left are reading desks lined up in rows with facing benches. The manuscripts are enchained the length of the desks so that it is impossible to detach them. The person consulting them can sit down facing them, easily open them and transcribe, while kneeling, the passage that interests him. After the Church of Saint Lawrence, you must visit the cathedral. Begun in 1296, it is one of the largest churches in all Italy. As you know, madam countess, in these distant times the arts were still in their Gothic period. The initial architect was Arnolfo di Lapo, a disciple of Cimabue, who conceived the blueprint and had it in large part carried out.38 The cupola, which is of the greatest beauty, is by Brunelleschi. This theory is controversial, however, and you will find in a chapel of the cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Dominican church, an ancient fresco, very much predating him, where the design of the cupola of the cathedral can be seen. The immense exterior of this beautiful church is entirely covered in white and black marble sections. But like all the churches in Florence, it has no façade, and in order to decorate it a bit better, they have made do by painting a few architectural ornaments on it. The church itself is unfinished, and many things are missing in the architecture of the upper portion. It was here that in 1439 the sessions of the General Council of Florence were held, at which, under the pontificate of Eugene IV, the Greek and Latin churches were reunited. The bell tower is next to the church. It is based on a design by Giotto. It is almost two hundred and sixty feet high and covered with coloured marble like the church’s exterior. The baptistery, which stands opposite the cathedral, was, it is said, a Temple of Isis. Its interior announces the greatest antiquity. Above all, the exquisiteness of the workmanship of the three bronze doors of this octagonal building is worthy of admiration. The craft is of the greatest beauty. The square on which this superb church is situated is called that of the Dome [il Duomo, i.e., the Cathedral]. I will now restrict myself to indicating here only the names of the most interesting churches; those who wish more details can consult abbé Richard, who has expatiated on

37 Marginal note: “Clement VII had it located where it is.” 38 Arnolfo di Cambio (1245–c. 1301), called Arnolfo di Lapo by Vasari and, following him, by other sources. See Michele Tomasi, “Lo stil novo del Gotico italiano,” Medioevo 121 (2007): 32–46.

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this topic, with the caveat however that you must not place too much faith in his way of seeing, which is singularly faulty on a great multitude of matters.39 Saint Mark [San Marco], the Annunziata, Santa Maddalena dei Pazzi, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and Holy Spirit [Basilica di Santo Spirito] are those most worthy of the attention of travellers. The second to last contains paintings of the greatest antiquity; among others, in a chapel to the right (and not in the sacristy as abbé Richard says) is a Virgin by Cimabue, who restored the art of painting, singularly well preserved and very interesting to see for anyone who wishes to judge the progress of this art. After having admired the churches, you must visit the palaces. Those who live in them take pleasure in allowing inquisitive foreigners to admire the beauties that they possess. It flatters their pride, and their domestics find in the practice, moreover, a source of revenue of which their hardly generous masters would be loathe to deprive them. The first and most magnificent is the Pitti Palace. This is the home of the prince. It is located on a square named after the palace. This square forms a sort of amphitheatre, at the top of which sits the palace, and it is the same length as the building. This length is quite considerable. The left wing of the building, which is completed, serves as the guardroom for the detachment of troops that guard the palace. The right wing is unfinished, but you are assured that it will be completed along the lines of the other. There is in this rustic architecture something quite noble.40 The interior, however, has the flaw of being too narrow. The courtyard, because of the prodigious height of the three wings, is dark and sombre. Daylight only reaches it via the fourth wing which closes it off on the side of the gardens and separates the palace from these gardens. This part of the building, less high, allows the sunlight some ingress. This fourth wing is occupied by a large cabinet of shells in the middle of which is an artificial pool.41 Under one of the galleries formed by the porticoes that line this interior courtyard the famous Hercules from the Farnese Palace can be seen – the one Monsieur Richard claims to be but a copy.42 This building is quite large, and the princes, along with their entire court and their offices, can easily fit. The apartments on the bottom level are vast, well appointed, and quite pleasantly cool. You may see there a nice collection of paintings, less sumptuous, however, than those in the upper apartments.43 In these lower rooms there are two doors connected to organs that play tunes when they are opened or closed. I imagine that the mechanics of these doors must be pretty much the same as those of organ armchairs that also play a tune when one sits upon them and that were made in Paris some years back. All these lower rooms have, in order to allow air to circulate, a kind of iron grate that leads to the basements and that succeeds marvellously in cooling them. The apartment on the second floor  – and not the ground floor as Monsieur Richard says – is of the greatest magnificence, as much thanks to the numerous precious paintings 39 Marginal note: “Hateful.” Presumably a reference to Richard’s flaws, as above, although possibly to Sade’s own phrasing, which is awkward here. 40 Marginal note: “Don’t forget to mention that there are, in the lower part, statues of Niobe that were in the Villa Medici in Rome. See my loose notes.” 41 Marginal note: “You see, in the lower great room, several lovely frescoes, all given over to the glory of Florence and Lorenzo de’ Medici, called ‘The Father of the Arts.’” 42 Marginal note: “He is correct.” 43 As remarked in the introduction to this volume, the term “apartment” [appartement] when plural usually refers to a suite of rooms and in the singular simply a room in a palace or similar large structure.

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as to the number of those beautiful tables of jasper, lapis lazuli, and complex mosaic, others with pictures and landscapes, that are made in Florence itself and that are crafts of the greatest opulence, both in terms of the material used and in terms of the delicacy of the workmanship. It would take too long to give a detailed account of all the beautiful paintings that you come across in these suites. What purpose, moreover, would such a description serve? The positions of these paintings have already been changed several times over. If that were to happen again, my catalogue, just like Mr Richard’s today, would only serve to confuse the visitor. Further, there is always an intelligent concierge there to explain the subjects and to name the artists. I thus feel that those who have taken the servile trouble of giving detailed explanations along with exact locations have worked harder to increase the girth of their books than to increase their usefulness and agreeableness for the traveller. In addition, you must be quite knowledgeable to speak of these objects or, like Mr Richard, copy what you have been told, mixing in willy-nilly a few pilfered art terms, which you only throw in to feign connoisseurship. As for me, madam countess, I will simply affirm that among all the true beauties of the sort that will be seen in the Pitti Palace, the famous Virgin by Raphael and Guido’s Cleopatra are the two that most affected me. I will not mention to you whether they are “beautifully worked,” if their “style is elegant,” or of what type is their “colour tone.” All these terms, precious as well as pompous, are above me. I will content myself with saying that these paintings must be superb to have struck in such a lively manner eyes as little trained in connoisseurship as mine.44 Alongside and doubling the large suites of rooms are those of the prince and of Maria Luisa, the Infanta of Spain, his wife.45 Some of these have retained their old furniture and are not particularly remarkable. There is a portion, however, that their royal highnesses occupy by preference, and these are decorated and ornamented with all possible taste and intelligence. Here every imaginable convenience has been installed, just as in our most elegant houses in Paris: those little chambers, those bedrooms, and those relaxation rooms that are the invention of luxury and softness; wealth does very well to procure these things for itself, in spite of the reasoning of poverty, which is often more jealous than it is just.46 From here, you pass into the gardens, or rather into the park named Boboli, via two staircases that begin in the interior courtyard and that end with a twist on a sort of terrace that is considerably higher than the ground level of the building. This first terrace is a sort of Roman circus that seems to have been made to be viewed from the windows of the palace and in which one could hold fêtes that would provide, from these same windows, the most pleasant view. From this terrace you next arrive, climbing through groves and covered paths, at a larger one, from which you enjoy the most delightful viewpoint. The main alley that divides the park starts from here and can be seen in all its extent. On the right and left are groves, covered paths, and labyrinths, all laid out completely in the taste of Le Nôtre. Two-thirds of the way up is a very enjoyable island, surrounded by an iron fence. In the middle of this is a lovely Neptune, three rivers spurt water from his feet into the basin. This work is beautiful 44 Marginal note: “Bad, all of this.” 45 Marginal note: “Discuss the library.” 46 Marginal note: “Don’t forget to mention that the Old Palace and the Pitti are joined by a gallery, work of Cosimo I. Built by Luca Pitti in 1460, the palace architecture is roughly rusticated.”

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enough; it is by Giambologna [Jean Boulogne].47 Lovely statues can be seen everywhere; some are in the picturesque genre and appear utterly truthful. The palisades in this garden are made of laurel trees. You will also see some yews, some cypresses, and many live oaks, some arch-shaped alleys of orange trees and citrons, as well as pretty vegetable gardens. In general, this garden, although in an odd position and not the easiest for walking, is nonetheless laid out in the most enjoyable manner and of a constantly enchanting variety. The English are simply mad about it. Above the gardens and to the south is a little hexagonal fort, called Santa Maria in [San Giorgio del] Belvedere, which overlooks the garden. It serves as the garrison for the regiment designated for the particular task of guarding the prince. Below the fort are several terraces that, although irregularly shaped, are well maintained. In one of them the reigning prince has had a rather pretty Chinese pavilion built.48 The Riccardi Palace comes next. This was the first home of the Medici, built in 1430. It is a pretty structure and bespeaks grandeur. The gallery is majestic. It was painted by Luca Giordano, whose subject here is the apotheosis of Cosimo I. The gallery neighbours a library that seemed to me to have quite numerous and well-chosen holdings. These superb buildings of the sort have some luxurious suites that are never used. The rest is simple, even mean; to tell the truth, you might rightly say that if there is a region in the world where such luxury is useless it is Florence. There the nobility, hardly rich or at least little inclined to ostentation, lives withdrawn and never offers even a glass of water even to those highly recommended to them. Of what use might these beautiful suites into which no one ever enters be? If I were in the place of these nobles, I would sell these superb but useless buildings in order to produce the wherewithal to treat to dinner those worthy foreigners who are either presented or directed to them, for the latter have all and with reason complained about the disgraceful way they have been received. I will simply note here, as I did with the churches, the names of the palaces most deserving of examination. Going into details would lessen the pleasure you will have on seeing them. Since these letters are not designed for one who travels next to his own hearth but rather for one who wishes to come examine on his own. I feel it sufficient under the circumstances to point them out and that you chill the imagination by preparing it with too many details for the beauties with which you hope to strike it. The following palaces seemed to me the most attractive in the city, and I advise every traveller to examine them with care: Gherini, Capponi, Strozzi, and Corsini. Yet there is one house much less pretty than the above that in spite of its simplicity demands to be considered with interest: Michelangelo’s, constructed according to his plans but nonetheless of the greatest simple [sic]. The Buonarroti, the descendants of this celebrated artist, take pleasure in showing you around. The gallery is decorated with different 47 Sade appears confused. Although Giambologna (1529–1608), né Jean de Boulogne, did provide sculptures for the Boboli Gardens and also made a famous statue of Neptune, the latter is located in Bologna. Neptune in the Boboli Gardens is the work of Stoldo Lorenzi (c. 1534–1583) and located on the third terrace down. 48 Marginal note: “Discuss the grotto / Lalande, page 254 of the second volume. / I know not where Mr Lalande got that the statues in Boboli were not cleaned; nothing is more false. All of them were being cleaned when I saw them in September of 1775.” In his Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande explains that the antique statues in the Boboli Gardens and elsewhere were brought inside during the winter to avoid having to clean them; he compares this enlightened practice to the benighted French custom of cleaning statues “with pumice stone and sandstone” (2:255).

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paintings by grand masters, and these represent different moments in the life of Michelangelo.49 You may see there, with pleasure, his first attempts at drawing and even crayon markings on the walls from his young days in which you can recognize what he would someday become. Some of his descendants, bereft of delicacy and taste, have sold off several of his masterpieces, proving, as does the small number of men of talent and taste now in Florence, just how much learning has degenerated and just how much the taste for villainy has replaced in the past few centuries that for literature and the fine arts. A single example that I cannot refrain from citing here proves this. The grand duke had founded a sort of academy where the youth of nobility were taught for free all the types of learning essential to it [i.e., the nobility] and made to ornament it. He had established a fund and named professors. But would you believe it, madam, in spite of the Florentine taste for things that cost nothing, this superb establishment, worthy of the generosity and grandeur of a prince, has so fallen into decadence since its founding that there is now not a single pupil? What to expect from such a nation? And what would Dante, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and so many others say, if they returned to this former fatherland of the arts and saw the abjection and annihilation to which they [the arts] are now reduced? These reflections do not project an agreeable veneer onto the nation. Certainly, it is hard to lavish praise when you have examined it closely. A Florentine hardly teaches his children to read and write. At the present time, it would be impossible to cite a single man of genius and those beautiful public libraries, open to all those who might wish to gather knowledge, are only inhabited by poverty. In one of them, I saw two wretched clerics whom the librarian assured me were the only ones to frequent the place; in these two was conjoined an almost complete lack of clothing with the dire uncertainty of finding a bit of bread upon returning home. A nobleman thinks that he abases himself by going to profit from the literary treasures collected with care by his ancestors. He is happy to dissolutely squander his patrimony, and he passes a part of the day sleeping and another part vegetating in the evening in the roads and on the bridges, wearing a housecoat and a straw hat with a large neckerchief, worn as do women, a get-up as ridiculous as it is indecent and one that, I think, insofar as one may consider mores and wit on the basis of absurdities, proves both the depravation of the former and the meagre solidity and breadth of the latter. Bringing this consideration of what one sees into contact with what one hears, the Florentine, in terms of his intrinsic value, finds himself reduced to almost nothing. The women do not deserve to be painted in gentler colours. They are haughty, impertinent, ugly, dirty, and gluttonous. You will not find six pretty women among the entire nobility of the city; the remainder are frightful and, what is worse, demanding and pretentious. The practice of cicisbeismo, more in use in this city than anywhere else, allows little access to a foreigner who would like to pay court and attach himself to one of these ladies. All marriages are arranged. The husband cannot decently accompany his wife; rather, the woman must take on what is called a “knight servant” who does not stray a step away from her and who, submitted to her slightest whims, is ever ready to satisfy them.50 This is not all. If he got off with only that, he would be, I think, quite happy; his purse, however, feels 49 Marginal note: “All the pieces of painting seen here are not the work of Michelangelo, no matter what Monsieur Lalande says.” 50 The Italian term to which Sade refers is cavaliere servente, although he uses the equivalent French term chevalier servant.

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it, too. The custom is to pay the signora in whose service one has the honour of being. This is one of the most dignified prerogatives of the job of knight servant. It is true that it is not ruinously expensive. A few sequins each month do the trick, and these women are so poorly maintained by their husbands and so mad for money that they are easily satisfied. You can safely bet that with thirty-odd sequins you could conquer the most rebellious beauty in Florence.51 I will shortly have the honour of explaining to you the cause of this disorder, but let us first finish off the enumeration of this city’s beauties. The prince is at present creating a natural history collection, concerning which the specific sections seemed to me quite thoroughly stocked. The anatomy section, all in waxwork, is pretty and complete. It would be desirable, however, that the grand duke add the works from the cabinet of one of the town’s surgeons. The latter, a certain Galletti, has a collection made of terracotta, realistically painted, of all the different modes of childbirth and the model of a nine-month-old girl, in waxwork, that can be disassembled and on which one can give a full course in anatomy. These pieces are already built and their owner would gladly cede them to his master. You are told, however, that the current financial situation of this prince does not permit him this acquisition – an acquisition that would be nonetheless necessary to the collection of which we are speaking.52 In the same main building is a library dealing only with the sciences and on the same level as this library, to rooms given 51 Maurice Lever wonders whether the price Sade cites was what the seduction of Chiara Moldetti cost him. See D.A.F. Marquis de Sade, Voyage d’Italie, ed. Maurice Lever (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 1:61. Whether such was the case or not, our author was hardly alone in ironizing on the topic of cicisbeismo. The Reverend Martin Sherlock, e.g., in his New Letters from an English Traveller (London, 1780) writes: The Chevalier Servant belongs exclusively to Italy, as the Petit-Maître does to France. The Italians formerly were full of sentiment; and in the days of Chivalry they carried their notions of Love and Friendship to a height of which at present nobody has an idea. When a man of noble birth married a woman, feeling the impossibility to amuse her continually, he entrusted her to his dearest friend, who served at once to protect her against foreign attacks, and to relieve the husband of the half of his attentions. His duty was to take care of the lady by day, and amuse her morally by all means in his power. But the best institutions have been abused; and what does not time corrupt? The morals of the country have degenerated; the Platonic fire, which Petrarch had re-kindled, is now extinguished, and the state of the Chevalier Servant is become the most corrupt of any under heaven: his duties are entirely changed, and his situation is become the most disgraceful that I know, for before he can enjoy the privileges of Love, the wretch is obliged to sacrifice Friendship. The husband still chuses the Chevalier Servant. Custom has established the practice; there is no reasoning about it; it is a ridicule for the husband, and a dishonour to the lady, if she has not a Cigisbée. Besides, the husband finds his interest in it; for thus he reasons: “By giving a Cigisbée to my wife, I know well I give her a lover; but I am in the fashion; custom has decreed it; and I am neither more ridiculous nor more unhappy by the infidelity of my wife than the rest of my countrymen. If I do not give her one, what is the consequence? I pass for a jealous man, and my wife, instead of one lover, takes six; the lot of every Italian husband is to suffer and to dissemble; and one must learn to submit to one’s fate.” His reasoning is just, and his decision sensible. Of two evils, he chuses the least. (55–8) 52 Giuseppe Galletti (1738–1819) was a surgeon and professor of obstetrics at the Ospedale di Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. He worked with the artists Giuseppe Ferrini (eighteenth century) and Clemente Susini (1754–1814) in the creation of anatomical waxworks. The production of these figures did, in fact, receive the patronage of the grand duke and went on display in the Ospedale in 1785; the project was subsequently expanded. See Lyle Massey, “On Waxes and Wombs: Eighteenth-Century Representations of the Gravid Uterus,” in Roberta Panzanelli, ed., Ephemeral Bodies: Wax Sculpture and the Human Figure (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008), 89.

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over to physics where all of the most modern instruments, luxuriously and magnificently built, are gathered. In this same building there will be a little garden of rare plants, but this is not yet finished. This collection will adjoin the Pitti Palace. When it is completed, the prince, from there, will be able to walk straight through to the famous gallery, which will create an interior link of close on two miles. Let us follow this path from the Pitti Palace, of which we have already spoken. It passes over the city bridge, which is covered with buildings, and winds up at what is known as the Old Palace [Palazzo Vecchio]. This structure dates from the thirteenth century and served as assembly room for the Senate and for the members of the Republic. After that, the Medici lived there; today, it is a sort of furniture storage facility which contains treasures of immense value. One can truly say that there are few princes who collected so many rich and beautiful objects as the Medici. This building is a sort of rectangular fortress. At the front there is a tower two hundred and sixty feet high that was built after the rest; this gives it an extraordinary solidity. The interior of this place is dark and sombre. You will see, in the centre of it, a pretty fountain of porphyry, in the centre of which is a bronze child. The staircase by which you ascend [to the second floor] is rather attractive. On the second floor is an immense room, which was previously given over to audiences. This room is one of the largest that will be seen in the world. Therein are four paintings by accomplished masters, poorly preserved however, of which three treat of the reign of the Grand Duke Cosimo and the fourth, a tribute to Florentine pride, represents the twelve ambassadors who were used for different negotiations under the pontificate of Boniface VIII, all of whom were Florentine. There are also statues by [Bartolommeo] Bandinelli, Michelangelo, and a few groups by Vincenzo de’ Rossi, made to elicit admiration in the connoisseur and that, even without an eye for art, cannot be viewed without interest. All have been described in detail elsewhere, and I am content merely to point out their existence. In one of the upper-floor rooms, you will see what is called the wardrobe of the grand dukes. It is difficult to get your mind around the immensity of riches enclosed in the armoires contained in this room.53 They are all constructed with unheard-of detail and deserve your closest attention. All the pieces of silverwork are in the ancient style. But the sovereigns, since this beautiful collection was put together, have had enough respect for it to have decided not to change a thing, and this mark of consideration, I think, does them honour. You must, above all, examine in this magnificent collection the chapel ornaments and principally the massive, golden front part of the altar, unique in terms of its workmanship and in terms of the opulence of the material as well as the precious stones of which it is made. The topazes, sapphires, and emeralds are of a stunning size. This singular piece was an ex-voto that Grand Duke Ferdinando II, who died in 1670, offered up to Saint Charles

53 Marginal note: “All the walls of this room are painted by Vasari; he was working here when the spectacle of Cosimo I having his way with his own son offered itself to his eyes. Vasari left off the work and never came back; this was doubtless the only prudent way to escape the certain vengeance that the grand duke would have exacted for his involuntary curiosity.” I have been unable to trace Sade’s source for this anecdote. Perhaps the tale was simply a scabrous jab at the work of Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) in tightening up the Florentine sodomy laws, which had ensnared Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) in 1557. See Margaret A. Gallucci, “Cellini’s Trial for Sodomy: Power and Patronage at the Court of Cosimo I,” in Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016 [2001]), 37–46.

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Borromeo for the restitution of his health.54 The offering was en route when the prince died. The heirs rather philosophically decided that since the saint had not heard the wish, they were not beholden to recompense him. They had the gift returned, which caused quite a bit of annoyance in Milan. What reflections crowd in on your mind when, after having admired this piece, you think about the extravagancies that superstition causes! And can one not with truth assert that this, of all human follies, is the one that most degrades both the mind and good sense. You may see, in these armoires, oriental costumes, saddles, bridles, caparisons, sabres, daggers, and other precious objects, in the Asiatic taste, that the sultans sent to the famous Cosimo de’ Medici, known as “The Father of the Nation.” A more interesting monument, still stored in this same treasury, is a manuscript of Justinian’s Pandects, completed in 534 during the reign of this prince and the same one that was presented to him.55 It is preserved in a precious casket; it requires express permission to see it. It is bound in crimson velvet, engirded with leather bands, and written on vellum. The vignettes and capital letters are most beautiful. This is truly a monumental object, as curious as it is worthy of respect. Nothing could equal the respect that the Republic of Florence had for it. It would travel along with the encampments and upon the same wagon that served for its transport stood the standard of the Republic; only the best troops were chosen to guard it. It was the ark of the Jews; the same veneration was attached to it. Throughout the ages, men have required chimeras. Yet you must agree, madam countess, that this one at least had something worthy of respect to it. Conserved in the same casket is the act of reunion of the Greek Church with the Latin, an undertaking of the Council of Florence in 1439, under Michael Palaiologos, Emperor of the Orient.56 You will see therein all the signatures of the bishops and the letters of credentials from the various ambassadors who attended, of which some are in Greek, Hebrew, and Syrian. The ensemble is wonderfully preserved. On the square upon which the building of the Old Palace is located are several handsome statues by Donatello and Giambologna.57 In the centre is an equestrian statue of Cosimo I, a superb piece by the latter artist. One can make out a few flaws in the horse, but the work as a whole bespeaks the great master. In many spots in the city, you will see, as I have said, many beautiful statues, of which many are the work of this renowned artist.

54 Marginal note: “Refute this imbecilic remark of Lalande’s, page 183.” According to Lalande, “this duke had made a vow to make this gift to the church of the Jesuits of Goa if his son recovered from a major sickness; his son having died, the ex-voto was kept” (Voyage d’un françois, 2:183). 55 Marginal note: “Search my books: Chaupy, I think; you will find much on the Pandects.” There is nothing in Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy’s Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (Rome, 1767–1769) on this topic, but Jérôme Richard dedicates a paragraph to the manuscript of this compilation of Roman laws, created at the behest of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (c. 482–565), in his Description, 3:97–8. 56 Sade intends John VIII Palaiologos (1392–1448). The Byzantine emperor had worked out with Pope Eugene IV (1383–1447) a proposed union of the Roman and Greek churches as a bulwark against the Ottomans, and he was present in Florence when the union was ratified at the Council of Florence in 1439. Opposed in Constantinople, the union failed. 57 Marginal note: “Consult here the amplifications made based upon Mesny.” Sade, who had made the acquaintance of Mesny, a French physician resident in Florence, subsequently received letters and explanations from the latter on the city; see the introduction to this volume, as well as dossier II (on Florence) and the Correspondence in this volume. Sade will remark later in this chapter that his correspondent has a natural history cabinet or cabinet of curiosities worth visiting.

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The Old Palace links up to the gallery.58 Do not expect, madam countess, a detailed elaboration of the immense riches contained in this famous building; an entire volume would be required. Recall the contract that we have made: one of the rules was that I would put aside any detail found repeated elsewhere. Otherwise, what would be the novelty of my account in your eyes? This gallery is the work of Grand Duke Cosimo I. On the outside, it is made up of three main structures: two rather long wings that are linked by a third, shorter one that faces the river. The two long wings that are thereby linked terminate, at their other ends, respectively at what is known as the Loggia and at the building of the Old Palace, which is where these two buildings communicate with one another. The structure is supported by columns, and in the interior is a long courtyard that, while dark and narrow, nonetheless resembles the square of the Temple of the Arts.59 The three galleries have the same form as this building. The longest, the one that terminates at the Loggia, is about four hundred and sixty feet. The other, the one that terminates at the Old Palace, is a few feet shorter. The corridor joining them cannot be more than fifty. These three galleries are decorated with statues, idols, and ancient fragments. You will, above all, remark the collection, as complete as it is unique, of busts of all the Roman emperors. The cornice of these three galleries is filled with a very interesting series of all the portraits of the great men who have brought fame to the fatherland. The corridors are also decorated with a great number of paintings by the greatest masters; you will allow me to dispense with all the details in this regard. Situated the length of these three long structures are various cabinets, eight in all, that contain everything there is that is precious. The first room is called the Chamber of Painters, and it is made of up of two [i.e., separate cabinets]. Therein you will see a series of more than three hundred portraits of the most famous painters, made by the same. This collection is of the greatest interest. In the second of these cabinets there was also, when I saw it, the celebrated Venus by Titian, which is said to be his mistress. She is a lovely blonde with the most beautiful eyes in the world; her features, however, are more bold than delicate. She is nude and reclines on a white mattress. With one hand she scatters roses; with the other, she covers the rose that Nature gave her. Her pose is voluptuous, and one does not tire of examining in detail the beauties of this sublime painting. A rather mediocre painter was copying it when I saw it, and this explains why it was displaced and put in this room. The second room is called the Chamber of Idols, and it contains a countless number of bronzes, ancient idols, and instruments used in pagan sacrifices. You will see there a lovely column of oriental alabaster, four busts – of which one is certainly Homer’s – that were found by fishermen in the sea of Tuscany, near Leghorn, and a thousand other antiques, long since enumerated and well detailed by abbé Richard, and which make this part one of the most curious of the gallery. This chamber has two rows of paintings, among which there are pieces of the greatest beauty by Titian, Jacopo Bassano, Paolo Veronese, and Guido. 58 None other than the Uffizi Gallery, begun by Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) in 1560 for Cosimo I de’ Medici and with the aim of providing offices, i.e., uffizi, for Florentine magistrates. It was completed in 1581. 59 The description of the same location in dossier II (on Florence) makes clear that Sade’s intended meaning is that the square itself, although dark and narrow, nonetheless makes one feel as if standing in the forecourt of an ideal “Temple of the Arts,” materialized here as the Uffizi Gallery. See p. 464 herein.

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The third room is called the Chamber of the Arts. It contains several canvases by ancient painters and some armoires made of precious woods that contain a prodigious number of shapely works made of bone, ivory, and amber. These works are of a refined delicacy. You will also remark several small silver statues by Giambologna that make you comprehend that this famous artist succeeded just as much in this delicate and meticulous genre as in the great one. In one of these armoires, you will see a sepulchre filled with an infinitude of cadavers, where each one demonstrates the different gradations of decay, from recently deceased to one completely devoured by worms. This bizarre conception is the work of a Sicilian named Zummo [see Plate 8].60 Everything is made of wax and coloured after Nature. The impression is so strong that your senses seem to mutually alert one another. Without being aware of it, you instinctively bring your hand to cover your nose while you consider the horrific detail of this work that is hard to examine without being recalled to the sinister ideas of destruction. Close by this armoire is another in the same vein. This one represents a sepulchre of plague victims, where just about the same gradations of decay can be seen. Above all, you notice a wretch, naked, carrying a cadaver that he throws upon the others and who, himself suffocated by the odour and the spectacle, falls backwards and dies. This group is frighteningly realistic. You will also admire some pretty marquetry tables in this cabinet, from which one passes into the one known by the name “Flemish Paintings.” About one hundred and fifty are to found therein, all of the greatest beauty. You must, above all, closely examine the bureau that decorates the centre of the room. It is inlaid with a great number of precious stones and covered with miniatures that seem to have required the utmost patience and that represent various subjects taken from biblical history. The fifth chamber, into which one passes after leaving the former, is pretty much empty. You will see but two globes, the one terrestrial and the other celestial, in keeping with the former cosmologies. The walls are decorated with a fresco of the map of Tuscany. The diverse instruments of mathematics, astronomy, and physics that were once here have been transferred to the natural history cabinet of His Royal Highness.

60 Gaetano Giulio Zummo or Zumbo (1656–1701), a native of Syracuse, produced numerous waxwork figures of disease and decay. He enjoyed the patronage of Grand Duke Cosimo III (1642–1723) and eventually, if briefly, that of Louis XIV of France (1638–1725). Zummo developed an ill-fated partnership with Guillaume Desnoues (1650–1735), a Frenchman and professor of anatomy and surgery to the Republic of Florence. Desnoues would eventually create a travelling show of these anatomical and morbid models. Zummo’s depiction of the plague, along with other works, is now in the “La Specola” section of the Museo di Storia Naturale in Florence. This museum was originally established by Grand Duke Peter Leopold and opened to the public in 1775 – the year of Sade’s sojourn in the city – as the Reale Museo di fisica e storia naturale. Sade retained the memory of Zummo’s models, and concerning the one he first describes above, the eponymous heroine of Juliette offers the following description and reflections on this “bizarre conceit [idée bizarre]” and its execution: “You see [in this room] a sepulchre filled with cadavers, in which you can observe the various stages of dissolution, from the moment of death up to the utter annihilation of the individual. This sombre display is made of wax, coloured so naturally that Nature could be no more expressive or true. On contemplating this masterpiece, the impression is so strong that one’s senses seem mutually to warn each other. Without so willing, you bring your hand to your nose. My cruel imagination found this spectacle amusing. How many beings has my awful wickedness put through these gradations?” Sade, L’Histoire de Juliette, in Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 3:730. On Sade’s later invocation of Zummo, see Caroline Warman, Sade: From Materialism to Pornography (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002), 134–5 and 167.

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From here you pass into the sixth chamber, know as the Tribuna. The first object that strikes you upon entry is the famous Venus.61 She is located at the rear of the room, and next to her as a pendant is an Apollo that is hardly less lovely. Opinion varies quite a bit as to the maker and the antiquity of this beautiful Venus. Whatever the case may be, it is the most beautiful work that I have seen in my life. You feel yourself penetrated by a sweet and sacred emotion while admiring it; and when examining its beauties in detail, you are not astonished that tradition holds that its maker used five hundred different models in order to finish this lovely work that, consequently, is the final product of all the beautiful women in Greece. The proportions of this sublime statue, the attractive qualities that adorn its face, the divine contours of each member, the gracious curves of its neck and buttocks, are masterpieces that could compete with Nature today. And I doubt whether using twice as many models, chosen from all the beautiful women of Asia and Europe, could furnish a single creation that would not lose in the comparison. The statue is approximately five feet tall; it is placed on a three-foot pedestal. Her posture is a little bent in order to emphasize the entire posterior portion, and she would perhaps look a tad larger if she were standing fully upright. The conch shell and dolphin that are her attributes confirm the opinion that she is the Maritime Venus of the Greeks. Her posture is that of a woman taken by surprise while nude and who immediately brings her hands to cover her chest and that which modesty does not permit one to name. But her hands are not quite there yet and so, consequently, they allow you to glimpse all the beauties of these parts. The loveliest marble was used for this masterpiece. Its antiquity has lent it a slight yellowish cast that, given the fineness and beauty of the grain, makes it almost look like alabaster. When you see that crude superstition caused her to be broken, you are brought to tears. Yet the restoration is perfect, and the reassembled parts are those of the original statue. I doubt, however, that the arms, although of the highest beauty, date from the same period as the statue. My opinion is based on the following: given the upheaval suffered by this statue, it would be impossible that these arms and fingers, delicate beyond measure, should not have been broken; you can make out, moreover, if you examine closely, that these parts are made of a marble that is whiter than that of the rest of the body. We are still completely unsure about who made this accomplished work. You can make out the characteristics of the statue of Cnidus described in Lucian.62 In this case, this would be 61 The so-called Venus de’ Medici, a Greek marble sculpture from the first century that had, by the time of Sade’s visit, long since become one of the highlights of the grand tour. In his Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), François Maximilien Misson could already assume its fame. Misson describes it as “the most beautiful body and most beautiful work in the world,” “a perfect imitation of the most beautiful nature [belle nature]” (3:88). 62 Lucian, in his dialogue “Essays in Portraiture,” has a character conjure an eloquent orator composing a beautiful “portrait-statue” made up of works by various artists. Praxiteles’s statue Aphrodite at Cnidus is the model for parts of the head and face: “From the Cnidian he takes only the head, as the body, which is unclothed, will not meet his needs. He will allow the arrangement of the hair, the forehead, and the fair line of the brows to remain as Praxiteles made them; and in the eyes also, that gaze so liquid, and at the same time so clear and winsome – that too shall be retained as Praxiteles conceived it. But he will take the round of the cheeks and all the fore part of the face from Alcamenes and Our Lady in the Gardens; so too the hands, the graceful wrists, and the supple, tapering fingers shall come from Our Lady in the Gardens,” and so forth. See Lucian, Lucian, trans. A.M. Harmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925), 4:264–7. In his Natural History, Volume X: Books 36–37, trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), bk.36: 16–17, Pliny the Elder remarks that Praxiteles’s Cnidian Venus was superior to all other works and that many travelled to Cnidus with the express purpose of examining this statue.

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the work of Praxiteles. However, the inscription made at the base of the statue announces that it is the work of Cleomenes, son of the Athenian Apollodorus. But Pliny the Elder, who discusses all of these famous artists, passes in silence over this statue of Cleomenes. In this case, it would have to postdate Pliny. Which of these traditions is to be believed? Each of these epochs produced great men. I believe that the question will remain for a long time undecided. In my opinion, however, these discussions neither add to nor diminish the beauty of the statue, and whichever artist made her, the pleasure that you take in admiring her is no less one of the sweetest that you can taste. To the left of the statue is, as I noted, an Apollo, equally ancient and of the most beautiful workmanship. Next to this Apollo, still to the left of the Venus, is a statue of the “BladeSharpener” or Arrotino, an accomplished work and one in which Nature is rendered with the greatest force. Opinions are still very much divided on the subject of this statue. Some claim that it is Milichus, freedman of Scaevinus, who revealed the conspiracy that his master had formed against Nero. Others claim this is the augur Accius Naevius who, divining the intention of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, is splitting a pebble with a razor in front of the assembled people.63 The latter opinion seems to me the more likely. To the side and still to the left of the Medici Venus, is the statue known as the Venus Pudica. She holds a drapery, but this only half-hides her, and those parts that are uncovered are of the most beautiful nature and the greatest correctness of proportion. On the other side of the Medici Venus is a group of wrestlers, executed with singular force and energy. I am not surprised that these games made quite an enjoyable spectator sport for the Romans; they would have been particularly informative for the artist, who could never find a better way to understand the muscles and, more generally, all the various beauties of posture and movement. This piece is ancient in its entirety and was discovered in Rome in 1300. Close by, facing the Venus Pudica, is a faun, dancing and playing the cymbals. This is one of the loveliest Greek antiquities that you might come across. Michelangelo restored it, and you can easily imagine that the statue lost nothing in such capable hands.64 63 For the first possibility, Tacitus reports that Milichus was ordered by the conspirator Scaevinus to sharpen his dull dagger until “the edge glittered.” Milichus, either already in the know or surmising what was afoot, set his “slavish brain” on the possible rewards he would receive rather than on gratitude to his patron. See Tacitus, Annals. Books 13–16, trans. John Jackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937), 300–1 [bk.15, s.54]. For the second, in his History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), Livy writes that the fifth king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, tested the augur Attius Navius (also found as Accius Naevius) by asking him whether what he was thinking could be done. The augur replied in the affirmative, and the king then “bid him cut a whetstone in two with a razor, which Attius is said forthwith to have done” (1[bk.1]:212–13). The current view, however, is that the sculpture represents the Scythian who has been ordered to flay the satyr Marsyas, who had the temerity to challenge Apollo in a musical competition. See Giovanni di Pasquale and Fabrizio Paolucci, Uffizi: The Ancient Sculptures, trans. Catherine Frost (Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2001), 46. On general enthusiam for the sculpture in the early modern era, as well as the multiple attempts to divine the identity of the subject, see Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 154–6. 64 A much appreciated sculpture in Sade’s day and since the seventeenth century, the Dancing Faun underwent substantial modern restoration, although in all likelihood not at the hands of Michelangelo. The attribution to Michelangelo was, however, standard and considered something of a value added; the artist was similarly deemed to have restored other ancient statues, including the nearby Venus Pudica, in which he probably had no hand. See Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, 205–6 and 320–1.

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In the same room, you will see a large quantity of small and very precious ancient statues. I should point out, above all, one of a drunken Silenus, which struck me as being most true. He can hardly bring his lips to the cup of wine that he is holding. His swollen belly bespeaks the quantity that he has already drunk, and his facial features communicate all of the effects that this drink produces. You could never tire of admiring this piece. In this same room, which could truly pass as the richest in the gallery, you will also see busts of Nero as a youth, as well as those of Livia, Cleopatra, Marcus Aurelius, Vitellius, and Trajan. Several other Roman heads, made of precious stones, as well as several bronze antiquities of the greatest beauty, are also to be admired. Among the several paintings that likewise decorate this room, you must see the Venus by Titian that is said to be his wife.65 This piece seemed to me of the loveliest execution. It is usually placed above the one that I previously mentioned and that is called his mistress. Because the latter was being copied, it was, as I said, in a better lit and more convenient room. This room is in the form of a dome and, although seven large windows in the cupola allow light in, is nonetheless a trifle dark. It is this subtle degradation of light, however, that seems to flatter the temple of the Venus that you admire therein, and I found that it all the better prepares you for the worship due her. This magnificent salon is octagonal in shape. The cupola is all of mother-of-pearl and the floor of inlaid marble. In the centre is a mosaic table that was thirty years in the making. It is a piece of the greatest beauty and is valued at an immense sum. There is a hidden armoire in this same salon that contains vases of every shape and made of every sort of precious stone. These various curiosities are meticulous in the extreme, but they need to be. From this room, you pass into that of the Hermaphrodite. As you know, madam countess, the intemperance of the Romans dared to search for sensual pleasure even with these sorts of monsters. This one is life size, lying on his stomach, although a tiny bit on his side. He is supporting himself with his arms, a posture that allows one to see a well-developed woman’s chest; his thighs are slightly crossed and altogether hide that other distinguishing characteristic of the feminine sex; that of the masculine is quite in evidence. The body is beautiful and the proportions sublime. There are some other ancient statues in this room, among others one of Drusilla and Caligula in which character is rendered with the greatest truthfulness. You will also see, in this same room, the famous Priapus, a rare and well-preserved antiquity. The base is a lion, emblem of strength; the statue itself is a single priapus or virile member, but of such prodigious size that it would be possible to gaze upon this piece without guessing what it is. At the top, the distinguishing part of the feminine sex appears to adjust itself thereto, without doubt an allusion to the operation carried out upon it by worshippers, girls and women. This marble is behind the door, covered by a cardboard lion’s head, and if you are accompanied by a young person whose imagination one fears awakening, it is not shown. 65 Marginal note: “I don’t discuss the others; descriptions of them in great detail will be found in Mr Cochin, whom Monsieur Lalande copied; unless I would do the same, I have no more to say about them, the judgment of this connoisseur being excellent and leaving nothing to be desired.” Sade’s reference is to CharlesNicolas Cochin, Voyage d’Italie, ou recueil de notes sur les ouvrages de peinture et de sculpture qu’on voit dans les principales villes d’Italie, initially published in 1758 in 3 vols., with a Paris imprint; reprinted several times, the edition that I use herein is dated 1773.

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Figure 1.2. The Farnese Hermaphrodite, engraved by François-Anne David, from François-Valentin Mulot, Muséum de Florence (1787).

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Yet in truth, I believe that most well-informed woman could see it without guessing what it is, and you would need to be told in advance what it represents in order to recognize it. Also to be seen in this chamber is a rather singular medal case. It contains more than five hundred little miniature portraits, all nicely painted, and that served as decoration, at the time of the conclaves, for the cell of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici.66 Leaving here and passing back through the galleries, you traverse three rooms that together make up a single cabinet that contains all the different types of ancient armour. You will see a complete one for a knight, for a man and a woman, as well as different and singular arms, of which certain quite nefarious ones were, without doubt, the handiwork of the former spirit of the nation. You will also see that singular device that Italian jealousy invented in order to preserve a woman’s honour but that the skill of the latter soon discovered how to render useless – which proves once and for all that it is not there that the frivolous and often fickle sex must be enchained; indulgence and gentleness have always been surer means to hold her captive than harsh and cruel constraint, which only serves to fire her desires and make her find means to deliver herself over to them with all the more impetuosity. You will see, in a separate room, that great and superb altar that is destined to serve in the famous Chapel of San Lorenzo, concerning which I had the honour of talking to you and that will be all in mosaic, but the workshop is currently empty. The House of Austria is not in much of a hurry to add to the lustre of the Medici, and so it is anybody’s guess when this lovely work will be finished. What surprises me is that the Medici who remain in Florence – and who are quite wealthy – do not club together so that this magnificent chapel might be completed. More or less, madam countess, such are the beauties that stand out in this celebrated gallery. Well you see that I only pointed them out – but I have said enough, I believe, to evoke its image in those who have seen it, and for those who do not know it yet, to incite a desire to see it. Among several famous libraries in Florence, among which number is that of Saint Lawrence, of which I have already spoken,67 it is also necessary to see the library of Marucelli. It opens its doors on alternating days with the Saint Lawrence library, since it is the same librarian who runs both one and the other. There is also the Palatine library, with large holdings and in which quite ancient manuscripts can be seen.68 One of the most beautiful, in the category of the moderns, is that of the Travels of Cosimo III. The smallest details are marked on beautiful maps that are adjoined to the manuscript, and one develops the conviction, on seeing this lovely work, that this prince wanted to get much that is fruitful from his travels and that there are few sovereigns that do the same. 66 Leopoldo de’ Medici (1617–1675) was the son of Grand Duke Cosimo II, a dedicated man of letters, book collector, and co-founder in 1657 of the early scientific society the Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experimentation). 67 Marginal note: “Put the libraries together.” 68 The Biblioteca Palatina Lorenese was founded by Cosimo III de’ Medici (1642–1723) and was located in the Pitti Palace. It was opened to the public by Grand Duke Francesco of Lorraine (Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor 1745–1765) in 1756. Along with the Magliabechiana, mentioned by Sade in dossier II (on Florence, see p. 464), its collection formed the core of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze when the latter was created in 1861. See Sandra da Conturbia, “National Central Library. Florence and Rome, Italy,” in Encylopedia of Library History, ed. Wayne A. Wiegand and Donald G. Davis Jr (New York: Routledge, 2013), 449–50. The still extant Biblioteca Marucelliana was founded by the bequest of Abbot Francesco Marucelli (1625–1703) and opened to the public in 1752.

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At one of the far reaches of the city, next to the Church of Saint Mark,69 you will see the following: 1st, a pretty little menagerie in the interior of which is a lovely courtyard surrounded by a portico, with a gallery above and which can be used for animal fights. A few were held here, but it does not look as if there is any intention to revive them; 2nd, an academy where there is a covered riding school and some rather attractive horses; 3rd, a pretty botanical garden where our worthy professors gather to hold their meetings. At one of the other far reaches of the city, to the north, you will see the Da Basso Fortress, also known as the Saint John the Baptist Castle. It is an equal-sided pentagon with nice ditches and a covered path; you must see the arsenal and cannon foundry. The prince, as I mentioned, spends little time in Florence. His preferred abode is a little country estate called the Poggio Imperiale. This is about a mile from the city, and as it neighbours the gate that adjoins the Boboli Gardens, the prince can arrive via this route and go right into the Pitti Palace without passing through the city. A lovely alley lined with cypresses and live oaks takes you there along a subtly inclined, although quite elevated, slope.70 From the outside, this house is little to look at; the reigning archduke was even obliged to build quite a bit on it in order to reside there. But the interior is pleasant and the furnishings all modern and in the most delightful taste imaginable. This sovereign has a multitude of other country estates, but there is nothing remarkable about any of them other than that each is situated in a lovely location. Those among these country homes that are worth seeing number five: Poggio a Caiano, where he usually spends the autumn; and Artimino, Petraia, Castello, and Pratolino, in the Apennines, on the road to Bologna. There are several other handsome country houses in the environs of Florence. The need to live in them in the autumn has doubled the number, and it is claimed that if you gathered together all of those that neighbour the city you would have another city, one twice as big as Florence. The air is repulsive in this capital towards the end of October, all of November, and a portion of December. You are even assured that it is deadly. What is certain is that sudden deaths caused by fits of apoplexy are exceedingly common at this time of year. I have even heard it maintained that if you left out a piece of bread during this season to become impregnated by the night air with the deadly vapours of the Apennine fogs and then fed it to a dog, the animal would abruptly die. This is an experiment that I have not undertaken, but concerning which I am not far from crediting given all that I have heard on this subject. Although I was not there during this bad season, there were nonetheless five sudden deaths in two and a half months. I believe that the air in Florence is generally speaking unhealthy at all times and that a city traversed by a river that is always dry in the summer and situated in a basin almost entirely surrounded by mountains, as is Florence, can never be healthy to live in. Further, you must only examine the constitution of the inhabitants in order to judge. For the most part, they are dry, pale, subject to consumption, with bad teeth 69 Marginal note: “Say a word about this; see Lalande, page 289 of II and Richard, 28 of III.” As indicated, Lalande does describe the Church of San Marco (Voyage d’un françois, 2:288–90). Richard’s brief description is also where Sade puts it, with the abbé remarking “several excellent paintings by Fra Bartolomeo della Porta, monk of this house” and the Chapel of Saint Anthony, the work of Giambologna (Description, 3:28). 70 Marginal note: “You have already described this alley.”

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and awful eyesight, so that a majority must wear glasses at all times. On this topic, I will always remember the comic figure of a corpulent Florentine abbé with glasses perched on his nose and wafting himself with a large fan. These two ridiculous attributes combined to make one truly extraordinarily ridiculous image. To double the ante, should this abbé have come to take the air in the evening in the outfit that I previously mentioned – in a housecoat of white Indienne, with a great straw hat and neckerchief worn like a woman – this would make a truly foreign picture and one that our French eyes will ever have trouble imagining. Let us not forget, madam countess, that among the collection of curiosities in Florence there is the private natural history cabinet of Doctor Mesny, physician at the General Military Hospital. This man of letters has gathered together everything that his wealth and that gifts given to him have permitted him to gather together, and truly curious things will be seen in the part given over to shells, fossils, petrified objects, minerals, and antique medals and coins.71 I would be lacking in gratitude if I omitted the kind attention that I received from this lover of knowledge, this philosophe. He himself took the trouble to show me all the beauties of Florence, and I leave you to consider, madam countess, how one is able to see and to judge correctly when guided by the enlightened understanding of a person as informed as he is and who lets nothing escape your notice. Fair dealing with foreigners from his country – he is a native of Lorraine – he takes pleasure in making himself useful to them, as long as they come recommended. Further, I would advise every scholar who travels in order to educate himself to seek out the support of this learned man, who is all the more precious for guiding and augmenting the knowledge that you would like to acquire because, as I have had the honour of pointing out to you, madam countess, men of wit are now quite rare in Florence. Theatres, operas, and the like are quite numerous in this city. During the summer, there is hardly anything but an opera buffa, but starting in the month of September there comes, for the entire winter, an opera seria as well as a good Italian comedy troupe, both spaces also host substantial ballets, and these together make for a long and interesting season. The opera that I saw was Perseus and Andromeda.72 The poem seemed short to me, bereft of strength and interest, and the music languishing, dragging, and without warmth. This was the first time that I had seen on stage those sorts of half-men who originally owed 71 Sade is not alone in mentioning this collection. In his La Conchyliologie, ou Histoire naturelle des coquilles (Paris, 1780), Antoine Joseph Dézallier d’Argenville, in his listing of various cabinets that include interesting specimens of shells, notes in Florence the collection of “M. Mesny, a French national” (1:839). In Lettres sur la minéralogie et sur divers autres objects de l’histoire naturelle de l’Italie, trans. Mr le B. de Dietrich (Strasbourg, 1776), Johann Jakob Ferber, more interested in minerals than shells, remarks his regret at missing the cabinet of Bartholomée Mesny when he passed through Florence, as the Frenchman was visiting his homeland (395). Lalande also briefly notes Mesny as someone knowledgeable about medicine and natural history in Florence (Voyage d’un françois, 2:371). 72 Presumably, Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi’s libretto Andromeda, originally set to music by Giaocchino Cocchi in 1755 and rescored by Giuseppe Gazzaniga as Perseo ed Andromeda in 1775. In her Relation historique des divertissemens de l’Automne de Toscane (n.p., n.d.), undated but published around the same time as Sade’s journey, Sara Goudar notes that Perseo ed Andromeda was playing in Florence, and she analyses the work and its performance at some length (17ff.). Together these reports would suggest that the “autumn” referred to in Goudar’s title must be that of 1775. This is confirmed by Goudar’s subsequent note, corroborating Sade’s account, that the accompanying ballet was the Orphelin de Chine. Because of her humble origins, it has been conjectured that works under her name were actually penned by her husband or lover, Ange Goudar, a prolific writer among other things; see the introduction to this volume.

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their degradation to the most shameful researches into debauchery and who the taste for music preserved, in spite of the fact that humanity shudders and revolts against this horrific practice. It was in Rome that they were first put on stage, in order to avoid the scandal that the presence of women might cause, and did not Rome commit a greater crime, either in so degrading Nature or by offering to the disordered desires of her subjects – already too inclined to disdain her laws – young people without beards and with the loveliest faces in the world? With a person as dignified as you, madam countess, it is difficult to treat this topic, which must of necessity offend chaste ears. I doubt, however, that we will be able to speak of the spectacles of Rome without glancing at the canvas of her inhabitants’ disorder in this regard. To the point, it was the first time that I had heard these sorts of monsters. They disgusted me. You do not at all get used to hearing a little, clear voice, much higher than a woman’s, come out of a large man’s body, quite massive and shapeless. In my opinion, a lover of the sort fails to persuade. The length that they can hold notes, the incredible range of their voice has, if you like, something surprising about it, but the trifling pleasure that this surprise occasions is disturbed by the ridiculous gestures, the awkward carriage, head twistings, the heavy and awkward gait of the person, and above all, by the horrific grimaces that you must watch him make as he swells his stomach with wind that he then lets escape his throat, often with the same noise as vomiting and which produces harsh and unpleasant whistling sounds from the gullet that nonetheless soon occasion, from these indelicate assemblies, howls of pleasure in unison in the form of “Bravo! Bravissimo!” and these finish the task of shredding the ear that has just been skinned by the castrato. Would you nevertheless believe, madam countess, that these little misters are the cause of passion? The prima donna of the opera in the autumn of 1775 was mad for the first castrato. For his part, he loved her to madness. They would only commit together for the different troupes to which they were called. Their faculties, say women in the know, are all the more precious insofar as they last longer. Ardour never extinguishes them. But isn’t it in that shared ardour that the most delicate of pleasures inheres? And how worthy of scorn, in my eyes, is the woman who, little bothering herself with that of her lover, only values him in terms of the duration that he can give to hers! Ordinarily, pantomime ballets punctuate the acts; they are extremely long and have no relationship to the drama, which of necessity dowses the latter with icy water. The outfits are magnificent but the dances mediocre. The Italians put little store by the noble and graceful style. An acrobat is all they require; if he makes a few leaps that risk a broken leg, then you will soon hear the noisy assembly declare the superior talent of the wandering entertainer. From this we can conclude that as long as such a ridiculous taste reigns in this European land, it will produce few good practitioners of this art. The Orphan of China was the subject of the ballet that was intermingled with the opera of Perseus.73 I leave it to you to judge how well these went together. But what does that matter to a nation with little delicacy and completely ignorant in that department, for whom 73 In 1735, Ji Junxiang’s thirteenth-century drama 趙氏孤兒 (Zhaoshi gu’er, i.e., the “Orphan of the Zhao Clan”) was translated into French by Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare, a French Jesuit missionary in China, as Tchao Chi Cou Ell, ou le Petit Orphelin de la maison de Tchao. One of the earliest translations of Chinese literature into French, the drama went on to be reworked and represented throughout the eighteenth century, including a version by Voltaire in 1755 as L’Orphelin de Chine and several Italian versions under the title L’Orfano della Cina and L’Eroe Cinese.

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the illusion of the spectacle means nothing, who does not listen to a word of the libretto, who plays cards or sups during the performance of the most interesting dramas, and who only pays attention to the forced howlings of its castrati. Thus, all that relates to that part of the illusion concerning which we are so far superior today is completely neglected in Italy. The decors are of the greatest mediocrity; the scene changes slow, poorly executed, and illogical; and you constantly notice the most striking contradictions between music, words, scene, gestures, and voices.74 But here they are, however, those grand Italian operas regarding which it is claimed that we have received lessons and of which we every day hear said wonders! But if the role of illusion is little cultivated in opera seria, where the constitutive gigantism of the spectacle would seem to have made it all the more necessary, how much more disgusted is one to see the degree to which it is neglected in the comic opera! The usual practice in this case is not to learn one’s role. An actor has the nerve to come before the public without knowing a single word of what he will say and often ignorant even of the play that he will be performing. The prompter takes care of such a burden: he mouths the words to each actor, and the latter are so used to following him that they repeat very accurately what he says, making sure to add a few well or poorly executed gestures and correct or incorrect intonations. The play carries on in this manner and comes off marvellously well from one end to the other, with the voice of the prompter nevertheless a bit of a drawback, since you always hear it first, then mingle with the actor’s, who repeats word for word, making a double sound that resembles pretty well the sound of a child reciting a lesson by groping along with the words of his tutor. I leave it to you to consider, madam countess, how pricked and scratched must be the wretched author who submits, with a touch of vanity, his work to such swindlers. Nevertheless, nobody has yet complained about this ingenious way of speaking. They laugh, they listen with attention enough, and as long as the actor falls down or receives a few whacks with a stick, the success of the drama is certain. Moreover, in order to prudently manage the all-too-great attention required of the spectator to appreciate such beauties, care is taken to suspend one’s emotional investment and leave the plot hanging for a good hour, so that one can admire the ballet, usually of the same type as that of the opera about which I just had the honour of telling you. Then, your attention is grabbed again, your investment gets running, the prompter shouts at the top of his lungs, and the spectator wears himself hoarse with “bravos!” And there you have it, madam countess, this is what I saw on the different stages of Florence. Let me not be accused of judging them too harshly. I have expressed what they made me feel, and I am bold enough to believe that the judgment of each man of taste who is not led astray by partiality is the same as mine. The locals here, however, are bold enough to assure you that it is only among them that the stage truly exists and that in this regard we are still but children! I would only have to send them off to see the opera of Castor and Pollux and the tragedy of Tancrède to settle the question.75 As bereft of taste as they might be, as misled by partiality, I would consider their response decisive. 74 Marginal note: “Mention the actor’s lack of attention.” 75 Castor et Pollux is an opera by the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, with a libretto by Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard. First performed in 1737 by the Académie royale de musique at the Palais-Royal in Paris, it was only with its revival in 1754 that the opera was fully embraced and was frequently performed in the 1760s and 1770s. Tancrède (1759) is a tragedy by Voltaire and one of his more successful. It was eventually

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The performance spaces in Florence have nothing remarkable about them other than the height of the box levels: they have two rows more than us. Moreover, the layout is simple – and often unpleasant. There is no amphitheatre, but what there is that is quite sensible is that the orchestra level forms one in itself and seating can be had throughout. The boxes are large; people game there, they sup there, and given a sheet that could be lowered to hide you from the eyes of the spectators, you could do worse if you so desired. The fashionable thing to do is to visit one another in the boxes. It is here that Florentine gallantry in its entirety wears itself out in endeavours, where the dead boring chaperone rediscovers the tender expressions of her heart at the price of some cash, and where sighs are weighed against sequins on an exacting scale. I have said that there were few pretty women in Florence. During my stay there I had several opportunities to see them all assembled together. Three foreigners took the prize and not a single woman native to the country could even begin to compare with them. One of these was the Countess of Albany, wife of the Pretender, who now lives in Florence and who, on account of his misfortunes, has fallen from the status of an engaging hero to that of an ordinary degenerate, who requires women and wine all day long. He had married a princess from Stolberg, of the House of Palatine, former canoness in Flanders.76 She is white, quite plump, but of a quite agreeable physiognomy.77 The second was a young English woman of eighteen years who, while travelling in Italy with her mother and father, pleased Milord Cooper, himself settled some twenty years in Florence, and became his wife out of a desire not to become his mistress.78 She has the most beautiful skin tone in the world, lovely eyes, and the most delicate and smallest mouth that I have seen in my life. The third was another English woman, wife of a Frenchman named Goudar, a man of wit and the author of several good works of criticism, but who suffered a few unfortunate adventures.79 This last woman won out, in my opinion, over the two others, as much by

76 77 78

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turned into the opera Tancredi by the composer Rossini, with libretto by Gaetano Rossi, and first performed in 1813. Sade notes: “Stolberg: small Thuringian state, in upper Saxony, between the counties of Mansfeld and Schwartzburg. It is four leagues long by three wide. The counts also possess that of Wernigerode, in lower Saxony.” Princess Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emmanuele of Stolberg-Gedern (1752–1824), or more briefly, the Princess of Albany, was the wife of Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite pretender to the crowns of England and Scotland. I have been unable to track this “beauty” with certainty. We do, however, find contemporaneous mention of a Lord Cooper, resident in Florence “about thirty years” and serving as “British Minister,” along with the following remark: “His Lady is of an aimiable character, and affords them [the Italians] a very favourable specimen of English beauty.” See John Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy (London, 1787), 2:356–7. Sarah or Sara Goudar had met the French man of letters, self-styled diplomat, spy, and swindler Pierre Ange Goudar (1708–c. 1791) during the latter’s sojourn in London in the early 1760s. According to Casanova, who was a companion in arms of Ange Goudar, Sara was at the time 16 years of age, Irish, Catholic, and served “in a potshop” where the two were drinking “a bottle of strong beer.” See Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, History of My Life, vols. 9 and 10, trans. Willard R. Trask (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 297. Casanova thought her “a wonder of nature,” but he failed in his conquest: “I wanted to have her, but [Goudar] would never permit it. He himself was trying to get possession of her, and he told me he was jealous of her. He did in fact get possession of her some time later, and the following year he left England with her. Then he married her. She is the same Sarah Goudar who shone at Naples, Florence, Venice, and

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the beauty of her face as by the superiority of her shape and the cultivation of her wit. Her husband’s contretemps kept her a bit constrained, and she was hardly to be seen other than in public gatherings such as shows and balls. It might be good to say another word, madam countess, about the last mentioned amusement of the Italians. They seem to approach it in the same phlegmatic manner as the rest of their pleasures. The two that I witnessed were given for free by the grand duke for the entertainment of the archduke Maximilian, his brother, who returning from his travels, had come to spend some time in Florence. Since you were not required to pay in order to attend these balls, they were extraordinarily full. The first took place on a Sunday; there was a huge crowd and pretty bad company. The second, given two days later, provided a bit better selection. But what pleasure, good Lord, could these folk have had at the ball? In a great hall, which was well-lit but ridiculously constructed, you saw a crowd of maskers wandering about and decked out with long black capes and a sort of hood that is known as a bahut, presenting without saying a word their pale and sullen faces. No intrigues, no hassles. And in point of fact, what is there to say or to do in a city where everything has been arranged from eternity, where each knight servant sadly accompanies his lady, seemingly constructing out of his boring phlegmatic humour a rampart that will be impenetrable to all those attacks and coquetries that constitute the entire charm of a masked ball? The middle of the room is given over to one or two English contra-dances. These are the only ones known in Florence, and the remaining attendees walk gravely around them. These balls were given in the hall of the grand opera house. This was, as I just had the honour of informing you, well enough lit, but the floor of the hall is not at the same level as the theatre itself, as it is in France. The latter is only joined to the hall by a large staircase in the form of terraces, which meant that the ball was in effect divided into two rooms, an inconvenience as far as taking promenades is concerned, and it is not at all pleasing to the eye. The etiquette for those who think of themselves as dancing is to either wear a mask or at least a knot in the form of a rosette on one’s hat. The others can appear there in any manner that suits them. The young women are gotten up, their hair very nicely done, and they wear half-masks that make them as beautiful as they can possibly be. The rest of the women wear a bahut, a full mask and hat on their heads, exactly like the men. Indeed, let it be said in passing that you note here in general a marked penchant for betraying one’s sex. The women get themselves up gladly enough as men and the men as women. Should we go so far as to say that this mania comes to them via the same principle that in past times made Romans and Greeks confuse the sexes and dishonour them both? This paradox may well not be bereft of probability. The Florentines find themselves under a lively attack concerning this type of depravity of morals, and I would not be too far from believing this reproach to be well enough founded.80 Some jesters  – and these from the country itself  – assure you that in the past they received from the popes full absolution for this type of debauchery. What can be said for certain is that the one in question, along with incest and adultery, and in general all crimes

elsewhere, always with him” (ibid.). Casanova later reports that Sarah seduced Ferdinand IV of Naples and that the queen, upon discovering the affair, demanded that the Goudars leave the capital within three days. See Casanova, History of My Life, vols. 11 and 12, trans. Willard R. Trask (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 295–6. 80 Marginal note: “See what was said before in a note.”

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of impurity, are not in Florence among the number of reserved sins.81 The climate, they say with sang-froid, excuses our penchants, and the God who caused us to be born here will not be offended at the excesses to which these penchants carry us. I was further assured on this score that there was a quite long-standing custom that, with the exception of Fat Thursday, wives were without exception duty-bound to permit anything to their husbands; in the case of a refusal on their part, the latter could either lodge a complaint or force them. I am willing to believe that this rule is a fable, but what can you expect of mores in a city where no one blushes to speak quite aloud of such sorts of things? Moral disorder, as great as it may be, is nonetheless quite hidden in Florence. You do not see, as in our French cities, the wretched victims of debauchery wandering insolently in the evening hours and soliciting passers-by to enjoy their odious favours. These creatures have a separate quarter out of which they may not go, and the mortal so indelicate as to seek out their caresses can go look for them there. Order and tranquillity are maintained here with the strictest rigour, and it is perhaps one of the best regulated parts of policing. But if, as I say, moral disorder is secret in Florence, it is no less violent. The thick and remote walls of the vast palaces of the nobility hide, it is said, plenty of horrors. And how many unfortunate young women, brought furtively and under cover of night into these criminal enclosures have left therein their honour and health? Shortly before my arrival, an eight-year-old child had lost her life a fortnight after suffering forced indecencies in one of those palaces. And when I was there, two women were arrested for having facilitated this infamous commerce between the two sexes. An enormous number of girls had been the victims of their seductions. One of these, ten years of age, among others, they had, it is said, delivered to the brutal and anti-natural caprices of a Florentine lord who had left her completely maimed. During the examination at the trial of these wretches, such a large number of respectable names was brought to light that one dared not take the case any further. I was assured that half of the women of standing in the city had been prostituted at their hands, so that it was tolerated, and instead of their being hanged as they deserved, it was considered satisfactory that they be led through town upon asses, after which they were condemned to a few years of prison. Let us now try, if possible, to discover the source of this depravity, over to which it seems that, above all, the women of this city hand themselves more easily than elsewhere. It is quite possible that we will find it in the marriage laws and customs. In Tuscany there are none of those so-called marriages in community as there are in France.82 The dowries that women bring with them are usually middling, and yet it is only in relation to these dowries that a husband regulates his wife’s allocation. It is true that the husband on his side cannot make use of this dowry; it has to remain always in its entirety and be found to be intact at the death of the husband. At this point, it reverts to the widow, as do any gifts that the husband has given her, and she returns to her own family, leaving any children to the guardianship of the husband’s relatives. The dowry, insured on the basis of the husband’s property, would be restored out of that same property in the case that any had been spent, but she can claim nothing from the acquisitions made during the life of her spouse. Under 81 So-called reserved sins required papal absolution. 82 Marginal note: “See Lalande, before writing this, on page 380.” Concerning Florentine marriage law, Lalande submits: “It is in favour of commerce that the wife’s inheritance is given to husband when she dies childless, at least in Florence and in its territory; in Arezzo, the husband only inherits half of the woman’s assets, in Pistoia, a third” (Voyage d’un françois, 2:380).

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the circumstances, separations take place on the slightest ground. Each side decides what he or she wants, and the children, who always lose out in such divorces, make of themselves what they can. In Florence I made the acquaintance of the prior of the Augustinians of the Holy Spirit, who said mass and who nevertheless had a wife and children. From such customs is born, it seems to me, a great chilling of the conjugal relation. The wife, who does not know whether the children will remain with her, raises them poorly and tends to them in a middling fashion. Stranger in a house that she never considers her own, she brings no care to it. While the husband is distracted by his business or his pleasures, the wife is by her amusements, given the little interest she has in them [her husband’s business and pleasures], and things go on as well as might be expected. Disorder soon enough sets in, succeeded by ill humour, separation follows, and the house collapses. There are twenty examples in Florence today of what I am here advancing. The other branch of this disorder, which is derived from the former, derives from habitual luxury, from the unconquerable penchant that the sex has for pleasures, jewelry, games, etc. What can be done to satisfy this? The largest spending allowances that these women receive do not exceed ten sequins per month, and since the husband, who is never able according to the rules of his contract, as I have just explained, to pay his wife’s debts, she must find a lover to support her. Custom and necessity are hereby joined. The husband, taking care of his interests, finds it fine indeed that his wife, taking care of hers, no longer bothers him with her expenditures, and the most holy of bonds is no longer but a shameful traffic of avarice and debauchery. What is horrific about this is that the line suffers, becomes bastardized, and no end can be seen for these disorders that are born of the laws. It is in the interior of households that you can see the extent to which the wife is a stranger. Should she wish to breakfast with one of her friends? The husband, who does nothing but hand her a cup of chocolate, makes her pay the head servant for it out of the surplus that she controls. It is true that if she herself is treated in return, she has herself paid for what she does not take, and she is without fail given three sols, the value of the cup of chocolate that is accorded her and that she did not drink. These singular practices cause, in my opinion, an awful chill in the conjugal tie and, removing them a good deal from the spirit of the founder (a sacred spirit that, in every sensitive soul, doubles the delicacy thereof), make these marriages resemble those ancient Roman ones, where as soon as a wife had produced children for her husband, she was relegated to her apartment and judged henceforth incapable of being useful to society. Besides, those women who have neither the taste for gaming nor for jewelry find themselves quite at ease. Ignorant of all those little concerns about cleanliness, so sought after by our French ladies, they do not drive themselves to ruin with essential oils, perfumes, and almond pastes. These practices and the equipment that they require have yet to be conceived in Tuscany, and with the exception of their innocence, the women here make it a point of pride to preserve for a long time that which they brought to their baptism. Their dresses and their outfits, which they sell and which they never give to their chamber maids – everything, up to and including the handicrafts that they have them [the chamber maids] make and that they [the wives] sell for their own profit, contributes to increase their ease and creates a small fund from which they can draw when they have passed the age of pleasing and when disgusted lovers no longer wish to cough up for their expenditures. But if conjugal fidelity is not respected in Florence, that promised to the cicisbeo is, on the contrary, of the greatest duration. He is a friend, a sort of second husband, usually

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a relative, chosen by the woman herself, starting from the first day of marriage and with whom she never breaks. If there is a rupture in this relation, it is an event that gets talked about for a long time. The husband never tries to stop such a relation, and those scenes of jealousy, of which we believe Italians to be so susceptible, do not today cause the slightest stir. Moreover, if the lady has a certain taste, a fantastic notion, because she is always the mistress and she holds the cicisbeo by the reins, she delivers herself over to it with him as a smoke screen. He serves as a cover for everything, and the multiplicity of affronts which pile up on the head of the poor husband are all placed at his door [i.e., the cicisbeo’s]. All of this notwithstanding, however, should some foreigner of standing arrive in Florence, above all, an Englishman who announces that he will be staying for a while, all arrangements are ready to be broken off. He is pursued, fêted; may the best woman win. It seems as if each one of these women is vying for the honour of skinning him. In such cases, you will sometimes witness ruptures. The cicisbeo, often, out of convenience or even out of economic considerations, pulls out, and will build up his funds again and take his place up once more when the foreigner has disappeared and when his stipend is reinstated. The different theatres, the casino or sort of café,83 where the nobility gathers together every evening and other mundane gatherings, which are known as conversations, make up the different places that you can get to know the women, and as long as you speak the language and come recommended, having been introduced into these societies, you are soon familiar with all the faces and all the intrigues. But I would make bold enough to assure you in advance that there is nothing to be had there but boredom, and that after having admired the truly beautiful and curious things that this capital contains, you will soon wish to leave it. After this modest sketch of mores, will you allow me, madam countess, in spite of the extreme length of this letter, to finish with a short enumeration of the forces of the State, of the riches of the sovereign, of those of individuals, of the laws, etc.? The military forces in Tuscany consist of: 1st A small troop of bodyguards, known as Noble Guards because in effect they are from patrician families and are all Italian gentlemen. But it is being dismantled. It will not be renewed and there cannot be today more than twenty-five. Monsieur the Count of Goetz, a German, is its leader. They have a sergeant [maréchal des logis] along with this commander. Such are the sole officers in this corps. 2nd Forty-two Royal Guards who do their service on horseback and who earn forty francs in pay per month. There is less concern about their birth, and among them will be found some quite ordinary folk. These men have the same leader as the Noble Guards and Monsieur de Pichi, an Italian gentleman, for second officer. 3rd A newly established corps, destined for the protection of the royal palace and of the Court, made up of two hundred and fifty men. This corps has yet again the same leader as the two others, along with six additional officers: two captains who have the rank of brigadier, two captain lieutenants, and two lieutenants. This troop is very well paid and very well maintained. Soldier’s pay is one paolo per day, which comes to a little more than twelve French sols.

83 The Italian term casino, for which Sade uses the French casin, is simply a dimunitive form of “house.” Before becoming associated solely with gambling, casini were dedicated to entertainment more broadly.

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4th A regiment called the Royal Tuscan, made up of approximately two thousand five hundred men. A portion of this regiment is stationed in Florence, the rest in Leghorn and Portoferraio, the principal city of the island of Elba, which belongs to the grand duke. Soldier’s pay is about ten sols per day. The colonel is an Italian gentleman who had never seen a rifle fired and whose first calling was architecture. 5th A troop of three hundred men, destined for maritime service and not attached to any other corps; they are also well paid and well maintained. These are called Grenadiers. They are usually stationed in Leghorn. They must not be confused with the Royal Tuscan Grenadiers, stationed there as well. It was the latter who a year ago caused the riot of which you have heard tell; and it was they who conspired to bring about the downfall of the sbirri, sorts of alguzils or inferior officers of the law concerning whom I will in a moment speak. This episode was reported in all the gazettes.84 The military was extremely unhappy about the manner in which the sovereign sacrificed them to these hired thugs, and in fact, as useful as these disreputable folk might be for the policing of a city, it would seem that a sovereign should nonetheless always prefer those who defend his states at the risk of their lives. I do not doubt but that in every just state and in the eyes of every equitable sovereign the one is not made to be preferred to the other. The greatest abuses could, I believe, result from a contrary opinion. 6th An engineering and artillery corps, made up of two hundred men whose pay is one paolo per day. 7th Fifty light-horsemen or coastguards whose function it is to go out every evening on explorations along the seashore to see if any barbarians can be spotted. For the security of the country, along the length of the coast there are six little fortresses, in each of 84 Dodsley’s Annual Register sheds light on the beginning of this episode with a report from Florence dated 17 May 1774: “A quarrel happened here last week between the soliders and the Sbirri, occasioned by seizing and cruelly treating a grenadier in a part of the town where soldiers are not permitted to go; the consequence of which was, that the soldiers forced their way out of the fortress, and proceeded to the townhouse, where the Sbirri reside, the gates of which not being shut, a skirmish ensued in the court-yard, in which a grenadier was killed; this exasperated the soldiers, as well as the rabble who took part with them, and a general insurrection was apprehended.” See The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1774 (London: J. Dodsley, 1775), 130. Similarly, the Gazette de France, no. 46 (10 June 1774), includes a report on Florence dated 20 May 1774, explaining: “The heated discussion between the Grenadiers and the Sbirri of this city, which we have discussed, has just come to an end. Of the seven Sbirri present at the assassination of the Grenadier, the one who committed it has been taken off in irons and condemned to be hanged. Two others have been sent to the galleys for life, and the final four likewise banished for life. The majority of the Sbirri have been changed and replaced by a greater number. As for the Grenadiers, they were made to depart Monday at four o’clock in the morning for Porto Ferraio, without weapons and escorted by a detachment of Fusiliers and by forty Dragoons who had been brought from Pisa to this end. The next day, those who had fomented the sedition, numbering twelve, were brought, irons on their feet to the place d’armes, where the Leader of the conspiracy was degraded and condemned to the galleys for the rest of his life. Two passed through the rods, and nine others received sixty blows each of the rod. This event has excited, among the People foes to the Sbirri, a fire that has not yet been extinguished. For fear that they might take advantage of this circumstance to rise up, the Grand Duke has given the strictest orders to arrest anyone who would utter, upon this matter, indiscreet words. A large number have already been seized and several banished. The Soldiers who remain here give no less worry. An entire Company received, yesterday morning, orders to go to Livorno” (208). The August 1774 edition of the Mercure de France (Paris) notes in a report filed from Florence, with the unlikely date of 31 June 1774, that the troubles occasioned by the “quarrel between the Grenadiers and Sbirri” seemed quelled after troops previously garrisoned in Florence were sent to Leghorn and those from Leghorn had come to Florence (210).

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which there is a lord of the manor, who is ordinarily a sergeant to whom is given the title of lieutenant. He has with him two men and a gunner to fire on any corsairs that might be seen. In addition, there are a few militias in seashore locales, such as Grosseto, Castiglione, as well as the island of Giglio, to prevent barbarians from landing. But these militias are recruited locally, since the poor quality of the air would not allow foreigners that might be sent there to survive for long. There are homes for disabled veterans in Pisa, Arezzo, Pistoia, Prato, Pontremoli, Volterra, Barberino, etc., who like our disabled veterans in France are old soldiers who have nothing to do and to whom is accorded this sort of retirement. There are also some who receive pay at their own homes. This pay, for the former as well as the latter, comes to about ten French sols. Their number is quite large. Leghorn is the most considerable seaport and, in fact, the only one in Tuscany. It is a completely new city, but one in which commerce and credit are already quite established. This city will soon be one of the richest in Italy, if Florence does not draw off all its profits by the rigour of imposts and salt taxes. It is one of the most secure ports of the Mediterranean and also receives some of the highest commercial traffic. The Jews, who live there in large numbers, carry out some very substantial commerce. In this port are the three Tuscan frigates (called the Etruria, the Austria, and the Swallow). Today, this is the entirety of the marine force. They date from the beginning of the current regime and were substituted for five warships that previously existed. The revenues of the prince consist of allodial properties, left by the Medici, entry fees (all the more considerable insofar as everyone pays at the gates), salt works, land taxes (the rights of control here attaining close to 8 per cent), general tax farming, which is currently state-controlled, the revenues of the Order of Saint Stephen (of which the sovereign is the Grand Master), the ecclesiastical tithe, the lottery, the milling of grain, the arms-carrying fee (a sort of tax of twelve paoli per head on those who are neither gentlemen nor citizens), and exploitation of the iron mine on the island of Elba. All these sources come to about fourteen million and make up the entirety of the prince’s revenues. This Order of Saint Stephen, which I just mentioned, was instituted in 1561 by Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who set up himself and his successors as Grand Master in perpetuity. The knights of this order must make sea expeditions just like those of the Order of Malta. One must prove four generations of noble ascendance, not including the present. Yet, there are many honorary knights who are inducted simply by order of the Grand Master and who are not held to any proof. Their caravans last three years. Their headquarters is located at Pisa, where the commitment to religion provides them with a dignified enough sort of upkeep. This order has large funds, and when inheritors are lacking for the commanderies, the latter revert to the Grand Master. It is out of these funds that the marine force is maintained. There is a large number of knights of Saint Stephen in Italy, and many are married. Any of them can do this, and there are very few who undertake their caravans and thereby put themselves in the position to enjoy the benefits of the order. Their insignia is an enamelled golden cross with the image of Saint Stephen in the centre, holding a red cord. During ceremonies they wear a large white mantle upon which is the cross of the order. There is great deal of nobility in Tuscany and consequently many great houses in Florence. The richest and the most considerable is that of Salviati. It is asserted that it enjoys

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twenty thousand sequins in revenues per year. The duke of Salviati is certainly the greatest landholder in the state. This house allied itself with the Medici three hundred years ago. The houses of Malespina, Borbon del Monte, Gherardesca, Riccardi, Niccolini, Martelli, Pazzi, Orlandi, Capponi, Rainuci, Tempi, Guiccardini, and Strozzi, rival of the Medici, are the first and richest in the city. Among those that I have just named, however, there will be found some whose fortunes have been reduced and others whose fortunes were never considerable. But the Gherardesca, Borbon del Monte, Riccardi, Martelli, Rainuci, Tempi, and Guicciardini have fortunes of eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve hundred thousand pounds in income (in our coin), and which, like the others, maintain the most modest of lifestyles and never treat anyone to anything. There remain, as I have just had the honour of reporting to you, some Medici in Florence. The dukes, however, opted not to recognize any [as] relatives. But at the death of the last princess, she named as an inheritor legatee a Medici who was named Evardo and assigned him, they say, one hundred thousand pounds in income. At present there are three or four houses of Medici in the city.85 [In general, the nobility in Florence cannot be of very old stock. The reason is that the Republic was only made up of two orders, citizens and plebians, such that a nobleman from Siena, Cortona, or Arezzo who wanted to settle in Florence and to take part in its affairs, had to renounce his nobility and have himself inscribed in the order of the citizens, made up of doctors, apothecaries, and silk or wool producers. It often happened that a plebian, one who had made his fortune and desired to take part in the affairs of the city, had himself inscribed as well, such that, the latter climbing and the former descending, everything became confounded. And, since today’s nobility originates from this class of citizens, it is difficult to know if they are of those who won or those who lost. Next came the dukes, who, by changing the form of the government, also changed the illustriousness of the nobles by decorating those who pleased them, by granting duties, and by instituting the Order of Saint Stephen. The Medici were at first established in Florence only as heads of the Republic (Dux), a title which corresponded to that of doge or gonfaloniere. Alessandro, the bastard son of Clement VII, who married Margaret, the bastard daughter of Charles V, was the first. He received his maintenance from the Republic, which handed over to him an allowance of twelve thousand scudi di oro (the scudo de oro was worth about the same as a sequin). There was a Senate and an Assembly of two hundred citizens where business was decided by a plurality of votes. This Assembly nominated magistrates, and the final choice was made by lot, as it is still done in almost all republics. Alessandro began the first attempts at despotism, and in so doing made himself so odious to his family that Lorenzo III, his cousin, assassinated him.86 You can still see the place where this crime took place in the Palazzo Vecchio. He had no children. The people,

85 The following section in brackets is crossed through in the manuscript. Sade noted in the margins: “Placed elsewhere. / In the summary of Varchi. / If it does not work, it will be necessary to relocate this.” Sade’s reference is to Benedetto Varchi (1503–1565), poet and author of the multivolume Storia fiorentina, which Sade had epitomized; see dossier II (on Florence), pp. 429–47, as well as the introduction to this volume. 86 Sade noted and struck out: “Alexander was assassinated in 1530. Cosimo reigned in 1535, at the age of seventeen. There is thus an interregnum of six years that the history of Florence does little to clarify.” Sade’s “Lorenzo III” is Lorenzino or Lorenzaccio de’ Medici (1514–1548), himself assassinated at the behest of Cosimo I de’ Medici.

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however, desired a leader with his name.] In general, the Medici made themselves beloved. For ages they had provided gonfalonieri for the Republic. We know of the honours that were conferred on Cosimo, dubbed “Father of the Nation,” when he was recalled to Florence. The vox publica cried out “Palle!” (which meant the Medici, whose heraldic device is balls – palle in Italian). People ran en masse to the house of Cosimo I, located in Carregi, about a mile from Florence. This Cosimo was of a different branch than Alessandro, who died childless and of whom I have just spoken. But he [Cosimo] was still a Medici, and that was all that they wanted. He was therefore unanimously – yet merely – proclaimed, as had been Alessandro, Dux Republicae, as the coins struck during his reign attest. From this time, the dukes arrogated to themselves this right and the Republic henceforth lost its lustre. Cosimo was a prince who ruled with his head. He undertook great actions. He was a good politician, friend of Philip II, king of Spain. Under the protection of this prince, he consolidated the despotism of his cousin, but always tinted it with a show of love and respect for the Republic. It is nonetheless certain that it was to him that his successors owed what they would become afterwards. Edicts were published in his name and in the name of the Republic. The formula was: “His Excellency and the Florentine Republic decree …” Cosimo, like his predecessors, only received from the Republic twelve thousand scudi di oro and his worth, considerable for an individual, was little for a sovereign. It was nevertheless by lending money to Philip II that he won the latter’s protection. If, on the one hand, Cosimo caused an increase in the revenues of the Republic by close to eighty thousand scudi through a tax on the milling of wheat, on the other hand, he sought to become its absolute master. The Fort of Saint John the Baptist [Fortalezza di San Giovanni Battista, also known as the Fortalezza da Basso] was the handiwork of his politics and of his love of domination. The purpose of this fort was to contain the city in which the ambitious duke (who was willing to try all means necessary) was transforming the inhabitants on a daily basis into his dependants. Cosimo, as I have just had the honour of telling you, instituted the Order of Knights of Saint Stephen, and he traded Sarzana to the Genoese for Leghorn, which was only a small port belonging to the latter republic. This city owes its growth to him. It was from his friend Philip II that he obtained permission to subjugate Siena, a republic under the protection of Spain, by which he augmented and rounded out his States. Cosimo, having become powerful by means of such grand acts, began to shake off his yoke, began to make decisions as master, and to make the hollowed-out effigy of the Republic tremble. His successors imitated him. Imperceptibly, everything came to depend on them. They became absolute rulers and the Republic was no longer anything. It was at this juncture that the Medici put taxes on anything that they wished to. Neither the lawyers nor the Senate, nor the public prosecutor had the right to representation. No one dared complain. Cosimo III went so far as to tax wigs, but his son Gastone, who wore an immense one, abolished this. If today’s grand duke wanted to put one [tax] on eyeglasses, I have no doubt that it would bring in quite a bit. In Florence, as I have said, they give themselves a learned air by habitually wearing these glasses. It’s their doctor’s bonnet. Such was, madam countess, the source of the power of the dukes of Tuscany, on which perhaps I have put too much weight, but it was necessary to make you understand in order that you might have a more accurate notion of the current government. The outward form of the Republic and the authority of the Senate subsisted nonetheless up until the downfall of the Medici. And the custom of placing in all decrees the name of the Republic alongside that of the prince, as well as that observed by the Senate during its

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proceedings of being preceded by its vergers and by a young boy clothed in a uniform and marching at its head, sheathed sword in hand as mark of its power, also endured during their entire reign. But the duke of Lorraine, to whom this duchy reverted by the cession of Elisabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain and heir of the Medici, abolished these practices and thereby only increased the despotism. There is no parlement [i.e., appellate court] at all in Florence. There are, however, as in France, civil and criminal justice systems, distinct from one another. That which we call the bailliage is here known under the name Mercanzia. It is to this tribunal that one has first recourse for payments, debt agreements, financial obligations, etc. The Ruota is the name of the tribunal to which one has recourse for inheritance matters, right to retrait, contracts, etc.87 There is the Consulta, which corresponds to the Conseil souverain, to which are brought criminal cases as a last resort, but which cannot hand down the death penalty without approval of the sovereign, this right being reserved to him. In this regard, how do the Tuscans remark with satisfaction that the young prince now reigning, heir of the virtues of his house and given to that clemency that characterizes so well the august sister whom we have the good fortune to have as our queen, has so far not deigned to sign a death sentence. This prince, as philosophical as he is gentle and humane, knowing the price of a man’s life, has sensed that the crime is not destroyed along with the wretch who committed it, and that an exemplary mark of infamy, which nonetheless preserves him for the state, was better made to lead someone back to virtue whose penchant led him to stray from it, than the spectacle of a useless death, which producing despair alone, often only makes one seek out more carefully the means to act with impunity. The criminal justice court has at its head the fisco. This tribunal is called the Otto, because it is made up of eight judges, of which the procurator fisco is the first. There is also the Chamber of the Fisc, which is only for cases involving royalty and generally speaking anything that touches on the interests of the sovereign, deaths without heirs, revelations, etc.88 The Chamber of Accounts is dependent upon the Council of Finances. It reviews the coffers, places seals thereon, and verifies the state of the accounts. But this is rather a Chambre ardente than that which we call in France the Chambre des comptes.89 Finally, the tribunal that corresponds to that which we call parlement and where one goes to plead as soon as one has business there is called the Magistrato Supremo. It is composed of several senators who serve by turns. One presents one’s petitions to the office by means 87 Sade’s term retraits refers to certain laws governing real estate purchases and specifically withdrawal of sales. As briefly defined in Claude-Joseph de Ferrière, Dictionnaire de Droit et de Pratique, Contenant L’Explication des Termes de Droit, d’Ordonnance, de Coutumes & de Pratique (Paris, 1749), before a lengthy analysis of the topic: “Retrait, is the right to take back an alienated inherited property” (2:796). Although lacking a settled translation in English, it will be found in anglophone-francophone contexts such as those of Guernsey and Canada as “right to retrait,” “right of retrait,” “right of redemption,” and “right to withdraw.” 88 It is not obvious what Sade has in mind here, as the Fisco or ducal treasury handled fiscal matters and was not a court of law. The confusion continues in the following paragraph. 89 The name Chambre ardente was given to various extraordinary tribunals used for trying difficult cases. The first was created by Henry II in 1547 to deal with matters of heresy and is particularly associated with the persecution of the Huguenots; in the later seventeenth century, it was a central organ in the witchcraft trials linked to the so-called Poisons Affair, in which many of the accused were executed. The Chambre des comptes, as the name implies, dealt with finances during the Ancien Régime. Sade’s point is thus somewhat unclear.

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of a prosecutor. The clerk of court registers the case for this tribunal. He is also known as a “chancellor,” who is normally a doctor of law. Widows and orphans make their pleas to this tribunal, where there are two advisers or judges, and from here business is passed on to the various appropriate offices. I have said that the policing of Florence was well enough carried out. In my opinion, there is lacking in it, however, one quite essential thing: sufficient lighting. With the exception of a few Madonnas, at the base of which an evening lamp is regularly enough lit, the streets are of a darkness that is very conducive to criminal activity and even more so to breaking your legs. You might say, concerning this pretense of only lighting the Good Virgins, that the Florentines love them more than their purses or their bodies. The first of these two dangers is, however, negligible in Florence. It is one of the rarest things to hear tell of a theft or murder. The second is more likely. The large and flat stones used to pave this great city give, at first glance, the appearance of beauty and upkeep. But this is naught but appearance. They are only rarely repaired, and as they become degraded, holes are formed of such a depth to occasion, with the addition of darkness, truly dangerous falls. I can speak of this with some objectivity. There are in this city neither patrols by soldiers nor by watchmen. This service is taken care of by a company of approximately one hundred sbirri, calumnied folk who are drawn from the dregs of the people, which completes the impression that the good policing of this city is a miracle, because these folks, poorly enough paid, would often enough be in a position to get up to no good. They wear no uniform, yet you cannot miss them. Their appearance and their accessories make them easy to discern. Often they have nothing but a stick visible in their hands, but sometimes a rifle and always a pistol and a large knife, all intended for self-defence, because they are not allowed to use these arms other than in defending their own bodies. These ruffians always go on foot. Their leader is called the barigel, and he resides in the prison building. This barigel has normally been a sbirro himself. He has at his command a lieutenant and corporals. The fisco is their general leader. They have several guardhouses around the city. They are also stationed at the gates for searching, if need be, and so that dignity might be protected in all matters, it is their wives who search women suspected of carrying contraband. Everyone pays the salt tax. The customs office in Florence never ceases to be a bother. There is always a reward for an informer and a portion of what is confiscated for the salttax collectors. Such are more or less, madam countess, the reflections that Florence occasioned in me. I have no need of speaking to you about the rest of the expanse of Tuscany, of its principal cities. This is a matter of geography into which I will not enter, having already taxed your patience. I will have occasion to consider it quite worn out, if you have the goodness to read this enormous letter up to the end, and you will allow me to end it with assurances of the respect with which I will not cease to be my entire life, madam countess, etc.

Chapter II

Rome1

Having left Florence on Saturday the 21st of October 1775 at three o’clock in the afternoon, I arrived in Tavernelle and slept there. We made two stops at post houses, in the Apennines still: constant climbs and descents. The route, however, is well maintained. We arrived there at eight in the evening. We departed at five-thirty. I arrived at Siena at half-past noon, at the Trois-Rois.2 The route is pretty but mountainous. I cannot conceive how it could be that, as is said, the language could be so refined in Siena. In 1321, this town was plunged in ignorance, and it has only been eighteen years that they have had a public library. This town, moreover, is almost deserted, and it seems to me that if the arts and sciences flourish under the shade of peace and quiet, masses and multitudes are needed both to sustain and to encourage them. Siena is to Tuscany what Beauvais or Mantes would be in relation to Paris.3 How can it be that it is not in the capital that the language is the most pleasant, and that this purity should have been relegated to an almost deserted town? Siena is nonetheless a pleasant enough town. The tranquility that reigns here is made to please all sorts of people, and I am not surprised that many settle here. The air is pure, the countryside agreeable, and social life pleasant. One must see the truly superb cathedral, full of beautiful monuments, some of which are ancient ones that have been preserved. The paving is superbly done in mosaic, but unusual and not like that in Florence. You see some beautiful paintings there, especially in the Chigi Chapel, which is round in shape and not octagonal as [Jérôme] Richard says. The altar is of lapis lazuli, and columns of green marble support the cupola. In the

1 Manuscript notebook of 88 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. Written on the inside cover: “First volume of Rome.” 2 The anonymously authored The Roads of Italy (London, 1774), a bilingual (French-Italian) guide for English travellers, lists as the “ottimo albergo [top inn]” for Siena “i tre Re” or “les trois rois” (23). The anonymous author of the seventh and expanded edition covering Italy of The Gentleman’s Guide in His Tour through France (London, 1783) concurs, informing that the best option in town is “the Three Kings” (247). However, Thomas Martyn, author of A Tour through Italy (London, 1791) finds “I tre Re” only “tolerable” (xxx). For obvious reasons, “Three Kings” was a common name of inns, and there were others in Italy, including in Viterbo and Venice. 3 Beauvais and Mantes-sur-Seine (now Mantes-la-Jolie) are small cities in northern France, in the proximity of Paris.

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intercolumniations will be seen alternately two paintings and two statues: four works of the greatest beauty. The library is empty. You see nothing there but some antique missals, but these are truly curious in terms of their antiquity and the beauty of the initial letters and of the vignettes, the colours of which are striking. But you must ignore the drawing: it is totally incorrect. In the middle of this library is an ancient group of the Three Graces, but this is damaged and did not appear to me to be precious other than by dint of its old age. The marble seemed white to me and quite ordinary, and not the reddish brown that Richard mentions. I have trouble believing, as he maintains, that this piece was ever considered sublime. This man always tries to give an air of the marvellous to whatever he has seen, which has more to do with fictional romance than with the faithful historian, and he must be utterly mistrusted on details. This marble, found according to him in the ruins of the citadel of Athens, was simply discovered in the foundations of the cathedral of Siena, which, it is said, was formerly a pagan temple. You must see the façade of this cathedral. It is truly unique in terms of meticulousness and overwhelming detail. The next thing that you see in Siena is the house in which Catherine of Siena used to live; it has now been transformed into a church.4 The room in which Jesus Christ appeared to her is a chapel behind which can be seen, it is said, the room where she slept. The bricks that served as her pillows have been coated with silver. This room cannot be seen without the permission of the magistrates. Some things really must be given a marvellous air; making them commonplace would diminish their worth, and that of never being able to be seen is often the only one that they have. This church, furthermore, is very simple and even rather ugly. It is shaped like a “T.” The main square in Siena is curiously shaped: a shell. Was it the terrain or perhaps a desire to fill it with water for naumachiae that caused it to be so constructed? I remain in the dark on this score. Level ground encircles it entirely, which is the route that vehicles take. If one were to put on a show in this square, this level road surrounding it would be very well suited for spectators. Across from the cathedral is the prince’s palace, and on this square is that of the Town [Palazzo Pubblico], with a tower on the side, like the one in Florence. There are many other churches in this town, among others that of the Jesuits, which is small but in good taste. I will not discuss, madam countess, the antiquity of this city. From Siena, which we left on Monday the 23rd at seven in the morning, we arrived at Buonconvento and dined there. The inn there is odious.5 We arrived at noon. The route from Siena up to this point is very pretty. This place is famous for the death of emperor Henry VIII of Luxembourg, who was poisoned by a priest while taking communion. (See Richard, entry on Buonconvento).6 In 4 The Santuario di Santa Caterina and the adjoining Chiesa del Crocifisso, built in the early seventeenth century. Caterina di Giacomo di Benincasa (1347–1380), canonized in 1461, was a mystic, married to Christ in a vision, involved in the political and religious struggles of her day, and author, primarily by dictation, of the theological treatise Libro della divina dottrina, also known as Dialogo della divina provvidenza, as well as an important corpus of letters. 5 In his Sketches and Observations Made on a Tour through Various Parts of Europe in the Years 1792, 1793, and 1794 (London, 1799), William Fox concurs: “a miserable inn, crowded with vagabonds of all descriptions” (167). 6 That is, Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg. The story that his sudden death was at the hands of a Domini-

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San Quirico, a large village that belongs to the House of Chigi, there will be seen the palace of the prince, completely agreeable in its construction. This spot has a very long street and two very bad inns. Having left San Quirico, we arrived in Radicofani, the last stop in Tuscany, and dined there. The route still goes up and up; it is otherwise pretty and well maintained. Radicofani has a fortress that is said to be impregnable; its location would appear to suggest as much. It is claimed that it is located at the highest point of the Apennines. The village is old and poorly constructed, situated on the same rocky outcropping as the fortress, but halfway down the slope; you cannot take a coach therein. The inn is on the roadway and faces the village. This inn is a house of the grand duke that he inhabits when he comes to visit his frontiers. The son has finished what his father began and has completely dismantled this fortress, to the point that it is said that not even a single rifle remains. It seems, however, that from the general point of view of the political situation of Italy, it could perhaps be necessary to it some day. I will pass over such reflections in silence; they do not have to do with the role of simple observer. This citadel or fortress was blown up with gunpowder. It was an officer who, jealous at not having obtained the position of commandant, put fire to it. Thirty years ago, this officer was proveditor or general, and he was the brother of Cardinal Pietri.7 (Contrast what abbé Richard says on this score.) The commandant died. All the stones that one sees along the road, and which so worried Monsieur Richard, are the remains and reminders of this awful affair.8 From Radicofani we arrived in Acquapendente and slept there. As we arrived late in this town and we were leaving in the wee hours of the morning, it was impossible for me to form a judgment about it, and I will not discuss it for fear of advancing, as does Monsieur l’abbé Richard, some fact on word alone. It looked to me large enough, but poorly constructed, and the hostelry, as all such along this route, rubbishy and wretched to the highest degree. From there we dined at Montepulciano, renowned for its wines. Everyone knows the story of that German who died from having drunk too much of them.9 can priest who poisoned the Eucharist wine was widely circulated, although to all appearances apocryphal. In his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), Jérôme Richard writes of Buonconvento: “This place is known historically on account of the death of Emperor Henry VII of Luxembourg; he found himself here on the 15th of the month of August, 1313; he attended mass, and took communion from the hand of a Friar Preacher; immediately after he fell sick, and died the 25th of the same month. His entire court claimed that the priest who had given him communion was a Ghibelline and had put poison in the ablution wine that he had given him after communion, although the report of the doctors, made by order of the pope, certified that the emperor had not died of poison but rather of a malignant fever caused by the extreme heat. Italian historians all say that the Germans, upset at not being able to pillage Rome and several other nice towns that this prince had promised them, purposely spread this false rumour” (3:309–10). 7 Provveditore was a title used in the Republic of Venice and other parts of northern Italy bestowed, in particular, on a civilian officer with oversight of artillery and supplies for a city, town, or dependency. 8 Richard, seeing “a large number of rough stones thrown without order” at the base of the escarpment upon which the fortress sits, speculates that the cause was an earthquake (Description, 3:314). In subsequent editions he will add a note confirming that a large earthquake reportedly occurred in the region of Radicofani on the night of 4–5 Feb. 1770 and postulate that the inhabitants have simply forgotten the event. 9 Sade has confused his wines, for the story pertains not to a vintage from Montepulciano but rather Montefiascone. In the second edition of his The Grand Tour, or A Journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France (London, 1756), Thomas Nugent explains: “In the church of St Flavian [Chiesa di San Flaviano], near the town, there is a remarkable inscription on the tomb of a German prelate, who, travelling to Rome, sent his servant always before him, to know in what inn he could find the best wine, and ordered

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From Acquapendente the land is unplanted for approximately four miles. On this spot, the pope had a large house constructed that will be used, it is said, to lodge any who would like to come and cultivate this ground. From this house up until San Lorenzo, there are approximately two miles that pass through the mountains and in the wood. The descent is rather steep. The caverns that fill the rocky terrain here prove, as tradition also has it, how dangerous this passage once was due to the number of thieves who hid themselves away. After San Lorenzo, you hug the shore of Lake Bolsena, following a pretty enough road that has a large woods to its left. Three miles from San Lorenzo, you come across Bolsena, one of the twelve colonies of the Etruscans. Today, there is almost nothing left of it. There is nothing but a road that is fairly long but with poor buildings along it. On the heights, to the left, will be seen an old castle, built in a confused manner, but falling apart. It is about eight miles from Bolsena to Montefiascone. The latter is located on a height, and as I said above [concerning Montepulciano], the town is only renowned for its wines, which are a sort of quite good Muscat. This is a road that ascends rather steeply, but is straight enough and well enough built. On the left, beyond an arcade, you arrive at a little square on which the cathedral and house of the bishop are located; both are fairly mediocre. By following this second road straight on, you see to the left a rather attractive convent; beyond its gate, there is an elegant pool, all planted with grape vines, olive and other fruitbearing trees, which leads to a lake, bordered on the left by a forest of very handsome trees. Taken together, from the height of the city and on the far side of this gate, it’s the loveliest overlook in the world. From this point, you see two islands in the middle of the lake, but these do not appear to have buildings on them as do those of Martana and Bisentina, which you see on the route from Bolsena to Montefiascone. On the first was the prison of Amalasuntha, the mother of Alaric, King of the Goths;10 she was put to death on orders from Theodahad. There she is buried, along with her clothes and valuables. him to write the word est [“here it is”] over the door with chalk. The servant, liking this wine, wrote three Ests over the door, upon which his master drank so plentifully of it, that he was ill, and died soon after. The prelate is represented upon his tomb-stone, even with the pavement, with a mitre on his head; on each side of him are two scutcheons, with as many drinking-glasses. At his feet are these words, in worn and half Gothic characters, Est, Est, Est; propter nimium Est Johannes de Fucris Dominus meus mortuus est; which epitaph was made by his servant. They have put this Est, Est, Est, upon the sign of the inn, to shew that the wine is good” (2:352–3). Both Nugent and Sade likely got their version of the story from François Maximilien Misson, who provides this tale of fatally compelling moscatello in his Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), stating that he saw the tomb and inscription in the aforementioned Church of Saint Flavian, “two hundred feet from the town” (3:53–4). The inscription can be translated: “Here it is, here it is, here it is. On account of too much ‘Here it is,’ Johannes von Fuk, my lord, is dead.” It was already suggested in the eighteenth century that the name was the servant’s Latinization of none other than that of Fugger, the eminent banking family: “This epitaph is without a date. The German prelate, whose memory it consecrates, was a Fugger, from the famous family of Fuggers of Augsburg, Protectors of Letters and Learned Men, & since decorated with the title of Counts of the Empire.” See Pierre-Jean Grosley, Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, par deux Gentilshommes Suédois (London, 1764), 3:150. A wine produced today under the apellation Est!Est!!Est!!! di Montefiascone claims direct lineage, although it is generally considered lacking in the perilously superlative qualities supposedly enjoyed by Herr von Fuk. 10 Rather, Athalaric, King of the Ostrogoths (516–534).

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Having left Montefiascone, I came to Viterbo and slept there. It is a rather large town. A few beautiful palaces will be seen there. The route that leads here is pretty, straight, and situated on a very vast plain, but almost entirely given over to pasturage or uncultivated. It is sad to see such beautiful sites in this state; they would make charming farmlands. What could be the reason for this lack of cultivation? The Apennine chain forms a curtain across from them and a little to the left, which comes to an end at Viterbo. The bottom part of this curtain is full of a prodigious quantity of charming country houses that are said to be sheltered from the bad air thanks to their agreeable situation. From Viterbo, we arrived at Ronciglione and dined there. The path descends and descends, and is very rough going, above all, when you come across still subsisting fragments of the ancient Via Flaminia, which is totally degraded and quite difficult to keep to. At the top of the mountain of Viterbo, which you begin to climb upon leaving the town, you come across the post house. From there you descend and hug Lake Vico almost up to Ronciglione. This village is substantial; a lovely enough church and two or three lovely looking houses will be seen there. The road that leads to the route to Rome is on an incline; it is wide and pretty, but with quite ordinary buildings. I looked in vain for that old castle divided by an interior courtyard, into which you can only gain access by a bridge and that Monsieur Richard describes to us with such romantic flair. All I saw was a shanty, in truth quite ordinary, flanked by four towers, but without a bridge or interior courtyard. It must assuredly be that in the fifteen or sixteen years since his trip was taken things have radically changed their appearances – or that Monsieur Richard found it pleasing (as I believe) to embellish them with the romantic illusions of his imagination. Following in the path of this author, you see with chagrin how every day he put his fictions to work instead of relying on truth, and above all, you see how much he was trying to make a book rather than a journey.11 I saw no triumphal arch either when leaving the town on the side leading to Rome, but rather a simple gate, with rather middling decoration and upon which is written – this part is true – the inscription … that Monsieur Richard quotes.12 Having left Ronciglione, I slept at a wretched post house named Baccano, some twelve to fifteen miles from Rome, for I wanted daylight for my entry into this capital of the world. I arrived there on the 27th of October at eleven in the morning. You see the cupola of Saint Peter’s rising above everything else at more than six miles from Rome. From here up until Rome, the road is a bit better, but to this point it is horrible. The land by now has begun to be cultivated, and on all sides you see very well-planted places. The blood in this area is base, and the peasant women are fat and heavy.13 From this same distance some ancient monuments will be seen scattered across the plain and along the road ( place the Milvius bridge here and the historical episode; consult my authors).14

11 Richard observes: “Close to the main church upon a little rise is a very old castle, consisting of several towers squeezed against one another and separated by a small, dark courtyard. It is surrounded by moats, and you can only enter via a very narrow bridge; it has the feeling of the most terrible prison. Compared with the way of building today, it shows us the precautions that were taken in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to protect oneself from the insults of the strongest” (Description, 3:330). 12 Richard indicates on the arch the escutcheon of the House of Farnese and the words: “Odoardus Farnesius [Odoardo Farnese]” (ibid., 3:332). 13 Between the lines: “Remark that the blood in Siena is very handsome.” 14 Sade discusses this bridge later in this chapter (see pp. 79–80 below).

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The first thing that I saw was the Church of Saint Peter. I found the façade more theatrical than imposing; it did not surprise me as much as I would have thought. Nonetheless, you cannot imagine how vast this building is, and the beauty of its proportions is the reason that you are not struck by its grandeur. The vestibule is of the greatest beauty. There are three doors, a large one in the middle, entirely of bronze, which was crafted by a Florentine.15 There are two small doors: the one to the right is called the Holy Gate and is only opened during the time of Jubilee. At the rear of the vestibule, to the right, is the statue of Constantine struck by the cross that appears to him, which one sees placed across from him, above the arcade that connects to the Vatican staircase [i.e., the Scala Regia]. The effect of this is sublime. Both rider and horse show the greatest fright and terror, and one could not better portray this moment of surprise. The statue that faces out to the left is of Charlemagne, likewise on horseback and crowned with laurel. But there is a huge difference between these two pieces, and the first one, made by Bernini, is infinitely superior. The story that Monsieur Richard reports of the Swiss man who turned around without entering, thinking he had seen it all, after having seen the vestibule of Saint Peter’s, is, in my opinion, an accurate enough criticism. It is certainly the case that once the three doors are closed, you have to know already that you are in a church. Nothing suggests the entrance of a temple; it is rather more like the entrance to a theatre, and surely the architect who made the one in Lyon was thinking of the vestibule of Saint Peter’s.16 In so saying, let no one accuse me of wishing to claim some resemblance between the two. There is assuredly a great difference, and I doubt that the extraordinary magnificence of this vestibule can be compared to anything else. Notwithstanding, one can often make out in a little composition ideas that have been taken from a larger one, and that is all that I mean to make understood. I will not repeat the proportions of this magnificent building; they have been reported everywhere. I will content myself by saying it can hold eighty thousand people, that it is a hundred toises [approx. 600 feet] long and a height of four hundred and forty-three feet, from the floor up to the tip of the cross that surmounts the ball, and that this ball, placing men one on top of another, would measure thirty-six, which ought to give an adequate idea of its immensity, although, seen in context, it appears delicate and small. The Church of Saint Peter forms a cross in approximately this shape:

15 Antonio di Pietro Averlino (c. 1400–1469), known as Filarete. The central bronze door in question was originally commissioned for Old Saint Peter’s Basilica. 16 Sade refers to the Grand Théâtre (1754–1756) built in the Saint-Clair quarter of Lyon and designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713–1780), the neoclassical architect responsible for the Panthéon in Paris. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1826, and the Opéra de Lyon was subsequently built upon its site.

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Figure 2.1. Saint Peter’s Basilica, from François Maximilien Misson, Voyage d’Italie (1743 ed.).

You enter into the city of Rome by the gate called “Porta del Popolo,” that is, “Gate of the People.” The Via Flaminia, which extends from here to Rimini, comes to an end at this gate. In truth, it did not go into the city at this point, for this gate is modern, but it turned to the left and eventually reached a gate located by the old Aurelian Walls. This Gate of the People, on the side facing the countryside, was decorated by Michelangelo under the reign of Pius IV, of the House of Medici of the Milan branch, whose coat of arms you see above it. The four columns that decorate it are ancient: two are of granite and the other two of marble. In the intercolumniations are two statues: to the right that of Saint Peter holding the keys and to the left that of Saint Paul holding the Book. These rather mediocre statues are by [Francesco] Mochi. The towers to the right and left of the gate are ancient and were part of the former Aurelian enclosure. On the right side you see the same walls and square towers continuing up until the Tiber, which, as we know, for ages served to bar entry to Rome. This famous river did not always have this name. It was formerly called Albula, the name derived from the grey colour of its waters. It is maintained that the name Tiber was given to it on account of a certain Tibris, a Tuscan captain, who drowned therein. The ornamentation of the Gate of the People, on the Roman side, is the handiwork of cavaliere Bernini. The architecture is simple; the pilasters are Doric and of covered brick. The coat of arms of Alexander VII, who had it constructed for the arrival of Christina,

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queen of Sweden,17 can be seen above, while the decoration below is a rather attractive Greek festoon. This gate is the one through which almost all foreign visitors enter. The sight of the square, of the beautiful obelisk which graces it, and of the churches of Montesanto and of Madonna dei Miracoli, which together make up the principal view, along with the ingress of the three roads Del Corso, Del Babuino, and Ripetta, which you see in front of you, truly has something imposing about it. The obelisk that graces this square was raised five hundred years before Christ in the city of Heliopolis by King Semnesertes and was transported hence to Rome by Augustus and placed in the Circus Maximus, which was the largest circus in Rome, where Pope Sixtus Quintus had it taken apart in order to put it where it is at present. To the left of the gate can be seen the church called Santa Maria del Popolo. Upon entering, you will see to the right the chapel of the Cybo family, which is truly magnificent. On the main altar is a most beautiful fresco by Carlo Maratta that shows the Conception.18 The entire chapel is made of black marble supported by sixteen columns of breche marble from Sicily. To the right and left are two tombs of cardinals from this house, decorated with several kinds of ancient marbles: yellow, black, and green. The cupola lives up to the magnificence of this chapel, as much by its paintings as by its ornamentations. At the entry to this chapel, to the left, is a painting of the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, of the greatest beauty, by [Giovanni Maria] Morandi.19 To the right, is that of Saint Agnes, by one of his school. I did find in this saint that look of fright that should characterize her at the moment of her torment, and it seems that the artist exhausted his genius in the single figure at the bottom of the painting that shows the livid cadaver of one already sacrificed, of the highest verity of colour and drawing. The frames of these paintings are of verd antique. But a modern masterpiece in this church is the mausoleum that rests against the pillar that separates the first and second chapels on the left. This is the mausoleum of Princess Chigi, the wife of one of the descendants of Alexander VII. An eagle protects with his wings two genii who carry a medallion of black marble enclosed in a frame of gilded bronze, on which is depicted in relief a portrait of the princess in white marble, which is said to bear a very close resemblance to her. About this medallion hangs a rich mantle made of rosso antico marble surrounded by a fringe and an embroidery of gilded bronze. At the feet are the six mountains and the oak branch, the foliage of which snakes agreeably behind the tapestry, that make up the coat of arms of the house. A lion, emblem of the same arms, rests against the mountains; and, on the right, as if isolated, is an urn from which perfume 17 Between the lines: “Still, it needs saying. I said it in the note concerning this queen.” We know from remarks in the dossiers for the manuscript that Sade took copious notes on the erudite and unorthodox Christina (1626–1689), who converted to Catholicism and abdicated her throne to move to Rome. These notes appear to be lost, but there remains a short extract on the queen taken from Voltaire’s Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède (n.p., 1757); see dossier I (on General Material), p. 413, and dossier III (on Rome), p. 525n94. 18 In fact, Maratta’s altarpiece fresco in the Cybo Chapel shows the Virgin above with Saint John the Evangelist below explaining the doctrine of the immaculate conception to saints Gregory, Augustine, and John Chrysostom. 19 Giovanni Maria Morandi (1622–1717) did paint a Visitation for Santa Maria del Popolo. However, Sade’s attribution and description are here incorrect: the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and its companion, the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, are the work of Daniel Seiter (c. 1647–1705).

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exhales. It would be difficult to see anything more delicate and elegant than this monument, the execution and design of which will do eternal honour to the sculptor Penna, its artist.20 The second chapel in this church, to the left next to the mausoleum, is that of the House of Chigi. The altar painting is a Nativity by Sebastiano del Piombo. This painting is entirely deserving of its reputation. The front of the altar is a bas-relief in bronze showing a baptism by Lorenzetto [i.e., Lorenzo Lotti]. Equally polished are the candelabras and the cross by the same master. At the four corners of this chapel are four niches that contain four handsome statues. The first is of Jonas coming out of the belly of the whale and, across from this, Elijah holding the book of Prophecies. These two were wrought by Lorenzetto, based on drawings by Raphael da Urbino. The third, to the right of the altar, is Habakkuk whom the Angel has just taken by the hair to lead him to Daniel. He holds in his left hand a basket that is without doubt full of victuals destined for the prisoner he is going to visit. Across from this is the fourth one, which shows John the Evangelist, with his symbol, lions.21 These two pieces, which do not at all lose in comparison with the others, are by cavaliere Bernini. To the right and left of the chapel, between the niches of the statues, are two pyramidal tombs, made of Sicilian marble, with medallions above. The frames of the pedestals are of verd antique marble and the entablature of yellow. The cupola of this beautiful chapel matches the magnificence of the interior. All of the compartments are of gilded stucco, and in general, all the paintings that are seen in this chapel are by Sebastiano del Piombo, who executed the lovely altar painting. The same House of Chigi has two additional chapels at the crossing of the church, and these, while well enough decorated, are quite inferior to those that I have just described to you. In the one to the left of the main altar is a painting of the Assumption by Annibale Carracci, which is quite esteemed and truly did seem to me exceedingly beautiful.22 In the middle of the choir of this church you see an inscription that bears witness to an occurrence too odd to be passed over in silence. Before the church was built, there was on this same spot a walnut tree in the vicinity that demons were claimed to frequent. This belief gained such strength that the pope (Paschal II at the time) betook himself and the Sacred College of Cardinals here and had the tree uprooted before his eyes. But what is odder in all this is that the basis of this belief rested on the proximity of Nero’s tomb, located close to this tree. Who would have ever thought that the antipathy of the Roman people for this emperor would extend more than a thousand years beyond his death, and that they would still seek to avenge themselves on his ashes for the evils that he inflicted on them! The pope was enjoined to remove from this spot that which made it, they said, accursed, and the uprooting of the tree was followed by the opening of Nero’s sepulchre. His ashes were taken out, they were thrown into the Tiber, and the people, satisfied, no longer thought that they saw the devil. Although few people know of this anecdote, it is attested to, on the one hand, by the marble inscription that will be seen on the very spot where the tree stood and, on the other, by the position of this tree itself. In truth, it stood at the same place that Suetonius indicates that Egloge Alexandria, Nero’s nurse, and Acte, his concubine, deposited his body in the family tomb of the Domitians, on the summit of the 20 The mausoleum was the work of Paolo Posi (1708–1776) and not Agostino Penna (1728–1800). 21 Sade has doubly erred: whereas John’s attribute is an eagle, Saint Mark the Evangelist’s is a lion; Berinini’s statue, however, is of Daniel, evidently in the lions’ den. 22 The chapel in question is, in fact, the Capella Cerasi.

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Hill of Gardens (Collis ortulorum [Collis Hortorum]), today known as Monte Pincio, at the bottom of which abuts the sacristy of the church about which I have the honour of telling you.23 The house of the freedman Phaon – where Nero sought refuge from the Senate’s just ire, some five miles distant from Rome, and in which he died – is today called Serpentera and belongs to the House of Spada. But let us come back to that sacristy from which this historical note led us away. You must closely examine therein the two tombs (of the House of Visconti) that are to the right and the left. Nothing is more polished and more delicate than their sculpture, and it is worthy of the closest examination. These sublime pieces are by [Andrea] Sansovino. Not a single ancient monument will be seen in this part of Rome. This is what used to be called the Field of Mars [Campus Martius], bounded on one side by the Tiber and on the other by the Hill of Gardens. And behind this Church of Santa Maria del Popolo can be seen the former walls of which I have spoken to you and that Aurelian had made in order to enclose the Field of Mars within the city. Beyond these walls, about a mile from the Gate of the People, you will see a house, long ago delightful, that belonged to Julius III, whose pontificate lasted from 1550 to 1555.24 The exterior architecture of this house, on the courtyard side, could not be more pleasant. It forms a semi-circle with a gallery, supported by completely antique Ionic columns of red and grey granite columns, that then entirely encloses the courtyard. All around this turning gallery are frescoes by [Taddeo] Zuccari, and that which the humidity has left intact makes you regret what it has destroyed. The upper level of columns on this building is Corinthian. At the back of the courtyard are two ancient tombs with basreliefs that are still fairly well preserved. Across from the main entry is what is called the nympheaum or baths. It is a sort of courtyard, quite decorated with statues and colonnades, at the back of which is a basin or reservoir of water, surrounded by a balustrade above which are two statues of flowers made

23 Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe and revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), reports that Nero’s nurses Egloge and Alexandria, along with his mistress Acte, deposited the emperor’s body in the tomb of the Domitii (2:174–5). The story of the demon-possessed walnut tree is reported in earlier texts, including in Nicolas de Bralion’s seventeenth-century account, Les curiositez de l’une et de l’autre Rome, ou Traité des plus augustes Temples et autres Lieux Saints de Rome chestienne (Paris, 1655), where he explains that Pope Paschal II was told by the Holy Virgin that the ground under the tree held the emperor’s ashes. She had appeared to him after many prayers to reveal the nature of the accursed object and that “the Demons cried horribly in the air” as the walnut fell to the axe (125). Bralion gives the original source for later authors who have repeated this episode as Jacques Alberic. In the second edition of his Travels through France and Italy (London, 1766), Tobias Smollett concurs, writing that “Giacomo Alberici very gravely in his History of the Church” tells of the devils in the form of “black ravens” who possessed the tree, “from whence they insulted every passenger,” and so forth (2:82). Giacomo Alberici (1554–1610) was an Augustinian hermit and scholar, prior of Santa Maria del Popolo at the time of his death in 1610, and author of many works, including the Compendio delle grandezze dell’illustre, et devotissima Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo di Roma (Rome, 1600), a history of the church in question and that recounts, perhaps less gravely than dramatically, the evil spirits making sounds “like the roaring of lions, of wolves ululating, dogs baying, bulls bellowing” and all manner of “horrible cries” as they depart (8). 24 Today referred to as the Villa Giulia, after its original owner, Pope Julius III. The pope engaged some of the most significant artists of his day for his villa, constructed in 1551–1553. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola handled the main design, and Bartolomeo Ammannati the nymphaeum and other structures in the gardens. Giorgio Vasari oversaw the entire project, and Michelangelo lent a hand.

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of stucco that are mere copies. But what struck me as quite beautiful were the four caryatids that support the platform. Like the upper one, the lower vestibule is decorated with lovely frescoes by Zuccari. Under this vestibule are the bath chambers, and at the back a small room done in attractive stucco of Doric order, with three niches in which were statues that have been removed. The upper part of this room, the sole function of which seems to be to facilitate breathing of the cool air that one feels constantly there, is another sort of small vestibule, also supported by columns of antique marble that form three porticoes. This vestibule leads to two little rooms that have no other entry or exit. At the back of these gardens, on the same level as this vestibule, an Egyptian sphinx of granite will be seen, the largest such object to be seen in Rome; it is a bit damaged. They say that formerly these gardens were delightful; today, they are nothing but sorts of marshes in which I only saw cabbages growing. The remainder of the house is likewise going to ruin, and it pains you to see that the careless upkeep and humidity are quickly adding to the ravages of time. In the lower suites there is a room decorated with frescoes by Zuccari and by a few other great masters. That is all that the interior of this house offers that is particularly enjoyable. The popes, who are free to live here if they wish, seem to neglect it totally, and its sole function now is to serve as a depository for foreign ambassadors, before they make their entrance into Rome. Among the obelisks that grace this superb capital city, the one mentioned by Pliny should not be missed.25 Augustus had it erected towards the sun, and it was brought to Rome from Thebes, the Egyptian city in which it formerly stood in the centre of the Temple of the Sun. Augustus had it raised on the Campus Martius in order to serve as the needle for the sun dial that he had had sketched out in this vast enclosure. It was found during the pontificate of Benedict XIV, forty palms [approx. thirty feet] underground, when the foundations of the house where today the Lottery is housed were being dug; including the base, it is in seven pieces. This makes it easier to study the symbolic characters with which the Egyptians were wont to decorate these monuments and that seem to have some relation to the end to which they were dedicated. It seems probable that all those that are covered with them were brought from different cities in Egypt where they used to stand and that the others were made in quarries on the emperors’ orders and brought straight to Rome without every having been used by the Egyptians.26 You will forgive me, madam countess, if my description does not accord so well with that of Monsieur Richard. I have thought it best that, as long as my directions are correct, the itinerary to be followed was pretty much indifferent. I point out things as I have seen them. It is up to the traveller who follows me to rearrange, as he sees fit, each object he 25 Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, Volume X: Books 36–37, trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), reports that the obelisk erected by Augustus in the Campus Martius was originally cut by Sethothis and, like the somewhat larger one erected by the same emperor in the Circus Maximus, bears “inscriptions comprising an account of natural science according to the theories of the Egyptian sages” (bk.36: 56–7). 26 Egyptian hieroglyphs had long been a subject of fascination and attempts had long been made to decipher them. Athanasius Kircher in the seventeenth century claimed – falsely – that he had done so (on Kircher, see n27 below). In the eighteenth century, William Warburton’s speculations on the origins of language and on the nature of hieroglyphs, in his The Divine Legation of Moses (London, 1738–1741), became a topic of scholarly controversy in both Britain and continental Europe. It would not be until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt and with the nineteenth-century scholarship of Jean-François Champollion, Thomas Young, and others that decipherment took place.

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would like to pursue. As for myself, I write as I go, and consequently, you must not hope for an ordering that is very exact in its details. Once again, I have had my eye only on truth and not on symmetry. In order to get to Saint Paul Outside the Walls [San Paolo fuori le Mura], one of the most vast and oldest churches to be found in the neighbourhood of Rome, you must exit by the gate with the same name, which was substituted for the Porta Trigemina, which was a bit closer to the Tiber and was so called because it was through it that the three Horatii went out to combat the three Curiatii. The part of the ancient walls that abut this gate are from the Aurelian enclosure. Very close by, to the right when leaving Rome, in the middle of the wall, is the tomb of C. Cestius, prefect of the epulones. This is a four-sided pyramid, entirely of marble, with an inscription on the Roman side and on the side facing the countryside. You enter into the interior through a low door that leads to a low and dark corridor at the end of which is the sepulchral chamber, rectangular in shape. In this chamber was a sepulchral urn, the fate of which is today unknown. In the middle of the ceiling of the vault there was a bas-relief concerning the deeds of the defunct that is also missing. The walls were decorated with frescoes of which hardly anything can be seen anymore. Some of these paintings were detached from the wall by means of saws and transported to the Museum Kircherianum, which is at the Great College of Rome.27 At two of the interior angles of this monument are two fluted Corinthian columns of marble. It is in this vicinity that is customary to bury Englishmen and in general all Protestants. But something rather noteworthy and that has only been done for a few years is that today little monuments of marble with inscriptions are constructed over their tombs. On the first of November 1775, I already counted three of this sort. One mile from the gate that leads to the road to Ostia, you find the grand basilica of Saint Paul, one of the largest sacred monuments of Christianity. This church has five aisles, the arcades of which are supported by a large number of columns. Among these, you must particularly admire the superiority of those that support the nave; they were all taken from the decoration of Hadrian’s tomb, today the Castle of the Holy Angel [Castel Sant’Angelo]. Those that support the two lateral aisles are of oriental granite. All the other columns with double Greek crosses are likewise very appreciated, in particular, those made of porphyry that are at the great altar, under the tribune, at the four lateral altars, and those that support the platform. The arcades of the double cross are supported by columns of red and grey Egyptian granite and some other precious marbles. But without doubt the most admirable, for their size as well as their material, are the two that support the great arch of the tribunal. They are made of white Egyptian marble and of such a size that four men can hardly link hands around a single one. The total number of all these columns is some hundred and forty. On the frieze of this church you will see a chronological series of all the popes since Saint Peter, in fresco and begun in the time of Saint Leo. Emperor Constantine, to whom the Christian religion owed its splendour, erected this enormous mass that became a monument to his newfound piety.

27 Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was a Jesuit scholar with interests and publications across multiple fields, including linguistics, geology, medicine, Kabbala, Egyptology, and many more. Originally from Germany, he settled in Rome, teaching at the Collegio Romano, and founding a museum to house his mechanical, natural historical, and other curiosities.

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In a chapel next to the main altar will be seen that famous crucifix that is said to have spoken to Saint Bridget, Queen of Sweden. I leave it to you to guess, madam countess, whether this object is venerated in Rome. The monastery is served by the Benedictines; it is attached to the church and is not inhabited because of the bad air. The cloister of the monastery is worth seeing, as much for the number of ancient pagan and Christian inscriptions that are around the walls as for the little Gothic columns of every shape that support the arcades of this cloister, some of which are inlaid with mosaics. Examining the entirety of this building, you perceive just how much the arts had degenerated and into what darkness they found themselves plunged in the fourth century. Almost all of the pedestals of a large number of columns that are in this basilica are of different architectural styles; some are even much higher than the others. This church is otherwise absolutely denuded and has not a single adornment. Its size, the number and beauty of its ancient columns constitute its entire charm. You will also see, close to the sacristy, a fairly mediocre statue of Lucina, a Roman lady, who is known for the care she took of the cadavers of the ancient martyrs, which she collected and buried on her property, upon which was erected in part the Church of Saint Paul. During the war of the Spanish and the Germans for the conquest of the Kingdom of Naples, this church served as a military hospital, considering that the camp was situated in this area. It is odd that soldiers were buried in the meadow that borders this building. Since we are on the subject of ancient churches, I will say a word, madam countess, about that of Saint Agnes Outside the Walls [Sant’Agnese fuori le mura]. One must, in order to get there, leave via the Porta Pia, so named because it was the work of Pius IV, under the guidance of Michelangelo. One mile from this gate, on the Via Nomentana, you arrive at this Church of Saint Agnes that was, they say, built by Constantine. It has three aisles, the arches of which are supported by fourteen admirable columns of Egyptian marble, seven on each side, without counting the two across from the main altar, which add to this number and are of granite. Of the seven columns to either side, which I have just mentioned to you, the three last ones to the right and to left, above all, are worthy of your admiration and attentive observation on account of the unique fluting of the two fifth ones and for the magnificence of the marble of the four others. Underneath the tribune and made of mosaic will be seen the altar, on which is a platform supported by four highly valuable columns of porphyry. Three sides of this altar, that is, on the part facing out and the two sides, are entirely of precious hard stones. On the altar is a statue of the saint. Her clothes are made of alabaster, and whatever part of her body is visible is made of gilded bronze. In the chapel to the left will be seen a bust in white marble of the Saviour, of the school of Michelangelo, which is surprisingly beautiful and true. Above the two aisles is a gallery, also supported by little Corinthian columns in the form of bays. There was once a Benedictine convent here that Julius II had transferred to Rome in order to save these tender ewes of the Lord from the military impetuousness – commonly a trifle less than respectful – of the soldiers who devastated Italy during the upheavals of the sixteenth century. You can see their dormitory and you will observe as well those little transom windows that communicated with the apartment of the abbess and through which she could see whether anything indecent went on during the night in these dormitories. You will see the same thing in the Abbey of Saint Victor of Marseilles, albeit there we are talking about men.

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Close by – although I did not count the steps as did Monsieur Richard, but in any case quite close by  – a little round temple will be seen. This is supported by twelve sets of coupled columns, making twenty-four total, of Egyptian granite. The vault is inlaid with a mosaic portraying a harvest, which gives one the false impression that this was a temple dedicated to Bacchus. The most widely credited opinion is that Constantine erected it for the baptism of his sister and his daughter, both named Constantia, and even to serve as their sepulchre, and probably to serve as the same for his family. Under a niche, facing the main entrance, is a large and admirable urn of porphyry. The subject of the sculpture with which it is decorated is a harvest undertaken by little winged genii (and not by cupids as Monsieur Richard says); girding it is an extremely elegant arabesque. The entirety is in bas-relief, and each of the four sides show the same subject and are treated in the same manner. This urn has a cover that is adorned with a simple garland of cypress that hangs symetrically over a woman’s head. A proof that this urn was made to contain the ashes of someone noble is that several of the genii that are seen on the bas-reliefs have about their necks a little chain from which hangs a ball, which was incontestably the most distinctive mark of nobility among the Romans. This urn was formerly a tomb; it was moved here by Constantine and initially placed in the middle of this little temple. The body of Saint Constantia, the daughter of the emperor, was placed therein, and when the body was carried off by the barbarians, the urn was moved where it is at present and an altar was raised on this spot so that this temple, which at first was meant to be only a tomb, became a church. Julius II wished to be buried here. It is always a sort of sensual pleasure [jouissance] for an old pope to imagine that after his death his ashes will occupy the same spot as those of a pretty virgin. It is probably not the only one [i.e., jouissance] that these Holy Fathers allow themselves, but it is at least the only one that they ought to retain. Also to be seen here, adjacent this building, are the ruins of a hippodrome or riding school that some say belonged to Constantine and others say to Gallienus. Re-entering the city, you will see, next to the Felice Fountain [Fontana dell’Acqua Felice], the little Carmelite church called La Madonna della Vittoria [viz., Santa Maria della Vittoria]. This church is one of the richest and most ornamented in Rome. Everything within is of marble and gold. Nowhere is bare wall visible. In the chapel to the left, which belongs to the Cornaro family, originally from Venice, is the famous statue of the languishing Saint Teresa about to be wounded by the Angel. This is a masterpiece of Bernini. The piece is sublime thanks to the air of truth that characterizes it, but one must really firmly set in mind upon seeing it that she is a saint, because from the ecstatic look of Teresa, from the fire that burns in her face, it would be easy to err. The angel could well be taken for Love and Teresa for his mother or for a beautiful victim of the malice of Cupid.28 Be that as it may, this statue is admirable. The only faults to be found are a bit too much drapery in the clothes of the saint and the too mannered look in the way that the angel holds his

28 Sade would not be alone in his assessment. Charles de Brosses, in Lettres d’Italie, ed. Frédéric d’Agay (Paris: Mercure de France, 1986), his posthumously published letters describing his travels in Italy in 1739–1740, notes: “It is in [this church] that is located the famous Bernini group, depicting Saint Teresa in ecstasy and the angel ready to pierce her. She is in her Carmelite vestments, fainted, falling backward, mouth partially open, her eyes expiring almost closed, she can no more. The angel draws close to her, holding in his hand a sting with which he, looking cheerful and a trifle malicious, threatens her. The expression is marvellous, but frankly much too lively for a church. If this is divine love, I know it: you see here below many copies drawn from life” (2:64–5).

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sting. But we know that excessive showiness was Bernini’s innate flaw. Further, it would be preferable if this statue were a bit better placed: it is too high and too far back, and it is difficult to examine it well. The bas-reliefs to the right and the left are busts of this family done in white marble. Across the way is the Chapel of Saint Joseph. The statue above the altar, which is the pendant of that of Saint Teresa, is of Saint Joseph at the moment when the angel has come to tell him that they must flee. Domenico Guidi’s piece is not apt for comparison with the other, although it does have some beautiful aspects. The bas-reliefs to the right and the left are by another artist, but infinitely better. They deal with the flight into Egypt. In the one to the left, you see the good Saint Joseph contemplating the little Jesus that Mary holds on her knees. He looks at him with kindly understanding, as nicely characterized as can be, but you see in his eyes, through this kindly understanding, what he says to the Virgin: “You will agree, dear spouse, that this is not my handiwork.” The altar paintings in this church are all by excellent masters. At the main altar there is a revered painting of the Virgin, brought from Germany and in which the people place the greatest faith. She is called Our Lady of Victory because of the help that the Christians are said to have received from her in the wars against the Infidels, a few of the spoils of which can be seen below the altar of Saint Joseph. The entire body of Saint Victoria can be seen below the altar of Saint Joseph. She is richly clothed, reclining her length, her head on square cushions that she supports with her left hand. The entire head and the neck are very well preserved. Her skin is almost black, her teeth clenched, her nose quite intact, but her eyes are no more. This body is venerated. The Felice Fountain, which I have mentioned above, is so named because it is the work of Sixtus Quintus, who bestowed on it the name he had before he became pope. He brought the water from Colonna, a village twenty-two miles distant from Rome. This monument was erected by the architect Fontana.29 You will see therein four ancient lions, two of white porphyry and two of black granite. The two latter ones were taken from the Temple of Isis, which was located in Rome where the Church of Saint Stephen del Cacco [Santo Stefano del Cacco] is at present. The statue in the middle, larger than life, shows Moses striking the rock to bring out water. To the right is Gideon and to the left Aaron. Thus are you certain to drink only Old Testament water here! Close by is the Charterhouse that was incorporated into the Baths of Diocletian, reduced to a church of immense size and unique shape by Michelangelo. The eight granite columns that are at the crossing are admirable; they are the same that formerly decorated this part of the baths. There are many others that symmetry demanded, but they are imitations. In this church are the originals of the paintings that you see in mosaic in Saint Peter’s. You will also see here a celebrated meridian line fashioned by Monsignor Bianchini, a great mathematician who worked for Clement XI.30 The monastery, likewise located in the ruins of these thermae, is immense, and above all, the cloisters must be seen. They are

29 Probably best attributed to both Giovanni Fontana and his brother Domenico, the pope’s chief engineer and architect. Sixtus V was born Felice Piergentile, although he subsequently adopted the surname Peretti. 30 Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) built the still-extant meridian line in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri as part of Clement XI’s commission to improve the calendar. Widely recognized in Europe as a man of letters and for his contributions to natural philosophy, Bianchini was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1713 on Isaac Newton’s suggestion.

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inconceivably extensive. There are covered galleries of the same grandeur above, where some very handsome prints will be seen. In this same quarter, and still within the ruins of these baths, are the public grain stores, made to be admired as much for their enormous size as for the good administration of grains. They were built by Gregory XIII, Urban VIII, and Clement XI. Next to the Our Lady of Victory is the Church of Saint Susanna, the interior walls of which are entirely covered with frescoes. Inside you will also see an underground chapel known as a confession, that is to say, where the martyrs rest. You know, madam countess, that the word “martyr” in Greek means “confessor.”31 A little further on, close to the Quirinal Hill, is the Church of Saint Andrew [Sant’Andrea al Quirinale], formerly serving the novitiate of the Jesuits and today occupied by the Fathers of the Mission, built on the blueprint of cavaliere Bernini. It is round, the representational art therein is as pleasant as the precious ornaments. Most of all the paintings are admirable, with the exception, however, of a new one, which had just been hung when I went to see this church, portraying the founder and which seemed totally out of place in the midst of the masterpieces that decorate this little church. What is even more terrible is that, in order to find room for this crude dabbling, a Death of the Saviour was removed and put in the sacristy. The latter is a sublime piece in which, above all, the suffering of the Magdalene, who is tearily kissing the hand of Jesus Christ, is rendered with the utmost sublimity. An oratory will be seen in this house where the room in which Stanislaus lived was formerly located.32 Here you will admire the statue of the saint, fashioned from white marble with black marble drapery, reclined on a bed of Sicilian breche marble, made by the French sculptor [Pierre, the Younger] Legros. This piece is of the greatest beauty, and you do not tire of admiring it. The greatest praises would fall short of the truth. It must be seen. Saint Peter in Montorio, a church on the Janiculum Hill, is worth seeing for the sublime painting of the Transfiguration that is above the main altar. This masterpiece is by Raphael. This marvellous painting has two subjects. That of the upper portion is the transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Below the hill, which makes up the second part of the subject, are the apostles delivering an energumen from demonic possession. In the middle of the painting, Raphael has depicted a young lady kneeling before the apostles who is said to be his mistress. The painting is on wood and is certainly above any praise that might be bestowed on it. It was a cardinal from the house of Medici who commissioned the painting from Raphael, a mosaic copy of which will be seen in Saint Peter’s. There is a noteworthy anecdote on this topic. When Raphael died, this painting was placed behind his head for the entire time that he was on view, as if to make the public see what his greatest achievement had been. After this, the cardinal gave it to the church, where it will be seen to this day.33

31 The Italian term for such a chapel is confessio. Contrary to Sade’s assertion, the Greek μάρτυς, in fact, means “witness,” although this could be conceptually extended to mean “confessor.” In early Christianity, however, a clear distinction was marked between “martyrs,” who died for their faith, and “confessors,” who gave public testimony, suffered persecution, and even torture, but did not give their lives. 32 Saint Stanislaus Kostka (1550–1568), canonized in 1726. He was born and raised in Poland, but died in Rome as a novice in the Society of Jesus. 33 Albeit no longer. Raphael’s celebrated Transfiguration, his final work and unfinished at the time of his death in 1520, was initially intended for the Cathedral of Narbonne in France. Instead, the painting was placed in the church of San Pietro in Montorio by Cardinal Giulio Giuliano de’ Medici, the future Pope Clement VII, who had commissioned it when still archbishop of Narbonne. In 1797, the painting was removed to France

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The first chapel to the right is remarkable for its fresco of the Flagellation, drawn by Michelangelo and coloured by Sebastiano del Piombo. This painting forms a semi-circle and is absolutely ruined by the smoke of the candles of the chapel. The latter, on the same side, has as its altar a painting of Ananias restoring the eyesight of Saint Paul at Damascus. This work on wood, which you contemplate with pleasure, is by Giorgio Vasari. He put his portrait into this painting, a rather common practice among Italian painters. In the same chapel, which belonged to the family of Julius III, two mausoleums will be seen: the one on the right is by [Bartolommeo] Bandinelli, the one on the left by Bartolomeo Ammannati, sculptor and architect. Above these mausoleums are statues of Plenty and of Justice. In the third chapel, to the left, the famous Flemish painting by François Stella must be seen; it portrays the deposition of the body of Our Lord in the tomb. I must admit that I have never seen anything that gave me as much pleasure as this piece; there is a force and an expression that is that of Nature itself. What you see are not colours daubed on canvas, but the act itself – it is the thing – and I believe it is difficult, not to say impossible, to achieve such a striking degree of verity. Directly across from the crossing is another painting by the same artist that portrays Jesus Christ carrying the cross, likewise made to be viewed with satisfaction. In the middle of the cloister that belongs to the convent of this church you see a little temple in the Greek style, a very damaged work whose architect is Bramante Lazzari da Urbino. Its form is absolutely in the Greek manner, and, upon seeing it, you can conjure the notion of those ancient buildings precisely. You are assured, in this house, that this temple is built upon the same spot that Saint Peter was crucified. Under the building is a little chapel made to consecrate the ground where this event took place – an event that I consider as fabulous as the appearance of the Holy Apostle in Rome. Additionally, should the case even be true, history reports that it is at the foot of the Vatican that this massacre took place, and so it would then be approximately on the spot where the Church of Saint Peter is and not here. Further, what does this anecdote matter? In my opinion, it serves neither to add to the beauties of the spot nor to render it more interesting. The interior of the little temple is as delightful as the exterior. The pilasters are Doric and the pavement in mosaic. Close by is the beautiful fountain of Pope Paul V [Fontana dell’Acqua Paola], constructed under the supervision of the architect [Giovanni] Fontana. The water is channelled in from Lake Bracciano, which is more than thirty-four miles from Rome. It shoots water from five mouths and is decorated with granite columns and covered with marble all over. Close to here is the Botanical Garden, at the gate of which is a room for botanical demonstrations. At the summit of the Janiculine, where the objects that we have just discussed are located, you come across the Aurelian Gate, ordinarily called San Pancrazio, restored by Urban VIII. Half a mile from this gate the Villa Pamphili is located, called in Italian Belrespiro. The exterior walls are inlaid with busts and ancient bas-reliefs. This house, like almost all of those called Villa and which are in the vicinity of Rome, is in the middle of gardens, which makes their [sic] location quite enjoyable. The vaults of the apartments on the ground floor are of stucco so delicately worked that you imagine that you are looking at embroidery

at the behest of Napoleon and displayed in the Louvre. It was subsequently returned to Italy and is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana.

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done with the finest of needles. Therein will be seen two large antique tombs the faces of which feature excellent bas-reliefs. The humidity has given to these pieces a sort of fleshly coloration that, far from ruining them, brings them, in my opinion, closer to Nature. In the suites on the second floor, you will see to the left two busts. The first is of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphili and the other of her husband. These two pieces are by [Alessandro] Algardi. There is also a very esteemed Muse, the statue of Julia Augusta [Livia Drusilla, the wife of the emperor Augustus], one of Septimius Severus, and the famous one of Clodius disguised as a woman in order to gain access to the mysteries of the Bona Dea. She was on the Avetine Hill, where the Church of Saint Mary of the Priory [Santa Maria del Priorato] is now. We know the story of this Clodius, who wished, out of a libertine turn of mind, to disturb the holy mysteries of the goddess, which were believed to be sullied as soon as a man appeared there.34 It is claimed that there are still in our day and age some mysteries of the sort, but the priestesses know how to safeguard themselves from the importunate visits of men. The statue of the Nile with its attributes in basalt. Two striking little busts of Socrates and of Demosthenes. You see, on examining the latter, that this prince of eloquence must, as history tells us, have had trouble with pronunciation, and from this came that precaution of which you have heard of putting pebbles in his mouth when he had to speak in public.35 A charming cupid dressed as Hercules, poor restoration job on the legs. A Hermaphrodite in which the well-formed breasts can be seen; formerly one could see the well-formed masculine part as well, but the zealotry of the master of the house ordained that this indecency be broken off in such a manner that the statue, no longer showing anything but feminine characteristics, has entirely lost its value and no longer resembles anything at all. I see little difference between this procedure of a misapprehended religion and those of the barbarians, who broke with a zeal as stupid and as blind those superb pieces whose fate we continue to bemoan. A head of Sappho, a Homer, a Cicero, and several other pieces, as many paintings as sculptures, as well as several lovely columns, all quite beautiful and very well preserved. Among the paintings the most noteworthy are a Venus by Titian, different from that in Florence, and I think less beautiful. You will also see a Psyche contemplating sleeping Eros, from Titian’s school. They claim that this country estate is five and a half miles around. The gardens are quite pleasant, planted in the best possible taste and varied throughout, which in my view constitutes the entire enjoyment of a walk. You come across frequent water features, all of which are nicely distributed. Among others, you see a charming little room in the back of which is an organ driven by water and that plays various tunes. Madam countess, perhaps you will reproach me for not having spoken to you of the Capitoline Hill as the first object that seems to merit the attention of a voyager, but the few ancient beauties remaining there are totally crushed by the new ones, façades, viewpoints, buildings, everything in a word has disfigured this famous place to such an extent that it 34 Publius Clodius Pulcher was accused of attending the rites of the Bona Dea, which had been held at the house of Julius Caesar under the auspices of the latter’s wife, Pompeia. Caesar subsequently divorced her to distance himself from any suspicion that she had allowed Clodius entrance and that she was perhaps his lover. Cicero prosecuted the case against him and attacked Clodius’s alibi that he was far from Rome when the transgression was supposed to have taken place. Plutarch provides one version of this story, in his Lives, vol. 7, Demosthenes and Cicero. Alexander and Caesar, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 151–7. 35 Plutarch in his “Life of Demosthenes” reports rather that the orator corrected the “indistinctness and lisping in his speech […] by taking pebbles in his mouth and then reciting speeches” (ibid., 7:26–7).

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Figure 2.2. View of the Capitoline Hill, Rome, from Giampietro Locatelli, Descrizione delle statue, bassirilievi, busti … ne Palazzi di Campidoglio (1775 ed.).

can no longer be placed but among the ordinary rank of the modern beauties of Rome [viz., the beauties of modern Rome]. You know, madam countess, that the name “Capitoline” was given to this mount because of its shape, which is approximately this form: a

b c

The two points “a” and “b” were once the famous spots in this place. At point “a” was the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, today a Church of the Order of Friars Minor.36 At point “b” was the celebrated fortress of the Romans. There was a little plain that separated the two hills, in the middle of which was formerly the asylum of Romulus, a little temple surrounded by woods. Let us approach this spot starting with the letter “a.” I have just noted that this is a church of the Franciscan brothers. It has three aisles, which are supported by columns of Egyptian marble and that were formerly part of the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter and some other neighbouring temples. It is noticeable, from the little conformity there is among these columns, that they must have belonged to several different buildings. In the choir, behind the altar, is a painting of Our Lady with her son that is believed to be by Raphael or, at the very least, by Giulio Romano, his first and best pupil. In front of the church is an imposing 36 The Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli, built on the site of the ancient Temple of Juno Moneta. Sade’s misattribution was standard in his day. The ancient Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, however, was on the site of the present-day Palazzo dei Conservatori, mentioned below.

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staircase that ends up at ground level with Rome. It consists entirely of marble taken from the Temple of Quirinus that gave its name to the Quirinal Hill, where today one of the palaces of the pope is located and concerning which I will have the honour of speaking to you in due course. Let us descend this staircase, cross over spot “c” and climb up to elevation “b.” In the area on the right side, you will see towards the west some ruins and some rocks from the ancient fortress of Rome. The Cafarelli palace is built on top of the ruins of the fortress, and in the subterranean passages of this palace you can still see sections that are said to be the very subterranean passages of the former fortress. On the opposite side, that is, the eastern side, you will also see some ruins of the Tarpeian Rock, from which criminals were thrown. This should lend credence to what is said of this famous ancient site: that it is, in fact, as Titus Livy says, across from the Palace of the Emperors on the Palatine Hill, with its side laid open to the Avetine Hill, and close to the Tiber, where the bodies were buried once they had been thrown down. This rock was called “Tarpeian” after the name of a Sabine woman who, through this spot, allowed the Sabines into the fortress at the time of the wars of the Romans against this people. The price of her treason was being smothered beneath shields.37 Let us go back down this second smallish mount again and enter the little plain marked “c” to the place where I said the temple of the asylum of Romulus once stood and that today makes a most agreeable spot, graced with three buildings. The one in the centre is the Senatorial Palace [Palazzo Senatorio], the one to the right is that of the Conservatori, and the one to the left is the gallery of ancient statues. The latter two are based on plans by Michelangelo and their architecture is quite pleasing. The design of the central one is by [Giacomo del] Duca, born in Sicily. But the double staircase that leads up to it is by Michelangelo. Under the vault formed by the landing of this lovely staircase is a fountain, of which the principal and central statue is Rome Triumphant, an ancient piece discovered in Cori, an extremely ancient city of Latium. The head, the feet, and the hands of this statue are of marble and the clothing of porphyry. The nose is being restored at present (1775), as is the right arm, which because of a ridiculous lampoon required a change of position.38 Next to this statue are two other larger ones, emblematic representations of the Nile and of the Tiber, decorated with all the symbols associated with them. In the middle of the square will be seen, not without profound admiration, the statue of Marcus Aurelius, cast in gilded bronze during his lifetime and presented to him by the Senate and people of Rome. This statue was found underground close to Saint John Lateran, and erected on this square by Sixtus IV. It was next placed by Paul III where it is seen today. Concerning this piece, connoisseurs admire the horse even more than the statue [i.e., of Marcus Aurelius proper], and so well fashioned is it that the only thing lacking is the spark of life. In front of the Senatorial Palace is a great staircase that was undertaken by Paul III, under the supervision of Michelangelo. On the right and left of this staircase and on the square is a long balustrade of Tivoli stone or travertine, at the top of which are statues of 37 The full story of Tarpeia’s treachery and the manner of her death will be found in Plutarch’s life of Romulus, in Lives, vol. 1, Theseus and Romulus. Lycurgus and Numa. Solon and Publicola, trans. Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), s.17:140–5. 38 Noted between the lines: “Explain in a note what this was: the arm was asking for alms.” The statue was already understood in Sade’s day to be a figure of Minerva configured to personify the city. As Johann Georg Keyssler, in his Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain (London, 1760), remarks: “a porphyry statue, resembling Minerva, and thought to represent Rome” (2:357).

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Castor and Pollux driving their horses, the ensemble of a gigantesque grandeur. These two pieces were found in the thermae of Constantine. Close to these statues, and likewise on the balustrade, are the trophies of Marius that the Senate bestowed on him and originally placed on the Aqua Marcia aqueduct, close to the spot where the Church of Saint Eusebius [Sant’Eusebio] is today. Sulla, the rival of Marius, destroyed them. Julius Caesar restored them to the same place. Time and the barbarian invasions destroyed them once again, and Paul III, who rediscovered them, had them restored and transferred to where they are seen today. Beside these trophies are two statues of the sons of Constantine the Great, and to the right and left of these two statues, still as decoration for the balustrade, are two columns topped with a bronze sphere, one of which – the one on the left when descending to the square – is the first mile-marker column of the Appian Way, restored by Vespasian, as the inscription on it states. The other one is only there for the sake of symmetry. Let us finish off this description of the Capitol, before returning to each of the three palaces, which I will discuss in order and in a bit of detail when we return to them. Behind the current Senatorial Palace, the vestiges of the former Temple of Jupiter Tonans will be seen. This was erected by Augustus, and there only remain the three columns of the entry gate, quite buried, along with a part of the architecture of the cornice and of the frieze, in the Corinthian order, of superior workmanship. A little further down are the ruins of the Temple of Concord. There will be seen the six columns of the entry gate, still intact including capitals, frieze, and cornice. This temple, having been burned, was restored by the Senate and the Roman people, as the inscription that can be read on the frieze says: SENATVS POPULVSQUE ROMANVS INCENDIO ABSVMPTVM RESTITVIT.39

Who would have thought it, madam countess: the interior of the temple is at present a stable! Descending a little further towards the Forum Romanum, you see the magnificent triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus that was erected in his honour by the Senate and the people to preserve the memory of the defeat of the Cimbri, the Dacians, and the other peoples that he vanquished. The two façades are covered with bas-reliefs concerning these victories. This monument is completely of marble; its columns are badly deteriorated. On the top, it is said that there was a triumphal chariot escorted by soldiers, but nothing remains anymore of these decorations, concerning which ancient medals lend credence. Almost half of this monument is buried. The two little arcades are completely blocked up on one side, but a coach can still easily pass under the centre one. Not far from this arch is the Church of Saint Joseph [San Giuseppe dei Falegnami], built near the Mamertine or Tullianum Prison. This is where conquerors, climbing up the Capitol, disposed of sovereigns. Jugurtha, the leader of the Aetolians,40 and several others were imprisoned here. It is in this same prison that Christian tradition affirms that the apostles 39 Simply, as Sade says: “Consumed by fire, restored by the Senate and People of Rome,” albeit consumptum (devoured) has been mistranscribed as the near equivalent absumptum (annihilated). Although a Temple of Concord stood in the vicinity, the structure in question is now recognized as the Temple of Saturn, with its eight remaining Ionic columns. 40 Jurgurtha (c. 160–104 BCE) was king of Numidia (in North Africa), a rather different place than Aetolia (a region of Greece).

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Paul and Peter remained for eleven months. It is claimed that a fountain, that one does, in fact, see here, sprung miraculously from below the earth when Processus and Martinianus, jailers at the prison, along with forty-seven other Roman soldiers wanted to be baptized. This prison has two floors that are oval in shape. The vaults and the walls are made of large pieces of dry stone and are not held together by any lime mortar. The staircase that was constructed to go from one to the other is modern, because formerly the only access to the lower one was through a round hole carved out of the upper one. This prison dates to the earliest period of Rome. The name “Tullian” comes from Tullius Hostilius, third king of Rome, who built it, and the name “Mamertine” from Ancus Marcius, sixth king, who enlarged and restored it.41 Next to this prison and in front of the Forum Romanum was the staircase that was called the “staircase of mourning” [the Gemonian Stairs], because it was here that one threw the criminals that one intended to throw there [sic]. No vestige of them remains. In the Church of Saint Joseph, which I have just mentioned was built near this prison, is a famous painting by Carlo Maratta portraying a Nativity, which is the first work that this great man showed in public. Climbing back up the Capitol along the Via Sacra, along which the triumphant arrived at the Temple of Jupiter to thank him for their victories, and which passed between the temples of Jupiter Tonans and that of Concord, you see the ancient vaults and some ruins of the walls near which is built the new palace, and which formerly was part of the area where the Senate assembled and where the archives of public acts were preserved.42 These ruins are evidence of a solidity of construction beyond anything imaginable. Keeping to our proposed order, we arrive, madam countess, at the Senatorial Palace of modern Rome via this route, which is the same – or just about – as the one taken by the ancient Romans. For the Capitol, completely turned about, offers today as its face what was once its backside, and the route that I am having you take, which today goes along the rear, once followed the front. In this modern Senatorial Palace, built by Paul III and Gregory XIII, the senator is housed. In the lower portion is a large room that is used for delivering justice and for public audiences. It is quite vast; it has for decoration three statues, of which two are of its founders and the third of Charles of Anjou, King of Naples and Senator of Rome. The remainder of this building has nothing noteworthy about it. Let us take our leave from these superb monuments of Roman Antiquity and let us, madam countess, visit a few more churches the environs of which will perhaps lead us to ruins just as precious, if not as well preserved.43 41 The so-called Mamertine Prison or more properly Tullianum was a jail in ancient Rome on the Capitoline Hill. Here Saint Peter was (apocryphally) thought to have been held. The miracle to which Sade refers is that Peter’s chains fell away and a spring appeared in the Tullianum that allowed him to perform baptisms. Note that Ancus Marcius was, in fact, the legendary fourth king of Rome, as Sade correctly remarks in a subsequent mention. On Ancus Marcius, see Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 1[bk.1:32–3]:112–23. 42 The acta diurna or acta publica were a record of trial proceedings and notable announcements; posted publicly, they were also archived. 43 Between the lines: “I must extract the remaining details about the Capitol from the little book that I bought and concerning which I have the translation.” This is likely a reference to Giampietro Locatelli’s anonymously published guide Museo Capitolino o sia Descrizione delle statue, busti, bassirilievi, urne sepolcrali, iscrizioni, ed altri ammirabili, ed erudite Antichità (Rome, 1750). The third edition, with corrections

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Saint Eusebius is an appealing modern church that, in my opinion, has more the look of a pretty theatre than that of a temple of the divinity. The ceiling portrays Il Padrone della casa triumphant in glory.44 Nothing more brisk and more enjoyable than this beautiful composition. It is by Mengs, a Saxon painter, who copied the whimsy of ancient painters and placed the portrait of his wife in the face of one of the angels who participates in the beatification of the saint. The metamorphosis is flattering, but deserved if the portrait does resemble her. The colouring of this ceiling is most invigorating and this work is all the more precious in Rome insofar as there are, in the entire city, no more than three examples of this famous Saxon artist. It is he, as I believe I had the honour of telling you in my letter from Florence, who has been commissioned to paint the ceilings of the superb Chapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo. That he was chosen above every other known artist to bring this masterpiece to perfection is, I believe, the highest praise that one could give. It is true that, when contemplating his works, you find them even better than his reputation. This church has three aisles of an architecture at once pleasing and modern. These aisles are supported by five pilasters on each side. In the crossing are three altars, including the central one. In the one to the right is a beautiful painting by [Francesco] Solimena portraying one of Saint Benedict’s miracles. This altar, agreeable in shape, is crowned by an architrave supported by two columns of Sicilian breche marble. The organ is to the left of this chapel, a rather unique position and the result, I think, of not wanting to block the daylight in the back, necessary to illuminate the beautiful ceiling work. At the central altar, decorated and ornamented in similar fashion, is a painting of the Holy Ghost revealing itself to Gregory VII, also by Solimena. The platform of the main altar is supported by four beautiful columns of marble. On the frontispiece is a small fresco by Rossetti portraying an Adoration of the Son of Mary, seated on his mother’s knees.45 It would be difficult to see anything more pleasing than the face of this Virgin and nothing could be sweeter and more vivid, generally speaking, than all of this pretty composition. I beg your pardon, madam, but I would gladly join the cult of Mary, if such a pretty one were promised me. I remark here in passing that painters in Italy all seem to enjoy giving delicious characteristics to this modern Venus of the Christians. I do not know how the pontiffs of the Son are able to manage their thoughts. It is, in my opinion, very difficult to concentrate piously on the Son, when you have so proximate such beautiful copies of his Mother. Behind the main altar is the choir, in which the sculpture is very beautiful. The order attached to this church is the Celestines. Close to this building will be found the ruins of an ancient aqueduct dating from Roman Antiquity that led the Aqua Marcia to Rome.46 You will see, as the main relic of this aqueduct, a water tower upon which were the trophies of Marius, which were destroyed by Sulla, restored by Caesar, those which I noted to have been placed on the balustrade of the Capitol and augmentations, had just been printed around the time of Sade’s sojourn as Descrizione delle statue, bassirilievi, busti … che si custodiscono ne Palazzi di Campidoglio (Rome, 1775). The latter is 164 pages long; the second edition, from 1771, has 135 pages; and the first edition has 70-odd pages. 44 “The master of the house,” that is, Saint Eusebius himself, rendered in a fresco by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–1779). 45 Although there is a painting of the Crucifixion at Sant’Eusebio attributed to Cesare Rossetti (c. 1565–c. 1623), the painting that Sade indicates is the work of Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (1708–1787) and is not an Adoration per se, which depicts the Magi admiring the infant Jesus, but simply a Madonna and child. 46 Sade appears slightly confused here: the Aqua Marcia, named after the praetor Quintus Marcius Rex who oversaw its construction in the second century BCE, is itself the aqueduct.

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by Julius III. The remnants of this aqueduct stretch rather far. Close to them is the little Church of Saint Bibiana [Santa Bibiana], located, it is said, on the same spot as this saint’s house. In the little neighbouring garden, you are shown the same well from which she drew. This church dates from the fourth century, but was rebuilt in the seventeenth. On the altar there is an admirable statue of the saint; it is said to be the masterpiece of cavaliere Bernini. The drapery is truly of a lightness and grace that is hardly seen other than in the works of this grand master. A plaster copy is used as a model for the young painters of the Académie française in Rome. This choice likely says more than any praise he might receive. One of those wicked jesters about the holiest of religions, one of those hardened hearts for whom the blood of a young and beautiful martyr is hardly any more interesting than a glass of punch, in a word, an Englishman, taking the palm that the virgin holds in her hand for one of the instruments of her torment, claimed that it was a bit too much to have her gather the rods with which she was whipped. But this line of reasoning, as much an affront to the commentator’s heart as to his knowledge, is bereft of logic. It is unmistakable that Bibiana, pictured here with the emblems of her companions in misfortune, like them holds the palm branch that her constancy merited.47 In an elegant urn of oriental alabaster that sits under the altar are, it is said, the reunited bodies of Bibiana, Demetria, and Dafrosa, their mother. People can believe what they like. And, in fact, what are the chances that the bodies of these martyrs, as a rule thrown into the Tiber after their torment, should have been reunited in this case at hand with such care, that the two sisters and their mother should be found together, and this in their very house? Your philosophical spirit will have difficulty conceding such chimeras, madam countess. I will admit to you that mine has no less trouble imagining them [i.e., these chimeras] and that the absurdity of those who believe in them is, in my opinion, more revolting than the supposed miracle itself. Close to the door of this same church you are shown a little column of red marble to which they claim the saint was bound during her torment. As far as this goes, since this might be the case, there is no reason to shy away from propping it up, and you look upon this piece with the same thoughts as you would have with a vestige of antiquity, which, although not beautiful, will always strike you on account of its age alone. The nave of this little building is supported by eight columns of which six are granite and two are fluted, all of various levels with regard to their capitals and pedestals; they seem to have been used for some other, more ancient monument. Doubtless they were placed here at the time of this church’s restoration. At the corner of the little garden that I just mentioned regarding the well that is given as the saint’s is a little bear, half ancient and half restored, from which the quarter called Orsus Pileatus gets its name. Monsieur Richard is incorrect when he tells us that the entire animal is ancient. The marks of its restoration around the neck can be too easily seen for one to doubt this. But seeing as this traveller made mistakes about things even more obvious, we should not be shocked by this one.48 47 While Sade’s expression is somewhat murky, the palm branch was indeed a pagan symbol of victory that had been adopted as an attribute of Christian martyrdom. 48 Concerning the district known as the “Orsus Pileatus,” Richard informs that near Santa Bibiana you see “a bear of small size, about as large as a wolf, wearing a cap; it is antique, and this sign board, or if you prefer, statue, had given its name in quite ancient times to this district that is still called today Orso Pileato. In former times, as well as today, an inconsiderable object might give its name to the area in which it was

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Continuing along this side of the former Aurelian Walls, which still serve to close off the city in this area, you come to the gate once called the Porta Naevia and subsequently the Porta Maggiore, on which was another water tower or reservoir of the Aqua Marcia, which split at this point into two branches, one of which led to the other reservoir that I just mentioned to you on the subject of Marius’s trophies. The other branch wound up at an aqueduct that still exists and that, thanks to the restoration work that Quintus Sixtus had carried out, channelled water to that lovely fountain of the Charterhouse located on the Janiculum Hill and concerning which I also had the honour of speaking to you. Not far from this gate, in a sort of garden or vineyard, is an ancient temple that is round in shape and fairly well preserved. What you can best make out are the entry gate and the nine niches in which were placed statues of gods that were worshipped therein. Above each niche is a window. The vault is what has suffered the most, but its shape still seems most pleasing and quite stately. You will observe that it was not illuminated through the ceiling as the Pantheon is. It is commonly held that this temple was dedicated to Minerva Medica, and the grounds for this belief are meant to be proven by the fact that a statue of Minerva was found there. I would make bold to think otherwise on this score and to believe that this temple was a pantheon; the number of different statues that have been found close to these ruins seems to favour this opinion. Is it probable, in fact, that in the Temple of Minerva Medica would have been placed Pomona, Hercules, Adonis, Venus, and Hadrian’s lovely favourite boy? What would they have done there? It thus seems to me more reasonable to imagine that a variety of gods were served in this monument and that it was either the copy of or the model for Agrippa’s temple.49 The Farnese and Giustiani palaces have gathered the statues found in the vicinity and it is there that they are to be seen today. One shudders upon seeing these precious monuments filled with either Madonnas or manure heaps. Divinities of the Marii and of Caesars, what have you become? They dare burn on your altars the incense that was owed only to you, and the cult of Mary, which creates poltroons and monks, is a poor replacement for the cult of Minervas and Venuses, which created soldiers and heroes! In this same garden will be seen, approximately twenty feet underground, two sepulchral chambers, one of which seems to have only been used by a single family and the other which seems to have been common. The bones of the dead, after they were burned, were preserved in earthenware pots placed in niches about the same as our dovecotes. There are a few such pots in which ashes and fragments of bone are still to be seen; at each niche was a marble, the width of a hand, that indicated the name of the person. In the chamber that found. Thus, the foot of a colossal statue (Piè di marmo), a porter holding a keg from which the water of a fountain spurts (il fachino), a monkey (il babuino), the torso or trunk called Pasquino are all remainders of statues that populated ancient Rome and that today give their names to various districts in which they were located” (Description, 5:448). The statue was unearthed in 1591, according to the eighteenth-century antiquarian Franceso de’ Ficoroni, in his Le Vestigia, e Rarita di Roma Antica Ricercate, e Spiegate (Rome, 1744), 1:115. Keyssler, in his Travels, remarks that he was “at a loss to explain the Intention of this Piece; the Execution of it is very indifferent, the Hair resembling the Scales of a Fish, the Legs preposterously long, and the Whole resembles a Lamb more than a bear” (2:172). 49 Sade is correct to reject the notion that the structure still known as the Temple of Minerva Medica was dedicated to this goddess. It is now thought to have been a nymphaeum, dedicated to nymphs, appropriately water divinities, and built in the third century. See Lawrence Richardson Jr, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univeristy Press, 1992), 269–70.

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seems to have been used only by the Arruntia family, here is one such inscription, completely in the same taste as it [sic] and engraved in the marble: ARRVNTIVS ANENCLETVS SIBI FILIO CONIVGI FECIT.50

In the other, where one sees a number of different names, I select the following: C. CLODIVS TRIVMPHVS.

These monuments have existed, it is said, since the time of the Republic. Both are about the same depth; the first, which has an extension on the right side, is just a little bit larger than the other, which is hardly more than twelve to fifteen square feet. It is worth remarking on this subject that the custom among the Romans of burning corpses, which they adopted from their neighbours, was taken up at about the time of Sulla and continued up until the fall of the Empire. Holy Cross of Jerusalem [Santa Croce in Gerusalemme] is not far from the object that we have just discussed. This church would be quite pleasing if it were not for the stupidity of the architect who was commissioned to restore it under Benedict XIV. In order to give it more solidity, he swallowed up some superb granite columns under heavy and massive pilasters that shrink the building and make it quite awkward looking, insofar as it is composed of both these new pilasters and the ancient columns that still remained in such a way that they do not go together. Except for this, the church could pass for pleasing. The platform of the altar is supported by four columns of beautiful marble, with pedestals and capitals of gilded bronze. Underneath the altar is an antique basalt urn to which have been joined modern bronze decorations. Therein, it is said, are the precious remains of Saint Cæsarius and Saint Anastasius. Would not this sublime piece, unburdened of these infamies, look a thousand times better in one or another of those beautiful palaces of Rome rather than hidden under this altar? But superstition, which reigns in modern Rome, every day deprives the curious of a thousand precious pieces, and this with a doggedness almost the same as that which caused them to be destroyed in ancient Rome by the barbarians. The inscription that confirms the reality of these cadavers – or which perpetuates the lie – can be read in the rear frieze of the main altar. The tribune portrays Helena at Calvary discovering the cross of the Saviour. An experiment is being carried out on some sick people as to which of three [crosses], which were found simultaneously in a pit, should make known the true one.51 Helena, triumphant, 50 The inscription with punctuation reads: “L• ARRVNTIVS / ANENCLETVS / SIBI • FILIO • CONIVGI / FECIT,” as we can see on Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s engraving of the fragments of the family sepulchre of the Arruntia family. See La Antichità Romane (Rome, 1756), vol. 2, plate 14. Translated: “L[ucius] Arruntius Anencletus built [this] for himself, his son, and his wife.” 51 This sentence is syntactically problematic in the original. I have attempted to translate it in a way that captures this without sacrificing the apparent meaning. Saint Helen or Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, was supposed to have located the True Cross. In the usual telling, only one sick woman is miraculously cured by its touch.

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holds it. All the rest of the depiction is analogous to this lovely find, and while admiring this beautiful fresco in which the countryside is absolutely that of the Holy Land, you are saddened that art should have exhausted itself in eternalizing fraud. This piece is by Pietro Perugino, Raphael’s master. But its vividness seems to suggest that it was restored at the same time as was the church. To the right and the left are two more rather mediocre frescoes. Beneath the church are two chapels that are joined by a vestibule that contains a second-class mausoleum belonging to Cardinal Besozzi. To the right of this mausoleum is the Chapel of Saint Helena. She will be seen on the altar, still brandishing her victory. You are assured that almost all of the floor of this chapel is made of the very earth of Calvary. To the left and in front of this chapel of the saint is another that I only mention for the sake of scrupulousness and concerning which there seems to be absolutely nothing to say. Saint Helena is one of the seven basilicas of Rome that remain open all year long and that the Italians call holy. I will not pause here to tell the story of this holy and lucrative mummery of the Court of Rome, instead continuing my description. The pavement of this church is in the style of a mosaic, created by pieces of marble of several colours. All of the exterior decoration of this church, as well as that of the cloisters and the interior, could not be more pleasing. It is said that preserved in this temple are the precious relics of a part of the inscription of the true cross, a nail from the same cross, and a branch of thorns from the crown of the Galilean. Without seeking to disparage this holy silliness, let us go further and prove clearly, although this sidetracks us a bit from our topic, that the odds are a hundred to one that the cross that Saint Helena found is likely far from the true one and that, consequently, all those pieces that are divvied up across Rome, supposing – which is again very doubtful – that they all belong to that cross, are no more parts of Jesus’s cross than of one belonging to the hundred thousand other rogues who perished by this punishment during the period that the kingdom of the Jews lasted, which kingdom, as we know, put their criminals to death only in this manner. The strong interest that the Christians had in controlling the mother of an emperor, who was a member of their sect, does this not already cast some suspicion on this supposed find? Constantine’s mother finds the true cross. This same cross appears to Constantine the eve of the day he will combat the tyrant Maxentius. How many effects does this cross already cause? And to what a degree does politics seem here to have put this cross into play? But let us look at the manner in which it was found. Helena, who was visiting the Holy Land, finds three crosses in the bottom of a pit. Why are these those of Jesus and his two companions? The inscriptions are no longer on them, for if they were found, it would not have been difficult to discover the right one. I thus find myself led to believe that these three crosses could just as well belong to some other villains than to Jesus and his companions. It seems to me that the same precautions that were taken afterwards when it came to sorting out the correct one from the two others were not in force when it was taken as a given that what was not in doubt was that the three correct ones were these three here. These are therefore the ones that they chose. But they have no inscriptions. How to pick out the true cross? It is this test that is truly excellent and which increases one’s faith in the procedure. A sick person is summoned; the crosses are one after another pressed against this sick person, and it is decided that the one cross out of the three that cures the sick person will be the true one. At this point, we see man forcing God to do a miracle, and on the authority of this quite uncertain miracle, I must believe another one that is even more uncertain! But since it was man who was master of this miracle, why didn’t he choose it in such way that it could never be put in doubt? Why didn’t the miraculous cross undergo a

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metamorphosis before the eyes of three or four thousand spectators? Why choose a healing, which is the most suspect of all miracles because of the ease with which the supposedly sick person can be suborned and made to play the desired role? In a word, why pile miracle upon miracle, and always seek to force Nature to deny reason?52 But let us not tarry any longer over these platitudes, madam countess; they cast too much shame on humanity. Let us leave such wretchedness and such absurdities to the people for whom they are sustenance, and let us not even carry our commiseration so far as to pity them. For infants, rattles are required. The Benedictines of this house are extremely forthright, and I think even a little on the philosophical side. They laughed along with me about my astonishment when they assured me that it would require the permission of the abbot general of the Order to see their precious relics. They showed me their library, which was well-stocked and in which, independently of the very beautiful Carlo Maratta (the one that Monsieur Richard mentions), will be found three superb Rubens, about which he disdained to tell us. The one portraying the Crowning with Thorns appears infinitely superior to the two others, and especially to the one of the Descent from the Cross; concerning both, knowledgeable viewers have found a few incorrect aspects to the drawing and a certain stiffness in the poses. In front of the door to the library is a rather poor statue of Benedict XIV. The gardens belonging to this house contain several ancient monuments. Most noteworthy are the ruins of a Temple of Venus, quite nicely located in a garden belonging to the Benedictines. This building appears to have been round, and its shape is just about the only foundation upon which the belief that this is a temple could be based. As to which god it was dedicated to, the supposition that it was Venus is based on the statue of this divinity that was found therein. A column, to provide support for this, would have further clarified, above all, if it had been Corinthian, since as you know, madam countess, this was the type that was used in temples dedicated to goddesses, being the most delicate and pleasing. Those who refute the received opinion that this monument was a Temple of Venus, claim that these ruins were part of the Sessorian Palace and that the statue of Venus proves nothing insofar as it could have been in the emperor’s palace.53 Some vestiges of baths found close to this building and within the same garden seem to support the latter opinion. These vestiges were recently discovered while digging; in the most recent excavations, one can even make out a few paintings. In these baths were found lead pipes and a stone bathtub, which no longer permits us to doubt concerning the use of this site.54 Also to be seen in this garden are the remainders of an amphitheatre, but very dilapidated.

52 Note on a detached page inserted here: “Invention of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena, to be placed under the already written entry on Saint Helena.” 53 The Sessorium was an imperial complex that included a palace. Its construction began during the reign of Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) and was completed during that of Heliogabalus (r. 218–222). The palace eventually became the residence of Roman empress Helena (c. 248–c. 328), Constantine’s mother. At this time, part of it was converted into a chapel, which was eventually incorporated into the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. 54 Doubts remain about the precise identity of this structure. However, it was likely part of an imperial palace that belonged to the empress Helena. The notion that this was originally a Temple of Venus and Cupid dates to the sixteenth century. See Lynne C. Lancaster, Concrete Vaulted Constructions in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 178 and 200.

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Let us leave, madam countess, these monuments of impiety that the dedicated followers of the true religion have destroyed and continue every day to destroy, and return for a while to the latter’s temples.55 The day after my visit to the Benedictines, I climbed up the Esquiline Hill. On the way there, you pass by the very spot where the barbarous Tullia, returning from the Senate where she had decided to appear in order to encourage Lucius, her husband, to get rid of Tullius, her father, and to rule in his stead, forced the driver of her carriage to roll over the corpse of this unfortunate father, with whom the emissaries of Lucius had just caught up in his flight and had assassinated at the top of Cyprian Street. Henceforth, the name of the road changed, and it has been called ever since the Street of Infamy [Vicus Sceleratus].56 It is fortunate for humanity that Nature no longer produces such monsters. The Church of Saint Peter in Vincoli [San Pietro in Vincoli] is located on this hill, built upon the ruins of the baths of Titus and of Trajan. How many reflections present themselves at this point concerning the changeability of human affairs! Titus destroyed the temple of the Jews and built baths and an immense palace, and, in turn, these superb buildings were destroyed to make room for another temple belonging to the descendents of these same Jews. This short reflection gives you an idea of all the variations along the centuries. When you meditate upon history, you see the same events repeating themselves, the same crimes, the same virtues, the destruction of some, the rise of others. This monotony will be eternal, and with very little exception, men are and will be always what they have been. All the columns of this church are from the ruins of the baths. To the right, in the first chapel, is a handsome painting by Guercino [i.e., Giovanni Francesco Barbieri]. Next to this chapel is the mausoleum of Cardinal Margotti, decorated with superb marbles, among which two beautiful black columns, veined with splotches resembling gold, are above all, worthy of admiration. Nothing, in my opinion, is more stately and magnificent than this type of marble. To the side is a lovely painting by Domenichino [i.e., Domenico Zampieri] that portrays the angel waking Saint Peter in prison. On the same side is that famous monument that was to serve as the mausoleum of Julius II. In the centre is a statue of Moses, larger than life, carrying under his arm the books of the Law. He is captured at the moment when he has just received them on Sinai: “Cornes de bouc flamboyantes au front.” [“Goat horns flaming on his forehead.”]

Pucelle, chant III.57

55 That is, let us return to “the temples of the true religion,” and so an ironic locution. 56 An episode recounted at length in Livy, History of Rome, 1[bk.1:46–8]: 158–71, and with details of the name changes, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 2[bk.4:39]: 398–401. 57 Voltaire, La Pucelle d’Orléans, Poeme, Divisé en vingt-un chants (London, 1775), 57. Voltaire’s mockheroic poem, which the author began in 1730 and expanded over several subsequent decades, may appear an odd choice of sources for the legend of Moses’s horns, although the scabrous and anti-religious satire would doubtless have appealed to Sade, as it did to many others, becoming one of the most widely distributed clandestine works of eighteenth-century France and beyond. The poem was frequently cited as an inspiration in libertine fiction and many editions, including the one that I have cited above, featured licentious engravings as a visual complement to the bawdy depic-

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Nothing is more worthy of admiration than this beautiful statue that is incessantly copied and never approximated. All the movements of the joints, all the facial expressions are drawn with such force that the marble, just like Pygmalion’s, is ready to come alive. It is by Michelangelo. After the pope died, he abandoned the work, which was finished by infinitely less skilled hands. It will be seen close to the statues of the four Virtues that serve as emblems of this mausoleum. The architecture of this piece, entirely in the Doric order, is stately. Caryatids support the second tier, in the centre of which is a Virgin holding her son. The famous artist of whom I have just spoken designed the whole work, but he only finished the Moses. The heraldic devices and the effigy of Julius II, who, however, was never placed therein, crown this monument that, despite the different hands that worked on it, you cannot keep yourself from contemplating with interest. The paintings in the tribune of this church are frescoes by [Jacopo] Coppi, a Florentine painter, that portray some episodes from the life of Saint Peter. The altar in the centre has nothing remarkable about it. Cardinal Galli, who was a Roquentin, which is what the monks of this house are called, has his mausoleum across from the one that I have just mentioned to you was destined for Julius II.58 This monument is not without beauty, but this is effaced by the elegance and nobility of the one next to it, which belongs to Cardinal Vecchiarelli. On a superb drapery of black marble supported by two skeletons of yellow marble – of a frightening verity – is the medallion of the prelate. At the base of the drapery is an urn of black marble and gold. The architrave is supported by two pilasters of Sicilian breche marble, in front of which are two lovely columns of green marble. The entire ensemble is of Composite order, most beautifully executed and of the greatest magnificence. Next to it is another mausoleum, Cardinal Aldobrandini’s, treated in much the same spirit. Death, armed with his sickle, looks to be waiting for the moment of harvest, when he will enclose his victim in the urn that he holds, the entire work is made of marble and fashioned with equal parts genius and delicacy. In a side chapel is a painting that charms thanks to the gentleness of its composition; it portrays the death of Christ. Nothing could be more affecting than the expressions on the faces of the three crying women. This piece is by members of Carracci’s school, but it is worthy of their master. Close to the mausoleum started for Julius II is a Saint Margaret by Guercino that you cannot tire of admiring. You are assured that the chains used on the apostle Peter in his prison are to be seen in this church. But, persuaded as I am that he never set foot in Rome, I did not bother to submit myself to all those ceremonies, puerile as they are idiotic, that are required of those who a devout curiosity leads to admire these rattles of the infancy of Christianity. I have noted that this church was constructed upon the ruins of the Baths of Titus. Close to it, their vestiges will still be seen. In this location, now occupied by vast vegetable gardens, will be seen the scattered remains of these baths and the palaces of Titus and of tions of its heroine, Joan of Arc. For a modern edition, see La Pucelle d’Orléans, ed. Jeroom Vercruysse, in Les Œuvres complètes de Voltaire/The Complete Works of Voltaire, vol. 7 (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1970). 58 Antonio Andrea Galli (1697–1767) belonged to the Canons Regular of the Lateran, attached to the church in question. Why Sade refers to members of this order as “Roquentins” is unclear. It is likely a transcription error melding the words “régulier” and “Latran” (from the French “des chanoines réguliers du Latran”).

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Vespasian. On one side are vast subterranean chambers, very long and approximately eighteen to twenty feet wide; there are seven of these, attached to one another by transversally situated doors that allow you to see from the first one up to the last. These were reservoirs for the baths concerning which I have just spoken, also used for – or so it is claimed – furnishing water for the Colosseum when naumachiae were called for. On both sides of these walls will still be seen the tartar that the water formed when concentrated within. It is said that these subterranean chambers are double, and that the same number lies below these. What could the function of these be? On this point, it is hard to know. In the neighbourhood of these ruins and not far from them are the ruins of Vespasian’s palace. All that can be seen is a large chunk of semi-circular building, of which a part of the curvature of the vault will still be seen to be decorated with hexagons and triangles, most likely gilded and in the middle of which were roses, as you still see in the vaults of ancient monuments that have survived. Further on, the ruins of the Baths of Titus can be made out better. You see an infinite number of underground chambers, all joined to one another. These are, in part, filled with filth from the neighbouring vegetable gardens and, in part, covered over by earth, but there are some, however, that are well enough preserved to suggest their function. The largest of these vaults, the length of which is immense and the width of which is about twenty-five feet, is lit by windows fashioned in the thick part of the vault, about ten feet from ground level today. It appears to have been one of those exercise rooms for jousts, wrestling, and so forth that the Romans always placed close to their baths. For, as you know, madam countess, the day one went to the baths was a totally full one. Everything was to be found there, even libraries and courtesans, so that, from morning to evening, one was sure to find something to do. In another one of these chambers are still to be found the vestiges of the different specific spots where the baths themselves were taken. It will be seen that the openings of the chambers faced south, no doubt the same exposure of the gardens and walking paths that were adjoined to these buildings. Close by, but more on the slope of the Esquiline Hill that faces the Colosseum, will still be seen the remains of a building, better preserved, divided up into little suites of rooms; these doubtless were also part of the bath complex. You will see here what is left of a round building, only a semi-circle of which remains, similar to the first one that I was just discussing, in which are recesses in which can be seen holes that seem to have been made in order to attach marble covers. Others suggest that these holes are proof of the furore of the barbarians to destroy these buildings, similar enough to the furore of those today who, not satisfied with having taken from these superb buildings the remaining splendour that the former had been unable to remove, after having made use of their materials and having finished destroying everything, still leave covered with earth and debris the unfortunate ruins of the most dazzling magnificence. Do they think they can efface with their petty modern luxury that inimitable sumptuousness of the Ancients? They should not flatter themselves so. They will never attain it. Their mores, their knowledge, and their riches will only be to that of their predecessors what these present ruins are in comparison with their barely sumptuous palaces. At the base of the Esquiline Hill, in front of the superb ruins of Vespasian’s Colosseum is the arch that was erected in honour of Constantine by the Senate and people when he returned from the expedition against the tyrant Maxentius, whom he defeated close to the Pons Milvius, today the Ponte Molle. The base of the arch, made during Constantine’s period, an era when the arts had begun to flee Rome, already gives off a whiff of the Gothic.

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The top of it, which formerly belonged to Trajan’s arch and which was moved here, made in a more enlightened century, makes the difference even more palpable. This arch is supported by eight columns of yellow marble, four on each side, but one of them is missing, which was taken by Clement XII to be used for the organ of Saint John Lateran. Was it to a monument erected in honour of Constantine that a pope ought to have done such a wrong? To him who betrayed his conscience for the sake of politics and to whom the Christian error owes its current status! Close to this arch is the ruin of a fountain called Meta Sudans that so abundantly furnished both water to the people as well as noise, about which Seneca complains in his Letters, which proves that his house was not far from here.59 Not far from here used to be seen as well a tribunal, not a single vestige of which remains, that was called Petra Scelerata because from that spot a public crier would announce to the people the name and the crime of those who were to be delivered to the ferocious animals of the amphitheatre. Not having had enough time that morning to visit all of the curiosities of the Esquiline Hill, I climbed it once again the following day and saw the Church of Saint Martin [San Martino ai Monti], lovely structure with three aisles supported by columns taken from the baths of Trajan and Titus, of which I have spoken to you and in the area of which the church was built. Under these aisles, in the frames, close to the friezes, are several enjoyable landscape paintings by Poussin,60 and, to the left, close to the sacristy, is a rather lovely fresco portraying the council held in this church.61 Two further subterranean chambers will be seen here, of which the first, quite handsome, lies below the main altar; it is oval, of very attractive proportions and layout, and decorated with little stucco Doric columns. The ceiling of this subterranean chamber is likewise of sculpted stucco in the best taste. In the centre is the altar that is said to preserve the body of Saint Martin. Close to this altar will be seen an approximately round stone, made of black marble and of a considerable weight, which was suspended from the feet of martyrs and served to dislocate their nerves. The second group of underground chambers looked to me to be rather well-preserved vestiges of the baths of Titus and of Trajan, in which Pope Sylvester constructed the first Church of Saint Martin. There are still more subterranean chambers below these, where it is claimed that there are several tombs of martyrs, for in Rome heroes, marbles, and martyrs are trampled underfoot without distinction, and everything is jumbled. The architecture of Saint Praxedes [Santa Prassede all’Esquillino], an ancient church, is unpleasant, being supported alternately by pilasters and columns. The first thing that strikes one upon entering is a sort of sunken area, lately surrounded with marble and only about two feet deep. In the middle of this enclosure is a poor wooden statue, kneeling, squeezing 59 In fact, the Stoic philosopher does not complain about the fountain known as the Meta Sudans – literally “sweating turning pillar,” with meta being a post marking a turn on a racecourse – explaining that human voices are more apt to capture his attention than ambient noises: “Words seem to distract me more than noises; for words demand attention, but noises merely fill the ears and beat upon them. Among the sounds that din round me without distracting, I include carriages, a machinist in the same block, a saw-sharperner near by, a fellow who is demonstrating with little pipes and flutes at the Trickling Fountain [ad Metam Sudantem], shouting rather than singing.” Seneca the Younger, Epistles, trans. Richard M. Gummere (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917), 1:374–5 (letter 56). 60 The frescoes are by Gaspar Dughet Poussin (1615–1675), the brother of Nicolas Poussin’s wife, whom the famous painter adopted as his son. 61 The preparations for the First Council of Nicaea took place here in 324.

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between her fingers a sponge full of blood. I was assured that this was the effigy of the saint who, it is said, thus collected every day the blood of martyrs and hid in this very same pit all the bodies of those she could get. Pious old women, who always surround this statue, animated by just as pure a zeal, unceasingly adore the sublimity of these beautiful actions. To the left of the door and not far from this holy representation, under a little monument supported by four columns, will be seen facing forward, the marble where the saint would lay down to rest out of penitence. Above this is her portrait, in the same position that she would usually recline. Close to this is a modern chapel where a rather lovely altar painting will be seen. Beside this is the Chapel of Saint Charles Borromeo, in which there are three paintings with colours more vivid than exact, concerning certain moments in the life of the saint. Preserved in this chapel are his chair and his table, two bits of shoddy antiques from a furniture warehouse that would look better in a fire than here. In a chapel to the left, belonging to the Roman Olgiati family, is a beautiful altar painting portraying the Nazarean, tired from the weight of his cross and succumbing under the burden. This painting is most powerful and beautifully exact. It is attributed to [Federico] Zuccari. The two upper frames in the same chapel, executed by Cavaliere d’Arpino, are considered masterpieces. In this same place are three handsome mausoleums of black marble and gold. But the most sublime object in this church will be seen in the sacristy, under a curtain of green taffeta that is raised only for the curious. This is a Flagellation by Giulio Romano; the correctness of the drawing and the beauty of expression are above anything that one could say. The choir of this church is lavish and pleasingly decorated. The platform of the main altar is supported by four beautiful marble pilasters, before which are four superb columns of porphyry, all of the Composite order. In the corners of the choir will be seen six columns of a taste as rare as it is unique and do not fit into any known architectural category. They are of white marble, fluted, and surrounded by leaves that, joining one another at the top, form a sort of cabbage upon which the square cornice sits. These are the only ones of the sort that will be seen in Rome, and it is difficult to assign a name to them. At the back of the tribune is a painting of the saint, as ever occupied with the gathering of the blood of martyrs. Finally, in a little chapel as dingy as the miraculous relic preserved therein is a piece of marble, two feet, two inches high, common enough, that I believe to be some debris unearthed in the vicinity and that you are nonetheless assured is the column where Jesus was bound during his flagellation. As a consequence of this holy tradition, this block is preserved encased in glass. It can only be seen through a grate, and you are taken for impious if you do not genuflect and pronounce a few “Our Fathers” before this superstitious monument. You are assured that the ring where the hands of this opportunist were justly enough tied can still be seen. My eyes could not make this out, and my faith was not strong enough to trick my senses. The ceilings of this chapel are done in a rather lovely mosaic. There are some granite columns and above the door a very handsome antique urn in the Etruscan style. It is said that this church is built over the Baths of Innoratus. Saint Mary Major [Santa Maria Maggiore]. Fourth-century church, but restored, enlarged several times since and brought to a degree of magnificence that is hard to bring home to the imagination. There are several singular anecdotes about this church. First of all, there is the miracle that took place at its foundation, a sort of fantasy well suited to this ignorant time, when falsehood, in order to propagate itself, had such need to prop itself up on the marvellous. You will grant that I not bore you with such matters. Another one, more

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interesting and that I will report with more satisfaction because it is grounded in history and comes closer to truth, concerns the siege that it withstood. Here is the story: Upon the death of Pope Liberius, the founder of this church, there was a sort of schism in Rome. Two deacons were elected at the same time: Damasus, a Spaniard, and Ursicinus. Christians were already too powerful for such an event not have caused a stir. Juventius, prefect of the city, decided to settle the issue on his own. Ursicinus was arrested on his orders and was to be put in prison along with his confederates, of which the main ones were Amantius and Lupus, when the people in a furore snatched them from the officers who were accompanying them and brought them to the small basilica of Liberius located on the top of the Esquiline Hill, today Santa Maria Maggiore. Damasus and his faction took up arms. They laid siege to the Ursicinians in their little fortress and, on the 25th of October 366, the church was reduced to ash and Damasus, victorious, took possession of the mitre upon the corpse-strewn ruins.62

This church is one of the nine basilicas of Rome which remain open all day long during the Holy Year [or Jubilee]. Monsieur Richard is wrong to compare it to a pretty assembly hall. It is a building that is quite stately and majestic, divided by two aisles supported by superb columns of antique Greek marble. The main altar is the culmination of majesty and magnificence. Nothing more elegant or richer could be built. The four columns that support the platform are of porphyry, enlaced with a palm garland of gilded bronze, an excess of magnificence that has been generally condemned, columns of such beauty having no need of further ornamentation. But we know Fuga’s taste for ruining columns, and those that he buried forever in the [Basilica of the] Holy Cross of Jerusalem will cause connoisseurs to shudder for a long time to come.63 The platform that these columns support is of a lavishness and magnificence to which nothing else compares. All you see thereupon is gold and marble wrought with 62 The original source for this account is the Res Gestae of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330–c. 395). Here, as introduced and cited by Edward Gibbon in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1781): “But the splendid vices of the church of Rome have been curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his impartial sense in these expressive words: ‘The præfecture of Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty: but the tranquility of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition of the distracted people. The ardour of Damasus and Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary meaure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers; and the præfect, unable to resist or appease the tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies were found in the Basilica of Sicininus [subsequently of Liberius], where the Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquility” (2:513). Who Sicininus, whose name was originally given to the basilica, was – or whether the name is even correct – is uncertain. Further, what Ammianus understood by the term basilica, which appears only once in his writings, is open to interpretation. He probably did not mean “a Christian basilican church,” but rather, citing J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst, and H.C. Teitler, Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXVII (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), employed the word “in its classical sense of a public building which served as a business hall and the like,” here used by Christians (71). 63 Sade’s reference is clearly to Rome’s Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, but the architect Ferdinando Fuga (1699–1782) had nothing to do with the mid-eighteenth-century restoration that partially covered the original columns; this restoration was the work of Domenico Gregorini (1700–1777) and Pietro Passalacqua (1690–1748).

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the highest degree of delicacy. The altar is made up of a superb urn of porphyry that appears to have served as a bathtub for some sensual Roman. Destined today for a more lasting purification, it is for everyone’s sins that the Son of God offers himself there in sacrifice for the entire universe. Monsieur Richard is wrong to perpetuate the popular imposture that says that this urn holds the ashes of the Roman patrician John and of his wife. Even the most credulous Romans today reject this lie, but citing it makes for four lines and that is a lot for someone who, like Monsieur Richard, sought only to make a book.64 What you admire most of all in this church are the two chapels of Sixtus Quintus and of Paul V, which are across from one another. In the first are two mausoleums, one of the founder and the other of Pius V, which Sixtus Quintus placed here because he had made him cardinal. His body is preserved in a lovely urn of verd antique. These two monuments are decorated with beautiful columns and bas-reliefs relating to various events in the life of these two pontiffs. In both cases, the first tier is of the Composite order and caryatids support the second tier. The entirety of this beautiful chapel is inlaid with marble. The bare wall itself is nowhere to be seen, and lovely frescoes decorate the top part of the cornice. Yet, creating a contrast that does not leave your mind without cause for reflection, in the midst of this imposing splendour of the Vicar of Christ, the speaking proof of the humility of the Saviour will be seen in this same chapel. At the back of a little underground room that is adjoined is preserved the cradle, still lined with hay, from the manger in which he was born. The Chapel of Paul V, located, as I have just mentioned, across from the other, is even more magnificent. Clement VIII was placed herein by Paul V for the same reason that Sixtus V placed Pius V in his.65 Nothing in the world is more magnificent or more sumptuous. The altar in this chapel, the pilasters, and the columns are of oriental jasper and fluted with gilded bronze; the friezes on the bottom portion are of agate. The urn that makes up the altar is of marble inlaid with lapis lazuli; the two doors that close over the portrait of the Virgin painted by Saint Luke that is preserved therein are made of bloodstone and the chambranle of amethyst. Furthermore, all the walls of this chapel are like those of the other, inlaid with marble, and the two mausoleums that decorate it are no less magnificent. On the front part of the altar is a little painting of rather middling quality that portrays the story of the supposed miracle that led to the foundation of this church. The architecture of the exterior, on the side of the main façade, is as stately as it is pleasing. On the square, one of the columns from the Temple of Peace that Paul V had placed here will be seen. From its height and circumference you can gauge what this superb building, of which only three vaults and some descriptions remain, must have been. Under the main portico is a fairly decent statue of Philip III [viz., IV], King of Spain. Behind the smaller façade of this same church is a little obelisk, one of the two that decorated the tomb of Augustus and which was carved expressly for this end in the quarries of Egypt. 64 Between the lines: “Mr Richard is happy to state that it is of marble; we can counter that here’s a man who has looked with care!” 65 Pius V, born Antonio Ghislieri, was pope from 1566 until his death in 1572. Sixtus V, pope from 1585 until 1590, was favoured by the former, and Sade was not alone in suggesting that the tomb was built in gratitude. For comparison, see Keyssler, Travels, 220. Clement VIII, born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was pope from 1592 to 1605 and directly preceded Pope Paul V, born Camillo Borghese.

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The Church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte. The cupola and the tribune are painted by [Pasquale] Marini, but the three paintings of the lower part of the cornice are by Lazzaro Baldi. The different stages of the martyrdom of Saint Andrew make up the subject matter, from the moment he was attached to the cross up until his burial. The composition is forceful but measured, and all the proportions are lovely. In the Chapel of Saint Francis of Paola are two larger-than-life angels that Bernini, who made them, had planned for Ponte Sant’Angelo, but finding them too small for this purpose, donated to this church, where their more appropriate size makes the pleasure they give more sure. This entire chapel is decorated with as much magnificence as nobility. The columns that support the architrave are of fluted jasper and are inlaid with bronze. The Twelve Apostles [Santi Dodici Apostoli] Church of a quite stately and pleasing shape. The interior architecture of the principal entry looks more like a triumphal arch than the door of a church. On the ceiling panels are portrayed: on the one, the Triumph of the Franciscans by Baciccia [i.e. Giovanni Battista Gaulli]; on the other, the ceiling in the tribunal, a representation of the Martyrdom of the apostles Philip and James by [Domenico] Muratori, a very complex painting, but large and graceful  – nothing false, which is extremely rare in pieces like this that are so full [i.e., of subjects]. The entire church is of stucco and was recently restored by those of the brothers of the house known as “princes of the blood” during the pontificate of Ganganelli [i.e., Pope Clement XIV], because he was a member of their community. The first chapel, to the right, belonging to the Mandosi family, is the height of magnificence. Everywhere that you look there are simply the most beautiful marbles. The walls and the paving are completely inlaid with them. The architrave of the altar is supported by four lovely columns of Sicilian marble, and at the altar will be seen a painting of Saint Bonaventure, a modern work by an Englishman named Stern, of great vigour and attractive regularity.67 Beside this are two statues, but they are so egregiously deformed that it is impossible to look at them and it is impossible to conceive why they are left here. In the next chapel, called the Chapel of Saint Anthony, one sees in the nook formed by four lovely fluted columns that are gilded in the fluted areas, as well as the pedestals and the capitals, the saint at prayer. Handsome piece by Benedetto Luti. In the little courtyard of this house will be seen one of the largest ancient vases that there is in Rome; it is made of marble, but the handles are quite damaged, one of them, in fact, totally broken. In the little Church of Saint Romuald [San Romualdo], which is hardly larger than one of the chapels in the church that I have just described, is the masterpiece of Andrea Sacchi. The subject portrayed is the saint speaking to his monks in the desert. Nothing can express that vigour and the solitude of the profound retreat into which they are entering. What repose! Such attention on the faces of the solitary listeners, and what fire, what fervour expressed by the orator! I make bold to assert truthfully and without fear of refutation that as long as this charming painting lasts, it will remain without argument one of those that will give the greatest pleasure to art lovers. 66

66 Start of the second notebook dedicated to Rome, entirely in Sade’s hand; 70 pages long. 67 Presumably, Sade intends the Austrian painter Ignazio Stern (1679–1748), who worked in Rome, or his son Ludovico Stern (1709–1777), who was born and worked in the city. However, the painting of Our Lady, Saint Bonaventure, and the Blessed Andrew Conti is by Niccolà Lapiccola (1730–1790).

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The Church of Saint Louis of the French Nation [San Luigi dei Francesi], which is served by priests from that nation, is quite elegantly constructed if a little too vast. Thoroughly magnificent and gilded throughout. Monsieur Richard amply describes all the paintings in this church, and I thus excuse myself from speaking of them. However, one which he does not mention at all and which deserves an entry is a little painting by [Antonio da] Correggio. This is carefully preserved under glass and portrays a Virgin holding a child in her arms, a work of the utmost beauty and elegance, and all the more precious insofar as it is the only one in Rome by this celebrated artist. I also find far too slight the praise that he gives to a lovely painting on the sacristy altar painted by [Jan] Miel, a Flemish artist, that portrays Saint Denis (and not just some such bishop, as he labels him) giving sight to a blind man. This composition is full of power, naturalness, and, truthfully, it seems to me, ought to attract a bit more of his applause. If he thinks it more prudent to reserve his praise for artists whose reputations are already founded, let’s hope that this example of wisdom, if it takes hold, does not come to harm his reputation! This composition by Sire Miel gave me the greatest pleasure. I discovered therein the most lively use of colours, the most correct drawing, and the most beautiful naturalness in all the expressions. Something of Guercino’s style will be discovered in this painting, and this contributes not a little to the liveliness of the pleasure that it gives. Let no one think, however, that I mean thereby to lessen my praise and to suggest that only as an indirect consequence is this pleasure felt. The worth and the sensation produced belong entirely to the artist, and I know not – in order to convince you of my claim – which of the two reminds one more readily of the other when you see one of their works. Monsieur Natoire, director of the French Academy in Rome, decided to sacrifice himself for the fatherland when he placed on the ceiling a work by his hand that portrays France imploring on his knees Saint Louis in glory, while the latter offers Jesus Christ, who appears in the heavens, a chalice (no doubt that of our suffering).68 Independently of the poor choice of subject, so apt to produce sarcastic comments by the Italians, the composition is not made to be placed so close to the masterpieces with which Rome teems. The draperies are stiff, the drawing incorrect, and the nation could have desired that this worthy mortal, whose social virtues are infinitely superior to his qualities as a painter, might not have so bluntly exposed its honour. The Villa Medici, which belongs to the grand duke of Tuscany, sits on the Pincian Hill, formerly the Collis Ortulorum [viz., Collis Hortorum], which borders the Campus Martius in this area. It is located in the spot with the best air in Rome. The garden borders the walls of the city, still situated within the Aurelian enclosure.69 It is open to the public, and because quite secluded, frequently serves as a trysting spot for nascent love affairs. Arrangements are made. They are knotted and untied. Although I’m not sure, they sometimes might even be consummated there. What is certain is that one could, I think, safely do so. This garden is pleasantly laid out, but there is nonetheless nothing remarkable about it and it is of middling size. On a little elevated area, there is another one that is usually 68 Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700–1777) was awarded the Prix de Rome as a young artist in 1721 and spent several years at the Académie de France à Rome, later becoming its long-standing director (from 1751 to 1775); see the introduction to this volume. 69 Sade’s syntax is confusing here, and his apparent intent is lost in compression. The Pincian Hill or Mons Pincius was not originally included within the boundaries of ancient Rome, but fell within the Aurelian Walls, built 271–275 CE. It was known as the Collis Hortorum or Hortulorum, meaning “Hill of Gardens.”

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closed; its narrow paths, covered and always green thanks to the type of trees, make for a solitary and quite enjoyable promenade. At the highest point, a little winding route has been made that leads to the summit. Here there is a little pavilion, open on all sides, from which you have the most enjoyable and expansive view of Rome. The name Parnassus has been given to this spot, and, truly, you do not stand there without feeling some of those emotions that once stirred in the Muses’s abode. But desiring them and not finding them there, you go back down complaining that you have been tricked. In the middle of the terrace of the public garden, in front of the building, is an obelisk that was found in the foundations of Santa Maria Maggiore and that the Medici cardinal bought and placed here where it is seen today, next to two large granite urns brought from the Baths of Titus. Several statues, ancient but mediocre and heavily restored, have been placed in this garden. There are also some bas-reliefs, which are more esteemed. In one of the little pavilions in this garden: a lovely porphyry urn, a Mars in bronze, a Silenus and Bacchus by Giambologna, two twisted Gothic columns, and a rather mediocre modern triton. In another little pavilion: a larger-than-life Cleopatra; she is expiring, the serpent is coiled about her arm and seems, despite all the prattle of Monsieur Richard on this topic, to leave no doubt as to the nature of her death.70 Beside this are two Muses, much less perfectly fashioned. On the side walls, two handsome bas-reliefs. Above and below these pieces, four lovely arabesques. At the end of a path: a heavily restored Pallas [Athena], two modern and mediocre Venuses used as decoration for two fountains, a large statue of Rome Triumphant, rather than those of Niobe that Monsieur Richard would have there and which are in Florence in the lower suites of the Pitti Palace. On the walls to the left and right, two masks by Michelangelo, larger than life and beautifully designed. A Marius that serves as perspective point for a path. On the balustrade of the pavilion, two lovely lions, one ancient and one modern, the first by Flaminio Vacca, more esteemed than the other. In the vestibule, at the foot of the steps, an Egyptian idol of red granite and an ancient tomb decorated with lovely bas-reliefs. The façade of this house, on the side of the gardens, presents the most attractive aspect. The arch of the vestibule is, it is said, a masterpiece. Everything is decorated with basreliefs and with statues that contribute quite a bit to the grace and to the magnificence of this façade. Above all, noteworthy are four barbarian kings  – and not two as Monsieur Richard says – whose workmanship is delicate. Three are of marble draped with porphyry and the fourth is entirely of marble. Ascending to the apartments by the staircase of the façade on the side opposite that of the gardens, you come across on the landing a lovely ancient Apollo, and above the main door to these apartments, a superb bust of the Capitoline Jupiter. In the loggia overlooking the garden, on the balustrade where the two lions of which I spoke are, six lovely Sabine women will be seen. In the first rooms, a bust of Cardinal de’ Medici and one of Leo XI, who only reigned for twenty-six days, five modern bronzes, a rather attractive hollow alabaster vase. The gallery, large and expansive, is fairly handsomely constructed. Therein will be seen two lovely alabaster vases, larger than the one that I just mentioned, a faun with Apollo, twenty antique columns, upon some of which are

70 Richard discusses at length the manner of Cleopatra’s death and the uncertainty of the ancient sources over whether an asp or poison was its cause (see Description, 6:145–51).

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little mediocre statues. A Lucius Verus, a Venus, copies in stucco of the Apollo and the beautiful Venus in Florence, an empress, a Hercules clothed with the lion’s skin, a Ganymede whom the eagle is carrying off to the heavens, executed with more pretension than naturalness, a little bust of a warrior, a large Apollo, a little Hercules in the taste of that of the Farnese, a bust of a consul, a poorly restored statue of a gladiator, another of Bacchus, a Thetis on a marine horse, a statue of a warrior believed to be Coriolanus, an Apollo, a statue of an emperor, a faun, another statue of an emperor, in military attire, a Macrinus, an empress whose coiffure, quite elevated, would be somewhat in the style of the end of Louis XV’s reign if it were less curled,71 a statue of Bacchus wreathed with vine branches and holding bunches of grapes in his hand, a bust of Lucius Verus, a copied statue of one of the sons of Niobe, an unknown statue in a niche, a trophy, a bust of an emperor crowned with laurel, a mediocre Venus, another copy of Niobe’s children, an Apollo playing the flute, a mutilated torso that must have been that of a faun, another torso of basalt too damaged to discern what it could have been, a statue of an unknown emperor, a third copy of a daughter of Niobe, a statue of Meleager, a bust of a consul, an Eros in an awkward position, but nicely captured and enjoyably rendered (he laughs in the most graceful manner imaginable), a lovely but poorly restored Greek vase, the bas-reliefs of which portray the sacrifice of Iphigenia, a beautiful table of hard Florentine stone, which is inferior however to the works made today, a bust believed to be Sulla, of which the […]72 alone have been entirely restored, nicely sculpted, a fourth copy of the daughters of Niobe, two of Marcus Aurelius, a mediocre Apollo, a singularly coiffed empress, a statue of a faun, a table of hard stone inlaid in the Florentine manner, a rather mediocre copy of the Farnese Hercules, confirming the truth that it is folly to try to recreate these distinguished works, especially with the originals so close by. A statue of Mercury with his attributes, a Marsyas tied to the tree where Apollo is flaying him alive, out of spite for having been challenged by him on the score of music. You know, madam countess, that this lovely satyr, whom Cybele had loved and chose to accompany her on her travels, was so wept over by nymphs that a Phrygian river grew from their tears and took from thence his name. A mediocre statue of a faun, another of a wrestler, a Sextus Pompeius, a small, heavily restored Apollo, another larger one, quite of a repeated subject in this gallery. An Antoninus Pius, a faun showing Apollo how to play the flute, like the one at the Villa Albani of which I spoke, but less attractive. This statue is so ungainly that one can only excuse the passion with which the faun is filled except as caused by the god’s beauty. An almost squatting Venus, twisting the locks of her hair which seem long and bushy enough to cover her entirely if spread out, but there is neither naturalness nor verisimilitude in this piece as a whole. Yet another Apollo, an Agrippina copied from an ancient model, a Venus with Eros, an Antoninus Pius, a Bacchus with a faun, and at the centre of the gallery, a lovely piece by Giambologna in bronze: this is a head on a pedestal, portraying Aeolus launching Mercury. The little tip of the foot of the god is still imperceptibly pressed on the mouth of the god; he 71 Sade refers to the “end of the century of Louis XV.” Louis XV was born in 1710 and reigned from 1715 – with the regency of Philippe d’Orléans from 1715 to 1723 – until his death in 1774. Perhaps Sade has in mind the hairstyle made famous by Louis XV’s official chief mistress the Marquise de Pompadour, although she took on this role in 1745 and died in 1765. What Sade describes actually appears closer to the elevated pouf debuted by Marie-Antoinette in 1774 at the coronation of her husband, Louis XVI. 72 Word missing.

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is taking off. This statue, bold and executed with all the lightness and delicateness possible, gives the greatest pleasure. It is made of bronze, cast by Giambologna. In a large room after this gallery is a lovely ceiling by Guercino portraying Hero and Leander. In this palace I saw a fresco that had no other subject than garlands of interwoven flowers, infinitely more pleasing than our wallpaper. This taste ought to replace that for cloth, which the humidity so quickly ruins. The designs are about the same and one could, as on wallpaper, endue these designs with as much gracefulness as you like. Montecitorio or the Palace of Justice, built on a spot that formerly served these same ends, architecturally stately and attractive.73 Ascending a very gentle staircase, you arrive in a very large room that is attached to the balcony that is known as the public gallery, because it is from here that the people are informed of various sorts of public information that concern them. In this room is a statue of Innocent XII, founder of this house, and above the door that leads to the balcony that I just mentioned, a lovely painting by the school of Carracci, which portrays the Descent from the Cross. In a little courtyard, behind this palace, will be seen the column that the Senate and people dedicated to Antoninus after his death, and which was placed on the pedestal that will be seen on the Piazza di Monte Citorio. It is completely broken and, according to my sources, in no condition to ever be capable of restoration; it is kept in a sort of iron cage that doubtless was constructed when they still intended to reconstruct it and place it back on its base. Both parts were found quite deep in the ground when the foundations of the neighbouring house, belonging to the fathers of the Mission [a.k.a., the Vincentians], were being laid. The pedestal, which is located where I just mentioned, on the square of this Palace of Justice, and seems to be awaiting something – so long as they refuse to even return its column to it – portrays in its bas-reliefs the Apotheosis of Antoninus on the portion facing the palace; on the bas-relief to the right is the statue of Rome; above, a winged genius supporting the busts of Antoninus and his wife, between two eagles; in the two faces to the right and left are the funeral games that were ordinarily celebrated around pyres; and on the face opposite the palace is the dedicatory inscription, engraved in modern letters but placed over the traces of the ancient ones. Close by will be seen, in the Customs Palace, the remains of the beautiful façade of the Palace of Justice of this emperor. There are still eleven fluted Corinthian columns. Within the courtyard one sees the vestiges of the vault, friezes, and part of the cornice, fashioned in such a manner as to give the profoundest idea of the solidity and nobility of this building. Saint Ignatius [Sant’Ignazio di Loyola], beautiful three-aisled church constructed along the most pleasing lines imaginable. You recognize here Jesuitical luxury. Father [Orazio] Grassi directed the architecture, it is said, and Father [Andrea] Pozzi, another Jesuit, made 73 Between the lines: “Don’t forget the witticism about the pedestal without a statue of Justice.” Excavated in 1701, this rectangular base, which originally supported a column dedicated to Antoninus Pius, had been set up in the Piazzi di Monte Citorio under the direction of the architect Ferdinando Fuga in 1741. Richard suggests that it could serve as a base for a statue of Justice, which would appropriately grace this otherwise denuded square (see Description, 6:270). In a Sadeian vein, Richard here complains that “little is done in this century for the embellishment of Rome” (6:280). Whether these comments constitute what Sade calls a “witticism” is not clear, although it is easy enough to imagine an apt jest in this context. Richard’s suggestion, moreover, stems from an apparent plan in the eighteenth century to use the column as a support for a statue of Justice or to split it into two and use the parts as supports for statues of Justice and Peace at the Piazza di Monte Citorio (as reported in a letter by Francesco Palazzi in 1741). See Lise Vogel, The Column of Antoninus Pius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 100. The base was never put to such use, however, and in 1787 it was moved to the Vatican Museums.

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the paintings of the vault, in the tribune, and the perspectival painting in the cupola that is seen therein and that really does create an illusion. As for these paintings, they have the flaw of being too raw; a certain roughness reigns in all these compositions that diminishes your pleasure not a little. At the altar of the crossing, to the right, dedicated to San Luigi Gonzaga, a large bas-relief in the guise of an altar painting portrays the saint, an excellent piece by Legros [Pierre Le Gros the Younger], a French sculptor. Across from this chapel is likewise, on the altar that faces out, a bas-relief of the Annunciation by Filippo della Valle, but this is not of such a make to compare with the other. At the end of the nave, to the right, is a superb mausoleum for Gregory XV designed by Legros, of the utmost stateliness and magnificence. Under a dais, the drapery of which is supported by two Famæ, is the statue of the pope in white marble. At his feet is the urn of verd antique where the inscription is engraved and on which are the two statues of Abundance and Religion. Lower, and on the forward portion of the monument, is the medallion of Cardinal Ludovisi, the nephew of this pontiff and the only piece (whatever Monsieur Richard may claim) that is really made by the very hand of Legros. Two winged genii partially open the curtain that appears to hide him; one of the two puts out the torch of life. All this second portion is placed on an urn of red marble, where with the greatest modesty his name alone is written. Above the whole is the coat of arms of the house, supported by two little genii. On the base that supports the statue of the pope the following inscription will be read, which I thought I ought to transcribe on account of its singularity: ALTER IGNATIUM ARIS ALTER ARA IGNATIO.74

The Capuchins [Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini], a simple church, like all those of this order. In the first chapel to the right a sublime piece by Guido will be seen. The subject is the archangel Michael’s combat with the devil. The criticism that Monsieur Richard aims at this painting seems to me totally lacking in verisimilitude. The painter, he says, has invested too much in the beauty of the angel and he has neglected to render his physiognomy, which he has feared to make thereby unattractive, with those strained expressions that would be appropriate to the situation.75 Although it is as beautiful as it could possibly be, I found in this handsome face all the force and vigour necessary to the subject. In the movement of this lovely young man everything is dynamic: his muscles are swollen, his nerves stretched. And yet he is beautiful. Without a doubt, that he is. Pain alone can alter 74 As a medal with a similar but less compressed inscription, stamped on the occasion of Gregory XV’s canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, patron of the Jesuits, and referring simultaneously to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi’s construction of the Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, clarifies: “Alter Aras Ignatio, Alter Ignatium Aris admovit,” i.e., “The one placed Ignatius on the altars, the other built altars to Ignatius.” See Anon., The History of the Works of the Learned, or, An Impartial Account of Books Lately Printed in All Parts of Europe, etc. (London, 1701), 3:273. Gregory XV had canonized Ignatius, the patron of the Jesuits. On Sade’s relation to Jesuit art and his reaction to this inscription in particular, see Frédéric Conrod, Loyola’s Greater Narrative: The Architecture of the Spiritual Exercises in Golden Age and Enlightenment Literature (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 213. 75 Richard writes that “it seems that Guido feared altering the features of [Saint Michael’s] beauty, in bestowing upon him that look of force and indignation that he ought to have had at the moment of representation” (Description, 5: 452). Sade’s rejection of Richard’s criticism is part of a broader discussion in aesthetic theory about how the representation of pain might impact judgments of beauty.

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one’s looks; all the other passions animate a lovely face, but they do not disfigure it. On the other hand, the figure of the devil is excessively ugly. The artist, you are assured, revenged himself on Cardinal Pamphili, who had spoken ill of him, when composing the looks of his Lucifer out of those with which Nature had blessed this cardinal. I was told this anecdote in Rome, as was Monsieur Richard, and in spite of the little inclination that I have to follow in his footsteps – not to mention the bitter repentance that I feel every day for using his work to guide me in the quest to uncover the beauties of Rome – I have not been able to stop myself, just like him, from transcribing it. In another chapel in this same church, you will see a lovely piece by Pietro da Cortona which portrays Saint Paul close to Damascus, with Ananias restoring his sight with his touch. I found this work superb, utterly powerful. The use of colours is as varied as it is pleasant, and in the work as a whole there reigns a regularity of drawing and a distribution of colours that flatters the eye of the connoisseur and of the simplest amateur alike. A German monk of this house has created therein a funeral monument worthy of an English brain. In six or seven little rooms in a row and next to one another, he has made niches, arches, ceiling ornaments based on regular and pleasant patterns, lamps, crosses, etc., all fashioned from bones and skulls. In each niche or under each arcade is a well-preserved skeleton placed in various attitudes, some reclined, some preaching, others praying. All these skeletons are dressed in the Capuchin garb; some of them have beards. I have never seen anything so striking. To make it even more so, I think that it would be better not to view this monument in the daylight. It should only be glimpsed by the light of the funeral lamps that are placed therein. But the constant need of air in this vault means that all the windows have to be kept open, such that the full daylight flooding in diminishes much of its horror. In each of these little rooms are arranged, like plots in a garden, the various sepulchres of these good monks, for whom the sight of death which surrounds them has not kept them from being as ribald as they are in the rest of Europe. In Rome a few tales are told about them that prove that the present pleasures of life make them forget the striking image of the impending destruction that awaits them. Sant’Isidoro, Church of the Franciscans. Three handsome pieces by Carlo Maratta in the first chapel to the right. One is of the Flight into Egypt; another the Marriage of Our Lady, and the third, the Death of Saint Joseph. As to the first, it is hard to know why the artist portrayed Mary’s gait as so weak and Joseph’s as so strong; he seems to drag his spouse along and to do her violence in making her follow him. It is likely that the young missus was only following the greybeard with regret and that she was longing for the real father of the baby doll she was carrying.76 At least, everything in her physiognomy and gait suggests as much. What’s more, there would be nothing in this but what is quite natural, and it would be yet another word of praise due to the artist to say that he had been able to place himself so well in the position of his subjects. I found a bit too much youth in the face of Mary. She is a child of fifteen or sixteen, and we know that she was older when she received the holy vision. The trick that she played was not a child’s one. What’s more, this is a flaw shared 76 The terms that Sade uses here are donzelle for Mary, barbon for Joseph, and poupon for Jesus, which I have translated as “young missus,” “greybeard,” and “baby doll,” respectively. Donzelle usually carries connotations of loose morals and can also indicate pretentiousness. Barbon, denoting the presence of a beard, can connote an aged beau. Poupon is a term for baby or of a doll of the same. This short passage provides a compact example of Sade’s use of language to debunk sacred history and rob it of its aura; his tactic is typical of philosophical critique, especially of the more radical, clandestinely published variety.

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by almost all painters in Italy, thanks to the mania they all have for making heads of the Virgin of the greatest beauty, doubtless more out of wish to excite the zeal of her devotees than out of wish to present the truth, for we know that she was quite brown and of rather coarse physiognomy. The chapel opposite likewise contains three pieces by the same artist, namely, a Flagellation, a superb Christ, and a Jesus carrying the Cross. These three paintings are in a row, like the ones just mentioned. In another chapel of this church, belonging to the Sylva family, there is yet another very handsome altar painting, this time of the Conception, by the same master. In this little chapel will be seen two family mausoleums, the work, it is said, of Bernini’s son.77 They did not please me in a manner befitting their reputation. At the main altar of the church is a beautiful painting by Andrea Sacchi that portrays Saint Isidore praying before Our Lady. The Villa Negroni, which was for sale when I saw it, has little of beauty to offer. Next to the Charterhouse, it is, like the latter, built upon the site of the Baths of Diocletian. This house, decorated by Sixtus V, seemed to me to be quite dilapidated at the time. Buying it, you would acquire a sort of complete little domain. There is a little bit of everything, along with whatever would be required to make more. Several little buildings, scattered here and there in the gardens, some suited for pleasure alone, others for utility. Beneath the vestibule of one of these some lovely frescoes by [Taddeo or Federico] Zuccari will be seen on the ceiling, but lack of care and humidity have ruined them. Under the vestibule of another, which seems the most pleasant, are two ancient statues that are believed to be of Marius and Sulla, both seated and holding in their hands a scroll or book from the period, during which, as you know, madam countess, it was not the practice to bind volumes as we do today. On their right fingers will be seen the ring of the Roman knights.78 Also noteworthy is a cushion on their chair that must have been made of ivory, shaped completely in the taste of ours today, which proves that luxury had already made inroads. Under this same portico are some other statues and bas-reliefs, rather poorly restored and in quality quite a bit inferior to these two lovely pieces, which I only saw standing under a vestibule with the greatest astonishment. The main fountain in the garden is a very lovely piece, but who would know judging from the awful state it is in? Nicely fashioned modern statues decorate it right around, but not a single one of these is whole. The principal one of these and the one from which the various jets of water squirt is a handsome marble triton by Bernini. Some other ancient statues will be seen in these gardens that have not been any better conserved, and close to the fence which abuts the large square of the Carthusians and of the Public Granaries, the centre of the Diocletian Baths, are two lovely tombs decorated with superb bas-reliefs that today are used as pots for orange trees. The Romans have too many beautiful things, and they know neither how to preserve them nor how to grasp their value. On a road that the people out of ignorance call the Road of Ruined Columns [le colonnacce in Italian] will be seen the ruins of a Temple of Pallas. The two columns that remain 77 The celebrated Baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini was responsible for the design of the Capella da Sylva; however, some work in the chapel was apparently undertaken by his considerably less famous son, the sculptor Paolo Valentino Bernini (1648–1728). 78 The equites, or members of the aristocratic equestrian or knightly order in ancient Rome, who ranked below patricians, wore the anulus aureus or golden ring on the left hand.

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and that gave the road its name appear to be buried for at least two-thirds of their height; they are Corinthian. One can still make out some of the objects of veneration of this deity on the bas-reliefs of the frieze, and the entire statue, which will be seen above the architrave, confirms by its attributes that this monument can be none other than that of the goddess of Wisdom. Today, it is the warehouse for some porters. Trinity on the Hills [Trinità dei Monti], a church located on the Pincian Hill, served by the French Minimite Order. In the first chapel, to the right, is a piece by [Giovanni Battista] Naldini portraying Saint John baptizing Christ. There is too much youthfulness and delicacy in the face of the Son of God, and he looks more like a pretty girl than a Jew. This is what is called a lack of verisimilitude. On the same side, a lovely Assumption by Daniele da Volterra, in which you find, in spite of its dilapidation, great strength of expression and an admirable precision. In a chapel to the left, a Noli me tangere by Giulio Romano and Francesco Fattori [i.e., Giovan Francesco Penni, called Il Fattore], Raphael’s two best pupils – a work too dry and too mannered in the extreme. In another chapel, a fresco of the Descent from the Cross by Daniele da Volterra. In spite of its reputation, it is not without fault. I found the figure positioned at the bottom of the ladder to be flawed. Not only do I find his posture forced, but I would even go so far as to assert that the proportions of his arm are not correct and that the arm is far too long. To the side are sculpted caryatids supporting trunks of broken columns; the painter decided to put these here to represent the supposed earthquake that accompanied the crucifixion of the Galilean. Seeing the effect of this artist’s fiery imagination, one has to laugh. Did he think that this bit of ridiculousness could make his enthusiasm pass into us? It is unimaginable, and he should have sensed that whatever event, above all, when it is so unmotivated, can only detract from the main subject. Sant’Andrea della Valle, Church of the Theatines, adorned with a lively façade based on the designs of Carlo Rainaldi. The interior, designed by [Carlo] Maderno, is most noble and excellently proportioned. This church is very vast and is considered in Rome a model of regularity and arrangement. The first chapel, to the right, which formerly belonged to the Ginetti family, is remarkably magnificent. It is inlaid with marble up to and including the cupola. On the altar is a beautiful bas-relief by Antonio Raggi that portrays the angel commanding Saint Joseph to flee into Egypt. Two family mausoleums will also be seen, but the attractions of these do not correspond to the lovely ordering of the rest. These are of the most mediocre sort. The second chapel, on the same side, built according to the plans of Michelangelo and belonging to the Strozzi of Florence, is in a sombre vein, but stately and majestic, in the manner, in my opinion, that all these monuments should be. But how useless they all are! Good Lord, is it not enough that man should have passed his life in error and vain pursuits? Must it be that, in order to flatter the pride of one who is no longer, the receptacle of his sad ashes announces his taste for luxury and his superstition to posterity? On the tiers of the altar of this chapel will be seen, in bronze, a rather lovely statue of the Virgin holding the dead Jesus on her knees, but this is, however, only a copy of the original in Saint Peter’s. To the right and left are two other bronze statues, pretty much in the same style. These decorations, along with four lovely urns of black marble veined with gold, at the base of which are the inscriptions of those whose ashes they supposedly hold, do not a little contribute to the sombreness that I noted as characteristic of this chapel. The chandeliers and the two candlesticks that will be seen therein, likewise quite esteemed, were made by the same artist who fashioned the statues. On the same side, at the altar in the chapel at the crossing, is a lovely painting of Saint Andrew, painted by [Giovanni]

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Lanfranco. He also painted the grand cupola of the church, which portrays the Assumption. But the episodes from the life of the saint that are above the cornice of the tribune and the four Evangelists that are situated in the four spandrels of the cupola are by Domenichino. As for the three large frescoes on the walls of the tribune, which portray exactly the same subjects as those of the tribunal of the Church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte but executed in a grander style, these are by Cozza, also known as the Calabrese.79 They are precise and learnedly – if complicatedly – arranged. To the left, in the first chapel after entering the church, which belongs to the Barberini family and which was begun by Urban VIII, a member of this family, a beautiful rendering of the Assumption will be seen at the altar. To the left of this chapel will be seen a little oratory-like enclosure, closed off by an iron fence and built upon the very spot of the sewer into which the body of Saint Sebastian was thrown after his martyrdom. This chapel of the Barberini is quite magnificent and almost nothing but marble will be seen therein, just like those that I have described above. Next comes that of the Rucellai of Florence, stately and sumptuous thanks to the amount of marble, the columns and urns with which it is adorned. It is here that the celebrated Giovanni della Casa, archbishop of Benevento, great writer of the fifteenth century is buried.80 This church is built upon the ruins of the Court of Pompey. Deign to observe here, madam countess, that that which was called a court were designated structures where emperors or heads of the Republic called together the Senate in order to confer about public affairs. While digging the foundations of this church, they found those of Pompey’s monument in question, famous because of Caesar’s assassination, at the foot of that statue of Pompey about which I had the honour of telling you in my discussion of the Palazzo Spada and that was rediscovered close by, in the foundations of two neighbouring houses, likewise built upon the ruins of this court.81

79 Francesco Cozza (1605–1682) was from Stilo, Calabria, and sometimes known as il Cavaliere Calabrese or il Cavalier Calabrese. See, e.g., Silvio Valenti, Roma Antica, e Moderna o sia Nuova Descrizione di tutti gl’edifici antichi, e moderni, tanto sagri, quanto profani, della città di Roma (Rome, 1750), 2:164. Sade will most often refer to the painter as simply “the Calabrese.” The byname il Cavaliere Calabrese, however, is more frequently associated with another Baroque painter: Mattia Preti (1613–1699). 80 Giovanni della Casa (1503–1556) was a diplomat, inquisitor, poet, and author of the influential treatise on manners Il Galateo overo de’ costumi (c. 1551). Sade has evidently confused his centuries here. 81 Sade’s syntax and references are difficult to follow here. He means that the foundations of the Court or Curia of Pompey, which was the site of the assassination of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BCE, were discovered when digging the foundations for the church. Further, while our author has not, in fact, discussed the colossal statue of Pompey then and still in the Palazzo Spada, in his notes he indicates an intention to explain that the emperor Augustus removed said statue, at the foot of which Caesar was supposedly killed, from the Curia and placed it under a triumphal arch in the vicinity. See dossier I (on General Material), p. 416. Oddly, Sade neglects an anecdote concerning the statue’s modern discovery that seems right up his alley. Here in the words of Edward Wright, in his Some Observations Made in Travelling through France, Italy, &c. (London, 1730): “When this Statue was found, it lay so, that the Head was on one Man’s Ground, the Body on another’s. He on whose Ground the Body lay, claim’d it, as having so much the greater part; the other claim’d it, as having the more noble part, and that which shewed whom it represented: Each having thus a pretence, He to whom the Matter was referr’d, adjudg’d to each the Part that lay on his own Ground, so the Head was sawn off, and given to one of the Claimants, the rest to the other. The Pope [Julius III] hearing of the wise Decision, bought of each of them his several Share, and had them join’d again” (1:299).

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In the nave of this church will be seen the two marble tombs of Pius II and of Pius III from the House of Piccolomini, whose bodies were brought from Saint Peter’s at the Vatican to this church. An Amalfi duchess, their relative, founded this church upon her death and left her palace for the monks, on the condition that both she and the popes of her house be transported here; wishes that Cardinal Perretti, nephew of Sixtus V, carried out without difficulty. Saint Mary above Minerva [Santa Maria sopra Minerva], church that the Dominicans built upon the foundations of the ancient temple that Pliny [the Elder] discusses and that Pompey accorded to Wisdom after his victory. You see there a statue of Christ carrying his Cross, made by Michelangelo, which contrasts utterly with the catechumenizing Jesus that I discussed in Naldini’s painting, located in a chapel in Trinity on the Hills [Trinità dei Monti]. If the latter depicted his hero as too youthful and too beautiful, the former, committing the opposite error, has given him too much vigour and force. He’s made him into a porter. The populace and, above all, the old wives, who prefer this look to a more effeminate physiognomy, doubtless for good reason, hold this statue in such adoration that the marble foot is worn out from kisses, and they have had to cover the foot with a bronze cothurnus that the poor gossips come and kiss all the same and that they will likely wear out soon as well. In this church there are five beautiful papal mausoleums: that of Urban VII, of Paul IV, of Clement VII, of Leo X, and of Benedict XIII. The most mediocre is Urban VII’s. Benedict XIII’s is the most magnificent; it is based on designs by [Carlo] Marchionni. The statue of the pope, done in a beautiful and grand style, placed above the urn, is accompanied by the emblems of Religion and of Gentleness. The bas-relief on the urn depicts a consistory. It was made by the same artist as the pontiff’s statue, and both pieces are infinitely superior to the adjacent statues. Paul IV’s is laid out nicely, albeit simply and without attributes. It is only decorated with four beautiful columns of Egyptian marble and with the statue of the pope, in whose face you discern the traits of this harsh man who, without respect for the laws of kinship, had his entire family put on trial, had his nephew Cardinal Carafa strangled in prison, had decapitated the duke of Montorio, this cardinal’s brother, on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, along with two other relatives, Count Aliffe, brother-in-law of this duke, and Leonardo Cardini, whose memory was at least rehabilitated by Pius V, Pius IV’s successor, and who succeded him immediately. This pontiff was so detested that even before he closed his eyes, the populace broke his statue on the Capitoline and rolled the head the length of the stairs that lead there, on the side of the Convent of Aracoeli [Santa Maria in Aracoeli]. In the choir are the mausoleums of Clement VII and of Leo X, made of a white marble but so blackened that it today looks like wood. They are by Bandinelli, Michelangelo’s rival and perhaps those of his works best made to justify this prideful rivalry. A rather peculiar thing is that they have no inscriptions. For a long time, they were thought to be behind the stalls, but chance having led me to seek verification, I was able to convince myself with my own eyes that the woodwork hid nothing and that these two monuments, in fact, have none. In the Chapel of the Cross, to the right, you see an Annunciation, a fourteenth-century painting by John of Fiesole [i.e., Fra Angelico, born Guido di Pietro], a monk of this house. You discover therein the tone of Cimabue, restorer of painting in Italy and yet earlier: a harsh and forceful manner, poorly melded colours and several infelicities in the drawing.82

82 To be precise: Fra Angelico (c. 1395–1455) postdates Cimabue (c. 1240–1302), traditionally positioned as pivotal to the Renaissance.

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You also note gilded decorations, such as were made use of in those earlier times. But this work, like all those from these centuries, is interesting, if only in order to judge of the progress of this art. In a small chapel on the right, you see an even older Crucifix said to be the work of Giotto, the architect of the bell tower of Florence’s cathedral. The façade of this church, on the square of Minerva, is the same as that of the ancient temple, but quite restored and completely rewhitened. As for the interior, the gothic taste of its architecture makes its antiquity easy to judge. You see many tombs; I have mentioned the five best. Behind the church, and close to the sacristy, is a small square spot that we are assured is the room that Saint Catherine of Siena occupied in Rome, transported here by mechanical means, the use of which is familiar. But the skeleton alone belongs to this holy monument, and all the decorations and facings are modern.83 The sacristy of this house is famous on account of the two conclaves that where held here and at which Eugene IV and Paul V were made popes. Adjoining the house is a quite numerous library, which is almost always open. The Reverend Father Audiffredi, who heads it, a man of considerable merit and whose knowledge stretches far and wide, told me that it contains close to seventy thousand volumes. The collection includes a large number of precious manuscripts and books printed in the early years of the invention of that art. The Decor puellarum, dated 1461, seems, according to the view of this learned librarian, to predate by five or six years the known epoch of printing, and this view leads one to think that this date is a printing error.84 It seems to me, however, that it accords marvellously with the majority of historians who determine 1440 to be era of the discovery of printing in the town of Mainz. As for the opinion that has it earlier and puts its discovery at Haarlem by Laurens Koster, many historians doubt its validity and claim that Hadrianus Junius, a writer from the middle of the last century, was the first to create this opinion, which no one before him had imagined.85 Let us cleave therefore to that of Mainz in 1440 and agree that the date of the Decor puellarum has nothing extraordinary about it, since it postdates by more than twenty years the known era of printing. You will also see in this library a Dante from the century of his death, another titled the Thresor de Brunetto Latini, Dante’s master, who died in 1295; a Petrarch believed to be from his day; a Holy Scripture from the early years of printing, of which Monsieur l’abbé Sallier speaks in the XIVth volume of the Mémoires d’Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres;86 and several other works as curious as they are rare, among which we are assured is an Aretino 83 Sade’s description wants clarity. It is the room that Catherine occupied nearby on the Via di Santa Chiara in Rome and where she died that was dismantled at the behest of Cardinal Antonio Barberini and reconstructed at the church in 1637. The structural skeleton or framework – Sade’s term is carcasse – was decorated post mortem. 84 The anonymous Decor puellarum, which translates roughly to “The Propriety of Girls,” was one of the earliest books printed in Venice, although not, as once thought, the first. The date registered by the printer, Nicolas Jenson, was 1461, but this is a falsification, and the actual date of publication was some ten years later. As Sade indicates, that there was a potential problem with the dating of the volume was understood and a printing error the common explanation. See Sister Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman, vol. 2 of The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250–1500 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 659–60. 85 Hadrianus Junius (1511–1575) or Adriaen de Jonghe was a renowned Dutch philologist, physician, translator, poet, and scholar of multifarious talents and abilities. 86 See “Observations sur quelques circonstances de l’histoire de l’imprimerie, et particulièrement sur une Bible découverte depuis peu, où ni le tems ni le lieu de l’imprimerie ne sont marquez,” in M. l’abbé Sallier, Histoire de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (Paris, 1743), 14:238–66.

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from the very century of this writer, with the thirty figures.87 But the modesty of the monk, whose virtues, it is said, match his knowledge, prevented him from admitting to this, and our curiosity was focused on other objects. The main room of this library is vast and well lit. At the back will be seen a statue of Cardinal Casanata, quite esteemed and in which Monsieur Lalande, another wretched Italian traveller, has found defects that have certainly only ever existed in his poor way of seeing. In the middle of the square of Minerva, across from the church, will be seen a small obelisk, supported by an elephant, with imperfect hieroglyphs. It was found in this quarter and Alexander VII had it erected. The elephant on which it is placed is by cavaliere Bernini and not by Ercole Ferrata, as once again Monsieur Richard would have it.88 My quill tires of refuting him, and doubtless each page of his book would have to be inspected were it deemed desirable to lay bare all of his anachronisms and gaffes. But at the very least I cannot allow the main ones to remain, and my respect for the truth does not allow me to conceal them. But it is here, madam countess, it is here that your heart is rent, that tears flow in spite of yourself, when you see that renowned temple of all the gods, that admirable Pantheon, masterpiece of Augustus’s beautiful century and repository of the most beautiful statues in the world, today transformed into a wretched church, stripped and bare, and in which the pettiness of modern superstition does not recompense – far from it – the vanished magnificence of the ancient type. M. Agrippa, who decreed this proud edifice in the year 729 of the Roman calendar, wished to dedicate it to Augustus, his father-in-law, but this emperor’s modesty stood against this and Marcus offered it to Jupiter Ultor in order to preserve the memory of the Battle of Actium. In the back, in the large niche where the high altar is at present, he placed the statue of Cybele, as mother of all the gods. The portico, which is thought to have been an addition, is supported by sixteen beautiful granite columns, which 87 Sade’s reference is to the infamous Sonetti lussioriosi, which Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) penned to accompany Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings of Giulio Romano’s drawings of sexual positions. These engravings, first published in 1524, were subsequently bundled with Aretino’s obscene and comic verse commentaries as I Modi (1527). No complete copies of either survive. The name “Aretino,” rather than the name of the visual artist, came to stand for the so-called postures in their variety, most likely because the former was attached to other, more readily available, licentious works, including Aretino’s own dialogic I Ragionamenti. The latter, although more satirical than titillating, served as a model of the genre for libertine writers in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. The original number of postures in I Modi was sixteen and not thirty. Sade’s source for the number is perhaps the anonymous La Puttana errante, overo dialogue, di Madalena et Giulia, di P. Aretino, from the mid-seventeenth century, another important source for libertines and falsely claiming to be the work of the sixteenth-century satirist. In a French translation of the latter, from Sade’s day, thirty-two façons of conjunction are enumerated and described; see La Putain errante, ou Dialogue de Madelaine et Julie. Par Pierre Aretino (London, 1764), 48–52. An Italian edition from the time of Sade’s voyage gives thirty-six modi; see La Puttana errante (Venice, 1774?), 39–43. The count for the Aretine postures, in fact, varied across libertine texts, although somewhere in the thirties or thereabouts is fairly standard, if not canonic. The Revolutionary era pamphlet Les quarante manières de foutre (Cythera [!], 1790) thus gives, despite its title, a generous forty-one. For a modern edition of Aretino’s sonnets and the art of Giulio Romano, Marcantonio Raimondi, and the later illustrator Count Jean-Frederic-Maximilien de Waldeck, see Lynne Lawner, ed., trans., and commentary, I Modi: The Sixteen Pleasures. An Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988). 88 Bernini’s sculpture on the Piazza della Minerva was unveiled in 1667, the year of the artist’s death. It was likely executed by Ercole Ferrata based upon Bernini’s designs.

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Michelangelo considered as impossible to have been raised so close to one another and that three men can barely encompass with their arms. Beside the large door are two large niches, in which Agrippa placed the statue of Augustus, to the right upon entering, and to the left his own, both of them colossal. That of Julius Caesar was placed in the temple, as father of the Empire. This edifice is round in shape, of a height equal to its diameter, topped off by an exceedingly light vault or cupola, leaving room for an oculus of large aperture, expressly fashioned for enjoying the sight of the interior of this temple – of this blessed spot where all the gods that were revered here inhabited. Seven niches will be counted within the contour of this temple, formed by two lateral pilasters and two columns in the middle of these two pilasters, everying in the Corinthian order and made of giallo antico marble, ornaments that have not suffered the least alteration and that are utterly the same as in the ancient temple of the gods. In the seven niches and on pedestals were placed the celestial divinities. The terrestrial ones occupied all the various spaces that were located in the columns in front of the niches, numbering three per niche, and beneath the edifice were the infernal gods. The patterns on the cupola are absolutely the same as the ancient ones, with the sole exception of the bronze with which these patterns were faced and that has been carried off, in part by the Goths, in part by the Ostrogoth Urban VIII who, more barbarous than these barbarians themselves, removed the remainders in such quantity that the columns and the pavilion of Saint Peter’s at the Vatican and what is known as the Chair of Saint Peter were built from it, and such a large amount still remained that the better part of the artillery of the Castel Sant’Angelo was smelted therefrom.89 In 610 Boniface IV obtained permission from the emperor Phocas to transform this temple of all the gods into that of the Virgin and all the martyrs. And after the worship of all the gods came that of all the saints, for it is not doubtful that it was at this time that he instituted this. To be seen in this church are some monuments to famous artists that remind us still of its initial establishment. You will note those to Perino del Vaga [i.e., Piero Bonaccorsi], to Annibale Carracci, and to the great Raphael. Carlo Maratta erected at his own expense the latter two monuments, and in my opinion, this generous comportment ought to have merited that the temple be dedicated to him. Below the inscription of Raphael’s the renowned Cardinal Bembo, great man of letters, placed the following distich: ILLE HIC EST RAPHÆL TIMVIT QUO SOSPITE VINCI RERVM MAGNA PARENS ET MORIENTE MORI.90

89 Sade is here repeating long-standing criticism of the removal of bronze from the Pantheon, as expressed in a celebrated pasquindade: “What the barbarians did not destroy, the Barberini did.” Cited in Genevieve Warwick, “Making Statues Speak: Bernini and Pasquino,” in Aura Satz and Jonathan Wood, eds., Articulate Objects: Voice, Sculpture and Performance (Bern: Peter Lang, 2009), 41. Urban VIII, born Maffeo Barberini (1568–1644), was a member of the powerful Barberini family. For the same criticism, but concerning damage inflicted on the Colosseum, see p. 177 and p. 177n28 below. 90 Translated: “Here is Raphael, whom the great begetter of things feared while he still breathed lest she be conquered and feared while he was dying lest she die.” In The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), Pope offers this translation and imitation in his epitaph for Sir Godfrey Kneller: “Living, great Nature fear’d he might outvie/Her works; and dying, fears herself may die” (498).

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On examining this building, you must take care [not] to stumble into the error into which some imbeciles in Rome would throw you, having you observe the various recesses or windows that are above the freize, which they assure you are those that were used for gods adored in this temple. The fact is visibly false, and these windows are quite modern. But what can be considered quite ancient and absolutely of the same antiquity as the temple are those pieces of round porphyry that compose a portion of the paving. Certainly, we might say while walking thereon: “The emperors were here just as I!” Some other ignoramuses of the same ilk toss yet another error at you in having you observe the immense bronze doors that are used for this building, and they assure you that these are the same that the son-in-law of Augustus placed here. This is yet another false fact. First, the current doors are not made of bronze but only revetted with bronze. The original ones, which were entirely made of it and decorated with magnificent bas-reliefs, were carried off by Genseric, King of the Goths,91 and sank to the bottom of sea in the wreck of the ship on which he was transporting them to his fatherland. The present ones were also used in a temple, but it is not known from which they were transferred. The architectural frame on which they are fitted is made of African marble, all of a piece, and dates from the same era as the temple. In front of this church – for what name to give it today? – is a square where many herbs are sold, in the middle of which is a fountain on which has been placed as ornamentation a small obelisk found during the papacy of Clement XI and that this pope had placed there. Saint John the Beheaded [San Giovanni Decollato], served by the Florentines, a small church all of stucco, quite pretty, and recently redecorated. It is within its enclosure that criminals are buried after their execution. At the high altar is an excellent painting by Giorgio Vasari that depicts the Decollation of Saint John, a piece that struck me as full of truth. At the first altar to the right is a very lovely piece by Naldini, a Florentine, which depicts the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.92 Although there is nothing outstanding in this painting, in spite of this everything in it is pleasant and the tone of the colours is of the best sort. In a chapel on the same side, the work of a student of Vasari, is a fresco denuded of strength and in the antique manner, depicting the Incredulity of Saint Thomas. In another, a Visitation of Our Lady, in somewhat sombre manner, but of great accuracy of drawing.93 Further on, by Naldini, the Martyrdom of Saint John the Apostle, a rather middling work. A large woman holding a child and placed here for who knows what reason does harm to the conceit and muddles the subject. The tone of the colour of the fire that is boiling the oil is poor, and the reflections of light that this fire should throw are neither correct nor beautiful. In the lunette, above the doorway leading to the oratory, is a piece by Cocchi, a Florentine, depicting the Preaching of Saint John in the Desert.94 The lovely arrangement that

91 Genseric or Gaiseric (c. 389–477) was king of the Vandals and Alani. 92 Not, in fact, the work of Giovanni Battista Naldini (1535–1591) but rather of Jacopo Zucchi (c. 1541–c. 1596). 93 The work of Cristoforo Roncalli (c. 1552–1626). As for the previous work mentioned, although of Vasari’s school and perhaps by Vasari himself or Jacopo Zucchi, the identity of the artist remains uncertain. 94 Sade may have intended Il Cosci, moniker of the Florentine mannerist Giovanni Balducci (c. 1560–1631) and whose work is represented in the church. The painting in question, however, is by Jacopino del Conte (1510–1598).

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governs throughout and the beauty of the traits captured in every subject cannot be too much admired. Opposite, in another lunette, is a Baptism of Jesus by the same John, in a bit more sombre manner, which I think is less correct and less powerful; it is attributed to a Florentine artist named [Monanno] Monanni. From there, I went to visit the Aventine, which Monsieur Richard passes over in silence, although why is not very clear. To fancy that he did not find it worthy of his attention would be an insult to his enlightenedness. Better to surmise that he forgot. You know, madam countess, that this mount, formerly covered by a thick forest, was incorporated into Rome by Ancus Marcius, fourth king, and that his palace or rather his house was built there. We are assured that the enclosure seen at the base of this hill, near the Tiber, remains from those distant times. On the site of the Temple of Diana will be found today the Church of Saint Sabina [Santa Sabina], adorned with the same columns that were used for this temple. In this church, you see some rather good paintings, among others the local saint with the Virgin, a piece that is more charming than learned, by the hand of a woman of the Fontana family who was called Lavinia.95 In a very ornate and completely marble-encrusted chapel, belonging to the Florentine House of the Dolci, will be seen at the altar a Saint Catherine of Siena receiving the Child Jesus from the hands of the Virgin, a piece by [Giovanni Mario] Morandi that, although quite esteemed, did not appear to me without certain defects.96 I suspect a bit of inaccuracy of design and the hand of the Virgin is certainly too awkward. All the frescos in this chapel, both the lunettes and the cupola, are by [Giovanni] Odazzi, but I found them mediocre. As for those in the tribune of high altar of the church, executed by Taddeo Zuccari, they are so ridiculous and so gargantuan that it is impossible not to bemoan the blindness of the artist who composed them. In this church you are shown, as something quite interesting, the piece of marble on which they claim that Saint Dominic, founder of the monks of this house, slept. I admit that I would rather have seen the statue of Apollo’s sister that was formerly revered here than the bed of the Inquisition’s general. (See the Dictionnaire des Hommes illustres.)97 Close by, still on the same mount, is the Church of Saint Alexius [Sant’Alessio], built upon the site of the Temple of Hercules. It is small, clean, quite white, but without any 95 Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), Bolognese, and daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana (1512–1597), was, despite Sade’s dismissive attitude, path-breaking: a successful commercial artist at a time when women were otherwise not and who on occasion painted female nudes. On her life and work, see Caroline P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth-Century Bologna (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). The painting in question dates from 1599 and was commissioned by Girolamo Bernerio, Cardinal d’Ascoli, to grace his chapel in Santa Sabina (ibid., 195). 96 A guide from Sade’s day seconds our author on the identity of the artist: “Il quadro del suo altare è opera del Morandi [The painting on its altar is the work of Morandi].” Filippo Titi, Descrizione delle pitture, sculture e architetture esposte al pubblico in Roma (Rome, 1763), 64. Nonetheless, the altarpiece in question appears to be the esteemed Madonna del Rosario, by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609–1685). 97 Presumably a reference to the entry on Dominic in the Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, for which Sade’s usual shorthand is Dictionnaire des Hommes illustres and that describes Dominic’s role in the Albigensian Crusade. See Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, ou Histoire Abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un Nom par le Génie, les Talens, les Vertus, les Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772), 2:464–5. The incorrect notion that Saint Dominic founded the Inquisition circulated widely. Apollo’s sister is Artemis, chaste goddess of the hunt and protector of virgins.

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ornamentation. You see, before entering, when you approach from the side of the sacristry, a reclining statue of Cardinal di Bagno, which struck me as most truthful. The single curiosity in this church is the Chapel of Saint Alexius. You see therein, in a sort of recess created by four columns in the Corinthian order, the statue of the saint, depicted as reclining beneath a staircase, such as he lived for seventeen years, unknown in his father’s house, which was, it is said, on this same site.98 What creates the staircase is the actual part of the flight from this house, enclosed in a reliquary and beneath which legend says he was in the habit of sleeping. Two angels above him hold it up. All the decorations are done in stucco and constitute an ensemble that is more interesting on account of the manner in which the subject is rendered than on account of the skill and delicacy of the work. The main altar of this church, Gothic in style, is after the ancient custom, that is to say, turned to face the entryway in the direction of the Orient. In a tabernacle of precious stone, borne by four pretty little columns of oriental alabaster, with gilded bases and capitals, under an archway of the left-hand aisle, is the same well used at Alexius’s house. In place of the bucket, there is a small white-iron goblet hanging from a chain from which pilgrims with the utmost devotion drink the water that the sacristan draws for them. The monks have adorned their cloister with the columns that they found in this former Temple of Hercules. The Church of St Mary of the Priory [Santa Maria del Priorato], close by and likewise on the Aventine Hill, is located on the site of the Temple of the Bona Dea. You will admit, madam, that the location is entirely fitting and that it simply makes sense that monks were put in the Temple of Hercules and the Knights of Malta in that of the goddess of female mysteries.99 Be that as it may, the church has been recently renovated by the architect Piranesi, who has filled this temple with decorations taken from Antiquity but placed haphazardly and presented with a harshness that tires the eyes and will ever displease.100 In this church are several tombs of the grand priors of the Order, among which that of the Spanish cardinal Porto Carrero stands out. His medallion, done in mosaic, is supposedly a perfect likeness. The little priory building, which is today used by Cardinal Rezzonico, nephew of Clement XIII, and of the Grand Prior, is situated on the summit of the Aventine Hill, in a very pleasant spot and from which you enjoy a quite magnificent and extensive view of the city of Rome in its entirety and most of all of that part of the Tiber where the celebrated port was formerly located, where marbles from Greece and all those granite stones and other marbles from Egypt were offloaded. Today it has been transformed into a sad vineyard, where ruins alone, which you ceaselessly come across, herald what was once the grandeur of commerce that took place upon this site. The gardens in this house are very pleasant, although a bit too extensive, and the little palace is decorated well enough.

  98 According to tradition, Saint Alexius or Alexis was the son of a Roman senator who chose to live in poverty; having left home in his youth, he eventually returned and lived under a staircase at his parents’ house, unrecognized by them. The statue is the work of Andrea Bergondi (1722–1789).   99 Sade’s observation drips with sarcasm: the retired lives of monks in no way reflect the life of the laborious hero, while the crusading order hardly presents Christianity’s feminine aspect. The Bona Dea was associated with female chastity and fertility and was a guardian of the Roman polity. Her cult was overseen by the Vestal Virgins, and men were strictly prohibited from the celebration of her mysteries. 100 Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), better known for his vedute and fantastic engravings, provided the designs for the renovation of the church in the 1760s.

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Nearby and at the base of this hill is the former site of the grotto of Cacus, whom Hercules killed as punishment for the theft of his cattle (see the Aeneid, book VIII). Curiosity led me to a close examination of this port, famous in the first periods of the Republic for the number of workers of pottery, so much in use at the time, and afterwards for the immense quantity of marbles that, as I have just mentioned, were brought there from all parts of the world. They were excavating when I went there, and the workers had already uncovered the completely intact and very well-preserved walls of a solidly built brick building. Close by was a chaotic pile of all sorts of broken marbles that had been found on that site. The profusion of these is such that the bases and capitals of columns – columns of the most beautiful marble and with the most delicate workmanship – are used today for tables at the local vineyard farmhouse and the stairs of his house are likewise made up of these materials. An art lover who does not want to spend a great deal of money and to whom, nonetheless, a couple of these remains would cause a bit of pleasure, will find it easy enough to make arrangements with this peasant, who, for a few écus, will hand over the most beautiful and best conserved of these fragments. In this same vineyard are the remnants of a fairly large building that formerly served as a public granary. Not far from here, on the bank, you will see to the right the fragments of the Pons Sublicius, famous for the heroic action of Horatius Cocles, who held out alone on this bridge against the army of Porsena, King of Clusium, one of the twelve Etruscan towns, and by this act held up the fury of the enemy long enough to give the Romans time to cut down the bridge that, in those days, was only made of wood, built by Ancus Marcius and located a bit lower down, that is to say, more on the left of the river when you are facing it, positioned on the bank of that former port that I have just discussed.101 This bridge was repaired around six hundred years afterwards by the quaestor Aemilius and built more to the right and closer to present-day Rome. This is the one of which some slight fragments will be seen. Behind this vineyard is a small artificial mountain, entirely made up of debris from the earthenware manufactories that were formerly set up in Rome. The workers were accustomed to piling up their debris in this area, which little by little created the mountain that you see there, and that has taken from this the name Testaccio, which it retains to this day.102 Monsieur Richard is incorrect to believe that this little mount was created from the debris of tombs. It does not seem likely that there ever were any, and that urn found while digging into this mountain and which forms the basis of his assertion, proves nothing, in my view, considering that it could have been under the earth, on this spot, before they began to pile up the debris. The corollary of his reasoning is no better. Why, he says, where there not mounds of ironwork debris on the other side of the Tiber, where there were also manufactories? There were manufactories, there is no debris, therefore, etc. Nothing is simpler than to reason thus, when you put the truth to the side in the premise. It is assuredly quite natural that there is no raised area on the other side of the Tiber similar to the 101 The episode of Horatius Cocles defending the bridge against Porsena is reported, among other places, in Pliny the Elder, Natural History: Volume IX: Books 33–35, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), bk.34: 144–5. See also Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s more detailed account, in his Roman Antiquities, 3[bk.5]:66–71. 102 From the Latin testa: a piece of terracotta or earthenware (pitcher, jug, urn, etc.); a potsherd, broken brick or tile.

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one here, since it is quite certain that all the manufactories were here and that there were none in that other area. As for the cellars hollowed out all around this little mount of which he speaks and that preserve wine wonderfully, these truly exist. All that remains to be known is whether there is not a great deal more pretension than accuracy in the physical explanation that he gives of this and to which I refer those who might have sufficient patience to read this imposter’s wretched jumble of lies.103 Santa Maria in Cosmedin, better known by the name Bocca della Verità. The first name (that of Cosmedin) is derived from the fact that it was formerly very ornamented, this word signifying in Greek adornment, ornamentation; the derivation of the second is because below the portico you see a large mask of white marble into whose mouth it is claimed that witnesses were required to place their hand in order to certify the truth. But the fact is that this mask was quite simply a fountain ornament. That is at least the opinion of the celebrated Venuti, following whom there remains nothing to be said concerning the authenticity of the monuments of the former capital of the world.104 This church, built over the remains of the Shrine of Patrician Modesty,105 is partially adorned with the former columns of this antique monument. Several of the main ones that you see, partly in the church and partly in the surrounding wall, allow you to make out still the entire shape of this temple, which seems to have been square. As it was converted into a church in the first centuries of Chistianity, its construction exudes the Gothic taste of those distant times. The entrance is completely the same as that of the Roman temple. The pavement, which it is believed is in several sections antique, has most surely been restored, at least in keeping with the taste and the ancient designs. The high altar, the choir in which you see the two ambones, the custom in the early days of the Church, sorts of marble pulpits that stand opposite one another and were formerly used [for] reading the Epistle, in the one, and the Gospel, in the other. Everything, in a word, confirms the ancientness of this church. You still find some ancient churches in Rome where this construction has been preserved. I will take care to note this in those that I have seen in this style. The thermae or Baths of Caracalla, backed up against the Aventine Hill, one of the loveliest ruins of ancient Rome and yet forgotten by Monsieur Richard, deserve a place in our slight digression.

103 Richard rather unpolemically puts forward his thesis that the mound could not have been the result of discards from pottery manufactures alone but was more likely created by some decree during the early years of Christian hegemony in Rome to pile pagan funereal urns from various cemeteries in the same place. He also notes that vaults for wine storage have been fashioned into the mound thanks to its particular coolness. He subsequently provides a largely unrelated and fairly elaborated hypothesis concerning why cool and strong breezes emanate from the mound because of its underlying structure (see Description, 6:352–3). 104 The mouth was supposed to bite off the hand of liars. Ridolfino Venuti (1705–1763) was a well-known archaeologist and author of several scholarly treatises on the monuments of Rome. His discussion of the Bocca della Verità will be found in his Accurata e succinta descrizione topografica delle antichità di Roma (Rome, 1763), where he argues that it served as “an outlet for some conduit, sewer, or fountain” and the face represents “the god Pan, Ocean, or some lemur or sylvan god” (2:28). 105 On the location of this shrine to Pudicitia Patricia and the founding of a temple to Plebeian Modesty by Verginia, a patrician who married the consul Lucius Volumnius Flamma Violens, a commoner, see Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 4[bk.10:23]:442–5.

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This monument, concerning which Certius, architect of the fourteenth and fifteeenth centuries, has left us annotated floor plans, was according to him the largest and most magnificent that there was.106 Pliny asserts that two hundred and sixty thousand people could bathe therein, of which twenty thousand and sixty without being seen. This number appears unbelievable.107 It is nonetheless certain that it must have been of an enormous size, judging from what you can still see of it. You discern confusedly in these ruins remnants of those immense halls intended for gymnastic exercises, so much the practice with the Romans both before and after bathing. Some chambers, more remote and smaller, for games that required less space, as with those of the ladies, etc. The stairwell, very well preserved, of a spiral staircase that connected to the rooms on top, of which you see on the walls the divisions of the floors, indicated by the holes that were used to fit the joists, a window of these upper rooms and the two supports of its balcony will still be made out wonderfully. As for the baths, it is more difficult to see them; they were level with the ground that, having since been quite raised up, makes these parts unapproachable. But there are certain openings, fashioned into what today is ground level and what was formerly the second floor, via which you can make out some remnants of these rooms. You must not assess the size of this monument by what you are shown of it at present. You will see, if you pay attention, that the buildings of this structure extended quite a lot on the right, on the side of the Marrana stream, and that the ensemble must have been enormous. You recognize from the tribunals that are preserved the extreme magnitude and size that these rooms must have had; and as for decoration, we know that Caracalla despoiled a part of Hadrian’s lovely villa, close to Tivoli, to supplement in these baths the multitude of beautiful statues and ornaments that he had had transported from all corners. It was in the character of this emperor to outdo the universe with his crimes and magnificence. Close by and in the ancient Val Myrtia, so named because of the number of myrtles that shaded it, was the Circus Maximus, the largest there was in Rome before Caracalla had his own built. Its location between the Aventine and Palatine, and completely at the foot of the latter mount, made it so propitious in relation to the Palace of the Emperors that, from a sort of box or balcony built at the far end of the palace on this side, they saw wonderfully well the spectacles that only began when they themeselves gave the signal from this balcony. Tarquinius Priscus, fifth king of Rome, was the first who had games celebrated in this area. A wooden enclosure was constructed here, and each noble had to take care of having built for himself the spot that he wanted to occupy. Afterwards, everything was dismantled and 106 “Certius” is a mistaken transcription of Sebastiano Serlio (1475–c. 1554), architect and author of the multivolume treatise I sette libri dell’architettura. His name was also Latinized as “Serlius.” Sade has also mistaken the author’s dates. Serlio, moreover, begins his discussion of the Baths of Caracalla, also known as the Baths or Thermae of Antoninus, by stating that, while beautiful and well-designed, the Thermae of Diocletian are larger. See Sebastiano Serlio, Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, trans. Vaughn Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 1:178–81. 107 From his correspondent Giuseppe Iberti, Sade had learned that the capacity of these baths was 2,300 persons (see letter 44, in Correspondence below). Although Iberti states that his source for the number is Sebastiano Serlio, the latter, in fact, never mentions the structure’s capacity. It would appear that Sade has accidently inserted and slightly modified Pliny the Elder’s stated number for how many people could fit into the Circus Maximus – Pliny asserts 250,000 – and in so doing inflated the baths’ purported capacity by more than a hundredfold. Unbelievable, indeed. See also, Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 10[bk.36]:80–1.

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rebuilt only when new games were celebrated. For a long time, it went on in this manner, but the emperors at last gave it a permanent shape, and Trajan was the one who increased its size and embellished it the most. There were seen the two obelisks that are today at the Square of the People [Piazza del Popolo] and at the square of Saint John Lateran. In my description of the latter, I will have the honour, madam countess, of explaining to you how they made it there and why the medals depicting this circus, struck under Augustus, give evidence of only one. Fifteen thousand spectactors could be accommodated with ease on the tiers of this circus, of which the outline is all that remains today, without the merest vestige to mark a single remnant of its magnificence. With this, I leave you to ponder whether we ought to regret that we see cabbage and lettuce on this site that formerly served the relaxation of so many great men, whom at a glance you could have seen gathered together. Close by, on the river, across from the Bocca della Verità church, you see a small temple, the erection of which goes back to remotest Antiquity, since it was Numa Pompilius, Romulus’s successor, who had it built. It was dedicated to the goddess Vesta or to the Sun, as a few have claimed. It was subsequently restored, during the Republic, under the consulate of […]108 This small and completely preserved temple is of a quite pleasing round shape. A gallery, likewise round and supported by Corinthian columns, surrounded it. Today, a wall seals off that enclosure and creates a circular corridor all the way around. There was no other light in this temple than via the door that was its entire height and protected by a simple iron grate that allowed the daylight to penetrate therein. Saint Mary, known as the Light, has today replaced the goddess Vesta or the god of the Sun, and it seems that in everything, down to the names, Christian superstition endeavours to be ever a poor copy of pagan idolatry. 108 Left blank. The structure in question is now considered to be the Temple of Hercules Victor, although previously generally thought to be a Temple of Vesta. In his The Four Books on Architecture, originally published in Italian in 1570, trans. Robert Tavernor and Richard Schofield (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1997), Andrea Palladio writes of this structure: “Proceeding along the bank of the Tiber there is another round temple near the previous one which is called S. Stefano nowadays [i.e., the Temple of Fortuna Virilis]. They say that it was built by Numa Pompilius and dedicated to the goddess Vesta and that he wanted it to have a round shape [figura ritonda] so as to resemble the mass of the earth which nurtures humanity and of which Vesta was said to be the deity” (264). A key seventeenth-century architectural source, however, remarks that the dedication of the temple is uncertain: “It is believed that it was built by Numa, because we find written in Plutarch in the life of this king that it was said that he had built a round temple to Vesta, in order to place therein the sacred flame that was guarded by the Vestals. Some maintain that it was dedicated to Hercules Victor, and others to the Sun.” Antoine Babuty Desgodetz, Les Edifices antiques de Rome (Paris, 1682), 82. Although Palladio says nothing about the era of this edifice’s restoration, this later source claims that the structure was burned in the fire of Rome during Nero’s reign, and this seems to have been the consensus – or at least the consensus as to what the claims are – in Sade’s day. We find in a source from 1797, e.g., that “this temple is said to have been erected by Numa Pompilius in honour of Vesta; it was destroyed, with a great many other edifices, in the conflagration of Rome caused by Nero, and was rebuilt by Vespasian, or as some suppose by Domitian.” Anon., A Select Collection of Views and Ruins in Rome and Its Vicinity; Executed from Drawings Made Upon the Spot in the Year 1791 (London, 1797), n.p. As to the notion that the temple was originally built by Numa Pompilius, Rome’s legendary second king, Plutarch writes: “It is said that Numa built the temple of Vesta, where the perpetual fire was kept, of a circular form, not in imitation of the shape of the earth, believing Vesta to be the earth, but of the entire universe, at the centre of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, and call it Vesta and Unit [monada]” (Lives, 1:344–5).

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The Church of Saint Augustine [Sant’Agostino], served by the Augustinians and built by the Cardinal d’Estouteville, archbishop of Rouen. You see there two lovely mausoleums of two cardinals of the Imperiali family. That of Cardinal Joseph [Giuseppe Renato Imperiali], who died in 1737, is on the right; a genius leaning against an Egyptian pyramid holds his medallion, and at the foot of this monument are his arms and the attributes of his prelacy. There are two statues – one of Strength and the other of Charity – at the pyramid’s base, and lower down the inscription in marble, supported by an oak garland attached to two winged skulls, a peculiarity the conceit of which is difficult to divine. To the right is that of Cardinal Lawrence [Lorenzo Imperiali, d. 1673], made by [Domenico] Guidi. The conceit, although pagan, is as beautiful as it is stately: on a raised base is the cardinal kneeling; close to him, Fame celebrates his virtues, and it is only to immortalize them that she lets escape from the coffin, which she half opens, the eagle that flies to the heavens to carry these virtues to the sanctuary whence they were born; yet Death, who believes that everything is escaping along with the soul he sees flying off, is stunned; yet Time, who cries to the side, shows by the chains that restrain him that these virtues will survive the destruction of which that fateful Death is the emblem. Nothing could be more beautiful, nothing more grand than this conceit. And the sublime manner in which it is rendered definitively immortalizes its artist. You must, above all, remark the learned manner in which he was able to paint astonishment on the face of Death. Doubtless here lay the reef for his chisel and this is what he rendered with the most energy and truth. In the Chapel of the Cross, to the right of this monument, there is at the main altar a lovely statue of Saint Thomas of Villanova Giving Alms. To the right and left, two less esteemed bas-reliefs relating to episodes in the life of this saint. Ercole Ferrata made the middle piece; the two others are by his pupils. In the second chapel on the left, a lovely Group of Saints Anne and Mary by [Jacopo] Sansovino. In the first on the same side, a lovely painting in the strong and sombre style of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, depicting an Adoration of Our Lady by two saints. On the third pillar to the left, you see a prophet painted by Raphael, in the grand manner of Michelangelo and deserving of attention.109 In the Chapel of the Cross on the right, a magnificent Saint Augustine by Guercino, and, finally, in the sacristy, a lovely altar painting depicting Thomas of Villanova with other figures related to him, lovely and learned composition by [Giovanni Francesco] Romanelli. The high altar of this church is graced with lovely columns. You recognize cavaliere Bernini from the elegance and beauty of its architecture. The University, on the Square of Saint Eustace [Piazza di Sant’Eustachio], is a lovely, regular building. The best place to view it is the from the back of the courtyard opposite the church. Its architecture is very stately. Michelangelo began the work, and Borromini finished it. The cupola and the bell tower are uniquely shaped.110

109 This fresco, painted on a pillar and drawing from Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel, is of the Prophet Isaiah. On the painting and the relationship between Raphael and Michelangelo, see Ernst H. Gombrich, Reflections on the History of Art: View and Reviews, ed. Richard Woodfield (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 93–5. 110 Topped by an unusual spiral lantern, which Sade has taken for a bell tower, our author clearly intends the Chiesa di Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza (“La Sapienza” being the name of the University of Rome). Francesco Borromini (1599–1667) was indeed the chief architect, and Michelangelo was at most an inspiration.

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You see in the church a lovely painting by Pietro da Cortona that depicts Saint Leo, Saint Luke, and Saint Ivo. This was the last work by this great man. He died during its compostion and one of his students finished it. Saint Mary of Egypt [Santa Maria Egiziaca], served by the Armenians, is a small church that has no other merit than that of preserving the exact measurements of the tomb of Jesus Christ, such as it is in Jerusalem. One goes to see it rather as an antique monument than as a church, and it is for this reason that I place it in this category. It is built on the same site as the Temple of Fortuna Virilis, erected by Servius Tullius, sixth king of Rome. You discern from what you see today of the ancient shape of this little edifice that it must have been a rectangle. You still see there seven columns in the Ionic order, but badly damaged. The façade or portico was supported by four columns. Titus Livy asserts that, when this temple was burned, the statue of the goddess, which was only made of wood, was miraculously preserved. Certain proof, madam countess, that superstition has existed at all times and that man, eager for lies, ceaselessly seeks to feed his imagination with them. These great men had their weaknesses like us: And the lovely swan of Leda Is well worth Mary’s pigeon!111

It was the in the very earliest days of the Church that this monument changed shape or, to put it more accurately, changed idols. Quite close to this church, and exactly opposite, you see a small building of antique shape that the populace and some wretched authors label the house of Pilate. This is the last structure in Rome in that direction. Others, who have decided to pass for more enlightened, have asserted that this house was that of the famous Rienzi, friend of Petrarch, who in the fourteenth century wanted to have the Tribune revived in Rome.112 But all these opinions are incorrect. A more mature examination has determined that this little building must have been used for hot baths and was built around the tenth century. Inside everything has been found that might be most advantageous to this opinion. It was made up of bits and pieces and adorned with several materials chosen from among ancient fragments, which for a long time decieved about its age. Today, it is almost nothing anymore, and I do not believe that you can even go inside. Next to that house are the ruins of the Janiculum Bridge or Pons Senatorius, which the water’s current  – rather strong here where the Tiber makes a bend that sends the water against its arches with great force – has never allowed to survive. This bridge, of which 111 In the orginal: “Et le beau cygne de Léda / Vaut bien le pigeon de Marie!” These verses appeared in Jean Meslier’s Testament (c. 1730); it was subsequently copied by Voltaire, appeared in an edition of the Traité des trois imposteurs published around the time of Sade’s Voyage, and would eventually be re-cited by Sade over twenty years later in L’Histoire de Juliette. On the extended underground history of this couplet, see Alain Schorderet, “La colombe de Marie et le cygne de Léda. Voltaire, l’Arétin et Claude Le Petit,” in Voltaire et les manuscrits philosophiques clandestins, issue no. 16 of La Lettre clandestine (2008): 67–99. 112 Cola di Rienzo (c. 1313–1354) was a politician, leader of a popular revolt, established himself as “tribune” of Rome under a new republican regime, sought to unify Italy, was tried for heresy, celebrated in verse by Petrarch, and led an otherwise colourful life. On his presumed house, see Carrie E. Benes, “Mapping a Roman Legend: The House of Cola di Rienzo from Piranesi to Baedecker,” Italian Culture 26 (2008): 57–83; and Rosemary Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c. 1690–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 259–60.

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two quite intact arches on the Trastevere side remain and onto which you can go, were built by the censor Lucius Fulvius and completed by Scipio Africanus. Gregory XIII repaired it. It fell into disrepair again. Julius III remade it, but being yet again broken under Clement VIII, it remained in this state, and it is likely that, convinced of the impossibility of endowing it with solidity, it will be left as it is. The two arches of the Trastevere and the fragments that exist on the side of Saint Mary of Egypt are from Roman times. The modern parts alone were removed. You will note great solidity. You satisfy your curiosity – if you have some for antique things – by going and walking for a moment on the remaining portion. You see there the ancient pavement intact and well preserved. Not far from here is that part of ancient Rome known by the name of Forum Boarium, so infamous for its denizens and all the ruckus that they made.113 This was formerly the most commercial quarter of this city. It is truly difficult, from the extreme solitude that holds sway there today, to be able to form a notion thereof. You see, however, two monuments that attest to it. One is the ancient Merchant’s Lodge, a sort of large arch with four façades, which has absurdly caused it to be given the name of Arch of Janus, a false etymology, the monument certainly only ever having served for merchants.114 It was here that they gathered to handle their various businesses, and even to negotiate their bills or their money. You count thirty-two niches in the four façades, of which sixteen are open and in which doubtless statues were placed and sixteen closed ones that were only used as decorations. When I saw this structure, excavation had been going on, and a hole of about fifteen feet had not yet revealed the base of the pillar around which this cavity had been dug. I report this to prove the degree to which ruins and rubble have raised the entire terrain of modern Rome. Above are some remnants of modern, brick constructions that were used by the Frangipani at the time of their disputes with the popes and of the civil wars of the […] century.115 A small doorway fashioned into one of the pilasters seems fashioned to allow entry into various chambers fashioned into their bulk [sic]. Did it exist prior to the raising up of these structures at the last dates just mentioned or was it made for access at this time? I remain in the dark on this subject. I would be tempted, however, to adopt as preferable the first of these two opinions. Extremely close to this monument is another of these, erected in gratitude to the emperor Septimius Severus by the merchants of the Forum Boarium and as a mark of certain privileges that this emperor had accorded to these merchants. An entire side of this small arch is today obscured within one of the walls of the Church of Saint George in Velabrum [San Giorgio in Velabro], which it abuts, but you find in the remaining portion some bas-reliefs in very good taste. They depict sacrifices made by Caracalla and Julia Pia. You see the victims escorted by the victimarii [i.e., sacrificial servants] and the popa, the name for him who carried the instrument used to put them to death. In the friezes will be seen the various 113 As the Latin name indicates, this was the cattle market of ancient Rome, although it was also known for money changers, as Sade’s remarks also suggest. 114 Sade is correct that the quadrifrons arch, unique in Rome and still known as the Arch of Janus, was not so named in Antiquity. However, his supposition that it was only used by merchants is almost certainly incorrect. Built sometime in the fourth century, its function is still a matter of speculation. Like other arches, it probably served to commemorate a military victory, in this case of Constantine or perhaps Constantius II, or served as a boundary marker. The Frangipani family, powerful in Rome during the Middle Ages, incorporated the arch into one of their fortresses sometime around the eleventh century. 115 The date was left blank. Sade would presumably have inserted “twelfth,” the most active period of the Frangipani family’s often forceful attempts to control the papacy in rivalry with the Pierleoni family.

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accessories necessary for the torture of the victim: the whip with which it was always struck beforehand, the ewer, the paten, the lituus or crooked wand used by the augurs, the little box in which the incense was kept, the sheath for the three knives used to cut the throat of the victim, etc. The inscription – which proves what I have just hypothesized about this structure – will be read on the principal façade, which, albeit quite small, seems to have been handled with all possible taste and intelligence. This is a monument to be preserved and the study of which shall often enlighten the study of Antiquity and of the Fine Arts. This Church of Saint George, against which I just mentioned is leaned that small arch, is, they say, on the top of the foundations of the Law Courts of the consul Sempronius, in which justice for merchants was dispensed. A gilded bronze ox was preserved there to memorialize the first enclosure that Romulus marked out for his city and that starting from here, circling the Palatine Hill, approximately traced out the positions of the buildings today known as Sant’Anastasia (on the premises of which was formerly the Ara Maxima monument, erected by Evander, King of Latium, as sign of the friendship made by this king with Hercules, who had delivered him from the thief Cacus), the Meta Sudans between the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine, the Church of San Cesareo and that of Santa Maria Liberatrice, close to the three columns of Jupiter Stator that you see at the Campo Vaccino. Such was then the entire extent of this superb city that would have the universe at its command. The columns of this small Church of Saint George and the doorframe of the portico belonged to – or so it is believed – the basilica of Sempronius. You see in this district the interior mouth of the Cloaca Maxima or sewer that Tarquin the Proud had made to drain off filth from this part of the city, linking to the Tiber via two small streams that discharged it therein. For a long time, this was blocked and buried under the ruins, and it was not without pleasure that this ancient and practical construction, built with the utmost understanding and solidity, was rediscovered. On the side of the river will be seen the mouth that vomits forth into the current, and close to this, an immense embankment that this last king of Rome also made in order to prevent the river from flooding into this part, where it had begun to wreak devastation. It is likely that the solidity of this sort of dike will be as eternal as the world, and the beauty and solidity of these works does much honour, in my view, to the remote centuries that we dare label barbaric. The Villa Ludovisi, belonging to the prince of Piombino, on the former site of the Gardens of Sallust.116 In return for a small payment for the doorman, the garden is always open and you can walk there at all hours of the day. The beauty of the alleys, the regularity of the layout, the number of statues (albeit mediocre), the coolness of the premises, and its extent make this a very enjoyable walk. It is bounded by the city walls that belong to the ancient Aurelian enclosure. Domenichino was the architect of the house that you encounter on entering. Inside you see two busts of unknown persons – although I think they are from the end of the Empire – a lovely statue of the god of Medicine, four porphyry columns that support four busts, among which you recognize those of Hadrian and Nero, two statues of Apollo, a bust of a faun made of extremely hard Egyptian stone, a consular bust draped 116 The villa was built in the early seventeenth century on designs by Domenico Zampieri (1581–1641), also known as Domenichino, and at the behest of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. Located on the grounds of the former Gardens of Sallust, the Villa Ludovisi complex housed considerable statuary excavated in the area. Most of the complex was destroyed in the late nineteenth century.

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with alabaster, a statue of Venus coming out of the bath, a bronze bust of Julius Caesar and draped with red marble, a bust of Octavian, a Hadrian with one of Antinoüs at his side, a statue of Antoninus Pius, two busts of consuls, a statue of Hymen, a statue of an almost nude woman of which the folds created by the drapery of her shirt are of delicacy that, in my view, is more pretentious than natural, a bust of Juno, another unknown. Above the door: a lovely bust of Pyrrhus in bas-relief; and opposite, above the other door, a bas-relief from a tomb. In another room, a statue of Hercules, an alabaster vase from Volterra, modern but copied from Antiquity, a small statue of Venus, fairly poorly preserved, two gladiators at rest, one of whom is the lover of Faustina. You know, madam countess, to what an extent this empress pushed her distraction for this gladiator and the fail-safe remedy that Marcus Aurelius, her husband, gave her to cure her of this insane passion.117 This taste has been preserved in Rome, and I have seen a beautiful young duchess from this city cry aloud in a ball-game arena (the only exercise that recalls the gladiators and fights and at which it is the custom to wager): “I’m for so-and-so because he is the prettiest!” A bust of Asclepius; a statue of Cleopatra with the serpent stinging her breast, which goes utterly against history and proves that the artists in those days were not much more scrupulous than ours about historical veracity; a singularly expressive group of the god Pan who wants to rape a nymph; there is in the look of the god all the expression that the situation requires: he has a hand on the naked breast of the young nymph who repulses him with all the strength that virtue lends to modesty. It is a shame that the heads are restorations and that it is only by the articulation and bearing that you can judge the beauty of the subject depicted. An Apollo Group, quite restored and fairly mediocre thanks to the unhappy mixture of modern and antique; a Venus coming out of the bath, a piece so often repeated and that only serves to recall the one in Florence, yet unable to stand up to the comparison. Two consular busts, a small statue of Lucius Verus, a superior group made of white marble that depicts the mother of young Papirius Praetextatus entreating her son to divulge the Senate’s secrets: the mother questions, the child lies, but the characters are treated with such truth that it is that of Nature itself.118 You could not weary of analysing this lovely piece, and after having observed it for a long time, you leave it without understanding how art could equal Nature to such a degree and that marble, so cold in itself, could be animated to such an extent. Very close by, the no-less-lovely group of Arria and Pætus. Pætus, condemned to death, trembles; Arria provides him with an example of resolve by anticipating the injustice and stabbing herself at his feet; he imitates her. Nothing grander, nothing more vigorous and warm than this admirable piece.119 The Rape of Proserpina, a lovely piece by Bernini and that 117 When Faustina Minor admitted her love for a gladiator, her husband Marcus Aurelius had the young man put to death and had his wife wash her hands in his blood. Her unruly passions were thereby cured. This at least according to the (spurious) Iulius Capitolinus’s (dubious) biography of Marcus Aurelius in the Historia Augusta, paraphrased by Richard in his Description, 6:156–7. 118 Urged to divulge the secrets of the Senate, the young Papirius Praetextatus told his mother that the matter under discussion was a vote on whether one man should have two wives or one wife two husbands. Alarmed, she spread the news, and women gathered in the Senate the following day to urge the latter course of action. The boy’s ruse was then revealed, and he was rewarded for his presence of mind. As reported in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, trans. J.C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), 1[bk.1:23]:104–9. 119 As a result of his involvement with the conspiracy of Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonius against Claudius in 42 BCE, Caecina Paetus was ordered by the emperor to commit suicide. Seeing him unable,

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does not lower the tone of the lovely antiquities in the vicinity that I have just mentioned; you note the beautiful expressiveness. A lovely Agrippina, a head of Bacchus made of red marble, with eyes and mouth open and that seems to have served in some temple where oracles were given. The gardens of this house, bounded by walls of the city, are wonderfully large, and what in my view makes up a share of their charm, there are, as with almost all Roman gardens, beautiful plantings of bay trees and live oaks, which make the appearance of these lovely promenades almost as gay in winter as in summer. You will see in this one several restored statues, among which is a satyr of the greatest beauty and that you should not fail to contemplate, no more than the lovely tomb, likewise antique, graced with superb bas-reliefs. In the midst of an area surrounded by bowers and bay trees, graced here and there with those large antique vases in which oil or wine was kept, is a little pavilion, of which the vestibule is adorned with eight niches filled with statues, smaller than life and quite mediocre; some are antique, but absorbed by the restorations.120 From this vestibule, you enter a gallery of which the vault is decorated with a beautiful piece by Guercino that depicts Aurora chasing off Night. In this same room, you see a Julius Caesar, a Judith, two consuls, a bust of Hercules (larger than life), five different busts in niches and, over the door, a beautiful bas-relief depicting the Fall of Phæton; a fluted column of lovely Egyptian breccia, a magnificent bust of Marcus Aurelius, the head of which is bronze, the bust made of porphyry, and the drapery of gilded bronze; a less beautiful bust of a son of an emperor, a Marcus Aurelius, and, in the room where these two latter pieces are, four lovely landscapes on the ceiling, of which three by Domenichino and the one on the right on entering by Guercino. You see on the vault of the same room a Children’s Game by the school of Domenichino. Before leaving this room, you must observe a superb table made of hard stone, in the style of Florentine productions, adorned in the middle by a superb oval made of oriental alabaster. From there, you climb up to the upper-level suites and find on the staircase two rather middling busts, one of Juno and the other of a nymph. In the first room in which you enter is a lovely ceiling by Guercino depicting the Coronation of Apollo. In this first upper room is a bust of Nerva, two unknowns, and two Hadrians. Close to this first chamber is a small room filled with several little precious objects of alabaster, bone, and ivory, certain of which are quite pleasing. I did not see at all the petrified mummy that Monsieur Richard mentions, but I am not trying to take him to task on account of this wretched object and it is possible that it was moved elsewhere.121 On the ceiling of this chamber is a piece by Guercino depicting Neptune, Pluto, and Jupiter. his wife Arria grabbed a dagger, plunged it into her breast, and declared: “Pæte, non dolet [It does not hurt, Paetus].” As reported in Pliny the Younger, The Letters of Pliny, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 1[bk.3:16]:218–19. The statue in question, however, is the so-called Ludovisi Gaul Killing Himself and His Wife or Galatian Suicide. 120 The building in question is the Casino di Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, the only building that survives intact from the Ludovisi Gardens as Sade would have seen them. It is also known as the Casino dell’Aurora, after the fresco by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), known as Guercino, mentioned below. 121 Richard, putting his own powers of critical observation into play, remarks: “You see in a case a petrified human body, a natural curiosity claimed to be unique in the world and that was given to Pope Gregory XV, from the House of Ludovisi, by a foreigner, who had found this petrified object in the sea sand on the shores of Syria; it is certain that the body is petrified, but it seemed to me quite doubtful that this was a hu-

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Such are about all the interesting objects that this little pavilion has on offer; its furnishing and apartments contain nothing, excepting what I have just mentioned, but these are rather mean and mediocre. Not far from here and close to the Porta Salaria, in the gardens of the Mendosi family, formerly those of Lucullus, are the remnants of a temple to which were led the Vestals condemned to be buried alive beneath the vaults that you still see under this edifice. I will not repeat here the frightful rites of this funeral ceremony. I will only say that after having been carried shrouded on a litter and paraded throughout the city, they were led to this temple where the head priest, after a few prayers, uncovered them and brought them down via a ladder to the cellars that would serve as their final abode, which was afterwards filled in with the greatest care.122 It is difficult to penetrate into these cellars. The entrance is covered over with thorns and undergrowth; it is very dark, and I think that you would run the risk of being stung by vipers or serpents. But the temple, which will be seen almost entirely intact, sufficiently satisfies the melancholy curiosity that pagan cruelty inspires. It was a large round building adorned with six niches that were doubtless filled by statues. The apse is open and provides access to a small rectangle that seems to have served as the temple’s sanctuary. At the back is a large niche where was likely the statue of Vesta.

man body, as you cannot make out any of the joints; the face is covered with a crust of mud and sand that hardly allows you to make out the shape, so that this could just as well be a wooden statue from the stern or the prow of a ship as the body of a man; to be certain of the fact, you would need to break off some large piece and to verify from the interior composition” (Description, 6:162). Richard’s description follows closely that of an antiquarian named Pietro Rossini, who states in Il Mercurio errante delle grandezze di Roma (Rome, 1693) that you will see “in a case” “a petrified man, rare and unique in Rome, which was given to Pope Gregory XV, of the Ludovisi family, by a pilgrim who came from the Sea of sand [Mare dell’arena]” (92). Reporting on this same passage from a re-edition of Rossini’s work from 1750 in The Gentleman’s Magazine (London, 1787), a correspondent remarks that he cannot ascertain the whereabouts of this “sea dell’ Arena” (vol. 62, part 2: 1071). The geographical reference is indeed obscure. The only reference that I have been able to find is by Aquilante Rocchetta, knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, in Peregrinatione di Terra Santa e d’Altre Provincie di Don Aquilante Rocchetta (Palermo, 1630), an account of his journey between Gaza and Egypt, where he explains that the place in question is a plain so called because it is “like a sea of finest sand instead of water [come un mare d’arena sottilissima in vece d’acqua]” and subject to storms also like those at sea (299). But there may simply be a misunderstanding at work. In The Diary of John Evelyn (New York: Macmillan, 1903), first published in 1818 but kept from 1640 to 1706, the diarist reports that in 1644 at the Villa Ludovisi he saw, “a man’s body flesh and all, petrified, and even converted to marble, as it was found in the Alps, and sent by the Emperor to one of the Popes; it lay in a chest, or coffin, lined with black velvet, and one of the arms being broken, you may see the perfect bone from the flesh which remains entire” (1:166). This would suggest that the mummy was like the so-called Ötzi the Iceman, discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991 and dating to around 3000 BCE. The description of the marblelike skin fits. At about the same time as Evelyn’s report, the German poet Andreas Gryphius, struck by the petrified man, wrote two epigrams on the topic. See Peter Skrine, “Gryphius in Italy,” in Zweder von Martels, ed., Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Scholarly Discovery and Observation in Travel Writing (Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 182, and see also 170–82. Unfortunately, these epigrams do not address the mummy’s origins. 122 This punishment was reserved for a Vestal Virgin who had violated the strict laws of chasity enjoined on her; because a Vestal was considered too holy for execution, she was sealed in a cell with bread, oil, water, and milk – she could not be said to have been starved – and then left to die. Her lover was beaten to death in public. Such punishments were rare (there are ten documented cases), and it is far from certain that all supposed violations actually occurred. On this punishment and the function of the Vestals, see Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001), 39–44.

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All this valley is called the Accursed Field [Campus Sceleratus]. The Aurelian walls marked out its boundary on one side, and it is probable that the emperor in question restricted himself in this area so as not to include this monument within the city. If the Ancients had handsome institutions, you will admit, madam countess, that we can place the latter among the number of those that do not do them honour, and it is odious to punish with death those whose entire crime is to have laboured to give life. Our convents offer in a way the reflection of this ancient barbarity. But man, ever blind and superstitious, will always believe that divinity requires victims, and endowing this false divinity with both his notions and his whims, he will think that he but honours him better by debasing him the more. Piazza Barberini is graced with a lovely fountain by Bernini that depicts a merman on a hinged shell that four grouped dolphins support with their tails. On the head of the merman is a small urn whence issues the stream of water. This merman is a marvel to see when it freezes. The water sticks in flakes on his head and creates a sort of quite picturesque coiffure. San Crisogono. You see there a large number of lovely columns that appear to be spoils from some temple, but to which they belonged is unknown. You will observe twenty-two of these made of granite; in the aisles, four superb ones of alabaster, called quince because of the similarity of its colour to that fruit, that support the cupola of the high altar; and two of porphyry at the apse. On the ceiling of the nave, you see the Triumph of the saint [i.e., Chrysogonus], a lovely composition by Guercino, and at that of the high altar, an estimable Virgin by cavaliere d’Arpino. Santa Cecilia. The most beautiful piece in this church is without question the statue of the saint, made by Stefano Maderno. It will be seen at the base of the ciborium of the high altar. Here is a lovely flower reaped almost at birth. Cecilia was married quite young, and it was in the first days of her marriage that she was murdered in her bath. The marks of her wounds will be seen on her beautiful, completely uncovered neck. You see there the three sword blows with which she was struck; the blood issues forth and the position in which she fell, doubtless while expiring from this violent death, is what the artist has captured. It is at least quite certain that she was captured as she was found in the catacombs of San Sebastiano. The same chemise that she wore in her bath is the one covering her; the delicacy of the drapery that it creates and the learned manner in which it allows one to perceive her contours is truly sublime. The artist has preserved all the graces of his model and the death that freezes her seems, if this is possible, to only make her more interesting. Her head, wrapped in a simple scarf, is turned towards the ground in a posture that is a bit forced, but you recognize in it the prolongation of the final anguish. Her delicate hands are extended and some of her fingers pulled back as if as a result of a strong and sudden agony. It is a cadaver tossed there … But you inhale still all the delicacy and all the svelteness of a young person seventeen or eighteen years old and as interesting as she is pretty. There is such a striking truthfulness in this divine piece that you cannot see it without being moved. I think that such a representation, glimpsed by someone who might have had some lively interest in the unfortunate model who might have experienced the same fate, would be liable perhaps to produce a stronger impression still than the cadaver itself. The effect could be dangerous. Please excuse me for insisting perhaps too much on this piece. My taste and my feelings are only those of a second-class art lover. My claims are nothing more than this. But I avow that it is the modern object in Rome that gave me the most pleasure and made me feel a most lively sensation.

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The ciborium of the high altar of this church is supported by four lovely columns of black and white reticulated marble and this of the rarest sort. They are antique and perhaps belonged to the house of that young Roman lady, which was built upon the same spot where you see the church today. At the back of the church, on the wall of the apse, is a painting, said to be by Guido, depicting the martyrdom of the saint. But this piece seemed cold to me. It is difficult to discern his style, and I do not think that it is by him. You see at the high altar, Gothic in shape and turned towards the doorway in keeping with ancient custom, a small two-sided medallion. On the side facing the doorway is a lovely Virgin by Annibale Carracci and on the other a Crucifix, but by an inferior hand. Beneath this altar is the body of the saint. The whole of the interior space is of pleasing shape. The aisles are supported by pretty stuccoed columns. It belongs to the Benedictine nuns; you see therein several tombs of cardinals, the working of which is highly regarded, although they have nothing poetic or learned about them. A part of the saint’s house has been preserved almost as it was. This part is the very bathing chamber in which her throat was cut. You see where two basins were, the copper plates against which they leaned, the pipes, conduits, hot water tanks, and all the necessaries, in a word, for such a chamber. After having seen the beautiful statue by Maderno, this room becomes of the greatest interest, and you cannot prevent yourself contemplating it with a sort of emotion. This room has been made into a chapel, at the altar of which is the Martyrdom of the saint, copied from the one thought to be by Guido, poorly preserved, and depicting an angel appearing before that young virgin. In the sacristy, a small Virgin, not by Raphael as the sacristans claim, but by one of his students. Close by are two paintings by [Francesco] Vanni that would have been ruined in the underground chamber where they previously were. One of these depicts the Entombment of the Saint, and the other, a quite different subject, doubtless her marriage being celebrated by Pope Urban I. In the underground chamber that, given how much all the buildings of modern Rome are raised up must have been level with the house of Cecilia, you see four small altars formed by four lovely antique urns in which are the bodies of various martyrs. At one of these altars is an inscription by Pope Gregory VII, pontiff fom the end of the eleventh century, that attests that he dedicated this altar. You must not leave this church without examining on the ceiling a quite pleasing piece by [Sebastiano] Conca depicting the Triumph of the Saint. The della Madonna-dell’Orto church, so called because a painting of the Virgin found in a neighbouring garden was placed therein.123 Done all in gilded stucco, it is maintained in both magnificent and tidy condition. The three pilasters on each side that support the arches of the aisles are revetted with lovely marbles and the paintings that decorate them are pleasant, although second rate. This church and the following are built on very famous premises insofar as they witnessed the three major episodes that frightened Porsena and were the cause of his retreat when, at Tarquin the Proud’s urging, he had advanced towards Rome in order to re-establish him on the throne. The first of these episodes was that of Mucius Scaevola burning the hand that had failed him and to whom the Senate then granted these same fields as a reward. The second, that of the young virgin Cloelia, who to escape from this king who had imprisoned her, in order to free herself swam across the Tiber before his eyes. And the third, the 123 That is, Santa Maria dell’Orto or St Mary of the Garden.

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beautiful defence by Horatius Cocles on the Pons Sublicius. “What would the Romans do together,” said Porsena withdrawing, “if three are so capable, in such a short space of time, of so much greatness of soul?”124 San Francesco a Ripa, upon the same famous ground, the history of which I have just recounted. At the altar of the crossing, to the left, is highly regarded statue by Bernini that depicts Saint Louisa Albertoni, member of a noble Roman family. She is in her death throes, reclined on a lovely white-marble mattress, wrapped in a simar, the drapery of which I found stiff. The expression on her face is that of annihilation itself. Why didn’t the artist, for all the rest, follow Nature so exactly? The bolster and pillow that support her head are surprisingly truthful, but the position of the hands is much too mannered. They are certainly not at all so gracefully placed when one is expiring. How far we are from that frightful truth found in the Saint Cecilia by Maderno! Excessive show was ever Bernini’s fault, and this is a cardinal sin in an art that only nears perfection to the degree that it approximates Nature the more. But the latter – ever true, ever great – is never mannered. Grace is Nature’s ornament, but it is not the same as Nature, and it is only at the expense of the main subject that you endow it with graces. At that point, artifice appears, and you cease to be true in order to become more charming. Such is the pitfall du jour – the one that our young artists rarely avoid and that, going by the deadly term “elegance,” the only virtue at which is aimed today, will soon annihilate all the arts. In this same church, in the third chapel to the left, is Dead Jesus on the knees of his Mother. You cannot help but laugh when you see the bland adulation of the painter who, in defiance of reason and good sense, has put in his painting a lady from the House of Mattei, to which this chapel belongs, and a Saint Francis, founder of the monastic order that serves this church, who, born more than one thousand, four hundred years later, could assuredly not have been present at the death of Christ.125 But in Rome you see everyday these sorts of imbecilities, and it is with all these little local considerations that one never becomes a great man and, after having sweated your entire life, you end up nonetheless in the same spot. Excepting this, the piece is strong, a bit grey in tone, but showing much accuracy and purity of design. It is attributed to Annibale Carracci. I have trouble believing that such a great artist should have committed such blunders. Santa Maria in Trastevere, an ancient Gothic church, built upon the site of the house that served as a hospice for old soldiers, built during the time of the Republic.126 You see on the

124 Sade has changed the order of the episodes as reported in Livy. The story of Horatius Cocles single-handedly defending the bridge (also mentioned by Sade above on p. 101) is given in book 2.10 of the History of Rome (see Livy, 1:248–53). The celebrated episode of Gaius Mucius’s failed assassination attempt on Porsena and his subsequent act of holding his right hand in the flame to the wonderment of the Etruscan king – an act that earned him the moniker “Scaevola,” that is, “Left-handed” – is recounted in book 2.12 (see 1:254–61). The story of the maiden Cloelia takes place in book 2.13 (see 1:260–3). After Cloelia’s escape, Porsena, initially angered, eventually declared with admiration that her feat was greater than even those of Cocles and Mucius. Plutarch provides similar accounts as Livy in his life of Publicola and in the same order (see Lives, 1:542–55). 125 Sade’s calculation is mystifying: Saint Francis’s dates are c. 1181 to 1226. 126 Sade is referring to the Taberna Meritoria. It was here that oil mysteriously and miraculously gushed from the ground on the day that Christ was born, “signifying His grace which had come upon the earth,” as reported in Andrea Palladio, Palladio’s Rome: A Translation of Andrea Palladio’s Two Guidebooks to Rome, ed. and trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 69.

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ceiling a lovely Virgin by Domenichino. The three aisles of the church are supported by twenty-two granite columns, larger than those of San Crisogono. Two of these columns in the right section are completely obscured by a modern and perfectly ridiculous altar that has been stood against them. The difference that you observe in their size and ornamentation proves that they were taken from some ancient monuments. The artist, who has stuck capitals onto these that had none, decided to imitate the same disparities and created some of these in the Ionic order and others in the Corinthian. The baldachin of the high altar is supported by four porphyry columns. You will observe in the apse mosaics from the twelfth century and, on the façade outside, another mosaic, likewise quite old and depicting the Wise Virgins and the Foolish Virgins of which Scripture speaks.127 You see at the bottom of the choir a sort of concavity closed off by a grate, which you are assured is the well from which issued a fountain of oil when Jesus was born. Was this a sign of abundance or of peace? I do not see that the chimeras of that imposter have ever produced the one or the other. You must examine, on leaving this church, the lovely fountain that graces the square on which it is located. Church of Sant’Onofrio, on the Janiculum. Under the portico three lovely frescoes by Domenichino that depict episodes from the life of Saint Jerome. But the glass that has been installed to protect them from the insults of the air was either put in place too late or has not succeeded in preserving them, since you can at present barely make out what they depict. To the right is a small chapel at the altar of which is a most beautiful Nativity by Francesco Bassano. The various gradations of light created by the reflection of the whiteness of the infant, that of the candle held close to him, and that of the star guiding the Magi produces striking effects, and this painting, which is furthermore well lit, is one of the most beautiful Bassano’s that I have seen. In the sacristy is a lovely Saint Jerome at prayer, surrounded by some other saints whose heads reveal the most beautiful expressiveness. It is said to be by Angelino.128 We cannot quite figure out why this artist judged it appropriate to dress the principal saint as a cardinal. Here is another one of those wardrobe flaws that makes you groan. In the church you see the tomb of Tasso, who died in the monastery here, erected by Cardinal Bevilacqua. At the top is the medallion of the poet on Lavagna stone; the rest is of a plainness that is not a credit to the generosity of the cardinal, and it seems to me that for such great man, it was necessary either to do better or not to have flaunted doing this.

127 “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them; but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day or the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:1–13, AV). 128 Exactly who Sade had in mind is uncertain, and this may be a transcription error. I have been unable to trace any painting of Saint Jerome at prayer in the sacristy, which features frescoes by Girolamo Pesci (c. 1679–1759) and Francesco Trevisani (1656–1746), although Domenico Zampieri, also known as Domenichino, was responsible for frescoes of episodes of the saint’s life in the portico of this church.

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Close by is another little mausoleum for [Carlo] Alessandro Guidi, a poet from Pavia, and who, like his friend Tasso, wanted to be buried close to him. In a chapel of this same church is a painting by Annibale Carracci that depicts the Translation of the Holy House of Loreto, a mad composition and one that can never be a credit to its creator.129 Above the door to the church, on the outside, is, a highly regarded Virgin by the same artist, likewise under glass. From the ceiling of this church are suspended a large number of hats, which proves that many prelates and cardinals have chosen this spot for their sepulchres.130 On the street of the Ciambella, you see a large wall, all around which has been built up and is the sole visible remnant of the thermae of M. Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus.131 If you excavated under the foundations of this building, you would surely find there the entire layout of the construction, but aren’t there enough ruins in Rome? Not destroying those that remain is all that we ask. But who will ensure that the respect demanded for them today will last and that there will not be future Farneses and […]132 The Church of Saint Gregory [San Gregorio]. Located on the slope of the Caelian Hill, built upon the very site of the saint’s house; it has three aisles and a pleasant design, although the construction appears a bit heavy, a feeling that columns leaned against pilasters always produces.133 The ceiling is by Placido Constanzi. It relates to the life of Saint Romuald, founder of the Camaldolese order that serves this house. At the high altar is a large painting by [Antonio] Balestra, a Roman painter, that depicts Saint Andrew with his cross, imploring a Virgin who appears in an aureole in the upper part of the painting. You are piously shown a little room connected to the sacristy in which will be seen a sort of recess in which it is said the saint [i.e., Gregory] reposed, along with his pontifical chair [cathedra]. These two objects of Christian veneration are not much in the eyes of a philosopher and you only see them as interesting antiquities. At an altar in the right-hand aisle is the portrait of the saint, by Andrea Sacchi, that is said to quite resemble him. The front of this altar presents three lovely bas-reliefs, extremely delicately wrought and having to do with the life of the pontiff. On the left, in the second chapel of the nave, is a lovely piece by [Pompeo Girolamo] Batoni, a painter currently alive in Rome, that depicts the Blessed Virgin, Saint Romuald, and some other monks of the order, one of which is dressed as a bishop. The accuracy of this piece is great and its colouring very pleasant. After the example of the ancient painters, the artist has placed in this painting several portraits of his family and, in particular, he depicted Mary based on the features of his wife. 129 The painting depicts Mary and the Infant Jesus seated on top of a house, which is being carried in the air by three angels. On the Holy House of Loreto and its “translation,” see chapter VI (on Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome), pp. 366–71. 130 It was the tradition to hang a cardinal’s galero – the red, broad-brimmed and tasselled hat – over his tomb until it disintegrated. 131 Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (c. 63–12 BCE) was the son-in-law of Gaius Octavius, who became the first emperor of Rome and was eventually bestowed, as his full title, Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus. 132 Left blank. Presumably “Barberini” would have been inserted. 133 Sade’s architectural description is odd but his sentiment understandable. A pilaster appears to be a column flattened against a wall, but is not, in fact, load bearing. In contrast, an engaged column is a supporting element, partially embedded in a wall, and a free-standing column is self-explanatory. On Sade’s general distaste for pilasters, apparently drawn from the architectural theorist Marc-Antoine Laugier, see the introduction to this volume.

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There are some chapels within the enclosure of this church in which there is a great throng of devotion during the octave of All Souls’ Day.134 In that of the Salviati family, you see the saint between two angels and with the most charming face. You could say that his contemplation is more terrestrial than celestial, and the warm manner in which he appears to examine one of the angels could draw some criticisms to the creator, but the surprising beauty of the composition shuts the critic’s mouth for silent admiration. This piece is by Annibale Carracci; it is painted on wood. In another chapel, dedicated to Saint Silvia, mother of Saint Gregory, you see at the altar the statue of the saint, middling in manner. The pediment of the altar is supported by two porphyry columns and the cul-de-four has a fresco depicting the Eternal, seated in an aureole, enjoying a concert of angels. This gigantic composition is not, however, lacking in grace and you easily recognize the pleasing brush of Guido. In another chapel, still outside, although belonging to the same complex, is another fresco by the same artist that depicts the Flagellation of Saint Andrew before his martyrdom.135 Here it is fitting to note that this ceremony always took place prior to the torture to which the fanatic was condemned. Opposite is another fresco by Domenichino, where the same saint is dragged to death. At the altar of this same chapel is a painting of the same style on stucco that depicts the Virgin, Saint Gregory, and another saint, by Pomarancio [i.e., Cristoforo Roncalli], a Tuscan painter. In the last chapel of this complex is the statue of Gregory, begun by Michelanglo and completed by one of his pupils. Without fail you will be directed to observe in this same spot a marble table, closed up under two large wooden shutters and surrounded by a railing, on which it is said that Gregory daily laid out food for twelve poor people. It is a bit difficult to reconcile such great charity with the harshness of he who, writing to the bishop of Cagliari on the topic of the conversion of the unfaithful said: “If the peasant remains obstinate in his lack of faith, you must levy a tax that is so high that it will oblige him to listen to reason.”136 Be that as it may, it is from this tradition that comes the custom that the popes preserve to this day, of feeding twelve beggars – a practice against all the laws of good and wise policy and that only serves to maintain indolence and idleness among people who need, on the contrary, more forceful means to draw them out of their laziness and innate torpor.137 134 These chapels are the three oratories in the church garden, dedicated to saints Andrew, Silvia, and Barbara, that Cardinal Cesare Baronio commissioned at the beginning of the seventeenth century. 135 The fresco in question is not by Guido Reni, as the preceding reference implies, but rather by Domenichino, as the following paragraph suggests. 136 I have been unable to locate Sade’s precise reference. Gregory’s Epistle LXV to Januarius, the bishop of Caralis (Cagliari) comes close, but is even more harsh. Other letters are, however, more moderate. 137 End of the manuscript notebook. On the verso of the last page, still in Sade’s hand, are the following lines from Voltaire’s epic poem La Henriade (1723) on Henry IV of France and the dangers of fanaticism: EPIGRAPH Close by this Capitol where reigned such alarums, Under the pompous debris of Bellona and Mars, A pontiff is seated upon the throne of the Caesars. Fortunate priests trample at a peaceful pace The tombs of Catos and the ashes of Aemilii; The throne is upon the altar, and absolute power Puts into the same hands both throne and censer

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The Church of Saint John and of Saint Paul [Santi Giovanni e Paolo], served by a new order of monks called the Passionists, whose founder died in 1775.139 This church is new and pleasingly shaped, but the same sort of arrangement that I have just mentioned, that is to say, adorned with pilasters against which are stood columns that support the arches of the aisles. In the apse are frescoes by Pomarancio that depict the Eternal in his glory. In the same part are three other pieces that relate to the martyrdom of these two saints; they are by a modern painter, who would do well to respectfully observe the tacet.140 You see under the high altar a superb porphyry urn placed on a red marble base and adorned with four bronze, beautifully wrought feet. You are assured that it contains the bodies of the two titular saints of the church. The lid, which doubtless does not belong to the urn, is made of red marble like the base. This piece is truly precious, and it is the custom to keep it closed. You also observe in this church a marble piece, surrounded by an iron railing, on which it is claimed that these two saints were martyred. You must be sure to pay a modicum of attention to the paving in this church, the materials of which are lavish and the designs quite pleasing. You see in the gardens of this complex the remnants of the Curia or Law Courts of Tullius Hostilius, third king of Rome, consisting of five large arcaded vaults that are still of such solidity that the entire edifice of the monks is built upon it. These arcades ostensibly continued to stretch on to a much larger extent, as is proven by the sole wall that remains thereof today. The order of the building, as far as this can be discerned from the remaining pilasters, was rustic with bossages. Opposite the main entrance to the church will be seen some fragments that are said to have belonged to the ancient fish market. This is all that this area offers of interest. Saint Stephen in the Round [Santo Stefano Rotondo], church served by secular priests and belonging to the Collegium Germanicum. Opinions are extremely divided about this church. Some claim that it was a monument erected by Agrippina to the emperor Claudius; others say that it was to the god Faun. But I believe that we can assert that neither one nor the other is true. The round shape of this temple and its two rows of columns might have stirred up these opinions. But why were they not immediately renounced upon seeing the unevenness of the columns, which unassailably proves, in my view, that they are spoils from other temples, such as will be seen in many other churches? The truth is that Simplicius, a pope, had it built towards the middle of the fifth century, perhaps upon the remnants of some nearby temple, but surely not within the same enclosure. The model provided by pagan temples was not yet far enough removed from the eyes of architects in this century for them not to conform to them, and its ancientness, along with its shape, have occasioned these errors. It is claimed that there was a surrounding triple colonnade. Today, only two rows of these circular columns survive and the second of these is closed with a wall, a form of construction that will hardly be seen outside of ancient temples that have been restored. But is it not possible that some inconvenience was recognized that led to changing the initial form of this church and that it was closed off for the same reason that caused 138

138 Beginning of the third notebook on Rome, entirely in Sade’s hand: 75 pages. At the top: “Fourth Volume.” The numbering recalls that the first notebook was dedicated to Florence. 139 The mystic Paolo Francesco Danei (1694–1775), later known as Saint Paul of the Cross, founded this order in 1737. 140 The three frescoes to which Sade refers are, in fact, by three different artists: Giovanni Domenico Piastrini (1678–1740), Giacomo Triga (1674–1746), and Pietro Andrea Barbieri Pucciardi (c. 1684–c. 1736).

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the ancient temples with this form to be closed off when they had been transformed into churches? Nothing appears to me more possible, and I persist in saying that this monument was never a pagan temple. In support of such reasoning, they add as proof some crosses seen as decorations on the capitals of some of these columns. But this is wasted effort and not something that I will make use of. Whoever had these ornaments added could just as well have done so if the columns were in the same place than if they were from another structure. Thus, this proves nothing, and in support of my opinion, I cleave to the unevenness of the columns alone, which in my view is decisive. You see, in the middle of this church, a large Gothic altar, made by a German, more peculiar than pleasing.141 Three archways supported by two large columns and two pilasters divide the church into two and appear added in modern times to support the vault which, doubtless, had suffered a bit, but they produce an unpleasant effect. The entire length of the walls of the church are frescoes by [Antonio] Tempesta that depict an infinite number of martyrs being tortured.142 It is one of the most frightful collections of horrors that could possibly be gathered. You see, among others, a young female saint whose executioners are tearing off her breast. I did not find that these subjects were either edifying or well placed. In a chapel of this church, you see a fairly comely Virgin by the school of Raphael. Such is about all that it has to offer either to one’s curiosity or for reflection. Villa Mattei, located on the Caelian Hill. The gardens are small but pleasantly planted, and on the terraces gracing them you enjoy the most pleasing view imaginable. In general, everything appears poorly kept up in this house, and you weep upon seeing such beauty reduced to this state of chaos and abandon, to which the owner’s lack of discernment and of good taste seemingly contribute not a little. You see in these gardens a small obelisk, standing albeit broken in two spots, several antique statues, but too mediocre and too restored to bother with a description. On the site of both the garden and the house was formerly the quarter to which the Romans relegated foreign soldiers. This entire area is today called Navicella, from the name of a little vessel that will be seen close to the church nearby the Villa Mattei. Monsieur Richard is wrong when he tells us that it is antique. I have found no one in Rome who shares his opinion on this, and, on the contrary, it passes for certain that this little monument is a votive offering of some good soul who, doubtless, had escaped from the dangers of the sea. You see at the Mattei pavilion a barbarian king coiffed in the Phrygian manner; it is in the vestibule. In the same place, several sections of columns made of porphyry 141 The altar is otherwise attributed to the architect and sculptor Bernardo Matteo di Gamberelli (1409–1464), known as Bernardo Rossellino, who undertook the restoration of the church in the fifteenth century. On the architecture of this church, see Elsa Rizzi, “S. Stefano Rotondo a Roma,” in Valentino Volta, ed., Rotonde d’Italia: Analisi tipologica della pianta centrale (Milan: Editoriale Jaca, 2008), 150–2. 142 Commissioned by the Jesuits in 1582, the martydom-cycle frescoes were the creation of Niccolò Circignani (c. 1520–c. 1597), also known as Il Pomarancio. See Kelley Magill, “Reviving Martyrdom: Interpretations of the Catacombs in Cesare Baronio’s Patronage,” in John R. Decker and Mitzi Kirkland-Ives, eds., Death, Torture, and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300–1650 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 86–116 and esp. 96–100. Attributions to Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) are not unusual, however, and Tempesta and Matteo da Siena (1533–1588) assisted in the commission. See Steven F. Ostrow, “The Counter-Reformation and the End of the Century,” in Marcia B. Hall, ed., Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 269. Moreover, Tempesta had provided illustrations for Antonius Gallonius’s martyrology, Trattato de gli instrumenti di martirio, e delle varie maniere di martoriare usate da’ gentili contro christiani, descritte et intagliate in rame (Rome, 1591).

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Figure 2.3. Engraving of church martyrs, after Niccolò Circignani’s fresco in Santo Stefano Rotondo (c. 1600) (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

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and of granite, supporting some middling little statues. In the next room will be seen a Marius, a Flora, but the head and arms of which are restored, only the body and drapery are antique. From the delicacy of this lovely drapery you can easily mark the difference between both eras and hands. A lovely statue of Marius, in which you well mark all the pride of the ferocious enemy of Sulla, a statue of Abundantia, the head of which is a modern, mediocre piece, even when it comes to its antique parts, a small statue of a gladiator, four lovely columns for ornamenting this piece, of which two are of Egyptian marble, a superb statue of Antoninus Pius, larger than life, a charming Venus as far as her antique portions are concerned; the nude section is of the greatest beauty, but the restoration of the head is as inferior as the lower part is sublime, and you could say that she is a Callipygian; a statue of Faustina, the head of which is likewise modern, a young Agrippina, of which only the body is antique; the drapery is of an astonishing lightness; you have trouble conceiving that marble could be handled with such delicacy and the svelteness that so well characterizes all Greek works; a group of Apollo binding Marsyas in order to flay him, a modern piece, but weak and cold, which sins even in terms of verisimilitude, since the sculptor has clumsily endued the bound Satyr with more energy than the binding Apollo. In a subsequent room: a lovely bust of Hadrian, a statue of Antinoüs beside, but extremely damaged. Close by is another of these that is less so, but despite what Monsieur Richard might say, you are far from rediscovering here that soft and effeminate beauty of that of the Belvedere to which he dares compare it. I found no similarities in either the one or the other of those that will be seen in this house, and I believe they are second-rate copies. On the ceiling of this room you see a good piece by the school of Raphael that depicts Esther imploring Ahasuerus. The drawing is exact and the coloration still quite vivid. In the previous room, Pietro da Cortona has adorned the ceiling with a charming composition depicting the Tribute of the nymphs to the goddess of flowers. In the third apartment, a bust of Alexander, one of an unknown emperor, that of Antoninus, that of a Greek philosopher, a Septimius Severus, a Lucius Verus, and Antoninus Pius, and a lovely ceiling in this same room, by Giulio Romano, that depicts Venus crowned by a nymph before the eyes of Apollo, who doubtless comes to proffer the flowers out of which the crown is created. You see in this room a lovely table of hardstone, in the style of Florentine construction. These hardstones, of which I have already spoken on several occasions, are agate, chalcedony, amethyst, jasper, and lapis lazuli. In Florence, they have a sublime way of mingling all these natural treasures and composing from them the most lavish and most pleasing works imaginable. In another room are two busts of empresses, some fragments of Egyptian idols. Next, two lovely columns of Egyptian marble of the greatest delicacy, and a pretty ceiling by Pietro da Cortona. Coming at last to a final room, a larger-than-life statue representing Marcus Aurelius; it is not without beauty. As for the statues surrounding the building, about of the same sort as those in the garden, they are not worthy of greater praise. The Church of Saint John Lateran [San Giovanni in Laterano], the most beautiful church in Rome after Saint Peter’s and enjoying the advantage over it in being the first church of the Occidental Empire and of having primacy over all the churches in the universe. It is at this church that His Holiness takes possession, a ceremony that I have seen and about which I will have the honour of speaking to you.

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The baptistery, the courtyard, the entire building for the canons and part of the church occupies the grounds of the ancient palace of the patrician family of the Laterani. You see on the exterior façade of the Chapel of Saint Rufina some remnants of that anicent structure consisting in a pilaster made of Greek marble and two porphyry columns. The friezes that they support are antique, but the capitals of these two columns appear to have been restored. Nero having had Plautius, a senator, put to death on the frivolous pretext of a seditious plot, seized his palace, and by succession, the emperors kept it always up to Constantine, who gave it to Saint Sylvester, the pope, who turned it into a church, covering about the same area as the one today and this was dedicated to the Saviour. It was Clement XII who had made the beautiful façade by the architect Galilei, a Florentine, that we see today.143 It is made of travertine. The first row is supported by four large columns and six pilasters in the Composite order. The intercolumniations of the columns and of the pilasters form five archways, the centre one of which forms a sort of loggia supported by two twinned marble columns, and it is from this loggia that the Holy Father, after his enthronement and for some other major functions, gives his blessing to the people. Under each of these archways that I have just mentioned are five metal gates that connect to a large vestibule in which are an equal number of doorways leading into the church. On the marble balcony that crowns this façade are ten statues of saints and an eleventh in the middle depicting the Saviour carrying his Cross. On the frieze the following inscription will be read: CLEMENS XII PONT. MAX. ANNO V. CHRISTO SALVATORI IN HON. SS. JOAN BAPT. ET EVANG.144

Attached to the right side of this façade is the grand Lateran Palace, built by Sixtus V, but which the popes never used. Innocent XII made it into an academy for girls that were trained in various arts of their sex. This same pope completed the façade of this palace, which death had prevented Sixtus V from finishing. The main entrance of the large vestibule of this church is the same as that of the famous Temple of Saturn in the Forum Romanum, in which was for a long time kept the treasury of the Republic. It was Alexander VII who had it placed where it is today. As it was two feet too low, Bernini had it raised by that amount; he adorned it with stars, rectangles, and arabesques. Other than these embellishments, we may assert that the rest is antique. To the left of this portico is the statue of Constantine, found in his thermae and placed here by Clement XII. Papal recognition for their benefactors was always extreme, not that this sentiment comes naturally to the Church – far from it – but in order to encourage princes and the wealthy to sacrifice their fortunes to the vain pomp of holy and sterile adulation.

143 The Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran and Lateran Palace were damaged by fires in 1307 and 1361. Although some restoration took place afterwards, it would not be until the sixteenth century that, under the auspices of Pope Sixtus V, the architect Domenico Fontana (1543–1607) would carry out important reconstruction and alteration projects. These included the demolition and rebuilding of the Lateran Palace. In the 1730s, Pope Clement XII oversaw further construction and held a contest for the façade, won by Alessandro Galilei (1691–1737). 144 Translated and with abbrevations expanded: “Clement XII, Supreme Pontiff, in Year Five [of his papacy] / To Christ the Saviour and in Honour of Saints John, the Baptist / and the Evangelist.”

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The Church of Saint John Lateran – beautiful, majestic, and stately – has five aisles. The one in the centre is supported by six large pilasters that are thirty-two feet around, between which are placed lovely statues of the apostles, larger than life. These are all made by various hands and above each one are bas-reliefs depicting subjects taken from Sacred History, and in addition, painted medallions, which relate in about the same way. The niches of these large statues were made by Innocent X and the statues by Clement XI. Considered the best are those of Saint Bartholomew, Saint Andrew, and Saint John the Evangelist. All these statues and the bas-reliefs above are made of marble. At the end of the nave, opposite the high altar, is the quite simple mausoleum of Martin V. The blindness, superstition, and ignorance of the people are such that it is rare not to see this monument perpetually surrounded by folk who come to kiss the effigy of this villain, who was unafraid to keep the tiara at the price of the life of Pietro da Luna, his rival, whom he had poisoned by the satellites of his legate, the cardinal of Pisa.145 The high altar is Gothic in design. Preserved there with care are the heads of the apostles Peter and Paul, preserved in silver busts adorned with precious stones and golden fleurde-lys, the symbol of their donation by a French king; I believe it was Francis I. The pope alone can officiate at this altar, and this is, or so it seemed to me, the only unique thing about it. Beneath the organ, at the back of the crossing, to the right, will be seen one of those columns of yellow marble that Clement XII removed from Constantine’s triumphal arch to place here, with the aim of complementing those made of the same material that support the organ. Opposite, at the back of the crossing, to the left, is the lovely Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, built by Clement VIII. It is altogether of the greatest magnificence. The columns with which it is adorned are fluted, of gilded bronze, and filled on the inside with earth taken from Jerusalem. Above the altar is a large silver bas-relief depicting the Last Supper. The tabernacle is done entirely in precious stones. It would be difficult to see anything more beautiful and more lavish, except perhaps the lovely Corsini chapel which is the last on the right when leaving the church and in which magnificence and taste seem to vie for honours. The first object that strikes you there is the mausoleum of Clement XII,

145 Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor (1328–1423), a noble from Aragon, was pope in Avignon under the name Benedict XIII or, according to the Catholic Church, Antipope Benedict XIII. The Avignon papacy was rapidly losing its political support during his tenure and effectively came to an end with the Council of Constance (1414–1418), which settled the Great or Western Schism. The Council elected Otto Colonna (1369–1461) as sole pope, and he took the name Martin V. Benedict XIII refused to cede his claim, however, and was excommunicated. He died in Peñiscola, Valencia, where he had fled. The supposition that Martin V had his rival Pietro de Luna murdered certainly circulated. Concerning the death of de Luna, Archibald Bower, in his History of the Popes from the Foundation of the See of Rome to the Present Time (London, 1766), explains: “Some Spanish Writers […] ascribe his Death to Poison, administered to him, say they, by a Monk named Thomas, at the Instigation of the Cardinal of Pisa, whom the Pope had sent with the Character of his Legate to apprehend him. Those Writers add, that the Monk was convicted and executed, and that the Legate, who resided in the Neighbourhood of Peniscola, withdrew in great Haste out of Spain, to avoid falling into the Hands of the Two Nephews of the Deceased, Roderic and Alvarez de Luna, determined to revenge upon the Legate, without any Regard to his Character, the Murder of their Uncle” (7:218). However, Bower concludes: “But as no Notice is taken by the contemporary Historians of what we are told by these more modern Writers, we may well conclude with Bellegarde, in his General History of Spain, that Peter de Luna died of no other Poison than that of old Age, being Ninety at the Time of his Death” (ibid.). Sade, of course, prefers any story that paints the Church of Rome and its hierarchy as corrupt and wicked.

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pope from this family. The urn is made of a single piece of porphyry supported on a quite lovely base made of gold and black marble; this is the very urn found beneath the portico of the Rotunda [i.e., the Pantheon] and that was one of the adornments of Agrippa’s baths; only the lid is modern. Above is a pillow made of paragon marble upon which three crowns are placed. The statue of the pope is bronze, cast by [Francesco] Giardoni.146 Close by are the marble statues of Abundance and Munificence.147 Two lovely porphyry columns, with bases and capitals of gilded bronze, complete the embellishment of this monument. Opposite and executed by the same artist ([Alessandro] Galilei of Florence) is the mausoleum of Cardinal Nereo Corsini, uncle of Clement XII. The main altar of this chapel is adorned with a lovely mosaic painting of Andrea Corsini, bishop of Fiesole in Tuscany, copied from the original which is in the Barberini Palace.148 The pediment of this altar is supported by two columns of verd antique, with gilded bases and capitals. This altar seemed to me mean and utterly too small in relation to the size and majesty of the chapel. The pavement is marble, with rose shapes, the whole of quite elegant design and layout. The cupola is extremely high. It is done in gilded stucco and after the antique style. You see in this same location four other tombs of this family. Below is the sepulchral chamber, much too lovely and gay for such a sad destination. You must not forget to consider attentively the grating of this chapel, which is delicately and preciously wrought. We note that just like the rest, it cost Clement XII little. Benedict XIII, his predecessor, had forbidden the lottery in Rome and had imposed the most severe punishments. But the madness was such that nothing could stop the flood. Clement XII, more shrewd, allowed it, with the sole requirement that the proceeds be used for some pious end, and the lovely chapel that I have just mentioned was the first fruit of his adroit politics. At least in this instance superstition serves the arts and could – for once – appear less horrible. You will see, in the sacristy of this church, a painting of the Annunciation, designed by Michelangelo and executed by his pupils.149 You note something extraordinary about it that, in my view, is the source of its merit: the Virgin is already pregnant when she learns the news brought to her by the angel. You will admit, madam countess, that at least in this manner the enigma is conceivable. Mary must have wanted to justify a mistake she had made, but it was hardly natural that she should have anticipated it with a deceit. Otherwise, this painting offers nothing pleasing and from the scant nobility of the movements and postures, we have trouble recognizing Michelangelo’s pencil. At the altar of the canons’ sacristy is a lovely Christ by the same artist. Saint John, the Virgin, and the Magdalene are at the bottom, but in this case you recognize much better the sublimity of his execution. The frescoes in this sacristy have some merit: they depict the martyrdom of Saint Clement, the pope, thrown into the sea, an anchor around his neck.150 Preserved in the church and cloisters of Saint John Lateran are a large number of Christian antiquities, but their authenticity is quite dubious. I will nonetheless relate those that 146 The statue is by Giovanni Battista Maini (1690–1752), who was commisioned by Clement XII to work on the Corsini chapel. 147 These statues are the work of Carlo Monaldi (c. 1683–c. 1760). 148 This original is by Guido Reni. 149 Generally attributed, following Vasari, to Marcello Venusti (c. 1515–1579). See Giorgio Vasari, Lives of The Most Eminent Painters Sculptors & Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere (London: Philip Lee Warner, 1912–1914), 9:259. 150 The wall frescoes of the sacristy are by Agostino Ciampelli (1565–1630) and the vault frescoes by the brothers Cherubino Alberti (1553–1615) and Giovanni Alberti (1558–1601).

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I have seen, allowing you, madam countess, every possible freedom to lend the degree of credence that you see fit. In the church, the table on which Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples. It was, we are told, laminated with silver, but the Goths, doubtless finding this lavishness little suited for the furniture of a poor and humble God, stripped it of such excessive decoration and thereby made it more interesting for the curious eye of the superstitious sectarians of his imbecilic religion. In the ancient cloister, which is Gothic in shape, adorned all around with small columns that support little arcades, likewise Gothic, you see a column, in quite an ancient style, that we are assured is the very one that was divided at the death of Christ. Another column, made of white porphyry, graced with a cock on the top in memory of the one that sang on this very column at the moment of Saint Peter’s denial. The well, close to which our hero found the beautiful Samaritan woman, a monument all the more apocryphal and imbecilic to offer credulity and sincere faith insofar as it is decorated around with crosses. A porphyry table embedded in the wall, the very one on which the soldiers played dice for the tunic of the Saviour of the universe, a humiliation that is supposed to be the wellspring of so many benefits. The table of an altar, pierced horizontally by a host, the truth of which the celebrant doubted; beneath you can easily make out the imprint of a host, which I believe is a peculiar accident of the marble and was doubtless the root of this entire lovely fabulation. Further on, a marble table raised up on four columns to the height of Jesus Christ’s size. A large porphyry urn, in which was placed the body of Saint Helena, mother of Constantine; it is adorned with exceedingly raised bas-reliefs, stylistically harsh and unpleasant. This piece was brought to Rome from a church that was dedicated to her some two miles from the city. It is larger than the one seen at the Church of Saint Constance Outside the Walls [Santa Constanza], but it is less beautiful, as much because of the coarseness of the basreliefs as because of their damaged state. These two urns are, without question, the two largest pieces of porphyry to be found in Rome. Two close stools, made of red marble, that exercised Misson’s caustic quill, but that appear never to have had any other use but to serve in baths for the cleansing practices so familiar in our day.151 151 Concerning these close stools or “bored chairs,” Misson, in his Voyage d’Italie, cites the papal historian Bartolomeo and other authorities who attest “that when the pope is elected, he is placed on the close stool” and that the “youngest deacon feels below to see if he is a man” (2:295). Misson discusses the supposed practice in the context of a long analysis of the evidence for and against the historical existence of Pope Joan, whose story began to appear in chronicles in the thirteenth century. During the Reformation, she became a polemical topic, and Misson’s position, which is to affirm the reality of the “papesse,” doubtless reflects something of his personal circumstances: a Protestant who had fled France for Britain after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The first edition of his travels in Italy appeared in 1691. It is somewhat strange that Sade does not appreciate Misson’s “caustic quill” on this topic, although he probably had no interest in taking sides in a religious polemic that was below him qua philosophe. We might compare here a similarly dismissive approach of Jean-Baptiste-Marie Guidi, the unnamed author of the Lettres contenant le Journal fait à Rome en 1773 (Geneva, 1783), who writes: “It is in the cloisters of Saint John Lateran that are stored those infamous bored chairs about which jokers of poor taste have so exercised themselves. To get a sense of the falsity of all the sarcastic remarks that they have brought into being, it is enough to note that they are the fruit of the story of Popess Joan, which Protestants of good faith have never believed and that owes its origin solely to the bitterness of party spirit. These chairs are made of granite; and you do not need to be an antiquarian naris emunctæ [‘with refined nostrils’] to guess their purpose. They were pulled from the thermae of Caracalla and served in the baths under the rubric of sellæ stercatoriæ [‘chairs for sh***ing’]” (2:24–5).

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The baptistery of this church, which you must not neglect viewing, is an octagonal building in the middle of which is a cupola, the round shape of which starts at the base and that arises, supported by eight columns made entirely of porphyry, which proves that they were used in ancient buildings. The second level is supported by a like number of small, white marble columns. At the top of the cupola are eight pieces by Andrea Sacchi, with depictions related to Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin. To the right is a small chapel dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. You see a bronze statue, executed by Louis, a French architect.152 In the small arcade above this altar are little paintings from the school of Raphael, but too damaged to be able to guess what they depict. The vault is done in mosaic and the bronze door opposite leads to another small, corresponding chapel dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist. The statue of the saint, likewise made of bronze, is by Cordieri.153 All the remaining embellishments, such as the vaults, the doors, and the porphyry columns that support the frame of these doors, match absolutely the opposite chapel, about which I have just spoken. At the altar of the latter are two beautiful columns of veined alabaster. In the Chapel of Saint Rufina, which precedes the baptistery and outside of which are the antiquities about which I have spoken above, is a lovely mausoleum of a canon of this church, from the House of Borgia, made of white marble and adorned with a medallion of his bust. The drapery and the frame of the medallion are of gilded stucco. In general, there is more elegance than knowledge and truth in this modern monument. Under the ancient portico of this famous church will be seen a bronze statue of Henry IV, whom you are pleased to find everywhere. The chapter had this erected in recognition of the merging of Clairac Abbey with the manse of this chapter. Opposite is Constantine’s, which is said to date from the time of this emperor. Facing one of the corners of the Lateran Palace, Sixtus V had a building expressly constructed under which was placed the staircase of Pilate’s house, on which Christ walked several times at the time of the examinations at his trial. It is made up of twenty-eight marble steps, covered with boards. You see thereupon a throng of pilgrims who are only allowed to climb it on their knees. On either side are two other large staircases that one normally takes to arrive at the same level at which the holy staircase ends and which the profane can take without so much ado.154 Opposite is a chapel called the Sancta Sanctorum, in which are preserved several of those sacred trinkets that superstition dares offer without blushing to the credulity of the weak, but of which the wise man understands the value and treats with utter scorn. The most notable is the imprint of the face of Jesus, sent by himself to King Abgar who had asked for his portrait. Since this episode is considered by the Church itself as apocryphal, how do they dare advertise with such impudence that which only serves to immortalize 152 The statue in question was cast by Luigi Maria Valadier (1726–1785), a silversmith and goldsmith, who was born and died in Rome. His father Andrea Valadier, a silversmith, was a Provençal, who had moved to Rome in 1714. It is unclear why Sade refers to Luigi as an architect, although his son, Giuseppe, who likewise worked in decorative arts and metalwork, also taught architecture at the Accademia di San Luca. Given that Giuseppe was born in 1762, however, Sade cannot have simply mistaken identities. 153 Nicolas Cordier (1567–1612) was a French sculptor and painter who worked in Rome and was known in Italian as Niccolò Cordieri. The statue in question, however, is more likely by Taddeo Landini (c. 1551–1596). Cordier is with certainty responsible for the statue of Henry IV, mentioned below. 154 The Scala Sancta, miraculously transported from Jerusalem, as noted in dossier I (General Material), p. 411.

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imposture? Close to this building is an obelisk, lying on the ground, broken in several spots, that Clement XII had notwithstanding begun to restore, with the intention of putting it upon the large square of the church and palace. But the work and the plan remained unfinished. As this monument was found in the Villa Ludovisi, we divine that it must have been situated in the Gardens of Sallust which, as we know, were located where that beautiful country home stands today. It is engraved all over with Egyptian signs. Opposite the ancient portico, where I mentioned that the statues of Henry IV and of Constantine were situated, is another obelisk, although standing, and the largest that there is in Rome. It is likewise engraved all over with symbolic characters. Sixtus V, the great restorer of the obelisks of Rome, had it put on this square by the architect [Domenico] Fontana, who decorated the base. Ramses, King of Egypt, had raised this enormous monument in a large Temple of the Sun in Thebes; Cambyses preserved it there, even after the downfall of this city. Subsequently, Augustus wanted to have it brought to Rome, but the undertaking frightened him. Constantine, bolder, had a galley with three hundred oars constructed and had it brought to Alexandria. He died at this juncture. Constans, his son, finished the operation and had it placed at the Circus Maximus, where there was already the one seen today at the Piazza del Popolo. Some critics have claimed that this was not the case, and their view is based on the fact that medallions only depict the circus with one obelisk, but they have not considered that these medallions were struck during the reign of Augustus and that it was only more than four hundred years later that Constans had this one placed here. It is an invariable, moreover, that it was at this site, more than eighty palms under ground, that Sixtus V found this obelisk that he had placed, as I have just said, where it will be seen today. As for the Lateran Palace, it has nothing noteworthy on offer. The courtyard is graced with pilasters and the interior with several large rooms, in which will be seen some examples of paintings by various masters. The number of girls under the rule of this Conservatory is today three hundred. Not far from here is the Church of Saint Clement [San Clemente al Laterano], built in the third century, on the very site of the house of Saint Clement, third pope of the Church. The shape of the ancient church is entirely preserved and the portico is exactly the same one that was made in that era. In this church can be made out the entire ancient manner of celebration. In the middle of the choir, which is entirely made of white marble adorned with Gothic bas-reliefs, you see the two ambones or marble pulpits at which the Gospels were read on one side and the Epistles on the other. The columns which are in the courtyard and in the church appear, from their different shapes and from their diverse ornamentation, to have been plundered from some ancient pagan monument. The church has three aisles, adorned with a mosaic pavement from the same era. The pavilion of the main altar, which is utterly Gothic in style, is supported by four main columns of marble. It is turned towards the entrance, in keeping with the ancient manner that I have already noted. At the apse are mosaics in the middle of which is a Crucifix dating from the earliest days of the church. The ceiling of this church is extremely beautiful; it is worthy of careful contemplation. Clement XI restored it. You see in the middle Saint Clement in glory, by Giuseppe Chiari. Above the cornice are some frescoes by various artists, of which some are middling ones and some worthy of consideration. The choir of this church can be regarded as the most beautiful and best preserved of all the monuments of Christian Antiquity that Italy has to offer.

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To the left of the main entrance is a chapel filled with frescoes by Masaccio,155 a painter who flourished eighty years after Giotto, interesting for judging advances in the arts. You already make out major ones since this initial restorer of painting in Italy. Opposite is a Calvary; to the left, Saint Catherine preaching to the doctors and then martyred, and to the right, some of the saint’s miracles. The left part is the best preserved, and the one in which you can judge most securely. The costume and the harshness observed in the design as a whole thoroughly proves its antiquity. But notwithstanding, what truth, what naturalness in the portion with the preaching saint! The facial expressions of the listening doctors are truly sublime. It is easy to see what these first masters would have achieved if they had had some better models to follow … In the middle of the Tiber, between the Fabricio and Cestio bridges is an island famous in Antiquity for the Temple of Asclepius that was erected there.156 The Church of Saint Bartholomew [San Bartolomeo all’Isola] is built upon the very ruins of this temple and is adorned with the same columns that graced it. The only things to be looked at are the four beautiful porphyry columns that support the pavilion of the main altar and the urn, likewise porphyry, made of a single piece, in which the body of Saint Bartholomew is located. This church is served by the Franciscans. In the courtyard of the convent must be seen the inscription engraved on the base that supports the statue of Asclepius, the words of which are: ÆSCVLAPIO AVGVSTO SACRVM PROBVS. M. FICTORI FAVSTI MINISTER ITERVM. ANNI XXXI.157

In the lower part of the island, next to the Broken Bridge [Ponte Rotto], you see engraved in the rock the head of a bull and the serpent, symbol of the one from Epidaurus, nursed for a long time on this island and to whom, as to the god of Medicine, the Temple of Asclepius that I just mentioned was erected.158 The whole of this little island is the shape of a vessel. Titus Livy tells us that it was created from all the devastation wreaked by the Romans to the goods and country villas of Tarquin the Proud when, after the abduction of Lucretia, they expelled the kings. These materials brought to this part of the river, the waters of which 155 Following Giorgio Vasari, the attribution of these frescoes to Masaccio, the byname of Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone (1401–1428), was standard in Sade’s day; however, the current scholarly consenus is that they are the work of Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini (1383–1447), known as Masolini da Panicale and his assistants. Masolini and Masaccio did work in collaboration, including on the celebrated Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence and even perhaps in this instance. On the attribution of the frescoes in the Chapel of Cardinal Branda Castiglione in the Church of San Clemente, see Steffi Roettgen, Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance 1400–1470, trans. Russell Stockman (New York: Abbeville Press, 1996), 123–4. 156 The Isola Tiberina, discussed further in dossier III (on Rome), p. 422. 157 Translated: “Dedicated to venerable Aesculapius by Probus, slave of M[arcus] Fictorius Faustus, temple servant for the second time in year 31.” The altar is now in the Vatican Museum. See J. Bert Lott, The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 203. 158 In Livy’s account it was during a time of pestilence that envoys were sent “to bring over the image of Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome” and that they “fetched away a serpent, which had crawled into their ship and in which it was generally believed that the god himself was present.” He adds, “On the serpent’s going ashore on the island of the Tiber, a temple was erected there to Aesculapius.” Livy, History of Rome, 4[bk.11]:546–7.

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were low, stopped it up and created this island, which was subsequently called the Island of the Languishing, when the Temple of Asclepius was built here. Devotion to it was so strong that, although the air here was worse than in the rest of the city, the sick believed themselves cured as soon as they drew near to it. Under Augustus, the Jews inhabited it by order of the emperor. It was only after a hospital was built there that it enjoyed so much favour. To destroy the prejudice about this insalubrious island, the emperor Claudius set forth a decree stating that all slaves sent there to recuperate would be instantly liberated. One can easily imagine that such a political ploy made worship promptly fall off. But it is easy to note that in many matters the most ancient practices are still preserved in Rome. On this very island of Asclepius, today called Tiberina, there is still a hospital for the sick;159 the church dependent on it is called Saint John Calibita [San Giovanni Calibita]. It is small but elegant, and entirely inlaid with marble. You see at the main altar a beautiful enough piece by Andrea Generelli, which depicts the patron saint of the church adoring Our Lady.160 The two other lateral paintings in the choir, the vault, and the painting at the first altar to the left, relating to various episodes in the life of the founder, are the work of [Corrado] Giaquinto. From the windows of this hospital, you can see a small island detached from the larger one, doubtless on account of some major floods, on which will be made out some ruins of a temple erected to the god Faunus in the Republican era. On the site of this church and hospital was a temple erected to Jupiter Lycaonius, which, at the time, gave his name to the island, which underwent the various changes that I have mentioned. Saint Mary of the Soul [Santa Maria dell’Anima], national church of the Germans, in a Gothic style and with a poor layout. It is full of monuments, but there is only one noteworthy one, at the third pilaster on the left, the mausoleum of a Fleming. It is simple but enjoyable. Two charming angels raise a very light curtain that is hiding the inscription. The sculpture is as learned as light. It is said to be by François Flamand.161 At the high altar of the church is a quite lovely piece by Giulio Romano, and in the last chapel on the right, a lovely copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà by Nanni di Bigio [Nanni di Bacci Bigio, pseudonym of Giovanni Lippi]. At another altar to the right is a Miracle due to the saint, by I know not what artist, but which seemed to me full of great strength and drawn with beautiful accuracy. To be seen, not far from here, on account of its elegant decoration, is the little Church of Saint Nicholas of the Lorrains [San Nicola dei Lorenesi]. It offers to the eyes of connoisseurs only middling paintings, I will admit, but its shape and its lavishness, entirely faced with marble, earn it a measure of praise that I have been unable to refrain from furnishing here. Our Lady of Peace [Santa Maria della Pace], a church with a pretty façade. To make the best of the terrain, two lateral pavilions were built that, situated behind the sides of the front pavilion, make the latter stand forth, its round portico supported by Doric columns and in the middle of which is the entry door. This adornment, built based on designs by Pietra da 159 Ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio or Ospedale Fatebenefratelli, founded in 1548. 160 Alternatively found as “Andrea Gennaroli,” “Generelli” is an attribution and orthography given by others. Filippo de’ Rossi, e.g., in his oft-reprinted Descrizione di Roma moderna (Rome, 1697), which draws upon numerous authorities, states that the altarpiece is the work of Andrea Generelli and notes that the artist’s cognomen is “il Sabinese” (156). Little is known about the artist, although various sources give the date of composition as 1640. 161 François Duquesnoy (1597–1643), known as Le Flamand. The mausoleum, which dates from 1629, belongs to Adrian Vryburch, seemingly a native of Alkmaar, Holland, who died in a duel in 1628, and although Protestant, was interred in a Roman Catholic church. See Marion Boudon-Machuel, François du Quesnoy, 1597–1643 (Paris: Arthena, 2005), 245.

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Cortona and by order of Alexander VII, is truly pleasing. Entering the church, to the right, you see, above the first altar on that side, two beautiful pieces by Raphael, but quite faded, and seeing them makes you fearful that we will soon lose in this way all the works of this great master.162 At the altar is a bronze bas-relief by Domineco Guidi, a highly esteemed piece that depicts Jesus descending from the cross and held up by two angels; the Eternal Father is above.163 At the first altar, to the right, under the cupola, is a beautiful painting by Cavaliere d’Arpino; above, a Visitation by Carlo Maratta, a very delicate piece and one with admirable drapery. To the left, a Nativity on wood, of great strength and beautifully drawn, but a bit blackened; it is by a painter whose name I could not discover, but who worked very little in Rome.164 Saint Agnes, Piazza Navona [Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona]. Pretty church, built after the layout of the Temple of Pluto in the Villa Adriana at Tivoli. It is very pleasingly round shapewise, graced with eight beautiful marble columns of fluted marble and in the Corinthian order. At the altar facing out and at the side altars of the transept have been placed, instead of paintings, three beautiful bas-reliefs by different artists, among which that of the Nativity of Christ, at the high altar, is particularly admirable. In the chapels will also be seen, to the right and left, statues of Saint Agnes and of Saint Sebastian, placed in quite pleasingly illusionistic ways, the works of Borromini. Saint Sebastian is a statue dressed in the ancient manner, fairly mediocre; the other is better.165 The cupola and the lunettes on the cupola are by Baciccia [Giovanni Battista Gaulli]; such confusion reigns thereupon that it is impossible to disentangle the subjects. I believe that this should suffice for a critical appraisal of this composition, as strained as it is ridiculous. Above the main doorway is the sarcophagus of Innocent X, pontiff from the House of Pamphili, founder of this church. At the entrance, the vaults of which must be seen, as much on account of the delightful piece by Algardi that will be found there as on account of the antique distinctive features, is written: INGRESSA AGNES HVNC TVRPITIDINIS LOCVM ANGELUM DOMINI PREPARATVM INVENIT.166

These subterranean areas were formerly ground level with the city. You can discern how the terrain is currently raised from the steps that you descend to get there. Here were lupanars or public places of debauchery that bordered the agonistic circus167 on the site of which today is the Piazza Navona. The entire church is on top of this profane spot. It was here that the young Agnes was sent by the prefect of Rome to be raped. These young virgins made such a fuss about modesty, and moral dissoluteness was at such a high degree 162 The frescoes in question are the Four Sibyls Receiving Angelic Instruction (1514) in the Chigi Chapel, commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi. 163 This work is not by Guidi but rather Cosimo Fancelli (c. 1620–1688). 164 The work in question is the Nativity of the Virgin Mary by the Sienese painter Raffaello Vanni (1590– 1657). 165 Franceso Borromini made significant contributions to the design of the church itself; however, the statue of Saint Agnes is by Ercole Ferrata (1610–1686) and that of Saint Sebastian by Pietro Paolo Campi (1688–1764). 166 Translated: “Agnes having entered this place of turpitude, the angel of God came ready to meet her.” 167 “Agonistic,” here in the narrow sense of relating to athletic contests. Sade incorrectly writes agnomistique.

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with these people that it seemed that their reckless sensuality increased with the barbaric pleasure of wresting from these young victims that which they deemed most precious. Agnes is led to this horrific spot by soldiers of the Praetorian Guard, and she is ordered to yield without resistance to the first one who desires her. The nephew of the praetor, who has just seen this young and kind object, runs to the place which has just received her and brutally demands favours that he knows cannot be denied him … But – o, miracle! – and isn’t one needed when the matter at hand is the preservation of a virgin? – the young man finds at the door an angel who stops him and makes him suddenly die. However, the Virgin, who always takes an interest in enterprising young people and who has her sound reasons for doing so, resuscitates him. But Agnes is preserved and the crime is unfinished. This entire myth would be much better explained, it seems to me, by simply admitting that the young man, exhausted from the pleasures that he had just tasted with the young saint, barely having left childhood and with the most interesting face, passed out from weakness as he left her embrace and came back to life after a few hours of anguish. Be that as it may, the sacristan of Saint Agnes, leading you down into the basement, does not fail to show you the very spot where the angel stopped the young man. As for the place where the saint was kept, the tradition concerning this latter fact being more reasonable, we shall examine it with more interest. This is one of those very same archways where the courtesans were obliged to stand on days that spectacles where held at the circus. They were nude, a lamp hung from the ceiling lit up their charms, during the daytime necessary precisely to highlight them. These little rooms, more or less all the same size, would have been about twelve to fifteen feet square. It seems that the back area formed a little niche or corbel where doubtless the throne of pleasure was located. Some of them had columns supporting the archway. You see two of these in the one where the beautiful Agnes lost her honour, which has now been transformed into a chapel where masses are from time to time celebrated for the repose of her virginity. You will admit, madam countess, that just such a pious motive is needed to save such a queer metamorphosis from criticism. At the altar of the first undergound area, where you descend before arriving in these ones, is a bas-relief by Algardi, depicting the young saint, led by soldiers into this place of debauch. She is a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age at most, with the most pleasing face. Modesty, which the artist knew how to make visible with his chisel, gives her colour and makes her the more beautiful. She is nude, covered with her lovely hair, which the miracle is said to have made grow on the spot in order to save her tender and modest charms from the shame of being seen by such profane eyes. This entire delightful composition is of the greatest delicacy; it is just too bad that its beauties can only be judged by the light of a torch. This divine piece was made to be seen in full daylight, and I believe that, placing it thus under the gaze of a priest celebrating mass at this altar can only lead to ideas that are a bit too advantageous to the saint – to ideas that, with such a sacred sacrifice, cannot be innocently diverted from the god to whom it is offered. Losing sight of the holy objects that, in this place, mingle with profane ones, and pausing for a bit longer before the latter, one cannot help but recall the excessive debauches of Messalina, who, doubtless in these same chambers, came, according to Juvenal, to glut herself without tiring: “Et lassata viris nondum satiata regesit.”168 It was here, doubtless, that she

168 Sade’s Latin citation is faulty and his translation does not capture precisely how the satirist characterizes Messalina’s state: “et lassata viris necdum satiata recessit [and she withdrew, tired of men but not yet

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made the courtesan Lycisca take her leave in order to replace her and challenged the entire city of Rome to venereal combat. But let me limit, madam countess, reflections too risqué for your delicacy, yet not expansive enough, I will admit, for the ardour of my imagination. The façade of the Church of Saint Agnes, as lavish as it is pleasing, is, along with the cupola and the sacristy, based on designs by Borromini. The Piazza Navona, one of the most beautiful in Rome, as much for its extent as for the beautiful fountains that adorn it, is as I said in the entry on Saint Agnes, directly on top of the agonistic169 circus that Alexander Severus built. It has preserved exactly the same shape. It is embellished by three fountains, of which the middle one, opposite Saint Agnes, is by Cavaliere Bernini. At the four corners of a large rock that serves as a base for an obelisk taken from the Circus of Caracalla and placed here by Innocent X, are four colossal figures of the Danube, Ganges, Nile, and Argentine170 rivers, which shoot water that a large basin gathers and that different sorts of animals adorn. You must not neglect to observe here satiated].” See Juvenal and Persius, Juvenal and Persius, trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 244 [satire 6:l.130; my translation here]. Further, Valeria Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius, does not replace the prostitute Lycisca or “She-Wolf”; this is the empress’s brothel guise. Jean-Joseph Dusaulx’s translation, in Satires de Juvénal, traduites par M. Dusaulx, précédées d’un Discours sur les satiriques latins (Paris, 1770), rendered this episode similarly: As soon as her husband thought her asleep, preferring a mat to the imperial bed, this august courtesan escaped from the palace, accompanied by a single confidant; with the help of darkness and a disguise, she slipped into a loge that still retained the fetid heat of prostitution. The imposter placard on this hovel announced “Lysisca [sic],” who had just stepped out. It was there that Messalina, sparkling with gold, dedicated to public brutality those loins that carried you, generous Britannicus. Still, she flatters any comer whomsoever and demands the customary wage. When the pimp-in-chief dismisses his courtesans, she shudders: burning for more pleasure, she wants to be the last to go and to make the most of this time, given over to her fury; finally she leaves, more tired than satisfied; smoked by the lamp, with livid cheeks, all sullied, she transfers the odour of this lair to the pillow of the Emperor. (176–9) Dusaulx in his explanatory notes added: “The areas of ill repute in Rome were arranged in little cells, on the doors of which you read the names of the courtesans in residence” (231). In modern translation, the episode is slightly different. In Juvenal and Persius, Juvenal and Persius, trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 244–5 [Sat. 6, ll.116–32], we read: When [Claudius’s] wife realized her husband was asleep, she would leave, with no more than a single maid as her escort. Preferring a mat to her bedroom in the Palace, she had the nerve to put on a nighttime hood, the whore-empress. Like that, with a blonde wig hiding her black hair, she went inside a brothel reeking of ancient blankets to an empty cubicle – her very own. Then she stood there, naked and for sale, with her nipples gilded, under the trade name of “She-Wolf [Lycisca],” putting on display the belly you came from, noble-born Britannicus. She welcomed her customers seductively as they came in and asked for their money. Later, when the pimp was already dismissing his girls, she left reluctantly, waiting till the last possible moment to shut her cubicle, still burning with her clitoris inflamed and stiff. She went away, exhausted by the men but not satisfied, and, a disgusting creature, with her cheeks filthy, dirty from the smoke of the lamp, she took back to the emperor’s couch the stench of the brothel. Sade was clearly fascinated by this account of Messalina, which he returned to throughout his writing career. See also p. 393 below, as well as the introduction to this volume. 169 Sade again writes “agnomistique” (see supra). 170 That is, the Río de la Plata, representing the Americas, as the Danube does Europe, the Nile Africa, and the Ganges Asia.

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the just criticism that Bernini levelled at the cupola of Saint Agnes, which situated much too close to the edge of the façade, seems to threaten his fountain. In order to observe this apt criticism, you must attentively observe the way in which he positioned the hands of the guardian spirit representing the Nile. It seems that the only reason he is bringing them forward is to ward off the falling cupola that is threatening him, or at least to push it back. I found this notion charming and have placed it here with all the more pleasure in that it seems to have escaped many travellers. The second fountain – the one situated near the statue of Pasquino171 – has a beautiful statue in the middle, wrought by Cavaliere Bernini. The remainder of the decoration is not by him and did not seem to me worthy of more careful consideration than the other fountain, the artist of which I know not. This large square has the advantage of being able to be flooded during heatwaves, and at such times, carriages that cannot take to promenading in any other quarter of the city, come here to enjoy the coolness; the horses are in the water up to their fetlocks. Such precautions are precious in a country where it is scorching three months out of the year. Santa Maria in Vallicella, or the Chiesa Nuova, Church of the Oratorians with three aisles, quite ornate and built, along with the house, on plans by Borromini. The cupola, apse, and lunettes are painted by Pietra da Cortona. At the second altar on the right is a painting by Caravaggio depicting the Saviour being brought to the tomb. You could not overly admire the truth, accuracy, and strength that characterize this piece. The chapel at the end of the nave, on the same side as this beautiful piece, is dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo. You will see therein rather good paintings by Cavaliere d’Arpino. The one at the end of the nave on the left is dedicated to Saint Philip Neri, founder of the order. He is buried there. On the altar will be seen his portrait, dressed as a priest, executed by Guido. This chapel is as elegant as it is lavish; hardstones and mother of pearl embellish it on every side. Behind this chapel there is another where there is yet another portrait of the saint by Guercino. His statue, wrought by Algardi, is in the sacristy. I leave it to connoisseurs to give their opinion on this piece, with which I was not as happy as with other works by this skilled artist. Saint Charles in Catinari [San Carlo ai Catinari], Church of the Barnabites, with a lovely design and in the shape of a Greek cross. The architecture is by Rainaldi;172 the lunettes and cupola are by Domenichino. At the transept chapel on the right is a rather beautiful piece by Cavaliere d’Arpino. In the one opposite is a Death of Saint Anne, by Andrea Sacchi, in which the painter, not much of a historian, has the Virgin, who is present at the death, holding the Infant Jesus in her arms. The painting on the high altar is by [Francesco] Vanni, touched up by Pietro da Cortona; it depicts the patron of the church. At the first altar to the right upon entering is an Annunciation by [Giovanni] Lanfranco, but retouched and blackened during the restoration.

171 Pasquino or Pasquin is a damaged Hellenistic statue that was unearthed in Rome in the fifteenth century. The most famous of the “talking statues” of Rome, satirical epigrams or lampoons, frequently critical of the pope and that came to be known as “pasquinades,” were affixed to the figure. For a thorough account of Pasquino’s contribution to popular and erudite satire in early modern Rome, see Genevieve Warwick, “Making Statues Speak: Bernini and Pasquino,” 29–46. 172 Carlo Rainaldi (1611–1691) was responsible for one of the chapels of the church, whose chief architects were Rosato Rosati (1559–1622) and Giovanni Battista Soria (1581–1651).

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The Theatre of Marcellus, upon the site of which the House of Savelli built its palace that, upon its extinction, passed to that of the dukes of Gravina, of the Neapolitan Orsini family. Given the state in which the ruins of this ancient theatre are today, it is difficult to make out what it formerly was. We learn from Titus Livy that it was erected by Augustus, who dedicated it to Marcellus, his nephew, son of his sister Octavia.173 The same historian asserts that this monument was always regarded as a model, and while discussing its proportions, he tells us that it could hold thirty thousand people and that on its opening day, during the reign of Augustus, seven hundred ferocious beasts were put to death there. It was there that for the first time tame tigers were seen. There still remain some fragments of the façade. You see two levels of columns, of which one is in the Doric order and the second Ionic. A wretched pothouse today serves as the entranceway to the underground sections, in which you still make out a large part of the circular walkway by which one gained access to the tiers of the equestrian rank. A staircase links to this walkway and leads to various little vaults or small rooms in which it is thought that the wild beasts were kept, along with the decorations and other paraphernalia needed to insure the magnificence of these spectacles, next to which our most sublime ones are most assuredly nothing but children’s games. Considering the little you can see of this structure, you can nonetheless judge that it must have been magnificent and that everything was beautifully shaped and excellently proportioned. From this theatre to the Temple of Vesta ran Argiletum Street, along which formerly resided booksellers, the various actors who were employed at this theatre, and the women of ill repute who, just like today, always made sure to situate themselves nearby these public places. Not that the sight of spectacles heated the senses, as several moralists have claimed – and that some have even wanted to cite this proximity as proof thereof – but because it is ever the case these victims of debauchery must find more adorers in a place that usually gathers together the entire youth of a city. Not far from here was also the Forum Littorum [viz., Forum Holitorium] or vegetable market. This quarter has preserved a portion of the animation that it must have formerly had; garden produce is still sold there. In this Forum was the Lactaria column, on which infants whose parents could not take care of them were exposed and of whom, thanks to one of the most handsome of laws, the Senate had to become the father.174 Close by will also be seen fragments of the Temple of Bellona, where the Senate assembled to declare war to the universe, letting fly an arrow in the direction that was deemed

173 See Livy, History of Rome, trans. Alfred Cary Schlesinger (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 14:166–7 (summaries, 14:140). 174 As explained by an author close to Sade’s day, the Columna Lactaria was located near to where “parents exposed their infants, in order to observe who, from an impulse of pity, would suckle and nurse them,” and it was from its proximity to such charity, “lactare” being the Latin for nursing, that the column took its name. See J. Salmon, An Historical Description of Ancient and Modern Rome (London, 1800), 2:46. As for ancient sources, the grammarian Sextus Pompeius Festus simply remarks: “Lactaria columna in foro olitoria dicta, quod ibi infantes lacte alendos deferebant [The lactarian column in the Forum Holitorium, so called because infants were brought here and nourished with milk].” Latin cited from John Boswell, who deems it “impossible to translate the dense layers of suggestion in these lines,” in The Kindness of Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 110. On various suppositions, see Mireille Corbier, “Child Exposure and Abandonment,” in Suzanne Dixon, ed., Childhood, Class, and Kin in the Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001), 52–73, esp. 62–3.

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deserving of the Empire’s wrath. The pediment and some fluted columns in the Corinthian order remain. In this place, so famous, fish are sold today, and the temple of the goddess is now the dirtiest church in Rome. The Church of Saint Martina [Santi Luca e Martina], built on the site of the Temple of Mars, located in the Forum Romanum, today the Campo Vaccino. After having degraded the place with such a ridiculous name, there is nothing left that ought come as a shock, and [yet] that the sanctuary of the God of War could have been replaced by that of a woman.175 (See what this Saint Martina is.)176 Pietra da Cortona participated in this profanation, and it is based on his designs that this monument was built. At the main altar you see a painting by Raphael, which depicts Saint Luke painting the Virgin, and behind the painter, the artist has depicted himself. At the same spot is a lovely statue of the saint, in the same position that she was found in the basement of this church. It is by [Niccolò] Menghini, although infinitely less light and less pleasing than the one of Saint Cecilia, done in the same style. You must view in the crypts, likewise based on designs by Pietro da Cortona, the middle altar, into the bulk of which have been placed the bodies of Saint Martha, of Saint Concordia, and of Saint Epiphania, enclosed in a jasper urn, decorated with gilded bronze. On this altar’s tabernacle is an agate bas-relief with a jasper base that depicts the Infant Jesus in the arms of his mother, offering to Saint Martina the flower of virginity. This piece, charming and utterly delicate, was executed by Cosimo Fancelli based on drawings by Pietro da Cortona. The same subject is treated on the other side of the tabernacle in the same stone. In these same crypts will also be seen, on an altar beneath which the body of the saint was found, two statues: one of Saint Concordia, the other of Saint Epiphania, in terracotta, both highly esteemed. They are said to be the work of Algardi. On another altar, a beautiful basrelief, of the same material, depicting the Deposition from the Cross, but in a manner that seemed less delicate to me. Under the altar where this last piece is located is a beautiful antique jasper urn. On one wall of these crypts, which you must not leave without examining the beauty and elegance of the flat vaults, is an inscription believed to be that of the architect who built the Roman Colosseum. Vespasian made him suffer martyrdom in the arena of that very edifice that he had constructed. The gist of the inscription is that Jesus is preparing for him another theatre in heaven. Opposite is the mausoleum of Pietro da Cortona, who left all his assets to the Academy of Saint Luke [Accademia di San Luca], founded in this house of worship. Although it ought to have a separate entry, because it is adjacent, I cannot help but locate it in the same place. The most pleasing pieces in these rooms are: A Cupid, by Guido, charming and full of grace like everything that this great man made. Two landscapes by Poussin, of surprising vividness and naturalness. “You must render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” beautiful piece by Titian. Two landscapes by Orizzonte,177 which suffer next to those of Poussin. A kitchen hand scouring his dishes, by [Pierre] Subleyras, piece full of Nature and truth. 175 Campo vaccino, literally “cow pasture,” had long since become the common name for the area of the ancient Roman Forum. 176 A patron saint of Rome, Martina was martyred during the persecutions of Emperor Alexander Severus. Pietra da Cortona, overseeing the construction of a new church dedicated to the saint, purportedly discovered her relics when the crypt was being restored. 177 The byname of the Flemish painter Jan Frans van Bloemen (1662–1749) and a reference to the distance, i.e., “horizon,” he depicted in his landscapes.

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Sisera and Jael, by C. Maratta. A beautiful Virgin, by Mascarati.178 A moment of rest in the desert, same subject as the one in Parma, both by il Baroccio [i.e., Federico Barocci]. Saint Joseph gathers dates to amuse the Infant; he takes them with an expression of innocence, gaiety, and childishness that provides the greatest enjoyment. The Virgin draws water from a nearby fountain. There is a harmony, a tone to the colours, and a truthfulness throughout this entire piece that is enchanting. A Saint Jerome, by Salvator Rosa. A Virgin, by Telli [Andrea Locatelli?], which exudes all the gracefulness of Guido. A tousled head, by Guercino, piece full of naturalness and truth. A lovely copy of the Magdalene by Guido, the original of which is in the Barberini Palace; she is in a state of contemplation, her hand placed on a skull. In the upper part of the painting is an angel who appears to her. It is said to be by one of his pupils. Eros, Poetry, and Painting, by Domenico Muradori [viz., Muratori], the flesh tones are delicious. A charming miniature, by Rosalba [Carriera], Venetian. A Virgin, by Carlo Maratta, reading an ordinary book: major flaw in verisimilitude; books in the Virgin’s day were not shaped like this, but simple scrolls. A Dream of Saint Joseph, in which the angel appears to him and counsels him to flee, by a Frenchman whose name nobody could tell me. A Nativity of Jesus Christ, by Domenico Corti [viz., Corvi], in which will be seen superb gleams of light. Below, a pretty head of a child, by Titian. Samson overturning the columns of the Temple, by a Palermitan named Guido Danna [viz., Vito D’Anna]. A piece by Conca, full of delicacy; it is a woman’s head under the device of Modesty. Below, a beautiful head of the Virgin, by Guido. Bathsheba getting out of the bath, at the moment of her inflaming David, who sees her. Charming piece by Cacciaguida [viz., Francesco Caccianiga]. Diana and Endymion, by Péjon,179 a Frenchman. A sublime head of Hope, by a German named Ismaan [?]. Spring, beautiful head by [Carlo] Cignani. On the door, a lovely seascape by [Claude Joseph] Vernet. In another room: Three village festivals, pieces full of vividness and gaity, by [Andrea] Locatelli. An old woman spinning, by [Pier Francesco] Mola, full of Nature and truth. A magnificent Magdalene praying, by [Gaetano] Lapis. Two lovely landscapes, by Orizzonte. A beautiful Pietà, by [Giuseppe Bartolomeo] Chiari. Another piece by the same, figuring Religion. A Roman Charity, by Geminiani [viz., Giacinto Gimignani or Gemignani]. The original of Raphael’s painting, the copy of which is at the high altar of Saint Martina, depicting Saint Luke doing the portrait of the Virgin and Raphael behind, on wood. 178 Viz., Il Mascarino, the byname of Ottaviano Nonni (1536–1606). 179 There appears to be no such artist with the name “Péjon.” Sade will later mention a French artist with the name “Pijon,” presumably the same although equally untraceable.

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A head of the Virgin grieving, piece full of expression by Guido. Lot with his two daughters, doubtless at the instant when the destruction of Sodom makes them consent to incest, all with the praiseworthy aim of perpetuating the human species, by Geminiani. The Death of the Magdalene, by C. Maratta. Always missing the mark with respect to verisimilitude, this artist, otherwise divine, here has the sinner surrounded by angels. A Pietro da Cortona depicting Justice and Peace embracing, piece full of delicacy. A beautiful seascape by Mingrave [viz., Adrien Manglard], Vernet’s master. A Venus on a bed, veiled by a sheet, by Lanfranco. Three heads of old men, by Mola, painting more full of strength than charm. A view of Venice, by Le Bourguignon.180 Two lovely perspectives by [Giovanni Paolo] Pannini. Kept in this room is a stucco bust of Raphael, copied after the marble one that is at the Rotunda [i.e., the Pantheon] and his real skull is in a cabinet. But in vain is it shown to our fashionable artists, not one has yet to rediscover the genius formerly contained therein.181 Close by is the Church of Saint Adrian [Sant’Adriano], likewise located on the Campo Vaccino and built on the ruins of the Temple of Saturn situated in the Forum Romanum, which on several occasions contained the treasury of the Republic. I have discussed the bronze doors that were formerly to be seen at this temple and that are today at Saint John Lateran. The façade is exactly the same, but there no longer exist here any of the ornaments that there were. It was in front of this temple that the first military column, where the Via Sacra terminated, was formerly located. Still on the site of the ancient Forum Romanum and the length of this celebrated path, you find the Church of Saint Lawrence [San Lorenzo in Miranda], built upon the ruins of a temple that the Senate dedicated to Antoninus and his wife Faustinus, as an inscription written on the freize confirms. The ten columns, which can still be seen, made up the portico of the ancient temple. The frieze is adorned with bas-reliefs, the workmanship of which is quite esteemed, depicting griffins and candelabras. You can discern, looking in an adjacent cellar in which the columns are sunk up to their bases, how exceedingly raised the ground is. Inside the church, you see on both sides a large section of wall belonging to the ancient church and that allows you to discern its size. The frieze and some bits of the cornice extend therein. At the altar is a beautiful painting by Pietro da Cortona, which depicts the patron saint, dressed as a deacon, led to the torture by soldiers. Still in the same area, and on the foundations of a Temple of Remus and Romulus, is the Church of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian [Santi Cosmi e Damiano]. The bronze door and marble doorframe are from the ancient structure. All that has been done is to lift them, given the prodigious raising of the ground that you can make out from the underground church.

180 Jacques Courtois (1621–1676), or Giacomo Cortese, and his younger brother Guillaume Courtois (1628–1679), or Guglielmo Cortese, both born in Saint-Hippolyte-sur-le-Doubs, then in the Free County of Burgundy, moved to Italy when young (their father was also a painter). Both were active in Rome and both were known as “Le Bourguignon” or “Il Borgognone.” The elder Courtois was particularly known for his battle scenes; the younger for his history paintings of mythological and religious subjects. 181 Maurice Lever has remarked here the irony that Sade’s body was exhumed and the skull removed for phrenological examination. See D.A.F. Marquis de Sade, Voyage d’Italie, ed. Maurice Lever (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 1:138.

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The round vestibule, which today precedes the new temple, was formerly the ancient one. It is open like the Pantheon, and you must admire the vault, which is not handled with less audacity or lightness than that other beautiful edifice. Close by will be seen fragments of the Temple of Peace. All that remains today of this sublime edifice, into which Vespasian after the Jewish war transported all the beautiful objects and all the riches of the Temple in Jerusalem, is reduced to three vast arcades and to the pilasters, on which will still be seen some remains of capitals of columns. The single intact one, which was removed by Paul V, was placed by him on the square of Saint Mary Major, where it will be seen with less pleasure than it would have been here. You can still clearly make out the ornaments of the vaults of the three arcades that barbarism respected. These consist in coffers and rosettes, and it was from here that have been taken almost all the ceiling designs in our modern churches. Everything informs us that this monument was one of the grandest and one of the most sizeable of the Roman Empire, and one can still easily discern this from the considerable terrain enclosed by the two lateral walls that both come to an end at the Via Sacra. At the Church of Santa Maria or Saint Frances of Rome [Santa Francesca Romana], nearby, is the tomb of Gregory XI, who entered Rome on the 17th of January, 1377, and who re-established the Holy See, transferred to Avignon starting from the end of March, 1309, by Clement V.182 This monument is by Pietro [Paolo] Olivieri. The bas-relief depicts the triumphal entrance of the cardinal into Rome. You see him beneath the city walls, escorted by all the cardinals, and welcomed by a woman who represents Rome. Above is the tutelary spirit of the city, holding the keys. Petrarch had for a long time been doing all that he could to urge the popes, residing in Avignon, to return to Rome. We see in the letters that he wrote to … (see Petrarch),183 that he also used that metaphor of Rome transformed into a woman. But he died three years before this event that he had so desired and, consequently, never had the satisfaction of seeing it happen. In this same place is the tomb of Saint Frances of Rome, erected by a Pamphili princess and nun. It is enclosed within an iron fence so that no one can get close to it. Its magnificence excuses these precautions; it gleams all over with gold and precious stones. The pavement is made of marble, in a quite elegant pattern. The body of the saint is an urn of Sicilian jasper and her statue of gilded bronze. The difficulty that one has in getting close makes providing greater exactitude of description difficult. This church is built under a part of the portico of the Palace of Nero, a spot renowned for the infamous confrontation between Saint Peter and Simon the Magician, which the emperor wanted to witness. We know the fatal consequence of this infamous sham. Who would have predicted that the heirs of Nero’s buffoon would one day reign on his throne? And after such reversals [révolutions], is there any one for which we ought not be prepared?184 We see in the gardens of this house, inhabited by the Olivetans, two large 182 Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got and elevated to the papacy in 1305, transferred the Roman Curia to Avignon in March of 1309. 183 Petrarch in a letter in Latin verse had urged Benedict XII to return to the papacy to Rome and had employed an extended metaphor of the city as decripit crone who would recover her youth, vigour, and beauty once reunited with her “husband.” Sade’s reference is to his uncle’s biography of the poet. See Jacques-François-Paul-Aldonce de Sade, Mémoires pour la vie de François Pétrarque (Amsterdam, 1764), 1:261–5. 184 Although it is tempting to see Sade’s remarks as predictive of the French Revolution, fourteen years away at the time, they are consonant with the historical topos of the inevitability of decline and fall, of reversals

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recesses or culs-de-four built right up against each other, the remains of temples of the Sun and to the Moon, or, according to others, of Isis and of Serapis. These recesses have a very elegant shape. Serlius, the architect, provided designs for them.185 You see in the recesses ornaments similar to those that I have just discussed at the Temple of Peace, with the only difference that these are diamond-shaped. At the part of these two vaults that face the Colosseum, there no longer remains a fragment other than this single cul-de-four. At the one beside the garden of the monks are the remains of a large wall that doubtless enclosed one of these twin temples. Close to here is the pretty little Arch of Titus that the Senate dedicated to him after the destruction of Jerusalem. An epoch so cruel to the Jews that even to this day none want to pass through, and they have bought express permission to use a little path fashioned on one of the sides. Unfortunate and stupid nation that, disguising its true chains, sings hymns in honour of the pope and fears passing beneath the Arch of Titus. One of the façades of this arch depicts the victory of the emperor; he is in a chariot pulled by four horses and conducted by Rome. Victory, placed behind him, crowns him with laurel. On the other façade are the spoils of his victory, the candelabra with seven branches, the tables of the Law, and the trumpets that served to announce the Jewish Jubilee. In the middle of the arch is Titus, on an eagle, emblem of his apotheosis. Coffers and rosettes adorn all the remainder of the curve of the arch. On each side are two Corinthian columns, quite degraded but still sufficient to provide an idea of this monument. On the part that faces the Colosseum the following inscription will be read: S.P.Q.R. DIVO TITO DIVI VESPASIANI. F. VESPASIANO AVGVSTO.186

Upon leaving this arch, you climb to the left up the Palatine Hill, ancient site of the emperors’ palace, such a renowned spot, where buried treasures ought to be found. Today this land belongs to three different owners. A French abbé has bought the middle part and is making continuous excavations that, they claim, have already yielded him a fair amount. The king of Naples possesses the part that is lowest and closest to the Forum Romanum, and the German College [Collegium Germanicum] enjoys the other end. In the first – the one that belongs to the king of the Two Sicilies and that makes up what is today called the Farnese Gardens – you see a vaulted structure, where there is a fountain today, which structure is entirely antique, or so it is claimed. It is difficult to know today and overturnings. Even though the so-called Enlightenment era has been associated mainly with the notion of progress, the idea that history is a series of “revolutions” was also common. Perhaps the best example of such thinking is Rousseau’s Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Amsterdam, 1755), which depicted the trajectory of human society as a series of ever more alienating upheavals. 185 The text here has “Cerlius,” an orthographically incorrect homonym of a Latinized form of the last name of the sixteenth-century architect and author Sebastiano Serlio. Sade had previously given the author’s name as “Certius” (see p. 103n106 above). In his I sette libri dell’architettura Serlio gave floor plans and layouts of various structures. For a modern edition and translation, see Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, trans. Vaughn Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996 and 2001). 186 Translated and with abbreviations expanded: “The Senate and People of Rome to the divine Titus Vespasianus Augustus, son of the divine Vespasian.”

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what its function was. You see there several pieces found in these ruins, among others a Lucius Verus, a statue of Abundance, a Venus, an Asclepius, and an Apollo. There is no reason to discuss these pieces. As long as they are not in Naples, it is likely that they are not worth much. If they were valuable, the king would certainly not have left them here. In the vestibule of this structure are two barbarian kings and an empress, all heavily restored. All the environs of the aviary of this garden are full of fragments of columns, freizes, pilasters, of great delicacy and singularly precious workmanship. From these have been created benches and tables, and the most vile populace today comes and gets drunk on fragments of the habitation of the masters of the universe. At the far end of the part belonging to the king of the Two Sicilies and on the boundaries of that in the French abbé’s possession, you descend underground into small, well-preserved rooms that are said to be the Baths of Livia. You will see some remnants of gilding and of paintings that still appear rather vivid. This discovery, the remainder of which will surely be found if the king of Naples desired to carry on with it, took place in 1736. In Rome, the reason for this negligence is given as the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii, but in Naples you discover more accurate ones, which I will discuss in due time and place. The next part, which belongs to the Frenchman whom I mentioned and is much more astir, doubtless has more interesting things to offer, but the proprietor does not vaunt them.187 When I visited his gardens, into which he allows few to enter, he had just uncovered two large round rooms quite ressembling domestic temples, of the lightest and most pleasing shape. You see therein recesses, sorts of alcoves, and nearby little chambers doubtless serving to store the temple’s decorations or the sacrificial paraphernalia. You could not too much admire the designs of these rooms. All the pillars are made of brick, doubtless originally revetted with marble, as you can discern from the vestiges of bronze brackets that retained the facing on the wall. The floors were also marble. Remnants of porphyry, which you still see in one of these rooms, prove that they were done in compartments, in which precious marbles were doubtless used. As neither inscriptions nor statues have been found in these rooms, it is difficult to hand down a solid ruling on their function. Some believe that they could well have been baths. As for me, I discerned in them the shape of temples and would tend to see them in the latter wise. In these gardens you find a prodigious amount of rubble of all sorts. You see, among others, a large lead pipe, which doubtless served as some water conduit. The inscription that you read on it says that it was made under Domitian. Finally, in the third part of this famous mount – which I said belongs to the German College – will be seen the largest fragments of the structures of that immense palace: large vaults, arcades, remnants of baths, fragments of temples, remnants of a terrace from which the emperors watched the races and games of the Circus Maximus and from which they 187 This would be the somewhat mysterious abbé Rancoureuil, whose excavations on the Palatine Hill at the time of Sade’s visit had just begun to uncover what would be recognized as the so-called Domus Augustana, a wing of the Palace of Domitian. Unsystematic and damaging, the abbé’s efforts were subsequently characterized as acts of vandalism. Rodolfo Amadeo Lanciani, e.g., in his The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900), blames “the Frenchman Rancoureuil” for the near destruction of the site and upholds Sade’s commentary on the proprietor’s leeriness: “I have heard it related that the abbé was so anxious to keep his proceedings secret, that besides preventing any one from seeing the excavations by daylight … he kept a fierce mastiff to watch the place at night” (141). According to this source, an enterprising assistant of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, named Roberto Mori, bought off the dog with treats and was thereby able to make sketches of site.

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gave the signal that made these games begin. It seems that this entire prodigious edifice had its main façade facing the Forum Romanum and its rear ones to the Great Circus. How many sad reflections present themselves to the imagination when we consider what remains of so much grandeur? Some scattered ashes, some bases of crumbling walls – this is all that remains for us today of those proud emperors, which the entire earth did not satisfy, and of their sumptuous abodes. Death and time have not respected them more than they have the allotment of the pauper and his humble hut. What consolation for the unfortunate to imagine that there will come a happy endpoint, when the superior power that crushes him will collapse into itself? Weak mortals, are you thus not weary of the fateful distinctions of this life, without imagining them still in the next? More philosophical than those who fabricate these systems, which provide so little consolation, let us dare to believe that if new rewards do not await us, at least we do not have new pains to fear, and that the utter destruction of our being is the quittance that Nature owes us. Going back down the mount and returning to the Forum Romanum opposite the part that I have just described, that is to say, the length of the slope of the Palatine, facing the Via Sacra, you see three beautiful Corinthian columns with their architraves, friezes, and cornices, which belonged to the Temple of Jupiter Stator. An art lover or artist could not spend too much time examining their delicacy and proportions. All three are well preserved. They have been bound with iron rods to extend their solidity as long as possible. On the return trip and almost at the foot of the mount is a small round temple dedicated to Romulus by Latius, King of the Sabines, concerning the antiquity of which not even the most severe critic has found anything to argue about. It is here that was found the bronze she-wolf nursing the two twins, which lightning struck on the day of Caesar’s murder and will be seen today at the Palace of the Conservators [Palazzo dei Conservatori]. This small temple, today transformed into the Church of Saint Theodore [San Teodoro], has preserved all of its ancient simplicity. Pope Nicholas V had some decorations added and restored the vault, but the walled enclosure, a part of the flooring, and in general all of the construction is exactly the same. An odd anecdote about this temple is that still preserved today is the practice of bringing sick children here, as history teaches us was done in the days of Romulus. Is it that the superstition has remained the same or that Saint Theodore has, in effect, the same powers as Romulus? I leave it to philosophers to settle the matter, quite certain that they will make the same sad and humiliating reflection as I that religious follies, ever the same and only changing objects, will always have more empire over our weak humanity than reason. Next to this church, you see an antique altar used for sacrifices, on which was deemed appropriate to place a modern inscription, which I will not copy out, given that such authorities are always subject to error. You return from there, retracing the site of the Forum Romanum, to the Arch of Septimius Severus, which I have discussed, close to which will be found an unadorned Corinthian column, which is believed to have belonged to the Temple of Jupitor Custos. It probably belonged to the portico. How little it is sunk into the ground leads you to believe that in this area the terrain has not been raised as much as it has at the nearby Arch of Septimius Severus. After having described the sad remains of such a renowned square, I thought that the reader would be pleased to have the proportions. It stretched on one side from the Church of Saint Mary the Liberator [Santa Maria Liberatrice] up to Saint Lawrence, located opposite; from Saint Lawrence it extended up to the Arch of Septimius Severus, from this arch

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to the Church of the Consolation [Santa Maria della Consolazione], and from there, heading back, up to that of Saint Mary the Liberator, from where we started. When examining these famous places, what delights do you not feel in recalling all the historic moments that have immortalized them? There, close to the three columns of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, opened up the lake into which the brave Curtius plunged to appease the gods whom he believed angry with his fatherland, quite considerable proof of how much superstition still veiled, in these remote centuries, natural phenomena.188 Not far from here will still be seen the foundations of the Curia Hostilia, built by the third king of Rome and in which he meted out justice. Modern houses abut the old wall, of which it is still quite easy to make out the build and thickness. It was set on fire when the cadaver of Clodius was burned there. Julius Caesar subsequently had it repaired and gave it his name. Close by were the Comitia, where the senators assembled to handle the business of the Republic. Here was that giant equestrian statue of Domitian, the head of which will still be seen in the courtyard of the Palace of the Conservators; there, the famous ruminal fig tree, under which was found the cradle of Remus and Romulus, which the waters of the Tiber left on dry ground at the foot of the Palatine Hill.189 On this square was the tribunal of harangues,190 and it was there that arose all the various revolutions that interest us in the first centuries of Rome. Here, this people, which is no longer today but a doltish populace, chose its leaders, formulated its laws, declared war or peace … Great God, what transformations! The mistress of the world has become the slave of nations, and this people who made the universe tremble today sells beeves where their ancestors made kings wait! Behind the Forum Romanum was that of Julius Caesar, next to that of Augustus and behind that of Nerva, of which there remains today a quite elevated portion of wall, in the rustic order, and three Corinthian columns. This square, begun by Domitian and finished by Nerva, brings to mind, when you see it, the historical episode of Vetronius, the favourite of the first of these emperors, who exposed to smoke, a peculiar torture by which he had been condemned to be put to death, cried out when dying: “Fumo punitur qui fumum vendidit!” His crime was having sold favours!191 188 Livy, in his History of Rome, merely reports that Mettius Curtius bravely led the Sabine charge against the Romans, was repulsed, and managed to escape from the swamp into which he had been driven. He adds that as a reminder of this battle “the name of Curtian Lake” was given “to the pool where the horse of Curtius first emerged from the deep swamp and brought his rider to safety” (1[bk.1., l.12]:48–9). Plutarch gives a slightly different account: Curtius, eager for glory, advanced ahead of the other Sabines on horseback and sank into the mud; he escaped, although his horse did not, and his temerity ended up warning his fellows of the dangerous terrain. See Plutarch’s life of Romulus, in Lives, 1:144–5. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in Roman Antiquities, also gives an account of Curtius’s bravery and his escape from the lake, although likewise without mention of angry gods or any attempt to appease them (1[bk.2.42]:432–5). 189 The ficus Ruminalis was a wild fig tree said to be where the cradle of Romulus and Remus came ashore. See Livy, History of Rome 1[bk.1,1.4]):18–19. The name would appear to derive from the Latin word for “teat,” and Rumina was the goddess of breastfeeding. It was here that the twins suckled the she-wolf, and the tree held sacred significance and national symbolism for the Romans. 190 Another term for the rostrum, from which orators would give their speeches. 191 Translated: “By smoke punished he who sold smoke!” The emperor in question is, in fact, Alexander Severus. As one of Sade’s reference works explains, albeit with a slightly different ending: “[Vetronius] Turinus had insinuated himself into Alexander’s favour, and gained his confidence, which he abused by selling smoke. He pretended to be all-powerful with the emperor, whom he governed, said he, like a child. He promised his protection, and made his dupes pay him handsomely for it, though he did not even

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The Villa Aldobrandini, located on the Quirinal Hill, which belongs, thanks to the extinction of that line, to the House of Borghese, which has left there only the mediocre. Nonetheless, you will still see there rather good pieces in various genres, among others in that of sculpture. The group of a Satyr who has a passion for a hermaphrodite, a piece full of naturalness and expression. A Leda and the Swan, an equally beautiful antiquity, but restored. A bust of Caesar, one of Bacchus, one of Seneca, one of an old Vestal, one of Vespasian, one of a gladiator fitted onto a totally modern bust, one of an unknown emperor, made of basalt, draped with African marble, one of Trajan, one medallionshaped bas-relief made of alabaster and representing Nero, two small statues of children who are posed looking at the ground, beautiful and full of expression, quite ancient, but restored. In the upper suites are some paintings, among which you will note the Decollation of Saint John by […]192; a Rest in the Desert on the Flight into Egypt, by il Baroccio, a piece so often repeated and that you always see with the same pleasure; a Flemish Concert, by Agostino Carracci, full of Nature and truth; a Holy Family, by Perino del Vaga, from the era of Raphael, but lacking his power; a Bacchanal, by Titian in which, in spite of time, the beauty of this grand master’s colours still elicits our esteem; a Virgin, by Raphael. But what everyone most eagerly rushes to see and that really is made, given its antiquity, to excite curiosity is that famous piece of ancient painting known by most under the name of the Aldobrandini Wedding, which is preserved, embedded in a wall of a little pavilion, in the garden and hidden under another painting. This piece was found close to Saint Mary Major and the Arch of Gallienus. All the figures, arranged on the same plane, lead you to believe that the art of perspective was unknown in those days. The subject of this piece, in which little in the way of expression will be found, is a young bride instructed by a matron, doubtless as to her conjugal duties. The spouse is seated a little bit lower; further on is a priestess preparing the sacrifice, close to an altar, beside which is another priestess and a endeavour to serve them. In law suits, he frequently took money from both sides; and no place was given away at court or in the empire, without his requiring a tribute for it. Alexander was informed of these infamous proceedings; and did not think it beneath him to lay a snare for the greediness of this faithless minister in order to have an evident and irrefragable proof against him. Accordingly, somebody, in concert with the emperor, sollicited publickly a favour, and applied secretly to Turinus for his assistance. He promised to speak to the prince about it, but did not. The favour being granted, Turinus pretended it was through his means that it was obtained, and exacted a reward, which was paid him before witnesses. The emperor then ordered him to be prosecuted. Turinus could not make any defence, nor deny a fact which was proved by the testimony of the very people who had been employed in the negotiation. As Alexander was determined to make an example of him, he laid before the judges ample evidence of a great many other equally odious tricks, of which the criminal had been guilty, and which had not been made known, because no one dared to attack him. After these proofs, Alexander thought his severity could not be blamed; and to proportion the punishment to the crime, he ordered Turinus to be carried to the market-place, and there to be fastened to a post erected over a pile of green damp wood, which would not burn when fire was applied to it, but only emit a thick smoke. Turinus died thus suffocated, whilst the public crier repreated several times with a loud voice, He that sold smoke, is punished by smoke.” John-Baptiste Louis Crévier [i.e., Jean-BaptisteLouis Crevier], The History of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine, trans. John Mills (London, 1761; originally published in French in 1749), 8:293–4. The origin of the expression fumum vendere itself has exercised scholars since Erasmus. See Barry Baldwin, “Fumum vendere in the Historia Augusta,” Glotta, vol. 63, no. 1–2 (1985): 107–9; and J. Linderski, “Fumum vendere and fumo necare,” Glotta, vol. 65, no. 1–2 (1987): 137–6. It seems to make sense, though, that to sell something that simply dissipates might be a figure for skulduggery. 192 Left blank.

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musician. On the left part, three women, of which two prepare the bath and another the balms, essences, ointments, and fragrances necessary for the act that will soon be consummated. This piece, concerning which I will not hazard any criticism, seemed to me to have no other real merit than to be very ancient and drawn with a fair degree of regularity. You are shown from behind the thickness of the wall that had to be cut out in order to remove this fresco. In the gardens of this villa, you also see some statues and some bas-reliefs embedded in the walls of buildings. These are not without merit, but a voyager would probably never come across them without the antique painting to be seen in this house and that obliges us to put it [the villa] for this reason alone among the number of interesting objects of Rome. Borghese Palace193 This palace, built by Paul V, of the House of Borghese, is one of the most beautiful in Rome. Its extent is immense and its shape irregular. But the interior is no less beautiful and quite extensive. The courtyard is handsome and stately. The porticoes, both the first row as well as the second, are supported by ninety-six paired granite columns. The first row is Doric, the second Ionic. Under the lower porticoes are some antique statues. The apartment on the ground floor contains one of the most beautiful collections of original works by the greatest masters that can possibly be seen the world over. You will understand if I only mention, out of this numerous collection, those that gave me the most pleasure and that I believe to be the best. A Virgin and her Son, by Paolo Veronese, piece truly worthy of the brush of this grand master. A Holy Family, by Caravaggio. Same subject, pleasantly treated, in the first style of Andrea del Sarto. Roman Charity, by Cavaliere d’Arpino. Saint Peter awakened in the prison by the angel, by Mola, full of Nature and truth; it would be impossible to praise this sublime piece too much. The Judgment of Solomon, by Guercino, beautiful painting, but which has suffered a bit. The Saviour with his cross, by [Girolamo] Muziano. The Crowning with thorns, by Giuseppe d’Arpino, full of force and expression. Two women who were at Titian’s house, by him, utterly worthy of his reputation. 193 As an appendix to this description of the Palazzo Borghese, reproduced below is the text of a leaf, printed on the recto alone, that describes paintings by Ludovico Stern and on which Sade had made the following note: “Insert it; I have not yet inserted it.” DESCRIPTION of paintings in a Room of the Apartment of S.E. Mr D. Paolo Borghese, Prince Aldobrandini, executed By the Painter Mr Louis Stern. “These paintings all contribute to depicting a single object: the universe. At the four corners of the said room will be seen the four parts of the world; above the two doors, the Earth and the Sea; at the four windows, the four seasons, preceded by the sunrise; and finally, on the ceiling, the Air or Heavens; such that the whole creates but a single tableau. “It was based upon mythology, history, the mores of nations, various climates, various products of the earth, and the diversity of animals and other suchlike things that these paintings have been executed. The ceiling is made up of stuccoes, some real and others illusory, to add to its lightness.”

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You see, in the room where these paintings are, a beautiful urn made of a single piece of porphyry, which was found in the vicinity of Tivoli; it is graced today with two lovely bronze dragons, arms of the House of Borghese. Next you see: Diana hunting, by Domenichino, divine piece, full of Nature, truth, and delicious coloration. A piece by Michelangelo, in the antique taste, depicting two Apostles, painted on gold. David with the head of Goliath, by Caravaggio, full of force and expression. A Pietà, by Il Garofalo [i.e., Benvenuto Tisi]. An Invocation of souls in Purgatory, by [Pellegrino] Tibaldi. An Orpheus, a bit blackened, beautiful and grand style of Caravaggio. A beautiful Saint Francis in prayer, by Bronzino [Agnolo di Cosimo]. A Pietà, well handled, by Federico Zuccari. A portrait of a monk, by Titian, singularly natural. In this room is a porphyry table, all from one piece and of the greatest beauty. Next: A Holy Family, by Andrea del Sarto, worthy of examination and praise. A Jesus Christ crucified, by Giulio Romano, as beautiful a piece as such a sad subject and one so oft repeated might allow, but a bit faded. A music master, beautiful head by Il Borgognone. Polyphemus and Galatea, large painting by Lanfranco, a bit faded, but in the beautiful and grand style. Samson bound, a study, large figure by Titian, full of force and vigour. The Adulterous Woman, by the same. A rather lovely Virgin, in the second style of Raphael da Urbino. Joseph fleeing Potiphar, by Lanfranco, which the artist did not endue with all the expressiveness of which this piece is susceptible. Lot fleeing Sodom and dashing into incest; he is in the midst of his daughters, who are making him drunk in order to take advantage of him; lovely night effect, by Gerard, called “of the Nights,” because he only ever chose these sorts of subjects.194 A Virgin and her Son, in the final style of Raphael. Machiavelli with Cardinal Borgia, full of truth, Nature, and expression. Saint John as a child, by Giulio Romano. A Madonna, by Guercino. The duke of Valentinois, by Raphael da Urbino. A Descent from the Cross, charming painting by Raphael. A Holy Family, by Michelangelo. Jesus Christ dead, brought down from the cross, by Sebastiano del Piombo. Piece on the matte side. This fault, usual enough in his paintings, was the reason he had been given the byname del Piombo.195 194 Gerrit or Gerard van Honthorst (1590–1656) was known for his exaggerated chiaroscuro in the manner of Caravaggio and especially for night scenes illuminated by a single source such as a candle. His byname, as Sade indicates, is Gherardo delle Notti. 195 Sebastiano Luciani (c. 1485–1547) received his byname “del Piombo” (i.e., “of lead”) because Clement VII granted him the position of piombatore pontificio or keeper of the papal seals. A piombino is a lead seal.

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A Saint Dominic, by Titian. A superb Sibyl, by Domenichino. The Burning of Troy, by il Baroccio. A Saint Cecilia, which I believe is by Guido, but I dare not assert this. Sacred and profane Love, by Titian. The Four Seasons, in four separate paintings, by [Francesco] Albano; we are familiar with this master’s utterly pleasing and delicate brush. A beautiful Saint Jerome reflecting, a book in his hand, by Correggio. A woman giving fruit to the Infant Jesus, seated on the lap of his Mother, by Titian. Joseph, by Guercino, explaining a dream to his brothers; mediocre. The Three Graces, beautiful piece by Titian. A Cena, by Caravaggio. In the room dubbed “the Venuses”: A nude Venus, by Titian, the same as the one in Florence. Two other Venuses, standing and nude, but stiffly drawn, by Andrea del Sarto. Leda and the Swan, good painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Amor and Psyche, pretty piece by Paolo Veronese. The Three Graces, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Another nude woman, in the same pose as the Venus by Titian, likewise by him and believed to be his wife, piece full of Nature and gracefulness. The Origin of music, by […]196 Susanna, by Rubens. Adam and Eve, two pieces by Giovanni Bellini. A nude woman, by Raphael da Urbino. The next room is completely decorated with mirrors painted by Giro Ferro [viz., Ciro Ferri], pupil of Pietro da Cortona, and with several antique busts of consuls and of Caesar, the heads of which are made of porphyry and the draperies of alabaster, found in Frascati. The stuccos in this room by Algardi. Next: A Virgin done in mosaic on a gilded surface, by Marcello Provenzale. An Orpheus, by the same artist, likewise in mosaic. The Virgin between her Son and Saint John the Baptist, by Andrea del Sarto. Paul V, of the House of Borghese, by the Provençal [i.e., Marcello Provenzale]. A Christ with Saint John and three women (for it was always necessary that there be some wherever these two gentlemen were found!), by Pietro da Volterra. A miniature of Adam and Eve, by Cavaliere d’Arpino. The Judgment of Solomon, by Albrecht Dürer, stiff like his name.197 Saint Catherine, by Caravaggio. In the small gallery that terminates the suite of rooms and which has views of the Tiber will be seen several pretty landscapes by Poussin. Coming back: A Virgin with her Son, Saint John the Baptist and two angels, by Perugino. Julius II, by Raphael.

196 Left blank; artist unknown. 197 An untranslatable pun: dur is French for “hard” or “harsh.”

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The Fall of Saint Paul, by Paolo Veronese, wise and beautiful composition. A Holy Family, delicate and nicely handled piece by Andrea del Sarto. A removal to the countryside, by [Jacopo] Bassano. A Virgin and her Son, by Giulio Romano. Eight lovely drawings by Giulio Romano, washed with bistre and tinted white. A ninth by Raphael, depicting Constantine’s battle, unfinished, but in the grand and sublime style. A Magdalene, by Flaminia Fontana, wife of the architect of this name.198 Saint Ann, the Virgin, and her Son, piece by Caravaggio, which seems to have suffered. Saint Anthony and Saint John the Baptist, by Paolo Veronese. Roman Charity, by Guercino. A Virgin and her Son, piece in which you must, above all, admire the beauty of the Virgin’s head, by Perino del Vaga. The Prodigal Son, by Titian. Saint John the Baptist, by Guercino. A Judith, by Paolo Veronese. Saint John the Baptist, by Bronzino, less pleasing than the one by Guercino. A Resurrection, by Giulio Romano. A Saint Francis in contemplation, by Agostino Carracci. This enormous succession of paintings, arranged without order and without selection, of which I have named only the main ones, is kept in humid rooms, where they wither away each day. But as they are placed there rather for the sake of ostentation than from taste – and because the owners are quite far from having the wit to know what they have – all is well, provided this brings in the wages of the concierge who usually awaits the good graces of the foreigner to go and seek out dinner. Here I will remark in passing that as the master is a short, rather rotund character, quite replete with pride and stupidity – and who, we are told, when he needs money,199 goes halves with his concierge and consequently authorizes him in his monopoly – you must, if you want to see the rest of the palace, pay handsomely for viewing these first suites of rooms, otherwise these rascals give each other the word and they will not show you anything more. I have had the experience. I had only given six paoli to this character. I imagined that he ought to be satisfied; but, as was likely, the prince’s affairs obliged him to cut this amount in half on this day, he got brassy with me and I could see nothing. I had had the honour of sometimes paying my respects to the Borghese princess, at the house of Duchess Grillo, one of the most amiable and prettiest women in the room. I threatened to go and complain to her, but I was assured that I would obtain nothing. I understood what was happening. It was confessed to me. At this point, I felt that three paoli for a Roman prince was truly too middling a charitable offering. I ordered my men to give six more of these, folded into a little piece of paper on which I wrote with my pencil: For my good sir, the prince, not for splitting. On the spot, the doors were open to me and I saw everything.

198 Viz., Lavinia Fontana, who was neither the wife of Domenico Fontana nor of his brother Giovanni Fontana, although they did all live at roughly the same time. Her maiden name was Fontana; her husband, helpmeet, and agent Gian Paolo Zappi. See Caroline P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana, 13–48. 199 Sade notes: “This house is rich, but quite disordered.”

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Barberini Palace Has architecture by Bernini. It was built during the pontificate of Urban VIII and decorated by the most skilled artists then in Rome. It is said to be constructed on top of the fortress that Numa erected at the far end of the Quirinal. The ceiling of the large antechamber, as a true masterpiece, is worthy of its own throrough description. 200 [I trust that the reader will not be annoyed to contemplate it in detail for a while.201 Explanation of the Paintings in the Barberini Palace first part The first painting, namely, the one in the middle, represents Divine Providence, full of majesty and splendour, seated on a cloud, sceptre in hand, seeming to command both present and future. It is for this reason that she has below her the Parcae, attending to their various functions, and Time, who in the guise of Saturn devours his own children. She is surrounded by a large number of Virtues and attributes, each distinguished by the symbols proper to them; among these Faith, Hope, and Charity come first, followed by Justice, Mercy, Eternity, Truth, Security, Beauty, and many others, all prepared to do her bidding. Immortality among others appears to have received orders, since she appears to climb on high to crown the coat of arms of Urban VIII, surrounded by two large branches of laurel that, joining at both sides, create a shield in the middle of which fly three bees. These three [sic] branches are supported by three beautiful girls, which we can regard as the three principal Muses – Urania, Calliope, and Clio – who, crowning the bees with laurel, indicate the fame that the celebrated poems of Urban VIII have been awarded. Two other girls are above. One holds keys and represents ecclesiastical power. The other holds the tiara or triregnum and represents Holy Rome. Various genii play among the foliage made by these branches, and one among them, holding a laurel garland, keeps himself at a distance and seems to want to draw closer. He signifies Quality or poetic knowledge with which this glorious pontiff was adorned. second part The second part will be seen above the door that leads to the garden. Depicted here is the defence of the Church in the guise of giants vanquished by the goddess Pallas, symbol of wisdom, who combats them and lays them low and does so in a manner that they remain weighed down and buried under the same mountains that they had piled up with the intention of waging war and climbing up to heaven. The majesty and grandeur of the figures, along with the various ways that the vanquished are positioned, merits the applause and admiration of connoisseurs.

200 The entire passage comprising several pages between brackets was first published in Maurice Lever’s edition of the Voyage d’Italie. Sade has based his explanation on a detailed description of the Pietro da Cortona’s celebrated fresco Trionfo della Divina Provvidenza, completed in 1639, on an account from one of his correspondants. This account, likely provided by Giuseppe Iberti, is reproduced below, starting on p. 564. 201 Between the lines: “Place here the summary of the translation that you have.”

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third part The third part is located above the baldachin. It depicts a kneeling virgin, raised on a cloud, symbol of the Knowledge of divine things. She has her two arms raised in the air, holding a fiery flame in her right hand to signify that her being is such that it rises towards heaven; and in her left one she holds a book that expresses knowledge of objects that are related to this. The winged young man, armed with a shield, is divine Succour who, with the laurel that he holds in his hand, promises immortality to whomever does not abuse it. The respectable old woman who, above the same cloud, holds the gilded tripod with the lit fire, represents Religion offering incense to God. Under the sides of this cloud are the vices of Gluttony and of Lust. The first is in the guise of a Silenus, for whom the fauns and the satyrs prepare wine in the large cup; and one of the Bacchantes carries the infant Bacchus in her arms, and he greedily makes for the grape, demonstrating thereby the poor upbringing of children. On the other side, Lust is depicted by a Venus reclining on a sensuous bed, who although modestly clothed, appears to get up in fright upon seeing her son Cupid, put to flight by chaste Love accompanied by Purity in the guise of a girl dressed in white. Here, a fountain will be seen, somewhat in the distance, with many women around it, one of whom appears to preen and to primp, symbol of the vanity of things here below. In the middle of a large painting, you see a plow pulled by two bees, guided by a third, who leads them with a rod. This is one of the heraldic devices of the House of Barberini. fourth part Further on, above the pulpit, comes temporal Government, represented in the guise of two girls who appear to descend from on high. The one with the consular fasces signifies Authority, who commands Hercules and chases away the Harpies with the help of his club, thereby wanting to demonstrate the punishment of the guilty. The other girl, who pours the cornucopia, signifies liberality; and in front of her, you will see a number of old men, young children, widows and all sorts of persons kneeling in the hope of being favoured with the gifts she is granting. With such virtues, Urban marked and immortalized his name. Below the decoration of the bas-relief is the club of the same Hercules, from which offshoots grow; this is another attribute of the House of Barberini. fifth part The fifth part is above the fireplace. Here there is a depiction of papal dignity, holding the caduceus in her right hand to show that she extends to the entire world; in her left a key, sign of her authority. Prudence presents her with a mirror with a respectful expression, and on the other side Power, who seems to be acting as a deputy, is making ready to leave, holding in one hand a written sheet and in the other a key. Further on, Fame, with two trumpets in hand, near to Peace, olive branch in hand, who is shutting the gates of the Temple of Janus, which remained open during wartime. Fury remains enchained, outside of the same temple, bound on a pile of weapons, holding two lit torches that she shakes in rage. Mildness seeks to pacify her and restrains her, held by a rope. Here you see, beaten down and lifeless, certain Furies who abandon themselves on their own torches. There you see Vulcan’s forge and the Cyclopes, tired and busy making weapons for war, intending to show the wise foresight one must have during peacetime. Another

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attribute of the House of Barberini is the rising sun, which will be seen below all of these paintings. What now remains to be seen are the four corners, with paintings in chiaroscuro of so many historical deeds, depicting the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. They are accompanied by symbols that are proper to each one of them. To follow in order the explanation of these paintings, you must begin at the left with the corner between Silenus and Hercules, where Prudence has been depicted emblematically as Fabius the Dictator, as he studies the movements of Hannibal and remains enclosed in his encampment. The symbols of this virtue are she-bears hiding their cubs so that they improve over time. In the corner to the right comes Justice exemplified by Titus Manlius, who orders the decapitation of his son, who had, in spite of orders to the contrary, given battle to the enemy. Given to him as symbol is the griffin, as a cruel animal and strict defender of Justice. Temperance is in the opposite corner, represented by Publius Scipio Africanus who is sending his young spouse back to Saguntinus without even having seen her. And the symbol accompanying her is the unicorn, celebrated for her chastity. Finally, in the last corner, you will admire strength and courage in Mucius Scaevola, in the act of allowing his right hand to burn after having killed by mistake a common person instead of the king Porsena, who is present. You see a superb lion, symbol enough of courage. explanation of the vault of divine wisdom After having seen this last corner of the room, you see straight ahead the doorway that leads to the apartment called that of Divine Wisdom on account of the vault that will be seen in the third room, a famous work, admirably painted by Andrea Sacchi. You will see a respectable old woman seated on a majestic throne, lavishly dressed, sceptre in hand, with which she seems to govern the entire universe, represented by the globe that she has below her. She wears the royal crown on her head, the sun on her chest, mirror in her hand, eye fixed on the tip of the sceptre, symbol of the greatest wisdom. To the right, she is accompanied by various attributes in guises that have been depicted with the utmost perspicacity. The first, triangle in hand, represents the essence of the divine. The one beside holds a lyre and denotes the harmony and order of things. The one holding the serpent in a closed circle figures forth eternity. The one after, wrapped in a sheet, a crown in hand, represents Knowledge. Justice is in the guise of the one holding scales. The one who is turned, supported by her right hand on the club and who creates the loveliest contrast, represents Power. The last one, who appears to fertilize the earth with her own milk, holding in her right [hand] an ear of grain, is Fecundity. To the left are four other virtues that are related to the divine. Namely: the figure holding a swan in her arms represents Purity; the seated one, covered with a veil, cross in one hand, supporting an altar with the other, is Holiness. Below is Contemplation, resting on her right arm, with the eagle watching her. The last one, with a cheerful expression, is Beauty, holding in her hand Berenice’s hair to signify that the splendour and triumph of women consists in the ampleness and beauty of their hair. On either side, on high, are celestial Spirits. The one on the right who is combating a lion, symbol of force, can be taken as invincible Courage. The other, on account of the hare, symbol of timidity, signifies holy Trepidation, foundation of all the virtues.] In the rooms that come next will be seen: Rome Triumphant, painting by Valentin [de Boulogne]. The Martyrdom of a saint, by the Calabrese [Francesco Cozza].

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A Saint Sebastian, by Lanfranco. Jesus finding the Samaritan in the pit, superb piece by Annibale Carracci. A female Musician, by Lanfranco. Julia, wife of Titus, beautiful marble statue; she is dressed as Ceres. Another statue of Juno, the drapery of which seems to suggest that it is Greek. Brutus holding in his hands the heads of his two sons; sublime statue, unique in Rome and of the noblest and loveliest expression. A sick Satyr; he is reclining: sublime Greek statue. A Ceres, larger-than-life, as are almost all of those just mentioned. An Amazon, but not as beautiful as the Capitoline one. In this same room will be seen: A large painting by Carlo Napolitano, which portrays the battle of Constantine against the tyrant Maxentius. This painting struck me as second rate. A Feast of all of the gods, by [Giovanni Francesco] Romanelli, large and attractive composition. Bacchus and Ariadne, by the same, in which there appeared to me even more grace than in the former. Marius and Sulla, two lovely antique busts. A lovely painting by Lo Spagnoletto [i.e., Jusepe de Ribera] that portrays the Healing of Tobias. Hercules, by Guercino. Sophonisba, by the same. Esther before Ahasuerus, by the same. A Porcia, by [Domenico] Fetti. Icarus and Daedalus, by Romanelli. A Charity, by [Giovanni Andrea] Sirani, pupil of Guido. Same subject by Romanelli, but treated with a singular grace and delicacy. Rachel giving Jacob to drink, by a pupil of Poussin; you make out a little of the agreeable style of that grand master, although it’s quite a stretch. In this room are several busts, among others, one of Hadrian, one of Septimius Severus. One will also see two lovely hollow alabaster vases. The ceiling of this room portrays the Birth of Moses discovered by the daughter of Pharaoh, by Chiari. In the next two rooms are several cartoons by Romanelli. In another, several Apostles by Carlo Maratta and Andrea Sacchi: The Archangel Saint Michael killing the devil, by d’Arpino. A night battle between the Angel and Jacob, by Caravaggio. Saint John baptizing Jesus Christ, by Sacchi. Saint Rosalia of Palermo, mediocre piece by Carlo Maratta. Adam and Eve, from the school of d’Arpino. Cain fleeing after his crime – his victim is there, God is asking him where his brother is – by [Andrea] Camassei. A Pietà by il Baroccio, which looks to have suffered a bit. An Adoration by the angels of the Son of Mary, by Romanelli. The ceiling of this room portrays the Everlasting dividing Night from Day, by Pijon, a French painter.202 202 No artist by this name identifiable.

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The next room: The sons of Noah mocking the nudity of their father, painting by Sacchi, full of naturalness and verity. Apollo flaying Marsyas, by the same. Close by is a charming little room, decorated with frescoes, arabesques, griffins, meanders, and bas-reliefs, all in the ancient style and producing the most enjoyable effect. In the upper rooms: A Magdalene in contemplation, by Guido, where this great master has deployed all the grace and truth of his art. Looking at such a lovely sinner, one would be rather tempted to bring her back to her old errors than those new chimerical virtues that seem to occupy her thoughts! In vain one might try to praise this work; it is beyond all words. One can only see it, feel and remain silent. Saint Jerome writing, by Gherardo delle Notti. The Sacrifice of Abraham, by Andrea Sacchi. A Sacrifice, by Camassei. A lovely Saint Catherine, by Guercino. A Moses, of singular style by Guido. David with the head of Goliath, by Sacchi. A young man that two rogues are cheating at gambling, full of truth and naturalness. One sees all the gentleness of the young man perfectly opposed to the rascality and fraud expressed in the faces of the two scoundrels. This painting is a masterpiece of truthfulness.203 Some angels’ heads by Parmigiano [i.e., Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Il Parmigianino]. Music personified, by Lanfranco. A Pietà, by Guercino. Jesus amid his Apostles, two versions, by Pietro da Cortona. A Saint Francis and a Saint Bernard, the former by Sacchi and the latter by Pietro da Cortona. A philosopher working by lamp, by Gherardo delle Notti. A Virgin, by Guercino. A Noli me tangere, mediocre, by Pietro da Cortona. Several little landscapes with different subjects, by Borgolo [i.e., Brueghel the Elder] and Claude [Claude Gellé, known as Le Lorrain]. A Holy Family, by Romanelli. Jesus with the two sinner women, by Romanelli. A Saint Jerome dying, attended by monks, by an unknown artist. Various little paintings with mythological subjects by Borgolo, all of them pretty and full of naturalness. A seascape by Claude. Another landscape, by the same. Hagar and her son, by Pietro da Cortona. A man who is frying chestnuts in a pan, by Locatelli. In another room:

203 Known as I bari or The Cardsharps, the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). This painting, after a few detours, is now in the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

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A Virgin, by Carlo Maratta, close to a bed and made to give, whether she is going to sleep or rising in the morning, other ideas than those that the Mother of God should inspire. It is true that at such a moment one forgets about God to concentrate instead on his mistress. A Virgin and Son, by Andrea del Sarto. A queen of England, by [Anthony] van Dyck. Four charming landscapes, by Borgolo. A Holy Family, by Michelangelo. Two heads, by Teniers.204 The portrait of Raphael, by Il Garofalo. A Holy Family, by Pietro da Cortona. A sublime Saint Sebastian, by Lanfranco. Saint Apollina in her martyrdom, by Guido. A Saint Jerome, by Guercino. An elderly saint or woman, reading close to an angel who gazes on her, by Caravaggio. Sainte Catherine, Mary and Jesus, by Guercino. A charming portrait of a young woman en deshabillé, by Rotari [i.e., Alessandro Varotari, called Il Padovanino]. Descending to the lower apartments to examine the remaining beauties enclosed in this palace, you must examine the spiral staircase by Bernini, supported by twin Doric columns and producing a very nice effect. These lower apartments, whose beautiful objects I will likewise name in no particular order and as they present themselves, contain: A bronze statue of Septimius Severus. The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, by Valentin. A restored statue of a gladiator. A Descent from the cross, by Romanelli, the same one mentioned with regard to the upper suites of rooms. Saint Francis marrying Poverty, by Sacchi, painting that has darkened a bit. A praying saint, by Pietro da Cortona. A Holy Family, by Parmigiano [viz., Parmigianino]. A head of Saint John on a platter, lovely horror by Caravaggio. A Saint Sebastian bound and wounded, by the same. In the next room: A statue of Bacchus reclining on a tomb. Some statues borne on antique altars, middling sculpture and uninspired genre. A statue of Ariadne seated, supporting herself with one hand, placed on an ancient tomb. A small group of Asclepius and his daughter Hygieia. A bust of Urban VIII in terracotta, sculpted by a blind man and fashioned in such way that many clear-sighted folk would not do as well. Jesus dead between two angels, viewed from a foreshortened perspective and quite esteemed for this reason, by Annibale Carracci. The family of Titian, made by himself. Saint Peter on the water, by Andrea Sacchi. Hagar chased out by Abraham, saving herself in the desert with her son Ishmael: charming painting, full of Nature and truth, by Guercino. 204 David Teniers; probably the Younger (1610–1690) rather than the Elder (1582–1689).

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A lovely Pietà, by Parmigiano [Parmigianino]. Two battle scenes, by Le Bourguignon.205 Two landscapes, by Botta [viz., Giuseppe Bottani]. A little Magdalene, by Correggio, thought to be the original. A statue of Isis with the god of Silence. A Marcus Aurelius. A young Tiberius, but almost entirely reconstructed, heavy and cumbrous. A large bust of a faun, handsome enough. One of a Silenus. A lovely Saint John the Baptist, by Guercino. Saint Michael conqueror of the devil, copy of the one owned by the Capuchins, by a pupil of Guido. A Holy Family, copy of a Raphael. A Virgin with children, believed to be by Michelangelo. A lovely painting by Sacchi portraying three saints. Saint John in the wilderness, of the French school. A nude Cupid, by Correggio. A mourning Venus, half-nude, believed to be by Titian. A Virgin with Saint Lawrence and another saint, by P. Perugino, Raphael’s teacher. In one of the next rooms: A bust of Juno, larger than life. A bust of Antinoüs, also larger than life, but the style is not good. A little statue of Health, Egyptian idol. A statue of a man in the baths, the head is modern. A statue of Agrippina, larger than life. A bust portraying an ancient mask. A statue of Apollo dressed as a woman, larger than life. A bust of Hercules. A lovely head of Caracalla. A bust of Faustina. Niobe, large painting by Camassei. Lot caressed by his daughters, by Sacchi. Diana in the midst of her nymphs, by Camassei. A Saint Sebastian, by Lanfranco. A mosaic taken from the Temple of Fortuna in Praeneste that portrays the Rape of Europa. A little statue of a Silenus with a goatskin. The idol of Abundance. Three Egyptian idols. A painting by Leonardo da Vinci, portraying Herodias receiving the head of Saint John the Baptist. The Saviour, by Tintoretto. A Virgin and her son, by the same.

205 On “Le Bourguignon” or “Il Borgognone,” see p. 137n180 on Jacques and Guillaume Courtois, above. The painting in this case is presumably the work of Jacques.

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The Sacrifice of Diana, by Pietro da Cortona. Tobias guided by the Angel, by Andrea del Sarto. A fresco of Eros by Guido. A nude Venus with two children, by Paolo Veronese; he has painted himself into the composition, looking at this nude woman. A statue of the Combat of Adonis with the wild boar, by [Giuseppe] Mazzuoli, of a particular marble that rings like bronze. This Mazzuoli was a pupil of Bernini. A large sleeping faun, ancient but restored by Bernini. A hunter carrying a goat, mediocre statue. A bronze bust of Nero. A fresco of Rome Triumphant, found in the Gardens of Sallust, and Venus retouched by Carlo Maratta, likewise ancient and found in the same place. The Three Graces, charming little group. The Sacrifice of King Mithras. This was the symbol of the Sun among the Egyptians.206 A statue of the goddess Pomona. Some bas-reliefs and some tombs. In another room: A lovely funerary urn. Another with the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Several cartoons by Pietro da Cortona and by Romanelli. A statue of Diana asleep by Bernini, too mannered; we know to what extent this was the flaw of this grand master. A large tomb of hollow marble. Several busts, of which some have little in the way of value. In the suites of the young prince you must see: Joseph fleeing with the wife of Potiphar by Cignani, expressive painting and truly full of worth. Four above-door paintings, by Romanelli, portraying the four seasons. A Pietà, by [Giacinto] Brandi. Four portraits, by Titian. The Death of Germanicus, by Poussin. The Virtues, by Romanelli. A Saint John, by the same. The Three Times, Present, Past, and Future, by Vauret [viz., Simon Vouet]. A Magdalene, by Guido, that you are assured is the original, but they are dubious characters, so it is said, in this house! The Four Evangelists, by Guercino. A lovely Saint Jerome, by Lo Spagnoletto. The Rape of Lucretia, by Romanelli. Sant’Andrea Corsini wearing a cope, by Guido. Herodias holding the head of Saint John the Baptist on a platter, by [Giovanni] Bellini. A dying Cleopatra, lovely piece by Titian. 206 The central icon of Mithraism was the representation of Mithras sacrificing a bull (the modern term of art is “tauroctony”). The mystery religion derived not from Egyptian sources but rather from the Iranian-Indic Mithra or Mitra. In ancient Greece, Mithra was conflated with Helios, yielding the syncretic Mithras; the cult spread to Rome and florished in the first centuries CE throughout the empire.

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Raphael’s mistress, nude to the waist, painted on wood by this celebrated artist himself. Modesty and Vanity, by Leonardo da Vinci. And a Holy Family, by Raphael. Palazzo Doria Also has a rather attractive collection of paintings, of which I will relate the most beautiful: A woman on horseback, by [Giovanni Benedetto] Castiglione. Another kneeling in a large landscape, by the same. Saint John the Baptist and Saint Augustine in the wilderness, both by Poussin. Adam and Eve in the earthly paradise; the Death of Abel; the Samaritan who bandages the wounded man; Saint Eustace in the wilderness; all by the same. Three lovely works of [Jacopo] Bassano. A Tempest, by a Genoese. The Flight into Egypt, by Georges [i.e., Giorgio da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione]. A large landscape, by Poussin. Two doctors, quite natural, by Raphael da Urbino. A Feast of Venus, believed to be by [Francesco] Albano. A Hunter at rest, by Castiglione. A landscape covered with snow in the winter, by Le Flamand [i.e., François Duquesnoy]. Narcissus falling in love with himself while looking at himself in the river, by Baciccia [i.e., Giovanni Battista Gaulli]. Endymion, by Rubens. A Deposition from the Cross, by Vasari. The Murder of Abel, by Salvator Rosa. The Virgin presenting her Son to an angel, by F. Mola. Jesus paying the tribute with a fish, by the Calabrese [Francesco Cozza]. Several portraits by van Dyck and by Titian, all excellent. The destruction of the city of Castro, by Borgognone. Roman Charity, by Valentin. A Holy Family, by Raphael da Urbino. A Saint Jerome, by Castiglione, piece full of power and vigour. The Adoration of the Infant, who is seated on his Mother’s knees, by [Domenico] Passignano. A charming Magdalene, by Guercino. A lovely Saint Jerome, by Lo Spagnoletto. The Cena in Emmaus, by Lanfranco. A Visitation, by Il Garofalo. A Saint John the Baptist, by Valentin. Six lovely sacred subjects in a semi-circle, by Annibale Carracci. A meal at the house of the Pharisee, by Cigoli [byname of Lodovico Cardi]. Icarus and Dedalus, by Albano, in which can be seen all the lightness and agreeableness of the brush of this great master. A Game of love, by Cignani. Saint Roch, by Michelangelo. A Holy Family, by Titian. A Magdalene, by Fetti. A Judith, by Michelangelo.

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The Prodigal Son, piece full of power, with expression and at the same time with naturalness, by Guercino. What grace in the brush of this great man! Saint Agnes on her pyre, by the same. The Virgin contemplating her Son, by Guido. A Saint John the Baptist, by Guercino. A Bathsheba, by the same; she is half-nude; the artist seems to have outdone himself here, and, if she looks anything like the original, the few follies that good King David committed for such a beautiful woman were quite excusable. A Judith, the head of Holofernes in her hand, by the school of Titian. A Holy Family, of a surprising truthfulness, by [Giovanni Battista Salvi da] Sassoferrato. A delicious Virgin, by the same. A head, by Caravaggio. The Infant Jesus adored by a multitude of saints who lived three or four centuries after him, ineptitude by Il Garofalo. Here is an example of how the three-quarters of ignorant painters produce nonsense for lack of familiarity with either history or mythology. A nude woman, said to be by Raphael; I believe it rather to be by his school. Queen Zenobia doing her hair, by Guercino. Samson looking at the jawbone of the ass with satisfaction, by the same. The Sacrifice of Abraham, by Titian; the head of the old man and of the infant full of truth and expression. A nude child playing with a kid, by Caravaggio. A kitchen hand looking for fleas by lamplight: low subject, but true and of a singular expression, by Gherardo delle Notti. A pretty country fair, by Teniers. A Magdalene reflecting on her wayward acts – perhaps it would have been more enjoyable to have painted her giving herself over to them – by Michelangelo da Caravaggio. A copy of the Wedding of the Aldobrandini, by Poussin. A Deposition from the cross, by Alessandro Varotari. A Saint Jerome by Lo Spagnoletto. In the little upper apartment will be seen lovely ceilings by [Stefano] Pozzi, portraying mythological subjects. This apartment is prettily furnished; one sees therein two silver tables supported by two eagles and decorated with bas-reliefs. This gift was given to the family by the Republic of Genoa. The story of Andrea Doria refusing to become the ruler of his fatherland is known (under Charles V. See the Dictionnaire des grands hommes).207 In the chapel is a lovely Pietà, by Annibale Carracci. Such is approximately everything that this palace offers of interest. Palazzo Giustiniani The courtyard of this palace is filled with ancient statues, but reconstructed and mediocre. In the vestibule of the courtyard will be seen a Hygeiea or goddess, whose symbol is the 207 Sade’s reference is to the entry on Andrea Doria in Chaudon, et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, 2:472–3. As to the episode in question, Andrea Doria (1468–1560), the great Genoese admiral, had joined with Francis I of France against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in the Italian War of 1521–1526. Unhappy with the French king’s actions, Doria eventually switched sides. In league with Charles, he was able to drive the French out of Genoa, and, refusing the emperor’s offer to become sovereign, Doria instead established an aristocratic republic, taking for himself only the title of “Perpetual Censor.”

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serpent on her knees. She has been placed between two Apollos; the latter would be beautiful if they were less restored. A lovely Hercules will also be seen in the same courtyard; two above-door panels portraying hunting scenes, of fairly good quality, a Scipio Africanus, etc. On the staircase is a handsome Marcus Aurelius in military attire. A group of two gladiators, one on the ground, the other victorious, from a single block of marble. A Rome Triumphant, etc. The suites are decorated with several lovely pieces, among which I will only mention those which gave me the greatest pleasure: An Adoration of the Kings, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Jesus carrying the cross, by the same. Charity personified, by Andrea del Sarto. The Cena or the Washing of the Feet, by Annibale Carracci. Jesus at the home of Martha and Magdalene, by the same. The Three Marys, by the same, this painting has darkened considerably. Jesus making an impression of his face to send to King Abgar, by […]208 A Venus, nude to the thighs, which is worth more than the impression of the foolish face of the Canaanite, by Guido; the shirt that covers her is singularly delicate and light. A Sibyl, by Titian. A thief arrested at night by soldiers, by Gherardo delle Notti. The Twelve Apostles, by Albano, and the Four Evangelists, by Domenichino; above all, the Saint John the Baptist writing should be examined; it is here that the divine hand of this great master will be recognized. A Virgin on wood, by the school of Raphael. The Merchants chased from the Temple, a subject treated nicely by Caravaggio. A lovely Saint John the Baptist, by Guido. The Resurrection of the widow’s son, by Parmigiano [Parmigianino]. A figure study, sublime in terms of its correctness and power, by Caravaggio. A story from the life of Pharaoh, by Paolo Veronese. The Eagle carrying off Ganymede to serve the pleasures of the master of the gods, who was starting to get bored with the simple pleasures of the fair sex, by Michelangelo. A Venus caressed by Cupid, by the same. Domine Quo Vadis, by Domenichino. Saint Peter in prison, woken by the angel who has come to deliver him, by Gherardo delle Notti. The Crowning with thorns, piece full of expression and power, by Caravaggio. The Merchants chased from the Temple, by Paolo Veronese. The Visitation, by Annibale Carracci. Portrait of a nun, by Titian. A miracle, or rather, a bit of hocus pocus, by the Son of Mary. A fortune teller, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio. A lovely bust of Caesar draped in serpentine and with a head of black marble. One of Jupiter. A painting portraying Saint John, by Raphael, well built, but without any expression. 208 Left blank; artist unknown.

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Jesus having his beloved Magdalene examine his wounds, and Jesus healing the mother of Saint Peter’s wife, both by Caravaggio. Two portraits by Titian. Herodias carrying the head of Saint John the Baptist, by the same. Jesus arguing with the doctors, by Sacchi. Two more portraits by Titian. A mediocre bust of Homer. A little statue of Isis. A lovely painting by Lanfranco, portraying the death of Seneca in the bath. A female musician, by Caravaggio. The Samaritan woman, the Canaanite woman at the feet of Jesus, both by the same. The Death of Socrates, by Lanfranco. A copy of the beautiful Jesus, with the foreshortened perspective, by Caravaggio, which I discussed at the [Palazzo] Barberini, by the hand of this master. The Massacre of the Innocents, by Poussin. Jesus praying in the Olive Garden and perceiving his cross in the heavens, which an angel shows him, lovely idea that is well executed, by Caravaggio. The Feeding of the Multitude in the desert, by Paolo Veronese. Saint Anthony, abbot, and Saint Paul, first hermit, by Guido. These two saints are conversing with one another; the Virgin, in glory, is present at their conversation. Jesus before Pilate, by Gherardo delle Notti, a work that is truly sublime for the naturalness and truth that the artist has placed throughout, for the singular expressiveness, particularized for each person portrayed, for the sublime manner in which the light is distributed. What innocence Christ expresses, what seriousness expressed in the learned Jews who listen, and what truth in Pilate! You see the desire he has to find Christ innocent. I have seen few paintings that gave me as much pleasure. The Massacre of the Innocents, by Conca. A large number of Virgins, by Titian, Raphael, Giulio Romano, Paolo Veronese, Andrea del Sarto, et al. In other rooms, beyond the series of linked rooms where everything just mentioned will be found: Saint Peter realizing his fault in denying his master, by Domenichino. Two Saint Jeromes, by Guido. Jesus dining with his Apostles after his Resurrection, by Caravaggio. A Descent from the cross, by the same, sublime for its truth, expressiveness, and the grand manner in which the subject is treated. Christ humiliated by the soldiers, by Caravaggio. An Annunciation and a Baptism of Jesus Christ, by the same. The Martyrdom of Saint Peter, by [Luca] Saltarello. Saint Francis in prayer, by Guido. A blind man playing the violin, by Lo Spagnoletto. The Wedding at Cana, by Paolo Veronese. The Flight into Egypt, by Caravaggio. A Cena, by Albano. The Adulterous Woman presented to the magician Jesus, by Caravaggio. Almost all of these final paintings seem to have suffered. A lovely Virgin, by Raphael’s school.

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The Crucifixion of Jesus, by Guercino. The Healing of the blind man by Jesus, by Paolo Veronese. The Massacre of the Innocents, by Annibale Carracci. Two Resurrections, one version by Guercino, the other by Salvator Rosa. The gallery of this palace, painted by [Federico] Zuccari, portrays the Queen of Sheba coming to test the wisdom of Solomon. The Judgment of the child, by this same king, and another episode in his life, all painted in the grand and beautiful style of this skilled artist. Among the large number of statues that are in this palace, here are those that struck me as worthy of examination: A goat. An Antinoüs; Hadrian’s love for this beautiful young man caused the frenzied multiplication of the latter’s image. Two Meleagers. A superb Bacchus. A Paris, apple in hand and ready to offer it to the goddess of Beauty. A lovely Vestal Virgin, but draped in a harsh manner that does not correspond to the rest. A seated Cleopatra. A pretty Cupid, who is almost pretty enough to make one forget about his mother. An Apollo, portrayed with his emblematic serpent and bow. A Vestal Virgin, whose head is as beautiful as the drapery is harsh and mediocre. A Harpocrates or god of Silence. A lovely head of Vitellius. A Hermaphrodite. A handsome Hercules. A Meditrina, or goddess who presided over the healing of the sick, found in temple beyond the Porta Maggiore.209 Two Ceres. An Apollo. A Flora. A Silenus. A Diana. A Vestal. A Venus. An Amazon. A Concordia, made from a single block of marble, and a superb vase on which are some lovely bas-reliefs that portray Bacchanalias, placed in a room at the end of the series of linked rooms on the upper floor, where I remarked the beautiful painting by Gherardo delle Notti. Palazzo Colonna Contains a large number of beautiful paintings, among others: Several landscapes, by Locatelli. 209 Sade notes: “Find out why I was told this was Minerva.” See Sade’s discussion of this on p. 73 above.

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The Resurrection of Lazarus, by the master of Solimena.210 A miracle wrought by a modern saint, by Conca. Two lovely seascapes, by Baken [Nicolaes Berchem?]. An Adoration of the Magi, by Mazucchi [viz., Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli]. Two pretty landscapes, of singular accomplishment by Claude. A Pietà, by Brandi, and another, by Conca. Two views by Locatelli, full of naturalness and grace. Saint Charles and Saint Francis with the virgin, by [Francesco] Trevisani. A superb Saint John the Baptist, by Guido. A drinking man, full of naturalness and truth, by Annibale Carracci. A head of Moses, by Albano. A Grecian head, by Caravaggio. A reclining Magdalene, in which will be seen all the grace with which Correggio knew how to endue his brush. A Sibyl and a Virgin, by Chiari; the first is very beautiful. The Murder of Abel, by Andrea Sacchi. The Prodigal Son, by Salvator Rosa. A business deal being concluded at the notary’s, by Lo Spagnoletto; one cannot too much admire the singular naturalness that reigns in this piece. A rather pretty Virgin, by Albano. Two views of the countryside, by Stendardo [Pieter van Bloemen, called Monsù Stendardo]. Four Flemish landscapes. Two lovely tables of green porphyry, very rare and precious, will be seen in this room. A lovely head of the Magdalene, by Guido. A superb Virgin, by Batoni, painter who is still alive. The Martyrdom of Saint Peter, by Titian. Two pretty landscapes, by Borgognone. A Virgin, by Pietro da Cortona. Jesus dead, by Trevisani. A character head of Painting personified by Guercino. Head of old woman, by Locatelli. Two striking portraits, by van Dyck, of which one of the two is his very own. A head of Saint Peter, by Guido. A Saint Sebastian, his wounds bandaged by his sisters, touching and very natural piece, by Albano. A Saint Francis, by Guido. A Holy Family, by Pietro da Cortona. Saint Jerome at the foot of the cross, by Pietro Perugino. A Saint Sebastian, by Guercino. 210 In the Palazzo Colonna there was – and is – a celebrated painting by Francesco de’ Rossi (known under the adopted name Francesco Salviati, 1510–1563) of The Raising of Lazarus. Guides contemporary with Sade’s journey also report a painting on the same subject by Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, 1503–1540). See, e.g., Angelo Dalmazzoni, The Antiquarian or The Guide for Foreigners to Go the Rounds of the Antiquities of Rome (Rome, 1783), 524. Neither could be teachers of Francesco Solimena (1657–1747).

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A Holy Family, by Andrea del Sarto, in his loveliest style. Saint Cecilia at her harpsichord, watched by an angel, by Caravaggio. A Pietà, by Salviati [i.e., Francesco de’ Rossi]. The Crowning and the Flagellation, by Trevisani. A Virgin, by Carlo Maratta, painted on piece of Oriental alabaster. Four lovely saints’ heads, by Guercino. Samson with Delilah cutting his hair, by Titian. Time unveiling Truth, by the same. The gallery of this palace is truly magnificent, but it has the fault of looking too much like a church. At each end are large rooms, each separated from the gallery by large arcades, supported by columns and pilasters of giallo antico marble, decorated with the arms of the house. The ceiling is in a grand style and portrays Marcantonio Colonna, Gonfaloniere of the Church, in command of the debarking troops at Lepanto, by i Lucchesini [i.e., Gherardo Lucchesi]. The other paintings in this gallery, which seemed to me remarkable are (see Richard):211 A Pietà, by Guercino. An Ecce Homo, by Albano. A Holy Family, by Salviati. Regulus condemned by the Carthaginians, by Salvator Rosa. A battle, by Borgognone. A Holy Family, in the grand style of Andrea del Sarto. A Magdalene, by Guercino. In the large room at the end which adjoins the garden, the ceiling portrays the Apotheosis of Hercules, by Chiari. The other paintings that will be seen there are: Saint John in the wilderness, by Salvator Rosa. A superb Pietà, by Guercino. What expressiveness, what naturalness, what sublimity in this piece! It is above any praise. A Sacrifice made by Julius Caesar, by Maratta. A martyred saint, by Guercino. A Holy Family, by Parmigiano [Parmigianino]. Adam and Eve, by Domenichino, composition that is always cold, but this grand artist has nonetheless figured out how to incorporate all the warmth of his style. The triumph of David, by Guercino. Saint Stanilaus imploring an angel, by Carlo Maratta. Two of Saint Francis, one by Muziano, the other by Guido. Painting and Sculpture personified, by Guercino. The Flight into Egypt, by Guido. Four faces on a single canvas, by [Paris] Bordone. Herodias receiving the head of Saint John the Baptist, by Guido. A Venus and Cupid, by P. Veronese. Fama crowned, by Carlo Maratta. Joseph fleeing the wife of Potiphar, by the same. A Venus and Cupid, by Andrea Sacchi.

211 Richard provides highlights of the paintings in the Palazzo Colonna in his Description (6:53–57). Although his commentaries are slightly more expansive than Sade’s, his list is, in fact, much shorter.

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The Prodigal Son, by Guercino. Several landscapes by Poussin, by Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa. In a little pavilion that serves for taking coffee is a very agreeable ceiling panel by [Francesco] Mancini that portrays Mercury carrying Psyche to the heavens. In the rooms that precede the gallery are: The Rape of Europa, by Albano. Ganymede being taken, by Titian. Adonis and Venus, by the same. David nude, of singular power and pride, by [Guido] Cagnacci. A peasant at table, by Caravaggio, full of naturalness and truth. A Virgin, of the finest execution. A head of the Magdalene, by Guido. The ceiling of this room portrays Pope Martin V elected to the pontificate. This pope, as we know, was of the House of Colonna (find out if this is correct).212 This composition, which is not without beauty, is by Benedetto Luti. Time unveiling Truth, and the Four Virtues, by the same, complete the decoration of this ceiling. Two portraits by Titian, one of Luther and the other of Calvin. The gardens of this house are made up of terraces that create an agreeable amphitheatre. Therein will be seen the ruins of a Temple of the Sun, upon which these gardens have been planted. The remainders of the monuments consist of friezes and other decorations of an astonishing size (see Richard). Not to be missed during a visit to Rome, behind the Hospital of the Holy Spirit [Ospedale di Santo Spirito], some ruins of a Triumphal bridge, over which the victors passed, from the field where the procession was prepared, located where the square of Saint Peter’s is today located, up to the Temple of Jupiter, located on the Capitol and which was for that reason called the Capitoline Jupiter.

212 It is correct. Otto Colonna (1369–1431) was pope under the name Martin V.

Chapter III

[Environs of Rome:]1 Journey to Frascati, Grottaferrata, Marino, Castel Gandolfo, Albano, and Ariccia2

To get to Frascati, you leave by what was formerly called the Caelimontana Gate, which today is called the Saint John Lateran Gate because of its proximity to that basilica. Three miles on will be found the Julia Aqueduct, which served to bring water from the neighbouring mountains to Rome. One part of that aqueduct is now broken, the other still in working order, although it brings but a small quantity of water to the outskirts of the city, no longer being in good enough condition to carry it all the way into the city. Nine miles further – and consequently twelve from Rome – you find Frascati, on the slope in the middle of the mountain and very pleasantly situated. This town is modern; it was built in the eleventh century. Every author has spoken of the etymology of the name and thereby saved me having to bore you with this.3 Let it suffice to say that it replaced the former name Tusculum, built by Telegonus, son of Ulysses. Tarquin the Proud withdrew here when the crime of his son Sextius caused him to be expelled from Rome and freed the Romans from the despotism of kings. He engaged them [the Etruscans] to support the war against the Romans, and we know how bloody that war was. One cannot think of it without recalling the famous battle that took place close to Lake Regillus (known today as della Colonna). The Tusculans were defeated completely and Tarquin then sought out the friendship of Porsena, King of Chiusi in Etruria, who marched towards Rome and then retreated after he became familiar with the Romans. I mentioned above the three main events that

1 Manuscript notebook of 54 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. On the inside cover: “This volume does not follow onto any others. / This volume follows onto the description of Rome and can be considered as the 5th, following the others, since it’s the tour of the environs of Rome.” 2 In the margin and between the lines: “Disconnected subjects. / To be redone. / Don’t forget to discuss Genzano; see this in the Dictionnaire d’Italie.” Sade’s reference work here is most likely the anonymously published Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie (Paris: Chez Lacombe, 1775), which describes Genzano as a countryside suburb of Rome, close to Albano, and “full of antiquities and ruins of ancient edifices” (1:517). The reference also notes that there you will see “the house of Carlo Maratta, famous painter, who decorated it with some of his drawings” (1:518). 3 As Richard explains, Frascati is approximately located where the ancient town of Tusculum once stood. In the twelfth century, after the Romans had taken possession of Tusculum and effectively destroyed it, the dispersed inhabitants “withdrew to the ruins of one of its suburbs, where they built huts out of tree branches, whence came the name Frascati, i.e., Leafy, for the new town subsequently built.” Jérôme Richard, Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), 6:368. Although this derivation is doubtful, the town’s name almost certainly does have something to do with wood.

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shocked him and made him renounce his plans.4 From then on, Tarquin lived in obscurity and abandoned his plans. It is astounding that Monsieur Richard should not have known this historical episode and dared to claim in his entry on Frascati that never had the Etruscans taken a single action to procure the re-establishment of the Tarquins, but they lived, on the contrary, in good understanding with them and formed but a single and same people. (See in support of my opinion Titus Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus.)5 But let us get to the description of this charming spot, which is the delight of modern Romans, just as it was formerly for the Ancients. The air is very pure in this town’s location. Although small, the town is well enough ventilated. The square, upon which the cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul is situated, is pretty, albeit without decoration. The cathedral is simple but clean. There is a lovely bas-relief on the main altar depicting Jesus Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter in the midst of his apostles. This bishopric is one of the six suffragans of the pope. Currently it is the Cardinal of York who occupies the seat, with as much candour as charity, and as a pastor worthy of the respect and heartfelt devotion of his Church.6 Leaving the town, close to the cathedral, to the left, you enter into charming gardens that lead to the Villa Taverna, which belongs to the House of Borghese. This pretty country estate is not the least ancient nor remarkable, but it is very pleasant thanks to the arrangement of its rooms and the propriety and elegance with which they are furnished. The gardens are delightful; and what is, in my opinion, even more so is arriving via these same gardens and along these forever green alleys of live oaks and bay trees at the villa of the estate, situated more than a mile hence, upon a high spot, and named Mondragone. Cardinal Marcus Altemps, nephew of Pius IV, [built it], Cardinal Scipio Borghese enlarged it, and Pope Paul V, his uncle, added the finishing touches. From the front terrace of the villa you enjoy a most expansive and agreeable view. The interior is a large courtyard surrounded by buildings on every side, today fairly poorly kept up. The villa itself is completely bereft of furnishings. You can nonetheless see a pretty gallery in which there are two busts, much larger than scale, of which one is Faustina the Younger and the other Antinoüs, both very much admired. You will see many other busts of emperors, but these are modern and your attention does not linger on them. In the back of this gallery is a large painting by Pietro da Cortona that depicts Solomon in his old age, sacrificing to idols: a beautiful and sublime composition. In a neighbouring room are two other busts, one bronze, the other marble; the first of Paul V, the other of Cardinal Scipio, his nephew. The remaining rooms, fairly dilapidated as I just noted, have only a few tapestries of gilded leather to offer. It is, however, essential to see this house in order to get an idea of the beautiful country estates of modern Rome and of how delightfully they are situated. 4 Sade discusses the striking examples of Roman fortitude that dissuaded Porsena from pursuing his attack on pp. 113–14 above. 5 See Richard, Description, 6:366. For Sade’s points of reference on Porsena (also given as Porsenna and Porsinna) and the failed attempt to restore the Tarquins, see Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 1[bk.2.14–15]:264–9 passim, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940), 3[bk.5.34]:96–101. 6 Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York (1725–1805). The son of James Francis Edward Stuart and brother of Charles Edward Stuart, he would become with the death of the latter in 1788 the last Jacobite claimant to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland from the Stuart line.

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Next to the interior gardens is a beautiful five-arcade portico, built from designs by [Giacomo Barozzi da] Vignola, but the construction is unpleasant because of the vile rocks that were used. Facing is a semi-circular water theatre, decorated with stuccoes and statues and filled with numerous fountains that produce a very pleasant effect. In the centre is a girandola that perfectly imitates the sound of thunder when it shoots off. Returning through the same gardens, we re-enter Frascati in order to visit, in another part, but neighbouring, the Villa Aldobrandini, formerly known as the Villa Pamphili and familiarly called Belvedere. It is situated in a higher spot than Mondragone and from there, as with the former, you enjoy one of the most delightful views. The building is lovely, well furnished and maintained; you see there some episodes from biblical history, by d’Arpino [i.e., Giuseppe Cesari]. In some rooms at the same level as the gallery, three pieces based on the three or four initial chapters of Genesis, by the same artist, and executed with as much force as expression. But you will notice in one of the first, located in the rooms that have just been discussed, a major design fault in the depiction of David cutting off the head of Goliath. The position of the arms goes against all the rules of composition and of truth. On the other hand, in the same room, you admire a painting by the same artist that depicts Judith returning to Bethulia with her servant Abra who carries the head of Holofernes, and also one depicting Jael killing Zisera [viz., Sisera] with a nail.7 Behind the villa, on the side that backs up to the mountain, several lovely fountains are to be seen. Two of these, by dint of hydraulic means, make musical instruments play: a centaur that plays a horn and Enceladus playing the flute. The centre of this installation or water gallery is occupied by a large marble statue that shows Atlas supporting the world, represented by a sphere of copper, from which water shoots out in a number of places.8 There are in this garden, as in those of which I have spoken above, many trick designs meant to surprise those who are not in the know about these gardens, part of which overlap with those of Lucullus of yore, so infamous for his sensuality and his luxurious tastes. On this same terrace is a little room that is known as Parnassus because the back is decorated with a representation of said mountain, on which will be seen Apollo in the midst of the nine muses playing a concert that a water-driven organ, hidden behind this decoration, effectuates. Also placed in this salon are three cupping glasses of sorts through which air shoots and that increase the coolness of the locale. The building is decorated with several paintings by Domenichino [i.e., Domenico Zampieri], among which the most attractive is the one above the door which depicts Marsyas flayed by Apollo. The Villa Falconieri (which I did not see), further up, has some pleasing enough paintings. The best of these is an illusionistic painting that represents an arch forming a door which has to the left and to the right two statues of peasants made of black, poor stone, but well enough realized from the designs of Vignola. Returning to the town, you will find to the left the Villa Conti, which is built upon the spot where the Delights of Lucullus stood. The house is small, but extremely charming thanks to its situation. A beautiful balustrade wraps around the level area where it is situated, and 7 In the original account: “Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto [Sisera], and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died” (Judges 4:21, AV). 8 Although sources differ on the details, the elaborate Teatro delle acque is generally attributed to the architect Carlo Maderno (1556–1629), perhaps with Giovanni Fontana (1540–1614), and the hydraulic engineers Orazio Olivieri (fl. seventeenth century) and Giovanni Guglielmi (fl. seventeenth century).

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on a higher level, there is a fountain from which water flows and falls in a cascade down to the level of the house. You arrive at these gardens via a grand staircase, turning back on itself several times, newly built and made from the ruins of a great wall that belonged to the beautiful country estate of Lucullus. This destruction has been completely condemned, and all the more so in that this ridiculous staircase does not lead to the villa and is steep of access, difficult to climb, and even dangerous in the rain or frost. The gardens consist of woods and of lovely alleys of live oaks. They are cool, charming, and rustically laid out. Half a mile from there, you find the Villa Bracciano, known as Belrespiro thanks to the good air enjoyed there. This house seemed to me the most elegant of all those in Frascati, and it can truly be said that taste and propriety reign there, the one vying with the other to create one of the prettiest country estates to be seen, and in truth in the taste of our homes in the environs of Paris. You will see there a ceiling painting depicting the Rising Sun, Midday, and the Setting Sun, by d’Arpino, a piece full of fire and truth, but in a somewhat harsh style. Another is made up of several grisaille arabesques, yet these are so singularly shaded that they spring out with a realness that makes you want to touch them. You will also see several lovely copies, the originals of which are in his palazzo in Rome. On the next floor there is a pretty gallery painted by [Giovanni Paolo] Panini, and in an adjoining little room will be seen some lovely engravings based on some of the most beautiful paintings in Rome. Two miles further on, descending and following the crest of the mountain, you arrive at the famous Abbey of Grottaferrata, located pretty much where Cicero once had his country estate, whatever Monsieur Richard says and anyone else who follows his example to the contrary. My view is based on what Cicero himself says: that the tributary Aqua Crabra, also known as Maranna, passed through the estate and, in fact, you see it pass very close to the abbey.9 We must not, in truth, confuse this house for the one where he taught and where he wrote his Tusculan Disputations, which is located much higher up and in the ruins of Tusculum. It is quite possible that this confusion has been the sole cause of the different opinions on the topic. This building is occupied by Greek monks of the Order of Saint Nilus, the abbot who came here to found it at the time of the persecution of the Iconoclasts, towards the end of the tenth century. It has some lovely frescoes by Domenichino that have to do with various episodes in the life of the founder. You will also see the remains of the fortifications of the building that were without doubt built to protect from the civil wars of that era. Some Greek manuscripts are to be found in the library that these monks brought within them at the time of their flight from Greece. Three miles from the monastery, you come to Marino, fiefdom of the House of Colonna. In the Church of the Trinity [Santissima Trinità], run by regular clergy, you will see a famous painting by Guido that depicts Jesus Christ dying in the arms of his father; his left arm leans against the knees of the Eternal. This painting has great strength and verity, as well as sublime postures. The collegial church, located in the same town, has a lovely painting by Guercino [i.e., Giovanni Francesco Barbieri] that depicts Saint Sebastian 9 In De Lege Agraria, Cicero uses the case of his villa as an example of taxation and easements: “I, in respect of my land at Tusculum, have to pay for the use of the Aqua Crabra, because I obtained my farm by legal purchase; if it had been given to me by Sulla, by the law of Rullus I should not have to pay anything.” Cicero, Pro Quinctio. Pro Roscio Amerino. Pro Roscio Comoedo. On the Agrarian Law, trans. J.H. Freese (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930), 490–3 [speech 3, s.2].

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flayed by two executioners;10 it has a strength, flesh colour, and verity even greater than the painting just mentioned and you cannot grow weary admiring it. This painting is on the altar, to the left of the cross. From there to Castel Gandolfo, country estate of the popes, it is about three miles. Gandolfo Savelli made this country estate; Paul V bought it when the former died and renovated it; Alexander VII and Urban VIII made additions and put it into the state in which we see it today. The building is on the shore of Lake Albano, which contributes not a little to the bad air that you breathe there, which it is claimed, is such that the rains that fall there during the summer produce an infinite number of toads. The house is simple; no luxury reigns there, but rather propriety and a sort of sombre magnificence, well suited to the purpose that it serves. You will see there several lovely paintings. Among others, there is a lovely piece on the altar of the chapel by [Gaetano] Lapis, commissioned by Benedict XIV and depicting the Virgin, her Son, and Saint John the Baptist. In the dining room, in front of the table, there is a magnificent Christ by [Carlo] Dolci, the Florentine painter, at the base of which is Saint John in shock and admiration, and an Our Lady in sorrow. You could not get more true or expressive with postures and motions than in this superb work. Next to the table, a lovely copy of a painting by Carlo Maratta that depicts the Virgin and her Son. In the same room are some lovely landscapes by Le Bourguignon.11 The gayest room in this modest estate is a billiards room made by the unfortunate Ganganelli [Pope Clement XIV, 1705–1774]; he was never able to see it. Leaving Castel Gandolfo, you travel a mile along a lovely tree-lined avenue that leads to the town of Albano, formerly known as Alba Longa, built by Ascanius, son of Aeneas. He dreamed that a sow gave birth to thirty white piglets and therefore gave the name Alba to his city, which means white. As for the longa part, this was given because of its location, which stretches along the shores of Lake Albano, which will be seen today close to the town of Albano and about which I will now have occasion to speak. We know that this famous town was the capital of all of Latium and that it was only after numerous wars against the Romans that it was destroyed. The ruins of this famous town, surely the oldest that you could hope to see, are in the vicinity of the Franciscan monastery, located in the middle of the mountain. You can only make out some old fragments of degraded walls that have nothing of interest to offer other than that of their age (place here the reflection that ancient monuments are only worth seeing insofar as they offer instruction). It was only several centuries afterwards that the town of Albano was constructed on the other side of the lake, in a more commodious and accessible location, on the ruins of the beautiful and immense country estate of Pompey, on the ruins of Domitian’s and of many other Romans’ [estates]. The remains of the first of these buildings will be seen in the Barberini Gardens, of which the villa therein is agreeable and furnished in the latest style.12 They consist of

10 In fact, Saint Bartholomew. 11 “Le Bourguignon” or “Il Borgognone” could designate either Jacques Courtois or his brother Guillaume Courtois. In this case, it is likely the latter. See p. 137n180 above. 12 Sade notes: “See Chaupy. You are mistaken.” Chaupy had changed his mind on the ownership of the ruins at the Villa Barberini, asserting that they “belong not to the Albanum [villa] of Domitian but to that of Clodius.” Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy, Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (Rome, 1767– 1769), 2:85. His assessment is based primarily upon analyses of descriptions in ancient sources such as Cicero, Juvenal, Martial, and Statius (see 2:85–98).

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an extremely long and well-conserved vault, where there are still a few stuccoes, several arcades in which will still be seen galleries from ancient domestic shrines, where you will see niches for statues, and in several others walls, of which little remains today but that serve to prove the extent of this vast building.13 Those of the second of these are in the gardens of the monastery of Saint Paul, in the highest part of the town. They consist of a large round structure, the function of which appears to have been for fights of ferocious animals and gladiators.14 All around you will see there great arcades that doubtless connected up to the arena that can no longer be made out, thanks to all the wood, manure, and other things with which it has been filled. Lower down and close by, in a garden belonging to the House of Colonna, you will see several large arches, of which some, today completely buried, are all that remains of the part that made up his palace. This lake, of which I just spoke and that is near Albano, offers one of the most beautiful Roman works that the imagination can conceive. Because of its location, there was a fear that when it overflowed its banks that it would flood Rome. Someone imagined building an outlet lower than the lake bed – an outlet that would thus reach the water from beneath the bed. You realize, madam countess, that this operation could not be carried through without the sacrifice of the wretches who finished the work and that the force of the water that broke through would necessarily entail. But it was a case of sacrificing a few to protect the entire country, and so a handful of slaves, doubtless destined to die anyway, were tricked into service. The water spilled rapidly down the slope, lowered the level of the lake, and brought the fears to an end. This outlet or sort of aqueduct is about two miles long. At its beginning the water flows with such force that it makes a couple of mills, situated at its mouth, turn. The way to properly observe this singular work is to descend to the shore of the lake, to the start of the aqueduct, to attach a candle to a little piece of flat wood and to set this floating light into the current, which will enable you to judge the work in all its anomalous hugeness. You will see that these were not construction workers that really knew what they were doing, but this outlet, so long and totally hollowed out of pure rock is no less singular for that and it is made in such a way to provide the strongest impression of the mind of he who thought it up. Volpi, who wrote a work about Latium, assures us that the shores of this lake were surrounded by temples and Roman country homes.15 From Albano, you follow the Appian Way and arrive at Ariccia, which is two miles further along. At the half-way point is the tomb of Pompey, in front of the Church of the Virgin of the Star [Santa Maria della Stella],16 and not that of the Horatii and Curiatii, as the modern inscription there has it and as Monsieur Richard tells us. That opinion is completely without foundation. The monument certainly belongs to Pompey and the five towers that one sees there are the emblems of his five triumphs. It was these towers that seduced the partisans of 13 Marginal note: “Villa Barberini is Clodius’s.” 14 Marginal note: “Correct; these are Domitian’s ruins.” Sade is still following Chaupy’s indications and identifications (see Découverte, 2:102). 15 Sade’s reference is to Pietro Marcellino Corradini and Giuseppe Rocco Volpi, Vetus Latium profanum & sacrum (Rome, 1704–1745). The first two volumes were authored by Corradini and published in 1704– 1705. Volpi was responsible for subsequent volumes, beginning with vol. 3 in 1726 and ending with the two-part vol. 10 in 1745. 16 Between the lines: “See Chaupy.” On the identification of Pompey’s tomb, see Chaupy (Découverte, 2:128–40).

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the opposing opinion, as they imagined that, since there were five dead on the battlefield of the famous combat between the Horatii and the Curiatii, these five towers symbolized the five heroes. Moreover, this monument, constructed at the edge of the Appian Way, can only belong to Pompey, and we know for certain that it was four miles from Rome and not here, some eleven miles from there, that that singular combat took place. A mile from this tomb is Ariccia, which some authors believe to have been constructed five centuries before the Trojan War by Archilocus Sicilus. Some time afterwards, a statue of Diana Aricina was brought there, and from this came the name Ariccia. This was the homeland of Actia, mother of Octavian Augustus, and [the purported location of] the tomb of Simon Magus, after having skilfully disputed with Saint Peter under the portico of the Palace of Nero. Claudius [viz., Clodius], killed by Milo, whose defence was undertaken by Cicero, had his country home here.17 Nothing remains of the ancient construction of the town other than a few walls. Today, it is a fiefdom of Prince Chigi, who has a rather enormous castle here, but it is not particularly interesting. Across from this castle is a very pretty church built by Alexander VII, based on plans by Bernini. On the back wall, behind the altar, is a superb fresco by Le Bourguignon, which depicts the Assumption of the Virgin.18 On the west side of the city, nothing but a burg today, you will see a vast stretch of land that forms the bed of a lake and that, in fact, was one that the Romans drained because of its tendency to flood, which was easier than the similar operation at Lake Albano, if you were to undertake the task, given that they found the bottom of the former, whereas they never could with the latter. You can still see the canal that the Romans built to drain it and to restrict the flow from the spring that formed it and that they discovered. To return to Rome from Ariccia, you pass back through Albano, and from there to Rome you follow a section of the Appian Way, remarkable here for its intact state, for about three miles. You see an incredible number of tombs and ancient monuments along this route. But what is best preserved is the Aqueduct Julia, built by Agrippa to serve Rome. There are a prodigious number of standing archways, and with a few repairs, this monument could still be put to use, if need be. Castel Sant’Angelo The care with which this fortress was guarded when I saw it, because of the Jesuit prisoners held there, meant that I could not get into the interior rooms where, I am told, there are some frescoes by pupils of Raphael.19 The arsenal, the only room that I was allowed to enter, seemed to me both mean and mediocre. It is claimed that it contains two thousand muskets. I saw there a suit of armour that it is said was worn by a pope, at the time of the Ferrara troubles. I think that this military ware is perfectly useless for our present pontiffs. Displayed in an armoire, across from the door, are some prohibited weapons, among which 17 Between the lines: “Chaupy puts it in Albano and not here.” See ibid., 2:104. 18 This church in question is the Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta, built between 1663 and 1665 on Bernini’s plans, as Sade states. Jacques Courtois painted the fresco in the apse. 19 The suppression of the Society of Jesus was declared in Clement XIV’s brief Dominus ac Redemptor of July 1773. The former superior general of the Society of Jesus, Lorenzo Ricci (1703–1775), along with his five assistants and seven other ex-Jesuits, were imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo on 23 September 1773, on charges of disloyalty and theft of Church possessions. Ricci died in prison on 24 November 1775; the other prisoners were released some two months later. On this episode, see Owen Chadwick, The Popes and European Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 371–6.

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are some daggers that must produce deadly wounds. I saw there a sort of very small bow and of a singular construction, which belonged to a Spaniard whose sole pleasure consisted in shooting, by means of this bow  – without any other intention than that of gratuitous destruction – several poisoned pins into the streets and into crowds where he found himself, or in public places, or as people were exiting church. This bizarre mania to do evil for the sole pleasure of doing it is one of the least understood of human passions and consequently the least analysed, and yet I would dare to think it possible that it should be classed with the common deliria of our imagination. But its rarity within humankind happily saves me the trouble of doing so. All these weapons belonged, it is said, to scoundrels that the sword of Justice sent to join the shades of those whom they deprived of the daylight. You will also see in the same place a musket and a pistol from the epoch in which this weapon, as ingenious as it is murderous, was invented. The pistol of the Bourbon, killed in Rome.20 You know, madam countess, that those altercations with Francis I obliged him to join the service of Charles V. He commanded the army of the emperor in Italy and laid siege to Rome because Clement VII refused him passage into his city. He was killed by a Biscayen and so prevented from profiting from his victory.21 The Prince of Orange, who was under his command, took the city and left it to be pillaged. But there is on this topic a rather remarkable anecdote of which, perhaps, you are not aware. The Lutherans, masters of the city, dressed up in the cardinals’ robes, took over the conclave and declared Luther head of the Church. Did the Holy Spirit enlighten them as he did those who elected the wretched Clement VII, relegated at that time to the Castel Sant’Angelo? I remain in the dark on this score, and if he didn’t do it for either the one group or the other, then why wouldn’t Luther be just as much pope as the other? The weapon that killed that unfortunate general is displayed with the same emphasis as that of his suit of armour at the Vatican. You can see the impression that the Biscayen made in the left-thigh section. But since the Romans count this suit of armour – the authenticity of which I doubt, or, at the very least, it was neglected by their conquerors – among their war trophies, couldn’t one, with greater justice and justification, demand of them that they add Luther to the collection of pontifical portraits? The Castel Sant’Angelo is built upon the ruins of the tomb of Hadrian. We know that this emperor, hoping to surpass Augustus, had built facing the latter’s the most beautiful monument that had hitherto been seen. It was in the same form as those of which we have already spoken (see Metella).22 But a lovely colonnade surrounded it, decorated with an infinite number of statues of all variety. Today, only the round foundation of the monument remains. You can no longer make out the square base upon which it was put. In erecting the castle, the same design as the tomb was followed, and by further elevating it some several yards, a huge round tower in the shape of a pastry was built. Four irregular bastions flank 20 Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (1490–1527) and Constable of France from 1515 to 1521. Sade comments further on his role at the head of the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the time of the 1527 Sack of Rome in dossier II (on Florence), pp. 433–5. 21 A Biscayen is a large-calibre musket or its ball. 22 Sade means that Hadrian’s tomb had the same cylindrical shape as the tomb of Caecilia Metella, just outside of Rome on the Appian Way. Contrary to his assertion, Sade has yet to mention this tomb (see p. 179 herein).

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it and four other royal bastions surround it.23 Seventy-two cannons are to be counted on the artillery mounts, of which several are seventy pounders. In the courtyards and in the direction of the parade grounds are a few stacks of cannon balls made of cast iron and of marble, but the ensemble, including the troops that guard it, gives off a whiff of ecclesiastical domination and has only a military semblance. I might add that in truth this semblance is as deceptive as it is borrowed. A large number of the cannons on the square are made of bronze and cast of the same materials as those on display at the Pantheon. You will see the gateway that links up to that immense corridor that, somewhat like an aqueduct in appearance, allows the popes to retreat here and ends up at the Vatican. The garrison commander has the keys to the section of the corridor that links up to the enclosure of this fortress; the Swiss Guards of the papal palace have the others. Alexander VI made this passage and Clement VII was the sole pope to have made use of it.24 The origins of the Castel Sant’Angelo go back to Boniface VIII, that is to say, he was the first pope to fortify it after having taken control of it. Several other popes added to the original construction of the former and at last it took that form that we see today. It is said that the famous hoard of Sixtus V is conserved within the fortress walls. The bull released when it was deposited there claimed that it was worth upwards of five million Roman crowns. Today, or so it is said, it has been reduced to one hundred and seventy thousand. That is already a hefty diminution from what the original donor left, and with difficulty do I believe that the dent is not quite a bit larger.25 All the columns from the first monument that was placed on this spot, known as Hadrian’s tomb, today decorate the Church of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, as I believe that I mentioned in my observations on that church. I do not think, however, that all of them are there, and several other monuments in modern Rome are today decorated with them. Madam countess, you will allow me to forgo mention of the well-known vision of Saint Gregory, to which is due the erection of the statue of the angel sheathing his sword that will be seen at the top of the monument, in place of the pine cone that held the ashes of Hadrian and that is today located in the gardens of the Vatican. I would never be done if I started to enumerate all the monuments in Rome erected on account of supposed miracles. This statue made me think of nothing other than an emblem of the State. The angel is the pope, and the sword being resheathed is the lightning bolt of the Vatican, or, if you prefer, it is Rabelais on his deathbed saying, “Curtains, please, the farce is over.” 23 It is not clear why Sade refers to the latter bastions as “royal.” He may have intended to contrast irregularly shaped bastions with regularly shaped ones. 24 The Passetto di Borgo, contrary to Sade’s assertion, was commissioned in 1277 by Pope Nicholas III. It was used by Pope Alexander VI during the invasion of Rome by the troops of Charles VIII of France in 1494 and again in 1527 by Pope Clement VII during the Sack of Rome by the mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. See Liana De Girolami Cheney, “Il Corridoio Vasariano: A Resplendent Passage to Medici and Vasari’s Grandeur,” in Paul Emmons, John Hendrix and Jane Lomholt, eds., The Cultural Role of Architecture (London: Routledge, 2012), 29. 25 Sade notes: “It is kept in an ironclad casket, with the coat of arms of Sixtus V on it and that can only be opened by means of six keys that are kept by six different people. It is in the chamber set aside for secret executions, in which Cardinal Carafa perished, as well as Cardinal Petrucci, and other lords. There will be seen the post studded with nails where some bits of rope remain. In that same room are iron rings that are used for various tortures.”

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Saint Lawrence [San Lorenzo], a church located beyond the Tiburtine Gate, about one mile outside of the walls of the city. As with all the ancient churches in Rome, it is attributed to Constantine. It is likely enough that the entire nave was joined to an ancient pagan temple, the name of which we do not know. The prodigious depth of the columns of this second part prove that they have always been there and that ruins either of a neighbouring building or this building itself buried them halfway, as we see them today. To judge from the hugeness of the columns in the choir, this temple must have been of considerable size. Their capitals, of a highly ornate Corinthian order, are very pleasingly designed and artists regard them highly. There are five on each side. Those of the choir, which number twentytwo in all, are obviously salvaged from some other neighbouring temple; they are also of considerable size. Under the altar is a subterranean chapel in which is preserved part of the body of Saint Stephen and the entirety of Saint Lawrence. There are two chairs or ambones in this church, which seem to me must have had the same function as those that will be seen in all the ancient churches, such as Saint Clement, etc. To the right on entering, you will see an urn decorated with bas-reliefs that depict a sacrifice. The nephew of Innocent IV is inhumed therein, as we learn from the inscription. At the main altar, which is in the Gothic taste, will be seen four lovely columns of porphyry. Displayed in this church is a blood-stained stone upon which Saint Lawrence was supposedly laid after his martyrdom. But the gridiron is nowhere to be seen, contrary to what Monsieur Richard assures. The sacristan even claims never to have heard tell that it was ever in the building. The underground passages or catacombs, into which you descend by a little staircase within the church, are at least as curious as those of Saint Sebastian and apparently served the same purpose. The vaults seemed to me narrower and more tortuous, and the guide who led us two or three hundred feet in assured us that they link up with those of Saint Sebastian and that he had even heard it said that they went all the way to the sea. What is certain is that you will find few people whose curiosity is sufficient to drive them to find the end, and I believe it would be quite dangerous to try. These impenetrable subterranean passages would surely be perfect safe havens for crime if the monks of the building above had some inclination to commit it, and upright fellows as I suppose them to be, I swear that my confidence in this judgment would not lead me to take down my guard among them, if I had something on me that might excite their cupidity. Palace of the Pope on Monte Cavallo26 This hill was once known as the Quirinal because of the Temple of Quirinus or Romulus that was located here, about where the present-day convent of Saint Mary Magdalene is, close to the Palace of the Pope, across from the rear gate.27 It has since been renamed Monte Cavallo because of two gigantic statues that are situated in front of the palace. These 26 Sade remarks on this section: “Redo.” 27 The Palazzo Pontifico sul Quirinale was a papal residence until 1870. Now known as the Palazzo del Quirinale, with the final overthrow of the Papal States, it became an Italian royal residence and subsequently a chief residence of the President of the Italian Republic. Santa Maria Maddalena al Quirinale was a convent church of Dominican nuns at the time of Sade’s visit; it was demolished in 1886.

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two pieces were found in the Baths of Constantine, located in the section neighbouring the Rospigliosi Palace, Colonna Gardens, etc. They are Greek and of the utmost beauty. Both of them depict Alexander taming Bucephalus. You will read at their bases two inscriptions that say that they were made by Phidias and Praxiteles, but these inscriptions are false. These two artists died prior to the birth of Alexander and consequently could not have represented this hero. All learned men are in agreement about this. This palace was once a Benedictine monastery. Paul V enlarged it. Several other popes followed his example, and little by little it became what we see today. The main courtyard is a rectangle surrounded by porticoes on all four sides. Facing one of the smaller sides and below the clock you will see a lovely mosaic, copied from a painting by Carlo Maratta, about which we will shortly have occasion to speak, under the heading of paintings held in the rooms of this palace. All the suites in this palace are stately, but furnished with neither pomp nor magnificence. Each room is the same size and the walls covered with crimson damask bordered with gold. The suite where His Holiness receives visitors, the one where he sleeps, all are the same and decorated with the same simplicity. You will see in these rooms paintings of the utmost beauty. It seems that this is the sole luxury that the pontiff allows himself, and this magnificence, which only serves to recall to his eyes the great examples that should ceaselessly animate him (since all the subjects are sacred) has nothing, in my opinion, that could engender the slightest criticism. I will mention the paintings that gave me the most enjoyment. It would take too long to go through them all. The Fall of the Angels, by Pietro da Cortona, a piece full of force and expression. Several cartoons by the great masters, pleasant to see because they are unique, because these are the true originals, carried out as mosaics in the angles of the little cupolas of Saint Peter’s and in various other spots in that lovely church. In the chapel, an Annunciation, by Guido, very delicate. A lovely Nativity, by the same, fresco. A lovely Virgin, by Andrea del Sarto; she is with the Son and the little Saint John, in a correct and gentle style. A Saint John the Baptist, thought to be Raphael’s original; this superb piece is copied everywhere; one never tires of seeing it. The original of the mosaic under the clock, which I mentioned above. It depicts, larger than life, the Infant Jesus giving the blessing, seated on his Mother’s knees. It is by C. Maratta, and I believe that one can say that it is one of the most charming, grandest, noblest paintings that you could lay eyes on. A lovely Transfiguration, by Cavaliere d’Arpino. The same subject, an exact copy of Raphael’s by Giulio Romano, his pupil. A Nativity, by Raphael’s teacher, but a bit dry, like everything Perugino did. In the audience chamber, a Virgin Holding Her Son stretched out on a sheet in front of her, by Guido. The Virgin is delicate, but she holds the sheet with far too much pretension. Here is yet another case of art making us forget Nature. Guido, like Bernini, sometimes had this fault. In addition, I did not find that the colouring of the flesh of the Infant stood out agreeably in relation to the white sheet. It is flat. Titian did better than this when he stretched his Venuses out on mattresses of white satin. A Pietà, by Caravaggio: lovely piece. A Saint Francis with Other Saints, by Guido.

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Saint Joseph and the Virgin, in the early style of Raphael. A little dry; he was imitating his teacher, but soon enough he left him far behind. The gallery of the palace is decorated with several frescoes by different masters, of which I would remark, among others, a superb Nativity, by Carlo Maratta, piece with very correct composition and charming coloration. David Killing Goliath, energetic painting by Lazzaro Baldi. Joshua Stopping the Sun, very complex work, but learned, by Le Bourguignon [i.e., Jacques Courtois]. The Sacrifice of Abraham, by [Giovanni Angelo] Canini, full of graceful expressivity. Joseph Recognized by His Brothers, by [Pier Francesco] Mola, a composition of such force and such truth that nothing can compare to it. There reigns a respect, a remorse, a fear, a singular admiration in each of the brothers’ faces; Joseph’s is rendered with a gentleness and a goodness that goes straight to the soul, and this piece, without a doubt, is one the truest and most enjoyable that you could possibly see. A surprising painting by Titian, but the subject is difficult to make out. There is Saint Peter, Saint Anthony, Saint Francis, Saint Catherine, a bishop, and Saint Sebastian, wounded and nude in the left section of the painting. It is impossible to conjure the superiority of the rendering of the flesh; it surprises, it captivates, and one wonders, upon seeing it, whether art has surpassed Nature or if Nature itself is not here inferior to art. The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Guido, of extraordinary force and correctness. Saint George on horseback combating the dragon, by Il Pordenone [i.e., Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis]; you would like more correctness in the composition and, above all, in the horse, the defects of which are highlighted by the surrounding paintings. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, by Guercino, a little faded. Saint Andrew contemplating the cross, by Andrea Sacchi, full of force and expression. A miracle performed by Saint Gregory the Great, by the same; a surprising truthfulness in all the heads. A Decapitation of Saint John the Baptist by the same. A Nativity, full of delicacy and grace, by Pietro da Cortona. The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, by Poussin, piece full of force and expression. David Fleeing Saul, by Guercino. Saint John the Baptist, the Virgin, and the Christ Child, by Andrea del Sarto. A Holy Family, full of grace and delicacy; the Infant is taking some stawberries offered to him by Saint Joseph. There reigns a surprising naivety and truthfulness in this painting: the attentiveness of the good Joseph, the pleasure that he has in giving fruits to his child, the manner in which the latter takes them, all the while dreaming of some other idea that is going through his head, all this is executed so truly and naturally that you cannot tire of looking at it and regret leaving it. This piece is by [Francesco] Mancini. The Martyrdom of Saint Processus and Saint Martinian, a piece full of force and vivacity, by Valentin [de Boulogne]. A Virgin, Saint Anne, and Jesus, copied from Rubens, a charming piece; the head of the Virgin is more noble than beautiful, the whole is imposing and produces the greatest effect. A Deposition by Caravaggio, singularly expressive. A Samaritan woman, with the most interesting face in the world. She is close to the pit, speaking with Jesus Christ. Nothing more charming than this composition. The Resurrection of Lazarus, a composition that is complicated but truthful, by [Girolamo] Muziano.

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Saint Cecilia after her martyrdom, good copy by [Francesco] Vanni, of the one that will be seen at the church bearing that saint’s name. Miracle of Saint Peter at the gates of the Temple of Jerusalem or Healing the Crippled, by Mancini. The Inhumation of Saint Petronilla by Guercino, a little blackened, poorly mixed chiaroscuro, but with wonderful expression, mainly in the face of the one lowering the saint into the ground. A copy of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ, by Raphael, made by [Stefano] Pozzi, upon which is based the mosaic that is at Saint Peter’s, which means that it is larger than the original. Superb composition, full of force and truthfulness, and remarkably close to its model, which as we know, is admired by all artists and connoisseurs. And finally, the Baptism of Saint Peter by Jesus Christ, by [Francesco] Trevisani. The gardens of the palace are very nice, but subdued and aiming more at solid grace and economy than at vain luxury. You will see there fountains and water organs in the same style as those of which we have spoken regarding other country estates. The Colosseum Built by Vespasian upon his return from the conquest of Judea. Such are the monuments by which you can easily judge the power of a people and the magnificence of its leaders. What remains of this building hardly suffices to glimpse what it was. Around an arena of considerable size four rows of seating banks rise up to an enormous height. In the last of these there was a gallery that dominated the surroundings. It seems that the first section, of which only a few vestiges remain, must have encroached on the arena as we see it today and consequently made it smaller than it currently appears. You entered via two gates, but there were around the outside so many corridors that it is claimed that this immense structure was filled up and emptied out in very little time. In the second section, which is very well preserved, will be seen a large part of the circular gallery, along which one perambulated while awaiting the spectacle and via which one gained access either to the seats in this section or to those above or below by the fragments of staircases in the wells that will still be seen, some going up and some heading down. The construction of these four sections, placed one above the other from front to back, lent a singular grace to the interior of the building and made it so that everyone had a view. You will count eighty arcades supported by Doric pilasters. In each of these pilasters you will see holes made by the destroyers – both modern and ancient – of this beautiful monument as they ripped out the bronze fasteners that bound these immense blocks of travertine stone together and which, along with these fasteners, had no other binding agent than a thin layer of lime mortar that was spread on the two pieces that were to be joined. We know that these bronze fasteners existed – many architects had doubted their reality – because of the multitude that were found in the debris of the collapse caused by the earthquake during the pontificate of Clement XI and that toppled an entire arch from the part that faces Saint John Lateran. You can make out quite distinctly in the best preserved part of the exterior the three orders – Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian – the three arranged as I have written. I have no idea where Monsieur Richard saw the Composite order that was not yet in use at that time and that surely does not exist as part of this structure. The final section is a row of pilasters above which will be seen the nails that were used to fasten the purple awning that covered the loges and the arena. One of the unique things about this immense edifice is that it is round on the outside and oval within. Twelve thousand Jews, it is claimed, built it in a year, and they did so under

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the direction of a wretch who himself graced with his sacrifice one of the first spectacles that was given here. You can still see today, in the emperors’ loge, some remnants of stuccoes and of decorations. But in general, everything in this monument is too ruined to give a true idea of its magnificence. We are told that it cost more than an entire town would have cost. Paul III began its destruction, and his nephew Ranuccio Farnese completed the palace with his name on it.28 The building serves at present as a depot for saltpetre. A considerable amount of fertilizer is also stored there. For a long time it was abandoned, but its isolation and emptiness turned it into a setting for crime and debauchery. Benedict XIV wanted to sanctify this profane place; he set up a hermit here who was responsible for the area, although he was murdered on the spot a few years back. He also had the cross in the centre placed here, as well as the bunch of little chapels that put the finishing touch on the ruination of the arena and that prevent one from judging it properly. What a difference between our spectacles and those given here, where more than a hundred thousand people could simultaneously enjoy the same show! Barbarity, I grant, characterized the bloody scenes that were depicted here. But at least such games did not enervate courage as ours do, where the mere pantomime of an actor killing himself makes us cry. More solid and more war-hardened mores habituated these heroes of the universe to witness death calmly. They were ferocious, you say. So be it. But they were great, and we, we are, I agree, very human – but very small. Voyage to Tivoli29 From Rome to Tivoli is eighteen miles. To get there, you leave by the Tiburtine Gate, and four miles hence you come across the Mammolo Bridge over the Teverone or Aniene. The bridge takes its name from [Julia] Mamaea, mother of Alexander Severus, he who had it built. Seven miles before arriving in Tivoli, you come across a little lake called Tartar Lake [Lago dei Tartari], named thus because of its petrifying powers. Its shores offer oddities of petrifaction of every sort. A third of a mile further on, you will see at the edge of the path a large pond formed of water from the same lake. The two are joined by a canal that Cardinal Ippolito d’Este had constructed. Its water is sulphurous and has, like that of the former, the same powers of petrifaction. The countryside in the vicinity of these lakes is full of that lovely stone from which all the ancient and modern buildings of Rome have been built. It is a strange fact that neither the ancient builders nor today’s ever made a quarry to extract 28 Stones from the Colosseum were used in the construction of the Palazzo Farnese, commissioned by Alessandro Farnese (1468–1549), and the plans for it were expanded when in 1534 he became pope, under the name Paul III. His grandson Ranuccio Farnese had the palace modified by the architect Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, although the building was only completed with the oversight of Ranuccio’s brother, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, towards the end of the sixteenth century. In his anonymoulsy published Lettres contenant le Journal fait à Rome en 1773 (Geneva, 1783), JeanBaptiste-Marie Giudi makes a similar, if longer complaint: “If anything is capable of diminishing the pleasure aroused by the view of this admirable structure, it is learning of the way in which the majority of it has been destroyed. Pope Paul III, who was exceedingly avaricious, allowed his nephews to use material from the Colosseum to build two palaces; thus this masterpiece, which time, the Barbarians, and five or six fires had respected, has been sacrificed by a greedy Pontiff to the cupidity of his nephews, who rather deserved to be related to Attila than to a Pope. Thus the following proverb is on everyone’s lips in Rome: Quod non fecurunt Barbari fecere Barberini,” that is, “The Barberini have done what the Barbarians did not do” (1:229). Since the Barberini family did not historically have good relations with the Farnese family, the reporting of this comment must be taken as a general criticism of Roman nobility and their respect – or lack thereof – for ancient monuments. 29 Marginal note: “To be redone using the work of Monsieur Chaupy.”

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it. They only shave off the outer layer. For centuries this operation has been carried out, and the continually regenerating surface has always sufficed for the huge number of construction projects in the great city and its environs. The new lake, the one just mentioned, is so deep that no experiment has been devised to reach its bottom. Cardinal Ippolito had all sorts of them undertaken, but without success. Of the two divers that were thrown in here to find the bottom, one never reappeared and the other, doubtless arriving at the burning spring from which the lake is formed, returned to the surface with burned feet, half-consumed by the heat. The strength of the bubbling of the water at the surface, which is caused by the hot spring that creates the lake itself, varies in relation to the air temperature. The atmosphere totally controls the degree of heat or coolness of the water, such that if it is a cold day, then the water is hot; conversely, the water is cold if the day is hot. It is azure in colour, and its taste and odour are disagreeable. One can start to smell the stench of the sulphur that it exhales from three miles away, and, when the air is humid, one can catch the scent from more than five or six miles away. As for its petrifying powers, here is how I conceive of them. These waters are made up of sulphur and clayey matter. As they spread into the countryside, they stifle with their weight the neighbouring plants. The most tender part of the plant is burned up by the burning sulphur, the clayey matter attaches itself thereto using the main growth of the plant as its foundation. The plant, now as it were isolated and having had all of its paths of communication or tubes plugged with earth that once nourished it is as if forced to harden and to petrify into a rounded shape, which is the only shape that the water, every globule of which presses with equal force and fills from all sides each and every pore of the root, allows. A lengthy examination of the process has convinced me of the details that I am providing. I had the patience to observe a fresh plant become amalgamated little by little with the different parts contained in this unique water, and I saw the process take place, after a certain period of time, in the manner that I have just explained. Collectors of curiosities always bring back these petrified objects for display in their cabinets. We witness here remarkable sports of Nature, always nevertheless relative to the original form of the plant and the greater or lesser speed with which it was surrounded by the water. On the shores of the lake you will see an almost square pile of debris that is said to have belonged to the hot baths that Agrippa had constructed for his personal use. Their powers, completely lost today, were highly reputed during the Roman Empire. They consisted in healing almost every skin disease, to which the Ancients were highly susceptible and from which the use of shirts – which they did not have – protects us. These baths, we are told, were so ornate that it is claimed that Constantine placed in the original Church of Saint Peter all the columns that decorated it. Pope Julius III finished this despoiling and had transported to his country estate, located outside of the Flaminian or del Popolo Gate, whatever Constantine had not carried off. Along the shore of the lake are some sixteen to eighteen little islands made of mud, patches of reed and grass that float where the wind takes them. They are called floating islands. Volpi (volume X, Description de Tivoli) discusses them at great enough length to allow me not to repeat anything on the subject here regarding this phenomenon; one can consult this author instead.30

30 In his Vetus Latinum profanum (Rome, 1745), Giuseppe Rocco Volpi treats these small floating islands or insulae natantes (10[pt.2]:471). He notes that Athanasius Kircher had examined them as well, counting sixteen in total, and indeed Kircher gives a thorough account in his Latium. Id Est, Nova & Parallela Latii

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Next, you continue across the plain for fifteen miles and arrive at the foot of Mount Tivoli. You pass over the Lucano Bridge, close to which will be seen the tomb of the Plautia family. It is exactly the same in form as that of Caecilia Metella, but smaller and less magnificently decorated. The monument’s inscription is located in the middle of the four columns that face the highway. There used to be five. Today only two remain. See Chaupy.31 A mile and a half after this monument (here see Chaupy on Zenobia),32 you find the Villa Adriana or country estate of Hadrian (see Chaupy, v. II, page 441),33 built upon his return from the conquests in Egypt based on different models of beautiful edifices that tum Veteris tum Novi Descriptio (Amsterdam, 1671), 203–4. There are ancient sources on the phenomenon as well, although Sade does not use them in this instance. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), thus notes the existence of floating islands in various locales, including “Lake Vadimo, the dense wood near the springs of Cutilia which is never to be seen in the same place by day and by night” (1[bk.2, s. 96]:338–41). Pliny the Younger, in his Letters, Volume II: Books 8–10. Panegyricus, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), provides a longer description of the same: “[Lake Vadimo] is subdued in colour, pale blue with a tinge of green, has a smell of sulphur and a mineral taste, and the property of healing fractures. It is of no great size, but large enough for the wind to raise waves on its surface. There are no boats on it, as the waters are sacred, but floating islands, green with reeds and sedge and the other plants which grow more profusely on the marshy ground at the edge of the lake. Each island has its peculiar shape and size, and all have their edges worn away by friction, as they are constantly knocking against each other and the shore. They all have the same height and buoyancy, each shallow base dipping into the water like the keel of a boat; and this has the same appearance from all sides, both the part above and the part under water. Sometimes the islands join together to look like a continuous piece of land, sometimes they are driven apart by conflicting winds, while in calm weather they are left to float about separately. The smaller islands often attach themselves to the larger, like small boats to a merchant ship, and both large and small sometimes appear to be racing each other; or they are all driven to one side of the lake to create a headland where they cling to the shore; they remove or restore stretches of the lake on one side or the other, so that its size is unaltered only when they keep to the centre. Cattle are often known to walk on to the islands while grazing, taking them for the edge of the lake, and only realize that they are on moving ground when carried off from the shore as if forcibly put on board ship, and are terrifed to find themselves surrounded by water; then, when they land where the wind has carried them, they are no more conscious of having ended their voyage than they were of embarking on it” (60–3). 31 Chaupy explains that this “most magnificent tomb” is of a “shape similar to that of the Metelli on the Appian Way,” i.e., “a large rotunda atop a squared base” (Découverte, 2:419). According to Chaupy, that this is the tomb of the Plautii is confirmed by three remaining inscriptions. Sade’s counting is a bit mystifying, but he must have meant that only some inscriptions remained and not that only some columns did; contrary to Sade’s assertion, Chaupy also remarks that this tomb has ornamentation lacking in that of the Metelli. 32 Chaupy places the supposed Tiburtine home of Zenobia here (see ibid., 2:446–7). Zenobia had led the revolt against the Roman Empire that resulted in the establishment of the Palmyrene Empire, of which she was queen, and that lasted from 260 until 273. This empire, which included the Roman provinces of Syria Palestina, Egypt, and parts of Asia Minor, was reconquered by the emperor Aurelian. Zenobia and her son Vaballathus were brought as hostages to Rome in 274, and accounts of her fate there range from execution to retirement in the countryside after having charmed her conqueror. A military leader, she is exactly the type of strong female historical figure whom Sade would later praise in his libertine fiction, except perhaps that she was apparently not a libertine herself. As Bossuet, whom Chaupy cites, explains, “she rendered herself famous all over the world, for having joined chastity with beauty, and conduct with courage.” JacquesBénigne Bossuet, An Universal History, from the Creation of the World, to the Empire of Charlemagne, trans. James Elphinston (London, 1778), 107. 33 Chaupy’s description of Hadrian’s Tiburtine villa begins, in fact, on p. 439 of vol. 2 of the Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace and ends on p. 446. It would appear that Sade had intended to flesh out these descriptions and nail down the references in this evidently sketchy section.

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he had seen on his voyages and by the hands of several celebrated artists that he had brought back with him. You need only consider the ruins of this structure to judge of its stunning grandeur and magnificence. It was a surprising congeries of superb buildings scattered here and there, the surrounding enclosure more than six miles long. You will see a theatre, baths, a vast site for naumachiae, several temples – one dedicated to Canopus or the Egyptian Neptune, facing the place for these naumachiae; one dedicated to happy shades in the Elysian Fields; several dedicated to underworld deities, and many more whose dedicatees are today unknown but the ruins of which still remain – his palace, an enormous parade grounds, subterranean barracks destined for a thousand men of the Praetorian Guard, a sort of loggia where he could watch this guard on its manoeuvres, a substantial menagerie, and several other ruins the scant vestiges of which reveal nothing of their past. To visit these interesting ruins, you begin with the theatre. Its shape is perfectly preserved, although completely open to the skies. You will see a perfect semi-circle, the shape that the Ancients ordinarily gave to this sort of building. The entirety of the amphitheatre with four rows of seating banks still exists. Lower down, in the part occupied today by the gardens, was the stage, which we know that the Romans, as well as the Greeks before them, observed from above. You will see a very well-preserved gallery that abuts the back of the stage; this doubtless served as a place where the actors could retire to practise their roles or their different metamorphoses. Also stored here were stage decor and machinery relative to the drama. The theatre was open-air; it was sheltered, like the Colosseum, by means of a canvas, when it was time for the show. The baths were located behind the theatre. You will still see a chamber with such wellpreserved stuccoes that very few modern artists have not made an enjoyable trip here to seek out models. Behind was the Temple of Apollo, of which there remains a circular foundation with seven niches so well proportioned that our most famous modern architects strive to imitate them alone. Next to this temple is a large rotunda, very high, in the middle of which are several little loggie that served as cages for ferocious beasts and that constituted the menagerie of which I spoke above. Close by is the ruin of a niche, very degraded, that was part of the Temple of Mars. A little bit farther along are the ruins of the palace where the emperor lived: a large pile of misshapen ruins, which are incapable of evoking either the original architecture or the layout, with the exception of four galleries that formed a sort of cloister around the interior courtyard and on which can still be seen the very degraded remains of arabesque paintings. This degradation will only get worse and worse, seeing as everyone feels free to detach a few pieces of these precious ruins and that nobody stands up against this disorder: a tolerant attitude all the more poorly understood on the part of the owners since curiosity diminishes in relation to the destruction of the objects that excite it, and so they will imperceptibly lose the very product that allows them legitimately to tax that curiosity. In front of the palace are the parade grounds, rectangular in shape. As I have said, it is here that the Praetorian Guard destined for the personal safety of the emperors met, trained, and exercised. On one of the sides is located the loge where the emperor and his retinue positioned themselves in order to watch the various exercises. On one of the long sides of the rectangle, you will see a large and almost entirely intact wall, pierced by several holes in the top, through which beams supported by wooden pillars made a sort of portico under which the soldiers could retire during the day. This yard was likely surrounded by similar porticoes, with the sole exception of the part that faced the palace. But you can no longer

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see anything of the walls that served this purpose other than scant debris at ground level. The barracks were located at the end of the parade grounds. You descend to them today via the long side of the rectangle that is across from the one where the wall of the aforementioned gallery is preserved. These barracks are doubtless the best preserved building of the entire palace structure and even one of the best preserved in Rome, excepting the Pantheon. We can see that they were not used for long, and in effect we know that the emperor was unable to enjoy this lovely country estate for long. They form a right angle. At the meeting point of the two lines of the angle was the guardhouse, in the shape of a console and situated in such a way that one could discern from here what was taking place in any of the quarters. Around them was a road, some eight to ten feet wide, for entry into the stables and doubtless for piling manure. Above was another gallery that we must assume to have been made of wood and that served for passage and entry into all the rooms, which we see did not have any connection otherwise. Each of these rooms slept ten men. There were fifty on each side of the projections of the angle. They are cubicles, vaulted on top. As a precaution, there is a double wall, the one separated about a foot from the other one, which abuts the mountain and that the earth supports; this is in order to guard against the humidity that could otherwise pass through the former and that would render these quarters insalubrious. Since the passage from one room to another, which I have just mentioned could not have taken place otherwise than through a structure of wood – which for that very reason no longer exists – you enter into these rooms – or at least those of the right section (the others are filled and can no longer be visited)  – by openings made from one to the next that the groundskeeper had made in order to facilitate seeing them. There was for each of these rooms a door that opened onto the wooden gallery of which we have spoken and a window above the door. The celebrated Monsieur Lalande has proposed on scientific grounds that these openings, or rather these holes, completely misshapen and made a few short years ago, as is easy to make out, were the doors and former passageways of these rooms. But you must have examined the site as little as he did to put forward such a fact and to have had as little experience of soldiers’ quarters as he. The case is visibly impossible. One need only carefully observe the site to convince oneself. If these doors had been built at the time of the construction of the edifice, wouldn’t you see doorframes and other proofs of building? On the contrary, one can clearly see that these are mere holes. If, however, you want a more certain proof of the falseness of his opinion, I would add that the groundskeeper assured me personally that he had made these openings and that he would have told Mr Lalande the same if he had deigned to ask him the question.34 Following along the other part of the projection of the angle, at the location of the rooms that one can no longer visit and filled by cave-ins, you come to the Temple of Canopus or Egyptian Neptune. What remains today is a large conch or semi-dome, open at the base and in the shape of a parallelogram within; here there are niches where doubtless Sea divinities were placed. Around it is a covered gallery, lovely and very regular, that clearly encircled the entire building and in which will still be seen the remains of paintings, in red and yellow partitions. These are well enough preserved. You will also see there various canals whereby water was transported either to the 34 The precise target of Sade’s objection is unclear, although Lalande does describe the rooms of the barracks as “communicating with one another.” See Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage d’un françois en Italie, fait dans les années 1765 & 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 5:140.

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temple for sacrifices or to the place set aside for naumachiae. In front of the edifice there still remains of the ensemble the ruins of arcades on each side; these formed covered porticoes where the spectators who attended these games were placed. The ground was entirely paved in mosaic. At the entrance to this last monument will be seen, to the left and right, temples erected for, on the one hand, happy shades and on the other, the gods of the underworld. A little bit farther is the Temple of Pluto, on which it is believed that Borromini based his plans for the Church of Saint Agnes, located upon the Piazza Navona. The Temple of Venus is much farther away; it does not form a part of this ensemble of buildings. Placing it aside thus was fitting for the mysterious rites of this goddess. There remains naught but a part of the circular foundation. Close to the Temple of Canopus, which we just spoke about, were found all the Egyptian basalt statues, the two centaurs, and the mosaic depicting Four Doves that is to be seen at the Capitoline, as well as several other mosaic works, of which little tables have been made on the grounds here. Tivoli is two leagues distant from Hadrian’s Villa. The route that leads there is fairly hard going. It goes through a mountain covered with olive trees of a prodigious size. You arrive at the gate known as the Holy Cross [viz., Porta alla Croce]. This is the prettiest entrance into the city. The origin of Tivoli, older than Rome’s by several centuries, goes back to Tibertus, brother of Catillus and Corax, of the Pelasgian nation.35 This town endured several wars against the Romans and against the Tusculans, its neighbours (see Crocchiante, himself Tiburtine, who has written the history of his fatherland, as well as Ode VI of Book I of Horace: Tibur Argeo positum colono).36 At the edge of the town, you will see the round form of the temple of the sibyl known as “Albunea.”37 The layout is very pleasing; it is encircled by a gallery supported by light and pleasant Corinthian columns, of which ten are still standing. The remainder, including the interior of the building, is in ruins. You will see a door and two windows in this building. The two windows are narrower at the top than at the bottom; an unpleasant shape but infinitely more solid. The temple was built to conserve the memory of that sibyl from the period of the Republic (see Prideaux on the Sibyls).38 To the right and across from the temple is a large waterfall formed by the Teverone, whose bed is lost in a chain of boulders that make up a gulf and frightening abyss. After rushing over the edge, it

35 Between the lines: “See Chaupy.” Sade has “Tiburne,” which would be Tiburnus, one of the alternative renderings along with Tiburtus or Tibertus for the legendary founder of present Tivoli. Chaupy does discuss the foundation story and employs Tiburnus and Tiburne indifferently. See Chaupy, Découverte, 2:372–74 and 401–2. 36 Sade refers to Giovanni Crocchiante, Istoria delle chiese della città di Tivoli (Rome, 1726). As for Horace, the correct reference is book II, ode 6 (verse 5): “[Let me have] Tibur, founded by an Argive colonist.” Horace, Odes and Epodes, trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 106–7. 37 The Temple of the Sibyl, now more commonly known as the Temple of Vesta, and the surrounding countryside of Roman Campagna were highly admired and a favourite subject of grand touristic painting. 38 Sade’s reference is to Humphrey Prideaux, The Old and New Testament connected in the history of the Jews and neighboring nations (London, 1714–1716). Prideaux’s work had been translated into French by Moses Solanus and Jean-Baptiste Brutel de la Rivière as Histoire des Juifs and des peuples voisins, depuis la décadence des royaumes d’Israël & de Juda jusqu’à la mort de Jesus-Christ (Amsterdam, 1722). The sibyls as prophets and oracles foretelling the fates of states and kingdoms are discussed in the latter (5:169–95 passim).

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hides and a short while later reappears (see Chaupy, volume II, at my note)39 and goes in different directions across the rocks, eventually rushing off other precipices and forming various other little waterfalls that cascade in sheets of water, constituting a most majestic sight that is at the same time most rustic. It is close to the Villa of Maecenas (which is not at all the Villa of Maecenas; see Chaupy)40 that the second revolution occurs, and there it splits into three parts, forms three new waterfalls, which given the terrain and the picturesque nature of the countryside, creates a completely unique spectacle. At the first waterfall there are several mills, the noise of which, joined to that of the cataract, creates a frightening din. In order to enjoy all these different scenes created by this river, one must walk around the town, following along the mountains that surround it for about one and a half miles. This river, the source of which is in the Kingdom of Naples, mingles with the Tiber two miles before reaching Rome, close to the Salaro Bridge, and it remains but one single river up until Ostia, where it flows into the sea. It must be admitted that the first waterfall is artificial, but in truth of very ancient construction. It is made of large blocks of marble, and the course of the water is rerouted when it needs to be repaired. The riverbed penetrates considerably under the town, which means that it must be contained by dikes, as much for the safety of the quarters in the proximity of these meanderings as to force it to always rush over the same abyss and to produce that superb cascade that constitutes the true beauty of this town. The most curious objects in Tivoli after the ones just mentioned are: First: The Villa Estense, called this because of the House of Este, to which it belongs.41 This palace belongs today to the House of Modena and will thus pass over to the archduke of Milan thanks to the marriage of this prince to Maria Beatrice d’Este, sole daughter of the hereditary prince of Modena and inheritor of all the possessions of this house.42 The palace is vast, located in a pleasant spot, and supported on the side facing Rome by great arcades that, in imitation of the ancient style, are expressly designed to level the ground. The gardens, located on the slope of the mountain, are formed of four terraces, pleasantly planted and of a singular freshness. Cardinal Ippolito d’Este constructed this house that, given the way that it was made and how the gardens are situated, must have cost a prodigious sum of money. Upon entering the house on the courtyard side, you come across a long series of suites of rooms, but they are almost entirely bereft of furnishings. In the first antechamber are four statues: a Venus, an unknown queen, a Vestal, and a Jupiter; all mediocre and having undergone major restoration. This entire part – with the exception of a few terraces 39 Chaupy describes this waterfall using rhetoric typical of visual and sonic sublimity: the river is “forced to throw itself into the most awful of precipices, not without demonstrating the most foamy rage and without emitting the most horrible bellows” (Découverte, 2:399). 40 Chaupy dismisses the traditional attribution of Maecenas’s villa by noting that the structure, thanks to its placement, evidently makes it a public building, and he eventually surmises that it was most likely a basilica, i.e., a law court or public assembly building (see ibid., 2:407–11). 41 Now called the Villa d’Este, the name Sade provides was common at the time. See, e.g., Piranesi’s “Veduta della Villa Estense in Tivoli” from the series of engravings Vedute di Roma (1773), reproduced as plate 105 in John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovionni Battista Piranesi (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988). Sade’s declaration “First,” which indicates a numbered series, has no follow-up. 42 Sade notes: “It is through her that the archduke has rights to the Duchy of Ferrara, which previously belonged to the House of Este, and that it is said that the House of Austria lays claim with good reason to the Holy See: spark that could cause quite a deadly conflagration to the successors of Saint Peter.”

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that must be visited because of the lovely view that you have from them – this entire part, I repeat, has nothing else interesting in it. You will see nothing more than a few ordinary tapestries of painted cloth. The other furnishings have been taken away by different people to whom the reigning duke of Modena has successively granted permission to take what they would like. Attached to the first rooms is a chapel in which you will see some frescoes by [Girolamo] Muziano that depict different episodes having to do with the life of the Virgin. From there, you descend into the other suites, which are situated level with the first garden terrace. You will see there a bathroom in which the basin, decorated with two statues of nymphs, is placed at the bottom of a grotto made of the lake petrifactions of which I have spoken. The statue of Diana decorated the rear of the grotto, but it has been taken away, just like the other precious furnishings of the house. This entire picturesque grotto has as its theme the transformation of Acteon into a stag, executed in white marble. All the other rooms at this level are decorated with a large number of frescoes, of which some are not without merit; the majority, however, have the defect of being too complicated. They are by the three Zuccari brothers.43 The most noteworthy are: First: That of the marriage of Psyche and Cupid, same subject that one sees at the little Farnese Palace in Rome, executed by Raphael’s pupils. Second: That of the Council of the gods, also based on the same subjects in the same palace. One sees here that Zuccari copied Raphael’s ideas and that he only varied the postures and positions. Third: The Labours of Hercules, deemed the best of all, as much for the regularity of the composition as for the vividness of the coloration. By a window in one of these apartments, you must look at one of the Burning of Troy, a delicately executed piece, but in the latter, as in all the others that fill these same apartments, we see both far too much force, a coloration that is too marked, too violent, and also too many episodes representing subjects that are too complicated and so end up diffuse. The gardens of this lovely country estate are embellished with a large number of waterfalls, fountains of different sorts, and various hydraulic machines. Of particular note is a branching fountain, the spray of which, of enormous size, shoots up to a great height with a prodigious din that resembles thunder and not cannon fire, as Monsieur Richard claims, who probably only having heard the one in the Invalides, was henceforth in no condition to judge or to render the effect of this noise.44 You will also see in these gardens the realization of a most singular idea. Erected on one terrace are several small buildings in the ancient style: temples, palaces, and other buildings both Greek and Roman and copied from good medals. You only wish that the architect should have made these works a bit larger and thus one would be able to enter them and judge their interior construction.

43 The two Zuccari or Zuccaro brothers were Taddeo (1529–1566) and Federico (c. 1540–1609). Both were celebrated figures of Roman Mannerism. 44 The famous fountains of the Villa d’Este are too numerous and varied to be usefully commented in these notes. However, the fountain that Sade singles out in the paragraph above is the Fontana dei Draghi, i.e., Fountain of the Dragons, designed by Pirro Ligorio (c. 1510–1583) and engineered by Tommaso da Siena (fl. sixteenth century) so that pressurized water escaped with a sound “like thunder,” as Franciscus Schottus, seemingly confirming Sade’s auditory assessment, puts it in his Itinerari Italiae (Antwerp, 1600), 432.

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All the various terraces of these gardens are, as I have mentioned, supported by strong and thick walls, and it is likely, as I have already observed, that such massive construction along with the embellishments must have cost an enormous amount. Right at the base of these gardens you begin to find lovely ruins known locally as those of Maecenas, a wealthy Roman and friend of Augustus (and that Chaupy – consult him – claims are the ruins of a house that was part of the town; this opinion seems likely correct). At the time of his death, Maecenas left his country estate to Augustus, who often stayed in this house when he came to Tibur to deliver justice under the portico of the famous Temple of Jupiter, so celebrated in this town. This judgment is based on the following two reasons. First, his close ties to the favourite; second, the certitude with which we know that the emperor possessed no country home in this region (see Chaupy).45 What is left to be seen are only large vaults or sub-structures, the apparent function of which was to support the earth, in the same manner as those we have just spoken about at the Villa Estense, that is to say, to flatten the rounded summit of the mountain and to create a plane on which the house was built, of which nothing more can be seen any longer but a wall and a column, on the side facing the main route to Rome. That is all that remains today. These vaults on the outskirts of town today constitute an asylum for debauchery and crime. A branch of the Anio forms here a sort of canal that streams rapidly by. This canal is the result of art not Nature. It is an overflow canal for the river that, further up, is likewise artfully redirected to the various factories – paper, iron, oil – that constitute the wealth of the region. Monsieur Lalande incorrectly asserts that these vaults served as stables for the estate of Maecenas (check to see if this is true). He bases his judgment on the fact that this stream passes through here and, he says, was used to provide water for the horses to drink. People so inept as to write similar stupidities without the least expertise should be made to spend some time, not in a stable, but in a cowshed; the lie is all the easier to verify since there is not a soul in the region that won’t attest that the construction of the canal under these vaults is modern. Three hundred feet from there, on the left side in the direction of Rome, you will see a little round temple, open at the top like the Pantheon, of a lovely shape, that the Romans, we are told, erected to the Goddess Cough, a divinity that obviously enough ought to be honoured with incense in a land where colds are so frequent and so contagious.46 This temple, made of brick, is quite complete and quite well preserved. In the interior you will see various niches where statues relative to the cult of the goddess were placed. No other adornment can be seen at this point. The Cathedral of Tivoli is built upon the ruins of a temple to Hercules, renowned for the lovely library that was annexed to it. It was under the portico of this temple that Augustus, as we have mentioned above, chose to deliver justice when he came to Tibur to see his favourite Maecenas. It was to this god that the city was dedicated. 45 Chaupy, following Suetonius, mentions that Augustus came often to Tibur to hand down justice under porticoes close to the Temple of Hercules (see Découverte, 2:406) and elsewhere speculates on the whereabouts of Maecenas’s villa. Sade is, however, both extrapolating from and muddling his source. 46 Sade is referring to the Tempio della Tosse; however, the temple’s actual dedication remains unknown and its appelation likely derives from the family name Tuscia and not “cough.” It was depicted by many artists, including Piranesi and, later, J.M.W. Turner.

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On the square in front of the cathedral will be seen two statues against the wall, both made of red granite and from Egypt. It is said that the Tiburtines won them from the Tusculans in one of the wars between them. They are placed on pedestals that do not belong to them and that, according to the inscriptions on them (see Chaupy)47 confirm that they were part of the Temple of Hercules. On one will be read the name of the priests; on the other, their different functions. Crossing the town, on the side of the gate known as the Porta Oscura, you will see in the road that ends at this gate the ruins of the ancient, former gates of the town. Here and there, in different quarters of the town, are marble fragments, busts, segments of column, doorframes, and other vestiges of ancient constructions that prove with each step its greatness and its antiquity. Its current state is mediocre, with a location that makes access difficult. As opposed to what Monsieur Richard says, however, not all of its roads are narrow. There are some wide ones and even some rather pretty ones. The village of La Vachette, at the foot of Montgenèvre, that I mentioned at the outset of this voyage, has a striking resemblance to Tivoli, the description of which I will end here and that other than its own particularity, its location, its waterfalls, and its antiquities, offers little else to attract one.48

47 Although Chaupy mentions neither these purported Egyptian statues nor these particular inscriptions, he does describe the scant remnants of the Temple of Hercules in Tivoli and discusses inscriptions related to the cult of the demigod there (see Découverte, 3:405–6). 48 Written on the last leaf of the notebook: M. André, Swedish consul in Naples. M. Liquier, Dutch consul in Naples. They are from Marseilles. M. the Count of Clermont d’Amboise, ambassador in Naples, and his secretary Bérenger. M. the knight of […], French consul. At the home of Montclairjon in Naples. At the home of Vanini in Florence. M. de Bernis in Rome, ambassador. M. de Barbentane in Florence.

Chapter IV

Naples

The Road to Naples1 Leaving Rome in the morning, the overnight stop is Velletri, twenty-four miles on. You will see in this town the Ginetti Palace, which boasts of nothing particularly interesting; it holds some poor sculptures, very mediocre statues and busts. Its rooms are quite large, decorated with poor paintings. The only admirable aspect is the layout of a very large gallery, poorly decorated, but nonetheless this type of decoration gives you the impression of a lovely painting and could produce a truly strong effect. It is located on the second floor, overlooking the garden. The upper level forms a terrace from which you discover a pleasant view. The main staircase, located on the left when entering, at the corner of the building, is pretty enough, albeit mishandled. What makes the visit worthwhile are the various views of the countryside that will be seen from the landings, with their large, open arcades. In the square across from the palace a bronze statue of Urban VIII has been erected; it is quite handsome and similar to the one on his tomb, which is in the Church of Saint Peter in Rome. The courthouse is located at the highest point in the town. I pass over this object in silence: it is nothing but a very large building and only makes one regret that a location with such potential could not have been put to better use. From this town, you continue via Piperno, a tiny town, located at the summit of a mountain at a distance of forty-six miles. Nothing of note is to be seen there. Descending the mountain, you come across, at the mile and a half mark, the ancient city of Pipernum. The ruins are nothing but shapeless heaps of stones. A short time ago a mosaic pavement was discovered here, and in the same spot the torso of a sculpture of a woman, the drapery of which is quite lovely. It will be seen at the home of a cooper in the upper town. From Piperno, you pass along the length of the town of Terracina, located at the edge of the sea. This town is charming in appearance: perched amid boulders and surrounded by mountains, above one of which you can make out the ruins of an Imperial palace. You will also find a sub-basement decorated with a few arcades and quite lovely ancient columns. On this spot you can discern the walls of the ancient town, defended by spaced towers. It is difficult going to get to the highest elevation here, but the pleasure of seeing a grand stretch of the sea alone would recompense the fatigue, if you only had two hours to stop in this town. 1 Four manuscript pages in the copyist’s hand (perhaps La Jeunesse).

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You really must consider, at the right-hand corner of the principal church, the ancient marble columns embedded in the walls. From Terracina, before arriving at Fondi, you leave the Papal States (you give a paolo to the soldiers who check passports here). There is nothing worthy of mention in this town. The insalubrious and dangerous air should discourage voyagers from ever staying overnight here. I am assured that winter is the only season that this should be risked. The entrance to this town makes for an impressive sight. The countryside is picturesque. You might take a look next to the Naples entrance; the fortifications there are very nicely proportioned.2 From Fondi, you stop at Mola di Gaeta. There is nothing to see in this town. It is important for anyone of a curious mindset to go to Gaeta (it costs five carlini to embark), the distance from the one to the other is only five nautical miles. (You must not forget to have your passport with you.) Having arrived, you are led to the Cloven Rock [Montagna spaccata]. It must have taken a supernatural cause to produce a like effect. It is important to see this curious object. From there, you must stop at the cathedral to see the baptismal font therein. It is an antique vessel made of white marble, decorated with figures in bas-relief, a sculptural masterpiece. The lions that support it are quite poor. The columns in the nave are ancient. You will see that some among them are nicely proportioned. From Gaeta, you pass via Garigliano in order to get to Sessa, which is the midpoint of the route. The main road cuts diagonally across the aqueducts of the ancient town from north to south. These acqueducts brought water to a naumachia [site] nearby. At the far end of these aqueducts, on the right, you see the precious remains of an amphitheatre, the diameter of which must not be greater than that of the Colosseum in Rome. All these objects deserve the fullest attention. The naumachia is forty feet along the path before getting to the ferry. After Sessa, you arrive at Capua. There is nothing curious to see in this town. What you must do is arrange for a carriage to take you to the ancient town, which is three miles away. There you will see an almost intact amphitheatre. Pay particular attention to the large staircases that lead to terraces, as well as a water pipe on the ground floor, which leads one to infer that naval combats took place there. Before coming to this monument, you pass through a triumphal arch, which is entirely ruined because of the way that it is decorated. You will see, at the highest point, on the left, the pleasant sight of Caserta. From there, you go to Naples, which is eighteen miles away. When you get there, giving two paoli to the soldiers will suffice. 3 From Capua, you arrive in Naples via a magnificent path bordered on both sides by large poplars, adorned with vines, and giving the overall impression of a festival. You descend a bit upon arriving in Naples, and insensibly, you pass from the suburbs into the centre of the city, without noticing, given that the gate that closed off the city from this side has recently been demolished. Before arriving, you come across yet another station of functionaries, but it is only a matter of few carlini, and a traveller is in my opinion quite fortunate when he can extract himself with money from the bother and importunity of such folks.

2 Sade’s marginal note in pencil: “There are none.” 3 This paragraph begins the second notebook dedicated to Naples (“Interior of the city of Naples,” below). Sade struck it out and noted in the margin: “Placed at the outset.” It would appear that the correct placement is as above.

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Neopolitan Mores and Customs4 This rubric does not put the nation in a favourable light, and I must regretfully admit that we see the most beautiful country in the universe inhabited by the most degenerate species. Monsieur Richard attributes the rusticity that characterizes it to the troubles that, for so many centuries and still of late, have perturbed this beautiful kingdom. I must confess along with him that this reason might have had some influence, but I do not think that it has been the only one. If we go back to the origin of the mixture of various peoples that replaced the Greeks in this lovely country, and who contributed nothing to it other than that cruelty that led them to destroy its most beautiful monuments, we will perhaps discover a more apt cause. The scant progress that the arts and sciences have made there since, whence comes that unforgivable neglect in terms of education, has perpetuated the maintenance of ignorance and, consequently, of degeneracy. And softness, the usual defect of peoples who live in a lovely climate, has joined itself thereto. The resulting depravity has completed the work of corruption, and I believe that today it would require quite a total revolution to bring this people to that civility that reigns in the better part of the rest of Europe. Once having cast a glance on this nation, you do not cease to be amazed at the little taste found in its buildings, in its monuments, in its festivals, in its carriages, in its ornamentation, and generally in anything of which it makes use. A nation that has made so little progress in the realms of knowledge [les sciences] must of necessity have done very little in the arts. I am not claiming thereby that luxury does not reign there. On the contrary, it is present in excess. But what luxury! How gauche and ignorant! How distant it is from that luxury of amenity with which we are so familiar in France and constitutes life’s charm in its entirety. Neapolitan luxury consists in having handsome horses, a lot of valets in tastelessly embroidered livery, but it does not extend beyond outward appearances. Promenades along the Strada Nuova promptly display to the eyes of a foreigner all the luxury of the nation. Having strolled there two or three times, one has seen all the comfort and magnificence of the country, and the desire of a nobleman is completely restricted to such vain show. Naturally dirty and slovenly, a Neapolitan lord will only occupy the meanest apartment in his house, limiting this outward splendour to a suite of some fairly well-decorated rooms to be shown to foreigners for a sum of money from which the master will be sure to subtract his share. In the evening, when he arrives home, all the borrowed sumptuosity that dazzled you disappears: lackeys, couriers, footmen, pages, all vanish, and the master, alone at home with a single domestic or at most two, sets about scrimping, supping only on a bit of macaroni, to offset the sumptuous expense with which you were smitten. The Carnival that I witnessed in Naples was hardly splendid. Notwithstanding, I saw enough of it to judge the pleasures of the nation and the nation by its pleasures.5 It was opened with a cockaigne, the most barbarous spectacle imaginable in the world.6 On a large scaffolding gotten up with rustic decoration is placed a prodigious quantity of foodstuffs disposed in such a manner as to be themselves part of the decoration. These 4 Large notebook of 10 manuscript pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. On the cover page: “FIRST NOTEBOOK. / Remark that everything is done by the king of Spain and Tanucci; that everyone follows the Spanish custom and they dub themselves Dom and Doña. / Cockaignes. / This is written in 1776, at the time of my voyage to Naples.” On the first page, below the title: “Done in 1776.” 5 Marginal note: “Naples Carnival.” 6 Marginal note: “Cockaignes.”

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include geese, hens, turkeys, inhumanely crucified, suspended completely alive with two or three nails and that amuse the people with their convulsive movements, up until the moment that they will be allowed to go and pillage the lot. Loaves of bread, salt cod, quarters of beef, and sheep graze in one section of the decoration and figure forth a field guarded by well-dressed cardboard men. In another corner, amid pieces of cloth arranged in such a way as to make waves in the sea you make out a vessel loaded with foodstuffs or furnishings serviceable for the people. Such is arranged, sometimes with taste enough, the bait prepared to excite this savage people – or rather to perpetuate its voraciousness and love of theft. For after having seen this spectacle, it would be difficult not to agree that this is rather a school for pillage than a veritable festival. On the eve, the decorations all ready, guarded by a squad of soldiers, are made public, and the whole town does not miss the opportunity to go and contemplate them. Sometimes, the temptation becomes so great that the people overcome the guards and pillage the cockaigne before the day set aside for its sacrifice to them. If they make it to the following day, at two hours before noon, which is the usual hour determined for the pillage, the square is lined with thirty odd squadrons of grenadiers and a few cavalry detachments to keep in order a populace that is about to be given the most horrific lesson in disorder. At noon on the dot, the people in their entirety on the square, the whole town at their windows, the king himself often on a balcony of his palace in front of which this square is located, a shot from a cannon is heard. At this signal, the chain is opened, the people rush forth, and in the wink of an eye everything is carried off, torn down, pillaged, with a frenzy that it is impossible to describe. This frightening scene, which when I saw it for the first time made me think of a pack of dogs to which the quarry had been presented, sometimes ends tragically. Two competitors for a goose or piece of beef do not tolerate each other with impunity. The matter must be settled with one of their lives. I was witness to a horror of the sort that made my hair stand on end. Two men attacked one another for half a cow – the object was worth the trouble, that I admit. Immediately, knives were in hands. In Naples and Rome, this is the only response to a discussion. One of the men collapses, swimming in his blood. But the vanquisher does not enjoy his victory for long. The scaffolding along which he was climbing in order to make off with the prize gives way under his feet. Smothered under the side of beef, he himself plummets onto the cadaver of his rival. Meat, wounded, dead, everything becomes one. You can only make out a single mass, when new competitors, taking advantage of the disgrace of the two conquered men, disentangle the mound of meat from the cadavers under which it has been swallowed up and triumphantly carry it away, still dripping with the blood of their rivals. The number of attackers is usually between four and five thousand lazzaroni. This is the term in Naples for the basest and most brutal portion of the people. Eight minutes suffice for the total destruction of the edifice, and seven or eight dead and some twenty wounded, who often die later, is the usual number of heroes that victory leaves behind on the battlefield. I have found but one thing missing in the sublime horror of this spectacle: the dead and wounded, laid out among the debris of the decoration, are not left behind for everyone to see. Such an addition would add a touch of heroism and be all too worthy of the genius of this nation, such that one day we may have the satisfaction of seeing the magnificence of this gallant spectacle augmented thusly. Usually, four or five cockaignes like this are given during the run of the Carnival, depending on how long it is. For major events, it is trotted out again. The queen giving birth is a time at which the chance to pillage and kill to express one’s joy cannot be missed. These festivals are given by the king, but it is the public that

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Figure 4.1. Cockaigne of Naples, from Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage ­Pittoresque, ou Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, vol. 1 (1783).

pays for them, the butchers who furnish the goods having the right, at these times, to put whatever price on their foodstuffs that they will, without the police setting about repressing this troublesome practice. If we are allowed to judge a nation by its tastes, by its festivals, by its amusements, what opinion must we form of a people that requires such atrocities? We are assured in Naples that the king, who naturally fears his people because he senses that balance between their tumultuous spirit and the weakness of his government is not struck, thinks himself obliged to give these celebrations. He has been made to believe that there would be a revolution if he abolished cockaignes, and he fears this. His power, his strength, and his spirit are such that if someone came and told him that the people wanted to pillage his palace, he would withdraw in order that they might do so.7

7 Sade’s assessment echoes recent scholarship on the cockaignes and other spectacular celebrations in Naples at this point in the eighteenth century. Gabriel Guarino writes that it is surprising that cockaigne pillages survived in Naples until the 1770s, “especially if we take into consideration the Enlightenment critique of displays of conspicuous consumption, as well as its condemnation of all forms of animal torture, which was frequent in the savage brawls.” The authorities were forced into a “dangerous balancing act”: on the one hand, “they did their best to supply lavish forms of entertainment to appease the politically demanding social elites and distract the masses of hungry plebeians from the harsh realities of daily life”; on the other, “the stability of their regime was threatened by these very festivities, owing to their unpredictable and violent nature.” Gabriel Guarino, “Public Rituals and Festivals in Naples, 1503–1799,” in Tommaso Astarita, ed., A Companion to Early Modern Naples (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 276 and see also 257–79.

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Figure 4.2. Cockaigne of Naples (vignette), from Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage Pittoresque, ou Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, vol. 1 (1783).

On the eve of the last cockaigne that was given during the Carnival of 1776, the people in a tumult threatened to not wait for the following day. They had taken it into their heads that, if the king appeared before the square, he would not stand in their way. And as they knew that he had to cross it on his return journey from Santa Maria del Carmine, where he goes on every Saturday of Carnival, they were waiting for him in a state of the utmost agitation. His Majesty was tipped off. A general offered to lead two thousand men to the sqaure. “No, no,” responded the king, “I will return via another route!”

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What opinion to form of a sovereign who fears his subjects to such a degree and of a people who imagines that the mere presence of this sovereign is enough to encourage disorder?8 Notwithstanding, the king is good. He is all the more wrong to fear his people insofar as he is certainly loved by them. It is enough for him to be of the nation to capture their hearts, and this people who saw him born loves to call him their king. Outwardly he is not well put together. His manners are careless, as is his tone and manner of expression. I do not even think that he knows proper Italian. It would appear that he was poorly educated, and he himself has the good sense to agree. I believe him to be lively, rash, and without pretence. His decisions are prompt, his judgments are severe, but singularly just. Up until now, about the only thing attributed to him has been a great taste for pleasure. All day long he is astir and wearing himself out. Hunting is one of his pet passions. He has little time for finery. You would often take him as the lowliest subject in his kingdom. He has even less time for letters. It is doubtful that he has read ten books since his birth.9 But the art of ruling is not something learned. Its first rule lies in the natural disposition of the sovereign; the second in the heart of the subjects. In all likelihood, in a word, History will not number Ferdinand IV among her great kings, but neither will she number him among the tyrants. Obscurity will veil his actions, and his death will cause regret only in relation to the following reign. The queen is a good German who, I believe, only wants to be good so that she is not suspected of pride.10 She is seven years older than the king, and you can easily discern the control that she seeks to exercise over his mind. There is no need to explain to the French that here we see the genius of the House of Austria. Like all her sisters,11 she is said to be jealous and gallant, two faults that do not sit well together, since at least if she wants to enjoy herself, she ought not watch too carefully over a husband from whom she will only obtain indulgence to the degree that she indulges him. We are assured, however, that she has made him lose the penchant for libertinism that the singularly dissolute youth in his court had forced him to adopt. “Make way! Make way!” he cries when he sees his rival pass and he knows that the queen is listening, “Make way, here comes His Majesty!” Yet this princess loves her children. She seems quite busy with them. She has figured out how to ally the rights of Nature with those of the throne, and she has not decided, as in France, that being a queen must make one forget that one is a mother. An uneducated prince perpetually before her gaze makes her feel all the more the great importance of early childhood cares. She would redouble them perhaps if she   8 Marginal note: “Portrait of the king.” Ferdinand (1751–1825) served as king of Naples under the title Ferdinand IV and as king of Sicily as Ferdinand III both beginning from 1759. He was the third son of Charles III of Spain, who had abdicated his rule of the so-called Two Sicilies to take up the Spanish crown. Ferdinand’s regency ended with his majority in 1767. It was overseen by the powerful minister Bernardo Tanucci, who remained influential in the early years of Ferdinand’s reign (see also p. 241n109 below).   9 Sade notes: “The emperor joked one day about the mediocrity of his private library. Ferdinand responded: ‘What need is there for books? Isn’t it here,’ he continued, placing his hand upon his heart, ‘isn’t here the sovereign’s?’” 10 Marginal note: “Portrait of the Queen of Naples.” Maria Carolina of Austria (1752–1814). It is not clear why Sade has her seven years older than her spouse, when she was only a year and a half his senior. 11 Maria Carolina was the sister of Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna (better known as Marie Antoinette and the queen of France from 1774 until 1792), of Maria Amalia of Austria, Duchess of Parma, and Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen and wife of Prince Albert Casimir August of Saxony, Duke of Teschen.

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were really familiar with her kingdom and if she were to sense that all it would take would be for a king to be truly king in order to make this nation the most fortunate and formidable in Italy. But I will refrain from going into depth upon this matter until after my account of the pleasures of the Carnival of Naples. There were five or six balls held at the court, in which amenity and liberty should have produced amusement, but in which, however, I noted only aridity and languor. These balls are given in the apartments of the castle. The hall specifically dedicated to spectacles, decked out with a sizeable orchestra, was here set aside for dancing. In all the others were arranged gaming tables around which gathered people with seemingly much more eagerness. You might say that gambling is one of the pleasures to which the Neapolitan appears the most sensitive. And as a ball at which there is gambling usually lacks vitality, that was the story with all those that I saw at this court. The queen led two or three contra dances during the evening. That was about all the dancing that took place. The remainder was filled with minuets. At the last two [balls], twice in a row at each one a ballet was repeated featuring character costumes, led by Their Majesties and danced by the nobility of the highest rank, the execution of which was fairly coordinated and lively. The rest of the time, there was gaming. The king spent the first hours at billards, which he adores. Next, he showed up for an instant in the dance hall, then went to settle in at a game of macao, a sort of twenty-one that is quite the custom in Naples and at which everyone cheats as best they can. The queen tells him this; he believes nothing of it. Up to this point, no real harm is done: when a king wants to share in public pleasures, he has to pay the fees. The masked promenades of the Strada Nuova offer, on certain days of Carnival, a sight as novel as it is amusing. Several nicely decorated carriages, each of which is fitted out in a particular way and filled with masks costumed in keeping with the chosen theme, pulled by four or six, sometimes by eight or ten, elegantly harnessed horses. These are led by the master of the team and a postilion dressed in an appropriate costume, preceded or followed by other accompanying carriages, in which there are entire orchestras and that are escorted by cavalry detachments, likewise disguised. They drive up and down the length of the promenade several times so that the public might view them. The most magnificent have in their coaches stocks of dragées, of little bottles of artistically packaged liqueurs, of sonnets, and other gallant trinkets that they toss into the coaches of their acquaintances as they pass by. It is a bit of a vulgar amusement, insofar as it often only results in broken glass and black eyes. But this taste is in vogue and the precautionary measures that might be taken for protection from this dangerous hail would be taken quite amiss. The people usually inherit this munificence, made all the more for them than for the Neapolitan who – caring very little whether he is so long as he appears – removes his mask in that atmosphere of present grandeur, just as in all others. These items, thrown in abundance, are of the vilest quality, and some have even pushed the bluff so far as to put water in the liqueur bottles and use plaster instead of sugar for the dragées. Everyone can take part in this fun and show up disguised, as his means allow, at the Strada Nuova. And on those days when the numerous confluence of masks on foot, in coaches, and more sensible folk who come without any get-up or fuss in their carriages to examine the follies of others, turn the promenade into something quite lovely and quite lively.

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Having returned thence, everyone whiles away in boredom until the time for shows and conversational assemblies. Both the one and the other of these two things hardly get going in Naples until what is called one and a half hours in the evening, that is to say, about two hours after sunset. Until then, you will find absolutely nothing doing but the void. The nobility have established a café where they meet and play while awaiting the hour for social gatherings. But rather than dreaming up such a ridiculous way to fill the void, would it not have been worthwhile to agree that gatherings and shows might start earlier? I have never been able to wrap my mind around the reason that could have led to so bizarre an arrangement and one that leaves in the day so unpleasant a void for anyone who doesn’t like going to cafés. What is the end result of this? Everything concludes much later than everywhere else and one must thus either do without supper, because this is hardly available in Naples, or return very late to pathetically eat a morsel all alone at home and go to bed immediately afterwards. Of all the foreigners who were in Naples the winter that I spent there, I met not a one who found this arrangement pleasing. It goes against the practice of all other nations, and you cannot prevent yourself from concluding that it is absurd. As for us French, accustomed to supping in the house where we are going to spend the evening, we will always experience considerable difficulty in finding it good to be packed off on an empty stomach at ten or eleven in the evening, and we would prefer that all these nobles, brilliant only in appearance, might make do with fewer horses and valets on the Strada Nuova and, instead, add a good supper for their guests. It is a matter of common agreement that meals are the soul of society: it is here that we see one another, that we get to know one another, where ties are forged, and where women put themselves on display and are judged for their wit and graces. It is true that since Neapolitan women do not have much to offer in these respects, it goes without saying that they might not have imagined how to show them off. But you will nonetheless grant me that the end result is still lots of bother for those who are not made for this lifestyle. Instead of this [i.e., supping], there is gambling. You see salons filled with tables, surrounded by women and men, minds focused by the passion of play. If you do not join in their pleasures, they will hardly look at you. And if you do join in, the moment that you take a seat your purse is in all the greater danger given that they will conspire to empty your pockets by means of certain signals which are much in use and in mighty agreement with the taste of the nation. You will be promptly reduced to taking out a loan. If you want to avoid this trap and enjoy the simple pleasures of conversation, watch out for boredom! You will find yourself soon enough forced to clear off. The mistress of the house, satisfied with the cold and proud greeting that she will have made upon your entrance, will no more deign speak to you and, to be sure, the other beings who make up her gathering will hardly serve as recourse. Do not think that I have exaggerated the picture in warning of the certain dangers that a foreigner runs at the gaming table, even amid the nobility, who are just as unscrupulous as the common lot when it comes to this mania for appropriating what belongs to another. I dare say that there is no more security for your money with them than there is for your watch, handkerchiefs, and purse amid the throng of the populace. The laws have no force on the latter matter, and what brass would it take for a judge who was just cheating the night before or auctioning off his opinion – a practice as common as it is easy in Naples – to dare on the following day condemn to this or that punishment someone who will have only stolen a watch? Two particular practices that I am now going to report will convince, I hope indubitably, concerning the opinion that the king has of his own nobility and of the extent to which he

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is persuaded, as well as everyone who is familiar with them, of their lack of honesty in the commerce of life. He serves at the entertainments at court, to which only the nobility is invited, a great quantity of refreshments. Imagine my surprise to see that the ices were presented with spoons made of tin or of what is called “composite.” The reason is easy to guess, I was told by the person whom I asked to shed some light on this bit of meanness: the king’s wealth would not suffice to supply the nobility with silver spoons. He did so at first. Five hundred were counted stolen at a single ball. He has since renounced the practice. “Would the same reason,” I went on, “account for why bodyguards acting as sentinels are so amply distributed in every room when the king gives an entertainment in his chambers?” “Assuredly,” came the response, “One day the queen’s chamber was stripped bare by the nobility.” I had no way to counter such powerful arguments, and I contented myself by thanking heaven in petto for not having me be born in a nation so different from my own and in one where honour and virtue are such chimerical beings. I have always heard said that when these sentiments are extinct in a nation and there no longer remains to steer it but the stick or self-interest, it is quite close to ruin. What then should we conclude, if we add to this a detailed account of all the other vices of leadership and administration that could hasten this downfall? We would tremble for the fate of one of the loveliest countries in Italy, and if we were only to make wishes for its preservation, this would be simply to hope that it will always enjoy those alliances with the two greatest houses of Europe that serve as its safeguard.12 Collectively there are four shows in Naples that take place year-round, excepting Lent.13 The opera seria lasts a few weeks less, considering that it only opens towards the end of the month of May. These four shows consist of the opera seria, which is given at the Teatro di San Carlo, which is connected to the king’s palace; the Teatro Nuovo, where there are comedies or opera buffa suited to the tastes of our woodcutters, locksmiths, coopers, etc., except that everything is set to music and the recitative takes the place of our prose. The theatre called the Florentine Hall [Teatro dei Fiorentini], in which the same manner of things are put on, and the little San Carlo, where farces similar to those of Nicolet are given.14 The latter three are not much. The halls are small, poorly decorated; the boxes nasty; the corridors narrow, dark, and full of ordure, since it is acceptable in Naples to go only as far as the corridor that leads to your box to take care of all of Nature’s necessities.15 The comedies are sometimes good enough, although more often boring and aimless, recited in a Neapolitan style that grates your ears. As for the operas, these are pretty much after the same taste as those of which I spoke in Florence. You will find a few ariette that make up for the all the boredom caused by the rest. As for the Teatro di San Carlo, it is truly stately and magnificent, albeit tasteless. There is neither parterre nor galleries, no more than in any other theatre in Italy. Seats fill all the space from the boxes up to the orchestra, and this part is called the platea. Moreover, all 12 Ferdinand IV was of the House of Bourbon; his wife, Maria Carolina of Austria, of the House of HabsburgLorraine. 13 Marginal note: “Shows.” 14 The Théâtre de Nicolet, ou des Grands Danseurs, located on the boulevard du Temple in Paris, was founded by Jean-Baptiste Nicolet in 1759. In 1772, its name was changed to the Grands-Danseurs du Roi, and then in 1792, when the French Revolution made the regal title less germaine, to the Théâtre de la Gaîté. It grew out of the popular entertainments provided at fairs and intially specialized in acrobatic shows, pantomimes, farces, vaudevilles, and similar fare. 15 Marginal note: “See Florence when recopying.”

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the dimensions are lovely, the corridors large and well situated, the stairways commodious; there is ornamentation in utter profusion. In front of and between each box, there are large mirrors, which is the custom in Italy, in which lights can be placed, which, repeated to infinity, makes the loveliest effect imaginable when illuminated. The king’s box is large, magnificently decorated, and by itself takes up three levels of boxes. The proscenium is made up of two large voluted capitals supported by pilasters in rather poor taste. All the decorations are made of cardboard. The ceiling figures forth a ribbed vault, but is so completely lacking in taste that by itself it spoils the hall. Moreover, the theatre is large. They make use of up to twenty-five to thirty powerful horses, but the service of the changes of scenery is poorly and slowly handled. As for the operas given there, I refer [you] to what I said about this sort of show in the section on Florence. In the month of April, 1776, a public masked ball was given there to mark the visit of the princess of Saxony, sister to the queen.16 This hall, which could have been sublime were it tastefully decorated, appeared to be but half of what it could have been. The floor, uneven and poorly constructed, sometimes high, sometimes low, made walking upon it unpleasant. The section of the boxes, wonderfully lit up, contrasted with that of the theatre, which was insufficiently lit. The decoration of the boxes, which we extend into our halls in order to make a lovely whole, is not done that way here, such that you get the feeling that there are two halls, which must of necessity make a poor impression. For there must be uniformity and picturesqueness in an entertainment hall, and here the lack of regularity, which they take for picturesqueness, only looks like thrift, or rather stinginess. The spirit of the ball is, moreover, the same as in Florence. One walks about without saying a word, yawns, becomes bored. And the mask, which has no other purpose than to throw a veil over the piquant witticisms of the ball, here becomes naught but a matter of etiquette that the excessive heat renders too much to bear after an hour. The young princess of Saxony was watched most closely, and the beauty of her shape, the elegance of her outfit, the nobility of her physiognomy justified the homage that everyone seemed happy to give her. But let me continue with the rest of the pleasures of Naples, having been forced aside by this digression. Since bad weather prevented the running of a horse race at the Carnival, the king had one given on the first clement day of Lent. The Via Toledo, a large street, is the chosen course for these shows.17 It is covered with earth and sand to a depth of about two or three inches. The regiments that are garrisoned at Naples set up a barrier, and the people situate themselves between the houses up to said barrier. All the nobles are at the windows, which are decorated with striped or embroidered banners, creating a truly magnificent sight. At the two ends of the track scaffoldings are set up for the judges. At the time set by the king, three signals are sounded. At the first, the horses, led by hand by those who will ride them, enter from the palace square and proceed to the square of the Holy Spirit, where they will start. There, everyone judges and observes them, and often considerable bets are placed on those that are thought will win. At the second signal, the street is emptied and absolutely no one is permitted entry. It is at this point that the sight is truly lovely. At 16 Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen, the wife of Prince Albert of Saxony, daughter of Maria Teresa of Austria and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (see also p. 193n11 above). 17 On this street, behind the Palazzo Cavalcanti, was where the artist, and Sade’s companion in Naples and the region, Jean-Baptiste Tierce resided, along with his wife, a daughter of Doctor Mesny, Sade’s chief Florentine contact. It was here that Sade alighted upon arriving in Naples.

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the third, the horses are off. Usually they run twelve or fifteen at a time. The first to arrive at the finish line wins the prize, which is ordinarily a piece of silken cloth or of gold or silver and is carried before the winner, who rides back the length of the track so that everyone might see him. Usually, these are mares belonging to county folk racing for this first prize. Barbary horses, which are quite lovely on the whole, belonging to the king and to various nobles in the city race without riders for the second prize, which the grooms of the victorious horse usually inherit. This second race has something even more extraordinary about it than the first. These horses, decked out with ribbons and with strips of cloth such as the one used to lead victims to the sacrifice, working one another up and pricked by sharp spikes or spurred balls hidden beneath the decorations with which they are covered, and that rush headlong towards the finish line with incredible speed, make for a truly curious spectacle.18 Cloth netting is set up where their flight is meant to stop, and therein they come to a halt in spite of themselves. As with the first race, the winner goes back along the course with the prize carried before him. One can truly say that this throng of people packed in, gathered at the same spot, that this street completely covered with the loveliest decorations available, that all these pretty women at the windows, constitute a veritably pleasing whole. I must admit that there are sometimes serious drawbacks to these races. At the first of the two festivals that I saw, not enough dirt had been put on the street. It had rained. The pavement was slippery. Five or six horses fell and tumbled, their riders underneath. Two were killed. At the second, the weather was more pleasant, precautions better taken, no such accident took place, and the enjoyment went unperturbed. The month of March offers new kinds of entertainment. It is the custom on every Friday of this month to double up the luxuriousness of the promenades on the Strada Nuova. On these days, instead of stopping at the Magdalene Bridge [Ponte della Maddalena], they extend halfway down the route to Portici. The loveliest teams appear in all their finery. Everyone competes to carry it off, as much by the beauty of the horses as by the magnificence of the carriages. The teams are as numerous as one could wish for. The fashion is to have one horse that is supposed to be a relay horse, which frisks and gallops, sometimes in front of the team, sometimes to the side, which makes for a quite pleasant sight and never creates any vexation, since the horse is accustomed to placing itself always appropriately, either to the side or in front. The practice, as in Rome, is to hitch the two last horses an enormous distance from the others. This practice, the origin of which can be easily attributed to a misplaced sense of luxury, does nothing but cause trouble. Why take up space with a void, if your idea of luxury is to have a particularly lengthy team? Add more horses; otherwise, all you have is vainglory. On the same principle, hats are all embroidered on one side but not on the other, a ridiculous practice in this country and one obviously considered risible by other nations of Europe, which are little used to such braggadocio and are like the good Dutchman, who counts according to that which he has and not according to what he puts on display. It was at one of these promendades that the duke of Maddaloni appeared in splendour.19 He is one of the richest and greatest lords in the Kingdom of Naples, but at the same time 18 Such riderless races were probably more famous in Rome during Carnival. Théodore Géricault and Horace Vernet both produced paintings of the latter spectacle in the early nineteenth century. 19 This would have been Marzo Domenico V (1758–1829), Duke of Maddaloni or Matalona; a member of the powerful Neapolitan Carafa family. According to historical records, his marriage to Maria Giuseppa de

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the most crushingly stupid. This man, whose entire talent ought consist in knowing how to lead, has neither credit nor respect at the court. He lives with his domestics and coachmen; the latter, above all, have the greatest influence on his mind, and one hears tell in Naples that it was a coachman of his who singlehandedly decided him to make the marriage that he did and that joined him to the richest heiress in the kingdom, which makes him ruler of a large part of Calabria. “Get you gone, sir,” said his coachman when he learned that his master had refused this marriage, “Get you gone. You are unworthy to enter my stable.” At the same time, he closed the doors in his face. The desperate prince cried out to be pardoned. “Marry her,” said the coachman, “Take as your spouse the heiress being offered to you or forever renounce climbing into your seat.” The alternative was too cruel and thus his repugnance was instantly overcome. The prince married and the stable was opened. The Holy Week offers to foreigners in Naples a new sort of luxury that is worthy of consideration. At exactly noon on Holy Thursday, all carriage traffic in the city is paused until Saturday at the same time. The only means of transportation are sedan chairs. Yet it seems that luxury and ostentation are doubled in this time of shame and penitence. Nothing equals the beauty of these gilded chairs in which the ladies of the court have themselves carried. The footmen and bearers dressed in gala livery, along with the pages and gentlemen richly dressed and escorting the chairs, gives to the entire procession a veritably imposing air of magnificence. [As for the women,] all uniformly clothed in black velvet, they must put all their luxury into diamonds alone. And so every one is covered with them, each to the envy of the others. On the Thursday, the king and queen, followed by the principal lords and ladies of the court, visit a few churches on foot. The women dressed in black, as I just mentioned, and the men likewise dressed in an outfit of black velvet with facings and a coat made of red and gold fabric. The churches that the procession visits, as you can easily imagine, are quite done up. In one of the chapels is arranged what is called the Sepulchre. A figure of wood or wax that represents a martyred cadaver is the horrific idol Cardenas, daughter of the Count of Acerra (Campania), took place on 16 October 1774, although the union underwent extended nullification procedures the following decade. It was Maria Giuseppa who requested the nullification, her husband’s utter impotence for cause. The case became a jurisdictional conflict over the authority of the king, the archbishopric of Naples, and ultimately, the Holy See, with some aristocratic machinations thrown in for good measure. The procedures, which began in 1784, dragged on until 1790, when the pope issued a brief declaring the marriage dissolved on the grounds that it was never consumated. See Carta, e documenti concernenti la nullità della seconda sentenza pubblicata li 10. Agosto 1788. Nella causa matrimoniale del duca, e duchessa di Maddaloni (n.p., 1788); P. Ilario Rinieri, Della Rovina di una monarchia. Relazioni storiche tra Pio VI e la Corte di Napoli negli anni 1776–1799 (Turin, 1901), 309–16; Ruggiero Di Castiglione, La Massoneria nelle due Sicilie: E i “Fratelli” meridionali del ’700 (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2006), 42–3. The duke’s father, Carlo Carafa (1734–1765), was considered a man of wit and taste, although his impotence was widely bruited. Casanova, told in person of the birth of Marzo Domenico, frankly questioned the possibility. In Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, History of My Life, vols. 7 and 8, trans. William R. Trask (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), we read: “You know,” the Duke of Matalona said to me, “that I have a son.” “I was told so, and I found it hard to believe; but now I am no longer surprised. I see a princess who could not fail to perform the miracle.” The Duchess blushes, without vouchsafing me a look, but the company clap their hands, for it was well known that before his marriage the Duke of Matalona was supposed to be impotent. His son is summoned, I say that he looks like him; a cheerful monk who was seated beside the Duchess says he does not, and she coldly gives him a slap in the face, which he receives with a laugh. (7:209)

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that superstition comes to shroud with incense smoke. The following day, there is a large parade where the entire court of the king and the entire military are in attendance and at which all the mysteries of the Passion are carried on litters, made out of wood or plaster, but with frightening realism and sometimes rather accurate outfits. This height of idolatry causes a shudder and certainly makes one despair that the torch of philosophy should ever pierce into a country wherein the thickness of the darkness of superstition still subjugates minds to such a degree. During that entire week, spectacles take place uninterruptedly. Notwithstanding, a few street performers remain, who, joining forces with a few public preachers, amuse the folk in the streets and make for the most entertaining ensemble. These Catholic jokers, who climb up on trestles like charlatans in the middle of the square, harangue the people, crucifix in hand. There are those who know how to grab hold of the popular mind to lead it to do what they will. An Englishman, laughing at these imbecilities, was killed the winter that I was in Naples by this frenzied populace, egged on by the preacher: the deadly effect of the power of these preachers on weak minds. Is not the example of this crime alone enough to abolish such practices, and if religion has something holy about it, is it in debasing it, in profaning it thus in the streets, that it can be passed off as respectable? But the people, you say, need this. Not in the least. Enlighten them, teach them their true duties; they would soon prefer them to these burlesques. Admit rather, oh ministers of superstition, admit rather that it is you who needs them in order to ensure slaves for yourselves. The proof of the scant need that the people has for these farces is the little attention that they often pay them. One day a marionette theatre was placed next to a public preacher, and as the square is there for everyone and as, without rivalry, each must play his role, the preacher, jealous of the preferential attention that the people paid to his neighbour, the puppeteer, cried out in a moment of enthusiasm while brandishing his crucifix: “What are you doing, my brothers, why are you attending to that Punchinello, that buffoon? Here is the true, here is the only one to whom you should be listening!” Through a very ancient custom the origin of which goes back to the Bacchanalias, to the festivals of Lupercalia, and other pagan practices, you still seeing during Holy Week flagellants running the streets, shredding their backs. Others, in the guise of Christ, run likewise like madmen, cross on the shoulder. The people laugh and follow them, and here is how, with the intention of honouring religion, one ends up turning it into something ridiculous. For I ask you what more could be done to make a mockery of it? Otherwise in Naples everyone dresses in the French manner, but in poor taste. Town wear is done up with narrow facings, as with frocks. For men, it is the custom always to wear a hat on one’s head, whether in town wear or not. This hat is a large felt one, pinched at the end, decorated either with a braid situated completely to one side or with a feather that floats above the shoulder. The taste for toupees has not taken over as it did in Paris a few years back, but it has been pushed further and you see them extended so far behind the head that the hat can only cover the half, which leaves a sort of trailing roll, which makes the most ridiculous impression imaginable.20 As for the women, they do not coif themselves by length or height but by breadth. It is not shocking to see curls between eighteen and twenty inches wide. Few faces can support this deformation, above all, in 20 Not in this case a small wig to cover a bald spot, but rather a wig with a topknot at the crown or a lock or curl of hair placed at the crown of the head. See Mary Brooks Picken, A Dictionary of Costume and Fashion: Historic and Modern (New York: Dover, 1999), 375.

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Naples, where the blood is not very healthy. That horrible malady, which lays waste to this entire country and which to our honour they call the “French disease,” has bastardized the species as a whole.21 Men and women alike are degenerate, and their pallid colour is the emblem impressed on them all by this unfortunate innate vice. In the populace, you see only the striking signs of the venom of this plague that disfigures almost every part of their bodies. If the poison is more hidden among the rich or nobles, it is no less dangerous, and I believe that the best thing for a foreigner to do is avoid any company with this corrupted people. What to do, however, in a land where the climate, the food, and the general corruption constantly encourage debauchery? It is physically impossible to imagine to what extreme this is pushed in Naples. In the evening, the streets are full of unfortunate victims offered up to the brutal embraces of the first comer. They provoke you for the vilest sum to indulge in every type of libertism that imagination can conceive, and even to those types that it would seem that those of their sex should hold in horror. How one shudders when seeing children of the tenderest age and even of an age in which reason has not yet taken form share with their mothers or their sisters the infamy of that horrible corruption! I will not be lying when I say that I saw in Naples little girls of four or five offering themselves up for the most horrific debaucheries and even begging, when someone had succumbed to their solicitations, to choose that manner rather than the one Nature prescribes, because the frailty of their age meant that they were not yet capable of participating in the usual practice to which the Creator has destined their sex. This would be but a trifle if matters stopped here, but these same horrors are equally on offer by the sex to which this depravity seems to have been reserved. In Naples, both the one and the other are in equal competition in soliciting passions. They will even come and attack you at home. A mother will offer you indifferently whichever of her children, male or female, will the more inflame your penchants. A sister will offer you her brother, a father his daughter, a husband his wife. It is just a matter of paying. With money, you can have in Naples the first-rank duchess in the city, and I ask what becomes of virtue, population, health, in a State where the degradation of mores has come to such a point and where the scrappiest temptation of profit suffices to lead to crime and to reverse the very notion of probity, honour, and virtue. Upright and pleasant gallantry – the honourable commerce of the two sexes  – which kindles all the noble passions and often serves as the hearth of all the virtues, is quite unfamiliar in a city where the brutality of mores only desires sensual pleasure. Cicibeism, so much the custom in Florence and Genoa, is not known here at all. Men and women only gather together at the gaming table. Otherwise, when there is a conversation circle, the women are at one side, the men at the other. In the boxes, at shows, there is a bit more intermingling; acquaintance and gallantry seem a bit greater; in the boxes during the show, one gambles and sups, and this freedom adds a little more civility. Otherwise, there 21 Syphilis. Whether imported from the New World or not, the disease appeared suddenly in Europe in the late fifteenth century. The initial outbreak was associated with the invasion of Charles VIII’s French troops in the campaign to conquer Naples in 1493–1494, thus the Italian name il mal francese – and in English the “French disease” – albeit syphilis was commonly known in French as le mal de Naples. See Mary Hewlett, “The French Connection: Syphilis and Sodomy in Late-Renaissance Lucca,” in Kevin Siena, ed., Sins of the Flesh: Responding to Sexual Disease in Early Modern Europe (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2005), 239; and Lindi Evi Merians, “Introduction,” in Linda Evi Meriens, ed., The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 1 and 5.

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are a few intrigues just like everywhere else, but the libertinism on all sides bears all the expenses and that delicacy, that delicious sentiment born of the union of two hearts born to love and to respect one another and that alone polishes mores and softens them, completely unknown in Naples, will in all likelihood allow that tone of indecency and rudeness that scandalizes those of us in more distinguished societies to reign for a long time still. The excessive taste for music in Naples often brings together several people under one roof to listen to it being played. This is what are called Academies. Women from the opera along with castrati are hosted for their talent. Here, they are heard with pleasure, and it even seemed to me that they were spoiled, just like in France, which is another great defect in a state. Let us cherish the arts, encourage them, honour them, but let us leave the artists in their place. If you bring them close to you, they soon distance themselves from themselves, and once you have accustomed them to being your equals, egoism, which makes them think that such consideration belongs to them above and beyond their talent, soon makes them lazy and brash. The arts can only lose. I would like artists to be honoured. I even think that they are recompensed in Europe at a much lower level than they deserve. But I also would like that, with respect to their talents, they remain ever convinced that only this talent is acclaimed and not the person. Clearly, if they perceive that it is the talent, they will put all their effort into perfecting it, whereas they will completely neglect it if they think that it is the person. This maxim cannot be too highly recommended to kings and to great lords who are surrounded by artists and who do not suspect that they spoil them by bringing them too close. A hundred louis more and a dinner less, and you will see the arts flourish and the impudence disappear. To finish this tableau, I must admit that nonetheless virtues will be found amid all the vices that I have just called on to characterize this nation. The people are doubtless rustic, coarse, superstitious, and brutal, but there is a frankness and sometimes even a civility to them, and the best proof of this is that this immense populace keeps itself in order without police. The bourgeoisie is courteous and thoughtful. I prefer them to the nobility, whose haughtiness and pride drags them down in proportion to their desire to raise themselves up. In general, here is a nation to be formed, but doing so is neither the work of one day or of one reign. Let me now reflect a bit on the principal cause of all these vices. We have just seen what the nation is. Let us see what it has been and what it could be.22 Interior of the City of Naples23 The first thing that strikes the eyes of the traveller who enters the city of Naples are the flat-topped houses, built this way so as to accommodate the terraces that the extreme heat of the climate makes indispensible in the summer. From whatever angle you happen to approach, you always go alongside that superb Via Toledo, which at a length of almost a mile and a half, divides the city from the square of Spirito Santo, where it ends, up to the square in front of the castle. This street would be undeniably one of the most beautiful that 22 Marginal note: “Follow the books of Goudar, Giannone, and the summary that you will have received, and merge all together in fitting order.” For Sade’s sources, including those mentioned here, see the introduction to this volume. 23 Large notebook of 33 pages in manuscript, entirely in Sade’s hand. On the cover page: “Second notebook, to be joined to the one numbered 1st. / Don’t forget to discuss the Capuan plague in greater detail than you have.”

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you might see in any city in Europe without the shops that are allowed to encroach almost halfway into it and that spoil it all the more insofar as these shops are as a whole butchers and sellers of other comestibles, which makes for stench and noise. The tumult and perpetual daily traffic on this grand street give the city of Naples quite a populous feel, as lively as Paris. The coaches there are always in two or three lines; the carriages or little, very light cabriolets, which serve in Naples as hackney coaches and of which there is a seeming infinitude, weave perpetually and with singular skill among all these vehicles and all this without congestion and almost always without accident. There are a few other major streets in Naples, Montoliveto among others, which is almost as long and as wide as the Via Toledo. But in general all the rest are narrow. There are streets – primarily shopping streets – where it is almost impossible to pass in a vehicle. The quarter of the archbishop [Palazzo Arcivescovile], where the ancient Parthenope24 was once located and where you still see plenty of ruins of ancient houses and a few stumps of antique columns, numbers among them. Otherwise, nothing could be more pleasant than the situation of this lovely city, which backs onto the Posillipo Hill and fronts in the form of an amphitheatre the beautiful gulf, the two extremities of which are the Cape of Misena and that of Minerva, with the Isle of Capri before it and seemingly serving as a perspective point. It is difficult to find a more delightful orientation. It [Capri] is located to the east. To that side, there is Vesuvius, which seems to bound it, although it is more than three leagues distant. On the other side, to the west, lies all that lovely area of Pozzuoli, Baiae, Cuma, and the two islands of Ischia and Procida. To judge properly the extent of this superb city, you must go along the semi-circular path that it traces along the sea from the Punta di Posillipo to the Ponte della Maddalena, a stretch of some five miles. Such is the promenade that a foreigner must make to judge adequately this magnificent city. After having gone along the Chiaia Quay, lined on one side with lovely buildings and with beautiful fountains on the other, you find yourself at the Egg Castle [Castel dell’Ovo], which is located in the sea and to which access is via a small jetty: a lovely and solid fortification that defends this entire sector. In earlier days, the Gardens of Lucullus were here. You can still make out a few vaults that apparently bespeak ancient constructions. Next, to continue the tour that I have just laid out, you pass through Santa Lucia, which is bordered by a singularly lively and pleasant quay, and you come to the aqueduct of the Darsena, at the top of which is the statue of the Giant, found in a temple close to Cumae.25 From there, you go along the length of the palace, around the Old Castle, and you enter into the Strada Nuova, a lovely promenade built upon the edge of the sea and made, in part, by the current king in Spain.26 This promenade leads up to the Ponte della Maddalena, at the end of which begins the route to Portici. Allow me to repeat myself: this 24 A substantial Greek colony that took its name from a mythological siren and that emerged around the eighth or ninth century BCE. The name Neopolis, from which Napoli, i.e., Naples, is derived, is also Greek in origin, meaning “new city.” 25 The Darsena is a basin or wet dock, where the kingdom’s galleys were moored; it is not an “acqueduct,” as Sade terms it. Of the statue, Johann Georg Keyssler, in his Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain (London: 1760), reports that “the colossus which stands at Naples, not far from the Darsena, called il Gigante di Palazzo” is “supposed to have been a Jupiter Terminalis” and is said to have been unearthed in the remains of temple near the Arco Felice (3:141–2). 26 Sade has erred: the route from the Castel dell’Ovo through Santa Lucia would bring you alongside the Palazzo Reale and then to the Castel Nuovo (i.e., the New Castle, and not some supposed “Old Castle”).

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is the tour to make in order to observe the beauty of this city with engagement. Here, you see the different bays that curve towards the interior and that, all built up and adorned with quays, only serve to beautify and to add to the large semicircle that makes the city. Not counting the suburbs, its expanse is some nine miles and, counting them, some eighteen. The buildings of Naples, although there are some that are stately and beautiful, nonetheless have nothing striking about them in terms of magnificence, but you do note their perfect regularity, and you cast your eyes on an almost ubiquitous uniformity, a consequently pleasant sight. The city has no other fortifications than the Castel Nuovo and the Castel Sant’Elmo. Moreover, it is enclosed by a strong wall, flanked by a few towers. You enter via fifteen gates that are never closed because of the amount of traffic. The gate known as the Capuan is worth examining thanks to the beauty of its bas-reliefs. It is a sort of triumphal arch. You must, above all, examine the nature of the stone, which has the hardness and colour of iron and the lightness of the bas-reliefs (see the guide under the heading Capuan Gate). Everywhere Naples is well paved, well-enough maintained, and while internal policing seems to be a matter to which little attention is paid, none of those disorders occur that the lack of care or of cleanliness make so frequent in our French cities, even those with the best policing. If it is hard to find a more beautiful city than Naples, it is equally hard to find one where the climate is more pleasant. The winter that I spent there was that of 1775–1776. The coldness of that winter in Paris was one degree more than in 1709.27 All winter long in Naples you could go out for promenades. We saw neither snow nor ice, and there were not eight days during which a fire was necessary. Nature, which seems to have preferentially favoured this lovely country out of all of Europe, produces everything completely naturally, without care or cultivation, and one can truthfully say that if the industry of the inhabitants corresponded to the efforts of Nature, there would not be a more magnificent country, nor a richer one, in the world. But the agriculturalist, naturally languid and lazy, softened by the temperature of the climate, trusts to Nature and the latter acts almost always alone in this divine country. The trees are not bare for three months. The earth is almost always carpeted. All winter we ate peas, and we had strawberries at the end of March. Situated at the edge of the sea, Naples has no need of a river. A stream is the only running water in the vicinity. It is called the Sebeto. It flows from east to west. At the time of the eruption of 79, it disappeared.28 The proximity of its spring to Vesuvius makes this phenomenon less remarkable. Some time afterwards, it reappeared, but much smaller. It flows into the sea at the Ponte della Maddalena. Its waters are used for a few public fountains; the remainder waters the countryside. There are few regularly shaped squares in Naples. That of the Holy Spirit [Piazza Spirito Santo], once finished and the statue of the king of Spain that will grace it unveiled, will be one of the most regularly shaped, although it will still fall far short of the beauty and magnificence of ours. You do not see beautiful public buildings in Naples. I will speak in detail of those that will be found there, but these are quite few indeed. He repeats this mistake on other occasions in this chapter, perhaps because the Castel Nuovo was, in fact, one of the older buildings in Naples, with construction on it begun in 1279. 27 A reference to the epochally cold winter in Europe in 1709, called the “The Great Frost” in English. Along with deaths from hypothermia and other immediate negative effects, the consequent famine reinforced the memorability of the event. 28 To be clear: the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, when both Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried.

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Some fountains. The one named Fontana Medina, to which the duke of Medina, viceroy of Naples, gave his name, has in appearance something about it, to be sure, but none of those beauties of detail that we find in those of Rome. A lovely marble basin, in the middle of which is a fairly large mushroom of water, and some others in Chiaia, but these are not worth the trouble of describing at length. Generally speaking, if you are seeking out the arts, Naples is not the place to come. Having quit Rome, you leave them behind. You should only come here looking for Nature, and I dare think that it is superior here than the arts are even in Rome. Virgil is the traveller whom you have need to have in hand while traversing this happy countryside where he made his hero roam, and you find in spite of the revolutions that have laid waste to this beautiful country, its appearance has nonetheless still not changed enough not to recognize it from the descriptions that he made thereof. The city of Naples, no more than any city in Italy, is not lit. But the amount of lights that border the shops, the huge number of torch bearers who work the city, as much to light up the carriages as people on foot, render such precautionary measures useless, and I have seen winter evenings when the Via Toledo was infinitely brighter than the Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, in spite of the street lamps that have cost so much care, trouble, and thought and that today cost so much in upkeep. And besides, our police lieutenants would be quite in the wrong not to profoundly consider with regard to our home city such a serious matter, since we have long since noticed that lanterns or street lamps mark a necessary step for climbing into boats and that it is a given in our French politics that knowing how to light Paris well is all that you need to know in order to run the Navy.29 After having, as we have just done, traversed this lovely city on the large scale in order simply to give a general idea of it, I am now going to detail the different public and private buildings that in Naples are worthy of the traveller’s attention. I have not followed any particular order in this part of the tour, because I have noticed that this methodical and pedantic way of proceeding never serves any purpose. Everyone will make his way as he pleases, and rarely – whatever order Monsieur Richard should have followed in his tours – rarely, I say, will any foreign visitor undertake his along the same routes. It therefore seemed to me enough to point out everything, and using the table that I have placed at the end of the work, each person can instantly locate the specifics of the place that he wants to visit. The infinite respect that I have for the holy objects of our respectable form of worship demand that I begin with churches.30 I will put palaces next, and then two tours beyond the walls of Naples, a western one and an eastern one.31 San Gennaro, church in gothic taste, in which I saw nothing worthy of note, unless we count two fairly attractive Corinthian columns that support the arch of the quarter-sphere vault. You must see the catacombs here, which are famous for their extent and that once served as a refuge for the early Christians, whose mysteries, we know, could not bear the 29 Antoine Raymond Jean Gualbert Gabriel de Sartine, Comte d’Alby (1729–1801) had been the lieutenant general of the Paris police (1759–1774) and had recently been appointed secretary of state for the navy. Sade’s remark is a sarcastic jibe at a man for whom he had little liking and, indeed, personal animus. As lieutenant general, Sartine oversaw the development of a secret police network that increasingly targeted aristocratic libertinism. Sade had personally felt Sartine’s power in the affair of Jeanne Testard. See the introduction to this volume, as well as Neil Schaeffer, The Marquis de Sade: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 55–66. 30 A marginal note here states the obvious: “Mockery [persiflage].” 31 Sade remarks: “Note. Nothing is in order, but this will be done by following any itinerary.”

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full light of day. They are infinitely more lovely and more vast than those of San Lorenzo and San Sebastiano in Rome. The principal walkway is completely in the style of that found along the banks of Lake Averno and that ignorant folk call the Cave of the Sibyl, and which, like it, doubtless had some original purpose that has been lost to us today.32 You can make out in these subterranean passages several walkways and several levels, and everywhere niches have been fashioned into the rock, of a size suited for placing cadavers. You will see a few spots that are more decorated, porticoes, columns, and embellishments made, without doubt, at the time that Christians lived in these refuges. A few remnants of paintings that you see and that are particular to these locales prove this fact. Bones of the dead are everywhere; you find them in piles. You see, among others, a sort of vault wherein are placed pell mell and over a very large stretch an enormous number of bones, concerning which some say are those of the victims of the plague that ravaged Naples in 1656. Others say that they were the victims of one of the late revolts. What is certain is that these remains are not very old. It is likely that the original purpose of these subterranean grottoes, which you see in such great number throughout the region, was initially to serve to create passageways beneath the mountains or perhaps as refuges for those unfortunates for whom the first fury of volcanoes, with which we have never been familiar, made staying in the cities unworkable. There is in this house a conservatory for young women and a nuns’ convent, it being fitting and right that upon the ruins of Nature should be built objects fated to ceaselessly repair them and who, nonetheless, because of the weakness of their constitutions, become hardly more useful to the work than the ashes upon which they live.33 Santa Teresa, the church that neighbours the aforementioned. The interior space is lovely, but poorly adorned and poorly decorated, with architecture in poor taste. It has a single aisle and four chapels, on the right and on the left, that fill up the pilasters. It is in the form of a Greek cross. At either side of the transept crossing are two paintings by Giacomo del Po, one of which depicts a Battle and the other the Flight into Egypt. Both of them, in spite of Monsieur Richard’s praise, make no impact and are worthless. You see in them neither balance nor harmony but, on the contrary, much mannerism and a great weakness in the colouring. The boat in the Flight into Egypt, which the romantic imagination of Monsieur Richard compares to the one in which Cleopatra went out to meet Antony, far from being decorated as he says, is absurd and denuded of any decoration. If that prodigal queen didn’t have another one in which to go out and greet her lover, we should have a hard time believing that she pushed luxury so far as to drink, distilled [viz., dissolved] in vinegar, a pearl of the highest value. You will see in the choir two side panels that are said to have been painted by a nun in the convent. Monsieur Richard speaks not of these and they are, to my mind, infinitely superior to the two made by that Giacomo whom he praises. They both depict Adorations of Christ, the one by the sheperds and the other by the kings. In the second chapel to the left are, on the ceiling panels, little frescoes that are pretty enough. In the rear, to the right and to the left of the high altar, are two side chapels – one dedicated to Saint Joseph and the other to Saint Teresa – that, although in bad taste, are nonetheless made to be seen because of their lavishness and the marbles that adorn them. In the former you will be shown, as if it were something quite extraordinary, a frontal portrait that stares 32 Sade will discuss the Antro della Sibilla at length in his description of the environs of Naples (see pp. 281–2). 33 Marginal note: “Note. This entire tour of the interior is in order.”

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at you always and from whatever angle you look at it. You must admit that to present this as a curiosity quite proves the ignorance and barbarousness into which this nation is still submerged with regard to the arts. But what is really magnificent in this church, and is worth seeing, are the two doors at the choir and the high altar, which are entirely encrusted with gemstones in the Florentine style. You see much lapis [lazuli], Sicilian agate, amethyst, emerald plasma, etc. Such minute and carefully put together work is, in my opinion, still not worth the time that it takes. The portal of this church, which is in as bad taste as the interior, is adorned with two lovely enough columns of verd antique that support the entabulature of the entry gate. Closeby is the Church of the Sanità [Basilica di Santa Maria della Sanità] (this must be placed first when returning from the catacombs). The altar, of a rare type, creates in the back a rather peculiar effect and it would be lovely were it better handled. You reach it via a double staircase made of marble. Behind it is the choir, and under the vault formed by this raised altar is an underground chapel that a large marble curtain, which appears tied up like drapery, seems to reveal. The whole is lavish but utterly tasteless. It is said that this chapel was once part of the catacombs, which do appear to lead up to this spot. This church has three aisles and is in the shape of a Greek cross. You will see there some Giordanos [i.e., paintings by Luca Giordano], but these are feeble and in the most middling style. We know that Giordano rushed and worked more for money than for glory. You must take note in the painting of the Magdalene in ecstasy how much this artist has copied Guido, without however having laid hold of his gracefulness. But the entire draftsmanship of this composition is mediocre, and you see how much this great man overly surrendered himself to his large clientele. In the area to the right are two pieces by [Andrea] Vaccaro by which you might judge him almost the pupil of Guercino [i.e., Giovanni Francesco Barbieri], although his manner might nonetheless be a little too stylistically brittle. You are shown in the sacristy of this church a monstrance in a new style and in which the lightness of the workmanship corresponds to both the beauty of the idea and the richness of the material. The church and the Charterhouse of San Martino [Certosa di San Martino], located on one of the hills that dominates the city between the west and north. This building brings together all that you might wish for in terms of prospects, air, and charm. It would be without distress that you might sign up to share such solitude. I do not think that there is a single place, in the vicinity of Naples, from which you can judge its expanse and geography as from there. Even were there nothing of interest about this building, you would need to climb up to it with the express purpose of examining the picturesqueness of its location. This city that you overlook and that you see laid out in the form of an amphitheatre on the edge of the bay, the sea to the right, Vesuvius before you, all those objects as if at your command and over which you seem to have authority, give birth simultaneously to two emotions that are quite contrary and that nonetheless follow one another in rapid succession: pride and humility. Those magnificent habitations appear from here like an anthill, those lavish people who built them are from here but what they are in the eyes of Nature: larvae. And when we imagine that it takes but one of her whims to make tumble and return to nothingness everything that appears to have cost so many pains to these little, vain humans, what sad reflections do we make on both her laws and on ourselves. The Church of the Carthusians has only one aisle. To the right and to the left are chapels situated, three to each side, in the openings of the intercolumniations. The interior space is lovely, although small. Everything is lavish, adorned with handsome marbles. But this church, as with all those in Naples, exudes a Gothicness that is striking after Rome. The

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Ascension and everything related to it makes up the subject of the ceiling. It is the work of [Giovanni] Lanfranco. It is all grand, lovely, and well handled, yet in spite of what Monsieur Richard says, those travellers who wish to follow my route will, I think, like me, find that the tone of the colours is a bit weak. Each crossing of the vault is placed between two Apostles, also painted by Lanfranco. All twelve are accounted for. I prefer the tone of their colours, and the draperies in this case are more grand. Situated in the archivolts are twelve paintings by Lo Spagnoletto [i.e., Jusepe de Ribera] that depict twelve Prophets, which are beautiful in colour and quite powerful. Above and to each side of the entry door are Moses and Elijah by Giordano, sublimely beautiful. You can see that in the Elijah the artist attempted to imitate Lo Spagnoletto, which only helped strengthen his brush. Between these two pieces and precisely above the door is a Descent from the Cross by Cavaliere Massimo [Stanzioni], falsely attributed to Lo Spagnoletto by that connoisseur of little cognizance Monsieur Richard: harsh, without accuracy or proportion. Christ is infinitely too small in relation to the other figures, and it was not worth the trouble that worthy Richard took to unfurl his eloquence to praise such a feeble effort. In the Chapel of San Martino are two works by [Francesco] Solimena, without charm, quite blackened, but nevertheless well enough drawn. The subject of one is Saint Martin sharing his coat with a poor man. The other is an Apparition of Christ to the same Saint Martin. At the back of the choir are five paintings that merit mention of a few details and a few observations. The one face-on is by Guido. It depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds. Everything in it reveals the finest brush and the greatest naturalness. The loveliest harmony reigns throughout. Yet you discover so many beauties in this work that you can only regret the more that this piece was unfinished. It is but a sketch that no artist is likely to dare complete. To the left is Jesus Christ giving communion to his Apostles by Lo Spagnoletto; it is one of the loveliest works by this grand master. You could not bestow too much praise on the truthfulness, the sublimity of the colouring of this charming painting. It is simply unfortunate that the artist was obliged to paint heaven into this piece, into which he nestled some ridiculous, as well as poorly drawn and poorly proportioned, angels. To the side, still on the left, facing the back of the choir and of the same size is a Washing of the Feet of Our Lord, depicted at nighttime, without truthful lighting. It is said to be by one of the Carracci, but you would be hard pressed to find the truth, the artist having disguised his style beneath that of Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Heading to the right side, the first one that you see is by Cavaliere Massimo: Our Lord settling into place at the Last Supper, depicted in a frigid and complicated manner in which it is quite difficult to untangle the truth. The composition is harsh and without impact. You can see in it the desire to imitate Paolo Veronese. The second piece, on the same side, is a Last Supper, likewise an imitation of this grand master and one in which you can make out only mediocrity and pretentiousness. In the last chapel to the left are three pieces by a fellow by the name of Francesco de Mura, which Monsieur Richard tells us, for I know not what reason  – doubtless on the sacristan’s good word – are by Paolo de Matteis. Although this painter is still alive, I will nonetheless remark that there is nothing learned in a single one of these pieces, and other than a bit of showiness, which is only made to seduce the likes of Richard and the ignorant, the only thing that you find in these three works is inaccuracy in the draftsmanship, heaviness in the draperies, and marked affectation. They depict the Assumption, the Visitation, and the Annunciation. You will certainly understand if I do not have my reader dally before them and, instead, direct our steps promptly to the sacristy, which contains more essential objects.

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Above the doorway of this room is an excellent piece by Caravaggio that depicts the Denial of Saint Peter. It is here that you must examine Nature in all of its beauty and all of its truth. Higher up is a large crucifix by Cavaliere d’Arpino, in a lovely style and beautifully drawn. The frescoes on the vaults are likewise by his hand. At the archivolt of the arched passageway where you enter the treasury, you will note a few paintings the people in which are by Massimo and the architecture by [Antonio] Viviani, nicely distributed. In the vestibule beyond and that immediately precedes the treasury are, above the doors, two pieces by Giordano in which it is difficult to make out the sublimity of this great master. We know that he was wont to imitate. In this case, he has followed Paolo Veronese, but wouldn’t he have done better to be himself? In a little room to the side, which apparently serves as a piscina, you see a Christ at the Column, incorrectly attributed to Michelangelo. At the altar facing out, in the rear of the chamber known as the Treasury, is a Pietà by Lo Spagnoletto, in which this great master outdid himself to such a degree that connoisseurs judge this piece a thousand times more than all the riches stored in the cabinets of this room. All praise is beneath what it inspires. You must renounce praising it – the rhetoric will ever fall short – but you must admire it, above all, since the artist knew how preserve the expression of tenderness and of compunction via the foreshortened Magdalene who kisses the foot of the cadaver. What a difference there is between the angels placed on high and those of the painting of the Communion, by the same master, of which I spoke about in the choir! What naturalness, what truth, what proportions in this one! You can only be stunned by Monsieur Richard’s silence regarding this sublime work. At the vault there is a remarkable composition, full of fire and fancy, by Giordano. It is of Judith frightening the army with the head of Holofernes. But it is here, and not in the sacristy as Monsieur Richard would have it. The coloration is charming and an allurement and remarkable enthusiasm reigns throughout. All the drawings on the ceiling are by the same. This vault is, moreover, remarkably ornate. In the cabinets in these rooms are many items of silver and gold, apt for the church but hardly made for the eyes of a connoisseur who seeks not the dazzling and sticks to the striking. You will see three magnificent chalices, one of which is entirely of gold and the two others half gold and half Neapolitan porcelain, which looks a lot like that of Saxony … A silver monstrance or baldachin, in the centre of which is a most magnificent Blessed Sacrament made of gold and gemstones. Nearby are other cabinets in which are supposed relics – pathetic playthings of Christian superstition – that I hardly examined more than the furniture that houses these tedious mysteries. Heading back into the sacristy, you must examine there the marquetry of the cabinets, everything done with great delicacy and well designed. The cloister of this house, entirely of marble and of the loveliest architectural order, is worthy of attentive examination. The courtyard that it encloses is vast, taken up in one part by sections of parterre and in the other by the cemetery around which there is a marble balustrade, decorated with skulls, likewise made of marble and quite well sculpted. You must not miss in the prior’s apartment Michelangelo’s famous Christ, which we are told was veritably drawn from life. Although a quite simple matter in the eyes of an artist philosopher, this procedure does not seem likely, however. Inspecting the piece, you can easily recognize that he could not have captured the truthful tone that it has unless the model had not, in fact, been before his eyes, bound and tied. Yet we still don’t know if he truly crucified him in order to grasp, from Nature itself, those precious moments of truth that one can only find therein. Perhaps he would have done well to have carried through with it in order to attain perfection, but the piece doesn’t achieve this, and consequently I believe that he didn’t do it, because Michelangelo, like any

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other, had his prejudices, and prejudice was and always will be the reef of true talent. In this same room are various other pieces that are worthy of observation: among others a sketch by Solimena depicting an Apotheosis of Saint Dominic, a charming Nativity by a painter whose name escapes me, two lovely Giordanos in the style of Paolo Veronese, another sketch by Solimena of a painting seen at San Domenico Maggiore, and several other little pieces by this great man that produce the greatest pleasure. Above the fireplace in the prior’s reception room, a sketch by Domenichino [i.e., Domenico Zampieri] that depicts the Calling of Saint Peter. The house library is small, but said to be well put together. I saw two rooms that appeared to me full enough, but not magnificent. However, the simple style of binding books in Italy not lending itself in the least to showing off the splendour of this sort of wealth, I was assured that the wine cellar of the Reverend Fathers was still more complete and more magnificently adorned. I saw the apothecary, which seemed to me clean, albeit simple. I believe that it is extensive and well stocked. In some of the cabinets are corals and other little curiosities of natural history, but purely there for their attractiveness and neither select nor linked to a collection. A little higher up is the Castel Sant’Elmo, the fortifications of which extend all the way to the Charterhouse. The only things going for this fortress are its location and the prodigious depth of its moat, which appears to be more than two hundred feet. Besides, its structures are mediocre and do not appear sheltered from a lively attack. Prisoners of the state are kept under the watch of a commander and two hundred and fifty garrisoned troops. You will see some war munitions, several cannons, some of which are aimed at the city – which proves the immense faith the king has in his subjects! – justified however by the historical revolutions of this people, whose fickleness and penchant for revolt characterize its spirit. The story of Masaniello alone furnishes us with a striking example of its hotheadedness and inconstancy.34 The castle takes it name from an ancient church dedicated to Saint Elmo or to Saint Erasmus, which was formerly located upon this spot. Originally, it was naught but a tower built by the Normans. Charles II augmented it, given the importance of its position. Charles V finished the work by giving it the form we see today, and Philip V added a few more 34 Masaniello was the head of a revolt in Naples in 1647 against Habsburg Spain and particularly its taxation policies during the Thirty Years War. Born in Amalfi in 1623 and a fisherman by trade, Tommaso Aniello – abbrieviated to Masaniello – was assassinated on 16 July 1647. His rebellion inspired numerous authors of poetry and opera, and his name and example was invoked in political theory by writers such as John Locke and Thomas Paine. Wrote Locke, in refutation of Robert Filmer’s derivation of the divine right of kings from the sovereignty of Adam and de facto power: “And had [our author] the Happiness to live under Massanello’s [sic] Government, he could not by this his own Rule have forborn to have done Homage to him, with O King live for ever, since the Manner of his Government by Supreme Power, made him properly King, who was but the Day before properly a Fisherman.” John Locke, Two Treatises of Government [1689], ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 201. And Paine: “A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some Massanello [sic] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense and Other Writings [1776], ed. Gordon S. Wood (New York: Modern Library, 2003), 32.

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structures still. It is a fairly regularly shaped hexagon, almost entirely carved out of solid rock. The centre is occupied by the church, the house of the commander, the barracks, prisons, magazines, and lovely enough exercise yard. It is said that there are a large number of secret passages of which one, among others, ends up at the Castel Nuovo, which I will discuss in due course. You must see the cistern, completely hollowed out of rock and sheltered from bombs by its construction. It is very large, and the water from it particularly cool and refreshing. This fortress seemed to me from every angle to offer middling resistance, and the city would be ill-at-ease if ever enemies came and took hold of it. You are shown in this castle a sentry box positioned in the direction of Pozzuoli, in which it is claimed it is impossible to put any sentries. Already several dead ones have been found therein, and the soldiers have the brass to assure you that the devil is killing them. More reasonable folk say that the air carries into it from time to time pernicious exhalations from the mofette of Solfatara.35 It would seem difficult that, as rarefied as they are arriving at this point, they might still retain enough venom to kill a man, and the case of this sentry box is perhaps but a simple tale, as there are those passed from generation to generation in every old castle. Precisely above the opening of the grotto that goes from Naples to Pozzuoli, known by the name of the Grotto of Posillipo, is one of the most interesting monuments of Antiquity, seen today in a great state of abandonment and dilapidation.36 This is Virgil’s tomb. It is located in a very rustic country garden and so high up on the summit of the mountain into which the grotto is fashioned that you must not walk there without taking care, for fear of falling off the terrifying cliff via the opening made for this tomb and that is the same as it was in former times. It seems that the mountain once extended to the other part [i.e., to this opening], for today this gateway, which plunges perpendicularly off the cliff, cannot be reached. You penetrate into the underground chamber via a modern opening. This vault or underground chamber might be ten or twelve feet square, and worked into it you will see little niches for the purpose of placing urns, which proves that not the ashes of Virgil alone were deposited here. This reticularly structured monument, the interior walls of which seem to have been covered with stucco decorated with frescoes, has moreover, nothing extraordinary about it. Those in the vicinity of Pozzuoli offer much more in the way of symmetry and ornamentation. Above is that famous bay tree that is said to be immortal, yet the gardener who tends it cannot help admitting to fraud and acknowledges that he replaced it when it became too old. When I saw it, it was extremely small, and all that he could manage was to pluck a few leaves for me. He excused himself by saying that the English were forever taking cuttings. Should we be astonished, given this, at the number of great men that these islanders have bequeathed to the world of letters? And how could a few laurels remain for the French to gather where the English have reaped them? Opposite the newly fashioned entry is an inscription, likewise modern, the words of which I will provide and that Monsieur Richard has transcribed in totally unlike fashion, as you can see on page 152 of his fourth volume. As for myself, here are the ones that I read, and I can affirm that this is what they are word for word: 35 Sade will discuss the Solfatara mofette, near Pozzuoli, in the next chapter (pp. 264–6). The dormant volcano still releases the sulphurous exhalations responsible for its name. 36 Marginal note: “Virgil’s tomb.” Although the poet was likely entombed somewhere in the vicinity, this structure is probably not what tradition ascribed. As Sade expresses in rather contorted fashion, the entrance to this columbarium is now well above ground level, although it would not have been in former times.

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Journey to Italy QVI CINERES TVMVLI HÆC VESTIGIA CONDITVR OLIM ILLE HIC CECINIT PASCVA RVRA DVCES CAN : REG. M.D.L. IIII (1554).37

Not far from here is the Church of the Madonna del Parto [Santa Maria del Parto a Mergellina], famous for containing the depository of the ashes of the poet Sannazaro, who florished at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth.38 This monument is located at the back of the choir. On a plinth about one foot high there is a large base in the Corinthian order and at the edges of this base is a column to either side, in the two shafts of which are the armorial bearings of the poet in bas-relief. In the middle of this base are two genii holding up a signboard on which the following lines from Bembo have been inscribed: DA SACRO FLORES, HIC ILLI MARONI SINCERVS, MVSA, PROXIMVS, VT TVMVLO.39

Upon this mass has been raised the tomb, supported by two small pedestals that have two goat heads in relief on their shafts, very artistically wrought. On the two columns of the base are two statues of Minerva and Apollo, with nice drapery, but precious and quite 37 Translated, from A Classical and Historical Tour through France, Switzerland, and Italy (London, 1826), an early nineteenth-century account of a European tour by an anonymous author: Whose tomb? Whose ashes here repose? His tomb we raise Who, erst did sing of warriors, flocks, and rural lays. (2:122) Sade has seemingly made a transcription error of “hic” for “hoc.” Otherwise, this was the inscription engraved in marble across from the supposed tomb of Virgil. See James Hakewill, A Picturesque Tour of Italy, from Drawings Made in 1816–1817 (London, 1820], n.p. Jérôme Richard, in vol. 4 of his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), on p. 152 gives the inscription as: Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc Parthenope, cecini pascua, rura, duces. Translated: Mantua give birth to me, Calabria carried me off, And Naples holds me now. I sang of pastures, fields, and leaders. On the discrepancy, Keyssler reported that in the middle of the sixteenth century, the tomb still had an urn, pillars, and the latter inscription. The same inscription was set up again in 1684, presumably after the tomb had fallen into disrepair, although Keyssler notes that at present – his travels were originally published in German in 1740–1741 – the only inscription remaining was the one Sade cites (Travels, 2:109). It would thus appear that Sade’s complaint about Richard is justified. Neither inscription survives today. 38 The Neapolitan humanist and poet Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) was the author of the influential pastoral romance Arcadia, completed c. 1489. Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) was, among other things, a cardinal and an important theorist of literature and language. He was the founder of the church in question, which derives its name from Jacopo Sannazaro’s poem De partu Virginis [On the Virgin’s Childbirth]. 39 His lines on the epitaph read: “Strew flowers in this holy place, for here lies Sincerus, close to Maro by both muse and burial.” Actius Sincerus was Sannazaro’s pseudonym and Virgil’s full name was Publius Vergilius Maro. Bembo plays on the proximity of the tombs to mark their poetic affinity, especially as Virgil was the crucial classical reference to the pastoral genre or eclogue.

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affected. At the base of these statues are inscribed the names David and Judith in order to assuage insufferable superstition. Between the two small pedestals that support the tomb is a bas-relief depicting nymphs and fauns at play, doubtless like those in the poems by this poet who sang of shepherds. This piece seems infinitely inferior to the statues, and I doubt that it was made by the same hand. Upon these two pedestals are two columns upon which, as I have just mentioned, is supported the tomb, adorned with a frieze in the ancient style, and upon this tomb is the bust of the poet crowned with laurel, placed between two genii reclining on garlands of cypress, one of which holds a helmet and the other a volume of the poet’s works. The bust is good, but the two genii are quite affected and generally poor. The entire work is attributed to Angelo [i.e., Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli], a Florentine; and in fact, those who are familiar with the Florentine style will very readily discern it in this piece, the whole of which offers absolutely nothing admirable and has, I believe, no other merit than finding itself in a land where the lack of the good will ever make the mediocre acceptable. On the wall against which this monument backs up have been painted, like on the vault of a choir, some poor poetical frescoes analogous to those in the mausoleum. Monsieur Richard assures us that these are by Rossi.40 I could found nobody in the place who shared this opinion, and it is probable that the authority on which he stakes this claim is as chimerical as the descriptions that he has made thereof. One is shown in this church, in the first chapel to the right upon entering, the mausoleum of a bishop of Ariano from the House of Carafa, who, like a latter-day Joseph, courageously resisted the advances of a pretty woman and had made, in order to immortalize his victory, the altar painting in this chapel, which depicts Saint Michael, painted in his ressemblance, crushing the Devil in the guise of his Potiphar. The head of the Prince of Darkness, which still had to be shown in spite of the allegory, is situated on the belly of the woman, in such a manner that his beard forms that hirsute part that usually covers the entrance to his abode among the distaff side.41 This naughty joke, which has moreover no more charm in the style of its execution than in that of its conception, corresponds best to the hardly religious tomb of Sannazaro and helps make this temple of Christian divinity like enough to those of Isis or of Jupiter.

40 Completed at the end of the sixteenth century, these allegorical frescoes were by Nicola Russo. Richard attributes them to “le Rossi,” by which he presumably meant Francesco de’ Rossi (1510–1563), active in Florence and Rome and thus, as Sade cannot help remarking, an unlikely candidate for the work (Description, 4:150). 41 The painting of Saint Michael triumphing over the Devil, known as The Devil of Mergellina, is the work of Leonardo da Pistoia (1502–1548). An account of the painting’s origin in a nineteenth-century anonymous compilation of amorous exploits, Illustrations of the Passion of Love (London, 1827), reads: As the story goes, a bishop of Arriano, named Diomede Caraffa, a prelate possessed of many personal attractions, having discovered that he had unintentionally excited a violent passion in the bosom of a lady of quality, employed a painter to annex her head and bosom to the body of Satan, in the abovementioned picture. This order being executed, the ungallant bishop made an assignation with the lady in the neighbourhood of the church, into which he contrived to make her enter, in order to see a new chef d’œuvre of painting, upon which she had no sooner cast her eyes, than she discerned her own portrait in the Devil, and that of her companion in the archangel. Aware of the object of her conductor, she retired in great confusion, and gave up all her designs upon the heart of Caraffa, who, in order to celebrate his virtue, and at the same time allude to the name of the lady, who was called Victoria d’Avalos, had the following inscription placed under the painting: Fecit Victoriam, alleluia! 1550. (2:54–5)

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Returning to the city from there, via the suburb of Chiaia, one of the most beautiful and best located in Naples, you find the Church of the Ascension.42 Behind the high altar is a piece by Luca Giordano that depicts Saint Michael expelling the rebel angels from paradise. The overturning of Lucifer’s throne completes their striking down. On this throne these words will be read: Similis ero Altissimo.43 This entire composition is without impact, scattered, rent; the lighting is poorly apportioned, yet you recognize nonetheless a few master strokes. Saint Michael is handsome, albeit a bit large. Close by, on an altar to the right, is another piece by the same that depicts Saint Anne presenting the Virgin to the Everlasting – likewise unharmonious and harsh, inferior even to the former. Besides, the entire church is in an architectural style as coarse as it is cumbrous, unpleasant, and totally lacking in taste. An artist must all the same make the journey here to see these two pieces in order to be familiar with the different styles in which Giordano knew how to work. Monte Oliveto [Sant’Anna dei Lombardi, also known as Santa Maria di Monteoliveto], located a bit off the mid-point of the Via Toledo.44 Beautiful and immense edifice with several cloisters that connect to one another and all very lovely. I will note on this topic that it is in these cloisters that you can get an idea of the houses of the Ancients. Compared with the intact buildings discovered in Pompeii, you see that of the all the antique styles, that of this type of building is the one that has been best preserved up to our days. And it is not suprising that this style should have been preserved in religious buildings, which are less subject than others to variation and to following the whims of luxury. In a room called the Sepulchre at the front of the church is a large recumbent crucifix beneath glass frames, frighteningly realistic. Seven figures surround it, each in a different posture, and so completely lifelike that they impress from three or four feet away. The ensemble is made of terracotta and quite true to life, albeit tasteless and of a genre that is hardly noble. These figures were, we are told, in the king’s palace. It was Alfonso II who made of them a gift to this church. They depict two of his ministers and five of his family members. You will observe a bit of the manner of dress from those days.45 The lamp intended for this room or chapel is of polished Turkish craftsmanship. It was donated by the same king. The church is of a pretty enough shape, with one aisle, graced with four chapels on each side at the openings of the intercolumniations. The ceiling, completely in the taste of that of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, is one of its most lovely decorative elements. It consists of cassions and rosettes, quite gilded and handled with delicacy enough. In the last chapel to the right is a Saint Christopher by Solimena, in which we make out nothing of this master other than his exaggerated manner. In the first chapel on the left (which must be placed before the last one) is a Nativity in bas-relief, handled with much care and patience, which provides an idea of the progress of the arts, this piece dating from

42 Sade mistakenly corrects himself in the margin with the word “Annunciation.” The church in question is, in fact, the Chiesa dell’Ascensione. 43 Isaiah 14:14, from the Vulgate. Translated: “I will be like the most High” (AV). Lucifer is supposed to have said this in his heart before leading the angels in rebellion. 44 Marginal note: “Monte Oliveto.” 45 The group of sculptures in the Chapel of the Sepulchre is Guido Mazzoni’s Lamentation (1492–1494), commissioned by Alfonso II of Naples. The sculptures depict contemporary figures in the guise of biblical ones, with Sannazaro as Joseph of Arimathea, Alfonso II as Saint John, and the humanist and poet Giovanni Pontano as Nicodemus. Sade has erred in the number of figures lamenting Christ: there are six.

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the restoration. You will make out therein the hand of a skilful man.46 In the back of the choir is a Circumcision by Vasari, which is not among the best works of this painter. In the choir are some mausoleums in fairly good taste, belonging to the century of Vasari and in the taste of the Florentine school. The sacristy in this church is quite lovely. The vault is entirely by Vasari, made up of arabesques and frescoed frames, enclosing emblems of various virtues. All these pieces are not of the same vigour and this unevenness leads one to think that pupils must have had, in this work, at least as much of a hand as the master. The other paintings in this room do not match the beauty of the vault. You are shown a Holy Family that is said to be of the school of Raphael, although it seemed to me too mediocre to be attributed to him. You must consider in this room the marble flooring, the inlaid wooden panels, the iron grates, and the fonts. Each of these objects, singularly well handled for its type, ends up contributing to the beauty of this sacristy. It is the same for all the parts that make up this lovely complex. The dormitories above are of an extent and a magnificence that defies description. Four large corridors, about the same size, some sixteen feet in width by two hundred and sixty-six in length, are graced, on both the right and the left, with twelve handsome apartments on each side, with double doors with bronzed locks that are fitted into lovely marble frames and that give the whole vast and sublime edifice more the feeling of a palace than of a convent. The praise that Monsieur Richard bestows on the apothecary, whereas he says not a word about all that I have just described, gave me the desire to see it, and I was quite astonished to find that it was naught but the most dingy and neglected of all the rooms in this lovely complex. I asked for some of those extracts that Monsieur Richard vaunts, but I found not a one of them and was assured that all that was available were some soaps intended for beards and that are fabricated in an entirely different part of the same structure. Herein lies all the difference between seeing and believing! If only Monsieur Richard had limited himself to deceiving the public about such inessential objects!47 The library in this complex […]48 San Filippo Neri, large and lovely church of the Oratorians. It has three aisles, supported by six beautiful granite columns on each side. The ceiling is made of gilded wood, elegantly sculpted and magnificently gilded [sic]. To the right and left are several chapels in some of which some quite lovely paintings will be seen. In the first to the right is a dying Saint Alexis with an angel appearing to him, by Pietro da Cortona. This canvas is pleasant, but not one of the most beautiful by this artist. The high altar is magnificent. There are different drawings created from precious stones on a background of mother of pearl. Yet the shape, the whole, everything is Gothic and in poor taste, and it would be impossible to spend more money with less elegance. At the back of the choir is a painting depicting a Virgin holding the Infant Jesus – not a Nativity of the Virgin, as Monsieur Richard has it.

46 The sculpture in question dates from 1475 and was the work of the Florentine artist Antonio Gamberelli (1427–1479), also known as Antonio Rosselino. By “restoration” Sade intends the supposed rebirth of the arts in modern times, i.e., the era that in later historiography would come to be known as “the Renaissance”; see the introduction to this volume. 47 Richard had observed that “the apothecary, which opens onto the Via Toledo, is vaunted as the loveliest in Italy; it is here that you will find the best Neapolitan soap, pommades, and the finest essences” (Description, 4:155–6). 48 Paragraph left blank with a marginal note: “Library of Monte Oliveto.”

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This piece is handsome, but its seems to have been cropped and spoiled in order to place it where it is. To the right of the high altar, in the chapel at the end of the left aisle, dedicated to Saint Filippo Neri, are several frescoes by Solimena, but so poorly lit that it is difficult to pass judgment on them. They seem nevertheless to be of a delicate type and done in a pleasant manner. At the entrance are two busts, one of the Virgin and the other of Christ, really quite mediocre and that Monsieur Richard would have us take for beautiful, on I know not what basis. Next door, that is, in the sixth chapel of this aisle, is a large altar in two architectural orders and that seemed to me perhaps at the acme of the best examples of this type in Naples. The first order is Corinthian; the second is Composite. Six statues in poor taste adorn this chapel. They are said to be by the father of Cavaliere Bernini, who, if this is the case, was quite fortunate to have a son who might bequeath his name to posterity.49 In the middle of each of these orders is a painting. The lower one is a Nativity by Pomarancio [i.e., Cristoforo Roncalli], a composition of particular verve and grace. There is a stunning accuracy and truthfulness in the bearing of Saint Joseph, a charming naivety in the features of the Virgin, and the sole fault that I could make out was to find it a bit too large. The depiction of heaven above is truly beautiful and well coloured, and we might, in general, place this piece in the rank of the most learned to be found in Naples. The one above, which depicts the Angel announcing to the shepherds the coming of Christ and that is attributed to Santa Fede [i.e., Fabrizio Santafede], may be more learned, more vigorous, but never, to be sure, will it produce the same amount of feeling. Further along, there is a Saint Francis by Guido, full of life and expression in a chapel on the same row; the head, above all, is sublime, although the body is a bit long. In another on the same side is a Saint Filippo Neri and Saint Charles, by Giordano, bold and well composed. I did all I could to unearth the reason that Monsieur Richard tells us that this piece is by a Sicilian painter in the taste of Lo Spagnoletto, to whose works it would be impossible to bear less resemblance. I could never puzzle out why, and I avow that my astonishment at his gaffe only grew when I saw the name of the painter at the base of the painting. You must, I will admit, climb up on the altar and gaze with a bit of care behind the tabernacle to make it out, but at that point it will be read with the greatest ease, and it seemed to me that Monsieur Richard would have done better to have gone to such a minor trouble rather than choosing to pass off on us a major lie – and a lie that does honour neither to his research skills nor to his knowledge of painting. Above the main entryway is a fresco by the same master, a sublime piece in which you recognize all the force of genius of this great man and that pride and boldness that marks his compositions. It depicts Jesus driving the dealers from the Temple, a subject oft repeated and yet never so happily. You must see with what dexterity this skilful man figured out how to make the most of this site. Further, how all is accurate, true, grand, and bold! What a shame that the main figure is not as carefully treated as the others, that it is not as complete nor as developed, and that as often happens with great painters, genius exhausted itself on the composition as a whole and could no longer muster sufficient force for the main figure. Be that as it may, apart from this fault, to which is owed perhaps the sublimity of the

49 Pietro Bernini (1562–1629), a sculptor of no little merit but hardly the equal of his son Gian Lorenzo. He was, indeed, responsible for six statues in the main chapel of the transept of the church, better known today as the Chiesa dei Girolamini.

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work, the entire composition is at once so learned and so beautiful that admiring it never becomes tiresome. The sacristy in this edifice resembles all the rest of this church, that is to say that it is beautiful although in poor taste. You will see therein a few pieces by various masters, such as Palma Vecchio [i.e., Jacopo Palma], Carracci,50 etc. At the altar is a piece by Guido, beautiful, but dark and poorly lit. It depicts the meeting of Saint John and Our Lord in the desert. The façade of this church is impressive on account of the quantity of white marble with which it is decorated. It has splendour, but in general its architecture will never pass for being in the best taste. At such a short distance from Rome, having before your eyes all the lovely monuments of Greek architecture, you never cease to be amazed that the arts of this type should have made so little progress and that there overall reigns such a marked coarseness and such a surprising heaviness. Luxury, we are told, is the father of the arts. They only made so much headway in Greece because the prime mover was in the extreme. Assuredly, Naples today is hardly lacking in this regard. Whence comes it then that what the city hatches is still barbarous? There is no reason for us to seek the cause beyond deadening laws that encourage nothing and an exhaustion natural to an effeminate nation that rots in ignorance and languishes in inactivity. The Church of the Carmelites [Santa Maria del Carmine] has pretty enough proportions.51 It is clad with the loveliest marble facings up to the frieze, and the vault is made of caissons and rosettes of gilded wood, in the same taste as the ceiling of the church that I have just discussed. It has a single aisle, graced with six chapels on each side, in which there is nothing notable to see. In the archivolts of the two chapels just before the choir are pieces by Solimena, painted with delicacy and amenity. This choir, faced entirely in marble treated as if it were marquetry, is full of decorations that bespeak only lavishness and bad taste. In the right chapel, just before the choir, is an Assumption by Solimena, carried out with marked facility. The sacristy is lovely and the woodwork nice. In a neighbouring chapel, you are shown a crucifix, made out of a single piece of amber, worked with as much delicacy as patience. At the back of the church is an image of the Virgin, said to be painted by Saint Luke and brought back from Syria. In spite of the number of candles used to light this rag whenever it is shown, I could make out nothing but a black splotch, with neither shape nor lines, and if this is how Saint Luke worked, he did well to have another trade to make ends meet. Anyone who is willing to believe it is assured that this good Virgin enacts many miracles, and you will see the ex-votos thereof or, rather, depictions in little silver plaques inlaid into the panels of the wall in this chapel.52 In this same chapel are the sad remains of Conradin and Frederick, about whom I will shortly have occasion to speak, when I discuss the monument erected at the spot of their barbarous execution.53 At the end of a superb room, to which connect a few dormitories, 50 Sade almost certainly intends the Neopolitan Caravaggesque painter Battistello Caracciolo (1578–1635), whose Baptism of Christ still adorns the church in question, rather than any of the celebrated Bolognese Carracci family. 51 Marginal note: “The Carmelites.” 52 The icon to which Sade refers is the Madonna Bruna or “Brown Madonna,” perhaps thirteenth-century Tuscan. 53 Conrad (1252–1268), known by the diminutive Conradin, was the son of Conrad IV of Germany and the last legitimate heir of the Hohenstaufen line. He was Duke of Swabia as well as king of Jerusalem and Sicily. In the struggles over the Sicilian throne in the thirteenth cetury, Conrad’s allied forces were defeated by

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is a terrace the view from which is delightful and that overlooks a portion of the Strada Nuova, a fashionable promenade for carriages in Naples, about which I will speak at the proper time. This terrace is infamous because of the death of Masaniello who, in 1647, led an uprising in Naples and, from the humblest origins, had himself named the first tribune of the people, for whom he wished to shake off the yoke of the Spaniards. With a nation so stupid and so fickle, such events could not be of long duration. The people themselves soon destroyed the idol that it had raised on high, and upon this terrace, upon this very spot, trying to win over their minds, he laid himself open to all in order to save his fatherland from the cruelty of the viceroys. The unfortunate received death at the very hands of those whom he wished to liberate. Two sorts of towers, which you will see to the right and to the left of this terrace and that at the time adjoined the convent of the Carmelites, served as fortifications for the latter. Their advantageous position above the city and the port was an eye opener and troops have since continued to be stationed there out of fear – little flattering to the people – that such an occurrence will happen for a second time. It is said that this roiling rebel dared carry the torch of discord even to the pulpit of Peace and Truth and that, using it as a rostrum for harangues, he heated those heads that he had reckoned how to make flock around him and that numbered more than one hundred and fifty thousand. Moreover, I will not dwell upon a well-known event and one that is not within my competence. Messieurs Richard and Lalande, with the help of a little Italian book for sale in Naples that details the day-by-day specifics of this event, have made ample enough use of it to pad their works. The former has excerpted it; the latter has translated it word for word.54 All that might be left for me to do is provide it as it is in the original, but I, unlike these gentlemen, do not have the brass to recklessly risk boring my readers. If I do so, I will at least, more than they, have the advantage of assuring that it is according to me and that the vulgar compilation will never play any part therein. Almost in the middle of the square of the Marketplace [Piazza del Mercato],55 which, moreover, offers nothing more notable than a particularly boisterous populace on the days that it is open, you will see a little chapel erected upon the very spot where cruelty and tyranny, backed up by sacerdotal power and counsel, dared make use of the sword of Justice to publicly assassinate a young sovereign who, based upon rights that he deemed legitimate, arrived to take possession of a State that belonged to him by blood. Conradin, son of the emperor Conrad, had via Constance, daughter of Tancred, last duke of Sicily, the army of Charles of Anjou at the Battle of Tagliacozzo on 23 August 1268. Subsequently captured and imprisoned in the Castel dell’Ovo in Naples, Conrad, along with his companion Frederick of Baden, was beheaded. He was sixteen years old. 54 Richard details the “well-known event” of Masaniello, his leadership of the popular revolt, and his downfall in his Description (4:97–100). Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande provides a brief account of the same in his Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 6:182–3. Their source, in Sade’s view, must be Alessandro Giraffi, Relatione delle Rivolutioni Popolari Successe nel Distretto, e Regno di Napoli nel presente anno 1647. alli 7. Lugio (Padua, 1648), which, written in the immediate aftermath, gives a thorough day-by-day account of the revolt and provides many of the details that the French authors note. Giraffi’s account was published simultaneously in various places, including Ferrara, Gaeta, Geneva, and Venice, as well as without indication of the printing location. It was also translated straightaway into German, English, and Dutch, which gives an impression of how many were interested in the event and how its fame quickly spread across Europe; editions were frequently reprinted in the seventeenth century. Oddly, there was never a French translation. 55 Marginal note: “Chapel of the Carmelites.”

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rights that were not at all imaginary.56 He came to assert them. Accompanying him was young Frederick, his cousin, to lead with him their first military campaign. Pope Clement IV, who wanted to defend the rights of Charles I of Anjou in order to increase his own and concerning whom we are familiar with the reasons for his preference for this sovereign, deemed it fitting to excommunicate these young heroes. This first injustice was enough for Charles; an executioner must avenge the rights that an imposter assures him. A scaffold is raised in the middle of this square in order to give the people simultaneously the spectacle of the most manifest injustice and of the most tender amity.57 The friend of Conrad is executed first, and this young hero still kisses the severed head of his unhappy companion, which he sprinkles with tears at the moment his own is struck off. The memory of this execration is eternalized by a porphyry column erected in the very spot of the scaffold and set in the altar of this little chapel surrounding which are several frescoes relating to this subject, all of which are quite well preserved, whatever Monsieur Richard says. You will see, among others, the unhappy Conradin holding the head of his friend at the instant that he himself is going to receive the fatal blow;58 at his feet is the bloody cadaver of the unfortunate Frederick. The best thing that we can do is to tear ourselves away quickly from objects concerning which we cannot reflect without shuddering and that prove how much, in those centuries of ignorance and superstition, fanatacism opened the door to every crime. A man, whom one believed to be the vicar of God, overturned in his name empires, armed sovereigns, decided the fate of their States … all trembled … he is no more … Bless the fate that had us born in more serene times. This phantom has disappeared – but the shadow remains and still renews too cruelly the fell memory of its atrocities.

56 Marginal note: “See the Histoire.” Several “histoires” discuss Conradin and his fate, including VincentClaude Châlons, L’Histoire de France (Paris, 1720), 1:379–84, and François Eudes de Mézeray, Abrégé chronologique ou extrait de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1690), 1:605–13. The latter was in Sade’s personal library when inventoried after his return to La Coste in 1776. See Alice M. Laborde, La bibliothèque du marquis de Sade au château de La Coste (en 1776) (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 62. Although apparently not in his library, Sade may also be referring to Bonaventure Racine’s Abrégé de l’histoire écclesiastique (Utrecht, 1749), 5:515–21. For a recent account of Conradin, his fate, and the political struggle at stake, see H. Salvador Martínez, Alfonso X, The Learned: A Biography, trans. Odile Cisneros (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 174–84. 57 Marginal note: “See Richard, page 147, fourth volume.” Richard paints the execution scene thus: “Conradin was barely seventeen years old; his greatness of soul was already familiar; he was brave and generous; he had all the qualities of a frank and loyal knight. Frederick of Austria was even younger. Conradin had brought him with him as his first experience in bearing arms. This young prince was executed first, and Conradin received the mortal blow as he held the head of Frederick, whom he had much loved, whose premature death he rued, of which he believed himself the cause. Before dying, he threw his glove onto the square, implored that someone in the assembly bring it to his cousin, Peter of Aragon, who would one day avenge his death” (Description, 4:146). 58 Marginal note: “Insert here how he threw his glove onto the square and the story of his mother coming with his ransom to Naples and who gives all the money to the Carmelites to pray to God for her son instead of using it to avenge him. / And further on, you will say her statue standing and not kneeling (as Richard says), holding a purse in her hand, is at the entrance to the cloister of the Carmelites. / You will add to the inscription there: Non lacrymas pro illis [not tears for them]. In what sense!?” Sade has already answered his query, which may be taken as rhetorical. The full Latin inscription explains that Conradin’s mother out of munificence did not – or did more than – shed her tears at the site but rather bestowed the ransom money, otherwise brought in vain, on the Carmelites.

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Close to this square is the promenade of the Strada Nuova that you see from the terrace of the Carmelites about which I have just spoken.59 It extends along the Ponte Nuovo up until the Ponte della Maddalena, a distance of about a mile. At the end is the route to Portici. This promenade, exceedingly less pleasant than that of the Quay of Chiaia, which is almost never taken, is truly lacking in variety. The quay that holds back the sea is unlevel and poorly constructed; the houses on the other side are ugly and irregular, and I often strolled there without being able to comprehend how by choice one had fancied this spot in preference to all others. To the left, going on the side of the Magdalene Bridge, a bit before getting to it, you will be pointed to, a little ways off, the Menagerie of the king, in which only a few quite ordinary birds are to be seen. They were awaiting an elephant when I went there. The building, which has never been finished, the courtyards, the habitations for the animals, all is quite ordinary and not worth the trouble of a detour to see it. Close by are some lovely enough cavalry barracks, but in which I saw nothing, however, that was worth the trouble of a separate rubric.60 The hospital of the Annunziata is one of the most beautiful and most substantial in Naples. I urge you to go and see the excellent care that is taken there of widows, orphans, the sick, incurables, abandoned infants, madmen, etc.61 The beauty of this establishment will reconcile you a bit with the nation, because this establishment encompasses all, and you can say that each constituency is treated here with a care and an attention as perfect as if it were dedicated to this one type alone. You will also see here some lovely manufactures. But remember, before going, that you are not allowed in without a billet from […]62 which will not be hard for you to obtain. Here, my dear count [sic], allow yourself the pleasure, I beg of you, of opening Monsieur Richard, page 183 of his Naples volume, and reading the lovely chimerical description that he makes of this church of this complex [Santissima Annunziata Maggiore].63 A rather remarkable aside: this church was burned in 1757, Monsieur Richard wrote in 1766, nine years after the fire, and nonetheless the up-to-date description he makes is of it as it was before burning and consequently as he never saw it. There are two humorous things about this. The first is that Monsieur Richard did not see the objects that he described; the second, that he was deceived and so egregiously that he was made to write about objects that were burned nine years before as if they still existed. I do not conceive how, after such blunders, an author is not forced to pay their weight in gold 59 Marginal note: “Strada Nuova and the Menagerie.” 60 Marginal note: “Piece attempted in the style of Lettres à un ami qui va voyager [Letters to a friend who is about to travel].” Sade does not appear to be referring to an actual book, but rather to a genre of travel writing. 61 The Annunziata was a central charitable institution in Naples and particularly associated with care for abandoned infants. In the 1730s the intake of foundlings at the Annunziata from throughout the Kingdom of Naples appears to have been an astonishing 1,100 per annum and had only increased by the time of Sade’s visit. On the history of this establishment and its work, see David Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 125–32. 62 Left blank in the text. 63 Richard’s description of the church is where Sade would have it (see Description, 4:183–5). Richard had written, among other things, that the church was “of the greatest magnificence of decoration and ornamentation,” “faced with stuccoes elegantly handled and partially gilt” and that “the main altar is under a great baldachino supported by four marble columns, the capitals, bases, and ornamentation of which are done in gilded bronze” (4:183). The reason for Sade’s incredulous ire at this seemingly innocent description soon becomes clear.

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for all the editions of a book in which his idiocy and ineptitude reach such a depth and must forever make him pass for an imbecile or a mountebank. This church, which is still under repair, takes up in its current state only half – less, a bit – of what it will take up when everything is completed.64 Its architecture will be pleasing, and it is the only one that I came across in Naples that is not affected. It will have a single aisle, with chapels to the right and left, and forty-eight lovely marble Corinthian columns will support the arcades. They are twinned, which will never give it a light or pleasing feeling. The vault is arched, but it is in bad taste, and it is impossible that one not perceive the poor impression that it makes to the extent that restoration goes forward and one can better judge the entirety. In the middle will be a very high cupola. But I am afraid that the whole will feel a bit constricted and that this church will always have the fault of being too narrow, given the extreme length that it seems they want to give it. You will see no painting therein worthy of your notice. Everything is new, and Naples is not the place to seek out modern beauty. At the high altar is an Annunciation by Francesco de Mura, the artist responsible for some paintings in the Church of the Carthusians about which I think that I have spoken to you – a painter that Monsieur Richard will tell you is charming and that I will dare, in spite of his respectable opinion, affirm is quite affected and mediocre. Next to the high altar at present in service is a little chapel with marble facings that survived the fire. The sacristy and the treasury are nearby. In the first of these two rooms are cabinets made of sculpted and gilded wood, rather delicately worked. They are said to be by one of Michelangelo’s pupils. In the second is the mausoleum of Alfonso de Luna, poet and orator, concerning which it is hard to offer complete praise, but it is nonetheless not without beauty.65 The entire room is filled with cabinets that contain a prodigious number of relics the authenticity of which is vouchsafed and that I hope you will not have the childishness to examine. Above each cabinet are paintings by Belisario [Corenzio] with depictions relating to the relics contained in the cabinet below. In all the various establishments of this complex, the infirmary was one that I examined most closely. It is kept up with the greatest care and is of a type that I have seen nowhere else. The sick are placed along a quite long gallery, on the two sides of which are various recesses or arcades upon which is a platform adjoined by an iron ramp. Upon this platform the beds are placed and in this way air constantly circulates around them. In the recesses below are put all the various instruments or ingredients needed by the sick. I am sure, my dear count, that you will approve of this part of the administration of this ward, once you have examined it with care. It is the same with all the others, and I cannot praise enough the meticulous attention with which the whole is directed and overseen. The Monte della Misericordia is another hospital in which only incurables are admitted. It is said to be wealthy. I saw nothing about its administration that could lead me to have the same opinion of it that I conceived of the other. You will see there a quite simple church that Monsieur Richard tells us is pretty and that you will find quite unexceptional. You will 64 The church was rebuilt between 1757 and 1782 based upon the plans of Luigi Vanvitelli (1700–1773), with the work completed by his son Carlo. 65 Alfonso Sanchez de Luna, a converso who had immigrated from Spain, was notable neither as poet nor orator but as a diplomat and financier who served as treasurer-general in Naples. See Peter Mazur, The New Christians of Spanish Naples, 1528–1671: A Fragile Elite (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 23–7. The tomb was the work of Michelangelo Naccherino (1550–1622).

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doubtless look for those altars completely faced with marble that he will point out to you and you will surely find, like I did, only utter simplicity and complete bareness. The painting of the high altar, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, is particularly blackened, and the entirety of this complex, that I have only reported on in order to follow Monsieur Richard step by step, is not worth the trouble to see. The Church of Saint Clare [Santa Chiara], famous for the sepulchre of King Robert, situated at the back of the church, behind the main altar and concerning which I will presently discuss.66 This truly dramatic church impresses upon first sight. It is a ballroom – a pretty Vauxhall.67 If you want to maintain a pleasing idea of it, you must make sure to glimpse it only and to retreat as soon as you have taken in the ensemble. The details considerably diminish the flattering notion that you have made of it, and when you examine it with a bit of attention, you remark an enormous number of faults. The architecture is poor, the gilding dull and ubiquitous, and you see therein not a single part in which good taste seems to have had a guiding hand. This building has a single aisle consisting of eight archways on each side, each supported by two straight columns crowned by an impost, all of compartmented marble, as are the archivolts. Above each archway are the grated galleries that doubtless connect to the convent of the nuns of Saint Clare, the inhabitants of this complex. These galleries, extraordinariy gilded, contribute, if you like, to the lavishness of this church, but certainly not to its good taste. Above this order is a second, made of painted pilasters, in modern Ionic order, adorned with garlands of flowers. The vault, made of three-centred arches, is loaded, as is all the rest, with an enormous amount of gilding that enriches without, however, making it pleasant. It is divided into four main frescoes, without counting those in the compartments, by the hand of Sebastiano Conca, emulator of Solimena, albeit far from his peer, at least going by his works that you see in this church. Above the entry door is a large piece by the same, which is better, however, than those upon the vault and that depicts Solomon building the Temple in Jerusalem. Opposite, at the high altar, is the Apotheosis of Saint Clare, by the same. I could never figure out why Monsieur Richard found this piece cold and symmetrically rendered. It struck me in quite a different fashion. I found it, if anything, too fiery in terms of composition, and there is no artist working in this genre who will disagree with me that this abundance of heat harms the overall harmony and makes this piece completely worthless at a certain distance. You have to examine it from very close up to recognize this great painter, and this was not, seeing the placement that it was destined to receive, the effect that he ought to have produced. The one above the door that has to do with Solomon and that I just mentioned is, let no one deny it, more harmonious. Preserved in this church are several Gothic monuments that go back to its founding by King Robert and his wife Sancia, who erected this complex for three hundred aristocratic nuns.68 Among others, there are two little Gothic altars positioned to the right and to the left of the entry door; several tombs, likewise Gothic, in one of which is preserved a corpse that has still lost almost nothing of its shape, which it seems was that of a warrior. A few of these monuments belong to 66 Marginal note: “Saint Clare. / Poorly written, poorly conceived, to be completely redone.” 67 Sade refers to the pleasure garden on the south bank of the Thames in London, at the height of its fame in the eighteenth century, with the comparison hinging on Vauxhall’s reputation for Rococo structures and extravagant entertainments. 68 Robert of Anjou (1277–1343), king of Naples from 1309 to 1343. Sancha of Majorca (c. 1285–1345), daughter of King James II of Majorca, was his second wife.

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the lords of Baux, for such a long time tied to the House of Anjou and from which […] in Provence is said to be issued, not without some basis.69 In the chapel of the Sanfelice family, you will see one [i.e., a monument] that is completely ancient, the bas-reliefs of which are in a truly Greek style. There are a thousand gaffes in the description that Monsieur Richard gives thereof. The altar that you see depicted is erected to the god Priapus, most certainly, and not to the infernal gods as he tells us. Those three figures in the left portion, which he simply labels three men, are gods, among whom Mercury and Jupiter can be easily made out. Monsieur Richard, after such a complete examination and as detailed a description, should have at least let us know what the bas-relief depicts, and one is as astonished as perturbed by his keeping silence on this score. I admit that it is not easy to figure out, but does not his profound learning make us wish that he had said something on the matter? If I pass over, as he does, this matter in silence, I trust the same reproaches will not be made: my ambitions in this regard are not equal to his. At a few other tombs in these chapels will be seen some bas-reliefs that allow us to judge of the benightedness of the arts in those barbarous centuries and from which we can nonetheless take away a few interesting sketches about the apparel of those times. The pulpit, supported by four columns and adorned with bas-reliefs with depictions of martyrs is utterly Gothic. This monument can likewise provide an idea of the taste of those times. To the right and left of the choir are two twisted columns that the sacristan solemnly asserts as coming from the Temple of Solomon, but the shape and size belie what we know of the proportions of that temple, and we are consequently allowed to doubt their authenticity. Behind the altar is the sepulchre of King Robert with an inscription that renders nicely the frankness of the epoch. We read these words in Latin: CERNITE ROBERTVM REGEM VIRTVTE REFERTVM. Here lies Robert, stuffed full of merit.70

The monument erected to his honour has nothing luxurious about it. It resembles closely enough the façade of a church with towers arising at either side.71 In front is the high altar, in Gothic taste, common enough in Naples, and which is naught, in my opinion, but quite gloomy. To the right is the tomb of the duke of Calabria, son of King Robert, and to the right that of Maria [of Calabria], sister of Joanna I [of Naples], and who had three husbands: the first was Charles of Durazzo [Charles, Duke of Durazzo], the second was the 69 Blank space left by Sade. In the margin: “Consult, before affirming this, Petrarch upon the matter of this house.” In his biography of Petrarch, the abbé de Sade remarks and largely dismisses as uncertain at best a conjecture by Caesar de Nostradamus in his L’Histoire et chronique de Provence (Lyon, 1614) that the House of Sade may have issued from the Princes of Baux. See Jean-François-Paul-Aldonce de Sade, Mémoires pour la vie de François Pétrarque (Amsterdam, 1764), 1:41 and 1:129. Filling in the blank would then appear to require the word “Sade,” but why our author would not have simply penned in his own surname is far from obvious. 70 Although I have cleaved to Sade’s translation, the epitaph by Petrarch might be more decorously and simply rendered: “Look upon King Robert, of virtue full.” 71 The work of the Florentine brothers Giovanni and Pacio Bertini and dating to c. 1343. See Darleen N. Pryds, The King Embodies the World: Robert d’Anjou and the Politics of Preaching (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 32.

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Count of Avellino [Robert, Lord of Baux], and the third Philip, Prince of Taranto [Philip II of Taranto], who became Emperor of Constantinople. You will see many other monuments, which to describe their stories in detail would take too long and, moreover, many other people have amply treated them before me. The floor of this church is made up entirely of compartments of the loveliest marble, but laid out with utter tastelessness. In the middle you see the heraldic emblems of King Robert, who founded this church in 1310. Eighteen years later, it was brought to completion and in 1340 was consecrated with the greatest solemnity by ten prelates. Examining the monument of the good Robert, you recall with pleasure his virtues, his justice, his love for the pursuit of knowledge. Let it be recalled that it was only with his hands that Petrarch wanted to be crowned with laurels and that this divine poet rested his entire reputation upon a single accolade from the great king who deigned to call him his friend.72 I have said nothing about the Saint Francis of Paola that will be seen in one of the lefthand chapels. The praise that Monsieur Richard bestows upon it seemed to me so risible and so misplaced that I have thought it best – upon the subject of this statue – to pass it over in silence. The Church of Saint John Carbonara [San Giovanni a Carbonara], which Monsieur Richard has not deigned to describe for us in the slightest detail, is served by the Augustinians. The interior space is small and appears ancient. You will see therein some Gothic monuments in fairly bad taste, among others the first chapel to the left upon entering, which belongs to the house of Castro Piniani and which, although entirely faced with yellow marble, is nonetheless of the worst sort, and the thick and cumbrous manner in which the tombs of the husband and wife are handled contributes not a little to its further disfiguration. On the right is another in which is the tomb of Dom Cajetano Argentio, to whom it would be impossible to add yet another eulogy.73 But the object that is worthy of a bit more careful examination and about which, as I have just mentioned, Monsieur Richard has passed over in silence – or rather and more deplorably has incorrectly pointed out with the single word that he did say – is the mausoleum (and not the tomb, as Richard says)74 of Giovanni Caracciolo, grand seneschal of the Kingdom of Naples and whom Joanna II – I agree with Monsieur Richard – had assassinated in 1432, after he had been her lover.75 This chapel is to the left upon entering into the choir. It is a pretty little rotunda in white marble, of Doric order, upon which is raised an attic level adorned with eight figures of patriarchs situated in niches that four intersections weave between. Above the attic level is the cupola, decorated with caissons; a roof lantern tops it all off. The interior of the rotunda is divided into four large porticoes. The first serves as the entryway. In the one opposite is the altar, above which is a delicious bas-relief depicting the Adoration of the Kings, composed in a truly learned manner and full of force and genius. The background figures, above all, excel for their lightness and taste, perhaps even too much in 72 Marginal note: “See everything on this topic in Pétrarque, vol. I.” The abbé de Sade discusses the relation between the poet and King Robert at length in his Mémoires pour la vie de François Pétrarque (see 1:407–47). 73 That is, Gaetano Argento (1661–1730), who, in the words of Pietro Colletta, was “a Calabrian lawyer and magistrate of great learning, and a patron of literary men.” Pietro Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734–1825, trans. Susan Horner (Edinburgh, 1858), 1:25. 74 Marginal note: “The name mausoleum is given to that which fills an entire chapel; the remainder is the tomb.” 75 The sepulchre of Caracciolo is the work of the sculptor Andrea Ciccione (1388–1455).

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relation to the foreground ones, that you cannot but find inferior. The head of the Virgin is sublime, but the exposed flesh of the figures prevails, above all. You see how the artist was profoundly familiar with this aspect. Saint George combating the dragon is the subject of the base, at either side of which is a bust, one of Saint Jerome and the other of Saint Luke, both likewise quite good. At either side of the large bas-relief is a figure, one of Saint John and the other of the Saviour, placed in little niches, but that do not appear to have been made by the same hand. Below these niches are other charming little bas-reliefs, and you would never tire of examining them. The front part of the altar, handled in the same manner, depicts a dead Christ, but infinitely inferior to what I have just described. To the right and left of the altar are two family warriors, positioned betwixt two columns, and a statue in a niche is above each one, but in a style and fashion quite out of place in relation to the pretty things about which I have just spoken. The third portico, that is, the one to the right of the altar, is hidden by the tomb of Galeazzo Caraccioli, a grand monument in white marble, as replete with ornamentation as it is bereft of taste. And the one opposite, making it the fourth, is taken up by the tomb of the son of the person just mentioned. Poor taste reigns here to the same extent, but even more bestrewn with ornamentation, if that is possible. In the two other intercolumniations are two small niches in which have been placed two rather mediocre statues. The floor of this chapel is of compartmented white marble and, although I have noted a few faults in taste in the details, the ensemble makes for one of the prettiest works that you can see in Naples. Close by, and positively behind the high altar, is the tomb of King Ladislaus, an enormous monument of white marble that rises all the way up to the vault and that must have cost millions.76 The taste is Gothic and must today strike us as detestable, to be sure. Let me go further: it is not even possible that this tomb might have been somewhat beautiful, even before the arts had progressed, as they have done since. Four caryatids, under the symbols of the four cardinal Virtues, support the entire edifice, made up of several orders or tiers. Upon the first are statues of the royal family, but so poor that it is absolutely impossible to mark them out. Above is a poor Gothic order crowned by the statue of the king, sword in hand, worse still than all the rest. In the middle of it all is the recumbent corpse, handled in the same Gothic and debased style. Behind this monument is a Gothic rotunda, decorated with paintings that appear to be from the time of the restoration, among which are some heads of striking expressiveness and lifelikeness. In this rotunda is another Caraccioli tomb, but ponderous and in bad taste. You can tell from Monsieur Richard’s description that this is the only one that he saw. Yet, it is likely that this was not his fault. Having come after him to glean in his tracks, I have learned how he carried off the best prizes. You are doubtless familiar with the way in which in Normandy apples are beaten down with a pole and can imagine the figure of the little rascally boy who hastily comes to gather what he can of the fruits that have fallen. I will not fill in the other side of this analogy; you will 76 Marginal note: “See Ladislaus in the Dictionnaire des hommes illustres.” Sade’s reference is to Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, ou Histoire abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un Nom par le Génie, les Talens, les Vertus, les Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772), which in its entry notes that “Ladislaus or Lancelot, King of Naples” was dubbed the Victorious & the Magnanimous” and was “both the one and the other, but these qualities were tarnished by a limitless ambition and unheard of cruelty” (4[pt.1]:10). He was king of Naples from 1386 to 1414; the ornate monument over his tomb is also the work of Andrea Ciccione.

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doubtless guess it, and if my frankness has led me so far as to begin it, the propriety upon which I pride myself prevents me from finishing it. […]77 The Church of the Holy Apostles [Santi Apostoli], served by the Augustinians, lovely interior and one of the churches in Naples where poor tastes reigns the least. It has a single aisle, adorned with four large nooks on each side, in which there are chapels. The vault is a semicircular arch, decorated with magnificent frescoes by [Giovanni] Lanfranco, in which this great artist brought out all his talent and genius, especially in the large nude figures. The principal subjects are the martyrdoms of saints. The archivolts are by Solimena; they depict various saints, men and women. The freize that wraps completely around the church is supported by Corinthian pilasters, fluted and faced with gilded stucco. But I do not know where Monsieur Richard got the notion that they were marble. I dare say that he saw incorrectly and that he must have intended to refer to the chapels and the inside of the arches, which are, in fact, faced therewith. In the third chapel to the left is a painting, in the manner of Rubens, that depicts Saint Cajetan to whom the Virgin is presenting the Infant Jesus. This painting bespeaking a certain amount of talent, I tried all I could to find out the artist, but the sacristan, ignorant as are almost all of them in Naples, yet nevertheless in better faith than are usually folk of this type, assured me that he knew the number of fiaschi78 of wine in the cellar better than the names of the painters in the church. The Filomarini chapel, in the crossing to the left, is in the Composite order, cumbrous and tasteless. We are told that it was designed by [Francesco] Borromini. You will see therein some pretty poor portraits and some pretty mediocre paintings done in mosaic, but the charming thing therein is the bas-relief above the altar, made by Le Flamand [i.e., François Duquesnoy] and depicting a Choir of Angels. You will also see in this chapel some pieces by Luca Giordano, one of which depicts an Adoration of the Shepherds, the other the Angel appearing to Joseph in his sleep. Across from this is the Chapel of the Conception, in the same architectural style as the one that I just described. It serves as the sepulchre of the House of Pignatelli. You will also see there two Lanfrancos, one of which depicts the Nativity of the Virgin and the other her Presentation. The cupola, which is what is to be seen between these two chapels, was painted by [Giovanni Battista] Benaschi; it is a terrible compositional heap that leaves no rest for the eye and wears you out with so much twaddle. We will promptly go and take a rest in the four corners. This cupola, attributed to Lanfranco, is truly worthy of his divine brush. In the chapel called that of Purgatory is a painting of Saint Michael combating the angels, attributed to Marco da Siena and that Monsieur Richard compares to the works of Tintoretto with all the more ineptitude that this painting, which he calls learned and warm, is absolutely bereft of nobility and of force, two faults that Tintoretto certainly did not have. You are shown five paintings in the choir, which you are assured are by Lanfranco. I will admit that it was getting a bit late when I saw them, but as far as I could make out, I could not recognize in these works the sublime manner of this great man. In the back of the choir is a little head that we are assured is by Titian, an assertion that we are, I think, permitted to question. The high altar is extraordinarily lavish, as much for the marbles from which it is

77 Paragraph left blank. 78 Marginal note: “Term used in Naples to mean ‘bottle.’” The painting is by Agostino Beltrano (c. 1614–c. 1665).

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made as for the precious stones that adorn it. But its shape is in bad taste and cleaves to that barbarity that marks everything made today in this capital of the Two Sicilies. Above the main door of the church is a fresco by [Antonio] Viviani that depicts the Healing Pool [Pool of Bethesda]. The composition is lovely, and good use has been made of the locale, but you must look hard for the main figure, who off in one of the corners, is weak and lacking nobility. Why must this fault be so common in almost all the great compositions by the most skilled artists? Under the church, in the site where perhaps the Temple of Mercury was, upon the ruins of which it is claimed that this church is built, is a vast subterranean chapel in which some frescoes will be seen. This chapel serves for gatherings of the congregation of the Flagellants who meet here zealously every Friday to mutually fustigate one another upon leaving the sermon and while singing a Miserere. You will see there the tomb of Cavaliere Marini, charming poet who died in 1625, who never imagined that he would someday preside over the meetings of the flagellants!79 At the base there is an inscription. You will see there his portrait medallion, done in fresco, and not his marble bust crowned with laurel, as Monsieur Richard says. The good abbé was dreaming of laurels, but this is all it takes to deserve them: he sees them wherever he goes. Musical oratorios are also sometimes given in this chapel. Moreover, it is pestiferous and the practice of burying the dead here at very little depth makes it totally inaccessible. I know not what precautions are taken during the functions that are celebrated therein and which, I must admit, given the flagellation, I was never too curious to find out for myself. The house of the priests who serve this beautiful church is of an immense grandiosity. Everything is present in abundance, and it seems that in its construction the only thing that was neglected was taste. San Paolo Maggiore, church of the Theatines. It has three aisles, but the two side ones, not at all in keeping with the proportions of the main one, appear much too narrow. The vaults of the lateral aisles are adorned with little cupolas, in front of each of the side chapels. The pilasters are half painted and half marble. The section facing the Chapel of Saint Cajetan, founder of the order, is faced all over with strips of silver from which hang several prayers. I saw not one of those so nicely executed bas-reliefs of which Monsieur Richard speaks, and I am still trying to conceive where he could have seen them. This chapel is quite lavish, but naught but massive and heavy and had not a hint of charm. Further along is a chapel, pretty much in the same style, marked out for the sepulchre of the House of Boranni of Arezzo. After having minutely searched with a great deal of attention for the paintings by Solimena that Monsieur Richard expressly states are in this church, I was completely astonished to not find them there any more than I could find bas-reliefs in the Chapel of Saint Cajetan. I concluded from this that Monsieur Richard was in no state to observe accurately upon the day of his visit and continued with my inspection. I finally found these pieces by Solimena, but in fresco and not on canvas and in the sacristy and not in the church. One of them depicts Simon the Magician, the other the Conversion of Saint Paul, infinitely inferior to the former. Both seemed to me lavish and quite pleasant in terms 79 Marginal note: “See Marini in the Dictionnaire.” Giambattista Marino (also Giovan Battista Marini) (1569– 1625) was one of the most influential Baroque poets in Europe. He was known for his mannered conceits, a style that came to be called Marinism or marinismo. In the words of Sade’s reference, Marini’s most important poem L’Adone (1623) includes “ingenious allegories” and its “style has that voluptuous softness that is so pleasing to young people and that is so fatal to them.” Given the regnant neoclassicism of eighteenthcentury poetry, Marino’s style is deemed to have “corrupted Italian poetry and was the germ of poor taste that reigned throughout the previous century” (Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire, 4[pt.1]:372).

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of composition and, above all, of a lovely tint in terms of colour, which is not something that Solimena always achieved. In the same sacristy there are other compartments, likewise by him, and that all exude grace and vividness. In an interior courtyard of this complex, you see a large section of wall that served as part of the structure of the first theatrical stage upon which Nero appeared in public, which an earthquake ruined an instant after the show. The emperor regarded this as a particular favour of the gods, which subsequently encouraged him to keep wearing the cothurnus. The façade of this church served as the Temple of Castor and Pollux, erected by one of Tiberius’s freedmen. It was brought down by the earthquake of 1688. You will only see today two fluted Corinthian columns, along with bases and capitals. The friezes and the pilasters are likewise ancient, but covered over with a very white stucco that prevents one from discerning their antiquity. Between two of these pilasters is a thyrsus, likewise ancient, doubtless the debris of some decoration from this temple. Opposite the road where the seat of the Nido territory is located is a little cloister with a peristyle in front supported by four columns, which, along with the twenty-four that support the cloister proper, are made of granite and were part of the ancient temple.80 The entire façade is decorated with frescoes in a rather poor style. You will see the chariot of the Sun pulled by Apollo’s horses, a theme hardly suited to any but a pagan temple and which proves that this religion, a thousand times more fertile and ingenious than ours, is obliged to furnish us still with themes, when we want to lay down a lovely allegory. Saint John Major [San Giovanni Maggiore], a little church that has no other merit than to remind us of Hadrian’s love for the beautiful Antinoüs, insofar as it built upon the ruins of a temple that this emperor erected to him. What a shift in worship, and whatever deviation evidenced by its original use, I ask if that to which it is today consecrated is not equally enormous. You will see there a few fragments of columns, but that nothing that might indicate the show or extent of the ancient temple. Saint John the Evangelist, built by Ioannes Pontanus, Latin poet and secretary of King Ferdinand II. You will see several epitaphs by him there. There is nothing otherwise remarkable about the church.81 [Santa Maria] Donnaromita, a small church for nuns, singularly clean and well decorated, and all of gilded stucco. God is the idol of the nuns. Bereft of reality, one must indeed have recourse to fantasy, and the fiery imagination of these poor recluses exhausts itself in decorating the home of the false diety of its creation. You will see some fairly pretty paintings by F. de Mura, but bereft of accuracy and lifelikeness, like everything that modern man has done. 80 The urban territory of Naples was divided up in various ways, including by five Seggi or “seats”: Capuana, Nido, Montagna, Porto, and Portanova. As physical structures, the Seggi were loggie in which noble families belonging to a specific seat gathered. Not all noble families belonged to a Seggio, however, and those that did not were excluded from the city’s civic governance. See Giovanni Muto, “Urban Structures and Population,” in Tommaso Astarita, ed., A Companion to Early Modern Naples (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 40 and also 35–61. 81 Sade intends the Capella dei Pontano, built at the behest of the humanist poet Giovanni Pontano (1429– 1503) as a funerary monument to his wife, completed in 1492, and dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist and to the Holy Virgin. The chapel contains several morally edifying inscriptions by Pontano, although they are not epitaphs per se. The structure is, in effect, built onto the façade of the church of San Giovanni Maggiore alla Pietrasanta.

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The Nunziatella, a pretty little church that once belonged to the Jesuits who, by a different principle, will not yield an inch to the nuns with respect to the adornment of their temples. It is extraordinarily decorated and of the most pleasing shape. The nave and the four side chapels are entirely faced with marble. All the paintings there are vivid and extraordinarily pleasing. I was told that they are by a Jesuit. The vault is by de Mura. In general, everything is vivid and pretty in this charming little church and it is, unquestionably, one of those in which bad taste, which reigns as a rule in Naples, is the least percieved. You must see in the church for nuns named Donnaregina [Santa Maria Donnaregina Nuova] two lovely paintings by Luca Giordano, situated in the choir, one of which depicts the Sharing of the Five Barley Loaves and the Two Fishs in the Desert or, to put it better, the Miracle of the Multiplication, and the other the Marriage at Cana. The latter seemed to me superior to the former, better in terms of the mixture of colours. It seems as if the artist wanted to imitate P. Veronese in this composition. In the third chapel on the right is another painting by Carlo Maratta that is worth attending to. It is a Saint Francis receiving a coat from the Eternal Father, well done, with firmness, and produces all the impact for which one could hope. The church is besides pretty enough; it is almost everywhere faced with marble. Its shape is a nave with three chapels on each side, situated in the nooks. I will finish this tiresome digression upon churches with the description of the cathedral dedicated to San Gennaro or Saint Januarius, and I will then move on to objects less exhausting for the reader. My description, however, will not be flowerly, seeing that in everything that has to do with interior spaces in Naples, the regnant bad taste and barbarity do not lend themselves to detail. Cathedral Church of Saint Januarius.82 This church abuts two squares. At the main façade, which opens onto the larger one, you will recognize from the Gothic architecture how ancient this church is. The portico, which is quite bare, must however, have been decorated. You will see holes intended to receive decorations, which nevertheless today consist only of two porphyry columns and a lovely enough Gothic doorframe of white marble. Above the entryway, on the inside, is the tomb of Charles I [of Anjou], its founder. This church, although not very large, nonetheless has a certain stateliness and majesty. It has three aisles, separated by seven arcades on each side, formed by pilasters made by the incorporation of the ancient granite columns that supported the vault and that are covered with stucco.83 Upon each of these pilasters is a marble bust depicting one of the Holy Pastors of this city [i.e., former bishops]. Above are lunettes representing various saints, done by an artist of uncertain identity and whom I dare not name for fear of falling into 82 The Duomo di Napoli or Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, known as well as the Cattedrale di San Gennaro, is the principle cathedral of Naples and seat of the archbishopric. Built upon the site of palaeoChristian structures, some of which were incorporated, construction of the cathedral began in the thirteenth century and concluded early in the fourteenth. An earthquake in 1349 destroyed the original façade and campanile, and this along with several subsequent earthquakes, means that the church has been significantly rebuilt and altered over the centuries. It contains the relics of Saint Januarius or San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, who lived in the third century and about whom we have scant information beyond legends recounted in later hagiographies. He was supposedly beheaded during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian. 83 Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in Southern Italy (London: John Murray, 1862) renders rather more clearly Sade’s obscure description in this sentence: “The interior consists of a Gothic nave and two aisles, separated by pilasters, to which are affixed some of the ancient granite columns above mentioned, supporting a series of pointed arches” (101).

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the vulgar prejudice and wrongly causing a received opinion to be adopted.84 Higher up in the elongated compartments are paintings of the prophets, concerning which the same uncertainty remains.85 To the left upon entering, the first object that strikes you is a lovely antique basalt urn that serves as a baptismal font. It is adorned with festoons and thyrsi, the sculpting of which is beautiful. A beautiful porphyry pedestal, modelled in its sculpting upon small antique altars. The handles of this lovely urn are broken. It is claimed that this was done on purpose to fit the urn into the ornamental niche, which is in very bad [taste], in which it has been placed. The vault of the church is flat. It is divided into five sections in which are situated five pieces of painting that make a fairly large impact, albeit in a middling style. The shape of the church is a cross. Before climbing up to the choir, you see, on the right and left, two fairly lovely organ cases, under one of which is the pontifical see,86 and under the other, the preaching pulpit. We arrive in the choir, which ends in a half-dome and is adorned with a Choir of Angels by [Stefano] Pozzi, via fourteen steps distributed among three intermediate landings; the first and second are flanked by a marble banister. On each side of this banister is a rosso antico column functioning as a candelabra. As for the high altar, it is Gothic in shape as are all those to be seen in Naples. Underneath is a fairly lovely red marble tomb that encloses the bodies of Saint Agrippinus and of two companions of Saint Januarius. Instead of paintings, you will see at the high altar, the main statue of which is made of marble and the rest of stucco […]87 In the choir are two paintings, one of which is by Corrado [Giaquinto] and depicts the transportation of the relics of Saint Agrippinus to the Church of Saint Januarius: a work lovely in style and handled with much skill. The other is by Pozzi and depicts Saint Agrippinus and Saint Januarius expelling the Saracens from Naples, an infinitely inferior piece. Leaving off this inspection, you may walk the length of the left aisle to the chapel that terminates it, dedicated to Saint Anastasius, the arcade of which is supported by granite columns, left over from a temple to Apollo, upon which is today built this chapel.88 You will see therein some frescoes by Andrea di Leone, made in 1677. Close by is the tomb of Innocent XII Pignatelli, made in Rome, handled in the taste of Bernini and just as mannered as he. It is nonetheless easy to see the difference that obtains between this monument and those made in Naples. You can distinctly discern better taste and much greater skill. In the arm of the crossing in this section is the tomb of Andrew Charles Uberti, King of Hungary, whom Queen Joanna had strangled.89 All the length of 84 Sade here suggests that his sources have incorrectly identified the painter of these frescoes of the saints in the cathedral. The usual source of his acid derision, Monsieur Richard (see Description, 4:109), had attributed them to Luca Giordano (1634–1705), and is likely Sade’s target. Richard’s attribution appears generally correct, however, with the saints largely the work of Giordano and his workshop. The higher paintings subsequently mentioned may be the work of the Neapolitan artist Fabrizio Santafede (1560–1634). 85 Marginal note: “The description is dry; the guide and Richard say more on the topic; consult them.” The “guide” is presumably Pompeo Sarnelli’s work on Naples, Le [sic] Guide des étrangers curieux de voire, & d’apprendre ce qu’il y a de plus remarquable dans la Royale Ville de Naples, trans. Antoine Bulifon (Naples, 1692). 86 Or rather, the archbishop’s chair. 87 Sentence incomplete. 88 Marginal note: “It is even thought that the entire church rests upon the foundations of this temple.” 89 Marginal note: “See Giannone.” See Pietro Giannone, Histoire civile du royaume de Naples (The Hague, 1742), 3:296–301. The person in question is Andrew, Duke of Calabria, who was the second son of King Charles I of Hungary, although never its king. In 1334, he was betrothed to his cousin Joanna, the heiress

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this aisle are several tombs, but the mediocrity of the sculpture and of the ashes that they hold puts me in the position of refraining from saying anything about them. Above the door of this aisle is a piece by Vasari, well made but of little effect, that depicts the gathering of the Church Fathers. From the middle of this same nave you connect to the little Church of Santa Restituta, formerly the cathedral, consisting of three naves separated by columns of ancient granite. The vault is by Giordano and depicts a few episodes from the story of Saint Restituta, made with great skill and producing the greatest impact. Above the columns are placed the twelve Apostles in the round compartments by F. de Mura, and higher up still, other saints, by Lucidillo, mediocre in execution.90 The high altar is decorated with some griffins, of which some are antique and others modern, which Monsieur Richard calls an antique altar, without the least basis. You only have to see it to no longer hold this opinion. In the half-dome are some mosaics, among others a Virgin, which seems to have been done quite long ago. In the right nave is an antique tomb, upon which the reliefs, fairly poor and difficult to make out, appear to depict festivals to Ceres. In a chapel that is in the back of this little church, you will see a cupola, entirely decorated with mosaics, that depict the Mysteries of the Virgin and that appear to date from the twelfth century, the epoch when this little church was founded, which, quite wrongly and taking upon faith a false inscription that will be read there, Monsieur Richard assures us dates from the time of Constantine. If he had taken the trouble to compare and to recall those in Rome dating from that time, he would have seen the difference, but all errors are permitted and even natural for someone who has taken the grand tour like Monsieur Richard. In a corner of this little church is the painting previously placed at the high altar of the large church and that depicts an Assumption, by the hand of Pietro Perugino, Raphael’s master. After having visited this little church, you return to the entry in the right aisle that I have still to describe. Above the connecting doorway is a Virgin unveiling the Infant Jesus by Vasari. This painting is quite lifelike, but makes no impact. Vasari did not grasp the role of light; whence all his paintings, although well designed, are almost always lacking in impact. Nothing more delicious than the head of the Virgin. The only fault with which you might reproach it is being too pretty. The lovely Chapel of Saint Januarius makes for the most beautiful adornment in this portion of the cathedral. Its façade is majestic; it is in the Corinthian order, bedecked with two niches in which are Saint Peter and Saint Paul, by Cavaliere [Giuliano] Finelli. At either side of the door, which is made of gilded copper and quite loaded with ornamentation, are two lovely columns of verd antique that support the architrave and that, I know not upon what grounds, Monsieur Richard has taken for black marble. Above this door is the bust of the saint, which has the feeling of being placed in a window to distribute blessings. The entire façade is by Cavaliere Cosimo [Fanzago]. This magnificent chapel, which serves as the depository for one of the greatest religious marvels that Catholic superstition has been able to invent, is a very high and beautiful apparent of the Kingdom of Naples. Joanna was named to the throne in 1344 and Andrew was initially excluded. After various political machinations and complications, Andrew was assassinated. Although some suspected Joanna of playing a role in the murder of her husband, this was never proven. Giannone asserts that the conspirators were Neapolitan nobles opposed to Hungarian rule and unhappy with the pope’s decision – a reversal of the initial course – to endorse Andrew’s coronation. 90 Who Lucidillo might be is not clear, and the reference is untraceable in Sade’s sources or elsewhere.

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cupola, supported by four large Corinthian pilasters. Within the arch that they form have been fashioned four large recesses. The entryway occupies one of these and three chapels the three others. All the backgrounds are white and the decoration in gold. The vault of the cupola is by Lanfranco. You could say that it is here that this grand master unfurled his entire genius and made himself worthy of the renown that immortalizes him. It depicts the Eternal Father in all his glory. The pinnacles are by Domenichino and figure forth virtues associated with Saint Januarius. One cannot too much admire the uniformity of the drawing and the exceeding ingenuousness that characterizes each object therein. This grand master said in vain that he had no love for the antique; he nonetheless draws close to it by the happy choices that he makes from the beauties of Nature. And if we might complain that we see sometimes a lack of impact or weak coloration when it comes to this great man, how much are we not recompensed by the beauty of his lines, the expressiveness of his figures, and his happy and simple composition? The three archivolts are painted by the same master. The first depicts Saint Januarius chasing off the Saracens who had come to take hold of Naples. The second, the one above the door, the same saint delivering his fatherland from the scourge of the plague, and the third the moment when, his torture having been settled on, he is led to the amphitheatre at Pozzuoli. Each chapel features, in addition to this, painted compartments in the arches. Those in the main one depict the saint giving sight to the tyrant Timothy who was at Beneventum, and the same saint in the hands of his executioners. The ceiling of the same chapel depicts Saint Januarius in the amphitheatre, delivered to the lions and protected by the odour of his saintliness. The arches and ceilings of the other contiguous91 chapels likewise have paintings relative to different episodes in the life of this great patron. At the altars of these two chapels are two works painted on copper, by Domenichino, one of which shows Saint Januarius put into the furnace and the other of Saint Januarius beheaded along with all his companions. These latter works are doubtless great beauties, but although by the same hand, they are inferior to those in the pinnacles of the cupola. In the thick part of the four large pillars or pilasters that support the cupola, small and very ornate altars have been fashioned. The four paintings that decorate them have to do with the miracles of the saints. The two on the right are by Massimo, Neapolitan painter; the two others are by Domenichino. In all of them there is remarkable exactness and purity of line and expression. The most sumptuous treasures adorn the high altar of this chapel, constructed from plans by Solimena. It is made of porphyry faced with bronze with mouldings and cornices. In the middle is the statue of the Virgin, five feet tall and made entirely of silver, as are all the other decorations of this magnificent altar and the two large candelabra that decorate the chapel. All around stand a rank of columns between which are niches into which various bronze saints have been placed. The titular saint is here as well, precisely behind the altar, and upon the entabulature are genii sculpted in white marble. The other chapels of this rotunda are likewise adorned with niches filled with bronze statues. Above the entabulature of the four, situated in the thick parts of the large pillars are little galleries where there are organ cases, in front of which are the galleries that function as well to place the musicians when the saint is in fiocchi.92 All the balustrades of the chapels are made of marble and doors of bronze.

91 Marginal note: “Check the proper signification of this word.” 92 In fiocchi means “in his finery,” literally “in bows” or “in ribbons.”

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Under the niche of Saint Januarius, which I have just remarked is behind the high altar of his chapel, is preserved, in a silver cabinet, that precious blood that has the magical power of turning itself to liquid: sublime miracle that is carried out every year before the people and that to deny or to joke about is to risk your life. Monsieur Richard’s reflections are exceedingly to the point upon this topic, and as I take more pleasure in finding him correct than incorrect, I refer my readers to him with satisfaction.93 Undertaking this miracle consists in bringing the reliquary where his body is kept in proximity to the phial that contains his blood. We are assured that at this point the blood bubbles. But to how many mortal men is the honour reserved – in this immense throng that awaits the outcome of the miracle – to how many, I ask, is the honour reserved of judging the undertaking? And if it, in fact, were to be, what would be more extraordinary about it than about the simplest experiment in physics? Today, our enlightenment in this branch of knowledge has attained such a degree of perfection that we ought not [sic] to annihilate once and for all this barbarous nonsense by which it seems they wilfully wish to hold the minds of the wretched populace in thrall. Will it not soon be time to disabuse them? And should we make fun of pagans after such idolatries? The frenzy that carries off the people of Naples upon the day that the miracle happens is such that the best advice that I can give here to a foreigner is never to dare go and mingle with the crowd of admirers of this ridiculous farce. His life would be at risk, and the annals of Naples are full of assassinations committed by that crowd, as cruel as it is superstitious, of those unfortunate foreigners whom they decided were heretics and able to stop or hold up the effect of the liquefaction that, completely subject to the humour of the priest, happens or not depending upon his desire to increase or decrease the horrible tumult in which the entire city finds itself during this period. How far such tales go in proving the degree to which this superstitious people and its blind leaders are still plunged in the dark depths of ignorance! Because if these leaders believe … what odious idiocy! If they do not believe and pusillanimity alone prevents them from abolishing this idolatrous custom, what is this but weakness?! And what sort of leader cannot find a mean between stupidity and fear? Three gentlemen – and the most qualified in the city – each hold a key to this respectable treasure. The fourth stays with the archbishop, and for the opening to be in order and allowed to take place, all four must be present. The sacristy of this church, one of the most lavish that there is, doubtless, in the world, is adorned with some nice heads by Giordano. Conserved in the cabinets are all the jewels that are used during major festivals and that are not shown without express permission: a necklace fitted with superb diamonds, rubies, and emeralds; a golden chalice, likewise fitted with white diamonds, rubies, topazes, and emeralds, and enhanced with ten little basreliefs, the workmanship is extremely delicate; a golden mitre adorned with a multitude of precious stones of particularly large size; a cross that the queen recently gave as a present, adorned with six of the most beautiful sapphires. While admiring these treasures, you cannot but overly and sincerely regret the vile use to which they are put. How many poor families would be maintained with the money for these buried gems? And how different the function? 93 Richard gives various cases of the risk run by those seen to doubt the miracle or even somehow perceived to be credulous. For example, a servant of an ambassador, kneeling with the throng but failing to cry out “San Genaro fa presto” – “Saint Januarius do it soon!” – was taken as “curious rather than impatient” and therefore heretical; he was stabbed to death by the crowd, who regretted their actions too late when a Catholic prayer book was found in the victim’s pocket (Description, 4:238–9).

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Close to the sacristy is a little chapel in which you will see at the altar a painting by Domenichino, which was meant to have been put in the place of one of those by Massimo in the Chapel of Saint Januarius, but the artist died and did not finish it. To the right is the storage area for the silver busts that are shown upon festival days. Heading back along the right-hand aisle, concerning which I mentioned that this chapel constituted the most lovely adornment, you will find the one [i.e., chapel] in which was buried the Marquis de L’Hospital, ambassador to Naples in 1769 and whose monument is of the utmost simplicity.94 At the arm of the crossing, on this side, is that [i.e., chapel] of the House of Caracciolo, and in the rear, a Gothic chapel where there are mosaics made of porphyry tiles in the floor. In this entire part of the crossing are paintings by Solimena, in the grand style of this master, that depict various Church Fathers. The side door, which connects to this nave, opens onto a very narrow little square that leads into Capua Street, upon which will be seen a monument in the poorest taste and like several to be found in various spots in Naples and about which I had not wanted to speak because of the poor fashion in which they are handled. These monuments are loaded with decorations that end up ressembling nothing. In the shaft of this one appears a segment of column that is said to be antique and above is the bronze statue of Saint Januarius. This structure might be sixty feet high.95 But before leaving the church entirely, we must see the subterranean church, built under the choir, the vault of which, completely decorated with marble bas-reliefs, is supported by granite columns that are believed to be vestiges of the Temple of Apollo. Upon these

94 Sade can only mean Paul-François Gallucio de l’Hospital (or Hôpital), Marquis du Châteauneuf-sur-Cher in Berry (b. 1697). The marquis had been named as the French ambassador to the king of the Two Sicilies in 1739 and arrived at the post in 1740; he was later appointed ambassador to Russia in St Petersburg, a post he took up in 1757. Gallucio or Galluci was an aristocratic Neapolitan family, and the marquis had been recognized as one of the Neapolitan nobility by a council thereof on 12 December 1743 and inserted into their ranks after a meeting of one hundred Neapolitan knights on 6 February 1744 in conjunction with a dispatch by Charles, King of the Two Sicilies. It was only at this point that “Gallucio” became part of his official name. In relation to his service and ties to the Two Sicilies, he was made a knight of the Order of Saint Januarius and received a royal proclamation that he and all his male heirs (of which he had none; his issue was two daughters) were citizens in perpetuity of the city of Naples. The date of 1769 above appears to be a transcription error for the intitial date of appointment to the ambassadorship, which took place in 1739. A mystery remains, however: while there are some inconsistencies in the record, the seemingly most solid genealogies of the nobility give the date of his death as 1776 and specifically 30 Jan. 1776. This would have been during Sade’s visit to Naples, certainly worth a mention and an otherwise remarkably short space in which to erect a funerary monument. See François-Alexandre Aubert de La Chenaye-Desbois and Jacques Badier, Dictionnaire de la noblesse de France (Paris, 1856), 10:719–22. 95 This is good place to see how closely at times Sade follows the detested Monsieur Richard, whose description here makes considerably more sense than that of the marquis: “Outside of this church, in a little square at the entrance to Capua Street, is a large bronze statue of Saint Januarius, set upon a quite elevated pyramid or pedestal; the body of the pyramid is made of marble, the decorations of bronze. The Neapolitans give the name ‘pyramids’ to these high pedestals, although they in no wise resemble them; they are properly speaking several sheaths placed one on top of the other, separated by cornices, and topped off with a statue. These monuments have nothing of the beautiful ancient simplicity about them. Here, they are quite loaded with decorations, which provide no pleasure once you compare them with those antique columns that will be seen in Rome and, above all, in Florence, upon which statues have been placed. This taste for ornamention, particular to the city of Naples, persists. The last queen had erected one of these pyramids to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, done in the same taste as the others” (Description, 4:116).

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columns are lamps carried by a silver eagle. It is here that the cadaver of the saint is preserved, venerated by the superstitious and ignorant Neapolitans much more than their kings. The clergy of this church is made up of thirty first-rank canons, twelve lesser ones, and eighteen chaplains. The first-rank canons have the right to wear the mitre and the purple vestments of the church. It is said that this church is extremely wealthy and that it never, in spite of this, provided the least succour to the city during the various revolutions that laid waste to it. But to be astonished at this would be to misunderstand the priest’s heart. Similar to Pandora’s Box, you can be sure that lots of evils will escape from it, but never a single virtue. Incompatable with the function of serving a God whose essence is whim and freakery, by what right would the servants be better than the master? Happy he who little understands the one and never has to do with the other! When will the universe, in disabusing itself of the idol, annihilate those who serve it? And when will philosophy triumphant upon the altars of superstition enjoy in full the worship of humanity and owed only to its beneficent torch? The Palace of the Vicaria, formerly located outside of the city and called the Capua Castle [Castel Capuano] because of its vicinity to the route that leads to that city.96 It was constructed by Charles I and since then turned into a Tribunal of Justice by Pedro de Toledo. The sovereigns lived there before the Castel Nuovo was built. It is today one of the most sombre yet at the same time one of the most populous quarters in the city. Here are gathered all the tribunals of Justice, which I have described. There are also prisons. In front of this palace is a column where insolvent debtors make it known that they are such by exposing to the public a part that modesty does not allow me to name but that the upholders of justice in Naples do not deem unfit to make seen.97 In vain would we condemn this custom. It cleaves too much to the nation’s taste, and we must respect such practices. This palace, built all around the courtyard, offers nothing but a quite sad and sombre feeling. The look of the prisons that are all around the courtyard doubtless contribute to this. The suites of rooms upon the upper level are vast, but bereft of decoration. You will see a large hall where the drawing of the lottery normally takes place, adorned with a few fairly middling frescoes. You will see three mediocre statues, made of stucco, one of them symbolizes Justice, the others Truth and Charity. The room after is that of the lawyers. The ceiling consists of caissons and rosettes, fairly nicely gilded, and the frescoes therein are in the same style as those in the large hall. Next comes the chamber known as la Ruota, Tribunal of Justice concerning which I provided an explanation under the rubric of mores and customs. Around a large round table are placed twenty seats and in the back is a large armchair or seat of the chief of the Vicaria, above which is the portrait of the king. The ceiling of this room is decorated with arabesques in a peculiar style. You see therein a lot of gilding. The furniture is covered in green silk fabric. At the entrance to this room is a sort of little peristyle, pleasant enough. The next room is the Chamber of Accounts; it is very small. The

96 Marginal note: “Palace of the Vicaria.” 97 As Philipp Joseph von Rehfues explains, in his Gemählde von Neapel und seinen Umgebungen (Zürich, 1808): “Whoever wanted to make public that he could no longer satisfy his creditors and wished to secure himself from their prosecution, stood before this pillar, took off his trousers, and showed the assembled people that part of the body which, according to the unanimous judgment of all corporals and schoolmasters, is best suited for striking. At the same time, he thrice cried out: ‘Whoever has something to claim, let him come and collect his payment!’ And thus he mocked whoever had been gullible enough to extend him credit” (1:203–4).

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ceiling is decorated with octagonal caissons and rosettes in each corner. There are only six seats in this one. The next one is called the Cadastral Chamber. It is here that are judged and decided cases related to the fiefs and manorial lands of the kingdom. Next comes the Secretariat, where there are three large cabinets containing papers, registers, etc. Following this, a few other rooms of the lower tribunals and in which not a single decoration will be seen. Upon the return route is the hall set aside for waiting litigants, known in Paris as the Salle des pas perdus.98 It might be one hundred and fifty feet long by about twenty feet wide. It is decorated with frescoes in better taste than those about which I just spoke. The middle of the room is adorned with a little rotunda through which the sunlight penetrates and that lights up and puts everything into broad daylight. The middle parts of the crossings are filled with frescoes of the four greatest legislators: Lycurgus, Constantine, Justinian, and Solon. All along the length of this large room are suites, for the most part adorned with quite gilt and frescoed ceilings, in which various lower tribunals are housed. In the back of the room is a chapel where Justice was only able to be figured by painting a Minerva, proof of what I was saying earlier about the feebleness of the poetic notions that Christianity supplies. The pagans, more sensible, deified all the virtues, and in this way, all found a nice home in their temples. As for us, satisfied with having deified a charlatan, we add him to every sauce, but he is unfortunately always inept when it comes to representing a virtue.99 It is astonishing to see the insolence, the audacity that dominates the physiognomies of the infinite number of unfortunate detainees in these prisons. Is there thus a race of beings in whom the habit of crime extinguishes even shame at the just punishment that the laws mete out and in the moral system are these beings fortunate or unfortunate? What vast material for reflection is offered here! But since such reflections have nothing to do with our subject, let us be satisfied to make them without making them public. The palaces of the interior of Naples have on offer who knows how few interesting objects.100 I have already said that all is exterior luxury in this capital, and of this you will be easily convinced no matter how short your stay. The habitations of the great lords are large masses of buildings that surround an interior courtyard, erected without taste and without the least architectural rule. The following that I will point out are those that most capture the attention of foreigners. After having described them such as I have seen them, you will acknowledge that the mediocrity of the objects that they contain might serve as a legitimate excuse to not provide a tiresome tour. The Palace of the Duke of Gravina, the architecture most mediocre and the exterior rusticated in the style of the palaces of Florence, contains a few paintings. In the first room, after the antechamber, is a Saint Sebastian at the moment that he is being bound, believed   98 Literally, the “Hall of Lost Footsteps,” the term generally denotes a large vestibule in a governmental building. Sade here refers to that of the Palais de la Cité –now called the Palais de Justice – seat of the Parlement de Paris and other offices of the Ancien Régime’s bureaucracy.   99 Sade’s description of the Vicaria may appear to exaggerate its sombreness, but other descriptions suggest the same. Some 75 years after Sade’s assessment, Frederick Richard Chichester, in his Naples; Political, Social, and Religious (London, 1856), would characterize the building proper as “gloomy and enormous,” before proceeding to describe the “dark and loathsome avenues” of the area, lined with “shops which, like black, dark, and filthy dens, yawn on either side,” “sinks of vice, dirt, and misery” (1:177). Similarly, Frederick Chamier, in My Travels; or An Unsentimental Journey through France, Switzerland, and Italy (London, 1855), suggests that if “any man wants to be especially disgusted, he can visit the Vicaria” (3:73). 100 Marginal note: “Palaces of Naples.”

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to be by the Calabrese [Francesco Cozza]; a Virgin and her Son, likewise attributed to the same; a Christ, lovely in impact and in coloration, for which the artist was not known. The masters of these places are ignorant to such a degree that they themselves do not know the fine pieces that they might own, and as they are little accustomed to being visited by foreigners, they do not retain, as in Rome, custodians or guarda roba expressly for the purpose of showing their palaces to those who show up.101 It is also true that those who do show you – flattered by a curiosity that they do not always satisfy – do so with more decency and politeness than in Rome. There is in this palace a suite of rooms that are pretty enough and well-furnished for the most part. Furthermore, in one of these rooms we saw a lovely painting of the Works of Charity by the school of Guercino. In another, a ceiling by [Fedele] Fischetti, with vivid colours and producing a nice impression. Next, a room where several paintings have yet to be hung, their intended destinations doubtless still undetermined. You will see therein Lot and His Daughters, the Chaste Susanna, Saint Cecelia at her harpsichord, Christ as he is about to be put in his tomb, lovely in terms of coloration and an excellent composition, absolutely in the style of Michelangelo da Caravaggio, although wielding a broader and more vague brush; a Nativity, copied from [Domenico] Fetti; Pilate washing his hands when he is obliged to comdemn Christ, proof of the great interest he had in the matter, a painting that makes a lovely impact and in the style of Rembrandt; the Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, poor copy of Valentin [de Boulogne]; one of a saint whose breasts are being ripped off, a horrific notion to carry out and represented here to no end. In the duke’s apartment, two views of the cathedral of Milan, done with much skill, and two fairly good landscapes by [Giovanni] Benedetto Castiglione. Such are the only noteworthy ones out of a number that you will see in this apartment. In an upper apartment in this palace you will see a quite lovely Christ fashioned from a single and quite long piece of ivory. In this same apartment is a pretty drawing by Pietro Testa. Leaving this palace, you can amuse yourself, if you so desire, by examining the good taste and sense of harmony of the architects who built it and who placed at the portecochere rusticated Doric columns that cleave to the Tuscan. But these little absurdities are nothing in a city where the arts are still where they were in the fifteenth century. Besides, is it not Europe’s good fortune that there should be belated provinces like this so that we might judge, thanks to the backwardness in which they remain, the progress of others? The San Severino Palace only has on offer dilapidated suites of rooms that, for the past twenty years, all travellers have only ever seen in this state. These suites are, it is true, adorned with frescoes by Belisario [Corenzio] that have something vital and pleasing about them, but that is all. You will see in one of these rooms two skeletons that are rather curious. But the main object is the chapel that passes for a masterpiece in Naples and that Monsieur Richard never tires of praising. As for me, my opinion is that you can consider it the height of madness and bad taste. It is a little nave adorned with four chapels on each side, in the niches of the pilasters are statues done in the most hefty, bulky manner. At each side of the niche of the main altar are two admired by fools and consequently by Monsieur l’abbé Richard. One is of a woman wrapped in a veil; the other of a man in a

101 Sade has apparently confused the wardrobe (guardaroba) for the wardrobe keeper (guardarobiere), or gallery custodian. He will make the same error of meaning and number on p. 242 below.

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net. Altogether cumbrous, without delicacy, without naturalness, without grace – one must have totally depraved taste to find the least perfection in these two pieces. After having seen the treasures contained in the Capitol, how can one dare praise with impunity these detestable objects? The tombs, the statues, the decorations, the angels at the door, one of which Monsieur Richard praises yet again most insanely – they are altogether hateful. The bas-reliefs upon the altar that is loaded with sculptures – and with as much confusion as profusion – are of the same sort, and the material of this chapel, faced and adorned all over with beautiful marble, is in my opinion, the only thing worthy about it. In a corner to the right, and sitting upon the ground without a place having yet been found for it, is a Christ wrapped in a shroud that Monsieur Richard scorns and that, in the view of all connoisseurs, prevails over all the other works in this chapel. Compare the drapery, the delicacy of the veil of this Christ with that of the woman; compare the beauty and the regularity of the proportions as a whole, and you will mark the extreme difference. It is said a modern Neapolitan artist made this work. So be it. But whoever might have made the others, anyone impartial will forever find himself forced to grant superiority to the latter.102 The deceased prince of this house adored the arts and seemingly had the taste of a Neapolitan prince when it came to his familiarity with them. Monsieur Richard emphatically praises several secrets that he possessed about painting marbles and making them in essence like those that are only to be found in far-off lands, and of even creating precious stones. The son, who does not have the same tastes and who has even left the chapel of which I have just spoken unfinished, does not appear to be looking after all these objects. Whereby I leave it to Monsieur Richard and a little brochure for sale at the palace gate the honour of celebrating the talents of the deceased, upon which see pages 199 and following of his fourth volume.103 In the large courtyard of the Carafa Palace, you must go and see the bronze head of that famous horse, made it is said, in Virgil’s day and the shadow of which had the power to cure sick horses. It was even said that Virgil had built it by using magic, just as he had, with this same art, opened up the Grotto of Posillipo. Subsequently, this horse was placed before the cathedral, but as the passage of time had not eliminated the superstition and the people continued to believe in the power of its shadow, it was destroyed. It is false, as Monsieur Richard asserts in accord with the Guide des étrangers – a little work about Naples that

102 The sculpture in question is Giuseppe Sanmartino’s celebrated Cristo velato or Veiled Christ (1753). 103 Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero (1710–1771) was undoubtedly a colourful character, involved in scientific experimentation, invention, alchemy, and, inevitably, Freemasonry. Among his supposed inventions or recreations was a lamp with an eternal flame, described in his Dissertation sur une Lampe antique trouvé à Munich en l’année 1753 (Naples: Chez Morelli, 1756), written in French and mentioned by Richard. Extracting the relevant parts from Richard’s lengthy encomium: “Prince San Severo is a man replete with talents […] He bestows upon white Carrara marble the most bright and most beautiful colours, which penetrate to a very great depth, such that you could saw a table that he has prepared, subsequently polish it, and it will preserve the colours that he has bestowed and that are of a singular vividness. […] He has made a composite that mimics lapis lazuli so perfectly that even connoisseurs are fooled; it has the brilliance, the hardness, the delicacy of grain, and even the other beautiful aspects of this precious stone, and he asserts that it can be employed for the same uses” (Description, 4:199–201). In Sade’s scepticism we see how a virtuoso – often a figure of praise and a title to which the author himself had some pretensions – could also be subject to enlightened critique as a charlatan and pedlar of dubious alchemy, along with his credulous biographer.

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he copied and translated word for word104 – it is false, I say, that this horse should ever have had a bit, placed there, as he says, to serve as the symbol of the yoke that Conrad IV imposed upon the city after he had it under his control. The mere examination of the head of this horse, the grimacing lips of the animal, prove that it always had a bit. Draw whatever inferences you like about its lack of antiquity based upon this certainty, splendid! But it is no less the unvarying truth that once and for all this horse was made with a bit. However that may be, this head is quite lovely and it would be quite possible that it was its beauty that should have produced the error about its antiquity. I did not see the antique votive tablet that Monsieur Richard places above it, but only, to either side, a damaged antique statue, one of which, although that of a man, holds a cornucopia.105 In that same courtyard is a column, above which is a small equestrian statue, placed there by a count of Maddaloni in memory of the honour he received from Ferdinand II, who came to this spot to ask him to go hunting with him.106 Close to the stairs is a bas-relief depicting a bull decorated for sacrifice. In it you will recognize the same way in which Neapolitans to this day decorate their horses for the races. Under the gate are three bas-reliefs one on top of the other, of which the highest one seemed to me the best. It shows a sacrifice made by children. In the remainder of the courtyard and on the stairs are some other antique fragments, not worth the trouble of pointing out. Less fortunate than Monsieur Richard and, unlike him, not granted the happy talent of calling my imagination to the aid of my memory, I dare vouch that this is all that I have seen in this place and that certainly this is all that there is. The Filomarino Palace contains a fairly numerous collection of paintings. I will mention those that provided me with the most enjoyment and that I think worthy of an art lover’s admiration. The Resurrection of Lazarus, by Palma Vecchio. 104 This “guidebook for foreigners” is Sarnelli’s Le Guide des étrangers curieux in Bulifon’s translation. On the topic, Sarnelli had written: This Palace is, I say, one of the most curious because you see there the entire neck of a Bronze Horse, which was the ancient emblem of the City of Naples. This horse was formerly and in its entirety placed upon a pedestal within sight of the Church of St Restituta, where the archbishopric is today. King Conradin had a bridle placed upon this horse, and you still see today upon its admirably well-made head the soldering from the two rings that were at one and the other corner of the mouth; its forehead is still today adorned with certain golden fittings that served to support both the bit and the bridle. This Prince afterwards had this distich engraved: Hactenus effrænis, Domini nunc paret habenis: Rex domat hunc æquus Parthenopensis equum. (58) The couplet translated: “Hitherto unbridled, now obedient to the reins of the Master; the impartial King subdues this Parthenopian [i.e., Neapolitan] horse.” 105 Sade notes the gender because the cornucopia was associated with Demeter (Ceres), as goddess of agriculture, as well as with Tyche (Fortuna), for her potential bounty. Yet male figures holding cornucopiae are not unusual either and the symbolism similarly transparent, as with personifications of the river Tiber. Richard describes the antique votive tablet as bas-relief in terracotta depicting a figure “kneeling before Apollo, who is surrounded by the three Graces and Asclepius” (Description, 4:196). 106 Richard makes the allusion clear: “In the courtyard, opposite the staircase, is a small bronze equestrian statue of Ferdinand II [viz., I], King of Naples, by Donatello, erected by a count of Maddaloni, in memory of the friendship of this king for him, who had often come on horseback to seek him out for the hunt and had waited for him upon the very spot where this column is” (ibid.).

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A charming little painting by a Flemish painter that depicts the Denial of Jesus Christ [i.e., by Peter]. You will observe that the lights of the torches are made of gold, which to my mind, renders them a bit harsh and diminishes the impact. Four heads of the Evangelists by Guido. The Flight into Egypt, charming painting by Francesco Albano, full of grace and naturalness. A Nativity, a Circumcision, by Fabrizio Santafede. Two pieces by Albrecht Dürer, the first of which depicts a Descent from the Cross; the second, the Virgin and Saint Catherine. An Adoration of the Kings, by the school of this master. A sketch, in the style of Guido, that depicts the Virgin and her Son; the infant is better handled. What a brush! What beauty in the colours! The head of the Virgin is not symmetric, and this disparity leads me to say that this piece is only in the style of this grand master. Two heads by Il Baroccio [i.e., Federico Barocci], one of Christ and the other of the Virgin. Our Lord, the Magdalene, and Twelve Apostles, by [Simon] Vouet, each piece different and separate. The one of Our Lord is considerably better in terms of colours than is usual for Vouet. I would suppose it by [Anthony] van Dyck. As for the Apostles, they are mediocre. An Adoration of the Shepherds by [Jacopo] Bassano, painted on lavagna, a kind of rock that is used in many parts of Italy for covering houses and is much like slate. This piece is full of naturalness and grace. The Pilgrims of Emmaus, by the same, all the more peculiarly composed insofar as the main subject is in the background and is consequently sacrificed. Sketch of a Cena, by Paolo Veronese; the name of the artist must here take the place of praise. A subject taken from a Fable, by Annibale Carracci, sublime coloration, with a lovely stroke and in the grand style. A Herodias holding the head of Saint John by Paolo Veronese, but nonetheless more finished than usual for this artist. Painting personified, energetic and well drawn piece by Guido. Hercules and Omphale. A Magdalene. A Saint Mary of Egypt, thought to be by Guercino. A Saint Sebastian, superbly drawn by Giovanni da San Giovanni, etc. On the other hand, the rooms of this palace are in no wise magnificent and the architecture is ever in that same tone and same style as all the buildings in Naples. Capodimonte, located upon the mountain of Posillipo that borders the city to the west, is a vast palace begun by Don Carlos, the current king of Spain, and since abandoned.107 It is here that are all the riches of the Palace of Piacenza, formerly home to the princes of the House of Farnese, that Charles brought to Naples when he passed from this duchy to the throne of the Two Sicilies. Where this palace is situated enjoys the best 107 Work on the building began in 1738, and although not abandoned, was not completed until 1840. The palace was commisioned by Charles III of Spain (1716–1788), formerly King Charles VII of Naples and simultaneously King Charles V of Sicily. Succeeding to the Spanish throne in 1759, he abdicated these crowns, passing them to his third son, who became Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily.

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air imaginable. The architecture is cumbrous and massive, and the whole looks rather more like a barracks than a king’s palace. I know not upon what authority Monsieur Richard attributes this mediocre work to [Luigi] Vanvitelli, the architect of the Palace of Caserta. Never did he lay a finger upon it, and his style is certainly not so defective. It was designed by Janvier Ametrano.108 Criticized by the Marquis of Tanucci, prime minister, it is said that he abandoned the job at this point, but the designs were preserved by Gaetano Bronzuoli, his pupil.109 The arrangement consists in large chains of enormous rooms, with an eye to neither openness nor amenity. I will mention in order of the rooms, according to the usual route through them, the pieces of painting, sculpture, or Antiquity that gave me the most enjoyment and that I think the most worthy of examination. You will see in the first antechamber a few paintings of battles by Il Borgognone [i.e., Jacques Courtois, presumably] and his pupil [Arcangelo] Guglielmelli, made with fire and facility. In the next room, a lovely battle by Il Brescianino [i.e., Francesco Monti] and another by Il Borgognone. The third room contains a rather nice collection of Etruscan vases, brought from the Duchy of Parma and collected by the Farnese. In a fourth: portrait [self-portrait] by Parmigianino [i.e., Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola] and several other portraits by the same. Two large pieces by [Giovanni Paolo] Panini, one of which depicts Charles, King of Spain, who has come to kiss the hand of Pope Benedict XIV after the Battle of Velletri, in a little room prepared expressly for the occasion in the middle of the gardens of Monte Cavallo. The other is the arrival of the same king at Saint Peter’s.110 The burning of Troy, lovely piece by Il Baroccio. Alessandro Farnese by Sebastiano del Piombo. A lovely portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. A child lighting a candle by Jules Claude,111 a piece full of naturalness and truth. In a fifth room: the Death of the Saviour in the middle of Calvary, sublime piece done by the brother of Parmigianino.112 The fainting Virgin is worthy of Correggio; each head has its own particular character, each endued with all the force and truth of Nature at its most beautiful. I must admit that it is one of the paintings that gave me the most enjoyment out of the entire collection; the colouring is equal to the beauty of the drawing and to the utter truth of the expression. 108 Sade’s apparent transcription error for Giovanni Antonio Medrano, along with Angelo Carasale and Antonio Canevari, one of the three architects who received the original commission for the palace’s construction. Giovanni A. Medrano to the French ear would be close to Sade’s fanciful Janvier Ametrano. 109 A Tuscan by birth, Bernardo Tanucci (1698–1783) was perhaps the crucial political figure in Bourbon Naples, holding several important posts before becoming Charles V’s chief minister. When Charles succeded to the Spanish throne in 1759 and the thrones of Naples and Sicily passed to his son Ferdinand, Tanucci not only maintained his ministerial position but, in effect, functioned as Charles’s viceroy. He served Ferdinand until 1776, when clashes with the queen, Maria Carolina of Austria and an increasingly powerful political force, ended with his retirement. 110 Panini (1691–1765) depicted Charles III of Bourbon visiting the pope in a coffee house on the Quirinal Hill, as well as the more official visit that took place, as Sade notes, at Saint Peter’s Basilica. 111 Viz., Giorgio Giulio Clovio, to whom Richard refers as Jules Clovio (see Description, 4:189). 112 Perhaps Sade intends Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli (c. 1500–1569), who had married a cousin of Parmigianino, whose actual name was Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, and who adopted the family name of the famous painter at that time. However, the celebrated Pietà at Capodimonte, originally located in the Palazzo Farnese, is by Annibale Carracci (1560–1609). Carracci was no relation of Parmigianino, although the latter’s influence might indicate an artistic kinship. Moreover, his Pietà does not feature other aspects of Calvary. The identity of the painting to which Sade refers thus remains something of a mystery.

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In this room is a collection of antique lamps. You will see that one of them has a priapic form, extremely curious. The tomb of him  – or her  – into which it was placed pushed quite far, to be sure, the worship of or devotion to this god!113 There are also double ones, likewise interesting because of the rarity. A little altar upon which is the god Mars, others in different styles, inscriptions, several Etruscan vases, others used for drinking and in the shape of animal heads. A bas-relief: what it depicts is hard to understand and no one could explain it to me; excessive erudition is not a fault of the guarda roba [sic for guardarobieri] in these palaces. This entire room was bought by the king from the duke of Nuga.114 The sixth room: the Judgment of Paris, by Parmagianino. The Rape of Europa and Diana in her bath by Annibale Carracci, albeit in his feeblest style. A Danaë by Titian, lovely colour and drawing. A Lucretia and a Susanna by [Carlo Francesco] Nuvolone, pupil of Carracci. Two lovely cartoons copied by Carracci from Raphael. Venus and Adonis by Paolo Veronese, but one of his mediocre ones. A pretty little Flemish painting. Four ancient frescoes in the style of those that you see in Portici, but the entire value of which depends upon the antiquity. Venus with cupids by Carracci, well drawn, fine accuracy in the children, above all. Adonis leaving for the hunt by Titian and consequently superb in terms of coloration, for we know that this part often constituted the entire merit of this famous artist. Love asleep amid a group of infants, pretty piece by Parmigianino. Four lovely nude studies by Carracci. In an adjoining room is a cabinet filled with Etruscan vases, among which are some of substantial value. Below this cabinet, a lovely basrelief in white marble. The seventh room: the Virgin with two infants by Pietro da Cortona. Several views of Venice by Canaletto [i.e., Giovanni Antonio Canal], painted with much skill. In the eighth: four pieces by Guercino, two Saint Jeromes, a Magdalene, and a Saint Peter. In the ninth: an episode from the adventures of Ulysses, happily captured by Guido. A Magdalene and a Virgin by the same, as well as several other pieces. The Angel enchaining the Devil, by Lanfranco and in his lovely manner. Several copies of Carracci. The ninth room contains treasures by Annibale Carracci. You will see a Hercules between Vice and Virtue. Rinaldo and Armida.115 Our Lord at the tomb. Saint Jerome, with a pendant of Saint Cecilia. A small Saint Anne. A small Holy Family. Another Jesus at the tomb. The ecstasy of Saint Francis. A Pietà in which unfolds all the learning and the entire extent of the genius of this great man. Two heads, by the Venetian school, well made albeit in a somewhat low style. The Alliance of Saint Cecilia and the Infant Jesus, by Annibale Carracci, with lovely colour and drawing, above which are two pieces by Ludovico Carracci, his brother, with a much lesser brush, although fit for mention. In the tenth, several portraits by Titian, among others that of Paul III, from the House of Farnese, sublime and full of truth; that of his servant, in which you can discern some of 113 A decade later, Richard Payne Knight would make the first important attempt to assuage such curiosity with his controversial analysis of phallic cults, in An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus, Lately Existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples … to which Is Added, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus (London, 1786). See the introduction to this volume. 114 I have been unable to trace this reference; there is likely a transcription error or misunderstanding. 115 The story of Rinaldo, a soldier in the First Crusade, and the Saracen sorceress Armida is told in Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (Parma and Ferrara, 1581). It was a frequent inspiration for artistic portrayal and the subject of several operas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including those with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, George Frideric Handel, and Antonio Salieri, all prior to Sade’s journey, and by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Joseph Haydn, shortly after it.

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the features of the head of his beautiful Venus in Florence. They say that she served him in more than one way. These are the sorts of physical furniture that an artist and a man of letters cannot easily do without. It is good to have it right there at one’s disposal: Nature is satisfied and one’s head is not unsettled. Love is not made for a man who labours. If his desires kindle and if he should not have at the ready the means to extinguish them, the fire of the senses replaces that of the composition before him and it shows in the work. If I were a sovereign, not only would I tolerate such licence in the members of my cabinet but the desire to have great men would even commit me to commanding that they provide for themselves. It goes the same for care of household. A philosopher or an artist is duty-bound to shift these cares to the shoulders of others. These miseries, which necessarily shrink genius, are by themselves able to ruin a great man. These details of governing may appear futile, but they are nonetheless important. Do I not rip out the parasitical weeds that would damage the growth of the shrub that I cherish? Is not a man of genius precious enough to the state such that he who governs that state should not take upon himself the trifling care of insuring that this man avoid all that might damage the fine fruits that he could pluck from his labours or from his lights? And how many treasures, both in letters and in the arts, would we not discover every day, if he who possessed them, freed from his wretchedness or from domestic afflictions, could surrender himself to the fire of his imagination, now enervated by sorrow! But a king who is but king has other things to think about, and a hart at bay or to be brought to bay is a matter of much greater import! Be that as it may, let us return to our tour, which a far too long reflection has inappropriately interrupted. A sketch of the same pope about whom I was just speaking, depicted in the midst of part of his court, by the same [i.e., Titian]. The works of charity by Schidoni [i.e., Bartolomeo Schedoni].116 The portrait of the House of Farnese’s cobbler, full of truth, by the same. Saint Stephen, Saint John, Saint Francis, still by the same. A Swiss Guard of the House of Farnese. A monk reading. A small Holy Family. A charming child. The Decollation of Saint John. A Holy Family in the workshop of Saint Joseph, a divine piece. A Heaven, in the style of Correggio, the halftones are sublime and the entire work exhibits a broad touch and the most manly drawing. A Saint Sebastian with the arrows being pulled out: a lovely nude that appears to have perhaps been made more as a study than a painting. A little Eros at rest, with charming sweetness and coloration. A small Saint John, likewise full of Nature and grace, all pieces by Schidoni and in which this great artist attained immortality thanks to the great truth rendered by his charming brush. Eleventh room: Our Lady of the Rosary, charming piece, in the style of [Peter Paul] Rubens. Judith showing the head of Holophernes to the people, by Solimena. The Adoration of the Shepherds by F. de Mura, student of this grand master. Two animal paintings, pretty enough, by Rose [Salvator Rosa?]. The Baptism of Our Lord. Rebecca at the Well, by [Francesco] Albano: you will recognize all the softness and charm of this painter of the Graces. A Game of little cupids, by the same: this was the genre for his dainty brush. Twelfth room: the daughter of Jephthah presenting herself before her father, in the style of Rubens, above all, in terms of the coloration. Two pieces by Lo Spagnoletto, both depicting the Denial of Saint Peter: the head of the saint, in one of the two, is of the greatest beauty.

116 Marginal note: “Schidoni.” Sade’s spelling is unorthodox. Ann Radcliffe would later adopt the name Schedoni for the wicked monk in her Gothic novel The Italian, or The Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797), reissued with Nick Groom, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; 3rd ed. 2017).

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Thirteenth room: the Striking of the Rock, by Bassano. Manna falling from Heaven, by the same, and several other lesser pieces by this master.117 A Butcher’s, a Fishmonger’s, both by Caravaggio and that nevertheless do not seem to be in his manner, although very truthful: a painted slab of salmon and of salt cod would lead you to believe them Flemish, the style notwithstanding. In this same room are some busts and a few bronzes. The fourteenth chamber is full of paintings of flowers and fruits by several masters, all very truthful. The four smallest are those that seemed to me the most pleasing and the most natural. In this room are several busts, among which a Seneca, of the greatest beauty, and a Paul III, likewise quite lovely of its kind. You will also see a very lovely Etruscan vase. Fifteenth room: a lovely allegorical painting by Paolo Veronese, although a bit darkened. Two paintings of fruit, charming and full of truth. A lovely sketch by the Venetian school. Sixteenth room: a lovely allegorical painting, well preserved, by Giulio Romano; you see in it the firm and vigorous manner of drawing of this master. Opposite, a cartoon by the same. In this room, there are a great number of precious little curiosities of all sorts, but describing them would be too fussy. You will see an Egyptian idol made of black marble. Sixteenth room [sic]: several large studies by Correggio. A large battle by Bassano. Many little paintings by various painters. Several decrees of the Roman Senate upon bronze plaques; you will read upon one, among others, about the commission of the town crier; you will see that the people wanted it to be given to a citizen. An allegorical painting by Luca Giordano. A large number of drawings under glass, among others several by Correggio. You will see the one known among artists by the name of “the Virgin with rabbit,” thanks to the rabbit placed next to her. Others by Raphael, by Michelangelo, by Giulio Romano. Several large cartoons by the first of these masters. An Evangelist, two Doctors of the Church, by Schidoni. A pretty little landscape by K. [Karel] Dujardin that you have to dig out of the shadows of a secluded corner, yet no less charming for that. Pretty paintings by Le Nain and several other Flemish artists, carelessly kept although delicious.118 There are also several busts in this room, a large ivory plate adorned with divine bas-reliefs, an antique mosaic, several pendulums and clocks of various sorts and several other little silver coffers or desks decorated with stones, some of which are precious.119 Seventeenth room: several pretty pieces by Correggio and some sketches by the same master, one of which, above all, is rendered with much fire. A study by the same, in the space over the door in which are Saint Cecilia and the Virgin and some infants.120 Eighteenth room.121 The Cardinal Borgia by Andrea del Sarto, or at least very strongly in his style. Two Holy Family paintings by Raphael. The Infant Jesus sleeping, handled in

117 The Bassano family included several painters and the references above do not lead to certain attributions. Sade likely intends Jacopo Bassano, also known as Jacopo da Ponte (1510–1592) and not his sons Leandro or Francesco Bassano the Younger, nor his father Francesco Bassano the Elder. 118 The three Le Nain brothers – Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu – shared a studio and primarily produced genre paintings and portraits. They were not Flemish but from northern France, albeit genre painting was associated with Flemish and Dutch painters. 119 This is where Gilbert Lely and Georges Daumas’s edition of Sade’s Voyage d’Italie came to an end. 120 End of Sade’s second Naples notebook. 121 Here begins the “Third notebook on the interior of Naples and its mores.” Large notebook of 12 pages entirely in Sade’s hand. On the cover page: “NOTE: The façade of the Palace of the King of Naples has three orders of pilasters: Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian. / This third notebook categorically follows the one num-

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a grand style, piece by the school of the Carracci. A portrait of Raphael between two other heads, by Raphael himself. A copy of the Last Judgment by Michelangelo that will be seen in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.122 Two artists, an architect and a painter, by Andrea del Sarto; the heads are very lifelike. The Virgin, Saint John and Saint John the Baptist, by Raphael, absolutely like the one in the royal palace; both are deemed originals … I will not settle the matter. Several Bassano’s. A superb Saint Sebastian by Guercino. Antique frescoes, preserved under glass. In this room is a large cabinet full of all sorts of curiosities and precious stones. You will see a lovely basin of agate, a little amber oratory [?], vases, lacrimaria. But a truly unique piece, magnificent enough for a king, is a superb basin of oriental agate, preserved with great care; the bottom is a superb cameo of an allegorical subject; the other side is a Medusa’s head, with the most polished and delicate working. You can say, without exaggeration, that this piece is priceless, as much for the beauty of the material as for the superiority of the workmanship. To the side are two tables full of cameos and other precious stones divinely engraved and all antique, among which some will be found particularly valuable. In a drawer of one of these tables is preserved a book of Hours of the Virgin, full of miniatures at once so delicate and so naked that it would be quite possible, while reading it, to think of a virgin more virgin than Mary. These charming miniatures are by Julius Clovio.123 Each one constitutes a quite complete little painting. Among others, there is one of David praying to our Lord, who has been placed between two pretty nude women, doubtless to make the reader see the nature of his sin. I suspect that if this good king should have thus placed two of them next to his prie-dieu, he could never in good faith have repented of his great taste for this divine sex. This book dates from 1546. All the subjects seemed to me products of the imagination, and I could not recognize in them, as Monsieur Richard would have it, a single subject taken from paintings of the grand masters. The cover of this precious book is of gilded bronze, wrapped with small sheets of silver. In the last rooms that I mentioned are twenty tables full of the most precious antique medals. It is one of the most beautiful collections of this type to be seen, without question, in the world. There are Greek ones, Roman ones, and many are made of gold and of silver. You will also see, among the rarities of natural history, a piece of rock crystal that weighs eighteen hundred pounds. The library of this palace is considerable; it takes up seventy-five cabinets arranged in a series of six quite large rooms. It is estimated to contain some twenty-two thousand volumes, among which are many rare manuscripts. Adjoining this palace are large groves in which the king sometimes hunts and in which some forest animals are kept for his pleasure. If this house were finished, although poorly conceived, its position and its grandeur would nonetheless make it quite worthy of a prince. There is talk of putting the prince royal bered two and that ends with the mark: llll. / NOTE: Remember never to treat a topic without consulting all the books related to it.” 122 Marginal note: “See if this is true before putting it in.” 123 Giorgio Giulio Clovio (1498–1578) is the Italian name of Juraj Julije Klović, from the Kingdom of Croatia, a miniaturist and illuminator. The work in question is the Farnese Hours, made for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, now in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York.

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here, brother of the king and whose imbecilic state would perhaps benefit from inhabiting a well-aerated house.124 Returning from Capodimonte, you pass in front of two large buildings, about which I must say a word. One is an immense hospital begun by the king of Spain, called the Hospital of Saint Anthony Abbot, or still more vulgarly, the Seraglio. In it are placed beggars, the sick, etc. The layout is lovely and the design vast. I have no doubt that this edifice, once completed, will one day be superb. The work goes slowly. The church will occupy the entire interior area of the buildings; you can already see its shape by looking at this interior area. Further along, the University, a substantial building the bulk of which is lovely and that much ressembles the architecture of Borromini, although poor in the details. The exterior niches, positioned in the façade, are adorned with some antique statues. From there you cross, before returning to the lovely Via Toledo, the Piazza Santo Spirito, which will be adorned with the statue of the king of Spain, to be situated in the semicircular embrace of a superb, regularly shaped building that graces this square. And at the end of this road, the largest and loveliest in Naples, you will find the palace of the king. The façade alone announces what is before you: its architecture is quite lovely. The beautiful main building has two levels, supported upon large archways between which are niches in which statues should doubtless be placed but that have never had any. The whole is made up of three architectural orders that are truly magnificent. The first is Tuscan, the second is Ionic, and the third Corinthian. In front of it is a square that is fairly large yet poorly bounded, which is used for exercising troops. This exterior façade extends three hundred and sixty feet. Upon the side towards the sea, there are two pavilions, one of which is obscured by the Castel Nuovo (about which I will speak in due course) and is not finished; the other is where the king’s apartment is located and in front is a lovely terrace that I will describe in its place. This edifice seems to have been intended to occupy a much greater expanse and its construction also seems to have stopped and resumed several times. Pedro de Toledo made the wing that is closest to the Castel Nuovo; the other was constructed under the vice-royalty of the Count of Lemos, in the seventeenth century, based upon plans by Fontana.125 You enter into the interior courtyard via one of the middle archways, which first connects to a peristyle that extends the entire length. This interior courtyard is enclosed by buildings upon all four sides, surrounded by another peristyle formed by archways that support a simple main building, above which is a soffit in which the chambermaids of the Court are lodged.126 The pilasters of the two levels in this courtyard are Doric on the bottom and Ionic above. To the left is the great staircase that leads to the apartments, at the base of which are two colossal figures of the Tagus and the Tiber. This huge and convenient staircase leads to a fairly narrow vestibule, from which you pass into the first antechamber. The ceilings are by Francesco de Mura. One section figures architecture, and the highest section

124 Philip, Duke of Calabria, older brother of the king of Naples and Sicily, had severe mental disabilities that forced his exclusion from succession to the throne. He died of smallpox in 1777, at the age of 30. 125 The palace was built on the site of the residence of Don Pedro de Toledo, the Spanish viceroy of Naples from 1532 to 1553. Under the direction of the architect Domenico Fontana construction on the palace began in the seventeenth century. The first resident was the viceroy Fernando Ruiz de Castro, Earl of Lemos. The palace became the Bourbon royal residence when Charles III of Spain arrived in Naples in 1734. 126 Sade’s clarity leaves something to be desired in this description. A soffit – soffite – is simply the underside of an arch or other structure, but here seems to mean “attic.”

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depicts the entry into Naples of the deceased queen of Spain. The frescoes of archicture, infinitely more energetic than the main subject (which is done in oil), detract a bit from the impact. Moreover, this is the best that I saw of that painter. This room, as well as a large number of the following ones, is hung with crimson damask. To the right is a large and quite decorated room that contains symbolic statues and that can be turned at will into a ballroom or theatre. There is no box other than the king’s, which connects to a gallery that goes all the way around and in which those in his entourage take their places. The paintings on the ceiling are mediocre; they are said to be by a Sicilian, whose name I know not.127 In the following room – the first antechamber that I just mentioned upon entering – is a lovely ceiling by Belisario [Corenzio] that depicts the entrance of Alfonso of Aragon into Naples. You will see in this room four lovely tables made of gold-veined black marble. The third room depicts some episodes related to the history of this same king, painted by the same. The fourth, which is the one in which the king receives the kissing of the hand, a ceremony that takes place each day marked as a gala day during the course of the year, which number some fifteen to twenty, and upon which His Majesty allows those presented with the honour to kiss his hand, is hung with velvet with gold braiding. The four corners of the earth, painted by Luigi Garzi of Rome, are depicted on the ceiling; you make out in this composition the extreme difference between the Roman brush and that of the Neapolitans, which in truth only stands out because of the weakness of the latter. Next comes the gallery in which there are no longer any paintings, those that adorned it having been taken to Capodimonte. The ceiling depicts the conquests of the Spanish under Alfonso by Belisario, with a beautiful and vigorous brush, and very much of the sort of those first schools that followed Nature exactly. You will see some lovely tables in this gallery; one among others, by the mosaic manufactory of Naples, in imitation of that of Florence, under the management of the Marquis Acciaiuoli, school that does honour to the distinguished views of this kind lord who, born in Florence and bound in service to the king of Naples, wanted to bring to his new fatherland that which was most pleasing in his own. I cannot insist too much on the praise due this upright and utterly learned mortal; the considerations that I have received from him would render such praise suspicious. The degree of confidence that he enjoys with his master, the general esteem of his new and former compatriots – all this speaks better than I, and the fame of his virtues belongs more to his renown than to the weakness of my brush.128 From the gallery you pass into the king’s dressing room. The vault and the area above the door of this chamber are by F. de Mura; these latter pieces are the best that I have seen by 127 This would be Antonio Dominici (c. 1734–1794), originally from Palermo, whose ceiling paintings in the so-called Teatrino di corto were destroyed in the bombardment of Naples during the Second World War. 128 Charles VII, King of Naples (subsequently Charles III of Spain) brought hardstone manufacturers and craftsmen who specialized in mosaic from Florence to Naples in 1738, establishing the Real Laboratorio delle Pietre Dure. See Gordon Campbell, ed., Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 1:140. The head of the Real Laboratorio when Sade made his visit was Gaspare Donnini; the Marquis Acciaiuoli mentioned in the text was, however, involved in the administrative oversight of the operation, as we know from reports and petitions that he made. See Annamaria Giusti, Pietre dure: Hardstone in Furniture and Decorations, trans. Jenny Condie and Mark Roberts (London: Philip Wilson, 1992), 227 and 244.

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his hand. The Triumph of Flora is the subject of the ceiling. Next comes the state bedroom, in which the bed, placed in a recess of which the pilasters are mirrors adorned with delicate sculptures, is remarkably lavish. It is made of silver fabric embroidered with coloured sequins, and the horizonal bandings at the top and bottom are of gold cloth. The hangings in this room are tapestries in the style of the Gobelins, but of Neapolitan manufacture;129 although infinitely inferior to our own, they are nonetheless not without merit. The doorframes of this chamber, which are made of marble in all the other rooms, are done in mirrors in this one, and in general this entire apartment is most magnificent. Upon the vaults is depicted a Temple of Fame by de Mura, but this seemed to me quite inferior to the rest. The chamber in which Their Majesties sleep comes next. They sleep in two little twin beds of crimson damask, of the utmost simplicity. This room is adorned with several family portraits: those of the archdukes of Milan and of Tuscany, those of the emperor and the empress, etc. The room is hung with a quite plain little brocaded satin. From there you pass into the queen’s study, in which there are four small cabinets filled with French books, some modern theatre, and some dictionaries – books made for princes who, without the time to gather knowledge for themselves, must profit from the sweat of others. This little room is hung with yellow pekin. Attached to this room is the pretty terrace that I mentioned above, which runs the the entire length of the suite of rooms along the back side. This little artificial garden is truly delicious and provides a notion of what those of Semiramis must have been.130 You will see shrubs of all sorts, ever green and flowering, fruits for every season, etc. In the middle is a pretty little trellised area. The view from here is very pleasing; it overlooks the Darsena, where ships are built, the mole, the port, and the entire sea. If I were king, I would find only one drawback: the view of the galleys, situated exactly below, the groanings from which you hear directly. It is cruel to have such a view. I understand that being king and consequently far from misfortune, one feels it less. Still, it is horrible to become blasé about such things, and I do declare that it seems to me that if I were king and my happiness in dominating others might be upset by some notion, it would be by the one produced by the sight of wretches crushed by my power. This entire terrace is adorned with two-faced statues that, consequently, decorate both sides. From there you pass into the queen’s dressing room, adorned with family portraits and hung with embroidered white silken moire with braids. Her gallery is attached and is hung with brocatelle with silver relief. You will see there a lovely table made of verd antique. Close by is the chamber furnished for the princess Christina, Duchess of SaxonyTeschen, sister of the queen, who came with Albert, her husband, to see Naples. This room is like all the previous rooms of the king of which I have spoken, that is to say, hung in red damask with gold braiding. Attached to this room is a series of five or six similar rooms that are furnished only with tapestries. Close by is a large room called the Hall of Viceroys because all their portraits were formerly here. Today, you will see only a large painting by Solimena depicting the entry of the Catholic King in Naples, one of the most feeble efforts by this artist.131 129 The Manufacture des Gobelins, the royal tapestry workshop in Paris, had been well and truly established during the reign of Louis XIV and under the directorship of the painter Charles Le Brun (1619–1690). 130 The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which, according to one tradition, were the work of the Assyrian Queen Semiramis. 131 Charles VII of Naples (subsequently Charles III of Spain), sometimes referred to as “the Catholic King.”

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Close to the chapel is a large chamber full of porcelains, which connects to this chapel, in which you will note an Adoration of the Kings as well as one of the Shepherds, two charming little pieces by Luca Giordano. Close by is the billiard room, favourite game of the king of the Two Sicilies; it is decorated with arabesques of a great elegance. In a room behind the billiard room is a mirror upon the border of which are depicted four Cupids in the midst of much ornamentation; the whole is made from a single piece of marble. A bit more delicacy and taste in this work would have made it worthy of the hightest praise. In this same room are two busts of the queen, one of which is supported by a lovely porphyry pedestal. In general, not one of these apartments is magnificent or even clean. They are unfamiliar here with those lovely parquet floors that are so attractive and at the same time so easy to maintain that we use in France. They use square wooden floorboards that are never waxed and consequently always dirty. The king’s chapel is lovely; its architecture is good. At the main altar is a statue of the Virgin that is a bit cumbrous, but nonetheless knowingly handled. This chapel has gilt white walls. The entabulature is supported by pilasters in the Corinthian order, but there is hardly more magnificence here, generally speaking, than in all the remainder of the palace. Via a staircase that connects to the suites, you descend into the private arsenal for the menus plaisirs of the king. There are hunting rifles, some Turkish arms, and many peculiar and prohibited weapons, among which you will note, above all, a book of hours of the Virgin in a part of which is fashioned a pistol, a weapon all the more treacherous insofar as its perfidy is masked by hypocrisy, but this will not astonish a philosopher who is but all too familiar with how much crime loves to wrap itself in the cloak of superstition and how, historically, the latter has favoured murderers and assassins. You will also see, in this same collection, a dagger that, in its sheath, appears to have only one blade, but the moment that you withdraw it, reveals itself to have four. This weapon, invented by the most refined cruelty, encourages us, it seems to me, to think poorly of the nation in which it is found. Many pistols the barrels of which make daggers; a key that serves as a pistol; a lantern in which eight firearms are incorporated, and other sophistications of the sort, which make you shudder both for yourself and at the monsters who invented them or make use of them. You must examine carefully, in this little weapons storehouse, the beauty of the barrels of the king’s hunting rifles; you will see some that cost up to four hundred ducats, which comes to about one thousand eight hundred livres in our currency. There are some that have been adapted for the queen’s small rifles, likewise very beautiful. The area where these objects are is the left wing of the building, with regard to someone inside facing the military exercise yard that is opposite. On this same side, you descend by a markedly sloped corridor in which has been fashioned a gently inclined staircase with intermediate landings all the way to where the king embarks. At that point are two pretty little painted lounges where he dines sometimes when he has sea expeditions. To the left are the shipyards, fairly large, for the construction of galleys, galiots, and xebecs. In the first of these yards are the king’s boats, quite gilded, prettily painted and suited for giving parties. From there you connect to the Darsena and to the little port in which the galleys are enclosed, at the head of which was formerly the Tower of Saint Vincent, which was used to hold state prisoners, today demolished, and upon the site is now a foundry. This area was in this state when Monsieur Richard, who only travelled by copying from old books,

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assured us that this tower was still being put to its former purpose. I would also like him to tell us where he saw that underground gallery via which the king embarks and that I have just remarked such as it exists, namely, as a large corridor with a gentle slope, constructed very much in view, and in which there is a staircase with intermediate landings. The Old Castle [viz., Castel Nuovo] is attached to the palace and connects to it via a little bridge built over the fortification ditches of this castle. It is a large square mass, the entry gate of which is defended by two huge towers, and the corners are likewise flanked by similar buildings. It was formerly, or so it is said, a convent of the Friars Minor of the Observance, called the Torre Maestra. Charles I of Anjou, more soldier than monk, made it into a fortress;132 we are told that Alfonso I built the towers. But the very ancient archives of the city belie this opinion, and I have in no uncertain terms read that these towers were the work of the Normans and that their construction cost two hundred and thirty-five thousand écus. The emperor Charles V was the last to put a hand to this fortress. Upon this topic, you hear a quite peculiar anecdote. In order to finish the fortress, the emperor made all corporations contribute; the public ladies offered to have a bastion built at their expense. Not only did the name “Bastion of Wh***s” stick to this fortification, upon every stone was engraved the image of the body part that had served to acquire the funds that were used for this construction. You can still make them out quite distinctly.133 The exterior fortifications are not much; the ditch is very wide, but the remainder is extremely mediocre, and the side facing the sea, which ought to be the best defended, seems to be the one that was the most neglected. The quay forms the rampart on the side facing the sea, and to this quay, by a spit of land, connects the mole that surrounds the city’s port and at the end of which is built the lighthouse. Entering into the Old Castle [sic] via the so-called Gate of Saint Barbara, defended by those two huge towers that I just mentioned, you will notice between these two towers a triumphal arch that is believed to be by the hand of the sculptor who decorated the Palace of Queen Joanna, about which I will say a word. This arch, handled in the antique style, truly offers some great beauties. The lower part is a large archway that serves as an entryway, in the doorframe of which are little niches where there ought to be figures; the bas-reliefs upon the lower part depict soldiers armed in all manner. This monument is made up of three orders, the first of which is Corinthian. Above is a large attic level in which there is a bas-relief of the triumph of Alfonso I. The figures, well captured in their attire, look to be made by a skilful hand. It were to be wished that all artists should have, like this one, the good sense to use only the dress of their own century; we would be less confused about the 132 Marginal note: “See the Dictionnaire des grands hommes.” Sade’s reference is to Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire, although the entry on Charles of Anjou or Charles I of Naples (2:149–50) makes no mention of the Castel Nuovo. Nonetheless, the fortress was built at his behest, with construction beginning in 1279. 133 As Pierre Jean Grosley, in New Observations on Italy and Its Inhabitants, trans. Thomas Nugent (London, 1769), explains in more detail: “A bastion in this castle which faces the harbour, was built in the last century, by a Spanish viceroy, with the monies arising from a tax levied on prostitutes for that very purpose; and the stone-cutters, that posterity might know how much the state owed to that class of females, chisselled out an oblong oval on the facing of every stone in the front of this bastion, which is likewise of a great height” (2:216–17). Likewise Sade’s probable source, Lalande, writes: “The bastion of the New-Castle that overlooks the port is vulgarly called the Bastione delle P[uttane] because it is claimed that it was built with revenue from a tax put on such girls. The sorts of ovals that will be seen upon the stones have been made to preserve the memory thereof via a represtentation that is obscene albeit related to their estate” (Voyage, 6:42).

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epoch in which we find ourselves in a large number of monuments, and future generations would profit all the more since that mania for varying manners of dress afflicts us today more than ever. On the second row [sic] of this arch there is a second, compound Ionic one in which we can make out once again that barbarous system that was the rule in the first days of the renaissance of the arts, mingled nonetheless with those sparks of genius that heralded a return to those beautiful Augustan centuries, which the century of Louis XIV saw florish and that we regretfully watch the daily decline. Lastly, the third row is Composite; you will see four large niches that take up the entire front side, in which are situated the four Cardinal Virtues. The pediment is circular, and within it are two rivers with cornucopiae, the whole crowned by a large statue of Queen Joanna, at either side of her are figures said to be of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. You will observe with satisfaction that the entablatures are well made and all perfectly in the antique style. The two towers on the sides are used as prisons for criminals condemned to public labour. Having passed beneath the arch, you come across a bronze door upon which there are some bas-reliefs that are fairly poor stylistically and that depict a few episodes from the history of the House of Aragon. You will see a cannonball that doubtlessly did not have sufficient force to penetrate it [i.e., the door]. From there, you enter into the courtyard that is built up on every side and so filled with troops, convicts, and persons of the Court who have lodgings here that it seems that you are in a small city. Opposite, in the left corner, is a staircase that leads to the great hall of the arsenal, which served as the banquet hall when the princes of the House of Aragon lived in this castle. At the foot of this staircase is a fragment of a statue that Monsieur l’abbé Richard would have whole and as representing Nero. Neither did I see the busts of Hadrian and of Trajan that he mentions. This large hall is one hundred Neapolitan palms squared and about one hundred and twenty from the ground up to the highest cornice;134 it culminates in a Gothic vault, built to prove that this style, which I sought to ridicule, is capable of great beauty. Several historical episodes make this hall interesting135 (that of the discovered conspiracy, on account of which the prince assassinated the twelve leaders under the pretext of a dinner), among others, that of the abdication of the solitary of Sulmona, Pietro da Morrone, pope known by the name of Celestine V in 1294.136 134 As a unit of measurement, the palm varied widely. The English palm or handsbreadth was based on the width of the palm and measured three inches; on the Continent, the palm was based on the length of the hand and ranged from around eight to ten inches depending on the region and on the source. Based on eighteenth-century sources, the Neapolitan palm seems to have measured some eight and a half inches. By Sade’s calculation, the arsenal is thus around seventy feet square or seventeen feet on each side, which is obviously incorrect. He must mean one hundred Neapolitan palms per side. 135 Marginal note: “Look for some of them in Giannone.” Giannone examines the Conspiracy of the Barons, which took place in 1485 and gained the support of Pope Innocent VIII, against the rule of King Ferdinand I, in his L’Histoire civile du Royaume de Naples (3:608–19). The main “interesting episode” that happened in the festive hall of the castle was the seizure and imprisonment of the principal conspirators, who had been guaranteed security, during the celebration of the wedding of Marco Coppola, son of the Count of Sarno, with the daughter of the duke of Amalfi (see Giannone, 3:617). 136 As the punctuation above indicates, the sentence is solecistic. Pietro Angelerio (1215–1296) reigned as Pope Celestine V for five months in 1294. Prior to his election, he was an ascetic, whose life in a cave at Mount Morrone earned him the name by which Sade refers to him. He founded what subsequently

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You will see around this hall dark recesses fashioned into the thickness of the walls, which are twenty-two palms thick, the purpose of which appears mysterious. The box or balcony where the king and queen took their places during festivities held in this hall are still to be seen. You get there by climbing a narrow staircase like one in a prison and that does not herald, any more than this balcony, any great luxury during those still barbarous centuries and that, above all, confirms that the women did not wear such broad attire nor were they as highly coiffed as today. They claim that this hall contains the wherewithal to arm twenty thousand men. It did not seem to me that there could have been enough for more than ten, and this scarcity is doubtless the reason that the king was supposedly stricken with a great terror that the emperor, his brother-in-law, should visit this arsenal during his visit to Naples.137 In this hall is a small door, next to the large door and that appears at present out of service, adorned with decorations and bas-reliefs in the same style as the triumphal arch. From here, you return to the church that is next door. The door is still in the same style of the one that I just mentioned, but the sculpture of the bases and capitals and of some bas-reliefs that adorn this door appear nonetheless to be more lightly and delicately handled. This church is small but quite ornate. You will see therein a small head of the Virgin that is prettily done, but that has no other merit than of being what is called an opinion painting. As you will see many of this sort in Italy, the right thing to do is to explain here what is meant by an opinion painting. What is labelled thus is a painting that has always passed for good without being so or a copied painting, the original of which has been lost or sold and for which this copy has been substituted. Those persons who point them out assure you of their beauty; those who view them are either not sufficiently knowledgeable or too gentlemanly to say otherwise, and so the opinion perpetuates itself. You will also see in this church an Adoration of the Kings, which is believed to be the first piece that Jean de Bruges painted in oil and which was sent to King Alfonso of Aragon. If you want to give yourself an idea of the entirety of this fortress, of the constructions that surround it, of those that fortify it from the side facing the sea, of the way that it links to the king’s palace, you will need to climb up on the platform in the arms room via one of the towers that flank the corners and that connect to the church. You get there via a spiral staircase of peculiar configuration. From there, you can see everything, and this is the place where you must go to best take in the ensemble. became the Celestine order, a branch of the Benedictines, headquartered on the nearby Sulmona plains. Finding himself unsuited for papal politics and vice versa, he issued an edict confirming the right of popes to abdicate and promptly took advantage of it. His intent to return to his eremitic ways was thwarted or, perhaps, ironically twisted: he was imprisoned by his successor, Pope Boniface VIII, and died shortly thereafter. Dante may have intended Celestine V as the shade, classed among the cowardly in Hell, who is said to have made “the great refusal.” See Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Inferno, trans. Mark Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 35 [Canto 3, ll.59–60]. Early commentators made this attribution, which is assumed in some contemporary scholarship as well, but the identity of the shade remains uncertain. Petrarch, moreover, defended Celestine’s abdication as praiseworthy and spiritual, in his De vita solitaria (1346). See Christian Moevs, “Subjectivity and Conversion in Dante and Petrarch,” in Zygmunt G. Barański and Theodore J. Cachy Jr, eds., Petrarch and Dante: Anti-Dantism, Metaphysics, Tradition (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2009), 252 and also 226–59. 137 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, had sojourned in Naples in 1769.

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In one chamber of this castle, likewise leading to the church, will be seen the chamber [sic] that Saint Francis of Paola occupied, which was turned into a chapel, following the custom. At the altar is his portrait, awkwardly compared by Monsieur Richard to van Dyck and believed by him to be by Lo Spagnoletto. You will certainly not make out any mark of these two masters; this head has not cohesion, no naturalness, no truthfulness, and I dare to think that, upon seeing it, anyone knowledgeable will take my opinion about this piece over that of Monsieur Richard. You will see in the arcades of this chapel several pieces having to do with the life of the saint and that all appear to be by the same hand, although in a bit better style. In this chapel is a cannonball that, it is said, penetrated within but broke nothing out of respect for this saint. Old castles certainly require a few tall tales.138 In the ditches, you will see a small gate that connects, or so it is said, to the Castel Sant’Elmo, situated upon the crest of the Posillipo. Yet another anecdote that I would like to verify for myself before crediting it, although it is infinitely more believable than the other. In front of the mole of which I have spoken and that I have said connects to the Old Castle [sic] by a spit of land is a lovely fountain of white marble with a figure representing the Mediterranean, but fairly poorly marked as such. The bas-reliefs of this fountain are not without merit. At this point, the mole bends to enclose the port, and at the end of this extension are two batteries of cannons to which it is prohibited to draw near. On the other side of the port is the quay, at which point begins that lovely promenade along the Strada Nuova of which I have spoken. It was constructed, like the mole, by the current king of Spain. Close by is the basin in which ships are repaired and that connects to the sea via a canal over which is a bridge that the road crosses over. Here also is the building of the Health Bureau, constructed in a dainty architectural style upon a pretty enough little square.139 In general, this entire quarter is lovely, noisy, extremely populous and lively, and makes the impression of a very large city. Few kings are housed like that of the Two Sicilies and have, like him, under hand and in the same enclosure palace, fortress, troops, galleys, arsenal, foundry, and port. The troubles that perturbed this great city made these precautions necessary, I would agree, and perhaps this proximity has its downsides now that the troubles of war have ceded to the happy tranquillity of an internal peace that it seems the current administration of this lovely kingdom and, above all, the love that the king’s subjects have for him ought perpetuate. Outside of the Capuan Gate, along the route to Benevento, you will find a lovely alley of trees that leads to the Poggio Reale or country house of Queen Joanna, some two miles 138 Marginal note: “See the Dictionnaire.” It is not clear to which of his dictionaries Sade is here referring or even which entry he might have in mind. Chaudon’s Nouveau Dictionnaire historique has an entry on Saint Francis of Paola, with anecdotes about his life, but nothing relating him to the Castel Nuovo (see 2:728–9). 139 What Sade simply refers to as “la Santé” is the Palace of the Immacolatella, a late Baroque building designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro and completed in the 1740s. It housed the Neapolitan health delegation, which had become a standing entity after the plague outbreak of 1691. On this building and attempts to regulate health in Naples in the eighteenth century, see David Gentilcore, “Tempi Sì Calamitosi: Epidemic Disease and Public Health,” in Tommaso Astarita, ed., A Companion to Early Modern Naples (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 281–306, esp. 298–9.

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from the city. Nothing but ruins remain to be seen, but nonethless well enough preserved to provide a good idea of what it was. The remaining foundations that will be seen there proclaim a charming habitation and one in which no refinement was lacking; water is there in abundance. You will still see the halls, the private rooms, the function of which must have been voluptuary. The courtway is adorned with a portico that went all the way around and created a lovely terrace. Above, the baths area can be easily made out; it seems that it must have been quite ornate. These ruins are just old and not otherwise interesting until you examine them while recalling the history of that singular woman. (See Giannone and the Dictionnaire).140 Caserta, royal house situated some eighteen miles from Naples, not far from Ancient Capua, about which I spoke en route from Rome to Naples. You can easily get there from the capital in two and a half hours. The route crosses a delightful plain, fertilized by the ashes of Vesuvius and lined with large poplars festooned with interlacing vines, which makes this entire plain the most pleasant view in the world. It abuts the mountain chain at the foot of which is located the episcopal city of Caserta, which is not particularly large. The palaces of the lords of the court are neither showy nor luxurious. At the edge of the city is a large square, which is used for the evacuation of the courtiers as a whole.141 On this square is the chateau in which the king currently resides, which hardly looks like more than the house of a private subject. It is true that he only occupies it from time to time. This house belonged to the dukes of Caserta, and it was from them that the king purchased it. You will see in the first antechamber two portraits of the Catholic King and Queen on horseback;142 in other rooms, some fairly vibrant paintings that depict the story of Don Quixote. The apartment of the king is exceedingly plain, hung with silk damask with threads in two colours. In the queen’s chamber, which is next door, are some fairly lovely porcelains and some pretty miniatures. Upon the hearth is a very lovely pier glass in which the mirror, of a quite considerable size, is made of one whole piece. In her dressing room, which is nearby, is a pretty Flight into Egypt, by a modern artist concerning whom no one could tell me the name; the setting is night, with an angel lighting them; everything is pleasing and pretty in this little composition. Next to it is another, by a Sicilian painter, that does not lower the tone of the first; it depicts a Rest during the flight of that same family, quite far from aspiring at that particular time to the glory that it enjoys today. In another, adjoining room are all the plans for the Castel Nuovo that were carried out, as well as all

140 Sade has surprisingly little to say about Queen Joanna, given that in the tradition she shares many affinities with the cruel libertine women, historical or fictional, of his later works. To take but one example, noted by Keyssler: “Poggio Reale, formerly a magnificent royal palace without the city, is now fallen to decay as not to be worth seeing. Among the ruins is shewn a steep place, from when queen Joanna used to have those whom she wanted out of the way to be privately thrown down headlong” (Travels, 3:45). As for Sade’s references, Pietro Giannone discusses Joanna extensively in his history of the Kingdom of Naples, but see in particular vol. 3, book 25, chapters 1–7 of the French translation (Histoire civile, 3:411–55). She is discussed more concisely in Chaudon’s Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, 3:467–8. 141 Sade’s meaning is somewhat obscure here. Richard notes a small courtyard outside of the king’s temporary residence, hardly large enough to accommodate the traffic of his court (see Description, 4:212–13. Sade, however, seems to have in mind a sizeable square or piazza where the courtiers come and go. 142 A reference to Charles VII of Naples, who was in Sade’s era referred to as “the Catholic King” or, in Italian, il Re Cattolico. The equestrian portraits of him and his spouse Maria Amalia of Saxony are presumably by Francesco Liani (c. 1712–1780).

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the samples, in the form of little columns, of various marbles that will be found within the king’s domain. Next, you pass into a pretty billiard room decorated with paintings that have no other merit than that of representing quite realistically various manners in which the king of Morocco lives, done in the country itself by a Neapolitan abbé. All the apartments of this castle are hung with old red damask made on a high-warp loom and with golden brocade, as antique as the place itself. But once again, the king only comes here to take the air, and the easy way in which this monarch makes do with everything is placed here as praise rather than criticism. Our sovereigns would think twice before inhabiting such a house. It is said that the king, who is not too fond of the placement of Caserta and who watches the completion of his large building with little interest, has decorated another house, two miles from here, called Saint-Aulège, in which he enjoys himself utterly.143 Notwithstanding, it were to be desired that the money he spends on this trinket would in preference be spent on finishing the immense and magnificent palace that I am going to describe, located behind the previous and facing Naples on one side and the mountains on the other. To give just a rough overview of this immense edifice, looking at the Naples façade, you see an oblong main block, isolated and unaccompanied save for two pavilions at the wings, and this assemblage would perhaps be more disadvantageous than favourable to this construction, if that were the end of the story. But if there are a few faults to be found in the aggregate, how many, to my mind, are the beauties in the details! The shape of the building is, as mentioned, a parallelogram, with four large pavilions flanking the corners. The shorter sides of the rectangular block are adorned with two orders of pilasters, the first being Doric and the second Corinthian. The longer sides, which have rows of thirty-six windows, consist of the same two orders, but done as engaged columns, which always creates a poor effect. A considerable fault of this assemblage is the uniformity of the entryways; all of them appear the same size. But I repeat that if there are considerable faults, there are considerable beauties, and this construction, carried out by Vanvitelli and continued by his son, since the death of the father, is quite certain proof of the man’s skill and the artist’s profound genius. Vanvitelli was a painter before becoming an architect; the structure of his building makes this visible.144 Everything is sacrificed to the eye; everything constitutes ornamentation. The utmost extent of his considered learnedness might perhaps have demanded more. But art and adornment could not have, to my mind, flown higher. And although the poor taste of his time may have gotten the better of him at times  – for example, having put windows in the frieze, which makes the worst impression imaginable, or of having made the middle entryway utterly too small and adorning it with pedestals of the poorest sort – you nevertheless cannot prevent yourself from granting superlative genius to the artist who conceived and imagined this huge assemblage. The entire building is crowned with 143 It is not clear what Sade intended by “Saint-Aulège,” perhaps one of the king’s hunting lodges, such as the Belvedere, not far from Caserta. 144 Of Dutch extraction on the paternal side, Luigi Vanvitelli (1700–1773), whose given name was Lodewijk van Wittel, was born in Naples. He was the son of the vedutista Gaspar van Wittel, who likewise used the Italianized surname Vanvitelli. Carlo Vanvitelli (1739–1821), one of Luigi’s sons, took over direction of the construction of the Reggia di Caserta after his father’s death. Note that Sade’s descriptions in these paragraphs are often incoherent.

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a balustrade that we must also place in the class of objects regarding which the architect followed the taste of the country more than his own. It is cumbrous, massive, and makes the worst impression. Entering via the main gate of this immense palace, you enter into a peristyle that, right from the start, provides three viewpoints that reveal this portion in its entirety. The viewpoint looking into the distance puts before you a lovely cascade created by the waters of the aqueduct that the king had made and concerning which I will come to. Thick pillars, in which columns are embedded, support this portico, divided down the middle by a large round vestibule that connects everywhere and that ends in the great staircase. At each corner of the portico are large square courtyards that are built up on every side, which instantly and practically upon the same spot creates a prodigious number of accommodations. All the courtyards are separate from one another, and this portico unites them all, which creates ornamentation almost everywhere and proves, just as I have already said, that the architect had more in the way of decorative and painterly genius than that of his craft. And his style proves again that, when he wanted to be an architect, Borromini and Bibiena [i.e., Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena] served him better than his own imagination. I will not mention the handling of the little details, absolutely in keeping with the genius of the nation. Everything is baroque and misconceived: windows fashioned into niches, narrow and constrictive doorways on the ground floor – all of this is hateful and proves that the artist, here subordinated to the laws of custom, dared not depart from the prevailing taste. Coming back to the vestibule, where the main staircase terminates, it is not without admiration that we discover the truly regal magnificence with which the artist has handled this part, conceived in the same style as that of the royal palace. Like there, you come to an initial landing whence take off two branches that match up with the upper vestibule. But how much lavishness, how much grandeur in the execution as well as the material! It consists of the most beautiful marbles, and the most copious decorations enrich it. The façade of the first landing, which makes for decoration starting from the bottom, is adorned with three larger-than-life statues that depict Naples in the midst of Virtues. [Giuseppe] Bonito painted the cupola, the shape of which is as noble and as extensive as the paintings are vibrant and pleasing. For you can state that this artist, naturally mediocre, has here outdone himself in order to embellish the abode of his king. He has taken for his subject Apollo crowning the arts and sciences, and he has learnedly handled it. It is said that the pleasing vestibule to which this superb staircase leads was modelled upon the Temple of Serapis in Pozzuoli. If this is the case, then Vanvitelli misconceived it, and I would dare to assert that the Temple of Serapis never was nor could have been like this. Be that as it may, this vestibule is beautiful. It is in the Ionic order, decorated moreover with the spoils of that temple and has about the same shape. That is, I believe, all that it has in common with it. Elevated above the floor level, you get there via five different rises of steps. From the centre, you have a view over all the courtyards, which creates yet again a singularly picturesque effect in this part. Here is where the various apartments are all connected, but not one of these is finished, and in them all you can see at present is four walls and workmen. The chapel is one of the first rooms that connects to this vestibule. It is the one in Versailles writ small; the amount of scaffolding that was there at the time prevented me from passing any other judgment or of making a more detailed description. The same drawback applying to all the other rooms, it was impossible for me to judge anything but the arrangement; everywhere this seemed

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to me beautiful and vast, although mingled with numerous faults. In general, many of the parts are sacrificed to one another. Many of the doorways do not take advantage of the serial layout and find themselves off in corners, and this happens because of minor considerations, not worth the trouble of making such a significant sacrifice. The much-too-thick walls mean that the rooms are very dark because the windows, already too small and built into this thickness, do not reflect enough light. For you will admit that, whatever solidity that should have been granted this edifice, it nonetheless ought not have been treated like a fortress. At the end of series of rooms destined for the king are currently paintings destined for the chapel. I saw a Birth of the Virgin by Sebastiano Conca, made with a singular facility and charming coloration. Close to this piece was a Presentation of the Virgin into the Temple, which did not succeed, being so close by; it seemed to me harsh and produced with difficulty, which made me think that the works of [Anton Raphael] Mengs, of which it is an example, need to be adeptly positioned. It is for this reason that this artist, although skilled, is more successful on vaults and ceilings than at what must be viewed from up close. Another by Sebastiano Conca, depicting the Annunciation, seems to herald the imminent demise of this great man at the time he composed this piece. Bonito has also done something for this chapel; you will see a Mariage of the Virgin by him, about which there is not very much to say. The sector of the queen’s suite is handled in about the same style. All the series of rooms are immense; those that extend along the long sides of the parallelogram are close to eight hundred feet and the others about six hundred. In the rooms on the lower level are arranged termini, busts, and other figures that will decorate the gardens, all of which are ponderous and poor. Termini are suitable only for galleries, vestibules, and little copses. In vast gardens, statues are required. But the objection of an imbecilic confessor, who fires the imagination by prohibiting these sorts of things much more than he cools it down, suffices to immortalize bad taste. Since the epoch that sovereigns were supposed to take note of the upheaval that this impious custom creates in their states, shouldn’t they have anihilated it a thousand times over? But it seems that superstition has for centuries been the essence of humanity, and that one cannot be a man without covering oneself under the thick crust of prejudices. In these same rooms is a lovely antique Agrippina, which will doubtless be placed in the interior. It has been brought from the Farnese Gardens in Rome. You will also see in this storehouse consulary statues found in the coliseum of Ancient Capua, a Camilla, mistress of Hannibal,145 and a bust of Marcus Aurelius given to the king by Cardinal Barberini. The theatre, completely finished and in which upon several occasions spectacles have already been put on, has a pretty enough shape. The gilding [and] the decorations are abundant. The entabulature and the vault are supported [on] twelve columns of alabaster of the Kingdom of Naples, but these are poorly located here. They had to be done as engaged columns, which produces a poor effect. To create five rows of boxes, they were crushed and 145 Marginal note: “Consult the Histoire on whether Hannibal had a mistress in Capua named Camilla.” It is not clear what Histoire Sade may have had in mind. None of his usual sources mention a mistress named Camilla – nor do any sources for that matter. Virgil is the source of the most celebrated Camilla, daughter of King Metabus and Queen Casmilla of the Volsci, a warrior princess and an ally of Turnus against Aeneas and the Trojans. See Virgil, Aeneid: Books 7–12, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 272–95 [bk.11, ll.532–835].

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all made too low and displeasing to the eye. The first row is gilded and adorned with a balustrade, handled in such a ridiculous manner that you cannot help but laugh when you see it. The pillars that support it are placed one on the good side and the other behind, which is completely against all the rules of good sense and reason, since a pillar is only made to support and no longer supports once it is behind.146 This baroque notion could only have come from a Neapolitan head. Thus it is said that it was Vanvitelli junior who imagined this sophistication. I am fairly unfamiliar with this architect, but his exterior proclaims that he is much more occupied with himself than with his craft, and the reader will grant me that a man who spends his life primping like Adonis and idolizing his own face is not fit for much. I shall conclude that Vanvitelli junior will never be but a middling artist. The king’s box is decorated with a canopy in rather poor taste; it connects to apartments close by and in which His Majesty sups or games, as is the custom in Italy. In general, however, the hall is pretty, although small. You will see that it would have been possible to take much better advantage. The theatre is capable of all sorts of scene changes and flying machinery. It looks well-enough decorated. In the back is a large doorway that connects to the gardens and that serves to prolong the perspective. It is said that fire scenes succeed marvellously here. The Gardens of Caserta are still in their earliest infancy, but what you see nonetheless heralds grandeur and design. The flower beds are as yet only marked out, but the copses are finished in part. They are distributed in pleasing arrangements over the entire extent of the garden, forming alleys, stars, crow’s-feet, etc. The beds are surrounded by bowers, and these form pleasing divisions and produce a pretty enough ensemble. But what is truly delightful is the section called the Old Grove and made entirely of large trees that provide the coolest shade and the [most] pleasing perpetual greenery. In the middle of this grove, which is perhaps a mile [and a] half around, is a small fort in the style of the one that the king is currently having built in the grove in Portici, which serves for on-site enactments of attacks and defences. The system is in the ancient taste, but nicely carried out. The whole is tiny and serves, nonetheless, to provide a good enough notion of a fortress. In the middle is a charming little round pavilion, the layout of which could be used for infinitely more pleasing ends than those to which the king of the Two Sicilies doubtless intends for it. The lower part is a pretty little room that is completely open and that must be extraordinarily refreshing. Above is a little lounge painted with particularly airy and agreeable arabesques. Eight niches or recesses, fashioned into the width of the wall, make up the doorway, three windows, and four little chambers big enough to hold the day beds [that] the king has had made for a little bedroom, the most pleasing imaginable in terms of its tinyness. The top floor is a little kitchen, since, when the king eats there, he wants to be alone. So nothing is lacking, and all the utensils required of a little household are to be found there in perfect order and handled with all imaginable taste and decorum. With the drawbridge raised, you could be at the ends of the Earth in this little pavilion situated in the midst of water and woods, and the honour of a young person attacked by a gallant king in such a delicious refuge would doubtless put up poor resistance with so many enchantments. 146 Sade’s description is hard to make sense of here, when he talks about pillars placed on “the good side” [du bon côté] and “behind” [à revers]. What visual inspection of the theatre at Caserta reveals are cylindrical pilasters in a manner stuck onto supporting rectangular columns behind them.

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An immense reservoir carries water to the moats of this fortress via a pretty revetted canal, constructed in the middle of a lovely covered ally. This reservoir, flanked by a balustrade and fashioned with equal amounts of charm and solidity, offers another object of a different sort, but one that is no less pleasing. In the middle of this ornamental pond is a delightful island. You must take a boat to get there. Here, this military king becomes Robinson Crusoe on his island. Five little straw sheds, artfully done, are the savage habitations that he had built there; the middle one is a pretty little lounge, where fifteen people could easily be fed. That’s too many for a habitation of the sort, where it seems that no more than [two]147 should ever get lost there. At the [corners] of the island are four other little huts, each of which has a function related to the needs that might arise on [this] delightful sojourn. One is a secret little room that you could call a boudoir, if that term could apply under thatch; the other is a wardrobe, the third an office, and the fourth a kitchen. All of these are quite small, but artfully and adeptly put together so as to please the eye. The trees, forever green, shrubs, and rose bushes embellish this delicious isle, and all it would take would be another head than Ferdinand’s to know how to taste all its charms. It is said that Vanvitelli senior came to relax his mind from the large structures of Caserta by designing all these nothings that do as much honour to his taste as the grand beauties of the palace do to his genius. This large ornamental pond is full of fish, swans, and other aquatic animals that adorn and embellish it. It is the main reservoir for the water carried by the lovely aqueduct located three miles from Caserta and about which it is fitting that I say a word. From there, via courses and canals, water is everywhere diffused and all the apartments of the castle will be abundantly supplied with it. To get to these aqueducts, which must have cost millions, you must climb a fairly steep mountain. Then, you will see them, built between two mountains, in the ravine that divides them. The entire construction is stonework. In the ravine, which is the lowest part, they were obliged to erect three rows of arcades in order to keep the water level. The one on the bottom has twenty-seven archways, the one above forty, and third fifty-two. Each arcade is fifty feet high. The same need to maintain the level that required erecting three arcades on top of one another constrained them to penetrate one of the mountains. Finally, by means of money, they have succeeded in bringing water all the way to Caserta, following the crest of these mountains, and this endeavour, although much inferior to those of the Romans, nonetheless has its great beauties, and you feel, looking upon it, that being a king is the requirement for undertaking it. In spite of so much expense, there is vexation that the Catholic King should have [built] an abode in a place such as Caserta, which will never have any beauty save for the type reserved for […] [The winter] here is cold, the summer is humid, the environs [are insalubrious], the views are constrained. But kings often imagine that [Nature] ought to yield to their whimsies, and the annoyances occasioned by the natural refusal that is given, bringing them down to our level, becomes one of the greatest possible consolations for humanity.148

147 A tear in the manuscript here has made some words illegible; these have been speculatively supplied in brackets. 148 End of the third notebook dedicated to Naples.

Chapter V

Environs of Naples

Naples: First Part Pozzuoli and Surrounding Area1 The interesting surrounding areas of Naples are usually divided into two parts: the western coast, encompassing the Grotto of Posillipo, Lake Agnano, Solfatara, Pozzuoli, etc., and the eastern one, encompassing Vesuvius, Portici, Pompeii, etc. As soon as the season was a little less harsh, I began with the western side. The first marvel that offered itself to me was that famous Grotto of Posillipo, completely hollowed out of the mountain, the origin of which is lost in the mists of Antiquity. Several authors attribute this work to a certain Cocceius. Some have it that he was a rich man, endowed with a certain authority in the country; others assure us that he was only its architect. For a long time, the people thought that it was the work of Virgil’s enchantments. Petrarch, questioned by King Robert about what he believed concerning this fable, responded that he had never heard it said that Virgil was a sorcerer and that he saw in it nothing but the work of a man and in no wise that of the devil.2 Some of these remote writers, wishing to make the sentiments of the people agree with those of their ancestors, have asserted that, under the rule of Octavian Augustus, Virgil was elected consul of Naples and had this grotto constructed under the direction of an architect named Cocceius. Be that as it may, it seems likely that the first openings made in this area were only done with the intention of making of quarry. Little by little, the work advanced; it was sensed that, by finishing it, the mountain would be pierced right the way through and would open an easy line of communication between Pozzuoli and Naples. It was brought to completion. The neighbouring quarries, which are dug out precisely in the same way, necessarily give birth to this idea, and the nature of the labour finishes by convincing. This grotto is about twenty-four feet high by about five hundred feet long.3 Its 1 Notebook in manuscript consisting of 23 pages; entirely in Sade’s hand. 2 On this exchange, Virgil’s medieval reputation for necromancy, and how Petrarch’s admiration for the former sparked the notion that he, too, had occult powers, see Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle, Petrarch’s Genius: Pentimento and Prophecy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 46–8. 3 The Grotto of Posillipo or Crypta Neapolitana, which Sade gives as 500 feet long, is actually some 2,300 feet or over 700 metres. This discrepancy is difficult to account for. The excavation and structure have been attributed to Lucius Cocceius Auctus, a freedman, architect, and contemporary of Vitruvius. On this attribu-

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openings are handsome and well excavated. Its width is such that two vehicles can travel with ease. Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of Naples under Charles V, had major repairs done; it was paved upon his orders. In this state, it is doubtless more commodious than during the time of Seneca, who assures us that he found little difference in the way he travelled therein and that of travelling by sea. But the drawback of the dust about which he complained is absolutely the same, and you would risk your life if the precaution were not taken of only going in with torches beneath the vents.4 In the middle of the tunnel is a little chapel where usually there is a hermit; I did not find him there, holding foreigners for ransom like I would have thought. Leaving the tunnel, on the Pozzuoli side, to the left, you see one of those large quarries that might serve as proof of what I was putting forward above and convince you that the first enterprise undertaken on this mountain was the removal of stone and not trying to pierce a route. At the outlet of the grotto you enter a village named Fuori di Pozzuoli [Fuorigrotta] and keeping constantly to the right, you arrive a short distance from there at Lake Agnano, surrounded on every side by heavily cultivated mountains. It is claimed that the sea once reached here via an opening made by dint of hard work in one of the surrounding hillsides, but not a single vestige of this remains. This lake is covered with birds that are reserved for the royal hunt. In winter, its waters furnish eels and tench that are highly prized. In summer, you cannot come near because of the naturally pernicious quality of the air, which is further poisoned, in this season, by the hemp and flax that are retted here. This lake is perhaps a mile and a half around. Upon the left and upon the right of the path by which you get to the grotto are two objects worthy of attention: to the left, the Steam Rooms of Saint Germanus [Stufe di San Germano] (and not of Saint Januarius, as Monsieur Richard says)5 and to the

tion and later understandings and uses of this and related structures, see Bianca de Divitiis, “Memories from the Subsoil: Discovering Antiquities in Fifteenth-Century Naples and Campania,” in Jessica Hughes and Claudio Buongiovanni, eds., Remembering Parthenope: The Reception of Classical Naples from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 206–12. 4 Writes Seneca, in his Epistles, trans. Richard M. Gummere (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917), in letter 57 (1:382–5) turning the experience into a Stoic lesson: When it was time for me to return to Naples from Baiae, I easily persuaded myself that a storm was raging, that I might avoid another trip by sea; and yet the road was so deep in mud, all the way, that I may be thought none the less to have made a voyage. On that day I had to endure the full fate of an athlete; the anointing with which we began was followed by the sand-sprinkle in the Naples tunnel. No place could be longer than that prison; nothing could be dimmer than those torches, which enabled us, not to see amid the darkness, but to see the darkness [non ut per tenebras videamus, sed ut ipsas]. But, even supposing that there was light in the place, the dust, which is an oppressive and disagreeable thing even in the open air, would destroy the light; how much worse the dust is there, where it rolls back upon itself, and, being shut in without ventilation, blows back in the faces of those who set it going! So we endured two inconveniences at the same time, and they were diametrically different: we struggled both with mud and with dust on the same road and on the same day. The gloom, however, furnished me with some food for thought; I felt a certain mental thrill, and a transformation unaccompanied by fear, due to the novelty and the unpleasantness of an unusual occurrence. Of course I am not speaking to you of myself at this point, because I am far from being a perfect person, or even a man of middling qualities; I refer to one over whom fortune has lost her control. Even such a man’s mind will be smitten with a thrill and he will change colour. For there are certain emotions … which no courage can avoid; nature reminds courage how perishable a thing it is. 5 See Jérôme Richard, Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), where the author does, indeed, make this blunder (4:276–9).

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Figure 5.1. Crypta Neapolitana, from Charles-Nicolas Cochin and Jérôme-Charles Bellicard, Observations sur les antiquités d’Herculanum (1757).

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right the Grotto of the Dog [Grotta del Cane]. These steam rooms are little vaulted chambers in which have been fashioned sorts of hollow benches where those who come here for their health position themselves; ordinarily people suffering from internal ulcers, gout, sciatica, and venereal diseases or rheumatisms are sent here and usually find a complete and prompt cure. The degrees of heat everywhere vary, and in some among these little chambers it is totally unbearable. This heat is caused by exhalations from springs of boiling water, the steam from which, sticking to the walls, endues them variously with layers of nitre and sulphur. It would be difficult to hold your hand for a long time over the spot where this steam is exhaled, so intense is the heat. These sulphurs penetrate to an inexpressible extent; they gnaw at and devour everything they touch. You can easily empirically test this by carrying some [of this sulphur] wrapped in paper in your pocket; you are almost sure to find the paper eaten away by the time you get home. You must never risk hoping to send some in a letter, since it would inevitably be consumed before arriving at its destination. The Grotto of the Dog, which you will find a few steps from the edge of the lake, upon the right of the path by which you get there and located at the bottom of one of the surrounding hillsides, is a sort of little cave some eight or nine feet high, five feet wide, and a depth of about four or five steps, in which arise to about one foot above the ground arsenic exhalations6 so pernicious that whatever animal, lying aground and deprived of the less dangerous air breathed above that height, little by little loses its life, without any other symptom but a few convulsions. The experiment is usually carried out upon a dog. It was upon a reddish mastiff, about nine or ten inches high that I saw it done. The animal, accustomed to these sorts of trials not at all to its taste, recognized the grotto from very far off and began to pull away from its master so as not to have to enter. The latter made it lie down by force and constrained it for a few seconds in that position. Little by little, the animal stiffened. We noticed some convulsions, and it was going to expire if pity had not bound us to make him promptly toss it outside. Hardly was it lying upon the edge of the lake when it came to little by little and soon enough expressed with its caresses and leaps all the joy that this return to the light made it feel. It will not be shocking when this poor animal, because of the frequent deadly trials that it has been made to undergo, expires completely.7 The exhalation particular to this spot is difficult to explain. I believe that were this little cave dug out all around and exposed to the open air, the exhalations would dissipate. At the vault you will note a clear distillate, but this does appear to be only the result of the mountain’s transpiration and not from the exhalations below, which seem never to rise up. A large number of experiments are mentioned that were carried out upon various animals and even upon criminals, all of which resulted in death. These vapours are so active that they will dissipate a flame and put it out upon the spot. A firearm would not fire therein either. I was curious enough to venture all the way to the back. I found the air very hot and very thick; an utter numbness took hold of my legs, from the soles of my feet up to my

6 Marginal note: “Find out the truth.” 7 Dogs were still being submitted to touristic curiosity a century later when Baedeker’s guidebook remarked: “Grotta di Cane [sic], or Dog Grotto. It derives its name from the fact that the ground and sides are so thoroughly impregnated with carbonic acid gas, that the fumes render dogs insensible in a few seconds, and produce a feeling of languor on human beings. Dogs are provided [for a fee] for the exhibition of this somewhat cruel experiment, but the curiosity of the traveller may be sufficiently gratified by observing that a light is immediately extinguished when brought in contact with the vapour.” Southern Italy and Sicily, vol. 3 of Italy: Handbook for Travellers(Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1880), 95.

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calves, and I felt that I would have trouble getting out if I had stayed any longer; but the air promptly dissipated this languor, and I have never felt the least after-effect. Not far from there, you will observe a little bubbling upon the surface of the lake, doubtless produced by some underground heat source. Who knows if this lake was not formerly a volcano of which the crater, following the complete eruption of the mountain, was opened up and filled with water with the passage of time. You only have to consider Solfatara, about which I will speak, to hazard this conjecture. At a mile and a half, to the left of the lake, you enter into a sort of ravine in a state of considerable upheaval that appears as if it could only be the result of some violent tremor caused, doubtless, by the great eruption of Solfatara, of which the mountain that borders this lake seems to be the back side, or perhaps due to some causes particular to this spot alone. This mountain is dry and arid. Notwithstanding, some shrubs grow here. The most salient aspects of the terrain are a sort of half-burned chalk that is impregnated with sulphur that comes from the steam of the bubbling spring that flows from the portion of the mountain to the left of the ravine and concerning which I was assured that the waters are very salutary. I did not make a trial of their virtue, but I can at least affirm that they spread an unbearable sulphurous odour over this entire area. This locale is so rustic, it has something so picturesque about it, that I could not prevent myself from wanting a sketch thereof. I had with me Monsieur Tierce, celebrated painter trained at various academies, whose charming works have as much truth as accuracy, whose flattering brush lends grace to Nature, which he embellishes in copying. With this little piece, all the more difficult, he offered to provide me the proof of the superior talents that had flattered me in him and that I truly celebrate adorning your study.8 It was with this artist that I made my entire tour of Naples and the surrounding area, and can say that I found in him all the resources that a traveller who seeks to instruct himself could desire for augmenting his knowledge and directing his taste. Not limiting himself to knowledge of his art, he was happy to direct me to natural history, to architecture and Antiquity, and you could say that if you get any benefit from a voyage like the one that I have the honour of describing to you, it is only so insofar as you are fortunate enough to undertake it with such enlightened persons. It would be desirable if our young Frenchmen, who often roam the world in order to bring back nothing but vices, were guided by such people. If, on the one hand, they sacrificed thereby a part of the vain splendour that satisfies their pride alone, what recompense would both their learning and their spirit someday derive therefrom? From the Pisciarelli, we climbed up a mountain that overlooks Solfatara, ancient volcano the eruption of which was formerly quite deadly to the city of Pozzuoli.9 The entire peak of this mountain was blasted way, leaving nothing more than a crater that forms a sort of plain surrounded on all sides by the hills from which it broke loose. This sort of bed was doubtless the hearth of the volcano. The ground is made up only of sulphur, alum, and vitriol, making a sort of basin the earth of which is white and in which you make out several holes from which issues a smoke so hot that it is impossible 8 The syntax of the sentence above is particularly odd, albeit the general sense fairly clear. On Jean-Baptiste Antoine Tierce (1737–1790), painter and son-in-law of Sade’s principal French contact in Florence, Doctor Mesny, see the introduction to this volume. 9 These are the Pisciarelli fumaroles, which were called in ancient times Fontes Leucogaei after the Colles Leucogaei, the whitish hills to the east of Solfatara. Pliny the Elder mentions them in his Natural History, Volume VIII: Books 28–32, trans. W.H.S. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 386–7 [bk.31, s.8].

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to convince yourself that the initial cause of this mountain’s destruction does not still exist underneath this basin. The way that it resounds when you make some violent movement above makes it clear that this first layer of ground is nothing but a crust and a quite thin one at that in some spots, which will end up devoured by the action of the fire and utterly destroyed some day. At that point in all likelihood a lake will be formed here, the water of which will produce the same phenomena as that of Lake Agnano and doubtless due to the same causes. This area or basin in its current state today is 1,246 feet long by more than one thousand wide. From whatever point you try to pierce this crust, a hot and thick smoke issues forth, which proves that the activity of the heat source below is eroding it everywhere. I do not doubt that there would be some danger in crossing this flaming plain in a carriage or by horse. There are spots that seem so weak that it seems possible to crack them open without applying much force, but this is a fantasy that has its limits. It does not seem to me very easy to figure out how this could have happened, or rather in what way this terrible eruption came about. One observes that the section to the left in relation to the path that I followed and that I have just mentioned has not been separated by the action of the fire like that to the right, where the work of this element is still apparent, whereas upon the left the rock is intact and shows no trace of separation. In the lowest section of this terrain, sulphurous and aluminous ponds form that promptly devour any material that you toss therein, apparently without the fire having the least effect. It is here that, following a very simple procedure, you are shown something that would create such difficulties and entail so many precautions in our chemical laboratories. By covering the holes whence issues the smoke with tiles and [shards] of pottery, sulphur or vitriol is easily collected, since the smoke sticks to these natural receptacles and covers their entire surface therewith. As for the alum, this is how I saw that it was collected. They put the earth of this district, which is full of it, into lead vases filled with water. It is left to ferment by the action of the heat of the ground alone; next, the water is decanted into a wooden vase. As it dries out, it leaves a crust all around the vase, which is removed and is the alum itself. As you see, considerable wealth is produced with few means, and this mountain, as arid as it is, is important to the Hospital of the Annunziata, to which it belongs. It is a truly curious thing to see how Nature lends itself to all these various operations and how it continually provides all that is needed to carry them out. It is confidently stated that no years pass where this mountain does not yield three or four hundred quintals of sulphur, sixty quintals of alum, two quintals of sal ammoniac, and a quintal of verdigris, not counting the vitriol, saltpetre, and lead that could be found there if the trouble were taken or, rather, if there were no fear that expenses would exceed the revenue. It is likely that before the eruption of this volcano, strange revolutions took place in the heart of this mountain, and the noise that was heard must have been terrible. We know that it was here that Strabo had located the forges of Vulcan.10 Pliny called this entire region the Fields of Fire.11 10 In vol. 2 of his Geography, trans. Horace Leonard Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), Strabo writes: “Immediately above the city [of Puteoli] lies the Forum of Hephaestus [του ‘Ηεφαίστου αγορά], a plain shut in all round by exceedingly hot ridges, which in numerous places have fumaroles that are like chimneys and that have a rather noisome smell; and the plain is full of drifted sulphur” (2[bk.5, s.6]:448–9). 11 Pliny the Elder simply remarks that the area near Pozzuoli is called the “Phlegraei campi,” i.e., “burning fields,” in his Natural History, Volume 2: Books 3–7, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

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The belief in spirits, demons, and ghosts still holds on in this region, and in fact, is contemporary religious falsehood, substituted for ancient religious falsehood, fit for destroying prejudices – let us say it and affirm it – with more truthfulness in this land than in others, seeing that the chimera is closer and that the blindfold is pushed away a bit more to allow a glimpse of the idol? That idol is still the same, and we have but changed the manner of worshiping it. Not far from here, cleaving to the left, you will find a Capuchin monastery,12 built upon a portion of the site that Pozzuoli formerly occupied, and given the distance at which it is today located, you will easily be able to judge of the upheaval that the eruption of Solfatara produced. You are shown upon an esplanade, in front of this convent, a small Greek altar that is said to have been formerly in the marketplace of Pozzuoli. At this monastery you must see an isolated cistern that is quite unique. It is an inverted cupola, completely separated from the rest of the plot by a surrounding wall in order to prevent any intercourse of that sulphurous and arsenical terrain with the rainwater that collects therein and, consequently, safeguarding it from danger. It is claimed to be the work of a Frenchman. Various grottoes will be found close to the monastery, of which one among others is quite wide and is claimed to connect to Lake Agnano. But I imagine that all these vaults were naught but cellars or tunnels of the ancient city of Pozzuoli. From here to that city the path takes you along part of the Appian Way. To the right and left are ruins of houses and edifices built with bricks endued with pozzolana and of a singular solidity. Almost all are reticular in shape.13 These habitations must have been country villas in the vicinity of the city. Arriving in Pozzuoli from this side, you enjoy the most delightful viewpoint. In front, the pretty little isle of Nisida, of which Virgil speaks and to which Brutus retired after the murder of Caesar; to the right is the city, upon a protrusion into the sea and makes for a pleasing sight; farther, the coasts of Sorrento and of Massa, the Gulf of Naples, ruins, buildings, delicious hillsides – in a word, all that might adorn the most cheerful view and create the richest and most varied tableau.14 The city of Pozzuoli was in the past much more significant than it is today. It is easy to be convinced of this by a look at its remains. Some authors believe that it was a colony of the Isle of Samos. Doubtless the Romans regarded it as a place of importance, since they reinforced the garrisons by a detachment that Quintus Fabius led here, when Hannibal, established in Capua, sought to take the entire region by surprise. We read in Titus Livy University Press, 1942), 46 [bk.3, s.61]. Indeed, Strabo had made the same observation, and the area is known as the Phlegraean Fields, or Campi Flegrei, to this day. Elsewhere Pliny writes that the region, like Sinuessa, has “places called breathing holes, or by other people, jaws of hell [Charonea] – ditches that exhale a deadly breath.” See Natural History, Volume 1: Books 1–2, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 388–9 [bk.2, s.95]). 12 Marginal note: “Capuchin monastery.” The Monastery of San Gennaro, which dates from 1580, and was supposedly located on the site where Saint Januarius was decapitated in 395. 13 Pozzolana, i.e., volcanic dust, was the ancient Romans’ preferred concrete binder. Concrete structures were faced with bricks, and these facings were done in different manners. In the so-called opus reticulatum (literally, “net work”), to which Sade appears to be referring, diamond-shaped bricks of tufa were bound with concrete. 14 Marginal note: “Up to this point, everything has been edited once.”“Starting here everything is a first draft and consequently needs to be redone two more times.” Here Sade uses the terms de seconde main and de première main in an unorthodox way: not copied versus original, but rather to describe the state of the drafts.

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that he sought to seize it, but that he wasted his time in vain in doing so. This city was called Dikaiarchia. The name Puteoli was subsequently given to it because of the odour of sulphur that is breathed in almost everywhere here at certain times. Others claim that this name comes from the number of wells that were dug here, given the lack of water.15 What is certain is that all historians are in agreement that this city dates back very far in Antiquity. Tacitus labels it an ancient city in book XIV of his Annals. It was almost always honoured [with the title] of Roman colony, and history shows that it was besides one of the more important ones. It is believed that Pozzuoli was the seaport of Cumae, which vessels could not reach as easily. One of the major proofs of its opulence was the number of luxury workers that it maintained in its bosom. You will see upon the edge of the sea the quarter that they inhabited, and the shore still provides sometimes proofs of their talent. Every day you will find cornelians, amethysts, jaspers, etc., and other precious stones there, but you must refrain from buying these willy-nilly from the folk of this land, who will never miss the chance to trick you in this regard. History furnishes us in a hundred places with the proofs of the degree to which sojourning in this city and the surrounding area were delightful, and in spite of all the revolutions that it has undergone, as much the ravages of the Carthaginians, Goths, Lombards, and Saracens as the infamous earthquakes, such as those of 1198, from which it suffered considerably, given that Solfatara threw up a prodigious amount of rocks and fire, and that of 1448 in which many people perished, that of 1538, which knocked over and buried almost everything; in spite of these revolutions, let me say, it is still today one of the most beautiful locations and one of the most pleasing lands imaginable. It is not large, but quite populous. You see there many people and much activity, many religious houses. The common people who live here do not appreciate their good fortune, and it seems that the little trouble required to find anything that you please in this lovely region only serves to make them the more barbarous and insolent. You can easily discern its greater degree of savageness in relation to the people of Naples, and this comparison would seem almost made so that the first term would be found less harsh. It is necessary, when you wish to travel this coast, to have a few letters from Naples for private lodgings in Pozzuoli and in these lodgings to attend to all the necessities of life, for the inns there are neither safe nor fit for habitation. The expense is then less, and your visit that much more pleasant. If you were to believe all the rogues who surround you at your arrival, they are all fit to guide you and to show you the most curious aspects of their city and the surrounding area. But you must not listen to them, and if you do not have with you either a good book or someone intelligent who has made the tour, you must seek out a man named Raphael, a big rascal who speaks French and who is absolutely the only one fit to guide and to provide a few accurate notions. The first object that we visited was the Temple of Serapis, one of the monuments of Antiquity of which the layout and architecture are the most lavish and elegant, at least judging from what remains of it.16 Few people have properly judged this structure, but I believe nonetheless that I am fit, madam countess, to provide you with an exact description. This 15 The Latin for “to stink” is putere, and is the more likely option of the two that Sade provides; the word for “well” is puteus. 16 In fact, the macellum or market of Puteoli. A statue of Serapis found during excavations of the site, undertaken at the behest of Charles VII of Naples, in the mid-eighteenth century gave rise to the notion that the structure was a temple dedicated to the god.

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temple was surrounded by a square, cloister-shaped peristyle 144 feet per side, which connected to several little chambers that served for the priests or for sacrifices. This peristyle was supported by a lovely Corinthian colonnade that raised up to form the two porticoes situated to the east and west, respectively. You still see three of those lovely green-marble columns standing. This peristyle was twenty feet wide and communicated with a square courtyard, in the middle of which was erected a round-shaped temple, open in every direction and supported by sixteen lovely marble columns. The diameter of this temple was fifty-two feet; behind each column was on the outside a pedestal the bases of which are still to be seen, which supported a statue, and in the intercolumniations were placed urns in the shape of little wells with cross-cut fluting and in which the water necessary for sacrifices was held. In front of the columns of the peristyle were likewise similar bases upon which were as many statues. Judge for yourself the magnificence of this enclosure. One entered the sanctuary of this temple via four staircases oriented to the four cardinal directions, and from the bottom of these staircases to the pedestals of the statues of the peristyle the distance was about sixteen feet, which may serve to show what the extent of this enclosure was. You will note, in front of the two staircases oriented towards the two main gateways of the peristyle, two bronze rings that were used in chaining down the victim. In the middle of the temple was an altar at the base of which these victims were immolated, and a perforated stone in the shape of a star was used to drain off their blood. Can one, examining it, assess it otherwise and say, like Monsieur Richard, that this temple was open like the Pantheon and that this hollowed-out stone, which he assures us is a very beautiful piece of work and is notwithstanding quite plain, served to drain off rainwater?17 This reasoning is beyond all likelihood, and all that need be done is to examine the debris of this monument with a bit of intelligence and attention in order to form an idea completely contrary to the one he gives us, which not only would make for a quite ridiculous edifice but even, in my opinion, one impossible to build. The entire paving of the peristyle, of the enclosure, and of the temple is made of large squares of white marble, quite well preserved. Here and there are capitals, fragments of columns, some remaining bases, and a thousand proofs, in a word, of the great upheaval that this edifice underwent. Monsieur Richard asserts – upon I know not what basis – that it was never overturned, but only covered by an eruption, but where is common sense in this reasoning? If this temple had only been covered, it would have been found completely intact such as the perfectly preserved edifices in Pompeii today. But, when they began to excavate it twenty-five years ago, they found it in about the same the state of upheaval as today. Therefore, with a greater examination of the premises, which would only serve as further grounds for my opinion, we can boldly conclude that this temple was first overturned and then covered by the eruption of Solfatara. In the various chambers that surround the peristyle, of which twenty can be distinctly counted, and around the pedestals of the statues, you see that all the brick pillars were faced with marble, and there is nothing, in a word, about this monument that does not proclaim its grandeur, lavishness, and elegance. The majority of the columns have been transported to Caserta; they are being used for the new palace. They form the vestibule where the staircase of honour terminates, which they decided to make in about the same 17 Richard, in fact, writes of an artfully worked large piece of marble in the centre of this temple that “was used for drainage of water that fell through the opening above” and “for the blood of victims that were immolated there” (Description, 4:294).

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style as this temple, but concerning which I think they have quite missed the mark. You still see in this enclosure one of the chambers that communicate with the peristyle and that seem to have served as steam baths; you will see all around perforated seating that appears to indicate this. Above this temple, upon the mountain that overlooks it, will be seen the remains of an amphitheatre that seems to have been fairly significant.18 One of the ambulatories there, some twelve feet wide, remains quite intact, and connected to it several compartments that were used to restrain beasts. But the ground that collapsed there filled it to a very high level. The arena is 172 feet long by 88 wide. Before the latest earthquakes that so utterly destroyed Pozzuoli, you could still get a good idea of its configuration. It was situated about in the middle of the ancient city; today, it is located close to the Church of Saint James.19 Augustus, attending the games that were celebrated there, ordered the seating among the nobility, the military, and the other ranks of the city, which proves that, in those days, this city was already in some degree of existence. A chapel built in the subsisting gallery indicates, so it is claimed, that Saint Januarius and his companions were exposed on this spot to ferocious beasts. One of the little cellars intended for these beasts had been used as his prison. On this topic, they will tell you in this region a host of imbecilities that are not worth the trouble of reporting. A bit before arriving at this coliseum, you will see some fairly large fragments that the people claim are the remains of a temple to Neptune but that I imagine rather to have been used as thermae.20 It was likely here that those of Pozzuoli were located. Towards the middle of the city, upon the hill, was the Temple of Jupiter upon the site of which today is the cathedral.21 You will still see six beautiful Corinthian columns, the frieze and architrave, and an inscription below that proves that this temple was built by Calpurnius in honour of Augustus. Upon the main square are two statues: a lovely enough one of Q. Flavius Marius Egnatius Lollianus, priest and augur; the other is a modern and quite poor one – it could not be any worse – of a saint appearing before a Roman magistrate.22 On another little square behind the former, you will see a marble pedestal adorned with bas-reliefs on each side, of lovely Greek construction. It is believed that this served as the pedestal for the statue of Tiberius. The figures in relief that you will see thereupon are those of the fourteen cities of Asia, which erected this monument in recognition of the service received from him. This monument was found in Pozzuoli itself, and it is regrettable that the statue that stood upon it was not also recovered. In a garden in the city, you will see three lovely columns of white marble, the former function of which is unknown. Close to the Carmelites, in another garden, will be seen a series of little rooms that connect to one another, which is called a maze in this region and the function of which is not well understood either. I imagine that it could have been one of the city’s prisons or some water reservoirs, but of the two notions, the former seems to me more likely. 18 Sade is correct: the Flavian Amphitheatre in Pozzuoli, completed during the reign of Emperor Titus, is the third largest Roman amphitheatre, after that of Capua and the Roman Colosseum. 19 Chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo, which was reconsecrated as Santa Maria della Consolazione in 1807. 20 Marginal note: “The Temple of Neptune was close to the Bridge of Caligula. See volume 1 of abbé Chaupy.” 21 Marginal note: “Continuation of Pozzuoli.” 22 Sade’s reference is uncertain: facing the statue of Quintus Flavius Maesius Egnatius Lollianus signo Mavortius – a statue colloquially referred to as “Saint Mamozio” – is that of Martín de Léon Cárdenas (1585–1655), who served as bishop of Pozzuoli from 1631 until 1650.

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You see upon the edge of the sea, below the city, fragments of the ancient mole, called by Suetonius Moles Puteolanae. The sea broke it, and the emperor Antoninus Pius repaired it, as we learn from an inscription that was found buried close to the shore and that was placed at one of the gates of the city. Nothing remains of this mole but fourteen piles, which seem to have been built of bricks and large stones. It was adjoining this mole that Caligula had a bridge of boats built that went all the way to Baiae, that he crossed at the head of his army on the first day and on the second in a triumphal chariot, in order to prove the prediction of Thrasyllus, who said that he would only accede to the empire after having been from Baiae to Pozzuoli on a bridge.23 This mole proves that the port of Pozzuoli has always been considered important. There was formerly quite significant commerce done here. How everything has changed today, and to what extraordinary reflections does the present appearance of this area give birth compared with what history teaches us about what it once was! Such is about all that you can see in Pozzuoli, and this slight examination done, you must visit the surrounding area, the touring of which can be done in a little felucca that sails alongside the coast and that stops at the various interesting spots, or by horse. I prefer the latter mode, and I would counsel the same for anyone who would like to take in the sights somewhat profitably. The seaside offers, I agree, especially on the Baiae side, important monuments that are left out if you go by horse, but by sailing, I was assured that many things are likewise skipped over that you will not miss seeing by horse. I believe, therefore, that there is no reason to waver in preference of this latter mode of travel. So, you must hire at Pozzuoli horses that are usually lively and good, arm yourself with the cicerone that I mentioned and a guide to tend the horses, and voyage thusly. The horses cost seven carlini each; you give the guide whatever you want and the cicerone usually five carlini per day. This tour, done properly, requires two whole days. On the outbound trip from Pozzuoli to Miseno, you must remain inland, and returning from Miseno to Pozzuoli, to those areas that are less developed, bordering the sea. At two and half miles from Pozzuoli, you begin to make out Lake Avernus. On the hills overlooking it and along which passes the current route, you see fragments of the house of Lucullus. Next, you pass under an archway, known today at the Arch of Felicity [Arco Felice], built to serve as the boundary marker separating the territory of Pozzuoli from that of Cumae. This archway is constructed of bricks, of a remarkable solidity and very 23 Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe and revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), gives the following account: “He bridged the gap between Baiae and the mole at Puteoli, a distance of about thirty-six hundred paces, by bringing together merchant ships from all sides and anchoring them in a double line, after which a mound of earth was heaped upon them and fashioned in the manner of the Appian Way. Over this bridge he rode across and back on two successive days, the first day on a horse with military insignia, himself resplendent in a crown of oak leaves, a buckler, a sword, and cloak of gold cloth; on the second, in the dress of a charioteer in a car drawn by a pair of famous horses, carrying before him a boy named Dareus, one of the hostages from Parthia, and attended by the entire praetorian guard and a company of his friends in Gallic chariots. I know that many have supposed that Gaius devised this kind of bridge in rivalry of Xerxes, who excited no little admiration by bridging the much narrower Hellespont; others, that it was to inspire fear in Germany and Britain, on which he had designs, by the fame of some stupendous work. But when I was a boy, I used to hear my grandfather say that the reason for the work, as revealed by the emperor’s confidential courtiers, was that Thrasyllus the astrologer had declared to Tiberius, when he was worried about his successor and inclined towards his natural grandson, that Gaius had no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding about over the gulf of Baiae with horses” (1:444–7). On the historical reporting of this outlandish feat, see Anthony A. Barrett, Caligula: The Abuse of Power (London: Routledge, 2015), 240–2.

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great thickness; it is about seventy feet high and the width of its aperture some twenty. The upper part is level with the two hillsides between which it is built. You can place this work among the rank of the most beautiful Roman edifices. Monsieur Richard’s silence is a bit surprising in this regard. A little after having passed it, you will see the sad remains of that famous city. All around are vaults, in which you can even still see some paintings, fragments of temples, houses. The ground is strewn with pieces of broken marble, shards of antique vases, feet and hands of statues, and everything that might indicate, in a nutshell, how populated, wealthy, and magnificent was this city. To get there, you follow a well-preserved part of the Appian Way. Before arriving, you should observe upon the left a cavern said, with some semblance of truth, to have served as the den of the Cumean Sibyl. It is in any case surely here that Virgil described it in the sixth book of the Aeneid: Excisum Euboicae latus ingens rupis in antrum.24

That it is partially caved-in precludes an assessment of its size. You can hardly advance half a mile, two-thirds of which can only be traversed on all fours. On the left leaving this tunnel, you climb up to the upper part of the former city of Cumae, quite an ancient city that owes it origins to the Cumeans or inhabitants of the city today called Negroponte. First, they stopped upon the Isle of Ischia, which was known in those days as the Isle of Aenaria. Then they moved to terra firma and built in this place an extremely strong city, defended, it is said, by large towers. Strabo, who was writing fifty years before Augustus, speaks of it as a very ancient city. Laid waste by the plague, it was, so they say, abandoned little by little. However, in 550, this city was still strong enough that Totila, King of the Goths, had his treasures stored there, thinking it impregnable.25 In 1207, the Saracens sacked it completely, and since then no one has tried to repair it. It certainly suffered little from earthquakes, and to be sure it owes its ruin to the causes that I have just mentioned. In 1606, Alfonso [viz., Alonso] Pimentel, viceroy of Naples, had this region excavated and discovered, they say, a very great quantity of beautiful things.26 The only edifice that is somewhat preserved that you see there – or at least the vestiges are the most visible – is a fort of which will still be seen a few vaults and a structure made of large stones stacked upon one another without any binding of mortar or lime. On the left, upon a higher mountain, will be see the ruins of a temple to Apollo, which is said to have been built by Daedalus, when fleeing the ire of Minos, he stopped at this city. At the base of the rock upon which the castle [i.e., fort] sits, you will see two tunnels that penetrate into the mountain and seem to have been cellars or tunnels. It is in the little plain to which you descend, below this castle, where you access the Temple of the Giant about which I will speak, that must have been the most populous quarter of this city. Today, it 24 From Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), where Virgil writes, “The huge side of the Euboean rock is hewn into a cavern.” Virgil continues with “into which lead a hundred wide mouths, a hundred gateways, from which rush as many voices, the answers of the Sibyl” (535 [bk.6, ll.42–4). 25 Totila is the name that the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesaria used for Baduila, King of the Ostrogoths (r. 541–552). Totila’s Roman campaigns, including the sieges of Naples and Rome, are treated at length in book 7 of Procopius, History of the Wars, vol. 4, trans. H.B. Dewing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924). 26 Sade’s reference is to Juan Alonso Pimentel de Herrera, 5th Duke of Benavente, Viceroy of Naples from 1603 to 1610.

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is a sort of orchard planted with vines and poplars. I am persuaded that this area is full of buried treasures that governmental policy forbids seeking out for fear that the oft-unfruitful hope of finding some will lead to the abandonment of cultivating the land. You see several vestiges of buildings in this plain, where what is called the Temple of the Giant, by I know not what tradition, is also located.27 This building has nothing magnificent about it. It seems that its shape was square; it was made of bricks. In the back was a large recess where there was a gigantic statue that will be seen today in a state of significant restoration on the square of the palace in Naples.28 A peasant currently lives in this edifice, concerning which I could discern absolutely nothing remarkable. It is rare for the peasants in these regions not to have at all times some ancient fragments or medallions, and with some familiarity in this regard, one could here do some trade that is all the more advantageous insofar as these folks ordinarily have no grasp of the value of what they have on offer, in spite of how desirous they are to cheat you. Following along the route from here to Miseno, you go along the shore of Lake Fusaro. Some know-nothings, at the head of which Monsieur Richard could be placed, have claimed that this lake was the Acheron, but it seems to me much more likely to assign this name to the Dead Sea [Mare Morto], since its waters bathe the Elysian Fields and that it was from Miseno that Charon ferried the dead. Monsieur Richard, having decided to copy an Italian traveller who made the same mistake, here commits to an astonishing confusion, from which he extracts himself via a transposition of place that has not a hint of likelihood. You see upon the shores of this lake some ancient ruins, in one of which are still some remnants of painting. Two miles from here, you start your entrance into the territory of the former town of Baiae. You descend to it via a narrow path hewn between two volcanic flows and that is very difficult to access, but you must not stop to contemplate all that this place has to offer of interest. To put some order into this trek, you must push on directly to Miseno and leave this entire important prospect for the return trip. Two miles from Baiae, you enter the village of Bauli [Bacoli today], which makes up part of the Elysian Fields and in which, to the right and left, will be seen those little columbaria that are abundant in this area and in which were deposited cinerary urns.

27 The Tempio del Gigante, so named because a colossal statue of Jove was found nearby. 28 Sade notes: “It is not clear upon what grounds Monsieur Richard assures us that it was at Cumae that Daedalus stopped. On the contrary, Ovid tells us it was in Sicily that he stopped, when fleeing the ire of Minos, and that there Cocalus, fearing Minos’s resentment, had him smothered in a steam bath.” In the first volume of his Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), Ovid does write of the inventor’s landing in Sicily: “Now the land of Aetna received the weary Daedalus, where King Cocalus took up arms in the supplicant’s defence and was esteemed most kind” (1[bk.8, ll.260–2]:424–5 ). However, as Richard notes (Description, 4:358–9), Ovid’s assertion that Daedalus landed in Cumae comes from a good literary source, namely, Virgil’s Aeneid; see Virgil, Eclogues, 532–5 [bk.6, ll.14–22]. Although Sade’s syntax is confusing, it is not Daedalus who dies at Cocalus’s hands but rather Minos. In The Library of History, trans. C.H. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), Diodorus of Sicily gives a full account: “Minos, the king of the Cretans, who was at that time the master of the seas, when he learned that Daedalus had fled to Sicily, decided to make a campaign against that island. After preparing a notable naval force he sailed forth from Crete and landed at a place in the territory of Acragas which was called after him Minoa. Here he disembarked his troops and sending messengers to King Cocalus he demanded Daedalus of him for punishment. But Cocalus invited Minos to a conference, and after promising to meet all his demands he brought him to his home as his guest. And when Minos was bathing Cocalus kept him too long in the hot water and thus slew him; the body he gave back to the Cretans, explaining his death on the ground that he had slipped in the bath and by falling in the hot water had met his end” (3[bk.4, s.79]:66–7).

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On the right of this village is a sort of valley that becomes gentler to the side of what is today called the Dead Sea, which was certainly what the Ancients called the Acheron. It is in this valley that the poets placed the Elysian Fields, and its perfectly southern exposure made for that perpetual springtide that they described.29 Today, this region is all planted with poplars and vines. You see here and there the remnants of its former purpose, and every day still, those urns that served as the depositories for ashes among the Ancients are found here. The Acheron bathes the shores of this valley. Charon doubtless resided upon the opposite shore, that is to say, at Miseno. This ferryman had the job of conveying the dead from this bank to the Elysian Fields, where they were set down at their destination. He refused passage when the agreed sum was not paid, and from this practice and this locale were born all the fables that fired the fancy of the Ancients. But there were many Acherons and conversely several Charons. There was one in Epirus, one in Elis, and another in Bithynia. As a result, who can assure us that it was this one that the poets celebrated? Be that as it may, all this is diminished when viewed up close. Upon examination, you feel much of that enthusiasm that had fired the poets cool down, and besides the ideas that you import, these ordinary places have nothing other than the quite natural about them. Below the village of Bauli, known today by the name of Saturday Market, will be seen the spot called the Hundred Chambers or, even more commonly, Nero’s Prisons. These are four galleries supported by large pilasters that are in front of a sort of vault or tunnel in which are several small chambers that connect with one another via quite low and quite narrow entryways. The first is a sort of gallery larger and longer than the others, upon the walls of which are a few niches where copper lamps are to be found. Via a hole bored into the wall in one of these cellars you can make out the sea, all of the coast, and at the base of the rock, in the water, the remnants of one of Caesar’s country homes, which makes you think that these structures also belonged to this. Several scholars have thought likewise, but the people create so many tales in this region that it is extremely difficult to establish an accurate assessment concerning a large number of these objects that I am describing. A little further on, following the road to the right of Bauli, you arrive at a monument of more certain identity, the one called in this region the Marvellous Pool [Piscina Mirabilis]: this was the water reservoir that M. Agrippa had built for the use of the fleet that usually stayed in Cape Miseno. This is a large rectangular building supported by pilasters. At a higher level, there is a gallery that goes all the way around that was doubtless used for going to withdraw water. Different reservoirs arranged by compartments take up the interior. It seems that there were two entrances: one to the north; the other to the south. You can now only enter through the latter. The other appears blocked. You have to go down forty-two steps to get there. This structure, with a few repairs – if in this country they were capable of big undertakings – could still serve its original purpose very well. You must observe the coating that covers the masonry, the hardness of which is such that it is impossible, without great effort, to detach the tiniest bits. It is said that the formula for this composition has been lost. Could it be nothing other than the working of lime scale? I leave it to those more skilful than I to consider this, but I almost cannot help thinking so. Once you have visited all these objects, you embark and head to the promontory of Miseno, taking about the same route as once did Charon’s ferry. This mountain, which takes its name from one of Aeneas’s companions, a famous trumpeter who had once been

29 Marginal note: “See Richard in order to refute him.” On Lake Fusaro, which Richard writes, “the poets called the Acheron” (see Description, 4:349–51).

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Hector’s comrade, is located between the isles of Nisida and Procida, about five miles from Cumae.30 This cape forms a secure harbour, whose value was something the Romans were quite familiar with. Agrippa had the mouth widened and rendered it excellent at last. This act caused a medallion to be immediately struck in his honour, so much did the Romans regard this port as something consequential. It was here that the fleet of Pliny the Elder was when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79, which he wanted to see and in which he perished. Approaching this coast, you see a big jumble and fragments that seem to announce that there was, in fact, a large city here previously. You see to the left, when you arrive, some vaults that belonged to the country house of Servilius Vatia, who retired here to flee the disorder and cruelties of Tiberius’s reign. These vaults must be those about which Seneca speaks (ep. 56) and through one of which, he claims, the sun shone all day, while through the other, it never shone at all.31 The more you examine these ruins of Miseno, however, the less is it possible to determine the exact location. You are shown, in a little plain at the base of the mountain, two very large and delicately worked blocks of marble, which seem to have been part of a doorframe and of an entablature of a few porticoes.32 You are assured in this country that they belonged to an amphitheatre located upon this same spot, but how certain is this fact? The entire mountain is full of caverns and tunnels, one of the more famous of which is that known by the name of the Grotto of Dragonara. There you will see five alleys, of which the centre one is the largest, supported by twelve very thick pilasters. When examining this place, you cannot help but think that it might have served the same purpose as the Marvellous Pool about which I just spoke, or more simply still, are these the foundations of some former Palace of Miseno? Close by are some vaults hewn from the rock into which seawater flows and that could well have served as reservoirs for cold baths. This is also the opinion of those in the region, to which one must surely not have recourse without much prudence and careful examination, given that these folks will always say whatever you want for a bit of money. You re-embark after having seen these final objects; you approach the Elysian Fields, where the horses are waiting, and follow the coastline until the port of Bauli. Close by you will see the remnants of a temple to Hercules, dubbed Baulo, because it was upon this spot that this famous adventurer enclosed the cattle that he had led from Spain.33 Such was the origin of the name of the city of which today 30 In Virgil’s epic: “Misenus, son of Aeolus, surpassed by none in stirring men with his bugle’s blare, and in kindling with his clang the god of war. He had been great Hector’s comrade, at Hector’s side he braved the fray, glorious for clarion and spear alike; but when Achilles, victorious, stripped his chief of life, the valiant hero came into the fellowship of Dardan Aeneas, following no meaner standard.” Virgil, Eclogues, 545–6 [bk.6, ll.163–70]. 31 In Epistle 55, Seneca, while examining the grandiose villa of the deceased Servilius Vatia and drawing Stoic lessons about luxury and the good life, remarks: “There are two grottoes, which cost a great deal of labour, as big as the most spacious hall, made by hand. One of these does not admit the rays of the sun, while the other keeps them until the sun sets.” Seneca, Epistles, 1:367. 32 Sade’s architectural description makes little sense. Perhaps he intends an entablature with a few columns of a portico. 33 In his Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain (London: 1760), Johann Georg Keyssler, a near-contemporary travel writer, expounds (3:147): “On this coast there is likewise an ancient temple called Boaula, or Boalia, ascribed to Hercules, who, according to the ancient fable, brought safe hither the oxen which he had stolen in Spain. Even now a small district here bears the name of Baulo, or Baula, concerning which Silius Italicus says: - - Herculeos videt ipso littore Baulos. Lib. xii. “Herculean Bauli founded on that shore “He view’d.”

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remains so little, and of which the village about which I have just spoken, but which is not at all located upon the same spot, retains nonetheless the name. You will be shown there a little tunnel adorned with quite pretty stuccoes that is said to be the tomb of Agrippina. Tacitus marks it out, but the look of these places belies this and everything here has more the appearance of a little amphitheatre and not a tomb. I agree with Monsieur Richard that those of the household of this empress might have had political reasons that committed them to erecting only a quite plain monument to their master, but at least this should have been a funeral monument and not an amphitheatre. Yet everything about this place points to the remnants of a little amphitheatre and not at all to a tomb. Moreover, Agrippina did not die here. Nero invited his mother to the festivals of Minerva that lasted five days and that were intended to be celebrated at Baiae. On the trip between Bauli and Baiae, his plan was to have her drowned by means of a rigged ferry that was supposed to crack open and sink in the waves. This ploy did not succeed. Agrippina and one of her women fell into the water, but the empress was saved, and by means of a little ferry, came ashore at the Lucrine Lake and reached her house.34 Acerronia, her servant, perished by being struck by the oars and sculls, thinking to save herself by passing herself off as the empress. Would it not have been possible that, perhaps, the corpse of this woman should have been deposited here and that, by a false tradition, this might have become confused and her tomb called that of Agrippina? For what would have been the point of transporting the cadaver of that princess that Anicetus, Herculeius, and Obaritus murdered that very night in the house where she had sought refuge?35 Moreover, this Agrippina must not be confused with her mother, wife of Germanicus, whom Tiberius had killed and whose ashes Caligula had put in the tomb of Augustus in Rome. The one was an exemplar of virtue, the other a vessel of vices and horrors. You must 34 Marginal note: “When transcribing, see Tacitus, volume I, page 389.” In Les Œuvres de Tacite, trans. Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt (Lyon, 1693), Tacitus details Nero’s assassination of Agrippina (1:386–93) and that her servants built a small tomb for her on the route to Miseno (1:391). Sade will subsequently in this chapter remark that he is using d’Ablancourt’s translation, and the pagination ranges suggest that he was using this or a similar edition. D’Ablancourt (1606–1664) translated many works from both Greek and Latin, including Cicero, Homer, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Thucydides. His translation decisions and departures from the source texts were contentious. In Tibère, ou Les Six Premier Livres des Annales de Tacite (Paris, 1768), Jean-Philippe-René de La Bletterie, a later translator of Tacitus and a contemporary of Sade would write: D’Ablancourt, a very estimable writer and one of those to whom we owe for having descried and fixed the French that we speak, translated Tacitus more than one hundred years ago. This work charmed our ancestors by the roundness, correctness, and purity of its style. It still reads well today, notwithstanding some outmoded expressions, certain turns of phrase, and certain words that we have since stigmatized. It is a well-written history, but, to tell the truth, you find therein naught but the sketch and canvas of the Latin historian. A translator must, without question, take a certain liberty with the writer whom he translates. D’Ablancourt, exaggerating this principle, treats his author with unbridled licence. He makes himself utterly his master, or, to put it more aptly, his tyrant. He mutilates him, dislocates him, flays him, desiccates him, and upon the pretext of giving him better health, he leaves him with hardly a living breath. For want of understanding Tacitus sufficiently, of knowing him, of feeling him, he values his politics alone and disdains rendering him naturally. (1:xxii–xxiii) 35 Sade notes: “And furthermore, the location of this tomb that Tacitus points out is not at all this one: ‘On the path that runs from Misenum,’ he says, ‘close to the house of Caesar overlooking the gulf.’ But here, we only see a temple to Hercules, and we know that the house of Caesar was not here. This monument must now be hidden under water.”

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only read Tacitus and Suetonius to be convinced of all her infamies, the detailing of which will add nothing to my description.36 Leaving this port, you climb back up into the interior and cross over a part of the coast where the country houses in this region were located. You will see there halves of houses almost entirely intact that the inhabitants of this land have rebuilt and in which they reside; … vaults … some aqueducts; among others, a series of one hundred and forty-three archways that are today underground and that stretch a mile and a half in distance, I don’t know its function … the fragments of Sulla’s country house, etc. All this coast, doubtless formerly so famous, is inhabited today by a few rustic families who vegetate like savages upon the fragments of these renowned places. At about a mile, you enter the territory of Baiae. The first thing that you will mark upon the right is the castle that defends this sector. In the winter there is usually a commander and eighty men, but thanks to a diligence worthy of the governance and military spirit of this country, the place is abandoned in the summer, because the air here is bad. I leave you to consider what ranking among the militaries of Europe a nation that behaves in such a feeble way ought to hold.37 Imperceptibly, you descend to the beach and arrive at the site of that famous city of Baiae, centre of delights and of sensual pleasure, where the Romans came to surrender themselves to debauchery of the most audacious and varied sorts. The location of this city, which doubtless stretched the entire beach that the sea bathes today, situated between the headland of the Castle of Baiae and that of the steam baths of Nero, must have been delightful. A mountain against which it backed up sheltered it from cold winds. Its southern exposure made it continually spring, and in spite of the revolutions that this lovely land has experienced, you still inhale that soft, effeminate air, which in this delightful climate destroyed, in spite of oneself, the purest mores and the most engrained principles. Virgil, Martial, Horace, and Statius have sufficiently vaunted its sweetness such that it is not possible to doubt the delights that were tasted within its walls. The origin of this city dates to the most remote Antiquity; it is claimed that it was founded by a certain Baius, companion of Ulysses, who gave it its name. Aristobulus, King of the Jews, ascertained from it the grandeur and magnificence of the Romans. When the empire was destroyed, this city became depopulated; the air became less salubrious, earthquakes overturned a portion of the buildings, the sea covered the rest, and it became, little by little, totally uninhabited. An abode of fishermen, as rustic as they are savage, is all that remains today of this delightful city, and some fragments, of which I will mention the most significant, all that remains for us of its grandeur. Venus must have been the divinity of a city so corrupt. You will see there the remnants of her temple.38 36 The fourth and final wife of the emperor Claudius and the mother of Nero, Julia Agrippina’s reputation for ruthless political calculation and cruelty would make her an inspiration for Sade’s obscene heroines. Both Tacitus and Suetonius detail her supposed exploits, such as dispatching Claudius with (perhaps) a dish of poison mushrooms to promote her son. See Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, 2:76–81, and Tacitus, Annals. Books 4–6, 11–12, trans. John Jackson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937), 410–17 [bk.12, chs.64–9]. On Julia Agrippina’s representation, including her supposed sexual transgressions, see Judith Ginsburg, Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), esp. 106–32. 37 Marginal note: “The fort is overlooked from every side and could not hold. It was built by Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of Naples.” 38 Marginal notations: “Baiae. Temple of Venus. / Continue to the second notebook titled Second Part, marked ØØØØ.” On the verso of the last page of the notebook:

Plate 1. The Education of Achilles by Chiron (first century). Museo Archeologico Nazionale,  Naples, Campania, ItalyPhoto © Raffaello Bencini/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 2. Clemente Susini, anatomical model of a pregnant woman (c. 1780). Museo della Specola, Florence,  Italy/Photo © Raffaello Bencini/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 3. Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Eruption of Vesuvius (1771). Private Collection/Photo © Agnew’s,  London/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 4. Guido Reni, Magdalene (c. 1630). De Agostini Picture Library/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 5. Stefano Maderno, Martyrdom of Santa Cecilia (1600). Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome,  Italy/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 6. Jean-Baptiste Tierce, Les ruines de Paestum (c. 1776). Courtesy of Musée des Augustins, Toulouse.

Plate 7. Group of Pan and goat (Roman, first century BCE). Museo Archeologico Nazionale,  Naples, Campania, Italy/Mondadori Portfolio/Electa/Alfredo e Pio Foglia/Bridgeman Images.

Plate 8. Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (or Zummo), Corruption of Bodies, waxwork model (c. 1691–1694).  De Agostini Picture Library/L. Perugi/Bridgeman Images.

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Second Part: Continuation of the Surrounding Areas of Naples Pozzuoli and Surrounding Area39 It is a round building, fallen into considerable disrepair, into which it is difficult even to enter. You will now see underground, but which, at the time, must have been ground level, TOUR OF POZZUOLI IN ORDER. You must depart from Pozzuoli, go to Felice arch. The city of Cumae and in transit the entry of the grotto of the Sibyl (which overlooked the side of Cumae). Returning from Cumae, the Temple of the Giant; from there to Bauli. The Elysian Fields. The Marvellous Pool. The Hundred Chambers. The rest of the port of Miseno and all of Miseno. The Dragonara grotto. On the return trip: the Acheron. The remnants of the city of Bauli. The Hercules temple. The tomb of Agrippina. Baiae – its ruins. The two rooms near the Temple of Venus. The Temple of Venus and its mysterious chambers. The Temple of Mercury. The Temple of Diana. The Baths of Nero, those of Tritoli. The Baths of Cicero. Next, you turn inland and leave the seaside, moving away from the Lucrine Lake to the left. Close by: the ruins of the house of Agrippina. Lake Avernus. The den of the Sibyl. The Temple of Juno. Next, we climbed up to the villa of Lucullus; the Monte Nuovo. Tripergole, and then cleaving to the left, we were in the Felice countryside, where there are tombs, which was the Elysian Fields of Pozzuoli. Returning to Pozzuoli, you see the ruins of the country house of Cicero. End of the first notebook on the surrounding areas of Naples. 39 Notebook in manuscript of 32 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. Introductory notes: The large rooms that are behind the Temple of Venus in Baiae were rooms where the Romans learned to swim. The columns, lower than sea level, prove this. Correction to make about the monument that is near the shore of Lake Avernus. According to the new map and the ancient one, this was a temple at the lake itself. Don’t forget to add to the description of this gulf all that you can extract from volume I of Chaupy, page 261 (and following). Very important. At Baiae, the Temple of Venus is even dubious, but that of Diana was, to all appearances, that of Hercules, since he gave his name to the quarter, which was called the Quay of Hercules. Mercury’s was where today you are shown Diana’s. The so-called Baths of Nero were nothing other than the baths of Baiae. Miseno, Bauli, and Baiae were united almost in the shape of a crescent along the length of the gulf, like Naples does today. The Prisons of Nero, fragments of Caesar’s House: page 289 of Chaupy. The location was divine. The Temple of Mercury was the fishpond of [Julia] Mamaea, and next to it was a household temple to the Sun, seeing that Alexander [Severus], her son, and Heliogabalus, were both priests of the Sun. When you get to the temple and to the lake of Avernus, and to the grotto of the Sibyl, see Chaupy, volume I, page 308, and remember that this large grotto was the pit of Nero. Excavating, the water was found boiling, and subsequently those chambers that you see there were made so that it could serve some purpose. The Temple of Avernus was dedicated, as I have said, to the infernal gods, and what is called the grotto of the Sibyl was that passage from the lake to the port of Ostia that Nero began. The grotto of the Sibyl was close to the Temple of Apollo, on the remnants of the fortress of Cumae, on the highest hilltop. That den that you see close to Cumae is a grotto made by Cocceius, who made the one in Posillipo, to get to Cumae, towards which you see clearly that its opening was turned. The so-called Baths of Tritoli were the thermae of Baiae. In an ancient view of Pozzuoli seen among the paintings of the Museum at Portici, you will see a former view of Pozzuoli, where the bridge of Caligula appears a mole of six or seven archways at most.

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a fairly large series of small chambers that were doubtless used by the priests or for the sorts of debauchery that mainly characterized the worship of this goddess. You enter into the one that appears the best preserved and still see therein some remnants of extraordinarily light and pleasing stucco ornamentation. Via a corridor some fifteen or sixteen inches wide and following a tortuous path, you penetrate from that chamber into a sort of cellar the access to which is terrifying. You discern the locations of two portcullises that doubtless were lowered as soon as one had entered. The back of this room is a cul-de-four, which implies some altars. This place inspires terror, and it is difficult to guess what was its function. I admit that the walls, which are extremely blackened by the smoke of the torches ceaselessly carried within, contribute much to the horror that it inspires. But it is no less certain that from its shape and its construction, you can glimpse this place as the centre of the secret and perhaps baneful infamies that followed these rites. Close by are two rooms that are in part filled in, but of which it is still possible to discern their magnificence.40 You will see therein baths, but certainly modern ones, since they are built upon ground that you clearly see was raised up almost to the frieze. The vault of the first is in fluted stucco and of a design seldom encountered based upon what I have seen of Antiquity, but no less pleasing for that. On the ceiling of this one are three hollow squares that prove that formerly there were decorations that have been removed. To the left upon entering, you see a large window that provided light and that let in the sun from a very high level, as will be seen in the majority of antique monuments. The second, quite close to the former, seems to have been more lavishly decorated. The stuccoes upon the vault are love knots of the most delicate and finished handiwork. The friezes are full of decorations of the same type; in this room you see bits of columns covered with fluted stucco. They are uncovered to a height of two and a half feet, and you ascertain from their proportions that the ground in which they are buried must have been raised some fifteen feet. These rooms doubtless belonged to one of those voluptuary houses located in this charming city, and it was here that, in the loveliest of locations, sheltered from all the inclemency of the air and enjoying a wonderful coolness, our heroes of Antiquity were no longer but libertines. A little farther on, at the part where the coastline seems recessed, are the remnants of a temple to Mercury. You will see here a quite intact peristyle, to its right connected to a rotunda with an oculus in the dome. Upon the wall remain some decorations and some paintings. The diameter of this edifice is perhaps twenty-five feet, and the shape of it looks exceedingly pleasant; it is simply regrettable that no precautions are taken to preserve from moisture this monument that the water will eventually cause to collapse. It rises therein to a level of two feet and sometimes more in certain spots, and you cannot go in except upon the shoulders of persons from the region who, not calculating that the cause that brings them a certain profit today will soon end up annihilating the principle of that profit, do not consequently imagine that they ought to take any precautions to preserve this principle. Further on and backed against the mountain is a vast ruin, much in a jumble and that appears to have suffered from an earthquake. This was a temple to Diana; several marbles found in this enclosure, upon which were bas-reliefs of dogs, stags, and attributes of hunting, were the evidence for this assessment. The edifice must have been quite large, judging from its current enclosure and the extreme height of its cupola. You will see therein several 40 Marginal note: “These rooms were ponds made for the express purpose of learning to swim.”

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niches where statues were surely placed, but nothing suggests that it was lit from above, as Monsieur Richard would have it. What remains of the vault is even enough to prove the contrary. Around are remnants of chambers that were doubtless occupied by the priests or destined for the mysterious rites of the goddess. All the surrounding area of city of Baiae offers with each step reminders of the magnificence of these great men. There was the country home of Marius, here that of Pompey; further along, that of Caesar, Piso, Mamaea, etc. To hope to assign the correct ownership to each of these remnants would be folly. Even with the precise indications that Tacitus provides, the upheaval has been such that it is almost impossible not to go astray, and I leave it to writers of romances who have decided to pass off their reveries as certainties the task of tricking the public. More frank than they and less interested perhaps to pass off my reveries as hypotheses, I will simply state that I have seen some ruins, that I put little credit in the tales that I read, and that I was told about various practices, and that the sole idea that struck me while considering them was that human luxury, grandeur, and magnificence are sooner or later annihilated before the sublime marvels of Nature, like the dew that disappears with the burning heat of the sun. Vain men, you who build palaces, who place your pride in your monuments, as petty as yourselves, come look upon the ruins of those of these great men and you will soon learn to immortalize naught but your virtues. A little way from Baiae, heading back towards Pozzuoli, you cross a covered passage hewn into the rock that is said to be the work of Pedro of Aragon [i.e., Pedro de Toledo], viceroy of Naples, and that terminates at the hot baths known in this area as the steam baths of Tritoli or the Baths of Nero. They are fed by a spring of boiling water, but it is not easy to enter therein. You get there via little bowels, quite narrow and dark, similar to those in catacombs, in which the heat is so great at the end of thirty feet that unless you are naked and sweating profusely, it is impossible to go any farther. I undressed to my shirt and went far in. I saw a fairly large number of little dark detours that I was assured led, in part, to the spring and were used for the same purpose, that is, to provoke intense perspiration. But I could not withstand the trial to the end, and I returned on my footsteps, feeling my breath completely cut off, remarking that I was entirely covered with sweat, and already feeling weak from it. A peasant from the region, used to these sorts of trials, went and withdrew a pail of water from the spring itself; he returned in a surprising state of perspiration, but without any of the symptoms of utter annihilation of which Monsieur Richard speaks.41 The water that he brought back was at such a temperature that it was difficult even to hold your hand over the steam that it exhaled. We had some eggs cooked in it and observed a fairly remarkable phenomenon. This was that the egg, once cooked, did not harden, no matter how long you left it in this water, which seemed to be endowed with the virtue of only providing the necessary degree of cooking. You could travel through all these tunnels without being so strongly discomfited by the heat by slithering like a reptile, seeing that the air below is not, by a good bit, as hot as that above, thanks to a physical cause that is quite simple, concerning which Monsieur Richard gives a fairly sound account. But who will want to take the trouble to tarry thus, when your imagination, seconded by what you see, 41 Richard had remarked that inhabitants of the region serving as guides come out of these steaming catacombs in “a frightening state of exhaustion; they are completely livid, their eyes blank, all their features drawn out and drooping, looking as if they are expiring; such a spectacle is quite capable of stopping the curiosity of a traveller who does not wish to undertake any experiment that might alter his health” (Description, 4:330).

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can easily allow you to assess what the heat prevents you from going to witness? Close to these steam baths are several chambers hewn from the rock that the sick who come here to take the baths in the appropriate seasons for these occupy. Under this same rock is a large vaulted room, divided into three parts, with a channel in the middle, in which is the spring of cold mineral water, and two partitions filled with baths. This room is called Tritoli, and it gives its name to the baths. You will still see there some remnants of stucco decorations. It is said that this room was previously adorned with statues that pointed out by hand what part of the body these baths could be good for, but that the doctors of the school of Salerno, intolerant of these mute counsellors who made their consultations useless, came and destroyed them in the course of a single night. History adds that they were punished for their temerity by being shipwrecked the same night. Also close by, beneath the rock, are other baths that the sea frequently covers with water, known in the area by the name of Cicero’s Baths. Judging from the heat of the sand nearby, which it is almost impossible to hold in your hand, their virtue was doubtless the same as those above. I do not think that the last two of these are frequented today. Leaving these baths, you again follow for some time the shoreline up to the foot of Monte Nuovo, close to the Lucrine Lake very much diminished by the upheaval of which I will speak. It is essential to climb to the summit of this height better to observe this surprising phenomenon, which appeared in a single night and swallowed up an entire village, located close by, that was called Tripergole. This baneful event happened on the night of the 19th to 20th of September, 1538, and not that of the 29th to 30th, as Monsieur Richard would have it. It was preceded by earthquakes, huge exhalations of fire sprung from its entrails, a significant withdrawal of the sea, and conclusively, with the sudden appearance of this mountain and the utter engulfing of the village of Tripergole and of almost all its inhabitants, who did not have time to save themselves. This was a sizeable place, with a hospital for the sick, the nearby baths, several inns, and a fairly large number of farmers. In a few hours, not a vestige of all that remained.42 After such events, the causes of which are today so well understood, let us be told that these sudden destructions are the result of the wrath of God, irritated with the crimes of men! After having examined the fairly large crater that formed at the top of this mountain, you descend from it in order to take up on the left a hollowed-out path that leads through perpetually green hedges to the shores of the famous Lake Avernus, in a space of about half a mile. This lake, along with the surrounding area, no longer has that frightening effect that formerly gave it the Greek name Aornos, which means without birds. As we know, the infected nature of its waters made them fall down dead when they flew over. The quality of these waters, and consequently of the air, has long since totally changed, and today it is one of the healthiest locations in this entire region. It would make the most peaceful and solitary retreat that a philosopher might choose. 42 The 1538 eruption caused considerable damage to Pozzuoli and the surrounding area and rained ash on Naples. Contrary to Sade’s assertion, the event began to unfold in earnest on the evening of 29 Sept. and seemed to have more or less concluded on 3 Oct. A final burst of activity took the lives of twenty-four intrepid onlookers on 6 Oct. For a detailed scientific account of the 1538 eruption, presented alongside observations by contemporary eyewitnesses, see John Guest, Paul Cole, Angus Duncan, and David Chester, Volcanoes of Southern Italy (Bath: Geological Society of London, 2003), 79–82.

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During the summer, the heat is infinitely less unbearable than in the rest of the region, and in the winter, it is forever spring. It is here that you could enjoy in peace that deep solitude that invites reveries and that sinks the soul into that sweet melancholy, only known to sensitive hearts and strong souls. What ideas, Lord almighty, do the silence and the coolness of this place awaken? Do these majestic ruins located upon the right bank and that are almost the sole abode to be seen here? Does that wreath of woods which, crowning the mountains that engird this mass of tranquil, blue water, seems to forbid the rays of the sun from troubling your thoughts, lending them even more strength, and that creates the sombre horror of this delightful valley? No, it is impossible to depict what you feel in this happy desert. You can only feel it, and keep silent. It is here that Aeneas sacrificed to the infernal gods, before heading down the tenebrous paths of the Underworld that the Sibyl showed him. To the left is the grotto thought to have belonged to her and into which you enter with ease. This celebrated place, so often described, has nothing of what romance-writing travellers, at the head of which I can put Monsieur Richard, have lent it up to now. It is simply a long vault, some hundred and eighty feet long by eleven wide and about nine or ten high. Some thirty feet from the spot where it is totally blocked, the collapsing of the earth obliges you to crawl on all fours. Then you cannot proceed at all. Close by, it forms a recess upon the right that has no egress. A bit before the cave-in is, still to the right, an extremely tight doorway that, via a tortuous corridor, leads down a gentle slope to several small chambers, in one of which are baths and a bed hewn from the rock, like those of the little chambers near the steam baths of Tritoli. Close by are some ancient exits, totally filled in today by cave-ins. All these various small chambers are filled with water, and you cannot enter them except upon the shoulders of peasants from this region, perfectly aware of this means of showing you around. You will note some remnants of decoration in some of these small chambers that show that they likely served some purpose in the past, but this is fairly difficult to disentangle from the chaos of myth and to pinpoint it today. As for me, I do not doubt that this was formerly a place of debauchery, with the Sibyl for priestess, and I am quite tempted to think that all this portion of the little rooms to the right were added after the fact, not doubting for a moment that this entire long vault, perfectly in the style of the one in Posillipo, was originally made like the latter and that its function was to connect the shores of this lake to Baiae, towards which it is perfectly oriented. Neither would you have a hard time believing that this tunnel was originally excavated in order to disgorge the lake and to conduct its waters to the sea, during those days when one perhaps had to fear its floods. Be that as it may, I imagine that its origin is extremely ancient, and I think that the Sibyl could be nothing but a fortune teller who sought refuge in this spot that she found made in a manner propitious to her frauds or to her debaucheries. Moreover, I did not see at all that poor staircase hewn from the rock of which Monsieur Richard speaks and via which he, or so he says, descended more than a hundred feet underground. The corridor that leads to the little chambers truly is sloped, but this slope is so gentle that I do not believe that it goes more than ten feet below the level of the grotto.43 43 Richard describes the descent to the lower chambers thus: “You enter therein via a little square door, fashioned into the rock, that is about five and half feet high by three wide; it leads to a poor staircase hewn from the rock and that twists and turns; it is not easy to estimate the depth, but it must be more than one hundred feet below the level of the grotto, judging by how long it takes to descend” (Description, 4:324).

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As for the right angle of which Misson speaks, it most certainly does exist at the end of the grotto, and I describe it by that bend to the right that I have said was close to the place where one can no longer proceed and that itself has no exit. I know not why Monsieur Richard says the contrary and thereby only forces, of a sudden, the assertion that, in his description of the grotto, the sole truth therein is that which he refutes.44 The ruins that I indicated to be at the right of the lake, almost opposite of the entrance to the grotto, are, based upon what travellers say, the remnants of a Temple of Apollo. The people of the region say that it was dedicated to Juno. Nothing remains that could decide this quarrel. As for me, I believe neither the one nor the other, and my opinion would be rather that this temple belonged to Pluto. This lake being the entrance to the Underworld, is it not likely that the god of the dark manor had his temple here?45 Until some inscription or some statue ends the quarrel, I see nothing that might make me desist from my opinion in favour of the two others. All Antiquity tells us that this marsh was consecrated to him. Is it not likely, then, that there should be a temple? What remains of this monument proclaims that it was round on the interior and octagonal on the outside. It was crowned with a lovely cupola, adorned with several niches in which it is likely that the statues are still upon the site, and lit by large windows. All around there was a corridor, of which you can still see an entirely intact portion. The entire edifice was made of brick, doubtless revetted on the outside. The enclosure of these ruins is today taken up by a small garden, in the middle of which grow two lovely orange trees in the open ground and that create, surrounded by these ruins, a rustic spot in the sombre genre, one of the most extraordinary to be seen. Leaving this temple, you climb vertically one of the mountains that surround the lake, and you find yourself again on the main route from Pozzuoli to Arco Felice, precisely among the fragments of the house of Lucullus. You return, on the side of Pozzuoli, to elevated terrain, and some three miles on, you arrive at the main road from Capua to Pozzuoli that is a still extant section of the Appian Way. This area is called Campania or the Fortunate Fields [Campania Felix]. This area is filled to both right and left with tombs, among which are some extremely well-preserved vaults. I visited a few in which you can clearly count all the niches in which the sepulchral urns were placed. These vaults are ordinarily ten feet deep by six wide and twelve high. You are shown those of the Aurelian and Antonine families as the best preserved. The inscriptions that were found there leave no doubt about the authenticity of these monuments. A little further on, you descend into that of the Faustina family.46 The niches are arranged in shelves. This one, different from the others, is rectangular. 44 Sade’s description of the grotto’s layout is somewhat difficult to follow. In his Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), François Maximilien Misson informs that having “gone two hundred and fifty paces straight on, the grotto makes a ninety-degree turn to the right, & 70 or 80 paces further, you find a small room, which is fifteen feet deep and eight or nine wide” (2:146). Richard had tetchily remarked: “Misson says that the grotto makes a ninety-degree turn to the right, and that after about eighty paces, you find a small cell that he compares to the chapel that is in the middle of the Grotto of Posillipo; but nothing could resemble this less, and his description as far as this locale goes is completely faulty and has nothing that indicates the positions of the spaces or that might give a notion thereof. It seems certain that the main grotto never made a ninety-degree turn and that it must have been open in a straight line its entire length, like the one of Posillipo” (Description, 4:323–4). 45 Sade is referring to the Tempio di Apollo ruins on Lake Avernus. 46 Although the identity of the original owners of the vaults to which Sade refers is uncertain, we do know that members of the Antonii extended family had villas in coastal Campania. See John D’Arms, Romans on

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At the back of all these vaults will be seen the main niche in which was doubtless placed the urn of the head of the family or his statue. All the rest is like enough to the way we today construct the inside of our pigeon coops. It seems that these vaults were built with several floors, and you cannot prevent yourself, upon examining these remnants, seeing how much greater was the extent of respect and care of the Ancients for the dead than ours. In this entire area you will see the upheaval caused by the eruption of Solfatara, of which I earlier spoke. Returning to Pozzuoli, you see the remnants of the country home of Cicero, located in the most pleasant site imaginable and once occupying a large territory. Its gardens, which descended towards the sea, must have been delightful. What remains today, great God, of so much wealth and beauty? Only the memory – and this often fabulous – of those who constructed or possessed them. Is this thus the Antiquity by which we fancy that our luxury and our virtues will immortalize us? And isn’t it folly to extend our views or our ambition beyond the narrow circle that encloses us? To do the complete tour of this area, you must embark from Pozzuoli the morning of the next day for the isles of Procida and Ischia, the first of which is some three miles distant from the promontory of Miseno and the second approximately the same distance from the first that the latter is from this promontory. The latter, more interesting than the other, as much for the virtue of its baths as for the sojourn that the Greeks made there, is perhaps some twenty-five or thirty miles in circumference. Myth teaches us that it was the fatherland of Typhon, one of the giants who scaled the heavens. You will count several springs there, the waters of each of which has a different virtue, which during the seasons for taking the waters, makes for an abundance of both foreigners and people from the region. There must certainly be gold and iron mines to be found in the mountains of this island. The various miraculous baths of Ischia number thirty-one, and each has a different name and a particular virtue, about which you can find a detailed description in Capaccio, an Italian author.47 This island is also full of grottoes or caverns full of hot exhalations that promote sweating and cure several ailments. These number six, among which you must mainly go and see the Castiglione one, located in the midst of the ruins of the former castle, those of the Negroponte Valley, so named because it was here that the Greeks from the island of Euboea, today called Negroponte, established their first colony. From this valley issue waters that make a frightening noise and the one [known as] head in a spot called Cremala, in the midst of pitfalls and precipices that will make you shudder.48 It is in this place that one can say that Nature is bizarre and the Bay of Naples: A Social and Cultural Study of the Villas and Their Owners from 150 B.C. to A.D. 400 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 36–7. 47 Sade’s reference is to Giulio Cesare Capaccio (1552–1634), the author of many works on the history of Naples and the surrounding areas. Capaccio’s Balnearum quae Neapoli, Pvteolis, Baiis, Pithecusis extant, virtutes, an account of ancient bathing history and practices and of bathing sites in the region appeared as an appendix to his Puteolana historia (Naples, 1604), subsequently translated into the vernacular as La Vera antichità di Pozzuolo (Naples, 1607). 48 Sade writes ungrammatically: “Il sort de cette vallée des eaux qui font un bruit épouvantable et celle de tête dans un lieu nommé Cremala, au milieu d’écueils et de précipices qui font frémir.” In La Vera antichità di Pozzuolo, Capaccio states that a group of the famed sudatoria or natural sweating rooms on the island were collectively called those of Testa, i.e., “Head,” and were located in a spot called Cremala: “[Sudatori] di Testa, in a small craggy spot and numbering five. The spot is called Cremala, hair-raising to see, as if consumed by fires” ( 384). Pompeo Sarnelli’s guide describes this area in almost precisely the same terms. See the bilingual La Guida de’ Forestieri di Pozzuoli with Antoine Bulifon’s translation as La Guide des étrangers de Poussol (1769), 284–5.

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­extraordinary. What a beautiful field of study for a naturalist, and how many new discoveries perchance to make! Apart from these waters and caverns, you will also find upon this island some very hot sands, the virtue of which is curing the cold humours related to gout, retracted nerves, and dropsy.49 The climate of this island is hot but charming, and it seems that Nature, who wore herself out rendering it useful to humanity, decided nonetheless to adorn it with her most beautiful gifts. The king of the Two Sicilies has a house here to which he comes sometimes during the summer for the purpose of hunting. You re-embark from Ischia to return to Naples, stopping at the pretty little island of Nisida, famous for the sojourn that Brutus made there, after the murder of Caesar.50 It is here that he awaited the result of what his friends would do for him.51 This little island is so pretty that the poets have sung it in the guise of a metamorphosed nymph. It is three and a half miles from Naples. In the part that faces Miseno is a small natural port that the shelter of a large mount formerly rendered excellent, but the collapse of that mount, exposing it to bad winds, has changed the practice of coming ashore. This was previously called Porto Pavone. A quarter of a mile from there, to the side, is the one where you disembark today, opposite which is a poor inn. From there to reach the castle, which is the only significant building upon the island, you have to climb quite a bit. This castle is round and appears to be quite dilapidated. The courtyard is the same shape and adorned with Composite-order pilasters. It belongs, as does the island, to the Marquis Petroni and brings him some thousand ducats per annum. During times of war, however, this island becomes a fort, and the king takes hold of it. This little island, in which it is always springtime, abounds with rabbits, olive trees, and fragrant plants, among which will be found some, however, that are quite poisonous. It is perhaps two miles in circumference. Its shape is round, and it is surrounded by rocks, with 49 “Nerfs retirés,” literally “retracted nerves,” was a term for muscular spasms and cramps. By the nineteenth century, it was clearly considered non-technical, and we find in one medical dictionary in the entry for “spasm”: “Upon seeing a person who is experiencing a cramp in a limb or who is prey to epilepsy or convulsions, the vulgar say that he has retracted nerves, since at that time, the tendons are hard, prominent under the skin, and in reality pulled back by the action of forcefully contracted muscles. See Dictionaire [sic] abrégé des sciences médicales (Paris, 1826), 14:379. In the eighteenth century, Nicolas Alexandre’s oft-reprinted La Médecine et chirurgie des pauvres (Paris, 1749) suggested various home and folk remedies, including rubbing with veal marrow, with linseed oil, and rendered grass-snake fat (see 350–1). Other medical texts at the time suggest ostrich oil; see, e.g., Robert J. James, Dictionnaire universel de médecine, de chirurgie, de chymie, de botanique, etc., translated from the English (Paris, 1746), 371. 50 The island of Nesis, modern Nisida, was the site of Roman holiday villas. In Letters to Atticus, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), Cicero writes of meeting Brutus on Nesis in July of 44 BCE, some four months after the assassination of Caesar, where they discussed the political situation in Rome (4:306–21). 51 Marginal note: “See the Histoire, and when composing, do not forget to put in everything that is in the Guide des voyageurs, p. 217 in the French version.” Sade’s reference is to Pompeo Sarnelli, Guida de forestieri curiosi di vedere, e di riconoscere le cose più memorabili di Pozzoli, Baja, Cuma, Miseno, Gaeta (Naples, 1685), which had been translated into French and augmented by Antoine Bulifon as La Guide des étrangers curieux de voir, & de connoitre les choses plus memorables de Poussol, Bayes, Cumes, Misene, Gaete. The first editions of the translation – all actually bilingual, French and Italian editions – appeared around 1700, although Sade’s is the fourth edition, published in Naples in 1769, in which the description of the island of Nisida indeed begins on p. 217.

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the exception of the two ports that I just mentioned. You will not see more than four buildings total upon the island: the castle, the farm, the church, and an inn, that are standing and are, as I have said, opposite the port. Upon examination of the make-up of the rocks that circle this island and of the soil that serves as its foundation, you will make out lava, ash, and an innumerable number of other volcanic signs. Is it one of these itself, or has it been formed by a pile of ashes and material thrown up and deposited there? Fine research material for our naturalists, and I leave it to them to settle the question. Opposite the island, at the part where you approach it and a bit to the right, is the lazaretto where vessels go for quarantine.52 It seems that the little island upon which it is located was formerly connected to Nisida, since you still mark the remains of a causeway in the sea and just above the water, which appears never to have any function but to join them. Returning from here to Naples, you pass by some large grottoes that the people call the Schools of Virgil, above which will be seen some remnants of structures. Upon the edge of the sea, you make out some ruins that ignorant folk have taken for a temple. But if you choose to travel up and down the entire crest of that mountain, you will see thereupon capitals, sections of columns, and other fragments that seem to announce that there must have been some large edifice there. Then, drawing reasonable inferences about the ruins below, you will see that they must have been related, and instead of seeing them as connected to a temple, you will deem them to be baths. You find, in these elevated areas, the remnants of very large buildings, a fragment of a theatre, some large vaults, and in some other spots, paintings, or rather coatings of a single colour, for you cannot make out any objects. All these ruins were part of that lovely country villa that Pollio bequeathed to Augustus.53 A bit further on, getting closer to Naples, you see at the village of Marechiaro, next to the Posillipo headland, large fragments of antique construction just above water level and in which will still be seen stuccoes some six lines [approx. 1.35 cm] thick. Upon entering the village you see two inscriptions, one close to a broken column, which appears fluted and in the Corinthian order, from which we learn that here was a temple to Fortuna, adorned with marble columns and statues, that the Christians destroyed in order to build a temple to the Virgin. The other says that there were close by several beautiful country villas of the Romans, where Caesar came to relax from the cares of empire. These are doubtless the ones that I just mentioned being just above water level. 52 Contemporary accounts corroborate some of Sade’s details and add others. In his Travels in the Two Sicilies in the Years 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780 (Dublin, 1784), Henry Swinburne, writes: “I traversed the grove to the sea-shore, and there taking boat, proceeded through the narrow channel to the Lazaretto to Nisida, an island belonging to the Marquis Petroni, to whom it yields about seven hundred crowns a year. The number of inhabitants is small, its produce oil. It abounds with rabbits, and large black snakes, which darting across our path as we disturbed their slumbers, kept my bare-footed guide in continual terror – They appeared to me timid and harmless” (2:43). 53 Sade seems to have missed the opportunity to comment on a historical character who would have appealed to his later self: “Pollĭo, Vedĭus, a Roman eques and a friend of Augustus, was by birth a freedman, and has obtained a place in history on account of his riches and his cruelty. He was accustomed to feed his lampreys with human flesh, and whenever a slave displeased him, the unfortunate wretch was thrown into the pond as food for the fish. On one occasion Augustus was supping with him, when a slave had the misfortune to break a crystal goblet, and his master immediately ordered him to be thrown to the fishes. The slave fell at the feet of Augustus, praying for mercy; and when the emperor could not prevail upon Pollio to pardon him, he dismissed the slave of his own accord, and commanded all Pollio’s crystal goblets to be broken and the fish-pond to be filled up. Pollio died B.C. 15, leaving a large part of his property to Augustus. It was this Pollio, who built the celebrated villa of Pausilypum near Naples.” Sir William Smith, New Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology, and Geography (London, 1850), 596.

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At the headland of Posillipo is a little fort, which protects the king’s powder magazines, located there. Before getting there, you see a pretty house belonging to the prince of Francavilla, in a charming location, and where like Caesar he doubtless comes, not husband of all the women but wife of all the men, to rest from the cares of his principality.54 Between there and the city, you see several fragments of lovely enough country estates, but that the sea or the poor air has forced the abandonment thereof. It is claimed that the largest, the architecture of which is beautiful enough, albeit not at all pure, belonged to a Neapolitan princess who never completed it, on account of the excessive cost that carrying out the plan required. Portici-Herculaneum-Museum55 After having seen all of the western part, I visited the eastern, the extent of which is much greater. The first thing to take in is Portici, a royal house built upon the ruins of Herculaneum. You get there via the same route that leads to Vesuvius. After crossing the Ponte della Maddalenna, you must not fail to examine, upon the right, a statue of Saint Januarius, one hand lifted towards Vesuvius and as if he were commanding it to stop. This monument was erected when this volcano ceased its eruption of 1767, but care was taken not to put up the statue until after it stopped. As you might think, it was too important not to compromise the saint’s reputation, in whom the people have such confidence that, as soon as it was put in place, they ran in hordes, and showing their backsides to Vesuvius, cried out: “Throw, throw, Vesuvius, we defy you! Throw! Now Saint Januarius forbids your doing so!” I would not coarsen my descriptions with such episodes if they did not serve to familiarize you with the spirit of a nation, the sketch of whose mores enters somewhat into my undertaking. From here to Portici, in the space of some four miles, the route follows a superb and very well-maintained road. The main road crosses the interior courtyard of the Palace of Portici, built up on all four sides around that courtyard. As it is the first thing that naturally presents itself to your eyes, it will also be the first thing about which I will speak. Under the two main staircases are two equestrian statues, one under a sort of glassed recess, doubtless in order to preserve it, depicting Marcus Nonnius Balbus; and the other, which is left uncovered and that is notwithstanding at least as valuable, depicts Nonnius, his son, the proconsul. These two pieces were found in Herculaneum, and both are handled in the most beautiful and grandest manner. The suites of the castle offer nothing other than the quite plain. Their arrangement seemed to me awkward and poorly grasped. The furnishings are of fine enough cloths, but lacking any other magnificence. You see many local porcelain fixtures and all the doorframes are of marble. The first apartment that I saw was a gallery in which there is a large painting of the Rape of Proserpina. It is by a modern artist and to me it seemed that its sole merits were a bit of vividness and flash. Besides, feebly drawn, without force or naturalness; worthy, in a word, of the brush of modern Neapolitans. From there you enter the apartment of the children, handled entirely in the same taste. 54 A reference to Suetonius, claiming to quote an oration of the elder Gaius Scribonius Curio, asserting Gaius Julius Caesar’s reputation for bisexuality: “every woman’s man and every man’s woman [mulierum virum et omnium virorum mulierem]” (Lives of the Caesars, 1:102–3). 55 Continuation of the same notebook.

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Next a bathroom, the floor of which is done in a pretty mosaic design, brought intact from Herculaneum. This room is of gilded stucco, sculpted in fairly nice taste. Opposite, beyond a few rooms that you must pass through to get there, is a little room of which the walls, decorations, and everything that adorns it even up to the frieze are faced with the local porcelain. This is a singular notion. I believe that it is novel, and the execution is truly pleasing. The parquet, which is as yet nothing but planks, will be, we are told, in the same style. You see some groups of Chinese bas-reliefs, which project forth rather considerably. A peculiar thing is that all these decorations and even the revetment is screwed in and can be taken down and transported elsewhere as need be. In a land so subject to moving house frequently because of Vesuvius, you might consider such precautions very wise. Eight lovely mirrors complete the decor of this room and give to the entire ensemble an extraordinary air of freshness and elegance. The vault is adorned very pleasingly, and it is said that the queen, in the apartment that connects to this little room, takes her pleasures there. In the room that comes after is a ceiling adorned with paintings – flowers and fruits – done with all the taste imaginable. The toilette of the queen, which comes next, contains some family portraits that are well enough done. The vault of this little room offers frescoes of various designs and is likewise quite pleasing. The bedroom of the queen connects to this little room. It is hung with an Indian cloth with large designs, adorned with a quite pleasing ceiling, but without any sort of luxury with regard to the furniture. The bed is columned, surrounded by a balustrade made of walnut. There are some mirrors in the apartment, simply leaned against the wall in various spots, a quite plain sofa, and I dare say that this apartment is such that any private individual with a modicum of wealth might have in his country house. Close to the bed is, for the sake of appearances, a lovely Virgin holding her Son, painted by [Anton Raphael] Mengs and truly full of vividness and charm, like all the works of this artist, which always exude more taste than regularity.56 Close by is the queen’s chapel, faced with marble in part and for the altar a fairly pretty modern piece. The vault of this room is of gilded stucco, with delicate and pleasing designs. The king’s suite comes next. The first room that you are shown is a lovely little veneered room with a blue background, quite gilded, and interspersed with mirrors and porcelain. This room, said to be by the Martins, seemed to me to still smell of it; it is said that the king works here.57 I do not believe that this is the best thing for him to be doing. The vault of this room is covered with frescoes that depict children’s games, pleasantly handled. The flooring is of marble brought such as it was from Herculaneum. The king’s chapel has nothing notable about it but two small fluted antique columns that support the architrave. Next comes the Council Chamber, hung with red and white damask. You see therein a large painting of the king on horseback, some other paintings of perspectives, one of which depicts the Departure of the Catholic King. In it you see the people thronging along the shore and crying over the departure of their cherished sovereign. I 56 Marginal note: “See what I said in Rome about Mengs.” Sade briefly discusses a fresco by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–1779), as well as the rarity of this artist’s work in Italy on p. 71 above. 57 That is, the smell of veneer. The Martin brothers were experts in veneer and pioneered a technique in which “plant motifs carved and painted to look natural stood out against a pale background.” Catherine Faraggi, “Furniture,” in Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon (Oxford: Routledge, 2001), 567. Tastes in veneer shifted during the course of the eighteenth century, from a preference for heavily gilded and silvered wood to polychrome and then simpler two-tone colour schemes.

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will not report upon the particularities of this departure, with which Monsieur Richard has adorned his volume of descriptions of Naples, and my vanity would have too much to suffer joining in competition with such a rival. The vault of this room depicts a Festival of Diana by a Neapolitan painter whose name is neither given nor proffered. The dining room follows. It is adorned with several allegorical paintings that seemed to me of little worth; they are the handiwork of various modern artists. You will see Modesty, by Francesco de Mura, of whom I spoke under the heading of the Charterhouse of San Martino. Faith, by [Pompeo Girolamo] Batoni. Peace by [Stefano] Pozzi. Fecundity, exceedingly mediocre, by a Neapolitan. Abundance, by [Giuseppe] Bonito. Strength, by Corrado [Giaquinto]. The vault, by one of these artists (Bonito), depicts Autumn. Close by is a large hall nicknamed the Fishing Apartment, decorated with modern paintings that depict fishing or hunting. In the children’s chapel that follows is a lovely antique floor made entirely of mosaic, brought back entirely in the same taste [sic] that it was in Herculaneum. In a pretty enough little room that follows two of the corner angles are of antique mosaic, charmingly wrought, one of which is of a Vestal. Both are charming and quite delicately wrought. You see in the next apartment several nicely executed tapestry heads, among others an Ecce Homo of the greatest beauty. In the women’s apartment are two large, well enough done paintings, one of which depicts the Catholic King on horseback and the other the queen, his wife, likewise on horseback. You see some portraits of children. In another room, which is used for storing tableware, are two paintings that depict an ambassador from Turkey and one from Tripoli, respectively, surrounded by their slaves and painted, so it is said, based upon the most recent visits to Naples from these two different parts of the world. You also see in the same room two portraits of giants, in one of which is placed the dwarf of Prince Francavilla, which produces a pleasing contrast and is aptly made for reflections upon the caprices of Nature. These two pieces are otherwise exceedingly mediocre. There is in this palace a small theatrical hall that is pretty enough, but there being no decorations, I could not judge of its adornments. The gardens of this palace are done in a style as mediocre as the suites. In the middle of a flower garden that rather resembles one that belongs in a convent than in a king’s house is an antique statue of Flora. Behind this flower garden is a little woods that is three miles around, all planted with laurestine and live oaks.58 You also see some fairly nicely laid out alleys there. This grove nonetheless has this peculiar about it: it was necessary to dig out a mine for each planting hole, seeing that everything is lava in this region and that up to seven were counted to one of the other [?]. In the middle of this grove, the king had built a little miniature fortress, but nicely done. This building serves as his lounge, for taking the 58 Sade’s term is “laurier bâtard,” and he may be referring to the plant classified by Linnaeus as Viburnum Tinus, “known as laurestine or bastard laurel, the laurier-thym of Southern France, on account of its evergreen, glossy leaves, which are entire and slightly revolute at the margin, and hairy on the nerves beneath. John M. Maisch, “The Usual Species of Vibernum,” American Journal of Pharmacy, vol. L, series 4, vol. VII (Feb. 1878), 52. In some parts of the Mediterranean it was cultivated for its drupes, used as a treatment for dropsy. In an oft-reprinted eighteenth-century guide for country living, however, laurier-thym, used for ornamental purposes, is distinguished from laurier-bâtard, with the latter said to be planted only in “farmyards; its foliage is yellowish, although distinct and long; it is used in cooking, although less often than laurier-franc.” Louis Liger, La Nouvelle Maison Rustique ou Économie Générale de tous les biens de campagne, 10th ed. (Paris, 1775), 2:317.

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air, and in the garrisons where he lodges his cadets. The bastions, embankments, ditches, counterguards, all are writ small, but with everything in place, and this whimsical little work does honour to the engineer who designed it. Further along, this king, otherwise so martial, turns into a peasant. A straw hut constitutes his delights. Scandal-loving critics assure us that it is here that little bumpkin girls come to have themselves transformed into queens for half an hour. It is surrounded by sheds and stables. Such a location seems to me inappropriate for these escapades of humanity. Close by is a fairly pretty shelter made of trellises to which twelve pretty little alleys connect. Behind it are other trellises connecting to fountains, but I repeat, everything is small, as much in the plans as in the execution, and there is not a tax farmer in France who would settle for being housed so meanly. I have forgotten to mention a ball court graced with a pavilion at either end that is also located in this grove and in which the king passes, it is said, the sweetest moments of his life. Upon the side towards the sea are some terraces that are a little more pleasingly handled. But if all that I have just described proclaims neither grandeur nor magnificence, how much is one recompensed by the curious examination of all the riches of Antiquity gathered in the Museum of the King of the Two Sicilies? It is impossible to imagine a collection more complete, more intact, and arranged with more order and care. The description that I will give will not be as extensive as I would have desired, and the severe orders limiting those who write in all these places prevented me from covering all that I would have desired; I was obliged to rely upon my memory. Monsieur Richard is blowing his own horn when he tells us that he obtained permission to transcribe something to his notepads. This is not permitted to anyone whomsoever.59 For visiting this collection I had the best recommendations possible and I was notwithstanding unable to obtain approval to do so.60 The king is having a considerable work written upon all the beautiful objects found in these buried cities, and reasonably he does not want any work to appear before his own. This motive will no longer exist once this work is finished, and anyone who wishes will be allowed to copy like everywhere else.61 59 Marginal note: “To be modified. Writing is allowed, but little and with difficulty.” Richard himself had said much the same: “They [the curiosities] are arranged here in very orderly fashion, but you are not permitted to see them without significant precautions; for it appears that they are very jealous of all that they possess, and that they do not even suffer you to take detailed notes […] However, I obtained from the cabinet’s guardian permission to record on my notepads a notion of the distribution and order of the rooms and what they contained, promising him that I would not go into any elaborate detail” (Description, 4:461). 60 Some ten years later, Goethe would similarly remark, making the most of the situation, “We had good letters of recommendation to the museum and were well received, but we were not allowed to make any drawings. Perhaps this made us pay attention all the more closely to what we saw, so that we were all the more vividly transported into the past, when all these objects were part and parcel of their owner’s daily life. They quite changed my picture of Pompeii. In my mind’s eye its homes now looked both more cramped and more spacious – more cramped because I now saw them crowded with objects, and more spacious because these objects were not made merely for use but were decorated with such art and grace that they enlarged and refreshed the mind in a way that the physical space of even the largest room cannot do.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey, 1786–1788, trans. Elizabeth Mayer (London: Penguin, 1970), 211. 61 A reference to the eight-volume Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte (1757–1792). Its authorship is tricky, but has Ottavio Antonio Bayardi et al. as editors. In fact, it had various editors over the years, and the illustrations, which make up its bulk, are also by multiple illustrators. See the introduction to this volume for more information on this work and the restricted access to the site.

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Museum The first room is filled with all the sacrificial instruments that the Ancients used: vases, patens, an altar, bowls, tripods, of which one among others was used for sacrifices to Priapus; three lovely figures of this god, characterized in a singular manner, support it. It is easy to see from the number of other figures of this type to be seen in the following room the degree to which the veneration of this divinity was taken at Herculaneum. You see therein all sorts and all sizes: one, among others, of terracotta that was used for drinking; respect was taken to the point of drunkenness. One adored having his emblem everywhere, and the youth, today raised to take fright at his image, was then accustomed to respect it, beginning from infancy. In this first room with the sacrificial instruments will be seen a large round basin, quite similar to our stoups today, the purpose of which was to contain water for lustration. It would be difficult to briefly detail the immense number of things contained in the cabinets of this chamber. It will suffice to know that they are filled only with objects related to the same practices, namely, sacrifices. The flooring of this room, as with that of all the following ones, is in mosaic brought back completely in the same style and design as those found in Herculaneum.62 The next room, apart from all the priapuses that I mentioned, contains a large collection of antique lamps, in terracotta and bronze; you will see them of all varieties and in all states. A little group depicting Roman Charity in terracotta. Extremely exaggerated masks. A candelabrum. Several surgical instruments. Playing dice, marked with the same numbers as our own; you will see some that are loaded, which proves that this manner of cheating has ever been practised. A Roman foot, more than an inch less than ours. Theatre tickets in bone; upon one side is the name of the poet whose drama was to be played; on the other a sort of view of the theatre. Several instruments: sistra, trumpets, flutes; that one with seven holes, so often depicted in statues of fauns and satyrs. In the third room, everything that was used in the baths: scrapers, sweating strigils, vases for pouring water upon the body, perfume boxes, brushes, several little lamps and little statues that seem to have been used as children’s toys, glasses, goblets of all sizes, of all shapes; there were some intended only for use at feasts, other for daily use … lachrymatories. A sepulchral urn, likewise made of glass, but found within an earthenware one. You must observe the extraordinary tint that the salts and time have endowed everything made of glass. Spindles, combs, a thimble, an axe, and many other iron instruments of all sorts, but partly rusted and utterly less preserved than whatever is made of bronze or copper. The fourth contains scales of all sizes, among which will be seen some the same as our own for weighing money: stone weights, marble weights, and others made of various materials, among which there will be found one weighing a hundred pounds; measures for all the various liquids and for seeds. Among these measures, some will be seen that contained a bit more than twelve Parisian pints. In this same room is a lovely fountain that was used to decorate tables when hot drinks were taken. The manner of positioning the flame therein to maintain the liquid at the correct degree of heat, as well as the faucets that functioned for pouring, are arranged in quite an ingenious manner.

62 Although Sade’s wording is potentially misleading here, the mosaic flooring was, indeed, transferred from the ancient site.

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The fifth. A lovely series of Greek busts in bronze and marble, namely, those of Seneca, young Nero, Agrippina his mother, Plato, Alexander, Antiochus, Epiphanus (see who this is in the Dictionnaire),63 Ptolemy Philadelphus, Tiberius, Scipio Africanus, Plato, Berenice the wife of Ptolemy King of Egypt, uniquely coiffed: a multitude of little curls, rolled and tumbling down. Titus. Two busts of white marble, one of a husband, the other of the wife, found in Pompeii and that seem to be those of two noble persons. A bronze bust of an athlete crowned with an olive branch. A little marble bust of a young Roman: the bust is Greek. A young Hercules. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. It is in this room that are conserved the manuscript scrolls that were found and were deciphered as well as could be in the way that I will indicate shortly. You will also see in this room tablets, styli or pointed devices, for writing thereupon; one end is pointed, the other has a little flattened part for erasing. Writing desks; one, among others, in the bottom of which is still the substance used for writing in those days. Cedarwood pens, engraving tools for letters or for numbering objects. I have said that in all these rooms were mosaics from Herculaneum; you must, above all, look at the one in this room. Fifth room, containing candelabra of all sorts and all sizes. You will see one that is extremely delicately wrought. The sumptuary laws of the Greeks prohibiting having more than a given amount of silverware in one’s home, and this amount perhaps equalled about a hundred louis in our French money, they compensated regarding this luxury, whence the large number of consummate works in bronze found in excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii. A caldariola or drinking urn used for taking hot liquids, in the shape of a square fortress with a tower at each corner; another in a different shape; both extremely ingenious. It is easy to imagine that these machines could be used to adorn tables. Against the back wall of this room is a marble buffet, exactly similar to our own and positioned in the same way as it was found in Herculaneum. You must mark that this room was constructed in exactly the same shape as the one in that ancient villa where this buffet was found. The exits to the other rooms are exactly the same, and such attentiveness doubles, in my view, the value of all that you see therein. Two lovely lamps intended, judging from their magnificence, for some quite sumptuous apartment. One is a beautiful tree trunk, made of bronze, of which some remains of branches, positioned in various directions, supported the lamps. Oil cruets with two compartments that resemble to an extent our cooling buckets; a sieve, two small comic statues made of terracotta. In this room, the guard couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming about

63 Although we will never know if Sade did consult his reference work, the bust in question is presumably that of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Greek king of the Seleucid Empire (215–164 BCE) and son of King Antiochus III the Great. In Sade’s preferred historical dictionary, we find: “ANTIOCHUS, dubbed Epiphanes, son of the former [Antiochus the Great],” who “was less favourable to the Jews than his father” and “deposed the High Priest Onias, seized Jerusalem, profaned the Temple, carried away all the sacred Vessels, and put to death the seven Maccabee brothers and the old man Eleazar.” Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, ou Histoire abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un Nom par le Génie, les Talens, les Vertus, les Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772), 1:158. It is unlikely that the names Antiochus and Epiphanes are supposed to be separated, as above, as none of the options makes sense in terms of dating. Chaudon’s Nouveau Dictionnaire historique (2:551–2) has three entries on historical figures named “Épiphane”: a bishop of Salamis and Church Father, born around 320 CE (Epiphanius of Salamis); Patriarch in Constantinople in 520 CE (Epiphanius of Constantinople); and a scholar and friend of Cassiodorus who flourished in the sixth century (Epiphanius Scholasticus).

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our astonishment at seeing all this, such that he bet a hundred oncias that he could show us whatever item we wanted to see, hoping to prove thereby how complete the collection is. “Gad!” responded a joker in our group, “I do believe, sir, that here you have everything and that the king of the Two Sicilies is too scrupulous and too lavish to not have very quickly supplemented what might have been lacking.” As good as the joke was, it would have been found uncalled for and, in fact, it was, for it seems, as stable as facts can be, that there is no fraud and that all is truly quite antique. Disbelievers claim that there are items that correspond too exactly to those in use today such that doubts should be entertained sometimes. But what objection can be made to the probability that, needs being the same, industry might have, in those days as at present, provided the same patterns for instruments to satisfy them? Join to this the certain discredit into which the entire collection would be thrown if a single piece were recognized as surely modern and the still stronger proof that the possibility of having found all these objects intact thanks to the way in which these houses were discovered, and you will have, I think, sufficient grounds for the authenticity of each item. To the right of the buffet that I mentioned is a large vault that forms a sort of kitchen, done after the layout of one of the kitchens in Herculaneum, which makes clear that the practice of erecting hearths on top of sorts of stoves two or three feet off the ground has been preserved throughout Italy and particularly in Rome and Naples. In this room, which constitutes the sixth, are seen for the most part all the instruments that might be used for cooking, for pastry making, etc. You will mark that precaution – a wise one and one that has been the custom for a while now – of lining all these utensils with silver leaf. By this means, one’s life does not depend upon whether a cook, often careless about these things that can notwithstanding have such deadly consequences, takes care or not. You will see there sieves, strainers, dripping pans, devices for cooking eggs that indicate that they were in the habit of eating them cooked in the fire rather than in water. A pestle for expressing the juice from herbs, another in the style of our own for other common cooking applications, pans of all sizes and shapes, knives, tripods, grills, all corresponding exactly to current practices. In the seventh room, a statue found in a Temple of Isis. Two bronze wrestlers, from Herculaneum. A lovely urn of white marble, decorated with bas-reliefs that depict bacchanalias. Several busts of unknown people; two of Minerva. In the eighth room, a bust of Lysimachus, a Jupiter Ammon, an Archimedes, several household urns, a lustral water vase. In the ninth, they are working on the restoration of manuscripts. A cleric was occupied with this tedious operation when I saw it being done. It consists in stabilizing the manuscript roll by means of a sort of small, quite ingenious loom with strings that move in every direction. Upon the back side of this burned paper are applied little films that are extraordinarily slender and light and give the manuscript a certain consistency and also work to make the letters appear with a bit more salience. When, thanks to patience, one succeeds in giving consistency to a certain length of roll, it is copied. In this room there is a cabinet filled with these works. You see therein the operation in all its stages and some transcripts entirely finished and totally copied out, over which you are but barely allowed to linger. For a long time now they have been working on a musical treatise attributed to a certain Philodemus; this work is still quite far from being brought to completion.64 Work 64 The Epicurean philosopher and poet Philodemus of Gadara (c. 110–c. 40 BCE), many of whose writings were discovered in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Little did Sade know that the work of restoration and transcription would still be going on today. On the rediscovery and reception of these writings,

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has begun on another, which I was told is a moral treatise and which, in likelihood, will likewise not see the day so soon. If it were a work on macaroni, the entire nation, interested in the completion of such a useful work, would chip in so that they might promptly enjoy it. But a moral treatise? With Neapolitans? How far they are from understanding anything of it, and how far must their spirit travel still before attaining the rudiments of that realm of knowledge? The machine that I mentioned was invented by the reverend father Antonio, of the Piarists; it does his genius honour.65 In the tenth room, a superb faun made of bronze; he is drunk, reclining upon a goatskin. It would be impossible to admire too much the utter truthfulness that reigns in this piece. In the cabinets, all the golden trimmings of a woman of first rank found in her toilette at Pompeii, her hand still pressed against her head. You see her bracelets, pendant earrings, etc. In a jewel box, several cameos and other precious stones, likewise found in the same spot. Some silver furnishings, such as chalices, cups, saucers, spoons, etc. An antique mirror.66 The Ancients were not familiar with glass nor with the effect of quicksilver. This mirror is composed of extremely polished copper, tin, and silver. Upon the backside is a bas-relief wrought most delicately and depicting the Death of Cleopatra. The ring on top does not prove, as Monsieur Richard would have it, that it served to decorate a little room. If he had more closely examined it, he would have seen that this ring was put there because it was a mirror and certainly not for other reasons. Hairpins, which proves that this female practice has existed forever. In the opposite cabinets in the same room are preserved all the comestibles. You see seeds, dates, wheat, peas, beans, pears, and an entire loaf of bread. Upon the crust are marks for dividing it up, as is still the custom in many countries. Leaven, raisins, almonds, jujubes,67 caked wine. We know that the Ancients had quite thick wines such that to drink them they mixed in water or other, lighter wines. Horace tells us this explicitly, speaking of the famous Falernian wine, gathered on the opposite coast but nonetheless quite close to here.68 Sieves for these wines, extremely delicately wrought; a pine cone, a vase of oil, in the bottom of which there still remains a little bit and the odour which is quite marked;

see James I. Porter, “Hearing Voices: The Herculaneum Papyri and Classical Scholarship,” in Victoria C. Gardner Coates and John E. Seydl, eds., Antiquity Recovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007), 95–113. 65 A Piarist monk, Antonio Piaggio had invented a machine, described by Sade above, that employed silk threads to unroll the manuscripts. For a somewhat dated account of the discovery of the Villa of the Papyri, its contents, and endeavours to preserve and reveal its contents, see David Diringer, The Book Before Print: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental (New York: Dover, 1982 [1953]), 251–6. 66 Marginal note: “What was it like?” 67 Marginal note: “See if it is French.” Sade presumably means “See if the word jujube is French.” As a word for the tree and the fruit, jujube had been in use in French for over two centuries at this point, albeit probably rarely, and derived from medieval Latin jujuba (from Greek and ultimately Persian etymons). The Italian term is giuggiola. 68 In Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), Horace mentions Falernian wine in many places, e.g., remarking that when the Greek language is harmoniously combined with Latin “a happy blend” is produced, as when “Falernian wine is mixed with Chian” (116–17 [satire 1.10, ll.23–4]). That the thick, aged wines of the Romans were customarily diluted with water was well known in Sade’s day from translations of classical literature and antiquarian reports. See, e.g., Les Satires de Juvénal, traduites par M. Dusaulx, précédées d’un Discours sur les satiriques latins (Paris, 1770), where JeanJoseph Dusaulx informs in his discourse on satire that when it came time to drink such wine, the Romans “thinned [it] down with hot water in order to make it liquid” (160–1).

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quite intact egg shells; medicinal drugs, and in a nutshell, almost all the imaginable comestibles in the class of those that could be preserved. You see, in addition, balls of string, blackened and burned, but that nevertheless still hold together well enough to be unravelled, fishing nets, nets for trapping birds, colours for painters. You can make out the type of that [i.e., the colour?] for which they were used. Golden trimmings for some item of clothing, gold laces, shoe soles made of rope like those of mountain folk, a crystal container full of fragments of rouge, used by women. To question whether they used make-up would be madness; everything convinces us that they most surely had this practice. Why then does Monsieur Richard so inhumanely characterize as fools those who believe that this item is authentic, which is at bottom no more extraordinary than the other rarities preserved in this room? By what right and with what authority does he accuse the queen of having had this trinket placed here to deceive the public and thereby expose the entire collection to incredulity? This procedure has nothing likely about it, and, what’s more, this joke would have long since ceased to be funny. On the contrary, Monsieur Richard should learn, if he is willing, that it is he who is the fool for having doubted the truth. Moreover, while I will not take sides beyond a certain point, I will simply say that, if you want to suspect this item, you can suspect the whole, and it does not seem to me that there are better reasons for affirming the authenticity of the one than the authenticity of the other. Remember what I said above upon this topic.69 You will see in the same room some curule chairs. I believe that there is no need for me to explain the use of this piece of furniture, which was so familiar in Greek and Roman Antiquity.70 In the eleventh room, some Di Penates, three small busts of Epicurus, a small bust of Demosthenes, several small works in ivory, three small horses, upon two of which are two figures of which one is Alexander. The handiwork of these is precious; you must, above all, attentively examine the figures. In the twelfth room, several mosaics and bas-reliefs, one of which depicts a theatrical action; a second, Socrates getting ready to drink the hemlock; and a third, Venus holding a dove. In this same room, a statue of Diana, her clothing is coloured, which proves the custom they had of painting their marbles, secret since rediscovered by Prince San Severino, a Neapolitan, and about whom I have spoken under the heading of his palace.71 In the thirteenth room, a superb bronze Mercury, seated upon a modern block of marble; several urns; two stags; a basalt table, supported by caryatids; two ibises; a pretty lamp in the shape of our contemporary column torches. Above the column is a figure; it is a cupid leaning against the column and holding the lamp in his arms;72 it seems that an extraordinary lavishness was applied to the execution of these sorts of furnishings. Lastly, in the fourteenth and final room – the one about which Monsieur Richard thought it fine to say nary a word, I know not why  – will be seen several trophies and military equipment: helmets, shields, armbands, and an entire and intact suit of Greek armour; an iron device for punishing soldiers who, thanks to this invention, found themselves held by 69 Richard had claimed that the queen had mingled among the antiquities the aforementioned container of rouge “in order to lay a trap for fools who do not fail to exclaim about the vividness and vivacity of the colour” (Description, 4:481). 70 A sort of stool with crossing curved legs, the sella curulis was reserved for those holding high office in ancient Rome and an insignia of power. 71 Marginal note: “Or Filomarino.” See chapter IV (on Naples), pp. 237–8 and 238n103. 72 Marginal note: “Doubtful that the cupid is leaning.”

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the foot. These various military items were made partly of copper and partly of iron. The mosaic in this room, taken, we are told, from the arsenal of Pompeii, depicts a fortress of a fairly regular shape. The examination of these fourteen rooms, which is usually done in order, is without a doubt one of the most tiring tours that it is possible to undertake. Always standing, your mind taut, your eyes ever fixed, I dare say that you are quite worn out by the end. I saw nothing more when I came back down, and I was upset that I had not examined upon my arrival all that the staircase and the courtyard contained in terms of interesting fragments. You see column sections, arms, legs, heads, some tombs, inscriptions, bas-reliefs, and in the middle of the courtyard, one of the four horses found at Pompeii, hitched to a triumphal chariot. They must have been quite beautiful, judging from what remains. It is claimed that all four should have been salvageable. The loss of the three missing ones must be all the more regretted given how truly and utterly delicate and graceful is the former. In a sort of workshop, to the left of the large gate upon entering, are several statues of precious and accomplished craftmanship, found in Herculaneum and belonging to the Nonnius and Memmius families, famous in this city. You must, above all, examine the light and fine drapery of the one coiffed and dressed as a Vestal. In another part of the Portici Castle is preserved the numerous collection of paintings found in the villas discovered under the lava and ashes of Vesuvius. You see there a large series of animals of all species, of which some, totally unnatural, seem never to have existed except in the painter’s imagination. In this first room is a view of Pozzuoli, interesting for the comparison of epochs. You see the remnants of the ancient mole that the people call Caligula’s Bridge, and you count the same number of archways that exist today. This piece is conclusive evidence that this work was originally undertaken to make a mole. That Caligula might have subsequently joined thereto a bridge of ships in order to cross all the way to Baiae, so be it. This is but an additional folly in the course of his life, very easy to square with the other disorders of his head. But this proves nothing about the authenticity of the mole, which surely predating him by quite a bit, was built as a mole, as its remnants provide proof for us today. You see the layout for an antique garden; the design could very easily be taken for one of modern make: a view of a theatre, that of a palace, two little allegorical pieces in the style of emperors driving chariots in the arena; one is pulled by a griffin, the other pulled by a parrot and led by a cicada. In the second room, a Labour of Hercules, several figures, erotic pursuits, a man and a woman lovingly caressing one another to the sound of an instrument played by a slave. Achilles instructed by the centaur Chiron; no character in the face of the pupil, infinitely much in that of the master. I think that he put more than his vanity into being a good student.73 The recognition by Orestes of Iphigenia, one of the best pieces in the entire collection; you see a naturalness, an extraordinary expressiveness in the seven figures that make up this painting. The satyr Marsyas teaching how to play the flute. A sacrifice, bacchanalias

73 Sade’s allusion is to the notion that Achilles and the evolved centaur Chiron, educator of many heroes, were lovers. In the fresco of The Education of Achilles by Chiron, now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, there does appear possible erotic tension. On Achilles as lover and ancient Greek sources, see A.C. Pearson, ed., The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917), 1:103.

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in which there are postures as surprising as they are peculiar and evidence of a truly disordered imagination. A large piece of Telephus, son of Hercules, found in the temple of this god; he is still an infant and suckles the doe who nursed him in the woods where he was exposed after his birth. The bearing of the child, which Monsieur Richard finds unnatural, struck me as quite to the contrary. It is one of those antique pieces wherein I found the most accuracy in the drawing, and my eyes, infinitely less acute, doubtless, than those of that excellent art lover, did not – I avow to my shame – find any of those faults that struck him. The background of the painting consists of some allegorical episodes from the life of Hercules, and the ensemble seemed to me full of force and truth. This piece is a bit arched and appears to have been detached from a niche. That of Theseus killing the Minotaur is the same size, was in the same temple, in the same shape, and seems by the same hand. Theseus is standing, nude and seen front on; he holds a club. The Minotaur struck down at his feet is foreshortened in a very learned manner, and I did not notice any of those disproportions that Monsieur Richard finds between this main figure and those of the young children who, intended as the prey of this monster, were returned to life by the hero’s victory. You must observe here that, in spite of Ovid and Euripides having indicated that this monster is half-man and half-bull, he is depicted with a human body and only the head of an ox, which comes much closer to the opinion of Apollodorus, Hyginus, and several other authors.74 Permit me here to make a reflection. All myths have some origin. That of the Minotaur, depicted as half-man and half-ox or -bull, could not he be really only a second Marshall de Rais (see volume XIV or XV of the Histoire de France XIV, reign of Charles VII or VIII), whose frenzied passions should have led him to that barbarous derangement that finds charm in the destruction of the object that satisfies our senses or rather that tastes none except in excesses of the most considered cruelty?75 These monsters, which Nature happily only produces every thousand years, are I will admit, hard to understand. But their 74 In the Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), Ovid describes the offspring of Pasiphaë as a geminam tauri iuvenisque figuram or “twinned form of bull and human youth” (1[bk.8, l.169:418]; my translation here). Elsewhere, Ovid glosses the hybrid beast as semibovemque virum semivirumque bovem or “the man half-bull and the bull half-man,” in the Ars Amatoria, or The Art of Love and Other Poems, trans. J.H. Mozley and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 66–9 [bk.2, l.24]. From Plutarch, we have a fragment of Euripides that depicts the Minotaur as follows: “A mingled form where two strange shapes combined, / And different natures, bull and man, were joined.” Plutarch’s Lives, trans. John Dryden, ed. Arthur Hugh Clough (New York: Modern Library, 2001), 1:8. Apollodorus says that the creature had “the face of a bull, but the rest of his body was that of a man,” in Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, trans. R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007), 46. Gaius Julius Hyginus similarly has the Minotaur with “a bull’s head but a human body beneath” (ibid., 113). Sade’s likely authority on the matter is Chompré, who writes: “Although Euripides, Ovid, and ancient monuments depict the Minotaur with half of a human body and the other half that of a bull, Apollodorus, Hyginus, and others give this monster an entire human body and only the head of an ox.” Pierre Chompré, Dictionnaire abrégé de la fable, pour l’intelligence des poëtes, et la connaissance des tableaux & des statues, dont les sujets sont tirés de l’Histoire Poëtique (Paris, 1774), 275. 75 The account of the crimes, trial, and execution of Gilles de Montmorency-Laval (c. 1405–1440; better known as Gilles de Rais or de Retz) to which Sade refers will be found in Claude Villaret, Histoire de France, Depuis l’établissement de la Monarchie, jusqu’au regne de Louis XIV (Paris, 1767), 15:294. This multivolume work was begun by Paul François Velly and eventually completed by Villaret and

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existence is nonetheless easier to conceive than what is portrayed in myth, which is probably only conceived upon the basis of the derangement of their morals! Several games and rope dances, from which it appears that the costume of these sorts of wandering entertainers was to be clothed in red. You see some in truly surprising poses. A Greek sacrifice. A young schoolboy who is soon to be whipped. He is riding upon the shoulders of a man, and the one who is going to execute the correction, placed behind, is about to begin; another piece that shows the extent to which certain practices have been preserved. This is still absolutely the same way that the regents and prefects in Italy today correct their students. A story is told upon this topic about a young schoolboy from Milan who, weary of a position that had become unbearable because of flagellation, bit the ear of the bearer so hard that he let him fall. The tumble was found so funny that the laughter that it excited pacified the anger of the regent and earned grace for the schoolboy. A combat between a kid and a satyr. The Judgment of Paris. Fruits extraordinarily accomplished and preserved. A seascape, in which you see the galley with three rows of oars.76 Several pieces of architecture and views, one of which is well preserved. The combat of a lion and a serpent, a piece full of force and expressiveness. A Leda, correct, but without character. Two young philosophers; one reading, scroll in hand, the other traces his thoughts by means of a stylus, upon tablets he is holding. The three Graces, painting based upon the group depicting the same subject that you see in several places, including the sacristy of the Cathedral of Siena. A very pretty Flora gathering flowers; you still see in this piece much vividness and, above all, delicacy. A woman reclining upon a marine tiger and who is giving him something to drink; a peculiar notion, cleaving much to the polytheism of those times. The Abduction of Europa, full of expressiveness; it shows an extraordinary finesse in the physiognomy of the bull and an innocence full of naturalness in that of the young daughter of Agenor. You pass from these first rooms into a vestibule full of large pieces of wall detached from various houses of these buried cities, upon which are written names, which proves the ancientness of this practice. I remarked, however, that these names impressed in colours and not haphazardly written with charcoal or pencil, suggest some different intention than that which usually leads to this childishness. But I could not make out what this might have been. Given certain words written upon one of these pieces of wall, you would be tempted to think that it was used for a place of debauchery.77 In the upper suites will be seen several pieces found in the Temple of Isis in Pompeii, extraordinarily preserved friezes, in which animals are intermingled among the arabesques, some seascapes, where you can make out even better those galleys with three

Jean-Jacques Garnier; the first volume appeared in 1755 and the thirty-third and final volume in 1799. On the figure of Gilles de Rais in relation to Sade’s later writings, see the introduction to this volume. 76 Marginal note: “See the Latin authors.” The vessel Sade mentions is the celebrated trireme of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and other Mediterranean peoples. 77 Sade’s supposition is reasonable, and what was clearly a brothel in nearby Pompeii includes concentrations of markedly obscene graffiti. See Sarah Levin-Richardson, The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019), esp. 40–61.

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rows of oars that I mentioned a moment ago. A sacrifice. A large Venus in a conch shell. The centaur Nessus and Dejanira, painted upon marble, prettily drawn. Another marble, likewise painted, depicting women playing jacks; proof of the antiquity of this amusement. The nine Muses. A river’s head. The goddess Isis and the Nile River; the expression of the river’s head is extraordinarily lovely. A piece, of the most burlesque fancy imaginable: it’s an old woman releasing little cupids from a cage and giving them to a young woman who lodges them between her legs. The allusion of this changing of cages is the most comic thing imaginable. In the background is an innocent young girl who watches the game without appearing to take any interest in it; there is subtlety and design in this entire pleasing composition. A young woman at her toilette, with her mother and one of her sisters behind. It is likely the eve (or the day) of her wedding; you will note a particular patience in the one having her hair done, through which will be glimpsed all the affectation of a young woman who is not upset to see art add to her charms, and one might say, that there is a naturalness and truth in this piece, worthy of the brush of our greatest masters. The drawings are not quite accurate, I admit, but when Nature is grasped so well, can’t we excuse some things? A satyr wishing to play with a young boy. Force, extraordinary expressiveness in the satyr; candour, innocence in the young boy. You mark quite well that the one desires that which he knows will give him much pleasure, and that the other has not yet learned to dread that which he does not know will cause him much pain.78 Hercules combating a lion. A comic poet composing; Thalia, symbolized by a mask in front of her, writing from his dictation. A young woman surprised by a satyr. He kisses her. A piece that is not without expressiveness, although mediocrely drawn. Such are pretty much the most notable pieces in this collection, which number, so we are told, more than fourteen hundred. They are quite carefully maintained. Several are under glass and all framed in sorts of boxes, painted red, which does not suit them well; this is the sole faulty aspect of their care that I noticed. In a workshop fairly close by are some statues that have not yet been put into place, among which you will note a Bacchus, a priestess, Pythagoras, three draped Muses, of extraordinary subtlety and lightness, a large statue of an unknown found at Pozzuoli, two senators beautifully wrought and, above all, with extraordinarily airy drapery, a seated Jupiter, a Minerva, a Hercules, a Venus coming out of the bath, of Greek handicraft that is quite precious and of great delicacy. A small statue of Cicero, two matrons, the poet Euripides. In this same atelier there are twenty lovely verd antique columns, but restored. In another workshop, in which several workers are forever busied with restoring what is found, are several statues and pieces of mosaic that are being put together. I noted, among the statues, a Pyrrhus, a gladiator found at Pozzuoli, the satyr Marsyas, two large Jupiters found at the theatre at Herculaneum, a mediocre Muse, etc. But the most secret and singular piece of this entire, numerous collection is preserved at the home of Master [Joseph] Canart, the king’s sculptor. It is a marble group about a foot 78 Marginal note: “Redo this sentence; it is worthless.”

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and a half high that depicts a satyr enjoying a she-goat. It would be hard to put more soul and expressiveness than the artist has done, as much in all the movements and muscles of the satyr as in those of the she-goat. Her tongue upon the edge of her lips expresses all the pleasure she feels, and the lively manner that the satyr holds her by her little beard contributes not a little to the heat. All is in action in this lovely piece, all is on fire; the most exact purity of style characterizes it. But not everyone is allowed to judge of it, and the moral austerity of Marquis Tanucci has seen to it that the king will only grant with great difficulty permission to do so.79 Just imagine that I have not described the twentieth fraction of all the beautiful and all the precious antique objects contained in this Palace of the King of Naples, and then judge this magnificent collection from that. But, my God, into what hands has it fallen! And why must Heaven send such riches to those who attach so little importance to them? What would these masters, these lovers of the fine arts say, piercing so through the thickness of the lava that engulfs them, if they could come back to life and see their masterpieces in hands so little made to possess them? But let us away from these distressing ideas, and go down to their petrified ashes, pay a visit, under that mass of rocks that engulfed them, to these sad remains of their splendour and of their luxury. This monument that served their pleasure (a theatre) is the only one that remains of them today,80 considering that to lay the foundations of Portici and Resina, which are exactly on top of Herculaneum, they are covered over again as the excavations proceed. As for that area that has been left exposed to the curiosity of the public, the lava that flowed formed masses of such thickness and the passageways that have been created therein for visiting these ruins are so narrow that there is, truthfully, no danger for the buildings above, but it is extremely difficult to put together all the separate parts of this theatre, and they can only be penetrated one after the other. As far as it is possible to make out, it seems that this theatre was oval in shape. The width was perhaps some one hundred and eighty feet. As for the depth, as the theatre seemed completely filled in, I am afraid that I might be mistaken assigning even approximate measurements. The orchestra section is perfectly preserved; it appears to be some fifty or sixty feet long, proportionally suited to the extent of the stage, which appears to be seventy-five or eighty feet. You see some portions of marble tiers, the proportions of which cannot be accurately provided, considering that they are broken up by the masses and pillars of lava that surround them. 79 The ancient statue of Pan penetrating a nanny goat is, if anything, more explicit than Sade suggests. A nineteenth-century account of secret curiosities in the Royal Museum of Naples would complain of incorrectness in the goat’s representation, but similarly add that “it is impossible not to admire the expression of lasciviousness and voluptuous pleasure depicted in the features of the satyr and even in the physiognomy of the strange object of his passion,” before going on to explain bestiality as a commonplace crime in Antiquity and not unheard of among the isolated herdsmen of Calabria and Sicily today. Stanislas Marie César Famin, Musée Royal de Naples, Peintures, Bronzes et Statues Érotiques du Cabinet Secret, avec leur explication par M. C. F. (Paris: Abel Ledoux, 1836), 1. On this statue, including its reception after its discovery in 1752, see Kate Fisher and Rebecca Langlands, “Bestiality in the Bay of Naples: The Herculaneum Pan and Goat,” in Kate Fisher and Rebecca Langlands, eds., Sex, Knowledge, and Receptions of the Past (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 86–110. See also the introduction to this volume. 80 Marginal note: “Herculaneum.”

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The construction was entirely of brick. Throughout the whole of the building, both interior and exterior, you make out many remnants of stuccoes and painting of a very vivid and quite brilliant red, the preferred colour of the Ancients for almost all their public works. The fragments of columns that were found here prove that they must have been quite numerous, but, less bold than Monsieur Richard, I will not assign them their places.81 You see staircases that connect to various levels or tiers, utterly well preserved. But, I repeat, it is difficult to conceive a quite accurate notion of this monument, and in the state it is in, you can conclusively only make some conjectures. Absolutely nothing will be seen of the Temple of Hercules and of the beautiful cellar of which Monsieur Richard speaks, and I doubt even that he should have ever seen them.82 I will not interrupt at this point my detailed account of this tour to enter deeply into the causes and the sorts of matter that swallowed up this city. As this topic connects to the description of Vesuvius, I will save my treatment of it for when I present the examination of this famous phenomenon. Now let us continue onward and, from Portici, let us pass through Resina, which is so utterly connected that it is difficult to discern the divide between the two places. Ever following the coast, we go alongside the lava’s routes, bordering superb hillsides and passing through the magnificent villages of Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata, and via an almost continuous line of houses all the way to Pompeii, some six miles distant from Portici.83 Continuation of the Surrounding Area of Naples: Coast of Portici, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Stabiae, Salerno, Paestum, Capri, etc. Third Notebook84 pompeii85 We arrive at the spot where you begin to make out upon the left, the length of the main route, the unearthed portions of this buried city. It is appalling to see such a small contingent working on the excavation of such a handsome undertaking under the command of such an incurious prince.86 This city, which was perhaps about four miles around, now only divulges itself at its borders. The section that I first entered was a rectangular yard of which the longer sides are adorned with forty-four columns total and the others thirtyfour, likewise in total. These columns are Doric; they are twenty inches in diameter, they are painted red, and you will observe that they have no bases and that the capitals are extraordinarily squat, which proves that fine architecture did not have a guiding hand in these adornments – and not by a lot. They are solid up to five feet from the plinth, with the remainder fluted; the distance between columns is five feet, three inches. Around the interior colonnade was a conduit in which water flowed and that was twenty-one inches 81 Richard provides a detailed speculative reconstruction of the theatre at Herculaneum in his Description, 4:452–7. 82 Richard discusses the supposed Temple of Hercules and a house with what he deems a wine cellar in his Description, 4:458 and 4:459–60, respectively. 83 End of the second notebook on the surrounding area of Naples. On the last page: “Go on to notebook number three, having written at the outset Pompeii: We arrive at that spot where you begin to make out …” 84 Notebook in manuscript of 32 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. 85 Marginal note: “This is the precise continuation of the second notebook.” 86 On Pompeii as a site on the grand tour, see the introduction to this volume.

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wide; on the outside was a covered gallery of thirteen feet and five inches that connected almost everywhere with the soldiers’ quarters, of which some are fifteen feet square and others ten-and-a-half by eleven. In all of these chambers there remain remnants of stuccoes and arabesques; the doorways of these chambers were three feet wide, and the walls seventeen inches thick. In one of these chambers are preserved some bones and skulls of unfortunates found beneath these ruins; in another, you see four skulls and some bones of four prisoners that the eruption took by surprise before anyone could come and save them. All of this section was called the soldiers’ quarter; the ambulatory colonnade on its right portion communicates with a large hall or vestibule, which seems to have served for assembling the soldiers. The vestibule is eighteen feet deep. The pilasters that you see therein and that supported the roofing are opposite the columns of the square and are twenty-two inches thick. All the columns, pilasters, and walls of this sector were made of stone, faced with stucco. You see upon the columns that face this vestibule several marks and some words, the handiwork of soldiers who surely assembled here. One of these drawings is of a large wooden horse upon which is a figure, which proves that this military punishment could likewise have been practised in those days.87 The words that were written there are tabulas positas in muscaria; next to which is the number CCCVIIII, which doubtless was the one designating the soldier or his group.88 In the back, still on the same side, is a little porch decorated with three fluted Ionic columns, fifteen inches in diameter, and the extent of which is thirteen feet, nine inches wide. This porch was next to the theatre, and inside is a doorway that communicated with the actors’ dressing rooms. A little further on is a courtyard that seems to have communicated with the two theatres and with the one that I just mentioned, still entirely covered, and with the amphitheatre of which I will provide the proportions. You will see the arched doorway of the first of these two edifices and judge that it was shaped like a horseshoe. The tiers were fourteen inches high; this is all that is possible to see of it. There are six columns in the courtyard of these theatres, of which I have just spoken, that are aligned with the walls of the chambers upon the square. The galleries are thirteen feet per side and fifteen to the back. The intercolumniations at the corners are six feet, four inches and those in the middle, seven, two. As for the columns, handled in about the same style as the others, these are eighteen and a half inches in diameter. At the back is an inscription in these words:

87 In Roman times, the “wooden horse” or equuleus was a sort of rack, that continued in use afterwards: “The equuleus was of wood, and had holes at certain distances, with a screw, by which the criminal was stretched to the third, sometimes to the fourth or the fifth hole: at intervals, the screw was slackened again, by which he had some respite; but then he was tormented with questions. The equuleus in more antient [sic] times was constructed in the form of a horse; the criminal was laid on his back, and his arms were turned under the breast of the equuleus, his hands were bound and his feet stretched out towards his tail. A rope fastened to the feet was made to pass over a smaller pulley between the hind legs of the equuleus, and made to coil over another large pulley fixed under the belly by means of a handle, which the executioner turned round till all the bones, &c. were dislocated.” William Henry Hall et al., The New Royal Encyclopedia; or, Complete Modern Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, vol. 2 (London, 1789), n.p. An illustration of the device being put to use on unlucky martyrs will be found in Antonius Gallonius, De SS. Martyrum cruciatibus (Rome, 1594), 95. 88 In An Introduction to Wall Inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum (Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2005), Rex E. Wallace translates this odd graffito as “a ‘safe’ to protect tablets from flies” and suggests that the numeral denotes the quantity of tablets (66).

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Higher up is the other theatre, which was, including the corridors, 176 feet wide. The corridors were ten [feet wide]. In the circular area was a raised channel of 22 inches used for the needs of Nature, which is a foot, 8 inches wide. The walls of this corridor are two feet, 8 inches thick. At the angle of the square and the circular part, there is a little corridor of two feet, 8 inches. The area of the square part, hemmed in by the circular part, was thirty-six feet. The steps are one foot, one inch wide, seven inches high. It [sic] was used to climb to the more elevated tiers. The part of the theatre used for the stage was adorned with niches and pilasters. You entered it via three doorways. The proscenium was one hundred and six feet long. It is impossible to judge its depth. Below will be seen the house of a private individual, well enough preserved in all of its parts to be able not only to form an accurate notion of these habitations, but also sufficient to extract an exact floor plan that could be used if one wanted to build a similar one. I am going to sketch a part of its proportions. The entrance at present shows a garden, lower by 18 inches than the terrace or low wall that surrounds it, which terrace is 8 feet wide. The garden is fortyeight feet long by thirty-four wide, the entirety of the house the same width as the garden, low wall included, at fifty-six feet wide. Opposite the house was a porch or peristyle that overlooked the garden, supported by columns 18 inches in diameter. This porch was fifteen feet wide and the same length as that of the garden, wall included. Its doorway was 5 feet, 5 inches wide. On the other side of the peristyle is a courtyard 34 feet long by twenty-one feet, seven inches wide, in the middle of which is a sort of basin where water flowed. To the left and right of this courtyard were the apartments, among which you will note some that are very prettily arranged and of the same proportions that we build them today. Several of these rooms are ten or twelve feet square and form little rooms or small chambers utterly in tune with our contemporary tastes. In the back of this edifice was a small household temple, in which the altar still exists. This temple is 13 feet square; it is isolated all around by a little, very narrow corridor. As we know, just like today, the custom was that places consecrated to divinity should not be connected to anything. Close to this house is the Temple of Isis, the shape of which is a somewhat elongated square and into which you enter via the side, as with almost all the main buildings of this city. Around the temple was a covered gallery on the inside and another, outside of the former, that was not. The galleries are formed by eight columns on the larger sides and seven on the smaller ones, between which are small altars used for burning incense. All of these columns are white, faced with stucco and quite intact. At the entrance are two large pilasters that form the portico, and across from this entrance, in the gallery that was meant to be covered, are three altars and a sepulchre, which today is used as a cistern and in which were formerly kept the ashes of sacrifices. 89 Sade’s transcription is faulty. The inscription in question translates and expands to: “Gaius Quinctius Valgus, son of Gaius, and Marcus Porcius, son of Marcus, duumvirs, by decree of the town councillors awarded the contract for the construction of the Covered Theater and also approved it.” Alison E. Cooley and M.G.L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 2014), 29.

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Facing this entrance, still on the interior of the temple, is a small square building, decorated with stuccoes and arabesques related to the cult of the goddess, which served for storing the lustral water that the priests and those sacrificing used prior to the ceremony. What conformity to our own rituals! You will mark that the arabesques are made with striking skill and were for the most part coloured. Under this small building is a cellar about 8 feet square into which one descends via a very mysterious staircase, the function of which was doubtless only known to the goddess’s priests. In the middle of the temple, upon a raised area about four feet high, is the sanctuary, in the back of which is an altar some six feet high and backing against the rear wall. To the side was a secret staircase that was doubtless also used for the pious frauds of the mysteries. This sanctuary is paved with exceedingly wellpreserved mosaics. An ornament placed on another upon the façade of the sanctuary and the placement of some intermediary columns, between those that today constitute the galleries, proves irrefutably that some earthquakes had already shaken this edifice and that it had been rebuilt in the same place. Behind this sanctuary is a large hall in which the priests assembled and where they took their meals, which must have been very plain given the abstinence we know that they observed with respect to pork and sheep (see “Isiacals,” page 226 of the Dictionnaire de la fable”).90 You still make out some remnants of painting in this hall. Upon the paving will be read the names of those who made of this place a temple. Religions always consecrate the memory of dupes who subserve them. These names are in mosaic; you read in Roman letters those of CORNELIA CELSA M. PROPRIDI CELSIM M. PROPRIDI AMPLIATI.91 On the side of the temple was the place where the priests got ready. There is a small altar in a niche, where in all likelihood there was a statue. You will find on an upside-down inscription, engraved upon one of the marbles that supports the arch of this small niche, another proof of the reconstruction of this temple that I just mentioned a moment ago. This inscription is M. LVCRETIVS RVFVS LEGAVIT.92 This inscription flatters a house in Naples that still carries today the same name and that, it is said, claims to have the strongest proofs of descending therefrom. A little higher up is a sort of little room where statues were placed that were not displayed for ordinary practices,

90 On the priests of Isis, Sade’s reference writes: “They ate not the flesh of swine nor of sheep. They did not use salt and shaved their heads. They marked themselves out by a multitude of particularities in their habits and manner of living.” Chompré, Dictionnaire abrégé de la fable, 226. Chompré’s work first appeared in 1727 and became a standard reference, going through multiple editions in the course of the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth. 91 These are the names of the donors of the restoration of the Temple of Isis after the earthquake of 62 CE: Numerius Popidius Celsinus, his father Ampliatus (the actual donor), and the latter’s wife Corelia Celsa. Sade seems to have made several transcription errors of “N•POPIDI•AMPLIATI / N•POPIDI•CELSINI / CORELIA•CELSA.” 92 “M. Lucretius Rufus bequeathed.” Sade writes of an “inscription retournée,” which remains vague. However, Michel Malaise, in his Études préliminaires des documents égyptiens découverts en Italie (Leiden: Brill, 1972), notes that this inscription is read “sens dessus-dessous,” i.e., upside down (267). An earlier account states that the cornice of the building was after the earthquake turned upside down (retournée) as part of a restoration; see Dominique Romanelli, Voyage à Pompéi: suivi d’une notice sur la découverte d’un temple romain (Paris, 1829), 228. As for the person in question, M. Lucretius Decidianus Rufus, thrice duumvir and seemingly an able administrator, was responsible for other bequests in Pompeii and was, judging from the historical record, “the second most powerful man” during the Augustan period in Pompeii after M. Holconius Rufus. See James L. Franklin, Pompeis Difficile Est: Studies in the Political Life of Imperial Pompeii (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 32.

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the pagans having like us ceremonial idols that were only displayed upon important days. Behind the hall where I said the priests ate are four columns, remnants of a public bath that was next to this temple. There still remain, in the galleries, arabesques and some other paintings in delightful taste and of surprising delicacy. Opposite this temple is the paving of the road that led there, made of large squares of stone that are extraordinarily well preserved and in the style of those that make up the Appian Way where it is paved and still well preserved. You leave the excavations after having seen these objects, and after having gone a mile into the countryside in the surrounding area, you arrive at one of its borders, where today there are workers. There you will find at the height of the second floors several private houses that are extraordinarily well preserved and in which will be seen frescoes the vividness of which is stunning. The surgeon’s house, in which were found all the instruments of his art, which will be seen at the Museum, is the one in which the layout can best be discerned. You can see marvellously well the function of all these rooms, his laboratory, his living area, his garden, his kitchen, his chamber; everything is superlatively recognizable. The latter room has been covered in order to preserve the paintings, which truly are deserving of this, as much for their real merit as for the extraordinariness of their preservation. You will see little landscape medallions of an admirable delicacy; the arabesques are pleasing, and the sculpting adorning the cornice of a surprising lightness. The mosaic in this chamber is absolutely intact. This house is at the entrance of a road that leads to one of the city gates. To the right and left of this road are buildings, several of which are as well preserved as the former. You see cafés, shops, a pleasure house with a sign in the image of the god that produces it [i.e., pleasure]. Upon the pavement will still be seen the impressions of the wheels of wagons, which enables one to judge accurately the proportions of the ancient road, which will be seen to be four feet, two inches. Finally, after a fairly short series of lodgings, you arrive at the city gate, made up of three archways, one of which is large and the other two small. The large one, which measures the width of the road, was thirteen feet wide, and the small ones, in proportion to the parapet that went along the sides of the road, were five. To the left upon exiting via this gate is a large circular bench the purpose of which was to be used by the people of city, who went there to await their guests in order to offer them hospitality. There were two of this sort: the one that is on site; another in the courtyard of the Museum. On the right of this gate will be seen the beginnings of the city walls, which you would have to follow right the way round in order to judge their extent and not miss any of its constructions. Nearby are fragments of columns, pediments, capitals, etc., and other vestiges of various adornments of this city that, although large, nonetheless does not appear to have been particularly adorned. On the left, after having exited via the city gates, you see a large tomb with, on the side, the inscription or rather the decree that allowed for it to be built, the laws having required this precaution in order to prevent this sort of luxury, which would have ended by creating entire cities of the dead in the vicinity of those of the living. Behind this tomb is the spot where corpses were burned, and upon the wall surrounding it marks [?] in terracotta of professional mourners found in the surrounding area and that appear to have been placed here later.93 Here are the gates that the king had set up in order to close off this section and 93 Marginal note: “A note here.” A note would have been helpful, since the manuscript is obscure. The source text has in the original: “marques en terre cuite des pleureuses trouvées [marks or signs made of terracotta of professional mourners found].” Pleureuses or praeficae were professional mourners hired for funerals.

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at which there is a guard, whom you must always give a little payment. It is fair to defray the pleasure one has had. A quarter of a mile from here is a large building the function of which is fairly difficult to determine. From what one can make out from the number of tiles found in the underground portions, it was not finished and these materials had been gathered there, doubtless with the intention of completing it. Some distance from here, we regain the road that we had left at the city gate and that turned into the highway at this point. On the edge of this route, to the right, is a country villa of which the ornamentation, the lavishness, and the pleasing layout prove that the habitation belonged to someone rich and voluptuary. The middle is a raised courtyard that you access by climbing a few steps. This courtyard forms a rectangle graced with seven columns on the longer sides and four on the shorter ones; several rooms, all pleasing in shape and that seem to have been well decorated, are laid out around this courtyard. You see therein small, hot and cold bathing rooms of the most elegant construction. A window was found in one of these rooms still boasting its panes, the shape of which was like those Bohemian ones that we use today. The doors of these little rooms were only two feet wide. The bedroom, round in shape, preceded by a pretty little antechamber, is made up of an alcove and two adjoining small rooms, one of which contains the entrance, exactly after the taste of our most modern interior divisions. The alcove is four and a half feet wide by six long, precisely the same proportions as our own. There are three lovely window frames in the circular part, which must have provided as much gaiety as daylight for this small apartment. You descend to the lower ones via a very well-preserved staircase. You come to a gallery that seems to match another, placed on the other side, and at the vault of which remain still some decorative caissons and rosettes. Four more steps down, you come to another gallery that communicates with the lower apartments and faces the garden, which seems to have been graced with columns and with a terrace all the way around. All these lower rooms contain lovely remnants of frescoes, the vividness of which astonishes the more you contemplate it. One of these rooms is entirely preserved; the ceiling is intact. Those that are seen in this state prove that the taste of the Ancients was to make them with an arched vault. You will still see in this one some very pretty little landscapes and arabesques in the most delicate style. All these apartments are as commodiously laid out as the ones above and must have been most remarkably cool and refreshing. The basements, creating three large galleries that correspond to the galleries bordering the garden, are emblematic of the magnificence of the rest. All around were arranged amphorae or earthenware vases, resembling large, elongated pitchers, graced with two handles and that were used for storing wine. These vases held twenty-four pints by our measures; there are a still a very large number along the wall. The emperor had two of them broken open when he came to Pompeii, but all that was found therein was dirt. It was in this cellar that the master of the house and his entire family, numbering nine persons total, surely succumbed to the cruelest death. They had taken refuge here, doubtless believing As a source closer to Sade’s time explains: “The ancients rented criers [pleureuses] for the funerals of their relations. These criers spilled tears on command more copious than those who were touched with true suffering; these tears were preserved in urns of terracotta or glass. Indubitably those of the relatives were placed therein too and placed therein in preference to those of these criers for hire.” Bernard de Montfaucon, Les Funerailles, les Lampes, les Supplices &c (Paris, 1722), 116. Sade has either confused the term for mourners and the receptacles of their tears, or means that terracotta calling cards of sorts of professional mourners have been excavated, or simply that fragments of terracotta lachrymatories were found.

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themselves sheltered by the thickness of the vaults, which as one remarks, they were in the process of shoring up; but the utterly stifling air led to their death by suffocation and their cadavers were found among the props that they were busy putting into place, doubtless never imagining that they had anything other to fear than the effects of an earthquake. But how imprudent to doggedly insist upon living in a city that had already suffered so much from these sorts of scourges and that itself, as it is very easy to discern, was already located on top of former lava flows! Today, we count three different ones that united to swallow up this unfortunate city. They can be perfectly made out in the ruins of the theatre that is not yet uncovered. The first was made of rapillo or little grains of rock that resemble buckshot. The two other layers were ash; water mixed with these, which thickened these substances and gave them body, but no flaming lava flowed like at Herculaneum, and it would not be necessary, in order to complete these excavations, to break through the hardness of this lava that, having cooled, is like rock, as was required at Herculaneum. Leaving the country villa that I have just described, you return via the highway to the first gate opening onto the Square of Pompeii where we began. Above this site was a temple that the inhabitants themselves of the region destroyed, making off with the decorations, given that this edifice, much higher up than the city, was not covered with ashes. This temple is in the Doric order, graced with columns without bases and fluted all the way to the bottom. The columns were three feet, six inches, five lines in diameter; they formed a rectangle on the long side of which there numbered ten per side and six on the short ones. They were spaced four feet, three inches, six lines apart, and formed in total an edifice eighty feet long, including the steps, and forty-nine wide. In the middle was the sanctuary, which was twenty-one feet, six inches deep and fifteen wide. The entire temple was raised upon three tiers, each of which eleven inches high. You gained access via ten steps located in the middle of the main entrance, each of which were five inches, six lines high. The interior of the enclosed temple was, including the sanctuary, forty-six feet long. The thickness of the surrounding or dividing walls was two feet thick, and this temple, in a word, of which you will only see the merest remaining fragments today, seems to have constituted an edifice as extraordinary in its construction as beautiful of its sort. A quite extraordinary remark upon the subject of this building is that the architecture and the nature of the stone of this temple are exactly in conformity with those of Paestum, which I will soon describe.94 Behind this temple will be seen the fragments of a house, of which some rooms are fairly well preserved and that was located halfway in the city and halfway outside. You will see a chamber at the top of the staircase that leads to the lower rooms, completely intact. In a little room below, some rarities found in this spot are preserved, among others the imprint of a woman’s foot that is quite distinctly stamped into the material that covered the city, with which water was mixed, as I have already observed. Beyond this little room are several others, the function of which seems to have been baths. Two of these are small, quite dark vaults, laid out with four recesses in which one sat for bathing; the other, the one by which you enter, is a sort of kitchen or laundry, in which will still be seen the same arrangement of furnaces, vases used for washing, etc. Close by these vases are the bones of an unfortunate woman who is believed to have been taken by surprise while washing; others assert that

94 Marginal note: “Place here the note on the date that the one was swallowed up and the other was destroyed by the Saracens.”

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she had only sought refuge here and that the ornaments with which she was found adorned prove that she was the mistress of the house itself. Close by, connected to these bathing rooms, is another small room that is pretty enough and in which was the steam room.95 You see therein an alcove that is very well preserved and completely fashioned like our own. From Pompeii to Vietri the path runs through a lovely and superb valley, bounded on the right by the back side of the mountains of the Amalfi coast and to the left by the Apennine chain, which ends all the way at the tip of Calabria [and] terminates in Reggio. From this side, at about seven miles from Pompeii, you must go and see a church that some have thought the remnants of an ancient public bath and others a temple. It is a small rotunda, the cupola of which is supported by thirty twinned columns made of lovely marble; the capitals are in the Corinthian order and appear to be of a different marble and type. The middle is a large, round basin faced with marble and surrounded on the inside by two tiers. Around this basin is an unbroken plinth, upon which were columns, of which only five still remain. The difference in the capitals leads you to think that they are spoils from other edifices and that this monument, such as it is seen today, was never anything but a church.96 In a small courtyard behind this church and in the avenue leading up to it, you make out several fragments that seem to have belonged to some antique monuments. It is only a mile from Vietri to Salerno. The route runs along a sort of quay or raised path, quite wide and quite well constructed, graced on the right by a shoulder-level parapet, over which will be glimpsed the sea and that runs the length of that lovely coastline, stretching to beyond Paestum and extending close to twelve or thirteen leagues. The city of Salerno, located upon the gulf of the same name, no longer has that celebrated university that once made it famous; there remains nonetheless a college of medicine, but in such a state of decadence that it is only possible, considering what it had been before, to pass over in silence what it is. The city is rather pretty; every year a famous fair is held there. The courtyard of the cathedral is surrounded by a colonnade made up of columns of various styles and that were brought away from ruins of some antique monuments. In the middle of this courtyard is a beautiful granite vase, about 13 feet in diameter. Under the galleries of the colonnade are some tombs upon which are bas-reliefs that seemed mediocre to me. In the same spot is set into the wall another vase, likewise granite, but smaller by half than the one in the yard. The frame of the main doorway of the church is of antique handiwork, adorned with arabesques, but heavy and in poor taste. As for the exterior decoration of this church and the remarkable construction of its bell tower, I could only make out, as with all that I have seen in this kingdom, cumbrousness and poor taste. The interior offers nothing much more satisfying; it is a lovely space, but nobody knew how to take advantage of this. The three aisles are formed out of Composite pilasters as coarse as they are heavy. Close to the choir are two pulpits or ambones, used in the ancient church, such as I have described them in some other ancient churches of Rome. These are done in a very lovely mosaic adorned with bits of porphyry and supported by granite columns, of which the unevenness of the capitals proves that, like those in the courtyard of the church, these were carried off from some ancient monument. All around the high altar there is a railing in the same style as the ambones. As it is not in churches such as this that you must usually 95 Marginal note: “Find out how the Ancients took their baths.” 96 The sixteenth-century palaeo-Christian Baptistery of Santa Maria Maggiore in Nocera Superiore, also known as La Rotonda and, by many travellers in Sade’s day, as La Madonna della Vittoria.

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look for paintings by grand masters, the ones therein made me tarry little, and I continued with my tour. I only noted in Salerno the beauty of its location. It seems that the hillside, upon the slope of which it is built, must shelter it from northern winds. Upon the summit of this hillside is an old castle, which I was assured had served as the abode of the ancient sovereigns of this principality. The port of Salerno is not suitable for any large ship; only small boats can drop anchor at its beach. In front has been built a sort of half-moon that shelters it. Salerno, totally given over to the pursuit of knowledge, seemingly little worried about commerce, and history has nothing to say to us about it flourishing in this regard. From Salerno you go to Paestum via Persano, the country house of the king that is twenty-two miles away from Salerno. This chateau has nothing particular about it; the buildings are large, the entire court can be lodged here with ease, and the location is such as required for the reason for which the king comes to reside here for one month out of the year, namely, hunting. It is close to quite a large wooded area, so full of game that some twenty or thirty thousand are sometimes killed there per voyage. Still, the hunts are not like ours in the least. Ferdinand does not bother to hunt down the game himself. It is led to him by bands, and one of his great amusements is to personally slit the throats of these poor beasts that are tossed his way. This pleasure smacks of barbarity, I agree, but the proximity of the African coasts has a bit of influence upon Neapolitan mores. The effects of this are felt everywhere, and what civility should be expected from a people whose leader is himself so little policed? The number of buffalo that you encounter in this entire region is unbelievable; they roam in herds in the countryside. The usefulness of this animal is known, and I will only speak of it to say that it is quite similar to beef, but that it is much coarser. From Persano to Paestum is eight miles. The route goes along wretched roads that after the rains are absolutely impassible. The city of Paestum, formerly called Poseidonia and situated in the most delightful locale imaginable, was a colony of the Sybarites. They built it in the period of their grandeur, before luxury should forever have corrupted their mores and immortalized their name as a term for indolence and languor. The sea upon which this city had a port bounded it to the west. It had the Dolce mountain chain to the east; those known as del Cilento bounded it to the south, and the plain via which you get there, today called the Capaccio countryside, bordered it to the north. The entire walled enclosure, which is perhaps about four miles around, can be discerned – nothing could be more obvious – everywhere. It was built with such care and constructed with blocks of stone so enormous that you can easily see that it was only with the greatest efforts of the Saracens, who destroyed it, that it could have been reduced to the state in which it is seen today. It seems that there were four gates located at the four cardinal points. The one to the east is very well preserved, along with almost this entire portion of the enclosure. This gate, in the style of those seen in Pompeii, is a large, narrow arch, flanked by thick walls, which form nooks to the left and right. Following them a bit into the interior, you will still see fragments of the ancient paving, likewise in the style of those seen in Pompeii. Opposite this gate was the aqueduct that supplied the city with very limpid water, which was carried from the highest mountain in the Dolce chain. This destroyed aqueduct leaves the entire region with a shortage of water, and obtaining some is the hardest thing imaginable. Some remnants of this useful work are still visible. The southern portion of the enclosure is at fifty feet from the walls bounded by a large stream that has the power to petrify and that doubtless contributes to the extraordinary vermiculation that will be

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noted in all the stone in the region, which is easy to observe in those of the edifices that still remain intact. This southern portion is hard to make out; the gate is destroyed, the walls are degraded, and assessment is difficult. The western portion, which bordered the sea, is in an even more dilapidated state. You can see only some tunnels that went under the walls and several towers, which are fairly well preserved in general throughout the enclosure section, as well as some square chambers for the soldiers, fashioned into the thickness of the walls. The northern one appears the longest; the gate is destroyed but well marked, and it is still used today to access the habitations located upon the ruins of this lovely city. These consist of five or six large farms and the house of the bishop, whose seat was never removed from Paestum, even after the destruction of the city, which was Christian for a long time prior to being sacked by the Saracens. The inhabitants, when they [the Saracens] had destroyed it, took refuge in the Dolce mountains, where they built from the ruins of Paestum another city that they named Capaccio, located three miles from their former dwelling. But Frederick Barbarossa, Emperor of Tunis,97 came and laid siege once again and utterly destroyed their habitations again. They withdrew two miles from there, in the same mountain chain, and built the city that they inhabit today and that is called New Capaccio. These ruins, which I wished to visit, offer nothing of interest beyond the location, which seems to have sheltered it from any further insult. There remain today four or five houses and a large church, in which I saw a bishop’s tomb, from the Nicolay family.98 We know that this house originated in Italy. Yet what truly excites the curiosity of foreigners and what you could never tire of examining are the three beautiful Greek temples,99 absolutely preserved in all formal aspects and which, although without covering and without interior ornamentation, you can judge as if they were built yesterday. I am going to describe them in order and by giving all their dimensions. I have foregone this precaution with edifices easily accessible to the curiosity of travellers. I have thought it necessary with those where the location and the expense make visiting more impractical. With description replacing what cannot be undertaken, this must at least be done in greater detail. These temples are within the interior of the enclosure. The first is the smallest. Its shape was an elongated square, the shorter sides of which were graced with six Doric columns of fluted stone, the longer ones with thirteen of the same order. They were spaced eight feet, one inch apart from one another; their diameter was three feet, ten inches, and 97 Marginal note: “See who he was in the Histoire d’Alger.” Sade has conflated the name of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Oruç Reis (c. 1474–1518), nicknamed Barbarossa (i.e., “Red Beard”), the corsair and eventual Sultan of Algiers, who, along with his younger brother Hayreddin (also dubbed Barbarossa), led raids along the Italian coast and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean in the early sixteenth century. The work to which Sade refers is Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du Royaume d’Alger, Avec l’Etat présent de son Gouvernement, de ses Forces de Terre & de Mer, de ses Revenus, Police, Justice, Politique & Commerce (Amsterdam, 1725), which opens with an account of the exploits and life of “Aruch Barberousse” (see 10–36). 98 Francesco Paolo Nicolai (1657–1731) was bishop of Capaccio from 1704 to 1716. In the ancient cathedral of Capaccio Vecchio, there are memorial inscriptions related to Nicolai’s tenure and restorations undertaken at his behest, although no tomb. See Giuseppe Volpi, Cronologia De’ Vescovi Pestani Ora Detti Di Capaccio (Naples, 1752), 191–2. 99 Marginal note: “Temples.”

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their height, 18 feet, ten inches, two lines. The cornice, the frieze, and the architrave, all parts that are well preserved, yield a height of eight feet, four inches. This edifice was built upon three tiers, each fourteen inches, three lines high. Its peristyle was six feet wide. It was likewise graced with columns, but in a different style from what can be made out from the capitals and sections scattered about upon the ground, the fluting on which is exceedingly smaller than that on the others. The interior of the temple, seventeen feet, two inches, and the entire structure, fifty-two feet, nine inches long. It does not appear that the gallery of the enclosure was made up of columns; the peristyle alone was graced with these, and at the same distance from the columns of the perimeter and terminating at the peristyle, there was a wall that closed off the interior. All the perimeter columns exist intact with their entablature and pediment on both [i.e., shorter] sides. But on the two longer sides, there is only the architrave. This temple, although small, must have been stately. The second is the largest. This must have been a structure as vast as it was majestic. It is in the Rustic Doric order. The columns are without base and the capitals extraordinary for their mouldings. These columns, numbering six on the width and 14 on the length, are raised upon three steps that are 16 inches high. They are six feet, five inches, two lines in diameter and spaced seven feet apart from one another. The intercolumniation in the middle is spaced more than the others by five inches, ten lines. These columns are 26 feet, eleven inches, three lines high; the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice are ten and eleven inches; the pediment is ten feet, nine inches, which yields a structure the total height of which is fifty-two feet, seven inches, three lines. The breadth of the temple inside was 75 feet, three inches, and its length was 185 feet. It was closed off with walls. The interior bulk of the temple was 37 feet, six inches, six lines wide and 141 feet, seven inches, six lines long, which created a surrounding covered walkway of about ten feet. The interior bulk was raised some 21 inches more than the rest. You entered via two steps; the entrance was a peristyle 16 feet, two inches, three lines wide. At that of the entrance are the vestiges of two chambers, in one of which was a staircase. At the other extremity was another peristyle of the same size; on the interior of this one was a row of columns on each side, which formed a nave of 14 feet, 2 inches. The columns of this nave were four feet, five inches in diameter; they were spaced 6 feet, 6 inches, ten lines apart from one another; they were 17 feet, 5 inches, three lines, including the capitals. On top of these columns were other, smaller ones, the diameter of which was two feet, seven inches, six lines; they were, capital included, ten feet, three inches, six lines. Upon each of these columns is an acroterion decorated with mouldings. The aisle appears to have been covered only with a flat frame, which was elevated to the height of the pediment and supported upon this latter row of columns. You will observe in this edifice that the modillions that are in the cornice, above the exterior columns of the temple, are not in the cornice of the pediment. The frieze is adorned with trigylphs and the architrave with guttae, all at right angles to one another, with the particularity that between the metopes there is a modillion. All these columns were fluted and seem to have been covered with stucco. All are well preserved, along with the entablature that supports them. The pediments that crown the two [i.e., shorter] sides are likewise in good shape, and it is extremely easy to assess all the proportions of this edifice that unarguably proclaimed grandeur and magnificence. Further along, almost parallel, is a third temple, of about the same size as the one about which I just spoke. The columns seem more delicate; their diameter is four feet, four inches, three lines and the distance between them four feet, six inches; the mouldings of the capitals are incised with little leaves. The shape of the temple was likewise an elongated square,

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the longer sides of which consisted of eighteen columns each and the shorter nine, likewise each. All the exterior columns are whole; on the inside, there remain only those three that divided the interior into two. The first of these three columns shows that it was built into the wall; the discontinuity of its flutings proves this, and consequently it was a wall that closed off the temple and formed the exterior gallery, which was 13 feet, 1 inch, 10 lines. There remains only an architrave on the interior columns and on the exterior an architrave and a frieze, along with a sort of plinth that is above six feet, nine inches. The interior of the temple was preceded by a peristyle created by three columns and two pilasters that are still very well preserved; all the columns, both those inside and outside, are the same diameter. As for their height, this varies; those on the outside are 19 feet, 5 lines, and those on the inside 17 feet, four inches. It appears that the entrance of the temple was not in the middle, as is usually the case; indications suggest that it was on the sides. The overall length of the temple is 168 feet, nine inches,100 and the width seventy-five feet, one inch, six lines. The interior was divided by a row of columns, which doubtless formed two naves. The edifice was, like the other two of which I have spoken, raised upon three tiers, and from the peristyle to the interior you climb two steps. This interior portion was 32 feet, 3 inches, 2 lines wide by a length proportional to the total, minus the width of the galleries. There remains in the vicinity of this temple no fragment that suggests there was a cornice and a pediment like the others. It is worth noting that in general all the columns that formed these edifices were of vermiculated stone, quite unique, that all were fluted and covered with stucco. Their shape, which is massive at the bottom and quite slight on top, the thickness of their capitals, the extreme way that they project, their disproportion according to the rules of Doric order, which demands that a column be of a height eight times its diameter whereas these are a little over four times, the peculiarity of the entablature that in this same order should be a quarter of the height of the column and that here is almost half, all this, I say, makes these temples all the more interesting with respect to Antiquity since it is clear that the date of their construction goes back to the origin of architecture. If you support this conjecture upon an inscription found broken into two parts in the courtyard of the house of Dominique Archiol101 and that I am going to relay, you will see by the name found thereon of Callimachus, inventor of the Corinthian capital, that it would be quite possible that it was in Poseidonia that architecture began to take some steps forward.102 The inscription reads:103 Q•CEPPIO•Q•F•MAC•LONGINO•PON• II•VIR•DESIGN•VIXIT•ANNO XX APPIO CALLIMACHO PATRI ARIANIÆ MATRI.104 100 Marginal note: “Twenty-eight toises.” The toise, which was six feet or pieds, is the equivalent of the English fathom, used both for land and sea measurements. 101 Marginal note: “It is in this house that you must seek lodging.” I have been unable to trace Sade’s reference. 102 Marginal note: “Read up thoroughly on architecture before asserting this.” 103 Marginal note: “Explain it before laying down my conjecture.” 104 Translated: “To Q[uintus] Ceppius Longinus, S[on] of Q[uintus] of the Maec[ia], pontifex / Elected duumvir. Lived to the age of twenty. / To his father Appius [viz., Ceppius] Callimachus / [and] to his mother Ariania [viz. Aviania].” There are various transcription errors. See Theodor Mommsen, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Inscriptiones Bruttiorvm, Lucaniae, Campania, etc. (Berlin, 1883), 55 [inscrip-

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In the rest of the enclosure of the city will still be seen some fragments of a public bath, as far as it is possible to judge from the bits of structures that remain even with the ground and the proportions of which suggest an edifice of that nature. Further on, an amphitheatre, the arena of which is still quite discernible and around which there are some remnants of tunnels that were used to support the first tier of seating. It is thought that you can make out as well some remains of recesses in which the animals were restrained. Such is about all that time has preserved for us of this beautiful city concerning which scholars have only been familiar for quite a short time. Ignorance shrouded in oblivion these superb monuments of the birth of the arts, and we are assured that it has not been more than thirty years that a young painter who came to see his relatives at Capaccio Nuovo, seeing these interesting antiquities, thought that they ought not be left in oblivion and immediately went to bring them to notice in Naples, where they were completely unknown, so much do the arts and learning have partisans in this city of luxury and ineptitude.105 Further along will still be seen some remnants of the city of Velia, located upon the gulf of that name; rival of Poseidonia, it was the fatherland of Parmenides and of Zeno, but notwithstanding it always had fewer inhabitants and less fame than the other.106 This entire coastline offers to whoever would like to travel along it a series of ruins and antiquities vying with one another for the most interesting. You ought to go right up to the sea and avidly seek out these famous places that were characteristic of this part of Greece. But the ferocity of the inhabitants, their lack of honesty, the difficulty of access, the perpetual dangers of this route, with reason hold back a traveller more prudent than curious; and lacking policing that ought nonetheless to be in force in states like these, you deprive yourself of the enjoyment of venturing through such beautiful and interesting lands. You will agree that this lack of order is all the more misconceived insofar as it deprives the inhabitants of these lands, whose trade is to be a thief or smuggler, of a guaranteed wellbeing that the flow of travellers’ money would necessarily bring to their country. But they prefer to acquire it by fraud. And the scant legal justice, which doubtless one dares not rigorously apply, permits them to procure by villainy what would be so easy for them to tion 479]. Vitruvius ascribed the invention of the Corinthian capital to the sculptor Callimachus, working in Athens and Corinth in the fifth century BCE, and who was inspired by the sight of acanthus sprouting over a basket placed on a girl’s grave. See Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Ingrid D. Rowland, commentary and illustrations by Thomas Noble Howe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 55 [bk.4, ch.1]. Sade’s inference that the Callimachus mentioned in the inscription at Paestum and the sculptor of the same name are one further stretches a dubious attribution. 105 Marginal note: “Fact reported by Lalande, but that must be refuted; it seems impossible, above all, because of the bishopric.” Lalande tells the story of a young student of a Neapolitan painter discovering Paestum’s magnificence in 1755 and arousing “the attention of curious minds to the precious architectural ruins.” Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 7:106. Lalande notes that his own source for this anecdote is Pierre-Jean Grosley, who gives an extended account in his Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, par deux Gentilshommes Suédois (London, 1764), 3:87–9. Moreover, in later editions, Lalande silently revises his account, noting that a certain Baron Antonini had already heralded Paestum’s magnificence in a work printed ten years earlier than the student’s supposed discovery. See Lalande, Voyage en Italie, conténant l’Histoire & les Anecdotes les plus singulières de l’Italie (Paris, 1786), 7:594–5. The latter work is the antiquarian Giuseppe Antonini’s La Lucania (Naples, 1745). See the introduction to this volume. 106 The ancient city of Elea in Magna Graecia, founded in the sixth century BCE. Its Latin, and subsequently Italian name was Velia.

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get by honest means.107 From Paestum, we returned to Vietri, where we had slept on the outbound journey, and from there we took a boat to get to the Isle of Capri, still cleaving to the land in order not to miss any of the sublimity of this beautiful coastline that offers at every moment the most surprising views and the most extraordinary sports of Nature. You must stop at Maiori, some four or five miles distant from Vietri, in order to see a very deep and prodigiously high grotto, at the back of which is a pond of water that we are assured is quite extensive and the width and depth where it is at the level of the ground, which you can assess by throwing a stone, is truly frightening.108 You will see (in this grotto) agate forming by the distillation of the water that filters from the top of the rock. Eight or ten miles from there is the city of Amalfi, in a truly extraordinary and picturesque location. Close to the current site of this city was formerly the Etruscan city of Marcina. We were assured that there were some antiquities in the cathedral. We went there to see them. The peristyle is supported by several columns of antique marble, the different shapes of which show that they are remnants of some ancient temples; some of them have rather lovely capitals. In the church you see two antique tombs, one of which seems to have been used for a child. Both are adorned with charming bas-reliefs. Those upon the small tomb prevail in terms of lightness and delicacy; close by is a superb porphyry vase. This church, moreover, cleaving ever to the poor taste and to the defective proportions of all works in this country, is too long for its width, and the side aisles are much too large for the nave; it is too high, poorly decorated. You perceive that there was a desire to make something of it, but that taste was lacking. The archway of the choir is supported by two magnificent columns of red granite, but the bases are of ordinary marble and the capitals of gilded wood, an ornamentation that, in my view, always disfigures a marble column. The high altar is situated in a large recess; six marble columns support the architrave. At both sides of this part are little pulpits or tribunes, bedecked with porphyry and mosaics, each supported by two granite columns. The ceilings of this church are well enough made, and their wide style is made to create an impact. The painting at the high altar is a Saint Michael, inferior to those on the ceilings and that seemed to me fairly mediocre. In a small passage that connects the former church to the new one, there are, embedded into the wall, two lovely antique tombs that are worthier of examination than all the modern things that I have just mentioned. The frame of the main doorway appears antique and to be, like the columns of the peristyle, the remnant of some ancient temple. You must not forget to go and see in a courtyard behind the church a charming arabesque piece, inlaid into the wall and that appears to have been part of the decoration of some sitting room. At the bottom are two roses hanging from a ceiling, likewise inlaid in the wall but much less delicately wrought than the arabesque. From here to the Punta Campanella or Promontory of Minerva, the coast continues to be guarded by little towers or small forts distributed at regular distances, all armed with a cannon and placed in positions that contribute not a little to rendering this entire coast, already quite picturesque by itself, one of the most extraordinary and the most interesting to see imaginable. At this headland of Campanella, where once lived Saracens, are the remnants of a Temple of Minerva, but these are not significant enough to merit a detailed description. Time pressing us on to Capri, we straightaway set sail to make the most of the beautiful 107 As Maurice Lever notes, Sade’s remarks seem eerily prescient: it was a few kilometres from here, in the province of Avellino, that his eldest son, Louis Marie de Sade, would be murdered by Neapolitan bandits on 9 June 1809, at the age of 42. See Sade, Voyage d’Italie (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 1:267. 108 This is the grotta Pandone.

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moment that the heavens offered us, and after an hour and a half of journeying, we arrive at the island’s port, three miles distant from the mainland, after having left behind to our right the three small Galli isles.109 The island of Capri,110 which Suetonius and Tacitus inform us was where Tiberius went to cloak his outrageous debauches from the severe eyes of the Roman, still has the shape indicated by these authors. Let us listen to Tacitus himself in the description that he gives of it; we know how much that delightful historian paints with force and with truth. I will use d’Ablancourt’s translation: “Tiberius, after having dedicated the temples of Juno and of Augustus, the one in Nola and the other in Capua, had edicts published that no one should trouble his solitude, and he posted guards upon the streets to prevent the crowds of people who came from everywhere to see him. But to deliver himself from all importunity, he left the mainland and withdrew to the isle of Capri, three miles distant from the promontory of Sorrentum. In my opinion, he chose this retreat because of the difficulty of access, the sea being bereft of ports in all the surrounding area and barely navigable for the little boats that brought foodstuffs to the island; nor can they enter here without being seen. Moreover, the winter here is temperate thanks to a mountain that stands against the harshest winds; the island is cooled in the summer by the zephyrs and open to the sea on all sides, including a bay of marvellous beauty, before the flames of Mount Vesuvius changed the face of the land. It is held that the Greeks inhabited this region and that the Teleboi occupied the isle; at that time there were twelve houses or villages, where the emperor lodged with his entire court, having devoted himself to pleasures and to debauchery, as much as he had formerly to business and to care of the State, etc.,” Annals of Tacitus, page 230, first volume of d’Ablancourt’s translation.111 This description is so true that it would be difficult today to make a more accurate one. The island continues to be everywhere unapproachable, and the dark episode in which this unworthy emperor has the face of an unfortunate fisherman rubbed with the fish that he brought him in order to punish him for having crossed the rocks and for having appeared before him unexpectedly, confirms the desire to be alone, entirely left to his debauches, and his fright that anyone might penetrate the odious mysteries thereof.112 There this voluptuary sovereign, dreaming now only that he was master of the universe in order to have brought to Capri the rarest beauties, made upon the island a vast enclosure, each part of which had a different use, but all related to the voluptuous deviations of his senses. The island of Capri, which is perhaps some ten miles around, is utterly and everywhere surrounded by the highest rocks; you can only land via the small port that is opposite the bay of Naples and of the city from which it is thirty miles distant. This port 109 Literally, the Rooster Islands, also known as Le Sirenuse, as sirens were said to live here. 110 Marginal note: “Capri.” 111 Sade notes: “Tacitus says here quite surely, so it seems to me, that Tiberius lodged with his court in the twelve houses that he found upon the island, and I know not upon what authority the good Monsieur Crevier, in his Histoire des Empereurs, vol. II, page 468, assures us that it was he who had these twelve houses built here and that each one had its name; it was only ever a matter of the four different palaces that Tiberius had built, of which the ruins are still to be seen.” Crevier refers by name only to the House of Jupiter, supposedly the most secure, but does remark the twelve houses that Tiberius “had had built upon his island.” See Jean-Baptiste-Louis Crevier, Histoire des empereurs romains, depuis Augustin jusqu’à Constantin (Paris, 1775), 2:488. For the passage of d’Ablancourt’s translation from which Sade cites, see Tacitus, Les Œuvres de Tacite, 1:229–30. 112 Marginal note: “To be changed. / Summarize the continuation of the story.”

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is only approachable for small boats; large ones can absolutely not drop anchor there. Its shape is an irregular ellipse; it is four miles at its greatest length and at most two at its greatest width. It is divided into two parts: upper and lower Capri. A mountain of a prodigious height creates the division into these two parts, and the inhabitants of one can only reach those of the other via a steep staircase of five hundred and fifty steps, hewn into this immense mountain. The emperor spent little time in the second part, called Upper Capri or Anacapri; his abodes were all apparently made in the lower part. You still see today the fragments of three of his palaces: one situated upon the edge of the sea, to the west, precisely at the base of the mountain that divides the island and of which will be seen both upon the beach and in the sea a great number of remnants, which confirms the size of this habitation.113 You will still see quite intact a large arched recess that seems to have served either for a theatre or for some household temple. The second was upon the rocky point that looks towards the headland on the continent; it seems to have been even more magnificent than the one that I was just discussing. You see vast structures, entire and very well-preserved vaults that seem to have been used for baths or for water reservoirs suited for this purpose. On a lovely esplanade built at the peak of this mountain, called Santa Maria, and upon which there is a hermitage today, was located the entire site of the palace, the view from which, overlooking the sea in all directions, must have been delightful. All the lower part of the mountain was taken up with terraced gardens, which occupying the plain on this part of the island that is located between two mountains, must have formed charming amphitheatres. The entire rocky crest that is located upon the right when facing the mainland was taken up by a wing of the palace, defended by towers. The precipice is dreadful; the height of the ground above the sea is so prodigious that you can hardly make out upon the water the fishing boats in the environs of the island. Upon this precipice overhung a wooden tower from which the emperor had tossed into the sea the victims of his ire or of his odious lubricity, so true is it that the excess of frenzied passions ever leads to infamy and cruelty those who can risk all while fearing nothing. Around this mountain, close to the intact vaults that I just mentioned, are little vaulted chambers, six or seven feet wide by eight or nine long, that folks in the region say with assurance served his lubricities, but in examining them closely, nothing will be seen that heralds this usage. It is more likely that these were the lower parts of vaults, which doubtless supported the apartments on top and in which dwelled perhaps some slaves. On another point, almost opposite the former, are some other fragments of a palace that we are assured was never finished; its location was likewise lovely. From here you can make out today the entire town of Capri, which is built in the middle of the plain formed by the mountain of Santa Maria and that of Anacapri. The emperor would have had but a view of the sea and of his gardens, considering that the ancient town was where the port is today. Before arriving at the top, you see, as in a few other parts of the island, the remnants of that lovely flat path that Tiberius had had constructed at great expense in order to get from one of his houses to another without being obliged to climb. The sublime work busied, it is said, seven hundred workers a day for a year. It can be called the height of luxury and of effeminacy. Fixing the unevenness of a terrain, finding the secret of getting around the plain and all the rocky points upon a path ever flat and even was a work worthy of a master of the world and of a voluptuary like Tiberius. This third palace, moreover, offers not a fragment 113 Marginal note: “This one is today called Porticelli.”

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that could permit us to assess either its shape or its immensity. All that will be made out of it are two column butts and a few vaults. This mount, called today San Michele because of a chapel dedicated to this saint that can be seen here, makes up about half of the island. Between these two mountains is a large rock face to the base of which you descend via an extremely steep slope; a twisting path and quite difficult access bring you there. There, fashioned into an immense grotto, was one of those secret chambers dedicated to the most infamous debauches and in which Suetonius tells us “were seats all around for the most secret lubricities and where troops of young girls and young boys advanced towards him from every side, inventors of various sorts of bawdiness, all prodigious and against Nature, whom he made pollute one another in order to provoke his lust while looking upon them, when he was weary of doing it” (Suetonius, Tiberius, page 219, translation by J.B.).114 A vaulted arcade will still be seen at the entrance to this mysterious grotto and closed it off. All around are still the seats that the Latin author so clearly indicates; a small staircase led up to a sort of gallery level with the seats that were placed all around and at the back of which are some recesses where, doubtless, were statues having to do with the secret mysteries that were celebrated in this place.115 To the right and left, outside of the grotto, are the vaulted chambers into which the emperor doubtless passed with the objects chosen from the number of those offered in groups to his lubricity and that he deemed worthy of sating it, and a convenient staircase, fashioned doubtless the length of the rock that makes up this grotto, led him back to his palaces. So many acts of violence and horrors must have been committed in these places, when we see in Tacitus that this emperor, excessive in his passions as in his tastes, was not content with the willing victims that his emissaries placed all over Italy brought for his lust, but even had children abducted from the bosom of their families by his slaves when they refused to hand them over politely. “Following the example of barbaric kings,” this same historian tells us, “he was followed everywhere by a troop of young boys who served his infamous pleasures, and loving not only beauty and civility, he desired that ancestral decency and grandeur serve as another goad to his lustful greed.” “In the end,” adds this same historian, “his sensual pleasures became so disordered that in order to express them new names were invented, derived from the filthiness of the place or from the diversity of his shameless actions.” These names were sphintrix and sellaris; you see in Rome twelve medals preserved in the Vatican, called spintrian medals, in which this lubricious emperor is depicted in all his choice debaucheries.116 Going around the island by sea, you still find beneath the Carthusian monastery another sort of grotto that, likely used for another purpose, although of the same type, 114 The initials “J.B.” stand for the translator Jean Baudoin and the page number given corresponds to the first edition of his rendering: Suétone Tranquille, De la vie des douze Césars. Nouvellement traduit en françois et illustré d’annotations (Paris, 1611), 218–19. 115 Marginal note: “The location of this grotto is opposite the Punta Campanella, almost below the Palace of Santa Maria.” 116 Although the gist is correct, Sade’s source has spintrix (a man who engages in anal intercourse, derived from the Greek σφινκτέρ [sphinkter], i.e., “anus”) and sellarium (a place with seats, euphemistic for latrine). The description of Tiberius’s habits is worth citing at length given Sade’s interests and later literary output. Thus, in Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe and revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), Suetonius reports (1:370–3): On retiring to Capri he devised “holey places” [sellaria] as a site for his secret orgies; there select teams of girls and male prostitutes, inventors of deviant intercourse and dubbed analists [spintrias], copulated before him in triple unions to excite his flagging passions. Its many bedrooms were furnished with the most salacious paintings and sculptures, as well as with the books of Elephantis [a Greek erotic writer], in case any performer should need an illustration of a prescribed position.

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Figure 5.2. Engraving of a spintrian medal, from A Collection of the Spintrian Medals of Tiberius (c. 1764). Courtesy of The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

was doubtless the one in which, as Suetonius tells us, he prostituted himself to both sexes dressed as Faun and the god Pan, which earned him the name Caprino [i.e., goat]. The Then in Capri’s woods and groves he contrived a number of spots for sex where boys and girls got up as Pans and nymphs solicited outside grottoes and sheltered recesses; people openly call this “the old goat’s garden,” punning on the island’s name. He acquired a reputation for still grosser depravities that one can hardly bear to tell or be told, let alone believe. For example, he trained little boys (whom he called his little fishes) to come and go between his thighs when he went swimming and tease him with their licks and nibbles; and babies, fairly strong but not yet weaned he would put to his penis as though to the breast, being by both nature and age rather fond of this form of satisfaction. And so when he was left a painting of Parrhasius’s depicting Atalanta gratifying Meleager with her mouth on condition that if the theme displeased him he was to have a million sesterces instead, he chose to keep it and actually hung it in his bedroom. The story is also told that once at a sacrifice, attracted by the incense bearer’s beauty, he lost control of himself and, hardly waiting for the ceremony to end, rushed him off and raped him and his brother, the flute-player, too; and subsequently, when the both complained of the assault, he had their legs broken. The so-called spintrian medals, which graphically depicted various sexual positions, were known to libertines and the curious in the eighteenth century. They were described by François-Philippe Gourdin (1739–1825), e.g., in his rare Numismatique. Dissertation sur les médailles satyriques (n.p., n.d.). This work was excerpted and translated as a “Dissertation on Satirical Medals, addressed to the Society of Antiquaries by Pere François Philippe Gourdin, Benedictine of the Order of St Maur at Rouen,” in The New Annual Register, Or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature, For the Year 1789 (London, 1790), 149–55. On the subject, we find in the latter that these are: infamous medals struck upon the debaucheries of Tiberius in the island of Caprea, the accounts of which given by Suetonius are suspected of being exaggerated beyond the truth of history. The opinions concerning these Spintrian medals are extremely various; some attribute them to Tiberius, others deny that to have been the case: some look upon them to have been the coins struck for the festivals of Venus mentioned by Clemens Alexandrius, and lastly, others are persuaded that they should be distributed as the representation of lascivious subjects in the rank of those presents which were mutually made during the Saturnalia. The numeral letters marked upon one side of these medals have often exercised the sagacity of the learned, and have occasioned different conjectures.

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indiscretions of Mallonia, whom he legally condemned based upon false witnesses whom he had suborned with the view of punishing her for having escaped his impure embraces, have taught us what was the preferred genre of the execrable debauches of this old libertine. She declared the acts of violence that he had desired to commit upon her and stabbed herself, for fear of being obliged to be again forced to do so. The theatre, which in those days allowed itself cutting jokes about and criticisms of the conduct of sovereigns, turned this story into an epigram, and same Suetonius tells us that, at the first public games following this adventure, a gibe was delivered that claimed that the old billy “licked the privates of nanny goats.”117 We do not see in the Anacapri part any vestige of the palace. It is claimed only that in this part was kept the storehouse of the young objects that were daily offered up to him. The location of the present island does not, however, suggest anything that might have made Tiberius choose this place as a pleasure spot. The island is mountainous, in truth filled with groves of laurel and myrtle, but these mingled with a large number of venomous weeds and full of rocks and asperities. There are nonetheless some spots that are well cultivated, namely, the middle of lower Capri and the entire upper Capri portion. But there are a thousand places in the surrounding area that are more delightful than this one, and you can well see that only the idea of being enclosed therein and as if hidden from the rest of the world was what decided him to select this retreat. Furthermore, this is not all that history teaches us about this famous island. We also read that, even earlier, Augustus, in the year 765 of the Roman calendar, feeling himself stricken with the malady from which he would die and travelling for distraction all along the coast of Campania and its nearby islands, came as far as Capri. He stayed there for four days, which he spent in the sweetest and most upright amusements. He distributed gifts to all his courtiers, but by an oddity allowable on account of the diversion he sought from his ills, he desired that the Greeks wear the Roman toga and that the Romans the Greek-style cloak. He was presented with games and shows put on by the youth of the island, a Greek colony, as history tells us, which still preserved traces of its ancient origin in the mores of its inhabitants. He held a large feast for all the youth and left all that remained upon the

It is more probable that they were intended to expose to the people at large the debaucheries of their prince, and that there were numbers of like theatrical tickets to circulate them more easily without suspicion, or this not succeeding, they might be thrown among the crowd. (154) Gourdin’s final conjecture that these medals, which are clearly erotic, were meant to be critical, is perhaps decorous but risible. Horace Walpole had an illustrated volume, drawn in red ink, of these in his collection, inscribed in his hand as “A Collection of the Spintrian medals of Tiberius” and “bought at the sale of Sir Clement Cotterel’s Library 1764” (currently in the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University). Clement Cottrell-Dormer (1686–1758) was master of ceremonies in the courts of Queen Anne and kings George I and II, as well as the vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries. On spintria, the theories of early modern numismatists, and the relation of these medals to what became the Aretine postures tradition, see Bette Talvacchia, Taking Positions: On the Erotic in Renaissance Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 55–60. 117 As reported in Jean-François de la Harpe’s translation of Suetonius, Les Douze Césars (Paris, 1770): “He [Tiberius] toyed as well with the lives of the most illustrious women, as we can see from the death of Mallonia, who had constantly rejected his desires. He had her accused by informers, and never ceased during the indictment to ask her whether she did not repent. But, without hearing her sentence, she withdrew to her house and killed herself, after having called him aloud an impure and disgusting old man. Thus, in the Atellan Farces Tiberius was, with universal applause, obscenely depicted as an old billy licking a she-goat” (1:378–9).

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tables for plunder. In a word, he sought diversion in all the upright ways that his mores and his condition allowed him. Today, this famous island,118 of which I have already provided the divisions and extent, is peopled by three thousand, nine hundred souls, of which nineteen hundred in the town of Capri, of which I indicated the location and which in another spot would be but an ordinary village; and two thousand in the Anacapri part located on the other side of the large mountain and that inhabit a sort of hamlet that is better situated than the capital. The only disadvantage of that enormous staircase, of which I have spoken, must be to make living here quite inconvenient and all the more so since there is nothing in this part but a little beach for the fishermen, that there is no fresh water, and that it is consequently necessary that everything go via that terrible staircase of which I have spoken and to which even the country folk can only barely get accustomed. This part is, moreover, the most fertile. There is a lovely plain that gently slopes to the sea. You will see here everything in abundance: orange trees, olive trees, wheat, excellent wines and fruits; and it is a truly extraordinary sight to discover a very pretty plain totally hidden by the large mountain and of which you have no knowledge, it being in the lower part, other than by discovering it, I say, upon the same level, at the top of a staircase with five hundred and fifty steps.119 The island of Capri contributes nothing to the king; he is naught but the sovereign, and the inhabitants, who in all the revolutions of the Kingdom of Naples always submitted to the conquerors, preserve in perpetuity their exemptions and privileges. A governor appointed by the monarch oversees the police and maintains good order, but he is only accepted after having sworn upon the Gospels to maintain the rights and privileges of the island, of which one of the most advantageous is that of self-protection; there is never a garrison. The townsfolk stand guard and are obliged to show annually thirty-three bullets and a pound of powder to the commissioner of arms who comes to inspect them. The government of the island is by the year; it is changed every year, and if the departing governor does not bring back to the minister a certificate from the inhabitants attesting that he has maintained and preserved their rights, he will have trouble being appointed elsewhere. All of these policies seem to confirm that the government fears these islanders, whose loss, in the case of revolt, would be truly burdensome, given its location. But it would be quite difficult, however, to not make [it] return promptly to obedience by surrounding it with a fleet and taking over the port, which appears absolutely defenceless.120 This conduct suggests rather, as with all the rest, a prodigious weakness in the administration, which I think that the Neapolitan well senses and by which he would not be taken in, if his sovereign were to give him a legitimate motive to throw off the yoke. The salary of this governor amounts to a hundred ducats, which makes a bit more than 400 in our money, and this is paid by the district; however, he enjoys more than 400 ducats. These casual profits of his employ are made up of fines; these are imposed most of all in Capri and all to the benefit of the governor; what is certain is that the police gains from this sort of politics. All comestibles are taxed, and he who would dare sell to a foreigner at more than the regulated price will pay a fine proportionate to his roguishness. Swearing, brawling, and assaults – all result in a fine and everything in proportion to the infraction. A blow that draws blood is taxed fifteen carlini, which makes a bit more than 118 Marginal note: “Current status of Capri.” 119 I have preserved something of the syntactical looseness of this sentence, typical of these pages. 120 Marginal note: “It is useless, given its location, to surround it with a fleet.”

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six livres; and so forth. Either because this policing contains it or because the inhabitants themselves are little given to ill, few crimes are generally to be seen on this island; knifings, which are so common in the rest of the kingdom, are extremely rare here. Court is convened here as in republics; the governor does naught but preside, and the island leaders are the members. They assemble in the city hall and handle all that relates to high, middle, and low courts. I will mention an anecdote that will reveal the degree to which these islanders are jealous of their rights and principally of this one. A Neapolitan woman in love with an Englishman poisoned her husband in order to marry the former. The deed done, they sought refuge on the island of Capri; they are those who occupy the pretty house of which I spoke. The governor and the bishop got together and resolved to pursue this woman and to prevent thereby anyone imagining that this island might serve as a refuge for criminals. The project was praiseworthy, but they clumsily went about it the wrong way. They indicted the culprit at the tribunal of Naples. The adroit Neapolitan thought she could discern that the privileges of the island’s inhabitants were wounded by such a procedure; she let the leaders get a glimpse of this. The matter was pressed so forcefully that the governor was demoted for having sought to attack the island’s rights, and the woman was declared free to remain there as long as she wished. Here is, I think, more than enough information to familiarize one with the customs, mores, and pride of these little republicans. Few travellers have taken the trouble to go into these details, because few have taken like me the trouble to spend two weeks of exile there to become familiar with it all. The climate of the island since Tacitus painted it for us has continued to be mild. The large mountain of Anacapri is the one that this author said served to shield it from cold winds; in general, the winter is quite mild and the summers quite temperate, and you can easily conceive that a sojourn on this island might forgather sundry delights. As I have said, the town is not much of anything. There is a small square that is quite narrow and quite squalid. On this is the main church and the bishopric, the palace of which resembles a cobbler’s house. All the roads are sloped, and all the more narrow insofar as there are never carriages to pass along them. There are some that are entirely covered and in which you can see nothing at all, even in full daylight. The governor’s house appears decent enough, but the most considerable looking one belongs to an Englishman who lives there with his wife; it is located at the lower part and at some distance from the majority of houses in the town. There are on the island three religious houses: two belonging to the Carmelites and one to the Carthusians. At the main church in the town, which is not however the cathedral and that is called San Stefano, will be seen at the base of the high altar a lovely marble paving taken from the Palace of Tiberius. Destined without cease to mysterious rites, you can say that these marbles have passed in succession from the sanctuary of those of impudicity to the sanctuary of those of superstition. Moreover, this church is not much of anything; you see therein some paintings handled with much vividness and truth, but utterly lacking in terms of drawing. The sacristy that I was shown in spite of myself seemed fairly rich. Ostentation is everywhere the dominant vice of the Church; everywhere it loves to confirm its luxury even at the cost of the scorn that it is certain to excite by its pride. The church on the Anacapri part offers nothing more interesting; it is in poor taste, small, but very white and very ornamented, and the feeling of cleanliness substitutes for good taste and magnificence.

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Close to the remnants of the Palace of Tiberius, which I noted was at the edge of the sea and at the base of the large mountain, is still located the cathedral upon the site of the ancient city. It is a little Gothic church and in quite poor taste, but you go to see five marble columns of various styles that were part of this nearby palace that I have mentioned. There were, it is said, five more of giallo antico marble that the king wisely had transported to Caserta. Close to the church is a cellar, the construction of which appears antique, in which you are shown a rather poor bas-relief of the Rape of Europa, which doubtless belonged to that same palace, in keeping besides with the tastes of the sovereign, who could hardly procure the objects of his pleasures other than by the same means that Jupiter procured for himself the daughter of Agenor. You will see on the island two castles, one to the east and the other to the west, built in former times for the defence of the region when Barbarossa sought to seize it. I had the curiosity to climb into the higher of these castles, the one located upon the headland of that high mountain that divides the island into two. It is completely abandoned. You see a few remnants of the rampart and the towers; the entire interior enclosure is still surrounded by ruined buildings. The state of abandon of this fortress makes any access so difficult and what you see therein is of so little importance that I would advise no one to take on my vain endeavour, unless it be with the intention of examining from there the circuit around the isle and the view, all the more beautiful and the more extensive insofar as this elevation is, I think, the highest that there is in the Kingdom of Naples, as long as you do not count Vesuvius. In general the people are gentle in Capri, affable with foreigners, and they willingly extend them the rights of hospitality. The foodstuffs are of good quality and inexpensive. You find a lot of small birds, which make for delicate eating. The wine here is excellent. The blood is quite handsome. It is not rare to see here young women of a beauty that would stir up a fuss elsewhere; they make themselves up and do so with coquettishness. We were completely astonished one Sunday to see peasant women in quilted corsets with velvet weave of pink silk such as our fashionable young ladies would not have disdained to wear. Here, as in the entire tour that I have just marked out, you must avoid lodging in the cabarets, which would be unbearable. The most commodious possible way to proceed is to arm yourself with letters for the governors of the towns or for some important townsfolk, at whose homes you are received, taking your food separately and ordinarily paying, upon departure, the domestics a gratuity that comes to three carlini per night for each bed occupied. Such are about all the reflections with which the island of Capri supplied me, and we left at the end of the three days to make for Castellammare via the coast from which you must never stray so that you can enjoy all the interesting viewpoints and all the curious objects that it contains, which I will consider sufficient to point out without describing in detail, the bad weather that we experienced leaving us only the leisure of wondering about our preservation and not about the curious objects that we were unable to reach and that we contented ourselves with seeing from afar, such as Massa [Lubrense], Sorrento, the fatherland of Tasso and the place where Augustus exiled Agrippa Postumus, the last of his grandsons, who was next sent to Pianosa, island in the Tuscan sea south of the island of Elba, seeing as he only became more furious and cursed Livia with even more violence, and finally all those lovely country villas that line the magnificent coast of Blessed Campania, etc.121 At 121 In Les Œuvres de Tacite, Tacitus attributes Augustus’s decision to exile his adopted grandson Agrippa Postumus (12 BCE–14 CE) to the influence of his third wife Livia Drusilla and her concerns about succession: “For [Livia] had acquired so much power over Augustus’s mind that, in order to please her,

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Vico, you see the length of the shore grottoes hollowed into the rock, fashioned into baths, cool retreats, and that artifice and Nature have rendered truly delightful; there is one of these, among others, into which we went, which makes for the most hidden and pleasant bath imaginable. It seems that Nature decided to supplement art in this instance, and the interior tint of this rock is such a lovely lilac that the most charming tapestry would not better adorn this divine place. Finally, we arrived at Castellammare, a small, pretty enough town in which a large grain trade is done. Close by was located Stabiae, where Pliny the Elder went to find Pomponianus, his friend, and where he slept on the eve of the famous eruption that covered this town and in which he perished.122 The work on uncovering it is going even more slowly than at Pompeii. When I saw it, there were three or four houses uncovered, in which could be seen a few fairly well-preserved paintings, these more vivid even than those in Pompeii, but they cover [them] back over as soon as they remove these precious objects.123 A superb pavement of giallo antico and a few vases had just been brought into the light; and as I saw that nothing in these excavations might lend itself much to my descriptions, I returned to Naples the same evening, after having taken a little glance at that portion the loss of which we mourn as soon as it is uncovered.124 125 The next day, to complete this tour and leave nothing more to see in this region, I decided to climb up Vesuvius. I left very early in the morning in order to spend the entire day there and to examine at ease such an extraordinary phenomenon of Nature, whose sports seem to incline only to her destruction, and yet nevertheless mightily serve her embellishment. To get to the summit of this extraordinary mountain, you climb for two hours.

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he relegated to the Isle of Pianosa his grandson Agrippa, in truth a stupid and brutal man, but who was innocent” (1:4). Livia was the mother of Tiberius, Augustus’s stepson and Imperial successor. Agrippa was executed around the time of Augustus’s death, although who gave the order and whether the act was carried out before or after his adoptive grandfather’s demise remains uncertain. Along with Pompeii, the resort town and port of Stabiae was destroyed in the eruption of 79 CE. In Letters, Volume I: Books 1–7, trans. Betty Radice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), Pliny the Younger reports the death of his uncle at Stabiae: “My uncle decided to go down to the shore and investigate on the spot the possibility of any escape by sea, but he found the waves still wild and dangerous. A sheet was spread upon the ground for him to lie down, and he repeatedly asked for cold water to drink. Then the flames and smell of sulphur which gave warning of the approaching fire drove the others to take flight and roused him to stand up. He stood leaning upon two slaves and then suddenly collapsed, I imagine because the dense fumes choked his breathing by blocking his windpipe which was constitutionally weak and narrow and often inflamed. When daylight returned on the 26th – two days after the last day he had been seen – his body was found intact and uninjured, stilly fully clothed and looking more like sleep than death” (442–3). Pliny the Elder’s attitude of curious detachment, maintained up the very moment of his death, made him a model for self-styled virtuosi such as Sade; see the introduction to this volume. Stabiae was rediscovered in 1749, although excavations were barely pursued during the eighteenth century and abandoned altogether in 1782. Further archaeological work had to wait until 1952, when the site was, once again, rediscovered; see the introduction to this volume. End of the third notebook titled “Continuation of the surrounding areas of Naples.” Loose leaf in Sade’s hand. Written at the top: “Vesuvius. Precise continuation of the third notebook.”

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notes on vesuvius126 You climb for two hours; the second portion is more rugged. For the last quarter, the sand begins to be very hot. At a hundred [steps before] getting there, you come across a large number of little smoking vents, which give the air and the atmosphere an unbearable taste of sulphur.127 The entire surface of the rim or lip of the former vent is full of sulphur and nitre; the little valley created by the growth of the new vent or new mountain is not large. You descend into this little valley and climb back onto [the rim] of the small mountain from which you then perceive in all its horror the dreadful abyss that serves as reservoir for the hearth; there is [produced] therein an awful noise, the smoke issues from it [with] considerable density, and from time to time thick flames leap forth with [force] and strip off very large rocks, which [makes for] a truly horrible spectacle. When these blasts are not large, they fall back [perpendicularly] and are swallowed up again into the interior. Thrown up with […] violence, they spread beyond the vent and into the little valley, but rarely do they overflow […]128

126 Loose leaf in Sade’s hand. Written at the top: “Notes on Vesuvius.” Edges frayed, with slight lacunae in the text. Suppositions provided in parentheses. 127 Marginal note: “As soon as you perceive the sulphurous smoke, it stings your eyes.” 128 The continuation is lacking.

Chapter VI

Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome1

To consolidate better the routes adjacent to the three large cities that I have just described and so that this part of the work constitutes a unified whole, you have seen that I went directly from Rome to Naples and that I have not detailed any of the objects that will be encountered on that journey. I will now take them all up prior to setting the reader down in Bologna, the first city that he comes across when returning to rejoin the route via which I have led him into Italy. The regions that I will have him travel through to get there will be a portion of the Kingdom of Naples, the entire countryside of Rome, Umbria, the March of Ancona, the edge of the Duchy of Urbino on the side of the sea, a portion of Romagna, and in conclusion, Bologna. Several interesting towns are doubtless located along that long route, but you will recall that my commitment only extends to Florence, Rome, and Naples, so I have only taken on minor details for the remainder. So many people have treated this material that I can be exempted from in-depth exploration, and the written word of famous travellers, of which I have spoken in the ­preface – handled with caution, however – can substitute for my omissions and for the more extensive clarifications that my readers might desire. Hardly have you left the suburbs of the beautiful capital that I have just described and arrived at the height called Capodichino than you gaze in all directions upon that superb plain that borders Naples on the side of Capua and that leads from one of these cities to the other via a pleasing route, planted to the left and right with poplars graced with vine branches and that everywhere gives the impression of a countryside prepared for a festival.2 It is at Capodichino where you encounter the first customs office on this return route, but it is a matter of a few carlini, and a traveller is quite happy when he can use money to extract himself from the vexation and importunity of these odious tributaries.

1 Notebook of 16 pages, written entirely in Sade’s hand and titled: “1st notebook of the Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome.” 2 Marginal note: “Cite Virgil here: Vitis ut arboribus decori est … (Buc. Eglo. V. Virg.).” From the fifth eclogue, where the poet sets forth several comparisons to Daphnis: “vitis ut arboribus decori est, ut vitibus uvae, / ut gregibus tauri, segetes ut pinguibus arvis, / tu decus omne tuis [As the vine gives glory to its trees, as the grape to the vines, as the bull to the herd, you alone give glory to your people].” Virgil, Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1999), 56–7 [ll.33–4].

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Aversa, which is about at the halfway point upon the road from Naples to Capua, is the first important object that presents itself to the traveller. At the spot called San Irpino [viz., Sant’Arpino], you must go see the ruins of ancient Atella, infamous for the excessive debauches of its inhabitants.3 Incorrectly, Monsieur Lalande seems to confuse this town with the Tuscan Atella, which was the first to try out in its theatres those farcical comedies that were called Atellanae.4 The depravity of one of these towns and the licence that was introduced little by little into the spectacles of the other might have occasioned a scorn that I recommend my readers to avoid. We read in Titus Livy that, towards the year 532 of the Roman calendar, some time after the defeat of the proconsul Fulvius by Hannibal close to Herdonia, the inhabitants of Nuceria, whose houses had been destroyed by the fire, had Senate orders to go and take up residence in Atella if they so desired,5 and those of Atella, by the same decree, were shipped off to Calatia,6 a Sicilian city at present destroyed by the earthquake of 1693.7 The stunning anachronism that Monsieurs Richard and Lalande, who seem to have copied one another in both attributing it to Robert Guiscard, commit upon the matter of the founding of this city has led me to trace the path back a little further in order to better convince my readers of the error into which these authors have fallen in this regard – an error that with a bit more research or at least research done with better works, they would have easily avoided.8 The sole desire to instruct my readers about this fact, much less than pride 3 Marginal note: “Atella.” 4 Marginal note: “Nam et comoedos, inquit, emeram, et malui illos Atellanam facere – this is what Petronius has Trimalchio say in his Satire. (See Petronius, page 208).” Sade’s page reference corresponds to the first volume of François Nodot’s translation and bilingual edition of the Satyricon: Pétrone Latin et François; Traduction entiere, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1756). This translation was first published in 1693 and frequently reprinted; it was infamous for Nodot’s forged supplements. The arriviste character is here explaining his preference for acrobats over other types of spectacle and for native over foreign entertainment: “‘Why,’ said he, ‘I once bought a Greek comedy company, but I preferred them to do Atellane plays.’” Petronius, Satyricon, trans. Michael Heseltine and revised by E.H. Warmington (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 111. Contrary to Sade’s claim, Lalande correctly identifies Atella in Campania as the traditional originator of Atellanae fabulae or Atellan Farces. He writes that the town of Atella was “famous among the Romans for witticisms and clever jests, as much as for its obscene spectacles and debauches.” See Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 6:83. Atellan Farces were Oscan in origin but much appreciated in Rome from the fourth century BCE. The Commedia dell’arte is one of the genre’s descendants. 5 Marginal note: “This historical episode is uncertain.” 6 Marginal note: “We read, in fact, Calatia in Titus Livy. But wouldn’t it make more sense for this to have been Cales, town in the vicinity of Capua?” 7 On these events and migrations, see Livy, History of Rome, trans. Frank Gardner Moore (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943), 7[bk.27, s.3]:210–13. Sade’s account in these opening pages draws frequently on Livy’s History of Rome. Unfortunately, while the author twice in the manuscript provides page references, which edition or translation Sade used remains uncertain. The best-known translation in Sade’s day was Pierre du Ryer’s Les Décades de Tite Live, avec les Suppléments de J. Freinshemius (Paris, 1653). 8 Robert Guiscard (c. 1015–1085) was a central figure in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. He first settled in Apulia, becoming duke in 1059, before expanding Norman ascendancy to Naples, Calabria, and Sicily. In his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), Jérôme Richard describes Aversa as a “town built in the tenth century by Robert Guiscard, a Norman gentleman, Duke of Puglia and Calabria, with the intention of setting it up in opposition to Naples and attracting, if he could, the inhabitants to the new town” and that “he created it from the ancient ruins of Atella, the destruction of which he completed” (4:55).

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in abashing the persons just named, has directed me towards the complete refutation that I will lay down as proof of their erroneous opinion concerning this historical episode. Let us back up and draw from the spring. In 882, the kings of France, to rid themselves of the disorders that the peoples of the North were committing upon their lands, gave up Frisia for them to inhabit. But the Normans, who accounted for part of these incursions, determined that they would not content themselves with such narrow boundaries, and under the leadership of Rollo, their chief, they soon recommenced ravaging France. During the reign of Charles the Simple, this intrepid pirate was seen to lay siege beneath the very walls of the capital, an act of valour that earned him Neustria, a province of which Normandy makes up a portion, and that Charles abandoned to him in order to obtain a bit of tranquillity from him and from those brave warriors  – to better win them over. Charles had his relative Gisela wed to Rollo, under the sole conditions of peace and Rollo’s conversion. The year 900 saw this arrangement concluded, and Neustria remained in the full possession of Rollo, who took at the time of his baptism the name of Robert, from Robert, Count of Poitiers, who had represented him at the baptismal font.9 Neustria, in turn, changed its name as well and took up that of Normandy, derived from Nordman, the name of these new barbarians from the North. Robert, 1st Duke of Normandy (in keeping with the arrangements that I have just mentioned) had a son William whom he made count of Hauteville, prerogative that he gave to him in this province. William was father of Richard, who had a son also named Richard. From this Richard II was born as well as Richard III. Robert II had a son William II, who was the father of Tancred, Count of Hauteville, whose sons made themselves rulers of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and which their descendants long governed.10 Tancred was married twice and had from his two wives twelve children. Robert Guiscard, a name that means in old Norman sharp and cunning, was one of the sons of Tancred; but these sons of Tancred were not the first Normans to come to the Kingdom of Naples. This is a very necessary distinction to make in order to avoid confusion. Those who founded Aversa had preceded them. It was towards the year 1016 that they had appeared in Italy, and it was only in 1035 that the sons of Tancred arrived there. A bit of detail, relying upon the best historians, will convince us of this. A principle of devoutness alone, inspired in the hearts of these brave warriors once they had changed religion, was the motive for their first voyage to the Kingdom of Naples.

Lalande has Aversa, destroyed by barbarians, being “rebuilt by the Normans around the year 1030 & above all by Robert Guiscard, Duke of the Normans, who, contemplating the conquest of Naples and of Capua, came to camp upon the spot that we are discussing and enlarged this town, to which he gave the name Aversa, because it served to keep at bay the two cities just mentioned” (Voyage, 5:453–4). However, later editions of Lalande’s work, e.g., Voyage en Italie (Paris, 1786), simply state that “Aversa was built around the year 1130 by the Normans, who were undertaking the conquest of Naples and Capua,” without mention of Guiscard (6:498).   9 The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte (911) between Charles III of France, known as Charles the Simple, and the Viking adventurer Rollo permitted to the “north men” (future Normans) to settle in Neustria in exchange for loyalty and protection. It is considered to be the foundational document of the Duchy of Normandy. Traditionally, Rollo was said to have married Gisela, a daughter – perhaps illegitimate – of Charles, to solidify the agreement. 10 Marginal note: “Word for word from Giannone.” Sade is citing from Pietro Giannone, Histoire civile du royaume de Naples (The Hague, 1742), 2:2.

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Two objects, likewise pious, then presented themselves in this land to the zeal of the faithful: one was Mount Gargano, since named Saint Michael because of the supposed apparition that this saint, so one says, made there; the other is Monte Cassino, already famous on account of the miracles of Saint Benedict. The former of these holy places, above all, singularly excited the devotion of these boreal men. What resulted from this quite confirms that religions must always serve as a pretext of or occasion for the upheaval of empires, as if the Eternal, offended by religious follies, used these same follies to punish those who dare believe that they honour Him in adopting them. The remoteness, the scant security of the roads, obliged these new pilgrims to set off on the path only in groups, and since frequently these little caravans went all the way to Jerusalem and only visited on the return trip the two objects that I just mentioned, which only required them to take a short detour, they often found along the route the chance to display their valour, sometimes against the Infidels, sometimes against the Saracens and the Greeks. At the beginning of the eleventh century, forty of these pious adventurers – and according to some authors, one hundred – arrived at the port of Salerno on their return trip from the Holy Land.11 This was the first time that they appeared upon these shores. The inhabitants, disposed in their favour by their noble and attractive presence, received them graciously. Guaimar III, whom Leo of Ostia calls “the Great,” had been ruling this province since the year 994 when he had succeeded Prince John, his father. The Normans received from him a thousand welcomes. He even had them prolong their stay in his States and there enjoy, as much as they pleased, the mildness of the climate. Our adventurers made the most of this, but not without soon finding an occasion to prove their gratitude to their hosts. For a long time the Saracens had the inconvenient custom of coming and pirating the coasts of Salerno. They penetrated the lands, burned, pillaged, raped all they came across and set sail again almost always happily enough, never having to suffer for an audacity that such ample success emboldened them to put to the test frequently. Chance led them to these shores at the same time that the Normans were relaxing there. Their fleet blockaded the city and prepared to hold it for ransom when the Normans, stung by the insult made to their hosts, astonished at their weakness for bending thus without resistance under the yoke, and seething to make their courage and gratitude shine, made a vigorous sortie on their own against the Saracens camped upon the beach that is between the city and the sea, and routed them all the more quickly given that the debauchery into which they habitually submerged themselves during these incursions deprived them of any ability to defend themselves and left them only the time to hastily clamber back into their vessels. Such exploits earned for the Normans more affection than ever both on the part of the prince whom they had so well defended and on the part of the people whom they had just saved from the vexation of paying such a harsh tribute. They were lavished with the most pressing offers to establish themselves at Salerno. They sensed the predicament of binding themselves to such hosts, and that, in this political offer, there was more that was self-serving than there was gratitude. The Normans turned it down. “Our only reward,” said these valiant warriors, “is utterly and entirely in the 11 Marginal note: “Quadraginta numero Normanni in habitu peregrino [Forty Normans in pilgrim garb] (Ostiens, bk.II, ch.37).” See ibid., 2:8. For Giannone’s original source, see Leo Ostiensis, Chronica Sacri Monasterii Casinensis (Paris, 1558), 244.

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pleasure we savour from having delivered you from peril. But, since you find our nation pleasing, we promise to send you some of our compatriots, for whom the account of your admirable comportment will infallibly give birth to the desire to come and to know you. Their valour will equal ours, and you will soon forget us upon seeing them.” After this generous response, the Normans left, and Guaimar was not satisfied with loading them with gifts, but even wanted to have them escorted all the way to their fatherland in order, once there, to hold them to their word. The result was as entirely successful as Guaimar could have hoped for, and the circumstance that I am going to report even better served his desires. Osmond Drengot, a favourite of Robert, Duke of Normandy, had just had a violent dispute with William Repostel, another favourite of the duke. An intrigue between Drengot and a daughter of William, indiscreetly revealed by Osmond, was the reason for their quarrel. This resulted in a duel. Respotel was killed, and his vanquisher obliged to go into exile in order to escape the ire of the sovereign, in whose company the other had been raised and who felt wronged by such an affront. Drengot first went to England, but soon informed by his compatriots of the opportunity on hand of going to Italy, he took advantage of it and brought with him not only his entire family but also all those of his compatriots who wanted to follow him. You can imagine that these foreigners, already known for their exploits, were well received in Italy. They arrived there in 1017, going first to Capua and enlisting with Melus, leader of the Bari rebels, who was utterly defeated in Cannae in the year 1019, upon that same battlefield made famous a few centuries before for the utter rout of the Romans.12 Melus, obliged to go and seek new aid, did not forget the efforts that the Normans had made in his defence. Upon leaving, he recommended them to Pandulf [IV], Prince of Capua, and to Guaimar, Prince of Salerno. The death of Melus, who ended his days at the court of the emperor Henry [i.e., Holy Roman Emperor Henry II] from whom he was soliciting aid in vain, released the Normans and put them in a position to seek out new masters. Some of them distinguished themselves in the service of the abbot of Monte Cassino and delivered his States from perpetual competition with the counts of Aquino; others, under the protection of Benedict VIII, withdrew with Datus, the brother-in-law and associate of Melus, into the tower of Garigliano, which belonged to the Church. However, the story of the betrayals of Pandulf, Prince of Capua, might well have undone both the one and the other of these Norman factions, and perhaps one would have no more heard tell of them, if a lucky star had not raised them, as if miraculously, above their bad fortune and if Providence from their very abasement had not devised their ascent. Henry, whom the troubles created by Pandulf’s betrayal had forced to travel to Italy in 1022, took into his service these Normans, whose praises and valour were rapidly spreading by word of mouth. Pandulf was captured, condemned to death, and his sentence commuted to perpetual exile. Henry brought him with him, in irons, and forced him to return to his States. It was to the brave Normans, from whom he had received during his expedition so many important services, that he entrusted the execution of his plans for Italy, ordering them first and foremost to aid the nephews of the unfortunate Melus, whenever they might find themselves in need. Next, he recommended these same warriors to the princes 12 Melus of Bari, leader of the Lombard troops, supplemented by Norman mercenaries, was defeated by the occupying Byzantines at Cannae in 1018. The Romans had succumbed to Hannibal’s smaller forces there during the Second Punic War in 216 BCE.

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of Benevento, Salerno, and to Pandulf of Teano, the new prince of Capua, expressly telling them to employ them whenever they might find themselves in need of them. “But these princes,” says Giannone, “soon forgot the major obligations that the Lombards owed the Normans and the valour with which they served against the Greeks. They scorned them, either because they judged that they no longer had need of them or, in the end, because the favour Henry bestowed upon them excited their jealousy. They abandoned them and left them to wander in the forests, without giving them any abode nor even giving them the pay that had hitherto been accorded them.”13 Then these warriors, as ardent on behalf of their own interests as they had appeared to be up until now on behalf of those of their new hosts, resolved to procure for themselves with weapons that which they looked incapable of obtaining by other means. They chose a leader. Turstin, a man of prodigious valour and strength, was unanimously recognized by his nation to be worthy of governing them, but he hardly enjoyed this honour. At his death, only Rainulf [Drengot], the brother of [Osmond] Drengot, was in a position to command, and he was unanimously acknowledged as chief and leader of the Normans, and it is starting from said Rainulf that we can begin to count the fixed establishment of the Normans in Italy, and this well before the sons of Tancred dreamed of going there. The death of Henry, which occurred according to several authors in 1025 and according to others in 1024, changed the face of matters in Italy. Pandulf of Teano, successor of Pandulf IV, whom Henry and his successor Conrad detained as a prisoner, made himself detested by his peoples, by his neighbours, and by the Normans, who did not spare his lands from their incursions. Guaimar III, of whom I have already spoken, more stung than anyone by the conduct of Teano, resolved to take advantage of the favour he had figured out how to acquire from Conrad, successor to Henry, to demand the freedom of Pandulf IV, whose brother-in-law he was. He obtained this, and what was still more pleasing, the favour of having him put back in possession of his States. Rainulf and his brave warriors embraced, as you might imagine, such a quarrel with joy, and the former prince was soon restored. Teano, divested, asked for asylum from Sergius, Duke of Naples, and obtained it. It is then that we see what fault a vengeance without limits and an overweening ambition makes sovereigns commit. Pandulf IV, no longer harkening but to his feelings, pursued his vanquished enemy into the bosom of the States of his protector, and soon, by another principle still less excusable, forgot the services that he had just received from the Normans. “This poor comportment decided them, at last, to procure for themselves some nearby place suitable for a commodious abode. They cast their eyes first upon a spot that is thought to be the one today called Ponte a Selice [or Ponte Felice], three miles above Aversa and where the earth seemed quite fertile. But when they prepared to build in this place, they found the terrain so marshy that they abandoned it and sought in the environs some more commodious spot. They established themselves at last (says Giannone, upon the authority of several historians) in the one where they built the town that was subsequently called after their name Norman Aversa [Aversa Normanna].”14

13 Cited from Giannone, Histoire civile, 2:16. 14 Marginal note: “Giannone word for word.” Sade’s text is once again a citation from Gianonne, which the reader might be interested to compare here in English. In Pietro Giannone, The Civil History of the Kingdom of Naples, trans. James Ogilvie (London, 1729), we find:

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Rainulf, chief of his nation, soon possessed it as a county. Nonetheless, the hatred of Pandulf IV burst out so violently against the protector of his enemy that he marched on Naples. Sergius, surprised, is obliged to flee; he addressed himself to the Normans. The latter, charmed to find an opportunity to punish the ingratitude of Pandulf, warmly embrace his quarrel. Pandulf is chased from Naples and Sergio restored, but faithful to his commitments, this prince, far from forgetting what he owes to the count of Aversa, makes an alliance with him and marries a relative of the count, and with the intention of protecting himself more and more from the ventures of Pandulf, he increases the strength of his ally by naming him count of the Normans, upholding and confirming more than ever his possessions and bestowing upon him all the territory that bordered that new city and that covered the Duchy of Naples. And since the duke was resolved to keeping up an aversion between the Normans and the prince of Capua, it is thought that it is on this account that their city was named Aversa.15 Such is the veritable origin of this city, built and fortified by Rainulf more than ten years before the arrival of Robert Guiscard in Italy, who went there long after his brothers and only on account of Rainulf’s entreaties. Subsequently, the emperor Conrad confirmed the title, the rights, the privileges of the new count of Aversa, and such was the origin of the first possessions of those peoples in the kingdom of Naples who, as we have seen in the abridged history that I have given of this city, spread a great deal afterwards. For every anachronism committed on this topic by Messieurs Richard and Lalande, I could pick out an even greater error committed by the latter. I will ask him by what right he describes Guiscard as duke of the Normans. Never did he take on this title. In 1059 we see him use only that of dux Apuliae, etc., Calabriae, but never that of the duke of the Normans. When he came before his subjects, wearing the ducal dress and crown, and with his privileges and his diplomas, that was the title he used. With the slightest bit of reflection, similar faults would be avoided, and the effect of these, always unflattering for the author, can produce only error in the minds of readers of little learning and disgust in the minds of those who have acquired a bit more knowledge. Monsieur Richard, although guilty of the first error that attributes the founding of

PANDULPHUS IV. Like all ambitious Men, not satisfied with having recover’d his former Principality, was grievously offended that Pandulphus of Tiano should be protected by Sergius, so that he began under this Pretence to resolve upon new Enterprizes against the Dukedom of Naples. HE had not shewn himself so grateful to the Normans as the important Service they had done him at this Juncture deserv’d, wherefore they resolv’d to establish themselves in some Place in that Neighbourhood: They first pitch’d upon a Place, which is thought to be that which we now call Ponte a Selice, three Miles above Aversa, which appear’d to be the most Fertile ; but when they began to build, the Foundation prov’d Marshy, therefore they quitted it, and built their City at some Distance from it, which afterwards, from their Name was call’d Aversa la Normanna, and was possess’d by Rainulphus with the Title of Count, for Reasons which we shall relate. (412) 15 Marginal note: “Jean Villani, Chron. Neap., bk.I, ch.60.” The author to whom Sade is referring is Giovanni Villani (c. 1276–1348), best known for his Nuova Cronica, an account of Florentine history that was continued by his brother Matteo Villani and the latter’s son Filippo Villani after the original author’s death. The work to which Sade refers is the Cronaca di Partenope, which bears a convoluted relationship to Villani’s writings. On the manuscript histories, see Samantha Kelly, The Cronaca di Partenope: An Introduction to and Critical Edition of the First Vernacular History of Naples (c. 1350), 103–47. Sade’s source for this reference is not the original but rather Giannone, Histoire civile, 2:20.

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Aversa to Guiscard, does not, however, fall into the second and only describes him as he deserves to be.16 We will not follow further the history of this city, which experienced various upheavals in the wars that assailed the Kingdom of Naples. Sometimes destroyed, at other times rebuilt, it was usually an important post given its proximity to the capital. Today, it is not much of anything, and at the nearby ruins, which I mentioned were about a mile away, I noticed nothing that would make my readers stop there. Eight miles from Aversa, continuing along what is a lovely route, you find New Capua [Capua Novo], located on the Volturno. This city was previously called Casilinum. I was astonished that this anecdote should have escaped the erudition of all our modern travellers and that they have been content to talk about Old Capua [Capua Vetere], without saying a word about the city that was on the spot where New Capua is or that, like Monsieur Richard, they should have flatly asserted that it was built upon land that had hitherto been uninhabited.17 Casilinum existed still at the same time as Ancient Capua and was located three miles from it, upon the same spot, as I have just said, where today is built New Capua. Three prisoners, taken by Hannibal at Trasimene, offered to lead this general to Capua. He consented to this, but wanted beforehand to make himself master of Monte Cassino, as a position necessary to hold first. He ordered his guide to take him there, but the latter, misunderstanding him, led him to Casilinum on the Volturno. Hannibal camped there and had the guide hanged. Titus Livy, who provides us with this episode, also tells us that recruits, who came from Praeneste and who were going to join the Roman army, withdrew there, learning of the defeat of that army at Cannae.18 This manoeuvre stunned Hannibal; he marched there, fearing a desertion of the Capuans, but the Praenestians resolved either to do themselves honour from this position or to at least sell their lives at a very high price to the enemy. Fearing that they would be betrayed by the Casilinians, they took the decision to slit all their throats one night, and they strengthened themselves with the plan to hold out in the part of the town beyond the Volturno, which, Livy adds, divided it into two: a more-than-convincing proof that it occupies the same location that today New Capua occupies. The Carthaginian general decided to use politics; he proposed a settlement that these brave recruits refused. Isalca, an African captain, advanced to the walls; the silence that he remarked led him to assume they had evacuated. He marches with confidence, but imagine his surprise upon seeing the gates suddenly open and the allies of the Romans tumultuously descend upon him. Isalca is pushed back, Maharbal takes his place and likewise experiences the vigour of the besieged. Finally, the general himself advances and soon withdraws, renouncing the plan to seize straightaway a place that he had deemed should take up only a moment. It is from here that he left for Capua, contenting himself with blockading the town, and that he committed that enormous mistake in which the Romans found their salvation but

16 Marginal note: “See Lalande, page 453 and following of volume V, and Richard, page 55 of volume IV.” 17 Marginal note: “See Richard, vol. IV, page 54.” 18 Marginal note: “Put the name here of the one who lost it; that will be more elegant.” Sade presumably wished to name the consul Gaius Terentius Varro, who along with Lucius Aemilius Paullus, commanded the Romans at Cannae, where the forces of Hannibal defeated their numerically stronger adversary in 216 BCE, a decisive event in the Second Punic War and a demonstration of Carthaginian tactical prowess. The calamitous Roman defeat is reported in Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929), 5[bk.22, s.43–51]:342–67.

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that dishonoured their enemies who, doubtless blinded by their success, preferred a tranquil winter over the ambition of pushing them farther. We know how much the delights of Capua cost his army, to what degree his brave soldiers effeminized themselves, and the sweet satisfaction that the Romans enjoyed in seeing at the end of a few months the laurels of Cannae, Trebia, and Trasimene changed into Capuan myrtles.19 No discipline, says Titus Livy, was any longer seen to govern this army that the women had enervated. A portion of the soldiers who left that capital dragged in their retinue objects of conquest quite different from those that had previously served their lustre, and the greater portion of the rest, not glimpsing the pain of separating themselves from them, returned at the end of a few days to wallow in pleasures that seemed to them no longer possible to forget. Casilinum became again the subject of Hannibal’s primary concerns at the end of that dangerous winter. The situation in which the blockade had left them had little allowed them to share in the pleasures of their neighbours. A dreadful famine had been the contrast. Rather than surrendering, says our historian, they were seen to expose their naked bodies on the top of the ramparts to the missiles of their enemies, courageously imploring a swift death that their terrible situation made them prefer to the awful tortures that hunger was preparing for them. Finally, Gracchus arrived to bring them some succour. The magistrates were instructed to watch for anything that the current of the river might carry along, and barrels of wheat and nuts were allowed to flow, which, restoring them to both strength and life, soon reanimated both their courage and their hope. Such dissimulations did not long escape, however, the notice of Carthaginian cunning. Hannibal discovered these aids and cut them off. It was then, says our historian, that famine produced in that unfortunate town those terrible effects that it seems Nature condones and disallows simultaneously. The vilest animals, leather, skins from shields became the food of these wretches, and the barbaric African pushed cruelty to the point of having torn out along the ramparts the plants that these unfortunates endeavoured to gather to make a little less horrible the cruel nourishment that the interior of their walls offered them. But what acme of courage and of resolution! They were seen to intrepidly replace these uprooted plants with new seeds, as if not at all vexed about their awful fate, they had formed the plan to wait patiently for the vegetation from these seeds to provide them with new succour. Such composure disconcerted Hannibal. “Do they believe,” he said bitterly, “that we are going to give them the time to let these seeds mature?” The capitulation that he offered was the reward for their courageous resolve. Seven ounces of gold per head was the ransom proposed, and the unhappy circumstances in which they found themselves did not allow for refusal. The poor state of the Romans’ coffers did not prevent them from acknowledging the bravery of their allies. Having returned to Praeneste, statues were erected to the leaders, and the soldiers received double payment for their services: doubtless meagre reward for ordinary men, but sufficient for such who, led more by honour than by any view to gain, found themselves already recompensed by that which the valiant action of stopping the tracks of the victors of Cannae had acquired for them. A Carthaginian garrison was established in Casilinum, and afterwards, as beforehand, this place, remaining forgotten by all our travellers, of whom there is nonetheless not a one who did not sleep among its ruins, was regarded both by the Romans and by the Carthagians as a place the position of which on the Volturno made ever essential for supplies.

19 Laurels signify Hannibal’s victories at the named places. The myrtle, sacred to Venus, aptly symbolizes the softening of his army overwintering in Capua.

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It was at Casilinum that the Appian Way joined with the Via Latina. Finally, three miles from here was located that famous Capua, which today proffers only the saddest remains of its past grandeur. Its founding, much more ancient than that of Rome, goes back to Capys,20 that companion of Aeneas who was wise enough to counsel – but in vain – sounding the flanks of that deadly contrivance that was the ruin of the Trojans: At Capys, et quorum melior sententia menti Aut pelago Danaum insidias suspectaque dona Praecipitare jubent subjectisque urere flammis, Aut terebrare cavas uteri et temptare latebras.21

Capys gave his name to this city, which was subsequently transformed into Capua. This magnificent city, which held, after Rome and Carthage, first rank among all the cities of the universe, was the capital of Campania and occupied the top of the lovely semicircle that this province forms. The fertility of its soil, the gentleness and amenity of its climate, made it a more delightful place to stay than its two rivals, one of which was burned by the sun and the other often exposed to dangerously insalubrious air.22 For it alone was undertaken that magnificent Appian Way, the remains of which we often travel along.23 Become the conquest of the masters of the universe, it is well worth some consideration. It is easy to be convinced, in fact, that the number of the miles inscribed upon the columns placed along this route went in exact order up to Capua and then began again after this city. Viam Appiam e porta Capena usque ad urbem Capuam muniandam curavit, says Frontinus (De Aque [sic] bk. II).24 It was only after the conquest of the Samnites that it was 20 Marginal note: “Cite the Aeneid: ‘Et Capys: hinc nomen Campanae ducitur urbi.’” Translated: “and Capys, from whom comes the name of the Campanian city.” Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 182–3 [bk.10, l.145]. 21 Translated: “But Capys, and they whose minds were wiser in counsel, bid us either hurl headlong into the sea this guile of the Greeks, this distrusted gift, or fire it with flames heaped beneath; or else pierce and probe the hollow hiding place of the belly.” Virgil, Eclogues, 318–19 [bk.2, ll.35–8]. The reference is, of course, to the Trojan horse. 22 Marginal note: “Horace tells us that he goes to his country villa to avoid the bad air of Rome. This disadvantage has thus existed at all times in this great city. I already had occasion to talk about this under the heading of Rome.” The salubrious life in the country compared with the various ills, including disease brought about by so-called bad air, in the city, recurs throughout Horace’s oeuvre. Sade likely has in mind the opening of Epistle 1:7, “Only a week was I to stay in the country – such was my promise – but, false to my word, I am missed the whole month of August. And yet, if you would have me live sound and in good health, the indulgence which you grant me when ill you will grant me when I fear to become ill, while the first figs and the heat adorn the undertaker with his black attendants, while every father and fond mother turns pale with fear for the children, and while diligence in courtesies and the Forum’s petty business bring on fevers and unseal wills.” Horace, Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 294–5 [Ep.1.7, ll.1–9]. 23 Marginal note: “If you have discussed this above, you will place here what, consequently, is needed.” 24 Sade’s reference is to Sextus Iulius Frontinus (c. 40–103 CE), De aquaeductu urbis Romae and his citation reads in English: “had the charge of constructing the Appian Road from Porta Capena as far as the City of Capua.” On the Water-Management of the City of Rome, trans. R.H. Rodgers, 2003; http://www.uvm.edu /~rrodgers/Frontinus.html (accessed 15 Nov. 2017). Frontinus is referring to the censor Appius Claudius in 312 BCE, who at the same time had the charge of bringing the Aqua Appia into Rome.

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extended up to Benevento and then to Brindisi, when for more far-reaching projects, this port seemed favourable for foreign excursions. The city of Capua, Titus Livy tells us, was at all times devoted to superfluities. From abundance in excess was born immoderate luxury, and from the latter an insubordination that soon made them scorn all restraints and laws. These guilty walls enclosed all the excesses of the most criminal debauchery, to the extent that even the Africans learned corruption in their school. And in this superb city, which Hannibal found that only to Carthage could it be compared, the most utter impudence, insouciance, laziness, the most frenzied debauchery, an odious luxury were either the fashionable virtues or at least vices so tolerated that one might have almost blushed not to have them. Inconstancy and weakness were the necessary consequences, and it is not without basis that our historian paints it as ever floating upon the uncertainty of fate, which alone could determine the lucky star of the conqueror. Nonetheless, we see there some persons of courage who were still steadfast enough to escape by death from the shame of falling into the hands of the last of these vanquishers, when in 539 [by Livy’s reckoning], it appeared certain that it was going to at last become the conquest of Rome. Indignant at having been betrayed, this proud rival [i.e., Rome] did not patiently suffer such an affront, and its gates [i.e., Capua’s] were only opened to allow the stunning sight of the most horrible vengeance. The senators were decapitated, three hundred of the principal inhabitants were dragged into dungeons, and the citizens dispersed to the extent that, although the walls and the buildings were respected, the solitude therein became so great that it no longer had any function beyond serving as a retreat for the peasants from the countryside who desired to find refuge there. Monsieur Lalande has cited that sublime episode of the twenty-seven leaders of the African faction who poisoned themselves at supper rather than serving the rage of the vanquisher, but he has omitted the one about one of those brave citizens who complained to Fulvius, responsible for so many barbarous executions, of the delay he was taking in piercing his flank. “Go on, hurry up,” he said to him, “put me quickly to death so that you might boast of saying that you made perish a man more virtuous than yourself!” Then, seeing that Fulvius avoided running him through thanks to the new order that he had just received to show more clemency: “It is too late,” continued the brave Capuan. “Why do you wish me to survive? Look at the still bleeding cadavers of my entire family, which I have just massacred myself so that they might avoid the shame or the infamy that you were doubtless preparing for them. They must be joined. Delight in your crimes and look at me!” With these words, he ran himself through and fell lifeless at the feet of the barbarous executioner of Roman political infamies.25 A few centuries effaced such regrettable impressions. Rome, mistress of the entire universe, forgot the wrongs of Capua. It repopulated, but its initial lustre was never to be recovered and its rival eclipsed it forever. Second Notebook of the Route from Rome to Naples26 After the fall of the empire, it [Capua] was in turn destroyed and rebuilt by the Barbarians who devastated Italy. 25 The story of Taurea Vibellius, somewhat garbled in Sade’s account, demanding his own execution after witnessing the seizure of Capua, the deaths of friends and relatives, and having killed his wife and children lest they suffer indignities at the hands of the conquering Romans, will be found in Livy, History of Rome, 7[bk.26, ch.15, 11–15]):58–61. 26 Notebook of 16 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand.

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Genseric, king of the Vandals, destroyed it in 455 and not in the sixth century, as the not-much-of-a chronologist Monsieur Richard writes (page 50, vol. IV), which would be all the more difficult to reconcile with that cruel king’s death in 477, that is to say, before the end of the fifth.27 Capua, under the dominion of the Lombard princes, was called Sicopolis, although located still, however, upon the spot of its former splendour. It was only towards the middle of the ninth century that Landulf was named count of Capua and moved the inhabitants of the ancient city to Casilinum, where they brought part of the spoils of their former city. Landulf increased his strength in his new abode, which the position of the Volturno had made seem to him preferable. It was upon this topic that, questioning the persons of his court about the name he would give to his new city, one of them answered that it should be named Rebellopolis rather than Sicopolis, name of the old one that was desired to be kept for the new, because, added the courtier, with a place of this importance, the subjects of your other States will be little disposed to obey you if you do not take care to bind them by reciprocal marriages. 28 This Landulf (says Giannone) governed his county as a free and independent sovereign. It is to him that one traces back to their origin the first counts of the capital of Campania. Some authors have believed that it was Lando, his son, who moved the inhabitants of Capua to Casilinum. If we adopt this opinion, which seems to me the most likely, it is then in 854 that we must situate exactly the epoch of that move. Landulf died in 842. His son Lando succeeded him with the same title and the same authority, and reigned for thirteen years and nine months. In the year 900, Atenulf, Count of Capua, united to his small States the principality of Benevento, whose inhabitants had come to implore his succour against the vexations of their sovereign. He did so without, however, changing his title, as some have falsely claimed, among others the anonymous author of the [Chronicle of ] Salerno.29 The peoples, in truth, seeing their sovereigns become more powerful, imperceptibly became accustomed to giving them the title of prince, but the State did not for all that take up the designation. You read the authentic proof of this in an accord made between Gregory, Duke of Naples, and the sovereigns of Capua, renewed by the nephew of Gregory in 933, in which we read: In toto principatu vestro Benevento cum omnibus suis pertinentiis, nec in toto comitatu Capuano, nec in Teano cum omnibus pertinentiis suis.30

Which serves to prove that if the counts of Capua were called princes, this was only as a result of their possession of Benevento, a territorial augmentation that returned to the capital some slight fraction of its former splendour. 27 Richard perplexingly places Genseric’s sacking of Capua in the sixth century; the current dating of the event is 456 CE (see Description, 4:50). 28 Marginal note: “St Marc., page 441, first volume.” The reference is to Charles Hugues Lefebvre de SaintMarc, Abrégé chonologique de l’histoire générale d’Italie depuis la chûte de l’Empire Romain en Occident, 6 vols. (Paris, 1761–1770). 29 The Chronicon Salernitatem was a tenth-century chronicle of the Principality of Salerno, although Sade’s source is Giannone, Histoire civile, 1:586–7. 30 Translated: “In all of your principality of Benevento along with all of its dependencies, yet neither in the entire county of Capua nor in Teano, along with all of their dependencies.” Sade is citing from Giannone, ibid., 1:587.

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In truth, subsequently, they did have the title (of prince), but this was only several years after and thanks to the event that I am going to recount. In 963, Otto I, called by the Italians to oppose the vexations that Berengar, who had usurped the title of emperor, extended over the Lombard princes a more absolute authority than that of Charlemagne.31 Everything was united under his empire, and each little prince made it a pleasure and duty to acknowledge him as king of Italy and to declare himself his vassal. Pandulf, known as Ironhead, who was then ruling in Capua, was one of those who best knew how to insinuate himself into the prince’s favour. Having his lands generally raised to principalities was his reward. Such a favour was soon followed by another. John XIII, five years later, in recognition of the good services that he received from the prince of Capua, when his disgrace forced him to seek refuge in his States, raised his capital to the status of a metropolitan see.32 You will note that this was the first city in the Kingdom of Naples that the popes dignified with this elevated status of metropolis. Its suffragans, about the same as those of that time, are the bishops of Caiazzo, of Carinola, of Calvi, of Caserta, of Teano, and of Venafro.33 Aquino, Fondi, Gaeta, and Sora were former dependants, but they have been placed under the direct dependency of the Apostolic See, whatever might say the inaccurate compilers of the Dictionnaire d’Italie, which still includes the four latter ones among the suffragans of the archbishop of Capua, based upon the authority of a few of those inept travellers whom they have doubtless, as is their wont, used as guides.34 In the end, the Normans, masters of Aversa, desired to extend their conquest. In 1057, their ambition turned to Capua. Pandulf V was ruling at the time. Seven thousand gold scudi that he paid the Normans suspended for some time their ambitions, which were soon reawakened with the death of this prince. Richard, Count of Aversa, laid siege again to Capua, which to liberate itself, tried to offer an even greater sum than the one already paid, but in vain.35 Landulf, son of the deceased prince, was forced to abandon his States, and in 1058, the victorious Richard was declared prince of Capua. However, a difficulty remained. At all times, the Capuans had reserved for themselves the right to preserve and protect their gates and their towers. Richard wanted to contest this right. He renewed the siege before the city; the desperate inhabitants implored succour from the emperor, but without effect. Hunger reduced the proud Capuans, and in 1062, the moment that we can consider as that when this principality passed from the domination of the Lombards to that of the Normans, the city, with all qualifications, was placed under Richard’s discretion, who transferred this

31 Berengar II, King of Italy, had invaded the Papal States in 960. In 963 he was defeated by the forces of Otto I of Germany (912–973), who had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor the previous year. 32 Pope John XIII, having inspired the Roman nobles to revolt against him, was captured and imprisoned in the Castel Sant’Angelo in 965. Moved to Campagna, the pontiff escaped and made his way to Capua, ruled by Pandulf Ironhead. As Sade explains, John in gratitude for Pandulf’s succour raised Capua to the status of a metropolitan see. The pope was restored to power in Rome shortly thereafter. 33 Marginal note: “Add a note about Venafro.” What this note might have included is not obvious, although Sade will later remark that the area was renowned in Roman times for its olives and olive products. 34 Sade’s reference seems to be the anonymously published Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie, which lists Aquino, Fondi, Gaeta, and Sora among the episcopal dependencies of Capua (see 1:232). 35 Marginal note: “See Ostiens, bk.III, ch. 6.” Sade’s source is Giannone, Histoire civile (2:71), which provides the cited book and chapter reference to the work of Leo Ostiensis in the margins. See p. 327n11 above.

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to his race, whence it subsequently passed to those courageous Normans, the descendants of Tancred, Count of Hauteville. But a horrible thing and one for which fame will never pardon Richard was having left in poverty the greatest of princes whom he had dispossessed, to the extent that they were seen begging for bread in various corners of Italy where they had withdrawn – and what is more terrible still, in the very lands that had formerly belonged to them. Would it not be possible that there might still in the Kingdom of Naples be unknown descendants of these princes, muddled beneath the rags of misery, but whose hearts would still preserve perhaps the sentiments of their noble origin? For a sensible soul, such a revelation would be well worth, it seems to me, a monument. Towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the emperor Frederick II established at Capua the tribunal called the Corte Capuana, the purpose of which was to examine the titles of possession of the various lords of the region so as to verify whether these titles were legitimate or whether they only held their possessions thanks to the troubles and wars that had only so recently torn asunder their fatherland. A short while later, in 1251, when his son Conrad, King of Germany, entered into Italy at the head of a numerous army to oppose the extravagant behaviour of Innocent IV, Capua was one of the first cities that surrendered to him. Finally, the last important epoch of this city is the secure state into which Don Carlos put it, at the beginning of our century, when he had seized it after the Battle of Bitonto, when he had himself declared king of Naples.36 Since that time, this city has not changed in appearance, and it is still today one of the most important places in the Kingdom of Naples; the garrison here is numerous and the castle well guarded. At present prisoners of the State are held there, and in particular, Turks or Algerians who are enslaved. They are extremely rigorous about passports there, and the first sentry asks you for yours and takes care to bring it to you at your inn as soon as it is checked. This procedure is rigorous, but it does not, by quite a bit, take as long as Monsieur Lalande describes. Capua is populated by approximately nine thousand people, although it could contain twenty thousand.37 You see some fairly pretty churches and some fairly well laid out roads. The barracks and the castle there are in good condition. You note few or no interesting monuments, and the few antiquities that you see are fragments from Old Capua, which the greed or the curiosity of the inhabitants has had over time transported here. Moreover, the city as

36 Marginal note: “Write this better. This was, I think, in 1734.” Sade’s date is correct: an important battle in the War of the Polish Succession, Spanish forces defeated the Austrians near Bitonto in the Kingdom of Naples on 25 May 1734. Sade’s Don Carlos is the eventual Charles III of Spain (1716–1788), who at the time of the Battle of Bitonto was Duke of Parma. In July of 1735, he was crowned Charles VII of Naples and Charles V of Sicily. 37 Marginal note: “Monsieur Richard has said ten to twelve thousand people; this is too many. Monsieur Lalande has said five thousand; this is not enough. The most amusing of all is the Dictionnaire, which, copying both of these authors simultaneously and not knowing which to prefer, has emulated the one by stating (volume 1, page 229) that ‘New Capua has approximately five thousand people’ and then suddenly (page 232) stating on the same subject: ‘The population of Capua is between ten and twelve thousand people.’ You will admit that here is one of those ineptitudes – or rather one of those little literary base deeds – the motive for which is difficult to excuse or to praise.” Sade is correct that the source in question contradicts itself on the subject of Capua’s population. See anonymous, Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie, 1:229 and 1:232.

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a whole is fairly pretty, and you will nowhere find that feeling of dilapidation that Monsieur Lalande describes. On the contrary, the garrison gives it a lively feeling that you do not find in many of the other cities of Italy in its class. There are some houses in which known foreigners are admitted with as much amenity as civility. They seek to imitate the manners and fashions of the capital: a weakness common in all provincial cities in all the States in the world. Monsieur Grosley has cheerfully mocked the inns of Capua and charmingly protested the so-called delights that his procacciatore38 assured him that they would find together in this city.39 The lodgings there are detestable, I agree, and the nourishment unworkable, but it is nonetheless easy to see through all this that there is a dose of the fictional and exaggerated in the description, meant to provide local colour, of the poor supper that he had at the home of his driver. The house that he describes is today the post house; it is still the best inn in the city, or more aptly put, the least bad. Further, if you are poorly maintained, you pay little: three carlini per dinner and four per supper is just about the usual price in all the inns on this route. Even in France, you would be everywhere fairly poorly maintained for such a price; one must therefore not complain, and one must avoid bias as much as possible. The cathedral of Capua is not in the least built upon the foundations of an antique temple, as some authors have claimed.40 Not, as Monsieur Richard says, because this is not possible since it is located upon new terrain (a hypothesis that I have already refuted), but simply because it was not. This church is decorated with several antique spoils, but in itself it is nothing. The courtyard is adorned with a marble and granite colonnade of various orders, for the most part Composite. Beneath the gallery created by this colonnade are some ancient tombs that have nothing noteworthy about them. In general, this entire church, which the majority of our modern travellers have characterized as pretty, is like all those in Naples, stamped with the coin of barbarism and bad taste. Eighteen granite columns, for the most part in the Corinthian order – and not twentyfour, as Grosley says – separate off the aisles at each side. The organ is supported by other

38 Procacciatore means “procurer” or “agent.” In Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et sur les italiens, par deux Gentilshommes Suédois (London, 1764), Pierre-Jean Grosley gives a short account of his stay in Capua, taking the opportunity to exercise his quill in sarcastic complaint: Our curiosity satisfied, we returned to our lodgings, in the mood to do honour to the good food that the procaccio [sic] had festively prepared. The meticulous preparations consisted in a rather dirty sheet stretched over three planks supported by two benches. Two old bicchieri or earthenware ewers were filled with bad wine; and it was announced that glasses were not the custom in this country, we drank in rounds from the bicchieri. A haunch of old billy goat, a fricassee cooked with lamp oil, and a salad made up the feast, along with bread as bad as the wine. It was impossible for me to touch this fine fare, and my supper shrunk to a few fruits that I devoured without bread. As for sleeping arrangements, these consisted in three straw mattresses, each having a sort of old sack for all the trimmings. My travelling companions were courageous enough to make do, but the vermin with which these beds swarmed made them soon repent of their temerity. More prudent than they, I had sequestered myself in an attic, where, on some fresh straw, I spent the night relatively peacefully. Such were for us the delights of Capua. (3:36–7) 39 Marginal note: “I remark in passing that this city is the fatherland of Pope Hormisdas. A note here.” A pope of the early Church, who lived from 450 to 523; his papacy was marked by the Acacian Schism, in the resolution of which he played a crucial part. Hormisdas was from Frusino (present-day Frosinone in Lazio), not Capua. 40 Marginal note: “The cathedral.”

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columns, likewise granite, noteworthy for their thickness, which I have not counted among this number. You see in this church some poor paintings, which the sacristan says are by Solimena, a fantasy that Monsieur Lalande has copied, doubtless under his dictation. But if you deign, while contemplating them, to recall somewhat the swagger of Solimena, his firm touch, learned and free, his vivid and vigorous colouring, you will see how far distant are these feeble pieces therefrom, how blinded one must be to be thus mistaken, or how unjust to dishonour the memory of so great a man by attributing such poor works to him.41 The underground chapel, graced with a marble and granite colonnade, which differs with respect to both its capitals and its material [sic], contains a sepulchre upon which you see a dead Christ, attributed by Monsieur Lalande to Bernini, doubtless upon the same authority that made him take the daubings in this church as Solimena’s, and it is surely as a result of this that he thought necessary to bestow the greatest praise upon this Christ. The truth is that it is by [Matteo] Bottiglieri, a mediocre Neapolitan sculptor, and instead of “admirable posture,” “head of utmost beauty,” and other luxuriant accolades that Monsieur Lalande bestows upon it, it is as a work without verve, without strength, and without naturalness, cumbrously conceived, and upon which your eyes cannot pause even for a moment without suffering. Good Lord! Is it possible to suppose Bernini capable of having worked in this style? To believe this and to have written it is to have quite renounced the light of taste, of good sense, and of reason. This entire sepulchre, enriched with mosaics, precious marbles such as verd antique, porphyry, etc., nevertheless proclaims, in its accessories as much as in the main thing, all the bad taste and ponderousness imaginable. Close by is a tomb decorated with an antique bas-relief that depicts the hunt of Meleager, which surely, given the poor style it exudes, served as model for the sculptor who worked the modern one.42 The Pietà statue, which you see upon the altar of this subterranean chapel and which Monsieur Lalande likewise attributes to Bernini, is no better than the rest and allows you to see, from the praises that this art lover has bestowed upon the same, that either his knowledge or his eyes were frightfully faulty on the day he examined them. The ruins of Old Capua are located two miles from the present-day city. At the inns you will find ever at the ready carriages to take you there for a fare of some three or four carlini. The route is superb. Having arrived at the site that this famous city occupied, you consider with pleasure the fragments of its splendour, which are, however, reduced to not much of anything. The remnants of an amphitheatre, a fragment of triumphal arch, and some bits of wall are all to be seen today of the proud rival of Rome and Carthage. The amphitheatre is oval in shape, constructed from enormous stone blocks, but it seems much smaller than the one in Rome. It had three levels and not four, as Monsieur Richard says. These three levels are still fairly well preserved, and you can easily clamber all about. You see considerable parts of the corridors. All the exterior facings were marble. Monsieur Cochin observed four entranceways. I will not contradict his opinion, but it seemed to me that there could have only ever been two.43 One survives fairly intact; you can make out the Tuscan order; this was used on the exterior for the entire first level. Some fragments of the 41 And yet, the altarpiece depicting the Assumption of the Virgin in the Duomo di Capua is the work of Francisco Solimena. 42 That is, the antique bas-relief on the tomb served as a model of mediocrity for the artist responsible for the modern sepulchre. 43 Marginal note: “Put certainly four entranceways.” Sade’s source notes that there were “four large entrances, more remarkable than those of the Colosseum of Rome,” which structure he notes was considerably larger.

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second level allow you to discern that the Doric was used for the second order. As for the third, nothing allows one to make it out. A few of the large staircases that led to the tiers still provide a fairly complete notion of what they were. A water pipe, which you note on the ground level, appears to confirm that the interior of this arena was also used for naumachiae. On the whole, this monument is quite removed from the beauties of the one in Rome; there is a ponderousness, a lack of proportion in the details, and artistically enlightened eyes will discern some faults throughout. I thus dare assert that the pompous accolade that Monsieur Richard bestows is utterly shocking to good taste and plausibility.44 A bit before arriving at this monument, you see quite distinctly the remnants of a triumphal arch, which Monsieur Cochin has deemed the city gate without this being in the least likely. Monsieur Lalande, who copied him word for word on this subject – you can convince yourself of this by comparing page 451 of the fifth volume of Lalande with 125 of the first volume of Cochin – has said the same thing.45 But both of them are mistaken. The monument that they have designated with the name of gate is quite certainly a triumphal arch that, in spite of its dilapidated state, nevertheless still displays fairly lovely proportions and more than is needed to assign it a more accurate name than the two authors that I have just cited have done. Combing through these ruins and climbing those that are the most elevated, you discover the most lovely land in the universe at your feet: all that beautiful countryside of Naples, Mount Vesuvius smoking in the distance and making one of the most beautiful sights in this tableau, the mountains of Tifata, today called Caiazzo and San Nicola, at the foot of which was Hannibal’s camp and which mark out the horizon between Capua and Caserta.46 The richness of the land, the diversity of landscapes, everything, in a word, elevates the soul, enchants the eye, and becomes, given the current state of this unfortunate city, the sole delight that it can still provide. The enclosure of Capua, which the upheaval of the terrain in the environs and of the town that is now situated within, prevents a fair assessment, envelops a fairly large number of other ruins, but too much fallen into disrepair to make out all that Misson claims to have seen, which surely in his day must not have been in better condition. He alone has mentioned a second amphitheatre. I could glimpse nowhere any vestige thereof. The ruins of a theatre appear more obvious, and these are certainly what Misson has confused.47 All along the Appian Way that led to this city, you will still see many tombs that allow you to discern accurately where this roadway was. Leaving Capua, you cross the Volturno, a river that traces its source to the east, in the Farther Principality,48 which waters a portion of this lovely land and was so famous during the time of Hannibal’s expeditions in Campania.49

44 45 46 47 48 49

See Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Voyage d’Italie, ou Recueil de Notes Sur les ouvrages de Peinture & de Sculpture, qu’on voit dans les principales villes d’Italie (Paris, 1773), 1:127. Richard had deemed the amphitheatre “one of the most magnificent that should have been built in distant times” (Description, 4:51). See Cochin, Voyage d’Italie, 1:125; Lalande, Voyage d’un françois en Italie, 5:451. Marginal note: “Diana and Jupiter had two temples on this mountain: one was called Jupiter Tifatinus and the other Diana Tifatina. Not a single vestige thereof remains.” Misson remarks “the remains of two amphitheatres.” François Maximilien Misson, Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), 2:86. Rendered the “Farther Principality” in English writings coeval with Sade, the Principato ultra or ulteriore was an administrative division of the Kingdom of Naples. Marginal note: “Titus Livy says that the Volturnus carried vessels.” In his History of Rome, Livy says that Hannibal “ordered that boats on the Volturnus should be seized and rowed up to the fort which he previously built for a defence” (7[bk.26, s.7]:28–9).

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The bridge built upon this spot has nothing of interest about it except for having succeeded the one Horace mentions.50 Not far from there was the ancient town of Cales, today Calvi, seat of a bishopric.51 Close to this town was the Calenum of Cicero, from which he dates those two famous letters that he wrote to Pompey and Atticus.52 In the first, he reports on his conduct to Pompey; in the second, he asks his friend for counsel. This place, today reduced to a mere two edifices – the church and the seminary – stops few of our ordinary travellers. Notwithstanding, there are lovely ruins that would satisfy their curiosity, if they gave themselves the time to nourish it in this spot. You still see very distinctly the remains of a theatre and of an amphitheatre and of several other edifices, in truth less identifiable. Strabo tells us (bk. V) that the people of Theanum and of Cales had erected within their respective borders a temple to Fortuna; I discovered not a trace thereof.53 It is not the same for those [i.e., the ruins] along the Via Latina, which from Theanum, which I just mentioned, up to Calvi, will be met with almost intact. Close to the Torricella inn, not far from the place where my conjectures made me think could have been that bordering temple of Fortuna, which was just under discussion, you see a large marble with an inscription simultaneously too rare and too thoughtful not to be reported: a husband who, deploring with sensitivity the loss of a wife with whom he had been for twenty-two years, adds that her death is the only sorrow that he should have suffered during his life.

50 Marginal note: “‘Proxima Campano ponti quæ villula tectum / Præbuit et parochi quæ debent ligna salemque.’ (Horace, Sat. V, bk.I).” Translated: “The little house close to the Campanian bridge put a roof above our heads, and the state-purveyors, as if duty bound, furnished fuel and salt.” Horace, Satires, 68–9 [Satire 1.5, ll.45–6]. 51 Marginal note: “‘Quique Cales linquunt amnisque vadosi / Accola Vulturni.’ (Aeneid, bk.VII.)” Translated: “ Those who leave Cales, and the dweller by Volturnus’s shallow river” (52–3 [bk.7, ll.728–9]). 52 Marginal note: “Do not forget to say, if you haven’t already said it, that the Ancients gave to their country villas the name of the neighbouring towns, close to which they were located. / This town of Cales is also mentioned in Titus Livy, regarding a march of Hannibal from Cales to Suessula. / You must consult these two letters, which are of the greatest interest. The latter [i.e., Pompey] had given him general command of the coast, which the orator-cum-warrior had promised to put into good shape. But lacking the means to stop an army that had subjugated the Gauls, Pompey ordered Cicero to join him at Brindisi. Cicero was on the way, when he learned that Caesar was proposing to attack Pompey along the same route. He stopped at Cales, where he wrote the two letters cited above. / Very much word for word from Chaupy, vol. I, page 239.” See Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy, Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (Rome, 1767–1769), 1:238–9. The correspondence in question was written at the outset of the civil war of 49–45 BCE. This war pitted Julius Caesar against Pompey, with Cicero siding with the latter and having fled Rome. On the night of 18–19 February, Cicero wrote his friend Atticus from Cales and laid out his concerns about his own loyalties, status, and relation to Rome, about Pompey’s political and ethical comportment, and asked for advice. See Cicero’s letter 153, in his Letters to Atticus, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 2:278–87. It is not clear, however, what is meant by the letter to Pompey from Cales. The most likely candidate is a letter (161D) written from Formiae on 27 February, in which Cicero explains at length to Pompey his comportment at Cales and thereabouts (2:312–19). 53 In his Geography, trans. Horace Leonard Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923), Strabo remarks that the territories of “Cales and Teanum Sidicinum […] are separated by the two temples of Fortune situated on either side of the Latin Way; and so are Suessula, Atella, Nola, Nuceria, Acherrae, Abella, and other settlements (some of which are said to be Samnite) that are still smaller than these” (2[bk.5, ch.4, s.11]:461–2). Sade’s point of reference is almost certainly not the original source but Chaupy’s discussion of the area, which includes a citation from Strabo. See Découverte, 3:479–80.

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On the right, taking up the route again, you see nearby the Savone River, which you pass by, and not far from Francolise, the first post after Capua, the hillsides where was gathered that good Falernian wine, so famous in Antiquity and that is still sold in this land with some renown.54 It is robust red wine with the character of our Bordeaux, but exceedingly stronger, and it should only be drunk with caution. The Ancients stored it until it turned into a thick liqueur and in order to drink this they were obliged to thin it in another beverage. I suspect that the one made today has neither the same qualities nor the same capacity to be kept good for such a long time. A little bit further on are the ruins of Suessa, close to the Sant’Agata post house, which you must not confuse with the Sessa of the Latins, although it carries the same name today.55 The one in question was called Suessa Aurunca to distinguish it and to confirm that it was a dependency of the country of the Aurunci.56 It is situated upon a double ancient roadway, which is proven by the fork of antique paving that survives at the inn situated below this town, with one branch continuing in the same direction as the path and the other heading up into the town and going on to Theanum.57 The latter was a road that the emperor Hadrian had made expressly for the people of Suessa, as proves a fragment of an inscription that you see in the city itself, expressing itself thus: PARTHICI F. DIVI NERVÆ NEPOS TRAIANVS HADRIANVS AVG. PONT. MAX. 54 Marginal note: “The territory of Falernum was initially a dependency of Cumae and had passed, along with that city, under the dominion of the Campanians. But it paid, from the time of the Latin War, for Capua’s decision to join forces with the enemies of Rome. It was joined to Latium in order to be handed over with it [i.e., Latium] to the Roman people: ‘Latium Capuaque agro mulctati latinus ager et Falernus qui populi Campani fuerat usque ad Vulturnum flumen plebi romanae dividitur.’ (Titus Livy, Dec. IV, lib. VIII).” Sade’s citation is mangled. The original reads: “Latium Capuaque agro mulctati. Latinus ager Privernati addito agro et Falernus qui populi Campani fuerat, usque ad Volturnum flumen plebi Romanae dividitur [Latium and Capua were deprived of territory. The Latin territory, with the addition of that belonging to Privernum, together with the Falernian – which had belonged to the Campanian people – as far as the river Volturnus, was parceled out amongst the Roman plebs].” Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 4[bk.VIII, s.9, 13–14]:46–7. 55 Marginal note: “The gentlemen responsible for the Dictionnaire idiotically confuse them.” Sade is here referring to the Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie (see 2:504–5). The other “Sessa [Sezza]” to which Sade alludes is Sezze, ancient Setia. 56 Marginal note: “Et quos de collibus altis / Aurunci misere patres (Aeneid, bk. VII, page 176, vol. II) / These are two halves of lines. “Suessa, which Monsieur Lalande considers as one of the towns of the Volscians, thus never belonged to them, but to the Aurunci, relicts of the ancient Ausonians, situated between the Volscians and the Campanians. “Titus Livy tells us that in the year 417 on the Roman calendar, during the consulate of C. Sulpicius Longus and P. Aelius Paetus, in the war that the Sidicians waged with the Aurunci, the latter abandoned their town and retreated to Suessa, which, doubtless, at this time, took on the surname Aurunca.” Sade’s citation of Virgil translated: “whom Auruncan fathers sent from their high hills.” Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana, 52–3 [bk.7, ll.726–7]. 57 Marginal note: “Chaupy, vol. III, page 454.” Sade gives the incorrect page reference here. Chaupy’s description, which Sade copies almost verbatim, is otherwise a bit more lucid: “The city of Sessa is not Sinuessa, but Suessa, surnamed Aurunca [modern Sessa Aurunca]. It is in truth located on a double antique roadway, as one can see from the fork in the ancient paving that survives at the inn below this town, a branch of which continues in the direction of the path, and the other not only goes into the city, but on to Theanum” (Découverte, 3:457).

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TRIB. POT. VII. COS. III. VIAM SVESSIANIS MVNICIPIBVS SVA PECVN. FECIT.58

Subsequently, it was confounded with the Appian Way, and it carried its name, as is confirmed by the church that you see there, called Our Lady of Appianna, built upon the ruins of an antique temple.59 Be that as it may, this was quite certainly the roadway that from Minturno goes straight at the top of the mount that extends all the way to the sea, and it is precisely at this peak that Suessa was built, a position that was the origin of its name, from what we learn from Strabo.60 In the middle of this town’s ruins, among which you see many inscriptions and medals, you can still discern a theatre, a well-preserved portico, and modern baths, located at the same place where the springs of sulphurous water that are found here declare that there were likely antique ones. We know that the waters of the Suessa were reputed among the Ancients for treating madness and sterility – diseases that seem, however, to proclaim a sort of mutual inconsistency. Titus Livy notes these baths, saying (bk. X of the 1st decade) that Hannibal, led astray by his guides who, because of the similarity between the name Casinum and Casilinum, had led to the latter this general’s army, where it camped. There, he ordered Maharbal to carry out an exploration, which stretched from Falernum up to the Baths of Sinuessa.61 We also learn from him that this town was only called by this name once it was submitted to the Romans, for the Greeks had always and for a long time before called it Sinope. I have already had occasion to cite a passage from that charming satire of Horace, in which he so ingenuously and so accurately describes his voyage from Rome to Brindisi in the year 717 of the Roman calendar.62 Providing it in its entirety would be to do a service to my readers, yet inappropriate here, since I fear that it is perhaps too long. You would see 58 Translated and expanded: “Trajan Hadrian Augustus, High Priest of the College of Pontiffs / Son of the Great Victor in Parthia [i.e., Trajan] and Nephew of the Divine Nerva / Tribune of the Plebs for the 7th time and Consul for the 3rd made this road / for the townsfolk of Suessa with his money.” 59 Chaupy, whom Sade follows closely here, has “Madonna de l’Apiana” (Découverte, 3:457). Although the usual name is Santa Maria della Piana (i.e., Our Lady of the Plain), a case for corruption can easily be made, as dell’Appiana (i.e., of the Appian Way) and della Piana sound almost identical in Italian. The structure is subject to some debate in geographical discussions of the area. Chaupy argues that the ancient Roman road gave the church its name, although he – as does Sade above – remarks that the road on which the church was built was not the Appian Way proper. Some later writers follow Chaupy’s hypothesis, e.g., we find Francescantonio Riccardelli praising and repeating “the judgement of a learned voyager [il giudizio di un dotto viggiatore],” with explicit reference to the French author’s work, in his Minturno e Traetto. Svolgimenti storici antichi e moderni (Naples, 1873), 71. However, Giovanni Maria Diamare, for one, in his Memorie Critico-Storiche della Chiesa di Sessa Aurunca (Naples, 1906), rejects Chaupy’s hypothesis and Riccardelli’s acquiescence, asserting that the road here, along with the church, was indeed named after the plain (149–50). 60 Marginal note: “Copy here the Greek passage from Strabo, on page 458 of volume III of Chaupy.” Chaupy notes that Strabo had placed nearby Sinuessa – and not Suessa – on a “bosom of the sea [Sein de Mer],” whence the name “Sinuesse” (Découverte, 3:358). Writing in Greek, Strabo simply explains that Sinuessa is situated in a κóλπος [kolpos], i.e., a gulf, and that the Latin word for gulf, sinus, is registered in the place name (Geography, 2:398–9). 61 Marginal note: “Poorly written.” 62 Marginal note: “Suessa was the fatherland of Gaius Lucilius, Roman knight, 147 years before J.C., author of thirty satires of which the fragments have been collected by François Dousa and printed at Leyden with notes in 1597. Some scholars have regarded him as the inventor of satire, but Monsieur Dacier has proven

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in it that manner of narrating that is so natural, that seems to belong only to him, and that simultaneously paints his mind, his character, and his taste: Postera lux oritur, multo gratissima; namque Plotus et Varius Sinuessae Vergiliusque Occurrunt, animae qualis neque candidiores Terra tulit neque quis me sit devinctior alter. O qui complexus, et gaudia quanta fuerunt! Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. Sat. V63

Is what he said here on the pleasurable occasion of meeting Virgil and his other friends at Suessa. The wine in the vicinity of this town, which doubtless was not as wonderful as those in the surrounding area, is mentioned by the same author in his epistle to Torquatus: “We only have the wine of Suessa and of the environs of Minturnae,” he says to his friend, “come, if that doesn’t frighten you.”64 Vina bibes iterum Tauro diffusa palustris Inter Minturnas Sinuessanumque Petrinum. Hor., Ep. V ad Torquatum65

that all that he did was perfect this genre of poetry. Pompey was the great-nephew of Lucilius on the maternal side. He is the one that Juvenal mentions in his first satire: Cur Tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo Per quem magnus equos Aurunca flexit alumnus.” Translated: “Yet why I choose to charge across the same plain where the great protégé of Aurunca steered his chariot.” Juvenal and Persius, Juvenal and Persius, trans. Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 132–3 [Satire 1.1, ll.19–20]. André Dacier had in the introductory essay to his translation of Horace’s satires remarked that Gaius Lucilius had been preceded in the genre by Quintus Ennius and Marcus Pacuvius and that when Horace asserted that Lucilius “dared first to make this sort of verse,” he intended only that his precursor had given such verse “a new manner” and had “embellished” it. Œuvres d’Horace en latin et en françois: avec des remarques critiques et historiques (Hamburg, 1733), 6:xx. As Sade remarks, the Dutch scholar Franciscus Dousa had published a collection of Lucilius’s fragments as Satyrarum quae supersunt reliquiae (Leyden, 1597). 63 “Most joyful was the morrow’s rising, for at Sinuessa there meet us Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, whitest souls earth ever bore, to whom none can be more deeply attached than I. O the embracing! O the rejoicing! Nothing, so long as I am in my senses, would I match with the joy a friend may bring.” Horace, Satires, 66–9 [Satire 1.5, ll.39–44]. 64 Marginal note: “Word for word from Du Sault.” The text within quotation marks above is not a direct citation from Horace’s epistle that follows, but rather a loose gloss. Sade’s reference is apparently to JeanJoseph Dusaulx’s influential translation of Juvenal’s Satires, which included a long introductory essay on the genre: Les Satires de Juvénal, traduites par M. Dusaulx, précédées d’un Discours sur les satiriques latins (Paris, 1770). What is not obvious is why Sade indicates he is citing from a translation of Juvenal rather than from Horace. Moreover, neither Dusaulx’s introductory essay nor his copious notes include the citation in question, although Roman wine production, storage, and drinking customs are discussed on pages 159–61. Dusaulx’s subsequent translation and annotation of Persius as Satires de Perse (Paris, 1772) does not contain the reference either. 65 “You will drink wine that was bottled in Taurus’s second consulate between marshy Minturnae and Petrinum near Sinuessa.” Horace, Satires, 281 [bk.1, ep.5, ll.4–5]. Here Horace is explaining to his

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The hillsides of the surrounding area, as I have noted, were very far from providing ones of such mediocrity. I have already spoken of those of Falernum. Virgil, Martial, and Horace also praise those from the district of Cales, town mentioned above, those of Massico, of Cecuba,66 and primarily the famous oil that was gathered at Venafro,67 which was only a very little distant from these regions watered in part by the Volturno, a delightful climate that appears still to have lost nothing of the attractions that had made it so often celebrated by so many charming pens. From Suessa to Sant’Agata is not far, and at this point you are four post houses and thirty-four miles distant from Naples, which goes ever along the most beautiful route imaginable, of which some portions hewn utterly from the rock seem to have been an undertaking as difficult as it was expensive. Everywhere this lovely country still shows indications of its former splendour, and enormous olive trees, infinitely larger than those of our southern provinces, are but one of the most ordinary riches offered with each step in this beautiful land, always graced with a thousand novel and diverse creations. Nine miles hence, you arrive at the banks of the Liris or Garigliano …68 Journal of the Route from Naples to Bologna via Loreto69 Capua. The amphitheatre. Stone larger than in Rome, oval in shape; seems smaller than that of Rome. Two gates of travertine stone and brick. This city is in the foothills of the Caiazzo Mountains; it [the amphitheatre] has three levels.

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correspondent that he will have only simple country food and unpretentious local wines if he visits; he can bring better if he likes. Marginal note: “Mentioned by Virgil (Aeneid, bk.VII): Vertunt felicia Baccho Massica, qui rastris …” Translated, with the cited text emphasized: “Next, Agamemnon’s son, foe of the Trojan name, Halaesus, yokes his steeds to the car, and in Turnus’s cause sweeps along a thousand warlike tribes, men who turn with mattocks the wine-rich Massic lands.” (Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana, 52–3 [bk.7, ll.723–26]). Horace, in an ode inviting Gaius Maecenas to dine, says that the wine served will be “cheap Sabine wine” rather than those terroirs favoured by his wealthy patron: “At home you can drink Caecuban and the grape that is crushed in the presses of Cales; my cups are not mellowed by the vines of Falernum or Formian hillsides.” Horace, Odes and Epodes, trans. Niall Rudd (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 62–5 [1.20, ll.9–12]. In epigram 115, in vol. 3 of his Epigrams, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), Martial writes: “Generous Caecuban is ripened at Amyclae near Fundi. / The green vine is born in the middle of the marsh” (3[bk.13, ep.115]:222–3). Horace, in a satirical account of a sumptuous meal, gives as ingredients for the sauce accompanying a dish of prized lamprey: “oil from Venafrum of the first pressing, roe from the juices of the Spanish mackerel, wine five years old, but produced this side of the sea, poured in while it is on the boil … white pepper, and vinegar made from the fermenting of Lesbian vintage” (Satires, 242–3 [Sat. II.8, ll.45–50]). Strabo’s Geography confirms that Venafrum is “whence comes the finest olive-oil” (2:415). Martial dedicates his epigram 101 to “Oleum Venafrum” and emphasizes the non-culinary use of the product: “This the berry of Campanian Venafrum has distilled for you. Whenever you use unguent, you smell of this too” (Epigrams, 3[bk.13, ep.101]:214–15). End of the notebook. Notebook of 56 pages, of which 32 are filled and the others are blank; written entirely in the hand of La Jeunesse. At the top: “NOTE. A traveller must speak little of himself – this is a fault into which many fall – because then, if he speaks too much of himself, these are the memories that he creates, and not those of the country that he has seen. He must not allow himself to tell a story about what has happened to him except when it serves to make familiar the spirit or the mores of the nation through which he travels.”

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You can climb up to the third. Shape well preserved. The courtyard of the cathedral adorned with a colonnade of marble and granite columns of various orders, which appear to be ancient temple remnants, mostly Composite. In the gallery made by this portico are some ancient tombs. The church is in poor taste. The aisles are separated by columns, numbering nine on each side, which are granite, the capitals differ. They appear to be ancient temple remnants. All these columns are Corinthian. In an underground chapel is a tomb adorned with an antique bas-relief, but of a poor style. All this small chapel is adorned with a colonnade made of marble of varying sorts, remnants, some are granite. The interior is a sepulchre where there is a dead Christ in the poorest of taste, cumbrous and unnatural. All the bulk of this sepulchre is adorned with mosaics and round sections of rare marble, such as verd antique and porphyry. Further, the adornments are heavy and poor. The statue is by Bottiglieri, a Neapolitan. The granite columns that support the organ are quite large and do not number among those I mentioned. There is a poor painting at the high altar that the sacristan says is by Solimena and that does not even appear to be by his school. At Capua, you lodge at the post house. It is eighteen miles from Naples to Capua, and two miles from Capua to Old Capua. There are also at Old Capua stables from the time of Hannibal and a former city gate. This city is not as populated as it could be. Capable of containing twenty thousand people, it does not even contain ten. It is well fortified; there is a good castle on the side of the quarters, etc. From Capua, I dined at Sant’Agata, the only post station and house along the route. The path covers two post stops or sixteen miles. The route is superb, well maintained. There are portions hewn from the rock, which must have cost a lot to do. The land is rich and fertile; you see a large number of olive trees, all of a prodigious size and much larger than those of Provence. From Capua to the Garigliano it is twenty-seven miles. You cross it in a boat for three carlini per two-wheeled shay. On the other side are the remnants of the city of Minturnae, built on the outer reaches of Latium and of Campania (see Richard). From the other side are an old tower and the post house. At the post house is a statue of an emperor dressed as a warrior, broken nose, ordinary size, found among the remnants of Minturnae. I think it is Augustus. A hundred feet from post house will be seen to the right of the path, in the direction of Rome, a very large fragment of the aqueduct that provided water for this town, which appears to have come from the mountains. On the right hand, where the Tracta [?] is located, to the left is a new excavation where you see the foundations of a house. You see a portion of its layout; the walls were done in opus reticulatum. It is here that the statue was found. A bit further on, on the same side of the path, is an amphitheatre of which absolutely only fragments remain, which nonetheless allow you to discern its shape, which was round and smaller than the brick one in Old Capua. The pilasters of the archways of the aqueduct are brick. All the rest is in opus reticulatum. The canal of the upper platform is five feet wide. From the Garigliano to Gaeta is eight miles and continues along a lovely route. There are major excavations at Gaeta. When you get there, you must make sure to go to Gaeta, a fortified town of the king of Naples. By sea, it costs five carlini; by land, there is a twohorse caleche that will take you there for ten to twelve carlini, not counting tip. When you get there, you are led to the commander accompanied by two riflemen, who asks for your

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passport. When he has seen it, he makes an offer of services. You must ask him for a man to lead you to important objects. The first is the Split Rock [Montagna Spaccata], a unique natural phenomenon. The gap is about three or four feet. The remaining parts fit marvellously with those sticking out, and you see that it could only have been a prodigious natural effort that produced this extraordinariness. But how can we be astonished in a country so full of natural oddities? Fashioned into the gap is a very commodious and quite well-made staircase, which is preceded by a chapel and terminates at another chapel. For this gap in the rock is, so it is said, one of the phenomena that happened when Jesus gave up the ghost; on account of which it was necessary to sanctify it. To the right, when you have descended a bit more than two-thirds of the staircase, is a hand imprinted into the rock: this, they say, belongs to an unbeliever who dared doubt this miracle. Putting my hand there, I doubted even more resolutely, if possible, and I felt nothing, which makes you think that we are no longer in the time of miracles. In a chapel where the staircase that I just mentioned leads is a crucifix covered with a veil, which is extremely miraculous. The bargemen put, they say, much faith in it. It belongs to their station, as to ours the scorning of these popular absurdities. From the window of this chapel, you see the sea at an extreme depth, flowing into the space below that the rock made in splitting. It rushes in with an enormous noise that, joined to that made by the waves breaking against this rock, produces a quite loud noise when the sea is a bit restless. From there you go to see the castle and walk the length of the ramparts, from which you can assess the enclosure of the square, which seemed to me strengthened both by artifice and by Nature, although notwithstanding dominated by several nearby mountains. But it is only a matter of establishing forts there. This castle upon the square is occupied by the garrison; it is a square building, surrounded by a fairly good ditch and flanked by large towers. Opposite, upon one of the overshadowing mountains is a large round tower, vulgarly called Roland’s Tower and that is the tomb of Lucius Munatius Plancus, friend and contemporary of Augustus (see Richard). There are some churches at Gaeta, of which the most important is the cathedral. It is small, of an unpleasant shape; you see therein several antique columns of various shapes, remnants of ancient temples. The baptismal font is beautifully wrought (see Richard). In the choir are two paintings. One, the Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, who gives his name to this cathedral; the other, an Assumption. The former is by the school of Paolo Veronese; the latter is by Sebastiano Conca. Close by is Dead Christ, cried over by his mother, painted on wood by Lo Zingaro [i.e., Antonio Solario]. You are shown a fluted, spiral column in front of the pontifical see, which is said to be from the Temple of Solomon, unlikely. Under the choir is an underground chapel where the body of Saint Erasmus reposes, under the altar. This chapel is all marble. You see therein six silver statues in the niches around the altar. At the main staircase of the cathedral are two, fairly mediocre, ancient tombs. In the town, right before you get here, are several bits of wall and of antique columns. It was here that was located the ancient town of Formia (see Richard). This gulf is similar to those of Pozzuoli and Miseno. The countryside is full of orange trees, which send forth a very strong smell in the month of May. The officers of the garrison of Gaeta and the commander are quite civil. The garrison is made up of some wounded servicemen and two battalions.

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The suburban road is quite long. The town is mean and poorly constructed; there is hardly but a main road. Nota: when mentioning the antique baptismal font, see Richard’s page on this. The sacristy is where this sublime emblem of the city about which Richard speaks was.70 The mummy of Charles of Bourbon no longer exists.71 It is claimed that it went about during the night killing the sentries who were not carrying out their duties. I was assured that it has been walled up. 70 Says Richard of the cathedral in Gaeta, “What is truly beautiful is the antique vase of Parian marble that serves to store the water for the baptismal fonts of this church. It is about four feet high, in the shape of a bell. The edge of the vase is surrounded with a garland of vines; on the body you see the young Bacchus that Mercury is putting at the moment of his birth into the arms of Ino; a group of satyrs and of bacchantes take up a dance; you note one satyr who is playing two flutes at the same time (a). This piece is wrought with accomplishment and drawn with an accuracy truly worthy of the beautiful days of Greece. An inscription attributes it to Salpione, the Athenian sculptor” (Richard, Description, 4:42–3). The note at (a) expands on the nature and use of the two flutes, how they were played to accompany song or narrative, how one was in a high register and the other low, and so forth. 71 Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (1490–1527) and Connétable de France from 1515 to 1521 was in command of the rebel troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who sacked Rome in 1527; he was killed during this event. In Travels through Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Lorrain (London, 1760), Johann Georg Keyssler writes of his mortal remains, which had apparently disappeared prior to Sade’s visit: Near the door of the castle, which stands upon a hill, is shewn the remains of the famous Charles of Bourbon, with a wooden lower-jaw inserted to supply the place of the natural one, long since decayed. This nobleman was shot in storming Rome, and thus dying under the pope’s excommunication, and being openly in arms against the holy see, he could not be allowed a burial-place in consecrated ground; and to leave him unburied, or lay him among the vulgar, did not seem compatible either with his dignity, or the regard due to his eminent services. The Spaniards, therefore, had recourse to another expedient, for they dried his corps [sic] like a mummy, and set it up there. He stands in a closet, being properly cloathed; his boots are yellow, with red facings; and the stockings, which come but a little above the boots, have a border of fine lace. In 1719, general Prampero, governor of the city, had this memorable skeleton new cloathed in blue trimmed with silver, and furnished it with a sword, and hat and feather. Over the closet-door are these lines in Spanish: Francia me diò la leche, Espanna fuerza y ventura. Roma me diò la muerte, y Gaëta la sepulture. “France gave me birth, Spain strength and honours gave, “Rome my death’s wound, and Gaëta a grave.” Ciacconi, in his life of Clement VII. P. 465, gives us the following epitaph on this famous warrior: Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ, Pontifice obsesso, Româ captâ, Carolus Borbonius in victoriâ cæsu Hic jacet. “Here lies Charles de Bourbon, who after enlarging the empire, defeating the French, conquering Italy, besieging the Pope, and taking Rome, lost his life in the midst of a victory.” However, it is a known story, that a Spaniard, in whose house the duke had taken up his quarters, set fire to it the very next day, to efface the infamy of its having harboured a traitor; and indeed all the epitaphs written on this hero are far from running in the same strain. […] Formerly the officers of this garrison, when in their cups, on any public rejoicings, used to take off the duke’s skull, and fill it with liquor, in order to drink healths out of it; but this savage custom frequently occasioning quarrels, some of which had unhappy consequences, has been forbidden. (3:11–13)

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There is a lovely cistern of fresh water that comes from the mountain. The gate is extremely small (see Richard, page 45 of the Naples volume). At a mile on the left, heading in the direction of Rome, will be seen in a garden the tomb of Cicero; it is a round tower, it is made of brick, it seems to have been adorned with pilasters and with five niches; a large pillar in the middle supports the structure. There is a second level the same shape as the first. The entire route is filled with remnants of antique constructions. It is at Mola, and not at Gaeta, where the ruins of Formia are (see Richard). Itri, nine miles from Gaeta, was the Mamurra of the Latins. Here, it appears built to the left upon the mountain. What you traverse at the bottom is a narrow and quite long road, remnants of the Appian Way. You observe the same road construction as at Pompeii, that is to say, the road flanked by two parapets for pedestrians, one on either side, raised two inches higher than the rest, and likewise narrow. Eight miles from Itri is Fondi, which was previously a colony of the Aurunci, according to Pliny [the Elder] and Strabo. It is nasty, dirty, and small. The inhabitants are all frowns because the air is very unhealthy due to nearby marshes. There is a rather small garrison. You see it at the entrance to the castle. Seven or eight miles from Fondi, you come to the last barrier, where the last guardhouse of Neapolitan troops is located, and a mile further on is the pope’s. Five miles from there, you see Mount Circe [Monte Circeo]. On this route, you still find some monuments, among others a large round tower, about a mile from Fondi, of which the bottom is almost entirely demolished. It is probable that it was a tomb. Between the barrier of Naples and that of Rome is another edifice upon the right, heading in the direction of Rome, about eighteen feet high, built of very large stones, adorned with a base and a frieze. The interior is a small arched vault, the function of which seems to have been a tomb. An old wall and a tower separate the States of the pope from those of Naples. Usually there are some papal soldiers guarding this tower. All along this route are hedges of pomegranate trees, myrtle, honeysuckle, and other shrubs. To the left of the marsh, to the right of the mountains. Terracina. An antique tower at the first gate; two lions at the second. The wall of this gate is also antique. The portico of the cathedral is graced with six Ionic columns, of which two are marble and four are granite. Above is a frieze where there are some mosaics. The right-hand portion, facing it, seems more antique than the other, which I think painted and not mosaic. But I do not think either the one or the other antique. Upon one of these columns is an inscription. Around the exterior walls of the cathedral are some remnants of friezes and of marble columns, fragments of a temple to Jupiter or to Apollo. The columns are fluted and beautifully wrought. At the top of the staircase that leads to the main gate are five columns, of which two are granite and three marble. On the left is a large urn made of red granite; it is supported upon a sort of altar where is written: Vasa in cui da gentilli furono tormentati e scannati molti Cristiani innanzi l’idolo di Appolle

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Under the vessel, upon the part that forms the upper part of the altar, is a pretty little arabesque. The cover of the vessel is not antique. In the courtyard of the bishopric are two capitals of columns and two columns lying upon the ground, likewise antique. In a shed close to the church are some more fragments of columns and a Corinthian capital. The cathedral is small, with three aisles divided by six columns on each side, two of which are granite. All the capitals are Composite; they appear modern. The paving is done in mosaic. It is said that there was of temple of Jupiter here. The baldachin of the high altar is supported upon four fluted marble columns.

72 The inscription should read as follows: VASO IN CUI DA GENTILI FURONO TORMENTATI E SCANNATI MOLTI CRISTIANI INNANZI L’IDOLO DI APOLLO CONT. ISTOR. DI TERRAC. POI COLLOCATO DA FEDELI IN QUEST ATRIO AD USO DI FONTE PER LAVARSI E MANI E VOLTO PRIMA D ENTRARE IN CHIESA S. PAOLIN. EPIST. XII A SEVERO. The first half of this inscription, in Italian, explains: “Vessel in which many Christians were tortured and slaughtered by pagans before the idol of Apollo.” The source indicated is Dominico Antonio Contatore, De historia Terracinensi libri quinque (Rome, 1706), which discusses a temple to Apollo and Christian martyrs on page 523. The passage is not, however, a citation. According to a later history, the manner of martyrdom supposedly visited on some early Christians in this still extant receptacle was “boiling oil”; see Giovanni Conte-Colino, Storia di Fondi (Naples: R. Tipografia Francesco Giannini & Figli, 1902), 336. This use of the basin is indubitably apocryphal. The second half reads: “Afterward placed by the faithful in this atrium for use as a font for the washing of hands and faces before entering the church.” The indication on this second part suggests that these words are from Saint Paulinus of Nola (c. 353–431) and specifically his twelfth letter, addressed to Sulpicius Severus. Yet Paulinus’s twelfth letter is not addressed to Severus, and there is no passage that matches the citation in his writings. The closest lines come from his thirteenth letter, addressed to Pammachius and describing the entrance of Saint Peter’s in Rome, “where the gleaming atrium merges with the projecting entrance, in which a cupola roofed with solid bronze adorns and shades a fountain spouting forth water to tend our hands and faces.” Letters of Saint Paulinus of Nola, trans. P.G. Walsh (New York: Newman Press, 1966), 1:129. Notwithstanding, the more likely reference is to Paulinus’s 32nd letter, which is indeed addressed to Severus and describes the basilica at Nola and its many inscriptions, including one for a “fountain gleaming with its attendant waters” that “washes the hands of those who enter its ministering stream” (2:148). Both parts of the inscription thus simply appear to remark the basin’s purported first usage, its Christian repurposing, and to offer supporting references of a sort.

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The altar of Saint Silvia has a canopy likewise supported by two granite columns and two marble ones. The preaching pulpit is Gothic, decorated with mosaic and porphyry, and supported upon five small granite columns. To the side of the high altar are two other small altars: one to Saint Silvia, as I mentioned, and the other to Saint Eleutherius, likewise adorned with a canopy supported by four marble columns. A large portion of these columns is antique. The baptismal font is plain, without ornamentation, but antique. The entrance called the Naples doorway is, so it is claimed, also ancient; you see two lions upon it. The town is small and sits atop that height of a hill; its population is twelve thousand. It was the ancient Anxur of the Volscians. Before you arrive there, you see a rock of considerable height upon which, on the part facing the sea, are etched some Roman numerals – here and there, and up to the very top – the function of which is hard to guess. To the left, before coming to the suburb, will be seen a part of the embankments of the old port; and upon the right, at the top of the mountain, a large ruin of an unoccupied fortress. As for the numerals placed upon the rock, which I just mentioned, and likewise upon this ancient fortress, see Misson, who is knowledgeable on the topic (volume II, page 73). This high rock, upon which are the numerals, is called Pisca Marina (see Misson).73 In the country house of the canon Sorata are some excavations, a gate, underground passages, and some columns and capitals, which he has found, all made of bricks. Close to the inn where one ordinarily stays, which is on the path near the gate, is half an archway that seems to have served as a city gate. A little way from this inn will be seen the Appian Way uncovered. It is no longer kept up. To the left, in the distance, before coming to Terracina, will be seen Mount Circe (see Richard, Misson, etc.). You can’t everywhere follow the Appian Way; it ends up in marshes in certain spots, but you find in all the portions where you can follow it considerable remains of antique structures. Maruti, an isolated post house on the main route, at the base of mountains and surrounded by marsh. The air is bad at all the post stops. From Maruti to Piperno, there is one more post house. To get there you traverse a large cork woods where there are paths filled with sand. Piperno is upon quite a height. Buffalos are required to get there and to get back down. It is the ancient capital of the Volscians; it was called Privernum. The site of the ancient town is a little lower than the location of the new one at present. There is nothing remarkable at Piperno save for an icon of the Virgin that, they say, does 73 Misson, in Voyage d’Italie, explains: “A bit on this side of Terracina, it was necessary to cut through the rocks to continue the paving of Appius between the sea and the mountains. This is seen in various places in the space of a mile. The rock that is called Pisca-marina is about six-score feet high, and the ancient numerals are marked by tens in capital Roman letters on the face of this rock that is perpendicularly cut such that the top numeral is CXX. But an antiquarian who is no less exacting than he is curious and learned told me in Rome that he had measured these distances and that he had found them to be almost all unequal. Some conjecture that the main purpose of he who undertook this was to make visible the accurate measure of his work, and that he had only noted the divisions as an attestation. Others believe that each distance is the work of ten days and that the inequality of distances resulted from the relative ease that the workers encountered in cutting the rock. And the basis of this thought is that the distances on the top are greater than those at the bottom, the rock always shrinks towards the peak. But I have a strong objection to this opinion, for realistically they started to work at the top of the rock, and it would have thus been necessary that the first ten-odd should have been marked at the top, and that the number CXX should be found at the base. All this seems to me hard to understand” (2:73–4).

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miracles. It was formerly a bishopric; it has been joined to that of Terracina. The churches and building are mean. Four or five miles from Piperno, you see upon the left the plain open up and present a pleasing view. From here to Le Case Nuove the route goes along a road in utter disrepair that is bad for both horses and carriages. It is here that you have a good view of Mount Circe (see Richard and Misson). Two miles from Le Case Nuove, upon the right, fifty paces from the path, you see some fairly large remnants of the town called Tres Tabernae (see Misson). Close by, on the same side, upon a rock escarpment is the town of Sezze – significant, belonging to the Volscians, uninhabited because of the air and of the almost impracticable access. It was called Sezza [rather, Setia] at the time of the Volscians. The entire mountain crest where this town is located once furnished excellent wines. At present, you see nothing but olive trees. About a mile before arriving at the post house of Sermoneta, you come across a chain where some rascals demand a contribution. Then, you arrive at the post house, a rather bad inn. Below a mountain, the slope of which is planted with olive trees, is the town of Sermoneta, once a Volscian town by the name of Sora. In the cathedral has been preserved an ancient marble armchair that is similar to those you see in several Roman churches and that seems to date rather from the time of the first Christian churches. Also preserved there are some ancient inscriptions, but the few antiquities that you see there do not make up for the trouble of climbing up, this town, as I said, being situated upon a quite considerable height. Two miles from the post house are the ruins of the town of Ninfa, Volscian town. You see many remnants of antique houses. To get there you must detour to the right-hand side after the third bridge that you pass after the inn of the Sermoneta post house. It was located at the foot of the mountain. To the left of the post house will be seen some further antique fragments, currently enclosed or rather surrounded by a woods upon a small hill that is called Montecchio. The river Ninfa, which you cross upon a bridge, gave its name to the ancient town that I just mentioned. Five hundred paces from the post house of Cisterna, upon the left, are the ruins of the Frangipani castle (see Richard). This castle is two hundred paces from the road. From here to Velletri, the road follows a fairly lovely route, bordered, when you get close, by hedges of odiferous shrubs. Velletri was the ancient Velitrae of the Volsci, that the Romans captured under Ancus Marcius, their fourth king. In the Ginetti Palace in Velletri you see the room where Don Carlos, current king of Spain, was sleeping when the Germans took the town by surprise and forced him to scamper off to his Neapolitan and Spanish troops.74 Four lovely granite columns support the vestibule of the staircase. As for the rest of the details on this palace, see what Renard has written.75

74 Velletri and its environs became the site of the turning point of the War of the Austrian Succession. On 12 Dec. 1744, Austrian forces attacked Velletri and forced the flight of the Bourbon king (then Charles VII of Naples and V of Sicily; he would become Charles III of Spain and abdicate his other titles to his son Ferdinand in 1758). Shortly afterwards, however, Charles led his forces to victory over the Austrians. 75 Jean-Augustin Renard (1744–1807) was an architect and won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1773 and was in residence in the city from 1774 until 1780. He was one of the many artists to contribute illustrations for Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non’s important Voyage pittoresque; ou, Description des Royaumes

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The baldachin of the cathedral is supported by four lovely granite columns. Otherwise this church is quite plain and contains no object worthy of curiosity. There is, close to the entrance of this church, a tomb that once contained the body of Saint Gerard, supported upon a sort of little altar, the pilasters of which are adorned with arabesques that are quite delicately wrought. The Church of Saint Michael the Archangel, close to the Law Courts, is built upon the top of the foundations of a temple to Saturn. You still see outside a large part of the antique substructure. Close by are the ruins of an ancient fortress of this Volscian town. You see in this church a Saint Ann and the Infant Jesus and Saint Joseph, believed to be by Annibale Carracci. The Law Courts are built upon the foundations of the house of the family of Augustus, who as we know, was originally from this town and was brought up here.76 You see at the Law Courts a lovely Noli me tangere, concerning which no one could give me the name, the Incredulity of Saint Thomas [sic]. The gallery is pretty, painted with frescoes and rather prettily decorated. It is used for gatherings and for Carnival feasts. Where this building is situated is truly delightful. You see several antique inscriptions there. It is said that this town has a population of a thousand, eight hundred. In the middle of the square is a statue (see Richard); it is made of bronze. You see at the convent of the Recollects a very lovely [Giovanni] Lanfranco that depicts the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence. This painting seemed to me well drawn but lacking in naturalness; it is in a room in the convent. Sir Laurent Philippe, who married a Banquieri [viz., Banchieri], from the city of Pistoia, has had built a rather lovely modern palace of which the layout is very nice.77 Descending from the mountain that leads to Marino, you enjoy the most beautiful viewpoint imaginable. The lake of Castel Gandolfo at your left, the town of the same name gracing its shores, the immense plain upon which Rome is located – all these creates one of the most beautiful, richest, most pleasing spectacles. It is here that your spirit expands, where you recall with interest all the various historical episodes that have made this beautiful land famous. It seems that imagining yourself in the place of the heroes that have inhabited it, you yourself feel greater and more magnanimous. From here, you arrive at Marino, of which I spoke under the heading of the environs of Rome, and finally at that former capital of the world, in the midst of the ruins of the ancient monuments that have embellished it and of which you see only the sad remnants. This descent takes you through a wooded area that is about two miles off and through which you go for three miles before coming to Marino. Route from Rome to Loreto From Rome to Castelnuovo, which is usually the dining stop, the route goes along a lovely enough path that, almost everywhere, is the ancient Flaminian Way, handled in the same style as the Appian, but which somehow seems better preserved and, I think, made with de Naples et de Sicile, 4 vols. (Paris, 1781–1786). Sade’s reference is uncertain; he may have had in mind personal correspondence. 76 Augustus was born in Rome in 63 BCE and named at the time Gaius Octavius Thurinus. His paternal family hailed from Velletri and the future first emperor was, in part, raised there. 77 Marginal note: “This historical episode, mentioned above, about the king Don Carlos, who thought himself taken at Velletri and who, from the Genetti Palace, rejoined his army, which was in the mountains, at the base of which is the convent of the Capuchins, took place in 1744.”

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more care. You come across Prima Porta, a bit of ruin that seems to have served as a gate and that ignorant folk believe was used as the first gate of ancient Rome, which stretched out, it is true, quite a bit on this side. Leaving Rome, you pass over the Pons Mulvius, today called the Ponte Molle [or Ponte Milvio]; to the right and left you meet with some antique monuments, but of little importance and utterly deteriorated. The most important is that of the Flaminian Way, which one follows for a long time during that half of a day. The costs at the inns are pretty much the same on this route as elsewhere in Italy, that is to say, that the dinner charge is three paoli, four for supper, and this in order to be as well served as is possible along these sorts of routes, because, at a pinch, it should cost only two in the morning and three in the evening. (See what is famous about the Ponte Molle and put it here.) The inns are on the route. The village of Castelnuovo, which looked to me insignificant and quite squat, is upon the right. From Castelnuovo to Civita Castellana is a distance of sixteen miles, which makes thirtyfive in total, seeing that there are nineteen from Rome to Castelnuovo. Shortly before arriving and upon the right of Civita Castellana, you pass over the Traglicon, which is the ancient Cremera, famous in the history of the war of the Fabii against the Veii.78 The intermediate post stop is called Rignano; it is a town that seems fairly ample. At the angle of the quay that creates the cog where you turn to get back to the main route is a torso, consular statue, that is said to be antique but that appears to be an extremely mediocre work. I do not know why Monsieur Richard has said that it is only twenty miles from Rome to Civita Castellana; there are thirtysix, and this stupidity just about cost me my life (say something about what happened to me).79 Civita Castellana is located upon a height. Before arriving, to your right is Mount Soratte (see Richard). This mountain is not at all, as he would have it, wooded; on the contrary, it is bare and arid. The woods are at the base; it is said that Pope Sylvester withdrew here and remained hidden for a long time, which gave the mountain the moniker that it carried for a long time, of which the one that it carries today is but a corruption.80 The goddess Feronia81 had a temple at the foot of this mountain and a large sacred grove that seems quite the same one that you see today.

78 There is no such stream as the Traglicon, although the Cremera, a tributary of the Tiber, flows in the region today, as in ancient times. What we have is likely a garbled reference either to the stream known as the Ricano or Rio Vicano, an outlet of the small lake of Vico, or to the stream known as the Treglia or Treia, the two joining near Civita Castellana and subsequently joining the Tiber. On the battle between the gens Fabia and the Veii, see Livy, History of Rome, B.O. Foster, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 1[bk.2, s.44–51]:262–85. 79 I have been unable to locate any biographical information on this incident. It seems likely that Sade was (nearly) stranded in the countryside. 80 Pope Sylvester was said to have taken refuge here during Constantine’s persecutions prior to the emperor’s conversion; as reported in various medieval texts, including the famous forged Imperial decree known as the Donation of Constantine, the thirteenth-century collection of hagiographies, Legenda aurea, and Gautrier de Coincy’s book of songs, Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame. Mount Soracte features in the opening lines of Horace’s Ode 1.9, so Sade’s confusing attempt at etymology can hardly stand: “Vides ut alta stet nive candidum / Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus / silvae laborantes geluque / flumina constiterint acuto? [Do you see how Soracte stands there shining with its blanket of deep snow, how the straining woods no longer support their burden, and the streams have been halted by the sharp grip of ice?].” Horace, Odes and Epodes, 40–1. Moreover, the detested Richard cites the opening of Horace’s ode, with its mention of Soracte (see Description, 6:415). 81 Feronia was originally a Sabine and Faliscan goddess who was associated with, among other things, fertility, abundance, health, and wildlife; she was honoured in particular by freedmen.

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Suolaponte was a dependency of it.82 Several authors assert that today’s Civita Castellana was the ancient Fescennium, an Etruscan city, where was born that free poetic genre that was introduced into Rome before it became familiar with the spectacles.83 Monsieur Richard puts it six miles from here; I know not upon what authority. My uncertainty about this fact will, however, prevent me from refuting it here. But someone who is so utterly mistaken about distances and who asserts that there are between Rome and Civita Castellana only twenty miles – and that in spite of the markers carefully placed from one mile to the next more than twenty-five years before his work – someone, I say, who is so utterly mistaken does not inspire a lot of confidence concerning more interesting indications. From Civita Castellana, I took dinner at Otricoli. Leaving Civita Castellana, you cross back over the same stream upon a very bold bridge; it flows into a little valley that creates the most picturesque views.84 At Borghetto, which is the first post house after, is an old castle that appears to be from the time of the Goths. At the base of Borghetto, you cross the Tiber upon a very lovely bridge. This bridge has four archways, beautiful and bold, built by Sixtus V and finished by Clement VIII. The Tiber River passes through here and flows quite in the open, not through steep rocks, as Richard has it. You see no ruins of the bridge of Augustus. I do not know where he got that from. It is difficult to be more absurd and inexact than Monsieur Richard is in this area.85 Two miles before coming to Otricoli will be seen to the right the ruins of an ancient castle up on a height and that I think dates from the time of the Goths. I do not know whether these are the ones that Monsieur Richard has taken for those of Horta. You see nothing

82 Sade’s reference is unclear. 83 The term “spectacles” here covers various public entertainments: races, gladiatorial combats, theatre, and so forth. Fescennine Verses were dialogic banter and often seen as a precursor of satire. Horace writes that from innocent roots they became increasingly scabrous, slanderous, and eventually subject to legal sanction: “The farmers of old, a sturdy folk with simple wealth, when, after harvesting the grain, they sought relief at holiday time for the body, as well as for the soul, which bore its toils in hope of the end, together with slaves and faithful wife, partners of their labours, used to propitiate Earth with swine, Silvanus with milk, and with flowers and wine the Genius who is ever mindful of the shortness of life. Through this custom came into use the Fescennine licence, which in alternate verse poured forth rustic taunts and the freedom, welcomed each returning year, was innocently gay, till jest, now growing cruel, turned to open frenzy, and stalked amid the homes of honest folk, fearless in its threatening. Stung to the quick were they who were bitten by a tooth that drew blood; even those untouched felt concern for the common cause, and at last a law was carried with penalty, forbidding the portrayal of any in abusive strain. Men changed their tune, and terror of the cudgel led them back to goodly and gracious forms of speech.” Horace, Satires, 408–9 [ep.2.1, ll.139–55]. Whether the term derives from the town of Fescennium or from fascinum, a phallic symbol with apotropaic properties, is unclear; see Horace, Satires, Epistles, 409. Richard provides a long note on Fescennine Verses, their origins, and relation to Roman comedy in his Description, 6:416–17. 84 Sade likely intends the Ponte Clementino, built in 1712, over the gorge at Civita Castellana, which could well be personified as hardi (“bold” or “audacious”), although he could also mean the single-arched Roman bridge over the Treglia. The ravine, its bridges, and the surrounding countryside of Civita Castellana was a favourite spot for artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See Peter Galassi, Corot in Italy: OpenAir Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 186. 85 Abbé Richard was hardly alone in his assertions, as in Nugent’s account: “About five miles from Otricoli and three from Civita Castellana, you come through the village of Borghetto situated on a little hill, where you pass over the Tiber upon a stately bridge, raised, as appears by the inscription, by Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. out of the ruins of a magnificent bridge built here by Augustus, by which the Via Flaminia was continued.” Thomas Nugent, The Grand Tour, or A Journey through the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France, 2nd ed. (London, 1756), 3:221. Sade will soon correct himself (see p. 358 below).

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preserved here. It is likely that the ruins were those of ancient Otricoli or those lovely suburbs of Rome, which stretched from the Ponte Molle up to Otricoli. From these ruins to Otricoli the route goes via a quite steep slope, bordered to the right and left by honeysuckle hedges that fence in plantings of rather lovely olive trees. Otricoli is the last town of the Roman countryside. You see some portions of the walls of modern Otricoli that seem to be of antique construction and could well have belonged to the ancient town. It stretched from the mountain up to the bank of the Tiber. It seems likely that the Tiber, which you cross before arriving here upon the bridge that I mentioned, was the boundaries of Latium [sic]. At Otricoli will be seen some remnants of columns and of mediocre statues, some antique altars, the best having been transported to the Villa Albani, Cardinal Albani being the protector of Otricoli. At Saint Sophia in Rome will be seen many antiquities found at Otricoli as well. This town is a dependency of the bishopric of Narni. It is monstrous and unpleasant, poor and depopulated. From certain spots you have a superb view of the countryside that the Tiber waters. The church is very plain and has absolutely nothing noteworthy about it. From Otricoli to Narni the route goes up and down almost the entire time. At certain spots, it is very steep in view of the deep ravines formed by the wooded mountains through which the Nera courses with considerable noise, its torrents rushing through uneven areas and over an almost always rocky bed. This part of this river will recall the waters of the Arc in the mountains of Savoy. At last you come to Narni. The cathedral, under the name of Saint Juvenal [San Giovenale], is a rather ordinary church. The aisles are divided by eight Composite marble columns that are said to be antique. The Chapel of Saint Lucia is all faced with marble, the paving, too. You see in this church a painting of Christ giving the keys to Saint Peter, by an artist whose name is written at the bottom of the painting, but who seemed to me, on account of his unfamiliar name and of his work, unworthy of mention.86 This composition is cold and without warmth. The painting dates from 1560. Under the high altar is an underground chapel where the body of Saint Juvenal is preserved. On the side of river the town forms an amphitheatre that could not be more pleasant. It is from the terrace in front of the Church of Saint John [viz., San Giovenale] that you must contemplate the uniqueness and picturesqueness of that landscape that I have just mentioned, which is by […]87 In the Church of Saint John is a Visitation by the same artist, from 1558. Same fault as the previous. The Law Courts, located upon a small square, seem to be of antique construction, at least the base of the building. Narni has four thousand inhabitants and is large enough to contain double that, but it is depopulated, although the air is good. Above the town is a chateau that

86 The painter in question is Livio Agresti (1508–1580). 87 The text makes little sense at this point. What is suggested is that you should take in a view of the countryside from the church terrace and – perhaps – that there is a landscape painting of the same. However, the painting mentioned above is the Consignment of the Keys to Saint Peter by Livio Agresti (the artist whose name Sade does not provide) and includes no elements of landscape. The Visitation subsequently mentioned is presumably Agresti’s Annunciation, now located in the Museo della Città di Narni in Palazzo Eroli. It would also appear that the cathedral San Giovenale di Narni has been transformed into Saint John, which would be San Giovanni in Italian; no church by the latter name exists in the town proper. Saint Juvenal or San Giovenale, who lived in the fourth century, is the patron of Narni and was its first bishop.

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overlooks it and in which the governor does not stay because of the difficulty of residing there, given its extreme height. A few sbirri are kept there and the prisons [sic]. You see in the large room in the town hall two large fresco portraits, one of Gattamelata, general of land and sea of the Venetians, whose statue is in Padua in the middle of the square,88 the other of Galeoto Martis [viz., Galeotto Marzio],89 a philosopher; both are from Narni. This town, which boasts of having given birth to these two great men, does even much more honour to itself for having produced the emperor Nerva. The fountain that is in the middle of the square, called the Square of the Prior, is from 1303 according to the inscription that will be seen around the basin. The aqueduct that brings water to the three fountains of the city – for there are three of them – is, it is said, the work of the father of the emperor Nerva. It carries the water from fifteen miles away (see Martial, book VII, Epigr. 92 and Titus Livy, vol. 1, page 552).90 To the left upon entering the town is a gate in the Tuscan order. The gate, the two columns that support the architrave, and the architrave itself are very well preserved. One is astonished to see that it faced the rocks. It is likely that the path turned here and rejoined the current path or thereabouts; either that or this gate went to the castle upon the site of which might have been a fortress. In this town, there is the Reverend Father Bruccioni, provincial of the Order of Friars Minor of Saint Francis, an educated man and one who has gathered all that is possible to gather about this town. I had a chat with him and saw an educated man. He was (he told me) ready to write the history of the town and had sufficient material to undertake it. But instead of encouraging him, he had been, he said, put off from doing so, and he has left off everything. Lovely praise of the spirit of the country and of the degree of love for learning therein! Narni was a Roman colony (see the Archipel, fairly in-depth upon this topic).91 Nequinum is a sort of nickname, which seems hardly natural that it should have been given 88 Erasmo di Narni (1370–1443), called Gattamelata, was a renowned condottiere and served various Italian city-states, Venice among them. In 1437, he became podestà of Padua, where Donatello’s equestrian statue of him stands on the piazza before the Basilica di Sant’Antonio di Padova. 89 Galeotto Marzio or Galeottus Martius Narniensis (c. 1425–c. 1495) was a multitalented humanist: poet, philosopher, philologist, historian, and more. 90 Writes Martial in epigram 93: “Narnia, circled by your river white with sulphurous flood, hard of access on your double ridge, why do you like to take my Quintus [Ovidius, Martial’s close friend] away from me so often and keep him so lengthily detained? Why do you destroy for me the reason for my little place at Nomentum, which was valuable because of my neighbour? Come now, spare me, Narnia, and don’t overdo it with Quintus; so may it be yours to enjoy your bridge for ever” (Epigrams, 2[bk.7, ep.93]:146–7). Marolles’s translation and edition of Martial gives the number of the epigram on Narnia as book VII, epigram 92 in the biography of the author but as 93 in the text and translation proper; this suggests that Sade consulted the biography of this volume for his reference. See Michel de Marolles, Toutes les Epigrammes de Martial en Latin et en François, avec de petites nottes (Paris, 1665), 1:588–9 and 2:15. Livy writes that once the Osco-Umbrian town of Nequinum was subjugated by the Romans in the fourth century BCE, a “colony was sent there to make head against the Umbrians, and was given the name of Narnia, from the river Nar” (History of Rome, 4[bk.10, s.10]:392–3). Sade here provides one of two page references in the manuscript to the edition of Livy that he was using; unfortunately, what this edition may have been remains uncertain. 91 The reference is to anonymous (sometimes attributed to Maihows or Matthews), Voyage en France, en Italie et aux îles de l’Archipel, ou lettres écrites de plusieurs endroits de l’Europe et du Levant en 1750, avec des observations de l’auteur sur les diverses productions de la nature et de l’art, trans. PhilippeFlorent de Puisieux (Paris, 1766), 3:32–6.

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during Roman times. This reflection alone would suffice to infer perhaps a greater antiquity for this town, and perhaps this word Nequinum was something else. The name Narni was subsequently given it by Fulvius Poetinus because of the Nar River that waters its borders. The consul had defeated the Nequinians who had united with the Samnites (see the Archipel).92 The window panes are not made of paper, as Misson says, nor the roads so unclean, and this little town is not at all mean. I believe that I have mentioned that there were three lovely fountains of bronze and of marble. You see another antique gate at the other end of the town, likewise the work of the Romans. It is in the rustic Tuscan order, open on the side or diagonally, which indicates that the path to which it led must have been about the same as the one today, which you follow when you want to go and see the arch or antique bridge called that of Augustus. You see, before getting there, a rather lovely church dedicated to Saint Augustine, in which, however, I found nothing particularly noteworthy other than its shape and interior space. It is the most beautiful one in the town. It is about a mile from the town that will be seen that Bridge of Augustus [Ponte d’Augusto] that Monsieur Richard admits to us that he was lazy enough not to go and see. It seems to me that here is one of those admissions that one ought never to make and can only render suspect all the rest of what one puts forward, because if you are too lazy to see one object, you might have been so to see another, and so forth. This bridge is a truly curious ancient ruin. It joins the two mountains between which the Nera flows. It is of a prodigious height, made of four arches. The entire work is of marble. The river flows between the middle two only; the two end ones sit upon the ground. The only one preserved intact is the one on the Narni side. It appears that the arches were decorated with pilasters in the Tuscan order with bossages. But what astonishes in a construction from the time of Augustus is the unevenness of the stones employed, of which some are immensely large and others are quite small. All the exterior of the bodies of the pillars was in the same Tuscan order with bossages. After the antique custom, the stones are all joined without mortar, without any cement or liaison. The two archways, judging from the one that is preserved, appear much more open and larger than the others. If you follow the main path straight ahead, at three-quarters of a mile along, you will turn left, and a half mile from there, you will find the bridge. From Terni to the waterfall is four miles. You ascend via a road that is quite well made and difficult of access. Several villages will be seen in an extraordinarily picturesque locale. You go through the gate of the one called Papinia. Upon the mountain that overhangs it are the ruins of an old castle that has the same name, where a hermit lived. The rock is always upon your right and the Velino flowing to your left, in the deep valley formed by these mountains. When you get to the highest point, you leave the main route that goes on to Rieti, first town in the Kingdom of Naples, and advance via paths up to a platform in the

As remarked in the introductory notes to this volume, attribution of this work is vexed (see lxxxix, note 32). Early in the nineteenth century, the bibliographer Jacque-Charles Brunet attributed Puisieux’s original English source to a certain Dr Maihows (Manuel de libraire et de l’amateur de livres, 3:232). AntoineAlexandre Barbier, Brunet’s main successor in business of putting names to anonymous works, suggested that this was a misunderstanding for Matthews (Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, 4:282 and 4:393). It is true that the English name Maihows is nowhere recorded. Although many library catalogues still attribute the work and its translation by Puisieux to Maihows, it is best considered anonymous. 92 See ibid., 3:35.

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woods, where you leave the horses. From there you advance on foot until a spot fashioned between two rocks, where you see the rapid flow of the river before the falls. A bit farther on, you find yourself completely in front of the waterfall, advancing and situating yourself upon a small elevation of grass-covered terrain that is ever moistened by the splashing water. Taking it all in, I found that Monsieur Richard, who condemns the author of the Îles de l’Archipel for being too fantastic, is a bit himself. First of all, the noise is not as frightful as he says; you can always hear one another in that spot. For this to be true, you would have to be in the abyss at the bottom, where it is impossible to penetrate. The river that makes this waterfall is the Velino, which originates in the mountains of Abruzzi, close to Rieti, a border town that I will discuss. Having come to the rock known as del Marmore, it rushes with an astonishing furore into an abyss from more than two hundred feet high. At that point, it falls and forms two branches: one that drops from more than three hundred feet high and disappears underground; the other, finding ground to receive it, flows and creates the river. It is then that, falling rapidly onto the rock bed, it creates a foaming and bubbling that spreads in all directions and moistens everything. The grass lies flat and has no resilience, although always green and quite cool.93 That sort of cloud or bubbling foam rises to the same height as the waterfall and not to three hundred feet high, as Misson and the Archipel would have it. It appears that this waterfall previously had another drop, from which it was artificially diverted, in order to preserve the properties that are in this area and that it impacted. A little farther on is the Nera, the waters of which are much whiter. It comes from the Loreto side (doubtful) and, close to the waterfall, they join and form but a single river that is the one that you see at Narni. The water of the Velino is attributed with the power of petrifying. I believe this given the nature of the vermiculated stones that are close by; I pulled up some roots that seemed to me also covered by a sort of petrifying tartar. Monsieur Richard is wrong when he says that the plants do not suffer; they yellow in several areas, especially in those where they are moistened the most. At the bottom of the stairs fashioned for going to contemplate the waterfall head-on, a hole has been fashioned into the rock through which will be seen a large number of roots of the trees that cover the rock, all of which are petrified. Lower down is another sort of grotto, created out of the petrified roots of the trees that crown the mountain. There you make out perfectly leaves that are all petrified. You must observe that the leaves of trees that are nearest to the continual rain produced by the mist have a whitish coloration, which comes close to that which they acquire once totally petrified. You must not neglect to see this. The rapid flow, about which I have spoken at the outset of this topic, comes before it [the river] rushes over. From this you begin to judge the stunning rapidity of its flow.

93 Writes the anonymous author in Puisieux’s rendering: “You can imagine nothing as surprising as this great and terrible cataract. An entire river rushes over it, and the fall is no less than three hundred feet. Conjure up the image of a curtain of water that tumbles from a rim of rocks from that height, uninterruptedly, and that is received on another rock below, and you will see that the eyes and ears must be filled with a suchlike effect. Even the surroundings of this marvel are surprising. The mountain that carries it there is made of white marble; it is called the monte di marmore” (Voyage en France, 3.2). For Richard’s extended, ecstatic description of the waterfall, see Description, 4:445–8. He remarks that the “terrible” sublimity of the spectacle is heightened by “the silence you are forced to keep, since you would not understand one another, so loud is the noise” (4:448).

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It is false that there were orange trees in the plain that you see below you, in the direction of Terni. At the waterfall, the danger of the path is also false; it is lovely and wide, and there is a parapet all the way. Terni was in ancient times Interamna (see Richard).94 Strettura, which is the intermediate post house between Spoleto and Terni, is not at all called this, as Richard would have it, because of the narrowness of its situation, for the central town that carries this name is located upon a high mountain, and all this part of the valley is the most open that there is from Terni to here. All the hillsides and all the mountains that surround this valley are covered in woods and all produce various, diverse, and picturesque viewpoints. I have forgotten to say that the town of Terni is somewhat handsome. The town hall and some buildings lend it some grace; the streets are clean and of a decent width. The cathedral of Spoleto. Ionic portal opened by five large archways supported by pilasters, into which are embedded columns in the Corinthian order. The frieze is adorned with rather pretty arabesques. At the either side of the portal is a pulpit or ambo (see Richard). One is broken. At the top of the portal are some mosaics from the same era. The cathedral is rather beautifully laid out, with three aisles divided by six archways on each side. The paving is done in mosaic. In the chapel for relics are several paintings depicting sibyls, prophets, and some other holy subjects, placed in various compartments of the woodwork, by Francis [viz., Filippo] Lippi of Florence. This artist was not without merit. He died, it is said, while labouring at these works. His death was tragic; he was poisoned by a husband jealous of the love he had for his wife (see the Archipel).95 The other subjects that I just mentioned are from the Old Testament: Judith holding the head of Holofernes and the Sacrifice of Abraham, both on wood. The Chapel of the Sacraments [viz., Cappella del Santissimo Sacramento] is pretty, pavement of marble, all in stucco, and adorned with statues also of stucco. The order is Corinthian. The ceiling is adorned with various paintings in compartments, which produce impact enough. The high altar is likewise of stucco, but decorated quite tastefully. The tabernacle is made of marble. This entire chapel is new and pleasant. The apse is adorned with quite ancient frescoes and most worn away. In the Chapel of the Madonna and Saint Luke are four mediocre paintings, of which the least bad seemed to me to be Saint Luke painting the Virgin. The only thing that strikes you as peculiar is her ecstasy before such a nasty oddball. No one could tell me who did these paintings. From here you climb to the castle, built upon a very great height, separated from the opposite mountains by the stream called the Maroggia, upon which is an aqueduct built by the Goths (see Richard). On the other side of the water conduit is a little bridge for pedestrians. This monument is four hundred feet high, and the bridge without a railing is frightful to see. You can quite easily discern from the construction that this aqueduct is from the era of the Goths 94 The ancient Roman name for the city, meaning “between the rivers.” Richard writes: “This town is the Interamna of the Ancients, the name deriving from its situation on an island created by the Nera” (Description, 4:452). 95 Sade’s source states: “Philippo [sic] Lippi, Florentine painter, man of incomparable genius, but of infamous morals. He was banished from his homeland for having debauched a nun from the Prato monastery while he was working at painting the chapel. He died here while working on this painting, from poison given to him by an inhabitant of the town with whose wife he was having an affair” (Anon., Voyage en France, 2:317).

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and not of the Romans, as some authors have claimed. The water that is channelled through this aqueduct comes from the nearby mountains and is connected from there to the entire town. The castle is of an utterly Gothic design. Theodoric, it is said, resided there for a long time. In the interior courtyard there is a double, arcaded gallery that goes all the way around, the pilasters of which are in massiti [?] of bricks.96 I have seen nothing that would provide a notion of the old castles painted in romances as this one does. From the windows of the gallery you have a marvellous view of the town; from here it appears in its best possible light. The countryside in which it is located is charming and scattered with houses. The view from here is all the more pleasing to the extent that it is not uniform, and charming hills pleasingly mingle with the plain. The main hall still shows all the marks of a Gothic room. The hearth, the doorways, the windows – all cleave to the Gothic taste. You believe yourself to be in one of those ancient great halls in which knights were entertained or where ladies were there to disarm them when they finished their competitions. Connected to this hall is the torture chamber. You see the various instruments therein, such as the instrument used for the short-bone torture [?], a rope for that of the rope [torture], etc. In the upper part of one of the towers and fashioned into the thickness of the walls are horrible prisons. The town hall at the Law Courts is fairly handsome looking. The Church of Saint Philip [San Filippo Neri] is pretty in shape, in the Corinthian order; the layout is a Greek cross, with three aisles, all in stucco. The aisles are divided by three archways on each side. The small cupola in the middle has a pretty shape; you see a pretty Holy Family by [Sebastiano] Conca, prettily drawn and really quite vivid. Opposite is a Crucifix, at the base of which are the Virgin and the Magdalene. It is said to be by a pupil of Conca. This piece is not without charm. You see the gate where Hannibal was pushed back, with the inscription (see Richard).97 It is made of marble, but it did not seem to me to have any antique characteristics. I think that it was restored. 96 Although it is unclear what Sade may have intended by massiti or whether the word is simply illegible, the columns – not pilasters, a distinction that our author is otherwise keen to maintain – along with the arcades of the interior courtyard are, indeed, brick. Theodoric the Great (454–526), King of the Ostrogoths, apparently had a fortress on this site. The fortress that stands there today, however, is the work of the architect Matteo Gattaponi and dates from the fourth century. It was constructed during the papacy of Innocent VI during the Great Schism and on orders of Cardinal Egidio Albornoz, thus its name: the Rocca Albornoziana. 97 Richard provides the text of the inscription on the so-called Porta della Fuga or simply Porta Fuga at Spoleto, albeit with slight variations and an important transcription error (see Description, 6:431): Hannibal cæsis ad Trasimenum Romanis Urbem Roman insenso Agmine petens Spoleto magna suorum claude [cæde] repulsus Insigni fugâ portæ nomen fecit. [Hannibal having cut down the Romans at Lake Trasimene, Seeking the city of Rome with troops afire, Was driven back by Spoleto with great lamely (viz., slaughter) of his own. His flight is memorialized in the name of this gate.]

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Outside of the town is a chapel called that of the Crucifix, located upon the same site as a temple to Concordia. You still see in the choir six fluted marble columns that were used in that temple, in the Corinthian order, two of which, those that support the arch of the choir, are covered with stucco. The arch of the cul-de-four is likewise supported by two similar columns and placed on either side. These columns are still in the same place, and the frieze that they support quite confirms that the ancient edifice was here and that only restorations were done to it. You see only that the ground was raised up, given that the bottom parts are hidden. You discern that it was larger. It could be possible that this was never anything but a church. The ancient façade of this small edifice will be seen in the interior of the building, and it is by examining it that you conclude, in my view, that this edifice was never anything but a church and not a temple. You end up persuaded of this in seeing the crosses that are part of the decoration. The position of Spoleto is charming. Opposite the castle is the mountain of the hermits of Spoleto (see Richard).98 The air is excellent in Spoleto. The main commerce is in hats and shoes; they do an annual trade of thirteen thousand Roman scudi. The population is ten or twelve thousand. On the topic of the castle: what Richard says is true (see him).99 All the country that you cross, from Spoleto to Foligno, is lovely, well cultivated. The mountain that you have opposite is full of houses. You see everywhere traces of industriousness, and everything contributes to make this lovely country the most pleasing that you could lay eyes on. Seven miles from here, you find upon the shores of the ancient Clitumnus, a river celebrated by Virgil, a small temple erected to the river itself.100 The interior of this small edifice is in the most elegant Corinthian order; the architrave is supported by four columns and two pilasters in the Corinthian order. The two columns in the middle are pine-cone shaped, the two others are spiralled, and the two pilasters are fluted. In the frieze is the following inscription (see Misson).101 Upon the pediment are some ornaments handled in the same

  98 Monte Luco or Monteluco had for centuries been the site of hermitages. Richard noted “twelve main habitations still, inhabited by as many lay individuals, who live each to their own with their domestic servants, in celibacy” (Description, 6:433).   99 Richard’s remark is merely that one “sees the remains of a castle [i.e., the Rocca Albornoziana] built by the Dukes of Spoleto upon the very ruins of that of Theodoric, King of the Goths” (Description, 6:432). 100 In the Georgics, Virgil mentions the Clitumnus in his more general celebration of Roman lands and their fertility from the earliest times up to the present: “The land was filled with teeming crops and Bacchus’ Massic juice; it is the home of the olive, the home of fattened flocks. Hence comes the war horse which proudly prances over the plain, hence the milk-white herds of the Clitumnus, and the bull, noblest of victims, which, bathed often in its sacred stream, have escorted Roman triumphs to the shrines of the gods.” Virgil, Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid 1–6, 146–7 [bk.2, ll.143–8]. 101 Misson remarks: “the three inscriptions that follow are engraved on the friezes of the façade and on the two sides. (1) S C S Deus Profetarum qui fecit redemptionem. (2) Deus Angelorum qui fecit Resurrectionem. (3) S C S Deus Aposto. **** the remainder is broken” (Voyage d’Italie, 2:50–2). In full, these inscriptions read: SANCTUS DEUS ANGELORUM QUI FECIT RESURRECTIONEM SANCTUS DEUS APOSTOLORUM QUI FECIT REMISSIONEM SANCTUS DEUS PROPHETARUM QUI FECIT REDEMPTIONEM [Holy God of the angels who undertook the resurrection Holy God of the apostles who remitted our sins Holy God of the prophets who undertook our redemption]

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style and with the same delicacy as the rest. The inscription of the frieze would confirm that this is not a pagan temple, but it is possible that it was added later. Everything is made of marble and placed onto a base about six feet high; it seems that there were wings accompanying the façade on the sides but that they are today destroyed. Pliny the Younger assures us that it was upon this spot that a temple to this river was erected that, it is said, had the power to turn cattle white.102 Misson, based upon the Christian inscriptions and crosses upon the frieze, contradicts this opinion. But wouldn’t it be possible that, with the passage of time, by erecting this pagan monument into one to Saint Salvatore, to whom it is erected today, the Christian monuments might have been set up at that time? The interior is not much. Christian zeal appears to have utterly absorbed all the pagan beauties. There remains around the niche where the statue of the river was a marble that is delicately adorned and in the same style as the rest. As for the Clitumnus, it snakes and branches variously into the plain to the left and contributes considerably to its coolness. Two miles from here you see upon the mountain ridge the town of Trevi, in the shape of an amphitheatre, which serves not a little to embellish the landscape. Foligno. At the Church of the Countesses, painting by Raphael (see Richard).103 The cathedral is being newly rebuilt; it will be beautiful when finished. The former portico is Gothic; the baldachin of the high altar is in the same style as the one in Saint Peter’s in Rome. All the columns in the church will be faced with a white stone with grey and brown veining, which is found seven miles from Foligno, on the road to Loreto. This church will be of the grand sort. To the right, at the back of the choir, conserved in a cabinet under the organ, is a seated statue, larger than life, of Saint Felicien, made by Le Gros.104 It is all silver, statue and chair. Although originally a site of pagan worship, the so-called Tempietto del Clitunno is actually a palaeoChristian church. 102 Although Pliny the Younger remarks “a holy temple of great antiquity in which is a standing image of the god Clitumnus himself clad in a magistrate’s bordered robe” and “all around […] a number of small shrines, each containing its god and having its own name and cult” on the river, nowhere does he mention the miraculous powers of the water to which Misson refers. The Letters of Pliny, Volume II: Books 8–10. Panegyricus, 24–5 [bk.8, letter 8]; see Misson, Voyage d’Italie, 2:50. Powers of the sort were, however, attributed to various waters. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, Volume 1: Books 1–2, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), observes that in “the district of Falerii all the water makes oxen that drink it white” (1[bk.2]:356–7). The association of the Clitumnus with white cattle was clearly widespread. As remarked above (p. 362n100), Virgil writes of “the milk-white herds of the Clitumnus” (Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, 146–7). “Snowy bulls” supplied by “Clitumnus’ acres” are similarly noted by Statius, in his Silvae, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey and revised by Christopher A. Parrott (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 62–3. 103 From 1565 until Napoleon made off with it to Paris in 1799, Raphael’s Madonna di Foligno was on display in the Monastero di Sant’Anna, also known as the Monastero delle Contesse. It is now in the Vatican Museum. In his Description historique et critique, Richard describes this painting in some detail and states that “you could see nothing more beautiful and more noble than the Virgin” and that the “beauty of the drawing and of the expression make it worthy of the grand master to whom it is attributed; and the coloration is as beautiful as that of certain canvases of Fra Bartolomeo di S. Marco” (6:435–6). 104 Pierre Le Gros the Younger (1666–1719) was a well-known French church sculptor, active in Rome. However, the statue Saint Felician of Foligno in the Foligno Cathedral, made of silver and bronze in around 1733, was designed by the late-Baroque sculptor Giovanni Battista Maini. Sade appears to have copied the error from Richard, who has Le Gros as the artist in his Description (6:462). Felician was bishop of

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This town is smaller than Spoleto, with a population of eight thousand. The government is not much of anything, since the nobility has the right to rule two months out of the year. It is located upon a delightful plain. As for what it formerly was, see my authors; in this instance, they are correct. I forgot to say about Spoleto that the town was large, mountainous, its streets well laid out, and surrounded by walls. The main business in Foligno is in paper, candles, jams, and provender. It provides [or provided] Rome almost all of its foodstuffs, for you also note here more monuments than in Rome, relatively speaking. I don’t know whether I have said that the ancient portal, which is located in the left branch of the cross, was Gothic in architecture. Two mountain streams flow into the town and are used by the paper mills. The one called Menotre, which flows within, is the one [most] used by the mills; the other, called Tin, eventually spills into the Tiber in Rome.105 These two streams come from the Apennines. The Tin is good for health baths. As for the antiquity of this town, see my authors; they are correct upon this topic. These streams are subject to flooding their banks. You are shown at the Florence Gate a height of more than twenty-five feet, which shows how far it has been. The entire town was flooded. In general, all the churches in this town are clean and lavishly and elegantly maintained. About two miles from Foligno, in the village of Pale, you begin to lose a bit of that lovely, so delightful plain, and to enter the mountains. About two more miles on, you see the paper manufactories of Foligno, located in the valley and situated most picturesquely. You follow the road fashioned upon the mountain the length of the precipice. The small, extremely narrow plain, which you cross through from the paper manufactories up to Case Nuove, is highly cultivated and well planted, whatever Richard may say.106 Moreover, it is not at all a plain; it is a narrow valley between mountains to the left and right. After the post house at Case Nuove, you climb a very rough mountain called the Colfiorito. To the right, the mountain; to the left, a horrific precipice, the path ever without a protective barrier. Further, the entire length of the cliff road, two carriages can always pass. Usually an extra horse is brought along to climb the Colfiorito, which costs two paoli and a tip. From the height of the mountain at Serravalle, this road goes along a plateau and almost ever descending. Coming to Serravalle, you see upon the elevation to the left some ruins of an old castle, the walls of which doubtless stretched to the entire enclosure of the town. Judging at least from the remnants that you see of it, I believe that the whole dates from the era of the Goths. The sort of tower that remains leads to this assessment. Serravalle is a rather long village, built haphazardly, wretched. All the inhabitants seem not to have any trade other than that of asking for handouts. It is squeezed in the valley and utterly bereft of any charm.

Foligno and is the patron saint of the town. He was reputedly tortured to death by the Romans for impiety at the age of 94 (c. 250 CE). 105 “Tin” is erroneous; the stream in question is the Topino River, known in Roman times as the Timia or Tinia. 106 Richard points out that, having left the paper manufactories behind, you go “several miles via a sterile and barren plain in which is located the village of Case Nuove, all the inhabitants of which are desperately poor, having no other resource than the charity of strangers, which they will not leave be until they have gotten something off them” (Description, 6:437–8).

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By dint of climbing up, you perceive that the air is cold and the climate is really, in this area, completely other than in the beautiful plain of Foligno. The village of Serravalle is two miles long. Above the village of Valcimarra, which is located in the gorge, is an old remnant of a castle made by the Goths, the purpose of which seems to have been to defend the extremely narrow gorges. In this spot, the entire mountain is filled with bushy Judas trees. The road continues along a ledge. In the valley a stream flows, and next to the precipice there is no barrier. Generally, I could not too much emphasize the beauty and uniqueness of all the scenes along this route (make here a nice painting thereof). This mountain stream or river about which I have just spoken above is called Chienti; its spring is in the Apennines. From Valcimarra to Tolentino, the plain is more open and everywhere well cultivated. Tolentino, an episcopal town located upon an elevation surrounded by other hills well […]107 Upon the square is an antique statue. I noticed, in passing, several modernized houses, built upon antique substructures. The town is small, mean, and poorly paved. Ten or twelve miles before arriving, you leave the province of Umbria and come into the March of Ancona (check the map to see whether this is true). On the other side of Tolentino, you rediscover spring, graced with all its gifts. It is incredible how much more gentle the air is and how much more advanced are all of Nature’s productions. The main routes in this area are planted with mulberry trees; you also see a lot of olive trees. A pretty chapel to the Magdalene of Mercy [viz., Madonna della Misericordia], entirely faced with marble. Two lovely pieces by Conca: the Assumption and the Nativity. The Madonna at the altar is by [Pietro] Perugino. At the Palazzo Buonaccorsi, brother of the cardinal of that name, recently deceased in Rome, where will be seen some fairly good paintings, but to which are given much lovelier names than they deserve.108 The town is two and a half miles around; it is upon an elevation. It has five gates; you see some palaces that are rather handsome, among others that of the Torre [Palazzo Torri], which is being completely redone. The cathedral, too, is being completely redone. This town has a population of seven thousand. The square of the town hall is fairly large; the town palace is by Bramante.109 Upon this same square is a rather lovely theatre with four rows of boxes; every winter, during the Carnival season, there is an opera.

107 Left blank. 108 Sade’s paratactic construction is somewhat confusing. The Palazzo Buonaccorsi was built in the early eighteenth century for Count Raimondo Buonaccorsi. His ample progeny included a son, Simone Buonaccorsi, who became a cardinal. The palazzo is best known for its gallery featuring depictions from Virgil’s Aeneid by various Italian Baroque painters, with the most notable painting being Francesco Solimena’s Dido Welcoming Aeneas to the Royal Hunt. See Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 223–6. 109 Sade is presumably referring to the Palazzo del Comune, although there is nothing to suggest that the architect Donato Bramante (1444–1514), perhaps best known for his fundamental contributions to the design of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, had anything to do with this edifice.

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There is a good deal of nobility in this city, a Chamber of the Rota.110 There are fourteen houses with equipage. It is located upon an elevation, which provides a delightful view of almost all the palaces. From Macerata to Recanati: the plain is superb, very inhabited, very cultivated. Recanati is upon an elevation two miles from Macerata, after having crossed the bridge that goes over Potenza River. You see to the right the ruins of the Roman town Helvia Ricina, destroyed by the Goths. What remains resembles an amphitheatre and is very deteriorated. Twelve or fourteen miles from there is Recanati, a town situated upon a high mountain. The highway that turns into the main road reveals it in its entirety. There, you see some remnants of Gothic ornamentation in the cathedral, the tomb of Gregory XII, and upon the top part of the town hall, a large bas-relief (see the Archipel). But note that there are only angels for supports.111 You see some fairly well-maintained churches and a rather lovely palace that belongs to the Marquis of Roberti. Leaving the town, you begin to glimpse the sea. From here to Loreto is four miles and not two, as Monsieur Richard would have it. Doubtless preoccupied with the little girls of which he speaks, who presented him with flowers the entire length of the route, he was not thinking of the distance. At last, you arrive at Loreto, located upon an elevation and three miles from the sea. The town has hardly two or three main streets, all taken up by rosary shops and other little notions. The church [i.e., Basilica della Santa Casa] has three aisles, divided by six pilasters on each squared side. There are six chapels in the recesses of two different naves, that is to say, six on each side. The baptismal font is made of bronze, and the doors also. At the top is a depiction of the Baptism of Jesus Christ. Four other small, related statues adorn this monument, which is truly beautiful and adorned with rather delicate bas-reliefs. The ensemble [i.e., of the baptismal font] sits upon a base and is supported by four angels. At either side is a poor stone statue. In the third chapel of the left aisle is a Nativity, of the prettiest drawing and most vivid. I believe it is by [Federico] Barocci; it is utterly in his manner. The other chapels on this side have nothing extraordinary other than a Cena by [Simon] Vouet in the last chapel of this nave to the left, a painting that has blackened considerably. This church is the shape of a Latin cross. In the left arm is a rather lovely painting; in another chapel, a fairly good Visitation. In the Chapel of the Communion are five silver lamps. All the ornaments in this chapel are also made of silver. At the altar of the choir are the twelve Apostles in silver, poorly wrought. The six candlesticks are also. All the other chapels of the right aisle have nothing noteworthy about them. Opposite the choir, under the cupola, at the end of the nave, is this church’s great

110 There is no logical connection between Sade’s observations: first, there are many nobles in Macerata; second, one of the four appellate courts of the Roman Catholic Church was located there. This court was not the Rota per se, which refers only to the high appellate court located in Rome. 111 Just as Sade’s reference describes the monument: “on the town hall there is a superb bronze monument dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto. It is of a considerable size, and you see at the top a Madonna holding Jesus in her arms, with four angels as supports. This august monument to the Virgin was made, so it is claimed, in memory of the Holy House first coming to a rest within the territory of this town when it was transported from Dalmatia” (Anon., Voyage en France, 2:307).

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object of devotion, I mean the Santa Casa, brought here from Jerusalem.112 The revetment of the marble is square; on the front, on the side of the doorway, is the entrance where the window was through which the angel came. This window is adorned with two angels who carry a crown, all in silver. This window is grated and is perhaps three feet high by two and half wide; the figures and the reliefs that adorn the casing are described in detail in my books (see them). The entire monument is Corinthian. The majority of the statues done in bas-relief are poor, whatever Monsieur Richard might say. You enter the house via four bronze doors adorned with bas-reliefs. The upper part of this structure is flat, surrounded by a gallery. The entire interior is filled with many silver lamps. The construction is of bricks mixed with some stones, very quickly built and repaired in a few spots. The bricks are uneven. There is an altar of recent make and behind is the small recess of about six feet where the statue is. The vault is new; it was not brought with the house. You could see nothing more simultaneously unpolished and magnificent. To the right and left are the cabinets, the doors of which are silver; the front of the altar and the little balustrades on the sides are also silver, the candlesticks, too. There are one hundred and fifty-three steps to climb to get to the top of the bell tower. It is a shame that in the midst of all this, there is so little decency. I have seen a drunken man therein offensively asking for alms and his presence tolerated. There are three lovely bronze doors adorned with bas-reliefs. The estimated value of the treasury does not come up to two million; there are many false gems. The Nativity, which I mentioned was by Barocci, is a copy. The original is in Rome. You see another copy of it in the treasury. The original is by Barocci. In the sixth chapel of the right-hand nave is a lovely bust of the first bishop of Loreto, under Sixtus V, deceased in 1566. The bishop cannot say mass in the Holy House without permission from Rome. The most esteemed statues of the casing are a David and a Moses; the head of Goliath, which is below David, is full of naturalness and truth; the whole is based upon designs by grand masters, but poorly executed. Story of the Imprisoned Crucifix In a time of drought, a time in which the Forty Hours’ Devotion was being done in this church, the holy sacrament having been exposed for three days and the rain not having arrived, the town called upon Mr the Governor, in order that a crucifix of paper, which was kept in the treasury of said church, should be exposed to public veneration, and this was carried out with all the customary pomp of the Italians under such circumstances. The rain came soon after. They began to cry miracle. Monsignor the Bishop, in the church where this said crucifix was exposed, ordered that it be brought back to the treasury. The town and the people were opposed to this. They had recourse to the Loretan congregation in Rome, 112 The Santa Casa or Holy House was, according to legend, the abode of the Holy Family and transported or “translated” by angels from Nazareth to Loreto to protect it from invading Turks in 1291. It was first set down in Tersatto (Trsat, Croatia), then transported again to the environs of Recanati, Italy, and finally to its current location close by. An important pilgrimage site from the late Middle Ages, encased within an ornate marble screen, it was just the sort of object that drew Sade’s scorn (see his further account below).

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which ordered that the said crucifix be neither in the treasury nor in the church, but that it should be placed and impounded behind the altar of Saint Vincent de Paul, where it is honoured with prodigious and continual worship. It has been fifteen years since this event; the amount surrounding this statue is estimated at one million. The garrison consists of twelve or fifteen men; it is claimed that the Blessed Virgin stands guard all alone. The square is not even. On one side is a colonnade where there are the lodgings of the chapter, the bishop, the governor, the penitentiaries, and everything having to do with the Holy House. It is a shame that the other is not finished. In the middle is a rather lovely fountain, and upon the steps of the church, the statue of Sixtus V, creator of all the external decorations. In the largest room are preserved in the cabinets several household utensils belonging to the Virgin. At the statue of Sixtus V are four statues for decoration that depict the Virtues intermingled. In the other sides of the pillar, which is octagonal, intermingled, I say, with basreliefs, only Sixtus V has a place. The colonnade is by various popes; Leo X did a lot there. Note The lamps that Monsieur Richard says are always burning are never lit during the night. The arsenal contains weapons for a thousand men; the only thing missing now are the men. There is a cabinet filled with prohibited weapons of all types. You are also shown an immense cellar that is used, it is said, for the consummation of masses and for pilgrims, who are fed for three days at the hospice. The town of Loreto is surrounded by walls flanked by some towers. At the entry to the treasury, a pretty painting of the Virgin in the midst of a group of young ladies, very pretty, by the school of Raphael. In the Treasury The Château de Vincennes of the prince of Condé; a lovely ornament of pearl and diamonds, it is intact, braided with gold.113 A lovely cameo of the head of Christ. A pearl in which the Holy House is done in bas-relief. Two miniatures of superb emerald, one is natural and the other artificial. A silver dove surround by diamonds. The order of the emperor: the two-headed eagle mounted upon a superb diamond. 113 One of Sade’s preferred references provides some clarification of and commentary on this object: “Has anyone ever been more of an enemy to fanaticism [enthousiasme] than the great Prince of Condé? I believe that in the bottom of his heart, he quite well knew what to believe upon the matter of the Holy House of Loreto; however, we were shown a model of the Château de Vincennes made of silver, which this Prince made a gift of when he was released from prison there” (Anon., Voyage en France, 2:306). Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–1686) was arrested and imprisoned at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin and with the consent of Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV and at the time his regent, at the outset of the so-called Fronde des nobles, the aristocratic revolt against the monarchy in 1750; he was released thirteen months later.

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An ornament entirely of coral, embroidered with gold upon a backing of silver. A crucifix and two jasper torches, several vases of rock crystal. A chapel and its amber ornaments, the compartments of the ceiling are by Pomarancio [i.e., Cristoforo Roncalli]. At the altar are two large silver statues given as a votive offering, one by a Polish prince. In general, there are a prodigious number of votive offerings and presents from all the Christian princes. Several maps of the town that are given as votive offerings to Our Lady of Loreto. A Holy Family by Raphael da Urbino; the Infant is nude, he laughs while looking at his mother who covers him with a very light veil; the Saint Joseph figure is lifeless, lacking naturalness, too much exaggeration and seriousness for the action, superb coloration, it is on wood. The Virgin’s head, in spite of the faults that I have mentioned, is very beautiful; there is an amianthus decoration. In the room that precedes the treasury, a lovely Saint Francis, by Barocci. The Virgin and the young ladies, of which I spoke, are by Guido or by his school. A pretty little painting by Parmigianino [i.e., Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola] that depicts the Infant Jesus, Saint John the Baptist, the Virgin, and another woman. A Descent from the Cross by Tintoretto. A Virgin and her Son, by Il Garofalo [i.e., Benvenuto Tisi], pupil of Raphael, full of truth and naturalness. However, the mouth of the Infant Jesus is askew, bereft with regard to drawing; the Virgin’s eyes are those of a blind man. Another Holy Family, by a pupil of Raphael. This treasury is kept in seventeen cabinets. The entire exterior is constructed as a fortress and flanked with towers, and the whole is sheltered from assault. But notwithstanding, impressing a timid populace that two hundred Turks would promptly rout would not be difficult. The air is cold in Loreto; it is only warm two months of the year. You must contemplate, in what is called the sanctuary, the lovely votive offering of Louis XIII, which is a silver angel presenting to the Virgin Louis XIV in his swaddling clothes. The face of the infant is made of gold and weighs, it is said, the same weight that the infant, in fact, weighed at that age (36 marcs [approx. 18 pounds]). Louis XIII gave at the same time two of the Virgin’s crowns, upon which will be counted more than a thousand, eight hundred diamonds. This sanctuary is entirely faced with silver, the statue is made of wood, its […]114 is entirely miniature estimated at a million. The niche where she is is golden. It is the Capuchins who, every evening, wash her and cover her with a cloak for the night. […]115 that Monsieur Richard claims to be made in the marble by dint of going on one’s knees, is false. He did not examine this well; it is artificial and is not everywhere to be found. 114 Left blank. 115 Left blank. Here is what Richard does say about the pilgrims who flock to the church, “The custom is to go around the Santa Casa on bare knees; I do not know whether they repeat this several times, but I have seen men and women busied with this pious exercise, which was more laborious than one might think; the paving although marble was furrowed to a depth of more than an inch and a half, as they followed one after another the same impressed track, which could only have been very tiring. The crowd is so considerable that this paving must be often renovated” (Description, 6:451–2).

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One of the loveliest follies that you can see is this kneeling promenade of the pilgrims around the Santa Casa. It is truly a delirium of the imagination. (Mention the vases of the apothecary; they are lovely. See Richard). At the palace of the cardinals and […]116 is a copy of that lovely painting by Gerard of the Nights [Gerrit or Gerard van Honthorst], which will be seen in Rome at the Palazzo Giustiniani. They claim here that this is the original. It depicts Jesus before Pilate. Note on Loreto All the historians unanimously agree that the Holy House of Loreto was transported from Dalmatia to the March of Ancona in the year 1294, at the end of the pontificate of Celestine or at the beginning of that of Boniface VIII. This avowed supposition appears destroyed by an authentic act that is located in the archives of the Barberini family in Rome, dated the year 1122 or 1124. The said act in explicit terms states that Msgr. the Bishop of Numana, nearby Sirolo, five miles from Loreto, gave, the aforementioned year, to the Benedictine monks of his diocese the parish Church of Our Lady of Loreto, with all the annexes and appurtenances thereof. This donation appears to destroy utterly the purported coming of the said House of Our Lady of Loreto since, in fact, there is already a parish church one hundred and sixty years prior. This would in likelihood be this same church, established in about the time of the Crusades, which gave rise to the supposition of the purported coming of the said House of Loreto. We know that a pious devoutness upon the part of our ancient pilgrims to the Holy Land led them to take measurements of and objects of worship from the Holy Places that they visited, to bring away some stones and even some earth, and returning to Europe, to construct based upon these same models places in conformity with those that they had seen. We have more than one proof, without leaving our Italy. Close to Bologna, there is a small town called Holy Sepulchre [Sansepolcro], built upon the occasion of the worship that the people brought and still bring today to a sepulchre built based upon the measurements of the Sepulchre of Jerusalem. You will see in the Piedmont this Mount of Olives, called thus by all the people and all the pilgrims, and where you are shown all the various stations that you see in Palestine.117 Will it be said that the Holy Sepulchre has been transported close to Bologna and that the Mount of Olives should likewise have been transported to the Piedmont by the hand of angels? These are facts that we leave to our Italian gentlemen to resolve. The supposition of the first translation of the House of Loreto to Dalmatia, between Tersatto and Fiume,118 seems as fabulous as that of Loreto. First of all, read the two accounts: you will see that they copy one another. The characters are the same: at Tersatto, the Virgin makes known her coming to a good priest, who is sick; at Loreto, she reveals herself to a good hermit. The priest in Tersatto announces the news to the inhabitants of the town; they run in a crowd and acknowledge the prodigy. The hermit runs to Recanati, tells the people 116 Left blank. 117 Sade has apparently conflated the town of Sansepolcro in the Province of Arezzo, founded according to tradition by pilgrims who brought back a stone from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and with an abbey supposedly, albeit falsey, modelled on the same, and the complex of the Basilica of San Stefano in Bologna, which includes the Chiesa del Santo Sepolcro, a copy of its Levantine namesake, along with much else that our author would have subjected to sceptical ridicule. Neither is in the Piedmont. 118 Fiume is now Rijeka and like Trsat (Tersatto) in present-day Croatia.

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and the townsfolk to hurry to outdo one another to come and acknowledge the prodigy. At Tersatto, the good priest asks the Virgin to tell him the nature of the prodigy, and she lets him know that it is her house from Nazareth, and, consequently, the Frangipani family and the important citizens send a deputation to Nazareth. It happens, according to their report, that the said house has been transported from Nazareth to Tersatto a few years prior. The gentlemen of Recanati, led by the same spirit and as a consequence of the revelation made by the hermit, send the same deputation; and those who were sent, upon their return, confirm the same transportation. You see here that these two stories copy one another and that he who came up with this deceit was copied by a second, who was hardly less deceitful than the first. It is believed – and with probability enough – that the Frangipani family, connected at all times to the temporal interests of the popes, furnished the means for the latter to have destroyed a purported house of the Virgin that was in their Tersatto territory at the hands of the same angels who brought it to their domain in the March of Ancona. The said Frangipani, besides being devoted to the Ghibelline faction, had particular interests in being connected to Boniface VIII, given that the majority of the lords of this house were bribed and fought under the banners of the said pope. All things considered, the transfer from Tersatto to Loreto appears as fabulous as that first translation. This first transfer happens close to the port of Recanati, two miles from Loreto; four months later, the said house is transferred behind the spot where today is the apostolic palace, where it remains. After eighteen months, by the ministry of the same angels, to approximately sixty paces from the same spot, in order to prevent, it is said, the quarrelling between the two Antichi brothers from Recanati upon the matter of the oblations that the pilgrims were bringing to the said Our Lady …119 This new proof of the said translation appears to reduce itself …120 This inconstancy, this fickleness, hardly proves the wisdom of a God who permits the shifting of a house in which it is claimed that he was made man for us, and in all this, I recognize the spirit of an Italian politician more than the wisdom of he and of she who are the object thereof.121

119 Incomplete sentence. 120 Incomplete sentence. 121 These final words in italics are in Sade’s hand.

Appendices

Exact Route122 From Naples to Rome Stay at Rome From Rome to Loreto Stay at Loreto From Loreto to Bologna Stay at Bologna From Bologna to Turin Stay at Turin From Turin to Grenoble Stay at Grenoble From Grenoble to La Coste  

Expenses: La Jeunesse and the servant My food Amusements and curiosities

 6  5  6  2  7  2  7  1  6  2  5 — 48123  3  9  6 — 18

For 48 days of travel at 18 livres per day I need thirty-six louis d’or.124 Thanks to the three louis that Charvin will lend me, I have what I need up to La Coste. Arriving at Grenoble, if I stay, I will find 126 left over that I save by dismissing him [?]; it will be necessary to keep them with care in order for me to get back to La Coste. I eat the money [sic] that I find at Grenoble, and I depart with the 126 that remain to me.

122 Loose leaf in Sade’s hand. 123 Sade’s addition is incorrect; the days add up to 48. 124 One louis d’or was worth eight écus or twenty-four livres.

Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome

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Route from Naples to Trento125 From Naples to Aversa From Aversa to Capua From Capua to Francolisi From Francolisi to Sant’Agata From Sant’Agata to Garigliano From Garigliano to Mola di Gaeta From Mola di Gaeta to Itri 1st customs duty From Itri to Fondi From Fondi to Terracina From Terracina to Maruti From Maruti to Piperno From Piperno to Le Case Nuove From Le Case Nuove to Sermoneta From Sermoneta to Cisterna From Cisterna to Velletri From Velletri to La Faiola From La Faiola to Marino From Marino to Torre Nova From Torre Nova to Rome From Rome to Prima Porta From Prima Porta to Borghetaccio From Borghetaccio to New Castle [Castelnuovo di Porto] From New Castle to Rignano From Rignano to Civita Castellana From Civita Castellana to Borghetto From Borghetto to Otricoli From Otricoli to Narni From Narni to Terni From Terni to Strettura From Strettura to Spoleto From Spoleto to Le Vene From Le Vene to Foligno From Foligno to Le Case Nuove From Le Case Nuove to Serravalle From Serravalle to Trava [i.e., Ponte alla Trava] From Trava to Valcimarra From Valcimarra to Tolentino From Tolentino to Macerata From Macerata to Sambucheto From Sambucheto to Loreto From Loreto to Camerano From Camerano to Ancona 125 Two pages in Sade’s hand, at the end of the “First Volume of Rome.”

p. 1 [i.e., 1 post] p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 p. 1 post and a half 1 post 1 post 2 posts 1 post 1 post 1 post 2 posts 2 posts 1 post 1 and a half posts 1 post 2 posts 2 posts 1 post 1 post 2 post stops 2 post stops 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post post and a half 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post

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From Ancona to the Burned Houses [i.e., Case Bruciate] From the Burned Houses to Sinigaglia From Sinigaglia to Marotta From Marotta to Fano From Fano to Pesaro From Pesaro to Cattolica From Cattolica to Rimini From Rimini to Savignano From Savignano to Cesena From Cesena to Forlì From Forlì to Faenza From Faenza to Imola From Imola to San Niccolò From San Niccolò to Bologna From Bologna to Samoggia [Ponte Samoggia] From Samoggia to Modena From Modena to Bomporto From Bomporto to Mirandola From Mirandola to Concordia From Concordia to Quingentole From Quingentole to Governolo From Governolo to Mantua From Mantua to Roverbella From Roverbella to New Castle [Castelnuovo del Garda] From New Castle to Chiusa [Chiesanuova] From Chiusa to Peri From Peri to Ala From Ala to Rovereto From Rovereto to Trento

1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post post and a half 1 post 1 post post and a half 1 post 1 post post and a half post and a half post and a half post and a half 1 post 2 posts 1 post post and a half 1 post post and a half post and a half 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post 1 post

Route from Naples to Grenoble such as we have just done it126 We left Naples on Sunday, 5 May, and we were at Capua in half a day From Capua on 6 May, dined at Sant’Agata and slept at Mola di Gaeta From Mola di Gaeta on 7 May, dined and slept at Fondi From Fondi on 8 May, dined at Terracina, slept at Piperno From Piperno on 9 May, dined at Sermoneta, slept at Velletri We stayed at Velletri on 10 May From Velletri, dined and slept in Rome on 11 May We stayed in Rome on 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 May We left Rome on 19 May, and we had dinner at Castelnuovo and slept at Civita Castellana From Civita Castellana, dined on the 20th at Otricoli and slept at Narni From Narni on 20 May, dined at Terni and slept at the cabaret that is on top on Mount Somma 126 Two manuscript pages in the hand of La Jeunesse.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 1 1 1

Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome

From this Somma cabaret on the 22nd, dined at Spoleto and slept at Foligno From Foligno on the 23rd, dined at Serravalle and slept at Valcimarra From Valcimarra the 24th, dined at Macerata, slept at Loreto We stayed at Loreto for two days, the 25th and 26th We left there on the 27th to go to Ancona, where we dined and slept

From there to here From Ancona, dined on the 28th at Senigallia and slept at Fano From Fano on the 29th, dined at Cattolica and slept at Rimini From Rimini, dined at Cesena on the 30th and slept at Forlì From Forlì on the 31st, dined at Imola and slept at Bologna We stayed in Bologna on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th We left on the 5th from Bologna, had dinner and slept at Modena From Modena on the 6th, we had dinner at Reggio, and slept at Parma From Parma on the 7th, dined at Borgo San Donnino and slept at Piacenza From Piacenza the 8th, dined at Lodi and slept at Marignano From Marignano on the 9th, dined and supped at Milan We left Milan on the 11th, had dinner at Boffalora and slept at Novara From Novara, dined at San Germano on the 12th and slept at Cigliano From Cigliano on the 13th, dined at Chivasso and slept in Turin From Turin, dined on the 14th at Sant’Ambrogio and slept at Bussoleno From Bussoleno, dined on the 15th at Novalaise and slept at Lanslebourg; this is the day crossing over the mountain

Opposite to here From Lansleborug, dined at Modane on the 16th and slept at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne From Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne on the 17th, dined at Aiguebelle and slept at Planaise, at La Bonne Hôtesse From Planaise on the 18th, dined two leagues from Le Touvet and slept at Grenoble Stay at Grenoble From Genoble to Courthézon, five days

375

1 1 1 2 1 — 23 23 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 — 42 42 1 1 1 3 5 — 53

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RECAPITULATION OF THE TOTAL Stay in Naples Stay in Rome Stay in Velletri Stay in Loreto Stay in Bologna Stay in Milan Stay in Grenoble

Travel: From Naples to Rome From Rome to Loreto From Loreto to Bologna From Bologna to Milan From Milan to Grenoble From Grenoble to Courthézon

STAYS TRAVEL

4 7 1 2 4 1 3 — 22 6 6 5 5 8 5 — 35 22 35 — 57

Louis Charvin’s Account as a Result of the Above-Mentioned Tally By the signed consent of Charvin, he has been paid for everything up to 1 May, having not restarted covering my expenses until the aforementioned date of 1 May.127 From that time until that of 26 June, when he will arrive home, there are fifty-seven days, as he can verify both according to the almanac and upon the adjoined tally of our travel. Fifty-seven days at twelve livres per day make He made me a loan in Rome I accord him a gratuity or tip of

684 livres 240 72 996

Charvin will remit the attached account to Madame, who will provide him with the bill in the same amount that she already has in her hands, by means of which, by undertaking what Madame tells him to do, Charvin will be reimbursed the said sum of 996 livres on the settled date of 29 July. 127 Louis Charvin, postmaster of Courthézon, was Sade’s travelling companion in Italy. Gaspard-FrançoisXavier Gaufridy (mentioned below) was his sollicitor.

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If he can lend me at this time seven louis d’or, of which I still have need to finish my voyage, I will remit a letter of demand to Monsieur Gaufridy, which will be paid upon arrival without any delay, and if he does me this favour, to compensate him for it, in lieu of putting seven louis upon the bill, I will make the bill of exchange in the amount of 200 livres, which will give him a gratuity of 32 livres for this service. [In Sade’s hand:] Continuation of the route From Grenoble to Gap From Gap to Sisteron From Sisteron to Céreste From Céreste to La Coste

2 days 1 1 5 days

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Dossier I

General Material

TITLE OF THE WORK1 Florence, Rome, and Naples Or The Philosophical Informant. New travels to its three cities, enlightened by the torch of truth and of philosophy.

❦❦❦ The Philosophical Informant, Or New Travels in Florence, Rome, and Naples, in which is endeavoured to treat with more care than in other travels of this type, the place of mores, legislation, and the forces of various States. AT THE HAGUE

❦❦❦ ANOTHER TITLE: Critical Memoirs on Italy Or New Journey to Florence, Rome, and Naples. Work in which is particularly endeavoured to note with care the roles of legislation, government, forces, population, and mores, always neglected up to the present.

❦❦❦

1 At the top of the notebook titled “Rome, Third Volume.” In Sade’s hand.

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Dossier I Title of the work decided on this 15th of August, 17762 Critical, Historical, and Philosophical Dissertations on the cities of Florence, Rome, Naples, and Loreto and the routes adjacent to these four cities. Work in which is endeavoured to expand on the customs, mores, form of legislation, etc., with as much regard for the ancient as for the modern, in a manner more exacting and more extensive than it appears to have been done up to the present. AT GENEVA 1776

Extracts of a Book Entitled: “Project for a Reform in Italy” and Attached Reflections that the Aforementioned Book Has Provided3 It is a certain thing that the aberrancy of the clergy, the superstition of the people, the languishing state of the arts, agriculture, commerce, manufacture, and even of justice will ever be the principal causes for the depopulation and for the decadence of various States in this beautiful region of Europe. If, in all the countries in the universe, priests compose a horrible race and true dregs of society – a class, in a word, that only brings trouble to families and the loss of all that is sweet in society – it is truly in Italy, more than anywhere else, that one descries both their prodigious number and the proportionate enormity of the evils that they occasion. We will admit, if one so desires, that the bishop of Rome is the chief of Catholic bishops. However, it does not follow from this that he ought be the universal bishop, nor general legislator, nor supreme judge of the rest of the Catholic Church. Still less must it be permitted to the clergy to appropriate for themselves immense goods and to escape taxation and expenses of the State, to ascribe to themselves the power to judge and to govern other members of the Church, and to exempt them from the obeisance that they owe their legitimate sovereign. There, all the ecclesiastical laws that tend to favour these abuses must be regarded not only as unjust, but even as baneful and harmful. It is far from the case that the popes dared ascribe to themselves such an authority in the early days of the Christian Church. If the error has spread injustice and tyranny […]4 must they imitate it? And is it not in the interest of all princes of Europe to oppose such a dangerous variety of despotism? A young hero, whose name is cherished and respected throughout Italy, who had but to appear to conquer everyone’s hearts there, at this moment fixes the gaze of all eyes. Rome desires him. Rome awaits him. Rome takes pleasure in seeing brought back to life in him the image of her Caesars. God desires that the principles of philosophy that appear to have guided all his actions ever since he has played a role in the world should make him

2 Following notebook I of the “Voyage to Italy.” In Sade’s hand. 3 Notebook of 12 pages in Sade’s hand. In the margin by the title: “I will entitle this piece ‘General Reflections on Italy’ and place it at the head of the work, after the preliminary discourse.” 4 Word missing.

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complete the great work and annihilate forever the religious phantasm superstition has placed upon the throne of the Augustans and philosophy must sooner or later overturn.5 But let us recall the first days of the Church, that primitive epoch when the bishops of Rome were not yet sovereigns thereof. Did their regulations then extend past the borders of their diocese? Each bishop governed as he pleased and under no circumstance was he obliged to get the determination of the Holy Father. Rome was not appealed to for anything; the practice of bulls, of dispensations, etc., was absolutely unheard of. Rome issued neither anathemas nor excommunications; its laws and decisions vexed neither kings nor the consciences of private individuals. King Pepin, by giving what did not belong to him in order to receive what was not due him, was the first to swell the pride of these insolent pontiffs and, either because of his pride or because of his weakness, he set the stage for the troubles that would subsequently come close to toppling his successors. Charlemagne imitated him, and Countess Matilda [Matilda of Tuscany], concubine of Gregory VII, then increased the possessions of this new sovereign. And all of a sudden the simple bishop of Rome was placed among the ranks of Europe’s sovereigns. But upon examination of the origins of these donations, we see only abuse and nullity, and no sovereign should have scruples about reducing this bishop to his initial status and of taking from him that which he never ought to have possessed. I agree that the wrath of the Vatican has been up to the present able to contain the just and orderly ambition of these sovereigns. But when at present this [wrath] has been cut down to its correct value, nothing must any longer stop such a legitimate dispossession, and in my view it is odious to allow such a monument to scandal to exist any longer. But let us continue with the proof of the illegitimacy of this empire. Is it not an incontestable maxim that a sovereign must have the right to do all that he believes and judges to be the most advantageous to his peoples? Yet, according to the Christian religion, he cannot, however, if the pope opposes him. Here we see religion taking away from kings the most handsome of their attributes. Yet, a religion like this cannot but be the work of men and precisely of those who think to gain by imposing laws upon sovereigns. If, therefore, religion only serves to favour the ambition of pontifical sovereigns, how should we look upon it? If we wish to respect that religion, it is thus essential to repress the abuses, to make apparent that this bishop of Rome, considered purely and simply as a spiritual prince, cannot have any legitimate right over sovereigns and, all the more so, must not dress this right with the specious pretext of religion. “It is incontestable that the immunities that ecclesiastics enjoy relative to their persons and to their possessions are only bestowed upon them out of the liberality and the gifts of the sovereign. Yet, if the benefactor finds ungrateful he who is under his obligation, sovereigns ought to retract the favours that they have accorded to the clergy, since they are repaid by the blackest ingratitude. The clergy shows itself ungrateful because instead of contributing to the needs of the State and of succouring it, it makes its riches and its power serve its ruin; it is ungrateful because it disdains those who have 5 Marginal note: “Visiting the Vatican, the emperor sat upon the pontifical throne and, putting his hat upon his head, he said to those around him: ‘I feel quite comfortable here.’ There are open bets in Rome that Pius VI will be the last pontiff.” The hero in question is Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, whose attempts to reform the Church by taking over many of the rights outlined above were a clear threat to the prerogatives of the pope and other bishops and were welcomed by the philosophes and their allies as evidence of his enlightened leadership. Along with Catherine II of Russia and Frederick II of Prussia, he was one of three great “enlightened despots.” See the introduction to this volume.

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dragged it from the obscurity to which it was destined; finally, it is ungrateful insofar as it dares to rise up against its benefactors and trample them under its feet.”6 Yet, in what country ought one begin to destroy the unjust power of all these people in question, if not in the one where they have the most credit and authority? The sovereigns of Italy are all more authorized than others to repress their pride and their ambition. All, following the example of the Republic of Venice, ought respectfully to deposit into oblivion – never to have to do with them again – those holy ordinances of the court of Rome that have, in the States, never served as anything but torches to light the pyres of discord. These sovereigns ought to unite with one another, not only to diminish – or rather to reduce to nothing – these pontifical powers that have no other support save error and superstition, but even more so in order to reform and annihilate that useless throng of monks and ecclesiastics that flood their States and who, incapable of any utility to society, are only good for troubling it and for overturning it by the excess of their intemperance and of their debauchery. In vain would one set forth their excess in this regard – what disorder they bring into the heart of the families that they dishonour or stain with blood. The history of the troubles that they have occasioned would doubtless be the most intriguing for painting the degree to which man pushes delirium when he is no longer guided by anything but passion alone. All things considered, while a thousand episodes could be cited, I will recount only one of these, which I witnessed during my stay in Florence.7 A monk seduced a young person, fifteen years of age, in the confessional booth. The abused young person became pregnant, and not knowing how to hide her shame, she admitted her fault to her parents. The monk, informed, makes haste to consummate his crime, and to get revenge, he poisons the unfortunate accomplice in his crime during a final interview that he obtains with her and disappears. A little while later, this monk reappeared, and absolutely nothing was done to him. I ask whether sovereigns who tolerate suchlike horrors are not themselves worthy of being toppled from a throne that they know so poorly how to govern and whether religion, which can only be the rationale for their commitment to such toleration, is not in a State an evil rather than a good. In order to begin such a necessary reform, it would thus be useful to treat all the religious orders as has been done with the Jesuits.8 Further, are not a pastor and two priests per parish sufficient to lead the entire flock? To what end is that useless crowd of altar ministers who but fatten themselves upon the public good and busy themselves with crimes that can only bring the greatest harm to this same public? That done, these same sovereigns, in concert, must render null and without effect the canonical laws that have only been made and that 6 Marginal note: “If you want, you will put that this is extracted from the Réforme d’Italie.” Sade has just cited almost word for word from Carlo Antonio Pilati, Projet d’une Réforme à faire en Italie, ou Moyens de corriger les abus les plus dangereux, & de réformer les Loix les plus pernicieuses, établies en Italie (Amsterdam, 1769), 26. This is a translation of the original Italian of Pilati’s Di una riforma d’Italia, ossia dei mezzi di riformare i più cattivi costume e le più pernciose legge d’Italia (Villafranca, 1767). 7 The word is stricken out. 8 Spain, of which Naples was a dependency, ordered the suppression of the Society of Jesus in its lands in 1767; Portugal had already done so in 1759 and France in 1764. These national manoeuvres were followed by a formal request in 1769 on the part of France, Spain, and Naples to Pope Clement XIII to suppress the order entirely. In 1773, his successor Clement XIV pronounced the dissolution of the company in his brief Dominus ac Redemptor. On the complex political machinations behind these events, see Jeffrey D. Burson and Jonathan Wright, eds., The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context: Causes, Events, and Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

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only serve to enrich the court of Rome and the clergy in general and to nourish within it the wellspring of all these vices: its cupidity, its lubricity, and its ambition. Let us not fear the ignorance and natural superstition of this people. Make a decisive cut, and the people, accustomed to see only through the eyes of their leaders, will submit quite quickly. At the same time that you operate on the one side, by means of good speeches and well-made sermons, enlighten their spirit on the other. Imperceptibly, you will bring them around. Let this people, moreover, continue to find under your dominion a gentle and easy subsistence; and when their physical being is happy, their moral being will be soon. If you want, add a few laws or a few precepts for their governance, and it will be easy to go even farther still, should it please you! And how few men have truly analysed the heartfelt religion of the people? What do they throng to the temples to do? What is the fundamental object of their demands and their desires? Bread and tranquillity. Oh, sovereigns, be yourselves this god that they implore! Make their lives sweet and happy, open the granaries and close the temples. Let it be at the feet of your throne that they find relief for their afflictions and for their miseries; chase away the insolent clergy who troubles them, ruins them, and deceives them, and soon you yourselves will be this god that they implore! Then, everything is united within you: you are simultaneously both the god and the sovereign of your States, no intermediary power can vex your will; I leave it to you to consider whether you are greater. Therefore, oh sovereigns, cease to listen to those who cry that religion is the basis of your throne: it is rather much more the destructive serpent thereof. And what becomes of you, standing beside a priest who cries to your subjects that the respect owed you only comes after that due to the ministers of the altar and to the frivolous God that is venerated there? In a word, let us not doubt for a moment that, with spiritual authority destroyed, this destruction would instantly entail the growth of temporal authority. And let us thoroughly persuade ourselves that the affection of peoples for their princes will ever be stronger, when not shared between two powers whose interests are so constantly and diametrically opposed. I will say more: I dare assert that to the degree that the laws and the wrath of the Vatican are rendered impotent, all the citizens of Italy will begin to be happier; agriculture, the arts, commerce, now languishing in the nation most made for and most in reach of bringing forth all of these advantages, will blossom once again, and this beautiful land, in a word, will again become what it was under the Augustans and the Caesars. Conversely, the people, no longer having before their eyes so many priests to absolve them and to scandalize them simultaneously, will take up again the most pure and least corrupt mores. The severe inquisition of books in Rome is yet another horror that would be necessary to suppress. Is it not odious that the youth are prevented from instructing and enlightening themselves, and that with such an odious barbarity, they are forced to remain bent under the yoke of error and lies, and that the ignorance in which the priests maintain the youth thus contributes significantly to the depopulation of Italy and to the decadence of the arts? Instead of that fury for controversy that dissects and divides the Italian nation, would it not be better to forever abjure that jumble of unintelligible words, exterminate those who introduce them, and in their stead have the arts and sciences, which have begun to be completely abandoned, flourish. But how to succeed with all this? I dare say it: this will only ever happen when there is toleration for all religions and when each is allowed to serve God as he pleases or not to serve him at all, if one finds that more amenable. The diversity of religions – and better still, the absence of religion – banishes disputation, diminishes theological acridity, extinguishes the pyres of the Inquisition, and imperceptibly leads back to the love of order, of peace, and of the arts.

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Let us refrain from forever persecuting people on account of religion; for if we do this, we become as cruel as the emperors who persecuted our fathers. A pope upon the throne lighting an Inquisition pyre is, it seems to me, as unjust and as cruel as Diocletian having gentiles crucified. Let no one object to me upon the grounds of good cause; this is bad reasoning. Never can justice allow injustice, and never will it be allowed to torment men in order to honour the gods. Oh Christians! Your reason is thus quite weak and quite poor, since your arguments have need of being upheld by iron and fire! But in order to give you a clearer and more precise notion of these audacious men, who fancy that a few words, a few superstitious ceremonies, have given them the right to govern others, let us examine what it is that we call the clergy. I see there naught but a multitude of idle men who, persuaded that a black outfit brings one respect in Italy, deliver themselves  – half out of laziness and half out of pride – over to the idle enterprise of serving God and women. For it is not unknown that in Italy a woman is not fashionable if she does not have a priest to, as it is called, serve her. Yet, I ask what necessity is there to allowing such a great quantity of men of the sort, who consume both the State and society without being useful for anything, to subsist? How much danger is there in allowing to subsist within a state a throng of men already acknowledged as useless? Men whom it is even easy to acknowledge as harmful, on account of the position of independence into which the favours he [sic] expects from another sovereign, that is, the pope, puts him in relation to the one in whose States he lives? And if the court of Rome is dangerous for all other crowns, as I have already proven, what danger for a State doesn’t that pulpit pose by being allowed to subsist between that dangerous government and other governments? What other type of crying abuse is not entailed by the absurd practice of exempting this abominable vermin from secular authority? What? Are they not members of society? And if they are, why exempt them from the laws of that society? Doing so is an abominable practice, which only stems from the impunity that these wretches hope to find in being judged by their own ilk. I dare say that there is no practice more contrary to the laws and to morals than this one, and that it is impossible, in the states where they subsist, that one should have reflected upon the number of disadvantages that it entails. Add to this the disproportion laid down for them with regard to the succour that every subject owes to the State, and you will see in this body a quite definite bundle of all that could be most harmful to the State and to society. Such is, however, the body that is triumphant in Italy. Such is the one in which it is honourable to be a member, almost the only one that is respected, and hats are idiotically taken off for villains dressed in black, whereas the upright labourer who provides their wherewithal is trampled underfoot and scorned. But I have not yet said enough. It is impossible, after having travelled through this country, to exhale sufficiently all the hatred, all the disdain that this odious body inspires. On this matter there is but a single voice, and I believe that half of Europe will erect statues to the sovereign who, imbued with this maxim, has the courage to extirpate both the tree and the root. It is a truly surprising thing to see the number of monasteries that the sovereigns of Italy allow to subsist. Great God! Is it thus possible that not a one of them should still not have opened his eyes to the amount of abuse that is born of this encloistered vermin? What! To thus compel millions of useless men to vegetate in divisiveness and in criminality, in the middle of a cloister, asylum for every dissension and for all those infamies held in utmost horror by Nature and by reason? You must have seen this up close in order to persuade yourself of it. You must have considered all the abuses of these cloisters to be able to know the abuse thereof [sic]. Would it otherwise be believed? Would one otherwise imagine that

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in Naples the superiors of the convents are obliged to forbid, not the girls – this debauchery is all too common – but the young boys from entering into the monasteries? And that in spite of all their attentiveness, corruption in this regard has reached such a degree that it is impossible to paint it? In Rome, it is the same thing, and the cardinals who publicly provide the example thereof, will they be the ones to proscribe or to put a stop to the execution of something concerning which they themselves are perpetually at fault? In Venice, an ecclesiastic asks openly in the street where the house of debauch is, and in he goes with an insolence that soon reveals all the disorder in his breast. I do not claim here, with this criticism, to become the defender of morality. Exceedingly philosophical upon this score, I am familiar with the errors, the passions, the tastes of men, all moulded from the same clay. I know that we are the masters of nothing, and that a given obsession that such and so finds repugnant is often the sole object of another’s delights. It is not therefore the thing that I condemn in itself; but what revolts me is the pride and the intolerance of these enfrocked men, who while wanting to raise themselves much higher than us, nonetheless share the same weaknesses of Nature, are soon enough forced to put themselves at the same level, and this by the impetuosity of the same needs. Let them cease, therefore, to have so much pride if they are subject to the same faults, and let them imagine that in this world, it is the superiority of talents and of virtues – and not feeble human conventions – that can give a man some right over his fellows. I persist, therefore, in saying that there is no means, as rigorous as it might be, that a sovereign ought not employ to cut off the disease at the root and to destroy utterly this useless race of men and women who languish in idleness, deep within cloisters, and who console themselves for having masked Nature’s wish only by ceaselessly renewing new ways of offending her. That after the war with the barbarians, the invasions of the Goths, and all the bloody revolutions that had devastated Italy, monks had been granted large territories to cultivate, this I can conceive: this procedure was philosophical and with a view to get these idlers to leave off that inactivity that they had made into their god. But as soon as these territories had, by their care, become cultivated and fertile, it was necessary to withdraw them and to have them return to the state’s domain. One ought to have, acting according to the same principle that had led to giving it to them to clear, sensed that once made valuable, they became useless to them.9 For you will agree: the immense wealth of these people is something that makes one shudder. It would be something else if they benefited from this wealth in order to do good for the poor! But it is only ever for increasing their own well-being or their delicacy that they employ these immense revenues, and it is not rare to see those of them in Italy who maintain, in the heart of their convents, a sufficient number of young girls to satisfy their carnal appetites: creatures forever removed from society and who end up burying with them, as another consequence of their defective state, the productive faculty that they have received from Nature and thus diminishing in one fell swoop the human species by a good third of what it could produce. Whence this void, this depopulation that strikes one in almost all the towns in Italy, and most of all in the Papal States, where priesthood and monasticism are the most esteemed and the most in force.

9 An obscure sentence, to be sure, and only partially because the muddle of pronouns. Nonetheless, the case seems evident enough: those who granted land to the clergy so that they – the clergy – might cultivate it and be forced out of their idleness, should have realized that once the land had been made valuable by cultivation, the clergy would revert to idleness.

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But if, putting aside for a moment all these particular disorders – and if the limitations of this work permit me to take a glance at the evils with which this odious race has blanketed humankind – how many horrors will we not glimpse? How much human blood spilled in empty disputes, in which they had the skill to drag in the entire universe? How many unfortunate children or nephews deprived of the patrimony that Nature intended for them, ravished by the odious cupidity of these villains? How many girls seduced? How many murders? How many abductions, rapes, acts of sodomy, poisoning, adultery, swindling, incest, injustice – and always unpunished because of the unpardonable toleration of the laws against these wretches? And how much, then, will we not tremble at the disorders that such blindness entails, that fools dare call respect for religion? Reflections upon the Arts Extracted from Rollin10 It was a custom in Greece to conduct public disputations between artists and to crown the victor. What rivalry did such a custom not produce?! Polygnotus, a famous painter, was received as if in triumph in the places where he had left his masterpieces. A decree ordered that everywhere he went, this artist be defrayed at the public’s expense. Apelles and Protogenes received Alexander in their workshop, and the vanquisher of Darius became the friend of the artist. Certainly, such procedures quite encourage the arts, and we will not be shocked at their progress during such reigns. Charles V made Titian into Count Palatine and honoured him with the golden key. Vasari, who wrote the life of Leonardo da Vinci, recounts that to the courtiers who reproached Francis I for the excessive kindnesses shown to this artist, the king responded: “You are doubtless ignorant that years are needed to form a [man] such as this and that only a day is needed to make thirty such as yourselves.”11

10 Two pages in Sade’s hand. Written at the top: “To be inserted.” Below Rollin’s name is the note: “See him.” Sade’s source is the historian Charles Rollin and his monumental Histoire Ancienne des Egyptiens, des Carthaginois, des Assyriens, des Babyloniens, des Mèdes et des Perses, des Macédoniens, des Grecs (Paris, 1737), see esp. 11:1–6. 11 Marginal note: “Do not omit a refutation here of the new author of the Vie des peintres [Life of the Painters], who attributes this response to Charles V with respect to Titian; it is as above. See the Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Vasari, and Rollin, page 4, volume XI. On this topic, also refute the Mercure and Monsieur de La Harpe, Mercure of July, 1776, second volume.” In his Extrait des différens ouvrages publiés sur la vie des peintres (Paris, 1776), M.D.L.F. (DenisPierre-Jean Papillon de la Ferté) states, concerning Titian, that the “consideration that Charles V showed him created those who were jealous of him” and that “it was to these that this ruler responded that he could make dukes and counts, but it was only God who could make a man like Titian” (1:179). Jean-François de La Harpe, in the second volume of the July 1776 Mercure de France, simply quotes the same anecdote in his review of and excerpts from Papillon de la Ferté’s aforementioned work (74). In spite of Sade’s supposition, the anecdote was hardly new. Some forty years prior, in his Essais sur les honneurs et sur les monumens accordés aux illustres sçavans, pendant la suite des siécles (Paris, 1734), Evrard Titon du Tillet had reported that Charles V announced that “he was sure to never be lacking in courtiers, but he did not always have a Titian” and that “he could make in an instant twenty men grander than they, but that God alone could make a man such as Titian” (32). Tillet’s wording is, moreover, much closer to Rollin on Francis I and Leonardo da Vinci. Although Vasari notes that Leonardo went to France late in his life and that the king, i.e., Francis I, had great respect and affection for the artist, there is no account of the witticism provided by Rollin and that Sade affirms to be correct.

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Notebook of Various Notes to Have at All Times before Your Eyes while Working12 Sentences for Rome The present-day Romans have preserved ferocity and haughtiness, but the papal government has enervated courage. Before Sulla, it was forbidden to burn cadavers; after him, they were burned. Consequently, the urns and tombs that you see in Rome all postdate Sulla, a necessary epoch for the history of this sort of luxury, unknown previously. Continuation of Some Notes on Naples Ancient horses had bits. There is in the Filomarino Palace in Naples a painting of Latona pleading for the metamorphosis of some peasants into frogs, on account of these peasants having refused her the water that she wanted to drink.13 This painting is good. It is at the lazaretto, close to the island of Nisida, that vessels coming from the Levant must stop and be quarantined. There is no granite column in the courtyard of the Naples castle; it is only adorned with pilasters. The granite columns adorn the three outside gates, next to the square. Do not forget to say that at Torre Annunziata, there is a factory or manufactory of weapons, rifles and swords. The Neapolitan palm is nine inches and is half of our royal foot. Several stones from Vesuvius are saturated with oil, and this oil is extracted through chemical procedures and is then sold to the curious in little glass vials, but these are easily damaged during travel. It was Vanvitelli père who began Caserta, at the behest of the Catholic King. There is, under the altar of Saint Januarius, an urn or tomb made of red marble, and not made of jasper as Richard would have it. The Chapel of Saint Januarius is a cupola over a square floor plan. See the drawing that I have of it upon a page, the one with the description of Vesuvius. See the eighth volume

12 Notebook of 12 pages in Sade’s hand. Below the title is written: CONCERNING ROME I AM MISSING: The interior of the Vatican The Arsenal The gardens The library The Church of Saint Peter And I am awaiting everything from the young Doctor Iberti. In the margin is noted: “Remember not to disparage the expression: a well-thought-out monument [un monument bien pensé] you use it with respect to Saint Peter’s.” 13 The story of the goddess Latona metamorphosing the Lycian peasants will be found in Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 1[bk.6, ll.337–80]:310–15.

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of the Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences, upon the occasion of the liquefaction of the blood of Saint Januarius, which is done with mercury.14 The candelabra of the choir of Saint Januarius are not made of jasper, but of red marble. The Via Toledo is a mile and a half long. The island of Capri is the end of the Apennines; the rest is no longer but branches of them. Rome There are in Rome three convents of the Christian Doctrine. Be sure to remember that Octavian is the same thing as Augustus. 14 The report Sade refers to here is Charles Marie de La Condamine’s “Extrait d’un Journal de Voyage en Italie,” in Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris, 1762), which discusses and explains the subject: “The usual season chosen to make the trip to Naples is during the festival of Saint Januarius, when one can witness a fact as extraordinary as it is true, and which is in this country deemed supernatural. Exposed upon the high altar of the cathedral is the head of Saint Januarius, the bishop of Naples. Brought near to this relic is a crystal vial set into a lavish mounting and that, according to an age-old tradition, holds the blood of the holy martyr; this vial is agitated for a while, and usually after several shakes, the substance that it contains appears to liquefy before the eyes of all those attending. I say usually, because this does not always happen, and then the people of Naples are stricken with worry. I was regretting having to leave Naples without having been present at this solemn ritual, when chance provided me with a recompense of sorts. One evening when I was going to pay my respects to HRH the Margravine of Bayreuth, someone brought to the abode of that princess a vial set into a bronze or gilded silver circle, mounted on a quite lavishly adorned base and topped with a caduceus, to distinguish this mounting from that of the vial kept in the cathedral. The entire apparatus was placed into the hands of the princess, was passed into those of My Lord the margrave, into several others and into mine. And this is what we all saw. The vial appeared half-full with a mass or frozen grey paste and its walls tarnished with dust. Tipping it alternately in various directions and agitating it for approximately half a minute more or less, the paste became liquid and flowing, sometimes partially; at other times, it froze back up, and when it was agitated again, it took more or less time to liquefy. This happened – and this is what is most worthy of attention – without the intention or desire of the person being able to produce one or the other effect at will. This is what I have seen on several occasions, not only on the evening that I am discussing, in the presences of their highnesses, but since then privately and in full daylight, at the abode of the custodian of the machine, where I had all the time required to examine it. I noted, at the bottom of the vial, two small cones, made of I know not what material, with opposing apexes, that he told me were pierced with a small aperture; he added that they were hollow and that the lower cone could move, such that its aperture sometimes met that of the upper cone, but that at other times it did not meet it; all this at random, depending upon whether the motion imposed on the vial made the two axes of the two cones conjoin or not. As for the dust that I saw in the vial, I was told that this was an amalgam of mercury, lead, tin, and bismuth, that the bismuth, which is only imperfectly amalgamated, prevents the mixture from becoming completely bound, and giving it a form of a powder too coarse to pass through the small aperture connecting the two cones. Finally, he added that a circular channel hidden in the mounting and that opened into the lower cone contained flowing mercury, that agitating the vial in an irregular fashion, when the apertures of the two cones met each other, this mercury would flow in greater or lesser amounts, and would liquefy the amalgam; he added, too, that it sometimes happened, because of the diversity of motions imposed on the machine, that the mercury that flowed in went out via the same aperture, and that then the fluidity of the amalgam ceased. I recount as precisely as I possibly can what the owner of this ingenious machine told me at the time, and that I wrote down on the very same day. What I can say with the utmost assurance is that it produces very nicely its effect. He promised me at the time an exact description thereof, with a plan of all its parts, in order to communicate this to the Academy. He has since renewed in writing the same promise, but it has yet to be made good” (383–4).

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Inscription upon the mausoleum of Gregory XV to Saint Ignatius, in the church of the former Jesuits, in Rome today, etc. ALTER IGNATIUM ARIS, ALTER ARAS IGNATIO.

In French: The first has given Ignatius to the altars, and the second has given the altar to Ignatius.15 An amusing play upon words, and related to the episode of history that I will look for. The Descent from the cross by Daniele da Volterra at Our Lady of the Mount [viz., Trinità dei Monti] is alone in its chapel. The statue in the Strozzi chapel in S. Andrea della Valle, as well as the torchères and flambeaux, are by Michelangelo. The pope can issue a bull without the consistory and purely and completely upon his own authority. The Crucifix by Giotto in the Minerva [Santa Maria sopre Minerva] is older than the painting of the Annunciation in the same church: the former dates from the thirteenth century, the latter from the fourteenth. I have among my papers the correct date of the Decor puellarum (see my catalogue of rare books).16 The Good Goddess presided over women’s bounty and was not at all the same as Diana.17 Never do the popes reside in the Lateran Palace.18 You see some large halls, some rather good paintings by various masters, a large courtyard adorned with pilasters. There are at present three hundred girls in the academy that has been established within this complex. The Romans played checkers. As for the history of Vesta’s temple, I have this upon a separate paper, with the other descriptions from abbé Grazzini.19 The dispute between the pope and the Frangipani was in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. One says the sculptor’s chisel. The game of chess owes its origin to the idleness of the Greek soldiers who were laying siege of Troy. The game of morra, which is played with the fingers in Provence and in all of Italy is older than one thinks: Juvenal mentions it. 15 Sade notes in explanation of the word play: “He had sanctified Ignatius; the other had built the church.” On this inscription, see p. 89n74. 16 On this work and the matter of its dating, see chapter II (Rome), p. 104 and p. 104n108. 17 The Bona Dea, ancient Roman goddess of fertility and female virtue; the Vestal Virgins attended to her cult, from which men were strictly barred. 18 Marginal note: “I have an author – I don’t know which – who says that they do.” 19 Although something of a cipher as far is the historical record is concerned, Grazzini was one of Sade’s correspondents in Rome. Sade’s chief biographers (see the introduction to this volume) do not mention him, but his relation to the “Voyage d’Italie” is briefly discussed by Georges Festa in his essay “Le Voyage d’Italie de Sade: genèse d’un matérialisme visionnaire,” in Béatrice Didier and Jacques Neefs, eds., La Fin de l’ancien régime: Sade, Rétif, Beaumarchais, Laclos, Manuscrits de la Révolution I (Saint-Denis: Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 1991), 57–8.

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Ganganelli was called Clement XIV;20 he was the last pope. The riches of Sixtus V preserved in the Castel Sant’Angelo came to five thousand Roman scudi when he deposited it there. At present, there are a million, seven hundred thousand Roman scudi. It is locked in a large box encased in iron and with the coat of arms of Sixtus V. It can only be opened by means of six keys, kept by six different custodians. The garden, beyond the Gate of the People, which I have described, was made by Julius III. See, when discussing it, page 118 of the Rêves de l’anti-papiste.21 This pope was an anti-physician and this house doubtless served his pleasures. See in the sixteenth-century section of the Histoire ecclésiastique what is said about this. Page 168 of the chronology and page 216 of the history.22 You also have the inscription of the Vestal in the papers by Grazzini. The popes who were most destructive of Rome’s antiquities were Pius V and Paul III. In the same room of the Castel Sant’Angelo, the one where the treasure is kept and that is difficult to get to see, is where secret executions were carried out. Here is where Cardinal Carafa was put to death, as well as Cardinal Petrucci, and other lords of high standing. You 20 Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli (b. 1705) was pope from 1769 until his death five years later. 21 Sade’s reference is Henri-Joseph Dulaurens, L’Antipapisme révélé, ou Les Rêves de l’antipapiste (Geneva, 1767), an anonymously published satire on the Catholic Church. Concerning the pope in question, “It is said that Julius III, most deeply learned in the anti-physical sciences, paid the keep of a Company of Gitons and that the ugliest among them was favoured with a Red Hat [i.e., cardinalship] for having made a few new discoveries in the art of stimulating the in-between space [i.e., perineum] and for having revived in the Master’s blood that active heat that grows and greatens from strong caresses applied to the area proximate to the rump” (118). In the parlance of philosophie, “anti-physical,” i.e, against Nature, was a comical euphemism for “sodomitical.” Sade employs the cognate “anti-physician [anti-phyisicien]” in the sentence that follows. The central scandal of Julius III’s papacy was his relationship with his young nephew by adoption, Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monti, whom he made a cardinal. The nature of the pope’s infatuation was widely bruited. Joachim du Bellay, in his “The Regrets,” with “The Antiquities of Rome,” Three Latin Elegies, and “The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language,” trans. and ed. Richard Helgerson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), versifies that “only in Rome” would you “see a footman, a child, a beast, a braggart, a skulker become cardinal, and a Ganymede wear scarlet on his head for taking good care of a monkey” (156). The monkey in question, according to some sources, was the pontiff’s pet. After the death of his protector, the poorly named Innocent was imprisoned for murder by Pius IV, subsequently released, and then charged with two rapes and consequently banished by Pius V. Cited as a source in L’Antipapisme revelé, Pierre Bayle discusses Julius III, Innocenzo, and their unorthodox relationship at length, with the more scurrilous material from his own sources left in Latin. See Dictionnaire historique et critique (Amsterdam, 1740), 2:875–8. 22 Sade’s reference is to Jean-Martin de Prades, Abrégé de l’Histoire Ecclésiastique de Fleury. Traduit de l’anglois (Berne, 1766). On p. 168 of vol. 2 of this work is a simple chronology that only remarks the dates of Julius III’s papacy (8 Feb. 1550 to 23 March 1555). At Sade’s next page indication, however, de Prades gives a brief overview of this papacy and observes with laconic disingenuousness: “Hardly had he been made Pope than he gave the Cardinal’s hat to a young man whose origins have never been clear; Innocent was his name; he [Julius III] had had him adopted by his brother Baldovino del Monte. Innocent having fallen ill in Trent while the Pope was undertaking his role as legate there, he was advised to send him to Verona so that he could have a change of air. This advice was salutary for the young man, for he regained his health in very little time. The day that he returned to Trent, the legate left the town with a large company of Prelates, and having met him at some distance from the town, he received him with extraordinary expressions of joy and tenderness. Innocent cast not a few clouds on the conduct of Julius III; he behaved so poorly himself that Pius IV was obliged to degrade him” (2:216–17). The latter assertion is – remarkably – incorrect. Although Innocenzo’s degradation, i.e., the stripping of his cardinalship, was twice considered, in spite of his many trespasses he retained his red hat to the end.

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see a beam fitted with nails where there are still some remnants of rope and iron rings at the top and bottom: sad remnants as well of the wrath or the vengeance of the Vatican. It was Paul V who restored the aqueducts and had the beautiful fountain built upon the Janiculum Hill, near Rome’s botanical gardens. The monks of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome are Benedictines. Do not forget to include that a room full of paintings has recently been unearthed close to the thermae of Titus and upon their site. The emperors were free to have statues of gods in their palaces. The Esquiline Hill is one of the seven hills of Rome. The Colosseum that still exists today is not the same as what was once called the Circus Maximus. The Teverone is not the same thing as the Tiber. The Teverone or Aniene flows close to Tivoli and creates, or so I think, the waterfall. You see in Rome the ancient road that still exists, formerly called the Via Scelerata, where Tullia forced the driver of her chariot to roll over the body of her father, whom she had had assassinated in the Senate. I don’t know what this road is called today. The columns of the altar at Saint Praxedes [Santa Prassede] are made of veined granite with large blotches. It is not a princess from the Piedmont who married the Borghese prince. Lycisca, a Roman courtesan. Messalina wanted to replace her and went and positioned herself in the room that the girls occupied at the circus and other public games, at the baths, etc., to engage in her practices. It is of this famous empress that Juvenal says: Et lassata viris, nondum satiata recessit. She quit these pleasures weary, but never satisfied.23 The statue in the Villa Borghese of a man stroking a child is that of Saturn. Only senators had the right to wear the laticlave, a decoration that distinguishes them in antique statues and that consists of a purple band that was sewn onto the chest and went diagonally from left to right. The medallion of Antinoüs has not the same appearance as the magnificent profile that will be seen of him over the hearth of the Villa Albani in Rome. In Rome there is the Porta Capena, the name of which is ancient. See Martial.24 Cardinal Orsini was the minister of the king of Naples in Rome. I think the Orsini family is Neapolitan. It was to him that affair happened at the king’s dinner, in Naples, which had all the ministers recalled. Talk about this.25 It was the queen Antiope who ordered the torture of Dirce, bound to the tail of a bull by Zethus and Amphion (see Dictionnaire des grands hommes).26 23 On Sade’s translation of this passage from Juvenal, which became something of a topos in his writings, see pp. 131–2n168. 24 Martial writes of “big drops” of water raining down from the Porta Capena, where there was an aqueduct. See “Capena grandi porta qua pluit gutta,” in Martial’s Epigrams, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 1[bk.3, ep.47]):220–1. 25 I have been unable to trace this allusion. 26 The reference is to Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique; ou Histoire Abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un Nom par le Génie, les Talens, les Vertus, les Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772): “DIRCE, Queen of Thebes. Lycus repudiated Antiope to marry her. The children of Antiope, annoyed by this affront, attached her rival to the tail of an angry bull” (2:456). The dictionary in question does not mention Antiope’s children by

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What Richard says about that group that you see under a lean-to at the Farnese Palace in Rome is true. The small Church of Saint Romuald [San Romualdo], where you see such a pretty painting of this saint preaching in the desert, is not a parish. The bust of Jupiter Capitolinus that you see above the entry gate of the apartments of the Villa Medici is not the one from the emperor’s palace, as has been claimed; this is erroneous. The Via Sacra cut across the Forum Romanum and eventually terminated at the Capitol, the length of the throng of temples that bordered it upon the right and left. This square, once so famous, is today called Campo Vaccino, or the field of oxen. The painting of Saint Denis that is in the sacristy of Saint Louis of the French [San Luigi dei Francesi] in Rome is by Monsieur Beauvieux, a Frenchman, or by Monsieur Miel, a Fleming.27 The monk Gennadius was the reason that the reunion of the Greek and Roman churches did not take place and was likely [?] the cause of the fall of the Empire. See Villaret, volume XVI, page 89.28 The empire of Constantinople, erected in 330 A.D. by Constantine the Great, destroyed by Mohammed [i.e., Mehmed II] in 1453, under Constantine [XI] Palaiologos, known as Dragases. It lasted 1,123 years. The gallery of the Vatican that contains the weapons has enough for twenty thousand men; it is below the library. The School of Athens, which I have here, is in the third room of the Vatican.

name, although Louis Moreri’s Le Grand Dictionnaire Historique, ou Le Mélange curieux de l’Histoire sacrée et profane (Paris, 1745), first published in 1674 and which Sade apparently consulted at times as well, does with a telling difference: “Amphion and Zethus” tie Dirce “to the horns of an untamed bull” (4:85). There are several classical accounts of Antiope and they differ in the details. Most agree that she was seduced by Zeus in the form of satyr and that she gives birth to the twins Zethus and Amphion. Abandoning them or forced to do so by Lycus, her former husband in some versions, the twins are raised by a herdsman. Cruelly treated by the jealous Dirce, wife of Lycus, Antiope is eventually revenged by her sons, who tie Dirce to a bull. 27 There is no trace of a French painter named Beauvieux and no attribution of a painting in the sacristy of this church to Jan Miel (1599–1663). Sade presumably means the altarpiece currently in the Chapel of Saint Denis, painted by Reynaud Levieux (1613–1699), which shows the saint curing a blind man. Sade’s information, or rather misinformation, in this instance comes from his contact in Rome, Giuseppe Iberti. See Correspondence p. 647 and p. 647n144. 28 The text has réversiblement (inversely), although vraisemblement (likely) seems the more probable and this could be an unintentional metathesis. Contrary to Sade’s page indication, the account of the solitary monk Gennadius warning the faithful of “the greatest misfortunes to those who would adopt the impious reconciliation of the Greeks with the Latins” will be found in Claude Villaret, Histoire de France, Depuis l’établissement de la Monarchie, jusqu’au regne de Louis XIV (Paris, 1770), 16:88. Full bibliographical information can be found in Paul François Velly, Claude Villaret, and Jean-Jacques Garnier, Histoire de France, Depuis l’établissement de la Monarchie, jusqu’au regne de Louis XIV, 33 vols. (Paris, 1755–1799). The reference is to Gennadius Scholarius (c. 1400–c. 1473), who was hardly a hermit. The Byzantine theologian and philosopher had initially urged the conciliation of the Latin and Greek churches at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1445), although he subsequently became a strident voice of the anti-Latin opposition in Constantinople.

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Every time that, in the course of the work, I use the expression “The architecture is supported by the columns,” I must say instead: “The pediment is supported by the columns.” You can, however, sometimes also say “the entablature” instead of “pediment.” Instead of the term “tribune,” which I have used quite often, I must put instead “cul-defour” for the chapels and “apse” for the churches.29 Do not put that the tomb of Scipio Africanus is in Rome, as I believe that I put, because it is at his villa at Liternum, close to Cumae. Its epitaph reads: Ingrata patria, ne quidem ossa mea habes.30

At the Villa Bracciano [i.e., Castello Orsini-Odescalchi], close to Rome, you see a painting of a young woman laid out upon the ground, who has just expired in the agonies of martyrdom. Next to her are the instruments of her torture; among others a whip, at the end of which was an iron ball, instrument that was used to knock her out, and several bull’s pizzles with which she was whipped. This piece was formerly completely open to view; recently it has been covered with a drape. When it was uncovered and you saw the bruising and the bloody wounds upon the body of this beautiful young women, it must have been frightful. The painting, full of truth, is by the school of C. Maratta. In Rome, criminals are mazzole’d, that is to say, their heads are broken with a heavy bludgeon that stuns them and knocks them out immediately and prevents them from suffering. This torture is one of the gentlest. The statue of Saint Peter is upon Trajan’s Column, erected in place of the emperor in question. If he were to return to Rome, with what astonishment would he see upon the monument erected to his glory the statue of a charlatan who was ten-a-penny during the reign of his predecessors? And with what eye does the philosopher descry this profanation and how might he see Nero’s buffoon occupy, by the most bizarre blindness, the place intended to honour and to perpetuate for all time the memory of the world’s emperor who, at the time that this monument to his glory was being set up, was losing his life in a war essential to the empire? Where I have spoken upon the topic of the temple where the Vestals were left before they were led off to torture, I think that I said this temple, as well as the Ludovisi Gardens, were upon the site of the Gardens of Lucullus. This is incorrect: they need to be put upon the site of the Gardens of Sallust. In volume IV, this is stated correctly; I need to verify the others. There are four architectural orders: Ionic, or Tuscan, which is almost the same thing, with the difference, however, that the Ionic is lighter than the Tuscan. It is the most plain. Doric, with volutes. It is the stateliest.31 Corinthian, with acanthus leaves. It is the most delicate and the one usually used in Rome for the temples of goddesses.

29 Marginal note: “You settled upon calling it ‘tribune’ in a note.” 30 Translated: “Ungrateful fatherland, you do not even have my bones.” 31 Sade has inverted the Ionic and Doric orders.

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Composite, that is to say, a mixture of Doric and Corinthian. It is the most elegant, yet at the same time the most recent; it was known to neither the Greeks nor to the Romans.32 Correct the passage in the journey to Florence that says the Farnese Hercules that you see upon the Square of the Old Palace is the real one. This is false: the real one is in Rome, at the Farnese Palace.33 Continuation of Rome In conversations, men and women are separate; the former to one side, and the latter to the other. The woman, entering into company, gives her mantlet to her cicisbeo, who affects to carry it in his pocket, in a such a way that everyone sees it. When doing the preface, do not forget to consult a note related to the division of work, placed at the beginning of the 3rd notebook on the curiosities of Rome. Do not forget, when describing the Barberini Palace, to group all the statues together and all the paintings together. Apparently this is muddled and everything is mixed (take a look). The churches situated upon the Campo Vaccino, those that once made up the temples running the length of the Via Sacra, must be placed in the category of antiquities; they are more connected to this than the churches, and this will put the aforementioned Temple of Peace in the right order. (I have vacillated a bit upon this score while writing this note, in August 1776.) Reflection to put in somewhere: it is in Rome, more than anywhere else that one must see the extent to which Christian superstition is built upon the scaffolding of the ancient. Here, Saint Como has replaced Romulus; there, Saint Martina is upon the altar of the god of war; the inauguration of the popes is modelled upon the triumphal entrance; the saints are paraded in the streets like idols were formerly paraded; the ex-votos are exactly the same; in conclusion, everywhere there exist the traces of that religion of the masters of the universe, which that of a bandit from the nation most scorned by these same masters knocked over. What a strange revolution in human affairs! Who would have said that the descendants of Jews would sit upon the throne of the likes of Titus and Vespasian and that the Temple of Peace, built from the spoils made by those princes who had vanquished them, would one day be destroyed in order to build in its place altars to that God that they had scorned?34 32 Marginal note: “False: Vitruvius, Augustus’s architect, used it.” Sade’s correction presumably came after consulting Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essai sur l’architecture. Nouvelle edition, revue, corrigée, & augmentée; avec un dictionnaire des termes (Paris, 1755), his sole apparent source on the topic. Laugier notes that Vitruvius gave proportions for and described the characteristics of the Composite order (95–6). 33 Sade’s reference is evidently to the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, which does have a statue of Hercules and Cacus, completed in 1534, standing outside of it; it is by the Florentine sculptor Bartolommeo Bandinelli (1488–1560). The intended reference, however, is likely the ancient Hercules statue in the courtyard of the Pitti Palace in Florence, which, although not nearly as esteemed, bears a closer resemblance to the Farnese Hercules. See Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981) on the Farnese Hercules, other versions, and travellers’ interests and attitudes to these sculptures (229–32). 34 The syntax is a bit hard to follow, but the point is clear enough. The future emperor Vespasian, seconded by his son Titus, was at the time of the First Jewish-Roman War, or the Great Revolt, in 66–73 CE put in charge of quashing the rebellion in Judea. When Vespasian became emperor in 69, Titus assumed command of the Roman forces, capturing and sacking Jerusalem and destroying the Second Temple the following

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In spite of everything, some pagan practices still live on in Rome and prove that the habits of an unreasoning people are stronger than anything imaginable in the world. Children are still brought to the temple of Romulus upon certain days of the week, just like they were brought in earlier times. The practice of carrying the dead uncovered is quite ancient in Italy. We know that the daughter of the consular family whom Apollonius of Tyana brought back to life, during Nero’s reign, was carried upon an uncovered litter.35 Trastevere means residing beyond the Tiber or Teverone. See your authors. During the reign of Augustus, [between] year 1 and 30 A.D., the arts were at their perfection. Under Constantine, in 337, they degenerated and only reappeared with the seizure of Constantinople by Mohammed [i.e., Mehmed II] in 1453. Then, a throng of artists in every genre expanded in Italy.

year. Sade deems it a particular historical irony that the rule and works of the first two Flavian emperors, who conquered Judea, has been displaced by popes (“descendants of Jews”) and Christian monuments. 35 A neo-Pythagorean sage who flourished in the first century; his teachings, travels, and deeds were set forth at length in Lucius Flavius Philostratus (c. 170–250), Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Although there had been a sixteenth-century translation as well, Philostratus’s biography was published in French shortly prior to Sade’s journey, as Vie d’Apollonius de Tyane, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1773). This edition was translated by Giovanni Francesco Salvemini da Castiglione, known in France as Jean Castillon, and included commentary in English by Charles Blount that had originally been published as The First Two Books of Philostratus, Concerning the Life of Apollonius of Tyaneus (London, 1680). Largely because of parallels with Jesus that they could exploit, philosophes became interested in Apollonius. Sade invokes Apollonius in his atheistic Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond, written in prison in 1782 – and thus during the transition period from the Italian manuscript and plans for an overt literary career to his clandestine and licentious writings. On the supposed miracle, I translate from the French translation of Philostratus’s Vie d’Apollonius de Tyane, and the chapter titled “The Resuscitated Girl”: Apollonius also worked the following wonder. A young woman was deemed dead; her betrothed followed her bier in great anguish, as one does in such cases. The entire city of Rome wept along with him. This girl was from a consular household. Apollonius upon encountering this burial said: “Stop the bier; I will soothe the tears that you shed on this girl’s account.” And he asked for her name. Almost all those present believed that he was going to give a funeral oration or some other speech apt to bring forth tears. Yet Apollonius did but touch this girl, and said some barely audible words; and he brought her back from the death that seemed to have seized her. The girl first began to speak and then returned to her father’s house, as did of yore Alcestis recalled to life by Hercules. The parents of that girl gave to Apollonius a hundred and fifty thousand drachmas. He said that he, in turn, would donate them to the girl’s dowry. It is quite difficult not only for me but also for those present to judge whether Apollonius had discovered in her a spark of life that had evaded the doctors; for it is said that he cried at that time and that the face of this girl steamed; or whether he recalled her to life. (3:184–5) Jean-François de La Croix offers a brief assessment of Apollonius, in his anonymously published Dictionnaire historique des cultes religieux, établis dans le monde depuis son origine jusqu’à présent (Paris, 1770): “This impostor caused quite a racket in the first centuries of the Church, to put it mildly. He was born in Tyana in Cappodocia of an illustrious and very rich family. His handsomeness contributed not a little to his ability to capture hearts; his austere and philosophical life made him considered an extraordinary man. He thoroughly possessed the great art of magic. His tricks had so fascinated the minds of pagans that they dared compare his purported miracles to those of Jesus Christ himself. He was the hero of their religion. ‘What a man,’ they cried, ‘is Apollonius! He commands the demons, chases away evil aerial spirits, resuscitates the dead!’ Apollonius merely preached to the people Pythagorean philosophy, the undisturbed life, and distancing oneself from wordly affairs. It was only towards the end of Tiberius’s reign that he appeared on the scene” (1:115–16).

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To Be Put in Your Preface to Rome Moreover, it is very difficult and quite useless to put the paintings in order and to indicate in which rooms they are given the daily displacements and sales that their owners make, which would necessitate updating the catalogue on an annual basis. It seems to me that all that a reader ought to desire is a general overview and this as extensive as possible. Notes on Florence The reigning grand duke has had brought from his Medici Villa in Rome to the Pitti Palace, where it is placed in the rooms of the bottom level, the lovely statue of Niobe created by Phidias, who depicted the entire history of that unfortunate family. Do not forget that since Bologna, I have already augmented with notes all that there is to say concerning the route from La Coste to Bologna, with writings placed at the end of the little yellow notebook upon my return trip. Notes on Naples The façade of the Palace of the King of Naples is done in the three orders and employs pilasters: the first Tuscan, the second Ionic, and the third Corinthian. In general, remember, above all here, never to treat a subject without examining all the books that relate to it and to extract all the facts that might be connected to it. Do not forget to discuss the Porta Capena in more detail than you have done so far. The first volume of the Guide des voyageurs discusses it at length.36 Do not omit inserting upon the topic of mores and government that everything is done by the king of Spain and by Tanucci.37 Also insert that everyone follows Spanish custom, giving themselves the title dom or doña. Notes on Pozzuoli (in the Yellow Notebook on My Route) In the happy countryside [i.e., Campania felix], among those tombs of which I have spoken in the section on Pozzuoli, you find one of Tiberius’s family where superb stucco remnants will be seen.

36 The Porta Capena was a gate opening onto the Appian Way in Rome. Certainly, Sade must have meant here the Porta Capuana in Naples. Guide des voyageurs is the title that Sade gives elsewhere to Pompeo Sarnelli’s Guida de forestieri curiosi di vedere, e di riconoscere le cose più memorabili di Pozzoli, Baja, Cuma, Miseno, Gaeta (Naples, 1685), translated into French and augmented by Antoine Bulifon as La Guide des étrangers curieux de voir, & de connoitre les choses plus memorables de Poussol, Bayes, Cumes, Misene, Gaete (see chapter V, p. 284n51). Sarnelli wrote a similarly titled guide to Naples itself entitled Guida de’ forestieri, curiosi di vedere, e d’intendere le cose più notabili della regal città di Napoli (Naples, 1688). In this case, Sade’s reference would seem to be to Bulifon’s translation Le [sic] Guide des étrangers curieux de voire, & d’apprendre ce qu’il y a de plus remarquable dans la Royale Ville de Naples (Naples, 1692), which discusses the Porta Capuana on pp. 14–15. It is not clear why Sade refers to “the first volume” above, although he presumably had these guides bound as a two-volume set. 37 Bernardo Tanucci served the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in various capacities, culminating in prime minister, for the Bourbon kings Charles III of Spain and his son Ferdinand IV.

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Procida is the smallest of the islands called Procida and Ischia that are located upon the other side of Cape Miseno. It is upon the former that the king has a house where he takes up residence every year in the month of September for partridge hunting. Ischia is eighteen miles around and Procida eight. It seems that the stones of the castle in Cumae are a sort of lava. It is not in question that what are vulgarly called the Prisons of Nero were the foundations and the cellars of Caesar’s house, the situation of which was divine (see Chaupy, page 289).38 On top of the New Mountain (Monte Nuovo) is a large crater that is a quarter of a mile around, semicircular, and with a depth of approximately 240 feet. This volcano, which gave birth to the New Mountain, filled in the Lucrine Lake, and damaged Tripergola. Note to Put in the Preface A traveller must speak little of himself; this is the flaw into which many fall, because at that point, if he speaks much of himself, these are his memoirs that he is writing and not those of the countries through which he has voyaged. He must only allow himself to tell a story about something that has happened to him when it serves to make the spirit or mores of the nation of which he is speaking familiar. Read, upon the topic of Loreto, the article “Nazareth” in the Dictionnaire de la Bible by Dom Calmet.39 Ponte Molle or Milvius Bridge, these are the same thing; the latter is the ancient name, the first the modern name. It is the bridge famous for the defeat of the tyrant Maxentius, who had positioned nearby a wing of his army that Constantine toppled. There are also other anecdotes upon this battle and about this bridge that Crevier will provide for me upon this topic.40 Recall that you have an amplification upon the route from La Coste to Bologna, at the end of the yellow notebook upon the route. On the Tour of Pozzuoli The large rooms that are behind the Temple of Venus at Baiae and concerning which I have the layout, were sorts of pools in which the Romans learned how to swim. We know that this was part of their education. Agrippina, having fallen into the sea while going from Bauli to Baiae, because of the infernal machine thought up by Nero, escaped by swimming.

38 See Bertrand Capmartin de Chaupy, Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace (Rome, 1767), 1:289. 39 See Augustin Calmet, Dictionnaire historique, critique, chronologique, géographique et littéral de la Bible (Geneva, 1730), 3:368–9. Calmet, himself a Benedictine monk, concludes sceptically: “It seems quite likely that all these various translations are nothing other than buildings that have been constructed based upon the form of the Church of Nazareth” (3:369). Calmet’s dictionary was first published in 1720, subsequently expanded, often reprinted, and translated into various languages, including English and Latin. 40 See Jean-Baptiste-Louis Crevier, Histoire des empereurs romains: depuis Auguste jusqu’à Constantin (Paris, 1749–1755), 2:279–80. Among other things, Crevier remarks that the bridge was “a place for pleasure parties for licentious youth” and that Nero “often betook himself there in order to carry out his frolicsome games with more liberty outside of the city” (ibid.).

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By measuring the columns’ modules and judging by this method how high they were, you see that they are still considerably buried and that they must have been lower than sea level.41 Don’t forget to put, in the section on Lake Avernus, that the temple that you still see upon the shores was a monument dedicated to the lake itself and not a temple to Juno Averna, as is asserted today.42 Don’t forget to put, in the description of the Gulf of Baiae and of Miseno, everything that you find in Chaupy (volume 1, pages 261 and following). What they call the Temple of Venus in Baiae is dubious; and the one that is today said to have belonged to Diana seems to have been dedicated to Hercules, since he gave his name to that entire quarter of the town of Baiae that was called the Quay of Hercules. The one that is said to have belonged to Mercury was the fish pond of [Julia] Mamaea, and beside it a household temple to the Sun, given that Alexander and Heliogabalus, sons of Mamaea, were both priests of the Sun in Syria. That of Mercury could well have been the one that is pointed out today as belonging to Venus, since they say that the Venus one is dubious. The baths called today the Baths of Nero were nothing other than the baths of the city of Baiae. Misenum, Bauli, Baiae, and Pozzuoli were almost joined and comprised, so to speak, but a single, unified city in the shape of a crescent the length of the gulf, like Naples is today. When you get to the temple and to Lake Avernus and to the Grotto of the Sibyl, see Chaupy, volume I, page 308, and recall that this grotto was nothing other than a tunnel that Nero wanted to have made in order to connect Lake Avernus and the sea, concerning which many authors speak. While digging, boiling water was found, and subsequently, those chambers were made that will be seen upon the right, in order to at least make this spot useful for something. The real den of the Sibyl was at Cumae itself. The real den of the Sibyl was close to the Temple of Apollo, upon the fragments of this town’s fortress, upon the highest hill; and that which is today called that of the Sibyl was, as I have just mentioned a moment ago, only that famous passage that Nero wanted made from the lake to the port of Ostia. This other grotto, the maw of which is turned in the direction of Cumae and that is quite near to it, was made by Cocceius, who made the one in Posillipo [i.e., the Crypta Neapolitana]. Its function was to go from Cumae to Baiae (before asserting this, consult Chaupy). In an ancient view of Pozzuoli that will be found in the Museum of Portici, you see that what is called today the Bridge of Caligula was nothing but a jetty with six or seven archways at most. Caligula doubtless attached here the ship bridge upon which he planned to go from Pozzuoli to Baiae, etc., etc. NOTE ON THE TOPIC OF THE DISORDER THAT THE TOO NUMEROUS PROCEDURES OF THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES OCCASION. Charles VII did more good for the nation in redrafting the law code – diminishing that mass of procedures and public

41 A column’s modulus, or module, was a term used in Roman architecture and was later taken up by Renaissance architects. Corresponding to the semi-diameter of the column at its base, it was used to fix the relative proportions of the other parts. In Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Ingrid D. Rowland, with commentary and illustrations by Thomas Noble Howe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), explaining Doric symmetries, Vitruvius writes: “The diameter of the columns will equal two modules, the height of the columns with their capitals, fourteen. The height of the capital will measure one module, the width two and one-sixth modules” (57 [bk.4, ch.3]). 42 Marginal note: “Laverna, goddess of thieves, would she not bear some relation?”

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leeches that they stirred up, fattening themselves upon the blood of litigants – he did more good, I say, by the edicts that he had drawn up on this matter, than by the brilliant conquests that won back for France the provinces that had been lost under the previous regime and the beginning of his own. The people who claim that the grotto of Pozzuoli [i.e., of Posillipo] was the work of Virgil’s spells must be the same as those who have made of him a prophet, hearing Jesus Christ in those flattering things he says to the son of Pollio, his protector and his friend (see Eclogues, IV).43 All these errors resemble one another and must belong to the same class and to the same sort of men. Continuation of Some Notes on Florence Cosimo de’ Medici was considered the most famous merchant in Europe (Histoire de France, volume XVI, page 23: reign of Charles VII).44 The 29th of May, 1453, was the moment that Constantinople was seized by Mohammed [i.e., Mehmed] II, during the reign of Constantine [XI] Palaiologos, known as Dragases. This is also the era of the renaissance of the arts: the Greeks spread into Italy, and it was at this time that a large part of the paintings and monuments of Florence were produced: Giotto, etc. You also see, in Naples, several objects from this era; you make out, through the barbarity of these early times, something of the Greek and antique taste. If you want some anecdotes about the literary renaissance in Italy that came with the fall of the Eastern Empire, see Villaret, page 100, volume XVI.45 Continuation of Some Notes on Naples There are two main sorts of lava: a flowing one that only comes with the eruptions; the other, the one that is worked, made of ash mixed with water and fire, which hardens and petrifies. It is the latter that covered Herculaneum and that you still see there. Furthermore, the various marbles that are also worked are thrown out of its main orifice. Sentence to include in the topic of the king of Naples. Insert this remark by the king of Naples to the emperor about libraries: “Kings have no need of them, my brother. Here is theirs (placing his hand upon his heart), and the honour of ruling others only raises you above them through the art of knowing how to put yourself at their level.” The three islands of the tour around Pozzuoli are: Nisida, Ischia, Procida. Parthenope appears to have no other meaning than that of a Greek proper name. It was one of the three sirens; the two others were called Leucosia and Ligeia. Naples took its name from Parthenope, one of the three sirens.

43 In Virgil’s fourth eclogue, addressed to the consul Asinus Pollio, the poet invokes a new golden age of justice, the birth of a miraculous child, and other prognostications that were later interpreted as messianic and in a Christian vein. See Virgil, Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 48–53. The miracle child predicted was not the son of Pollio, but rather the expected son of Mark Antony and the emperor Augustus’s sister Octavia. See Israel Knohl, The Messiah before Jesus: The Suffering Servant of the Dead Sea Scrolls, trans. David Maisel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 97–9. 44 Claude Villaret, Histoire de France, Depuis l’établissement de la Monarchie, jusqu’au regne de Louis XIV (Paris, 1770), 16:23. For full bibliographical reference, see Velly et al., Histoire de France. 45 Villaret, Histoire de France, 16:100.

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When you mention the names of paintings, do not forget that the Last Supper or Washing of the Feet is not the same thing [sic]. You must indicate each by its name. Consult, in your books on mythology, the entry on Minerva Medica. This entry relates to a temple in Rome. On the main portico of the theatre in Herculaneum was found a quadriga or chariot pulled by four horses, with the horses having been broken. Three-quarters thereof were melted down, and with the fragments of the remainder the one that you see in the middle of the courtyard of the Museum was made. Reflections upon the Route from Naples to Rome, to Be Included in the Description that I Will Provide of This (Transcribed from Abbé Chaupy)46 VELLETRI was one of the primary towns of the kingdom of the Volscians. It, however, abandoned them and joined the Latin League; it renounced its liberty to become Roman (see Chaupy’s book). You see there many inscriptions and some ancient walls, but these are from the Roman era and not from the days of the Volscians. You also see two surviving ancient roadways that brought you there: one made up part of the Appian Way, and the other part of the Campanian, which went up to Capua and that the Appian then absorbed. SERMONETA was not, as Richard would have it, the ancient Sulmo of the Volscians. I know not where he dug up this name. Never did the Volscians have a town with this name.47 It was [in?] the Pagus Norbanus, a sort of suburb of the ancient town of Ninfa, the considerable ruins of which will be seen upon the mountain and the plain, to the right after having crossed the river of the same name.48 SEZZE was the Setia of the Latins. There grew the good wine called Setinum (and not Setivum, as Richard says), wine sung by Juvenal and other Latin authors. THE TRES TABERNAE, which Richard discusses by copying Misson, were the ruins of a few houses or temples located close to Privernum. But the real ruins of the Tres Tabernae, he surely did not see them, given that they are fifteen miles away, on the Appian Way, which is no longer the main road in the area; and he surely did go and look for them since, as I have just said, it [i.e., the Appian Way] is fifteen miles distant from the main road.49 PIPERNO today is not located upon the site of the ancient Privernum, as Richard has it. Privernum was upon the plain, three miles from Case Nuove, and was actually the fatherland of Camilla.50 TERRACINA is really and truly the ancient Anxur of the Volscians. You pass through Maratti to get there  – and not through Maroni as the name is butchered by 46 Four manuscript pages in Sade’s hand. 47 Between the lines: “What Sulmo is in Chaupy, page 535.” Sulmo was the Latin name of presentday Sulmona. As Chaupy explains, in his Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace, it was the home town of the poet Ovid (3:535) and was one of the chief cities of the tribe of the Paeligni (see 3:24). 48 Pagus Norbanus is not a term used in Chaupy or elsewhere. It means the district of Norba, the ancient ruins of which are close to present-day Norma. Sade’s syntax is odd. 49 Tre Taverne or Three Taverns, for which Sade gives the Latin name, was an ancient staging post not far from Rome on the Appian Way. Paul of Tarsus, on his way to Rome, was met there by Christian brethren from the capital, at which point “he thanked God, and took courage” (Acts 28:15, AV). 50 Virgil has his virgin warrior Camilla come from Privernum. See Aeneid: Books 7–12. Appendix Vergiliana, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 274–5 [bk.11, ll.539–43].

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Monsieur Richard, whom you must neither read nor believe a word of upon the topic of this town, given that he is in this instance more ignorant than in any other spot in his book. The cathedral is on top of a temple to Apollo, and not to Jupiter. The ruins that you see upon the mountain (and that he calls fragments) of a fortress, in which he claims that the pope has a garrison, are the inhabited structures that he surely did not bother to see, since it requires climbing up high. Here is the history of these ruins.51 Anxur was first built here, and the fragments that you see are of that ancient town. What proves this are the remnants of the Appian Way that led here and that, in my view, constitute an irrefutable proof. In its second period, it was built halfway up the hill, where it is today; in the third, upon the sea, where Antoninus built a port, the remains of which will still be seen. Finally, in its fourth, it was put where it is today. Whence it happens that all this area, both the plain and the mountain, is filled with ruins and that always there is something to be found in the excavations that are done in this vicinity. The inscription that you see upon the font to the right, upon entering, under the portico of the cathedral, is false. The first Christians, judging others based upon themselves, imagined that all those vases that they found – and that never served any other purpose than to be used as baths – had been thought up to torture them. And so they came and carefully closed them up or had them used for pious purposes. As for the numbers that you see upon the rock, what Misson says is true (see him on this topic). FONDI was not, as Richard has it, a town of the Arunci, another butchered word, because you say Aurunci and not Arunci,52 which has never been said except by Monsieur Richard.53 These Arronquians were the primitive peoples of Latium.54 Be that as it may, Fondi was a town of the country of the Ausones, primitive people of Italy, more ancient than the Volscians. What must be particularly noted is the manner of dress of the women in this country, which has not at all changed; the mores are likewise the same, and truly nothing is more interesting than studying this region. This town is the only one that has

51 Between the lines: “that were not part of the Palace of Theodoric either, as Monsieur Lalande has it (see page 399 of the 5th volume).” See Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 5:399. 52 Between the lines: “You will remark that Lalande has committed the same error, page 430 of the 5th volume.” Richard and Lalande spell the tribe Arunciens and Arunci, respectively, whereas Sade would have Auronces. Contrary to Sade’s assertion, Richard and Lalande were not the only ones to have given this spelling, and they likely did so because of following Pierre du Ryer’s translation of Titus Livy, Les Décades de Tite-Live, avec les supplémens de I. Freinshemius (Paris, 1653), which indeed has Arunciens (see 1:79 and elsewhere). Usually, François Guérin’s translation of Livy has the more proximate Aurunciens, as in his Histoire Romaine de Tite-Live, traduite en françois. Avec les Supplémens de Freinshemius (Paris, 1770), 1:201 and elsewhere; however, Guérin also uses Auronques, as in 8:134 (Paris, 1771). Sade’s spelling Auronces will be frequently encountered, however, in historical and geographical accounts in the eighteenth century. It is used, e.g., by Dusaulx in the notes to his translation of Juvenal; see his Satires de Juvénal, 22. Although Chaupy (Découverte, 3:456–7) mentions the ancient city, which he notes as “Suesse surnommée Aurunque,” he does not otherwise discuss the tribe in question or its name. 53 Between the lines: “I believe that Titus Livy says it. See the little notebook and Titus Livy, page 58.” One of two apparent page references to Livy in the manuscript, but the edition remains uncertain. 54 After correcting Richard, Sade proceeds to call the Aurunci the “arronques.” It is unclear whether this spelling was meant in jest or that the corrector has now erred.

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not budged at all; it is absolutely upon the same spot, the walled enclosure is absolutely the same. You read upon the walls the names of those who built them; its name itself has remained the same, and you must admit that in this regard this town is one of the most interesting ones along the route. Let us listen to Martial: Epig. CVIII: Hæc Fundana tulit felix autumnus Opimi. Expressit mustum consul et ipse bibit.55

It seems to me that Monsieur Richard would have done better to put this fact before us rather than what he has pillaged from Misson (volume II, page 76).56 ITRI, modern town, was never the Mamurra of Latium, which Richard assures us was the case, based upon Horace’s testimony. He makes a big mistake here, and the passage from Horace leaves not the faintest hint of obscurity upon the matter. Horace says: “We have left Fondi and we are in the city of the Mamurrae.” With very little learning, Monsieur Richard would have known that there was a very well-known family called Mamurra that lived in Formiae and that when Horace says – because “Formiae” was not apt for the metre – “We are in the city of the Mamurrae,” he is talking about Formiae and not about Itri, which never had the name Mamurra. What we have here are errors that are all the more unpardonable insofar as they reveal ineptitudes that would not be pardoned a schoolboy in the third form and that presuppose the most utter privation of learning and the greatest excess of ignorance. Once more: Itri is a modern city that certainly did not exist in Horace’s day. Fundos Aufidio prætore libenter Linquimus, insani ridentes præmia scribæ, Prætextam et latum clavum prunæque vatillum. In Mammurrarum lassi deinde urbe manemus, Murena præbente domum, Capitone culinam.57

55 Sade has incorrectly noted the number of the epigram, which translates: “Opimius’s rich autumn bore this wine of Fundi. The consul pressed out the must and drank it himself.” See Martial, Epigrams, 3[bk.13, ep.113]:219. 56 Sade notes between the lines: “Monsieur Lalande has made the same error, page 431 of the 5th.” 57 Horace, in his Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), writes: “Fundi, with its ‘praetor’ Aufidius Luscus, we quit with delight, laughing at the crazy clerk’s gewgaws, his bordered robe, broad stripe, and pan of charcoal. Next, wearied out we stop in the city of the Mamurra, Murena providing shelter and Capito the larder” (67 [Sat. 1:5, ll.34–8]). After the lines above, Sade adds: “The commentator Henri Estienne, who is the best that we have, did not fail to put in a note: in M. ur. Formiis.” Then, below this, Sade writes: See what Chaupy says about this, in his third volume, in the entry on the Appian Way. Formianum, in the same book; you will find the details therein. On Minturno: what I have said is correct. Virgin soil in which excavating ought to be done. Note. Formerly Latium only went up to Mount Circe. Under the emperors, it extended to the Garigliano and even beyond. Minturno, the last town in Latium, is located on the bank of the Garigliano; you make out quite precisely when travelling through it all the ruins, a theatre, an amphitheatre, large fragments of aqueduct and the remains of a temple of the nymph Marica, goddess of the Minturnians, who presided over those marshes made famous by Marius seeking asylum in them (see Richard). The sixteenth-century printer and scholar Henri Estienne, indeed, annotates the line of Horace’s sixth satire in question above: “In M. vr. Formiis [In M(amurra), the c(ity) of Formia].” See Qvinti Horatii Flacii Poemata, novis scholiis et argumentis ab Henrico Stephano illustrata (n.p., n.d., [c. 1575]), 19.

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[Various Notes]58 I This Voyage will be presented as a letter by a philosopher who has travelled, who imparts his reflections to a friend who wants to make the same voyage as he. This manner seems the best to me, because it is the one that makes it most possible to lead his traveller by the hand. II Since the preliminary portion of my route ought not have any place in these memoirs, I made few observations thereupon. That region, however (above all, beginning from entering into the Dauphiné), would be worthy of a separate one, and the uniqueness that Nature, the landscape, and the plants provide at every instant would furnish an entire volume to the philosophical observer who might desire to take the trouble to describe them in detail.59 III Parts of my work that are underway: The excerpt from Rome up to Corioli. The description of the Vatican, up to halfway through Saint Peter’s. Some remarks upon the monks that should make up an introduction. Florence, pretty well underway. A start on the route from Naples to Bologna, up to Garigliano. And the notebooks, etc.

IV Questions that I have asked: The count of the Ecclesiastical State’s subjects. Done. The extent of the aforementioned States. The wealthiest families in the city. Done. The names of the principal nobles. D. The pope’s ground and sea forces. D. A portrait sketch of him. D. The make-up of his house. D. Governance of the city and of the States. Policing of the city. Legislation of the city and the States, that is to say, the number of courts, and what is more   or less the form of the civil court and the criminal one. A word about mores and the arts. 58 Four small, loose pages in Sade’s hand. 59 Marginal note: “Talk about simples.” The term “simple” applied to medicines derived from a single plant in herbal medicine, as opposed to “compounds,” which were mixtures prepared by the apothecary.

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Dossier I [On the verso:] Baron of Breteuil. The Duke of Civrac. The Duke of Cossé. + Marquis of Beuvon. The Marquis of Léry. M. de Montboissier. M. de Crussol. M. le marquis de Mailly. What was the obelisk at the Square of the People [Piazza del Popolo]? Octavius was the same thing as Augustus. Constantine couldn’t see Pope Sylvester.

Notebook of Excerpts Taken from Various Authors that I Have Read Here and the Passages of which Might Be Used for My Work that I Will Likely Never Do. Gathered in 177760 Domitian rebuilt a number of large works consumed by fires, the Capitol among others, which had been once more burned. But he wanted all the glory for this, putting only his name upon the inscriptions and making no mention of their original founders, which creates quite a muddle for antiquarians. In the Capitol, he had built a new temple to Jupiter, its guardian, and a forum that today (says Suetonius) carries the name of Nerva.61 Further, he constructed a temple for the Flavian family, a Lyceum, a spot for music, and a naumachia, the stones of which have since been used for the building of the Circus Maximus that had been burned on either side. Fortuna, so feared that she was venerated at Praeneste, predicted the end of Domitian’s days.62

60 Notebook of 28 pages, of which the first 14 are cut right to the margins. Entirely in Sade’s hand. Beneath the title, there are two notes that confirm that these pages were written at the beginning of Sade’s detention in the donjon of Vincennes: I want to bring this notebook with me; and if it is taken from me, I beg, once it will have been examined at one’s leisure, it might either be sent back to me or given to my wife. / These lines were written when I left my papers here while going to Aix. TO THE COPYIST. La Jeunesse, when copying, will ask Madame for the words that he is unable to read and will make sure to put in the margins the labelling of places as they are here; will also observe quite exactly all the indentations. But this work is not pressing, since I’ll only need it after my release. So, you see that you have all the time. Madame de Sade alludes to this notebook in a letter to her husband from 19 February 1779: “La Jeunesse has begun to copy the notes for your work, but you were quite wrong to put at the top that this work is not pressing; this is to give him to think that which he must not think and that which I wish you would get out of your head.” She adds: “Once again, all your ideas are killing you and making me despair; there is nothing commonsensical in them.” Marquis de Sade, Lettres et Mélanges littéraires écrits à Vincennes et à la Bastille, ed. Georges Daumas and Gilbert Lely (Paris: Borderie, 1980), 1:181. 61 Between the lines: “Find out whether this is not the one the large walls of which you see built upon the slope and facing the square that you have discussed in detail.” Sade is evidently referring above to the Forum of Nerva. 62 Suetonius writes that towards the end of his reign, Domitian engaged in increasingly unhallowed acts, culminating in the execution on a “very slight suspicion” of his cousin, the consul Flavius Clemens, whose sons the emperor had adopted. Henceforth the ill omens followed in rapid succession, and Fortuna of

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Note on the Assietta Affair that Was Given to Me by Someone Who Was Present at the Time The Chevalier de Belle-Isle, brother of the marshal of the name, was commanding a corps of about eighteen thousand men.63 He crossed over Montgenèvre; the headquarters remained at Briançon. At Oulx, a village at the base of the mountain, they were warned that they would find the enemy entrenched, and this bit of information was hard to stomach. Nonetheless, they marched on, and set up camp upon the heights, opposite the one where the enemy was entrenched, known as Assietta. Monsieur d’Arnaud, general officer, wanted to give Monsieur de Belle-Isle an idea of the difficulties of the undertaking. But the latter, a bit in his cups, it is said, replied: “The wine is decanted, Monsieur, it must be drunk.” “Well then, Monsieur, we shall drink it!” said Monsieur d’Arnaud, jamming his hat upon his head. They advanced. The attack could not have been much more vigorous. Many men were lost, including the general, Monsieur d’Arnaud, and many colonels. The Piedmontese were going to abandon the entrenchments when their commander heard that the French were asking from hand to hand for ammunition, and that they were yelling that there was no more. He stood fast and resolved to await the onslaught of bladed weapons, in which he could observably feel the advantage of his position. In fact, they remained masters of the battlefield, and we withdrew, crushed. In Naples, the people have the custom of making crosses upon their arms with powder to make it clear that they are Christians. This custom is also practised in Egypt, among the Copts and the Greeks. Seagoing folk follow this practice more than others in Italy. You still see among the antiquities of Palmyra remnants of the emperor Diocletian’s monuments, which proves (in spite of what several authors might have claimed) that architecture was at that time as learned as in the earliest regimes of the empire. Zenobia, Queen of Palmrya, was made prisoner while crossing the Euphrates in order to solicit aid from the Persians, her allies, when her city was under siege by Aurelian. She came to Tibur; the emperor allotted her lands near this city. You see there the remains of his country villa. She married there and had children. The Roman practice of burying their dead on the side of roads, in the vicinity of cities, has ever been religiously observed in the Levant. Hieroglyphs Herodotus, discussing the Ethiopian characters called hieroglyphs by the Egyptians, who also used them, said that this form of writing depicted all sorts of animals, parts of the human body, and tools, above all, those borrowed from the mechanical arts. They were not made up of syllables joined together, but of images that related to the things that one had wanted to express. Thus, the figure of a falcon indicated everything that ought to be done Praeneste who “had throughout his whole reign, when he commended the new year to her protection, given him a favourable omen and always in the same words,” now “returned a most direful one, not without the mention of bloodshed.” Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, trans. J.C. Rolfe and revised by Donna W. Hurley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 2[bk.8, s.14]:356–7. Shortly thereafter Domitian was stabbed to death by conspirators. 63 Louis Charles Armand Fouquet, known as the Chevalier de Belle-Isle, was the younger brother of Marshal Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle. A seasoned military man by the time he was given command of the French forces sent to attack on the Savoy-Piedmont front during the War of the Austrian Succession, he died at the Battle of Assietta on 19 July 1747.

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promptly, the falcon being of all the birds the one that flies the fastest. That of the crocodile signified malice. The eye denoted an exact observer of the laws and a guardian who tutored or protected. The right hand with fingers extended had several significations. The closed left hand announced a planned-out intent to take possession of something. Thus, everything was read and understood via these figurations. But one might suspect that the usual manner of writing was to employ several letters together to form syllables. The shape of letters is arbitrary, and each letter could have borne a resemblance to an animal, all the more so since the name of some ancient characters is that of animals [sic]. Animal representations still to this day serve for Armenian capital letters, without any conjoined resemblance in Nature. Doctor Pocock informs us that he has seen such letters in their grammar book, which has been printed in Rome by the Priests of Propagation.64 Pyramids The antiquity of the pyramids goes back to the most remote times, when the first Greek philosophers travelled to Egypt. The epoch of these monuments was already unknown.65 Is it likely, if they dated from the period when the Egyptians were using hieroglyphs, that they would not have placed any of them upon these monuments? They who covered their obelisks with them? Yet, not of single trace of them will be found. This way of writing was already lost by the time that the Persians made their conquest of Egypt, and these characters were, however, the first the Egyptians used.66 The one [i.e., the pyramid] in Rome in which Gaius Cestius is buried is but a feeble imitation of those of Egypt. Above these pyramids will be found petrified shells, like the ones that you see in in several parts of France. Notwithstanding, the plain upon which these pyramids is located is eighty feet higher than the bed of the Nile, and certain of these pyramids are five hundred feet high. Either these shells do not prove the Flood or these pyramids resisted the Flood; here are two extremes that are quite awkward.67

64 Sade notes: “Excerpted from the Voyage du docteur Pocock en Égypte, page 77, volume I.” Edward Pococke (1604–1691) was an English scholar specializing in biblical studies and Oriental languages, including Hebrew, Chaldean, Syrian, and Ethiopian. He held the Chair in Arabic at Oxford starting in 1636 and travelled widely, collected valuable manuscripts, and wrote numerous learned works on Maimonides, Arab history, and other topics. The above-mentioned “Priests of Propagation” (“Pères de la Propagande” in the original) refers to the Congregation for the Evangelization of People, the missionary arm of the Roman Curia, formerly known as the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) and officially founded by papal bull in 1622. Although Pococke’s work did exist in French translation as Voyages de Richard Pockocke, 6 vols. (Paris, 1772), Sade’s page reference above is to Philippe-Florent de Puisieux’s anthology, Les Voyageurs modernes, ou Abrégé de plusieurs voyages faits en Europe, Asie & Afrique; Traduit de L’Anglois (Paris, 1760). The latter gives the author’s name as “Pocoke,” adding to the list of misspellings. 65 The evident meaning of these two sentences, although obscured by the syntactic non sequitur, is that the pyramids are so ancient that their age was already unknown by the time that Greek philosophers travelled to Egypt. 66 Marginal note: “Antiquity of the pyramids.” 67 Note: “See, from Monsieur Norden, volume II, page 50 and following.” The Danish explorer and naval captain Frederic Louis Norden (1708–1742) himself, in his Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie (Paris, 1795), makes the point somewhat more clearly, explaining that if the shells found on the pyramid were left behind from the Flood, this would assume that the pyramids themselves had withstood the Flood, which he thinks unlikely (1:115). Norden’s explorations, carried out at the behest of Christian VI of Denmark, were originally published in French, posthumously, in 1755. Sade’s page reference is again to Puisieux’s Les

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The sepulchral caves near the pyramids for the most part have hieroglyphs. Why would the pyramids, if they were from the same epoch, not have them? Obelisks This is what Monsieur Norden, an English voyager, recounts upon the topic of the pyramids that he has seen in Egypt.68 As soon as you disembark in Alexandria, you traverse the new city, and, after having climbed upon ruined walls and passed through a tower built of stone, you arrive at the feet of a monument of the type known by the name of the Obelisk of Queen Cleopatra, because it is believed that it is upon this very spot that was located the palace of this queen, also known by the name of the Palace of Caesar, but not a single vestige of which will be seen. The base of this obelisk, a portion of which is sunk into the ground, rises to twenty feet above sea level. This obelisk is made of a single piece of granite, but this traveller, so precise in all of his research nonetheless does not provide us with the its proportions: “There are only,” he says, “two of its sides that are well preserved; the two others are so ruined that you can hardly make out the hieroglyphs with which they were previously covered. Next to it is another of these, toppled, and that appears to have broken. The characters that can be made out appear the same as on the one that is standing.” “All obelisks,” adds this scholar, “are usually made of granite, which further increases their value, not to mention the difficulty of finding some suited for this purpose, given that pieces as large as required for obelisks will hardly be seen.69 Regarding their shape and their power to embellish, you can place them among the number of the most precious curiosities and the most majestic monuments. It seems that their principal purpose was to be placed as ornaments in front of the gates of entryways of palaces and at the end of colonnades. They are quadrangular; at a certain height, they have a pyramidal shape, since they diminish in size as they rise, terminating almost in a point, and they are crowned by a pyramidal top. Their sides are covered with hieroglyphic figures, as worthy of admiration on account of their beauty as they are of our woe that the manner of deciphering them has been lost and that we despair of ever recovering it. “I do not believe that obelisks can be found in any other spot besides Egypt, with the exception of those that have been transported thence. Even then, the number of them is not considerable. “All obelisks are similar with regard to shape, but they are not all the same height; the top is missing from some, and they were not all made by the same hand. And although the majority are made of granite, it is not a rule that they be made all of the same material. “There are obelisks all over Egypt, from one end to the other. The first ones that I saw are in Alexandria and the last in a magnificent island called Jazirat El-Heif [Jazirat al-Birba], which seemed to me to be the Island of Philae, so often celebrated by ancient authors.70 Voyageurs modernes; an excerpt from Norden on the pyramids runs from pp. 50 to 85 of Puisieux’s second volume; the discussion of the flood is on p. 58. 68 Between the lines: “Word for word.” Although Norden was Danish and not English, in 1741 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, his name registered as Frederic Lewis Norden, and this may account for Sade’s error. 69 Between the lines: “Word for word.” 70 The site of numerous Egyptian and Roman structures; these were moved in the 1960s because of the damage caused from flooding by the Aswan Low Dam project. The island of Philae is mentioned by numerous ancient sources, including Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Seneca, Diodorus Sicily, and others. Strabo writes that

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“They are – or at least they were originally – made from a single stone. Their pedestal is a cube that usually does not exceed the width of the obelisks by more than three feet. When digging in the earth, it is very common to find the pedestal and parts of obelisks. “I have seen two of these on the island of Jazirat El-Heif; one is made of white marble and standing, although without any hieroglyphs; the other is made of granite, lying upon the ground, and it has on each side a row of hieroglyphic signs. The top part of the former, which is at the end of the western gallery, is squat; it is only eight feet around and sixteen high.71 The latter has the same proportions, but it has a more modern feel than any others that I had a chance to see; it is surely the best preserved of all. “Among the ruins in the surrounding areas of Aswan, there is an obelisk broken into two pieces that has no hieroglyphs. Each of its sides is three feet wide, but you cannot measure the length because it is for the most part buried in the sand. “At Luxor, which is believed to have been part of ancient Thebes, there are two obelisks. Their sides are six feet, eight inches and a half wide, and they are proportionally high. One, which is located to the east, is larger than the other. Both are stood before a gateway or entrance to some superb ruins that are much admired in the region. Without any vacillation, here is an artistic masterpiece and, when it comes to obelisks, the most beautiful that they were able to create. “Near Karnak you can see a continuation of those located and admired in Luxor. There are four, all intact and in the same places that they were placed at the time of their construction. Before the great hall near Karnak, as you enter, you see two others, standing, and placed in a diagonal line; they are about the same size and just as beautiful as those at Luxor. Doubtless they were accompanied by two others that are now lost. In front of a small temple, you find two other obelisks, but these are much smaller than the preceding one; they are ten or eleven feet high, and their sides are only one and a half feet wide. They are made of granite the grain of which is so fine that it comes quite close to porphyry. To all appearances, they were used as pedestals for two idols. They are ornamented with hieroglyphs, which in diverse colours, represent for the most part, those figures mutually embracing each other. “Among the ruins of Karnak, you also find various large blocks of a whitish stone, which formerly conjoined, constituted obelisks of a prodigious size; upon falling, however, they broke into several pieces. They are covered with hieroglyphs, painted, and adorned with various figures, in compartments, nicely adorned, and which have a fine effect. “In the environs of Matareen [Al-Matariyyah], a village not far from Grand Cairo, is an obelisk yet standing and of a well-proportioned size; it is as high as Cleopatra’s in Alexandria, but although the hieroglyphs might be considered very fine, they must yield, in this regard, to those admired at both Karnak and Luxor. “The southern face of this obelisk is the best preserved. Two other sides are similar to this one, but the northern face is a bit different. The bottom-most part of the obelisk, on the eastern side, is almost entirely degraded, such that you can hardly make out a single hieroglyph.” it is near the island fortress of Elephantine, at the first cataract of the Nile: “A little above the cataract lies Philae, a common settlement of Aethiopians and Aegyptians, which is built like Elephantinê and is equal to it in size; and it has Aegyptian temples.” Strabo, Geography, trans. Horace Leonard Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932), 8[bk.17, s.49]:128–31. 71 Presumably the same obelisk, covered in hieroglyphs, that was brought by William John Bankes in 1821 to his Dorset estate, Kingston Lacy, where it stands today.

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It is peculiar that this author, who seems in this respect  – as in all of his Travels in Egypt  – to have gone into such great detail, does not provide any of the particularities, which remain inchoate, concerning monuments of this type seen in the quarries of Suez.72 Monsieur Maundrell, an Englishman, in his Voyage from Aleppo to Jerusalem, tells us of a people called the Neceres, inhabitants of the mountains of Jebilee, who have no particular religion, but always profess the same as whoever travels among them. They are, says he, Jews with Jews, Christians with Christians, and Mohammedans with the Turks. You can wager that intolerance is not this people’s flaw (see Voyageurs modernes, page 16, volume III).73 The visits that are done in Rome, along with that ceremony of being led by one domestic to another up to the master’s apartment, are observed in the same manner with the Turks. Are these the sole mores that the adorers of Christ should have adopted from the sectarians of the false prophet? I would not dare to assert this as positively so. You see in Rome a column that is said to be the one upon which Jesus Christ was whipped. You are shown a fragment in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, preserved in a small cell, close to the entry to the Chapel of the Apparition. Monsieur Maundrell tells us that in Jerusalem will be seen the prison where the angel came to deliver Saint Peter, which, says he, is still used for criminals.74 The Mamertine Prison in Rome, it is said, also harboured that apostle, and it is here that the miracle took place, or so the Romans assert.75 Which of the two is the real one? The same author observed, in Pilate’s ancient palace in Jerusalem, today occupied by a Turk, the place from which was taken the Scala Sancta that you are shown in Rome, across from Saint John Lateran, which I have described in detail.76 This place is now but a stairless declination.

72 Sade notes: “A half a league from the middle of old Cairo is the great mosque of Atar-el-Nabi, built upon a point on the eastern bank of the Nile, which the Mohammedans hold in great veneration because they believe that Omar, their first caliph, when he arrived at this spot where the mosque is today constructed in his honour, left the imprint of his foot upon the marble (see Monsieur Norden, an Englishman, page 38).” 73 Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was a Fellow at Oxford University, subsequently an Anglican curate, and then chaplain to the Levant Company in Syria. His posthumously published Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697 (Oxford, 1707 [1703]) was frequently reprinted, widely anthologized, and translated into French, among other languages, as Voyage d’Alep à Jérusalem à Pâcques en l’année 1697 (Paris, 1706). As noted above, Sade’s source text is Philippe-Florent de Puisieux’s anthology, Les Voyageurs modernes. Of the Neceres, also known as the Nassarians or Anzairies, Maundrell writes that in the mountains near “Jebilee [Jablah]”: “There dwell a people, called by the Turks Neceres a very strange and singular Character. For ’tis their principle to adhere to no certain Religion; but Chamelion [sic] like, they put on the Colour of Religion, whatever it be, which is reflected upon them from the Persons with whom they happen to converse. With Christians they profess themselves Christians. With Turks they are good Musselmans. With Jews they pass for Jews, being such Proteuses in Religion that no body was ever able to discover what shape or standard their Consciences are really of. All that is certain concerning them is, that they make very much and good Wine, and are great Drinkers.” Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, 12–13. 74 Concerning his activities on the morning of Monday, 5 April, Maundrell (ibid.) simply notes: “We went to see some more of the Curiosities which had yet been unvisited by us. The first place we came to that which they call St Peter’s Prison, from which he was deliver’d by the Angel, Acts 12. It is close by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and still serves for its Primitive use” (98). 75 On the Mamertine or Tullianum prison and the supposed miracle, see chapter II (on Rome) and p. 70n41. 76 Maundrell, in A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, writes of that in “this pretended House of Pilate is shewn the Room in which Christ was mock’d with the Ensigns of royalty, and buffeted by the Souldiers [sic]. At the coming out of the house is a descent, where was anciently the Scala Sancta” (107). The Scala Sancta or Holy Stairs in Rome are a flight of marble steps that according to legend were miraculously

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The inhabitants of this same city of Jerusalem show off a grotto where they claim the mystery of the Annunciation took place. However, in the Holy House in Loreto, you are shown the window through which the angel passed. Must we put more faith in the Jerusalem grotto than in the transported house? I leave that to you to decide. The volcano of Pietramala, between Bologna and Florence, is positively of the same sort as those seen in Baku and that have given rise to Indians coming to worship at the fire.77 This is what Monsieur Maundrell, an Englishman, observes about this: “The eternal fire,” says he, “is at Baku; this is a small temple built of stones. You see therein a vent whence issues a blue and clear flame that the Indians worship; they assert that it has always endured since the creation of the world and that it will last forever. They come here on pilgrimage from many quite distant places, in order to expiate their sins. Upon these occasions, they mark their bodies with saffron and display a great veneration for red cows. They sometimes stay here for several days, during which they live upon wild celery and a sort of Jerusalem artichoke. There are many other temples around this spot that burn in the same manner and that they suppose have the same power, albeit to a lesser degree. It is, however, quite remarkable that the earth in the surrounding area, for several miles around, should have this surprising quality, that is to say, that removing two or three inches off its surface and applying a lit coal, the portion thus uncovered takes fire forthwith. The flame warms the ground, but without consuming it nor transmitting the least bit of heat to anything put near it. The same fire will issue from a tube or hollowed pipe, and even from a piece of paper stuck two inches into the earth, provided that the edges are coated with clay, without burning it or damaging it. They make use of this method to heat their boilers and to prepare their meats.”79 78

These are quite positively the same effects as those observed at the volcano of Pietramala, and this proves that the origin of almost all superstitions is grounded as a rule in natural phenomena. All the paintings of the duke of Modena have been sold to the king of Poland, and they will at present be seen in Dresden. On the lakes of Norway will be found floating islands absolutely the same as those seen upon the lake that is seen a few miles from Rome, on the road to Tivoli. 80 You see in the three most famous libraries in Rome the Life of Queen Christina of Sweden in manuscript, by Father [Niccolò Maria] Pallavicini, a Jesuit.

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transported to Rome from Jerusalem by Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. Jesus was said to have mounted these stairs on his way to trial and to Pontius Pilate’s sentence. Marginal note: “In the Indies.” Marginal note: “Word for word.” Working from an anthology, Sade has confused his source. It is not Maundrell who reports on the “eternal fire” of Baku (on the Caspian Sea and capital of present-day Azerbaijan) and its worshippers but rather Jonas Hanway, in his An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea: With a Journal of Travels from London through Russia in Persia; and Back through Russia, Germany and Holland (London, 1753), 1:381–4. For Sade’s source, see Puisieux’s Voyageurs modernes (3:255–7). Marginal note: “Rome.”

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You find, in the third volume of the Journées amusantes by Madame de Gomez, a very interesting anecdote on the transfer of the bishopric from Castro to Acquapendente (page 234 and following).81 Another about Piacenza and the House of Farnese, likewise important, pages 279 and following. In the fifth volume of this work, will be found several episodes relative to the history of Italy, among others page 9, on the Guelphs and Ghibellines; on the history of Conradin’s decapitation in Naples, pages 15 and following; on Hadrian and some interesting episodes from Roman history, pages 238 and following; on the siege of Naples by Totila, King of the Goths, pages 262 and following; on the antiquities of Collatia, Sabine town not far distant from Rome, pages 272 and following; volume VI of this same work contains, on pages 164 and following, an interesting anecdote about Fiesole, close to Florence; volume VIII of the same work has an interesting synopsis of Roman history (see pages 82 and following). Portrait of Queen Christina by M. de V., Life of Charles XII 82 Christina, born with a rare genius, preferred conversation with the learned to ruling over a people familiar only with weapons. She made herself as famous for abandoning the throne as her ancestors were for having conquered or consolidated it. The Protestants tore at her, as if it were impossible to have great virtues without believing in Luther. And the popes were too triumphal about the conversion of a woman who was merely philosophical. She withdrew to Rome, where she passed the remainder of her days in the centre of the arts that she loved and for which she had given up ruling at twenty-seven years of age. Christina, in abdicating, had her cousin Charles Gustavus elected, who died when he was thirty-seven. Charles XI, his son, succeeded him, and Charles XII was the son of Charles XI, consequently descended from a cousin of Christina. Charles XII, unhappy with the court of Rome, subsequently threatened to ask for Queen Christina’s effects back from the pope. See the first letter of volume I of the Voyageur français, upon the topic of asbestos (page 26), and of vermilion, make-up of ancient Greek women, and the mother of Pompeia (page 30).83

81 Madeleine-Angélique de Gomez [née Poisson], Les Journées amusantes, vol. 3 (Paris, 1737). She tells the story of the conflict between Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Pope Innocent X during the seventeenth-century Wars of Castro. The pope had appointed as bishop of Castro, an ancient city in Lazio and a Farnese fiefdom, Cristoforo Giarda, against the wishes of Ranuccio. Giarda was murdered en route, and although Ranuccio denied responsibility, the pope ordered Castro attacked. The city was razed on 2 Sept. 1649 and a monument erected with the simple inscription “Qui fu Castro,” that is, “Here was Castro.” The diocesan seat was then transferred to Acquapendente (see Gomez, 3:232–5). 82 Taken directly from Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède (n.p., 1757), 43. 83 The reference is to a multivolume anthology edited initially by Joseph de la Porte. The discussions of both asbestos or “amianthus” (la pierre amianthe) and vermillion comes in a description of the island of Cyprus. The author discusses the properties of the former and notes the widespread usage of the latter, although he doubts that Venus and her entourage would have needed to employ it to enhance their charms. The description continues about the mores of Cyprus in a manner that may have piqued Sade’s curiosity, as it notes that almost “all the women of this island are quite beautiful, and all, even the ugliest, are given to gallantry and one might even say to debauchery.” Joseph de La Porte, Le Voyageur françois, ou La Connoissance de l’ancien et du nouveau monde (Paris, 1772), 1:30.

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Critheis, mother of Homer, born at Cuma. See Critheis and Homer in the Dictionnaire.84 Louis XV was the nephew of Philip V, first king of Spain from the House of France and previously duke of Anjou. Don Carlos, at first duke of Parma and Piacenza, then king of Naples, and today king of Spain, and father of the reigning king of Naples, was the second son of Philip V, brother of Louis I, who lived but a short time, who married a princess of Orleans, daughter of the regent, and who returned upon the death of her husband to live in Luxembourg. Therefore, Don Carlos, today reigning in Spain, is the second son of Philip V, and the king of Naples is the grandson of this same Philip V, and this Don Carlos only came to rule in Spain after the death of his brother, Ferdinand VI, contemporary of Louis XV. See the portrait of Don Carlos, volume XVI of the Voyageur françois, page 147; you will find there a perfect resemblance to the king of Naples today.85 Notes on Suetonius86 capua The Romans from the colony of Capua, labouring to dig the foundations of new edifices and engaged in this work with such ardour that they often found precious pieces of Antiquity, discovered during the dictatorship of Julius Caesar a copper tablet erected to Capys, founder of Capua, upon which was engraved in Greek letters that “when the bones of Capys shall come to be uncovered, it will come to pass that a man of the race of the Juliae will be killed by those close to him and that his death will be soon avenged by the ruin of Italy.” This passage is cited by Suetonius in the Life of Julius Caesar as one of the prognostications that heralded the misfortunes of this great man (Suetonius, in the Life of J.C., art. 77).87 velletri The family of the Octavii, says Suetonius, held the first rank in Velletri. And from remotest times, the most significant quarter of this town had a street that was called Octavian, upon which was seen an altar dedicated to Octavius, general of the Velletrians, in memory of a victory carried off by that same Octavius against the neighbouring peoples, who were about to suddenly attack the town, while the general was sacrificing to the god Mars; all the heads of victims were henceforth brought to him and his family. As for Augustus, he was not born in Velletri itself, as I believe Richard has it (v. Rich.), but in Rome, in the part of the Palatine quarter known as Ox Heads, the 23rd of September, a bit before sunrise, during the consulate of Antony and Cicero. You saw, in Suetonius’s day, the barn close to Velletri where Augustus was nursed. It was even believed, adds this author, that it was his birthplace. Concerning this house, there was the extraordinary belief

84 The only dictionary from the period that has Critheis as a “native of the city of Cuma, in Aeolis, province of Asia Minor” that I have been able to locate is Louis Moreri, Le Grand Dictionnaire Historique, ou Le Mélange curieux de l’Histoire sacrée et profane (Paris, 1744), 3:542. 85 See La Porte, Le Voyageur françois, 16:47–52. 86 The remainder of dossier III consists of Sade’s notations from Suetonius. From a reference in chapter V, we know that Sade referred to Jean Baudoin’s translation, Suétone Tranquille, De la vie des douze Césars. Nouvellement traduit en François et illustré d’annotations (Paris, 1611); the cited passages in these notes provide further confirmation. 87 The section in which this passage is cited is, in fact, numbered 80 (Suétone Tranquille, 66).

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that you could not enter it with impunity and without some accident befalling. The same author tells us, upon this subject, the story of the new owner of this habitation, who could never spend a peaceful night there, and who was found the day after, half-dead, laid out upon the threshold of the doorway. But Suetonius, like Titus Livy, frequently lent credence to magic tricks and is sometimes guilty, like the latter author, of burdening his reader with them.88 aricia Antony held it against Augustus that his maternal great-grandfather had been a perfumer and baker in Aricia.89 baiae It was Augustus who made at Baiae what is called the Julian Port and who let the sea into the Lucrine Lake and Lake Avernus. He drilled his troops there during an entire winter, and it was likely at the same time that he had built that house upon an outcropping that I have discussed in detail and that will be seen today bearing the ridiculous name of the Prisons of Nero. But the air in Baiae effeminized him to the extent that, leaving thence to do combat with Pompey, whom he defeated, between Mylae and Naulochus, he fell asleep during the battle, so that he had to be awakened that he might give orders. Antony did not fail to reproach him forcefully for this.90 Caesar, after having chased Lepidus from the triumvirate, relegated him to exile in perpetuity upon Mount Circeo. rome Caesar carried out immense renovations and beautifications in the city of Rome. He took, says Suetonius, the greatest precautions for its security, as much to keep it safe from fire as from floods, and it was not without reason that he says that he had found Rome made of bricks and left it made of marble. His principal public edifices were: A forum. The Temple of Mars the Avenger, fruit of a vow that he had made during the war of Philippi to avenge his father, and in which he decided that all deliberations regarding wars and triumphs should take place.91 He also decreed that the provincial governors should go there before setting off for their commands and that the tokens of various victories should be deposited therein; from which we see how ancient is the practice that we also have of flying flags from our churches. A Temple of Apollo in the Palatine Palace, upon the very spot that lightning had struck, counsel that was given to him by the augurs. He added to this temple a Greek and Latin library; and it is there that, in his old age, he assembled the Council [i.e., Senate]. The Temple of Jupiter the Thunderer at the Capitol, of which lovely ruins will still be seen, is likewise his work. He constructed it, says Suetonius, in memory of a danger that he

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Marginal note: “Sec. VI of the Life of Augustus.” Marginal note: “See Suetonius, sec. IV of the Life of Augustus.” Marginal note: “Suetonius, sec. XVI of the Life of Augustus.” Marginal note: “Find out what has been said about this temple in detail; I think it is close to the Theatre of Marcellus.”

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had run, travelling at night in his litter in Cantabria. Lightning grazed his litter and killed the slave who was providing light for him. He also had constructed several other works in the name of his wife, his sister, and his grandsons, such as the royal houses of Gaius and Lucius, the colonnades of Livia and Octavia, and the theatre of Marcellus. He encouraged wealthy individuals to imitate him, and each one contributed, after his example, to the general beautification that we admire today in the precious remains. M. Philippus built the Temple of Hercules and the Muses; L. Cornificius, that of Diana; Asinius Pollio, the Hall of Liberty;92 Munatius Plancus (who, I think, is the one whose mausoleum is seen in a large tower upon the heights of Gaeta; verify this), the Temple of Saturn (see if this is the one on the Via Sacra); Cornelius Balbus, a theatre; Statilius Taurus, an amphitheatre; and M. Agrippa, a thousand beautiful things. (See if these objects are identified in detail and, if so, recount this). It was Augustus who divided the city into regions (into 14, I believe; I have said this somewhere, and the notes from Martial will tell me this), arranging it so that each region should be under the supervision of magistrates: a policing arrangement that we have imitated with our district superintendents. He was the first to institute the watch. He cleaned the channel of the Tiber, which a large number of shanties blocked and the collapse of several buildings had even partially filled in (he paved the Flaminian Way all the way to Rimini; this topic goes with Rimini). He repaired temples, endowed them with considerable gifts, among others he gave seven thousand pounds of gold and five hundred thousand sesterces to that of Jupiter Capitolinus. (Verify the rest of his life in Suetonius, sec. XXX and XXXI). On the subject of the statue of Pompey that will be seen today at the Spada Palace, put: he had this statue removed from the room of the Senate where Caesar had been killed and had it placed under the marble triumphal arch, across from the palace built by Pompey along with his theatre. (Verify in the descriptions whether you have spoken of either one.) Augustus had put on in Rome farces in the marketplace and at the Circus. He had wooden seats constructed in the Campus Martius so that the people might comfortably watch the gladiatorial combats. He had made a sort of lake near the Tiber, in the place where the grove of the Caesars stood afterwards, and he put on a naval-battle show there, during which he took care to station guards in all the various districts of the city so that the houses would not be robbed during the spectacle, a danger that is still a daily risk in Italy at all public festivals. At the Circus, he had the most skilled men at driving chariots and at doing battle with ferocious beasts appear; he even had children from the best families in Rome take part, which entailed numerous disadvantages, according to Suetonius’s account. 93 Augustus, at the opening of the games that he was celebrating to dedicate the theatre of Marcellus in Rome, took a fall onto his back, caused by the collapse of his curule chair. 94 It was he who brought order to the spectacles. A senator, having been insulted at Pozzuoli, no one being willing to make a place for him at one of the largest gatherings that there was in the amphitheatre, Augustus decreed or had decreed by the Senate (Suetonius says that it was the Senate that decreed) that at every public show the first row of seats would be for the senators. And then, he desired that ambassadors from allied nations no longer be seated, having discovered that there were sometimes among them those who 92 Marginal note: “This is what I have, I think, given in detail as the Curiae; see this.” 93 Marginal note: “Theatre of Marcellus in Rome.” 94 Marginal note: “Amphitheatre of Pozzuoli.”

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were freedmen. He separated the soldiers from the people, assigned places for married men of the middling sort and to young nobles and to those who took care of their education. He decreed that no one in a dark cloak should sit at the bottom of the house, and finding it indecent that women should mingle with men, he did not allow them to watch gladiatorial combat, except from the uppermost level. The Vestal Virgins alone were assigned a separate place in the theatre, across from the praetor’s tribunal. Further, he excluded women from fighting spectacles, and when he had to put one of these on, he decreed that women should only appear after the time that these sorts of games were supposed to take place. 95 Augustus stationed a naval fleet at Misenum (see what is said in the description). 96 At the Temple of Apollo upon the Palatine Hill (see the description) were golden tripods that Augustus had consecrated from the revenue from silver statues that had been erected to him.97 98 Livia, Augustus’s wife, much loved by him, gave him no issue; she had a miscarriage. 99 Marcellus, son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, married Julia, daughter of Scribonia, Augustus’s wife. Upon the death of Marcellus, Augustus made said Julia marry [Marcus] Agrippa, although at the time he was married to one of the Marcella [sisters], daughter of Octavius, and had children from her. But he begged his sister to be willing to cede her son-in-law to him and to allow him to become his own (verify in the Dict. des grands hommes).100 At last, with the death of Agrippa, said Julia passed to Tiberius, who, by order of Augustus, abandoned the wife that he had, although she had already born him children. Agrippa, son of Julia and Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, whom this emperor had adopted at the same time as Tiberius, son of his wife, was exiled by him to Sorrento on account of his bad character.101 Augustus frequently went to take the air in maritime places. He loved them, and the islands of Campania especially pleased him much. He also went quite often to towns close to Rome, such as Praeneste, Lanivium, and Tibur.102 He often dispensed justice beneath the colonnades of the Temple of Hercules, located where the Cathedral of Tivoli is today. He took two days to go from Rome to one or the other of these towns. Suetonius speaks, in his Life of Augustus, of excessively large beasts that are found, says he, upon the island of Capri (verify this fact from the Life of Augustus, in my Suetonius, because I have never heard tell of these beasts).103   95 Marginal note: “Misenum.”   96 Marginal note: “Rome”   97 In his Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius explains that Augustus melted down silver statues erected in his honour and minted coins from the material; the proceeds were used for the golden tripods dedicated to Apollo of the Palatine (1[bk.2, s.52]:230–1).   98 Marginal note: “Palatine Palace; Baths of Livia in Rome.”   99 Marginal note: “Theatre of Marcellus in Rome.” 100 Sade’s usual shorthand for Chaudon’s Nouveau Dictionnaire historique. 101 Marginal note: “Sorrento in Campania.” 102 Marginal note: “Tivoli, Praeneste, Lanivium.” Tivoli was and is the modern name for Tibur; the other two are Palestrina and Lanuvio, respectively. 103 Suetonius in Jean Baudoin’s translation does mention “limbs of excessively large savage beasts” and “bones taken to be those of giants” found on the Isle of Capri (Suétone Tranquille, 149). Les Douze Césars (Paris, 1770), Jean-François de La Harpe’s translation of Suetonius, provides some clarity missing in Baudoin: regarding Augustus’s country villa, we find that the emperor “was little interested in statues and paintings, but with walkways, groves, and natural curiosities, such as those bones of beasts of colossal size that one sees on Capri, and that are believed to be the bones of giants, and the weapons of ancient heroes”

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velletri A part of the wall having been struck by lightning at Velletri, the oracle consulted responded that a citizen of that town would one day be emperor of the entire earth, a prediction that deluded these peoples to the point of almost completely crushing themselves in wars that their faith in this oracle made them undertake against the Romans, which they at last realized must have come to pass in the form of Augustus. 104 The troops of the triumvirs having assembled at Bologna, an eagle came to perch upon the tent of Augustus and was instantly set upon by two ravens. The eagle beat them down. This omen made the entire army infer the discord that would reign among the three leaders and the victory that Augustus would carry off. rome Suetonius tells us that the review of legions and of cohorts took place every five years upon the Campus Martius. capri During Augustus’s sickness, he travelled in Campania, visited the islands in this region, and stopped for four days in Capri, which he called the town of the idle, given the practice of people retiring there, doubtless because of its delightful climate. The young people of this island still practise some exercises in the ancient manner. He took pleasure in seeing them, he gave them a banquet, and amused himself in seeing them frolic among themselves. pozzuoli Heading on to Pozzuoli, he [i.e., Augustus] saw a vessel from Alexandria arriving and the sailors fêted him as he to whom they owed their liberty of commerce. Augustus distributed money to those in his entourage to be used for purchases from this vessel. He himself bestowed upon them many things that he also purchased there, and desired, for his entertainment, that the Greeks dress in the Roman manner and the Romans in the Greek. naples Then, he [Augustus] went on to Naples, where he attended the games held every five years, which were being held in that city. nola From there, he went to Nola, a town in Campania, where he died in the same room as his father Octavius. (1:255). Similarly, in Histoire des douze Césars de Suétone (Paris, 1771), Jean-Baptiste-Claude Deslisle des Sales’s translation: Augustus “decorated his house in Capri with the weapons of some heroes and gigantic bones of ferocious beasts that were taken for the skeletons of Titans” (2:183). Sade merely seems to want some corroborating evidence for Suetonius’s offhand claim. As it happens, both prehistoric weapons and fossils from Pleistocene megafauna have been found on Capri. On Augustus’s collection and more recent finds, see Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 142–4 and 172–6. 104 Marginal note: “Do not fail to insert this note.”

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rome His body [i.e., Augustus’s] was placed in the mausoleum that he had had built himself, between the Flaminian Way and the bank of the Tiber, during his sixth consulate, at the same time that he had bestowed upon the public the groves and walks in the vicinity. (Put this with what has been described in detail concerning this mausoleum.) He prohibited in his will that the two Julias, mother and daughter, should be placed in this tomb after their death, doubtless because of their bad behaviour, which had obliged him, during their life, to consign them to the islands. (Verify this fact.) fondi Some, says Suetonius, say that Tiberius was born at Fondi. What is certain is that his maternal grandmother was from that place, and the statue of Felicitas was erected there by decree of the Senate, a short while after the birth of Tiberius. Others say that he was born in Rome. baiae In Suetonius’s day, one could still see in Baiae the gift that he [i.e., Tiberius] gave to Pompeia, daughter of Sex. Pompeius, which are a cloak, a clasp, and golden bullae.105 rome Tiberius left the house of Pompey, on the street in the Carinae, in the ancient district of Rome, and went to reside upon the Esquiline Hill, in the Gardens of Maecenas, which is for us proof that these gardens were upon the Esquiline Hill (see what I have said in the description). Tiberius dedicated in Rome a temple to Concord, the vestiges of which will be seen in the Forum Romanum and about which I have spoken in the description, and another to Castor and Pollux, which he dedicated in his name and in that of his brother (I don’t know whether the latter is mentioned in the description). It was dedicated from the spoils of enemies. Tiberius, having assumed Imperial power, did not make a single magnificent work; he left unfinished the Temple of Augustus and the repairs of the theatre of Pompey, the only things that he had undertaken. During the reign of Tiberius, the houses upon the Caelian Hill burned. He compensated the owners and consequently desired that this mount be named the Augustan Hill. This cruel emperor, jealous of the respect that the Senate still had for Livia, his mother and wife of Augustus, violently reprimanded her for the exhortations that she had just been making to the people during the fire that occurred during his reign, in the neighbourhood of the Temple of Vesta that still today survives entirely intact in Rome.106 Tiberius tried, out of impiousness and fear, to destroy the oracles close to Rome. But he was frightened about what had happened to the one in Praeneste, because, says Suetonius:

105 Marginal note: “Don’t forget to say in the description that the Gulf of Gaeta resembles that of Baiae and Pozzuoli.” 106 Marginal note: “Temple of Vesta in Rome.”

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“Having had them brought to Rome in a tightly closed and sealed chest, he found nothing inside until after they were brought back to the temple.”107 miseno Tiberius died in Miseno, in the lovely house of Lucullus, the remnants of which will still be seen. What is connected to the description of this death belongs to the underlying History, and I will excerpt it from Crevier, excerpting in its entirety.108 Various accidents and phenomena followed this death, according to Suetonius. The lighthouse of Capri fell because of an earthquake, and in Miseno, the ash that had been brought to heat the room caught fire and glowed for quite a long time after having become cold.109 There were two Agrippinas, both mothers of monsters. One of them, the wife of Germanicus, was the mother of Caligula, who was born at Antium; the other, daughter of this same prince, gave birth to Nero. The latter was the niece of Claudius, who was the brother of Germanicus, and married her uncle Claudius, who was emperor before Nero. Thus, the best of princes was father and grandfather of the two worst emperors. Agrippina the wife of Germanicus was the granddaughter of Augustus, in that she was the daughter of Julia, who was the daughter of Augustus and Agrippa, who was the son-in-law of Augustus. Said Germanicus had from said Agrippina nine children, among whom was Agrippina, the mother of Nero. (Don’t forget this genealogy.) Caligula put on gladiatorial shows in the amphitheatre of Taurus (see if this is mentioned in the description of this amphitheatre.) baiae See what the translator of the Suetonius says word for word upon the subject of the bridge at Baiae, which I have discussed in detail (sec. XIX, Vie de Caligula). “Beyond the usual games, he invented one of which had never been heard tell, for, having assembled a number of ships, he had them drop anchor, in two rows, from Baiae up to the dikes of Pozzuoli (proof that these dikes existed prior to the bridge and were not made for the bridge, as some authors have held), and having covered them with earth, he created a bridge of 3,600 feet after the fashion of the Appian Way. He crossed this bridge upon two consecutive days; the first, mounted upon a caparisoned horse, the crown of oak upon his head, axe in one hand, buckler in the other, sword at his side, dressed in an Imperial cloak of golden cloth. The next day, he appeared dressed as a charioteer upon a small car pulled by two perfectly lovely horses, carrying before him the little Darius, one of the hostages from Parthia, followed by a company of his guards and several of his friends, likewise mounted upon chariots. I well understand that the common belief is that Caligula had this 107 Suetonius’s account is much clearer than the garbled notes above: “He even attempted to do away with the oracles near the city, but forbore through terror at the divine power of the Praenestine lots; for though he had them sealed up in a chest and brought to Rome, he could not find them until the box was taken back to the temple.” Lives of the Caesars, 1[bk.3, s.63]:400–2. See also, Suétone Tranquille, 237–8. 108 Sade’s reference is to Crevier, Histoire des empereurs romains (see above, p. 399n40). 109 Sade’s notes in this paragraph are somewhat muddled and compressed. Suetonius writes of the occurrences connected with the demise of Tiberius: “A few days before his death the lighthouse at Capreae was wrecked by an earthquake. At Misenum the ashes from the glowing coals and embers which had been brought in to warm his dining room, after they had died out and been for a long time cold, suddenly blazed up in the early evening and glowed without cessation until late at night.” Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars 1[bk.3, s.74]:414–15.

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bridge erected in imitation of Xerxes, who made a completely admirable one out of boards over the Hellespont, which is not at all as wide. I also know that others say that, upon the brink of waging war upon the Germans and English, he wanted to frighten them with the rumour of some extraordinary work. But when I was yet a young boy, I heard tell from my grandfather that the courtiers, who were quite close to the emperor, attributed as the true reason the predictions of the astrologer Thrasyllus, who seeing Tiberius vacillating about the choice of successor and notwithstanding much more inclined towards his true and natural grandson Tiberius than towards Gaius, had assured him that it would as difficult for Gaius to assume Imperial power as to cross the Gulf of Baiae on horseback.” (And farther on, when portraying the cruelties of that emperor, Suetonius says, upon the matter of this same bridge):110 “At Pozzuoli, at the dedication of the bridge that I have just discussed, he called to a number of people who were upon the shore and signalled them to come to him, then he cast them all into the sea. As there were some that held fast to the rudders, he had them pushed under water with hooks and oars” (sec. 32, Vie de Caligula). Caligula, says Suetonius,111 “joined his palace to the Capitol by a bridge he had built over the Temple of Augustus, with the aim of drawing nearer to Jupiter Capitolinus, with whom he feigned to have great converse. A little while later, to draw even nearer, he had built a new house in the very court of the Capitol.” florence That group [i.e., of sculptures] that you see in Florence, in the hall of the Hermaphrodite, in the Medici galleries, is that of Caligula caressing his young sister Drusilla, he himself still wearing the cloak of a young boy. They were both raised by their grandmother Antonia, who took them unawares. naples Claudius, in memory of his brother, added a Greek comedy to the games that were celebrated in Naples. rome Claudius completed the marble arch near the theatre of Pompey, which the Senate had previously decreed to the memory of Tiberius and on which work had stopped.112 (Suetonius, word for word, sec. 20, Vie de Claudius.) The same emperor Claudius finished “various works that were rather more grand than necessary, of which the principal ones were the aqueduct that Gaius had begun (see whether this is dealt with in the description), a channel to drain the Fucine Lake (find out whether this Fucine Lake is not the same thing as the Fusaro Lake that you have seen on the tour of Baiae)113 and the harbour at Ostia, even 110 111 112 113

Marginal note: “Pozzuoli, word for word.” Marginal note: “Word for word. / Rome.” Between the lines: “See whether this arch is discussed in the description.” It is not. Marginal note: “This Fucine Lake must have been in the country of the Marsians. Find out who these Marsians were.” The Marsi were an ancient Italic people whose seat was Marruvium on the shore of Fucinus Lacus or the Fucine Lake. As Sade, following his source verbatim notes, Claudius ordered a project to control the level of the Fucine Lake, which was subject to flooding; the drainage tunnel, however, collapsed. Hadrian would subsequently take up the same project with greater success. Lake Fusaro, not far from ancient Baiae (modern Baia) in Campania, is, to answer the question Sade posed himself, entirely different.

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though he knew that Augustus had refused the former to the Marsians, who had often implored that it be done, and that the Deified Julius, having often planned to undertake the latter, had judged carrying out the project so difficult that he had given it up. He had water brought to Rome, via the stone canal of the Claudian aqueduct, for three cool and large fountains, one of which was called the Olive fountain [i.e, Fons Caeruleus], the second the Curtian, and the third the Albudine (see in the description if these fountains are mentioned). He did the same with the Anio stream (verify) that he divided into several quite noteworthy lakes. As for the draining of the Fucine Lake, he undertook this as much out of hope for gain as for glory.114 Some individuals having offered to do this at their expense, provided that they be granted the lands after they had dried these out, it was not without much difficulty that he finished the canal, which was some three thousand paces long, since it was necessary, on the one hand, to dig out and, on the other, to tunnel through a mountain. Thirty thousand men worked without cease for eleven years. When he gave a banquet upon the spot where he had the waters of this lake drained, the water issued forth with such speed that he was almost swallowed up, he and all his court. He also had built the harbour at Ostia, of which the mole stretched all around, to the right and left. At the entrance, he had the ship that had carried the great obelisk from Egypt sunk so that it could serve as a foundation for the piles upon which he built an extremely high tower, modelled upon the lighthouse of Alexandria, to light and to guide ships during the night. 115 The same emperor often gave games at the Vatican Circus, sometimes mingling the pleasures of the hunt between every five races. He adorned the Circus Maximus with marble barriers and gilded markers, in place of the earthen and wooden ones that were there before. He separated the senators from the people, and decreed that they should have special seats and not be mingled with everyone else as before.116 Claudius, seeing that some masters wearied of having their sick slaves treated and had taken to leaving them exposed upon the island of Asclepius, ordered that all those exposed were free in perpetuity after their convalescence, and if it happened that a master preferred to kill his slave rather than expose him, he condemned him as culpable for homicide.117 118 Pozzuoli and Ostia being subject to fires, he stationed a cohort there to guard against them. He had the heads of some foreigners cut off, upon the Esquiline field, because they, in spite of his prohibition, had usurped the right of citizenship. 119 Drusus, son of the emperor Claudius and of Urgulanilla, died at Pompeii playing with a pear that he was throwing into the air and catching in his mouth. 120 A. Tiberius, that cruel emperor, had the dreadful curiosity to want to see an execution in the ancient manner; and as no executioner could be found, he had the patience to 114 Marginal note: “Fucine Lake.” 115 Marginal note: “Rome.” 116 Sade notes: “We have nonetheless seen Augustus at Pozzuoli declare the same rule. It would appear that Suetonius here contradicts himself.” 117 Marginal note: “I have, I believe, discussed this learned soul in the description; verify.” Sade had, indeed, discussed Claudius and his policy concerning the Island of Ascelpius in his description; see chapter II (on Rome), pp. 128–9. 118 Marginal note: “Pozzuoli and Ostia.” 119 Marginal note: “Rome.” 120 Marginal note: “Tivoli.”

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wait until the evening, so that one could brought from the city, and during the wait he took pleasure gazing upon the criminals bound to stakes.121 This sanguinary taste has been preserved in Romans to this day, and the execution of a criminal is still one of the most popular spectacles in Rome, even among women. 122 Nero was born at Antium, nine months after the death of Tiberius, the 15th of December, as the sun was rising. He was governor of Rome, which proves the antiquity of that position that still exists in Rome today, with the same prerogatives. He established a colony at Antium, in which he put the veterans of the Praetorian Guard along with the wealthiest officers, and he had built there a harbour at excessive cost. 123 Nero, during a festival that he was giving in Rome, lavishly threw out tickets that were good for gifts of all sorts of things. This luxury has been imitated by Roman princes not so long ago. 124 It appears that the tribunal of harangues, the site of which we have for a long time sought, was in the Forum Romanum, because Suetonius, speaking of the brilliant entry of Tiridates in Rome, during Nero’s reign, says that this emperor received this king in this place, seated at the tribunal of harangues, and that all the temples that run the length of this place were lined with armed cohorts; an arrangement that makes the Forum Romanum, today the Campo Vaccino, sufficiently familiar.125 126 Nero invented in Rome a new way of building and desired, says Suetonius, that in front of all houses there be porches, from the roofs of which accidental fires could be put out. Such precautions did not herald the fact that he himself would one day become an arsonist. He covered the costs of achieving this aim. His plan had been to extend the walls

121 It is not clear why Sade writes A. Tiberius for Claudius, although the emperor’s full name was Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, not to be confused with Tiberius Claudius Nero, whose debauches on the island of Capri Sade details, drawing on Suetonius, in his description of the environs of Naples in this volume. The incident mentioned above is taken from Lives of the Caesars, 1[bk.5, s.34]):62–3, and given its general Sadeian flavour, is worth providing here at greater length: That he was of a cruel and bloodthirsty disposition was shown in matters great and small. He always exacted examination by torture and the punishment of parricides at once and in his presence. When he was at Tibur and wished to see an execution in the ancient fashion, no executioner could be found after the criminals were bound to the stake. Whereupon he sent to fetch one from the city and continued to wait for him until nightfall. At any gladiatorial show, either his own or another’s, he gave order that even those who fell accidentally should be slain, in particular the net-fighters, so that he could watch their faces as they died.

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Suetonius elsewhere clarifies a small mystery when Nero discovers that the Senate is seeking to dispatch him “in the ancient fashion”: “He asked what manner of punishment that was” and “learned that the criminal was stripped, fastened by the neck in a fork and then beaten to death with rods” (ibid., 2[bk.6, s.49]:170–3). Marginal note: “Antium, capital of the Volscians.” Marginal note: “Roman mores.” Marginal note: “Rome.” Writes Suetonius: “I may fairly include among [Nero’s] shows the entrance of Tiridates into the city. He was a king of Armenia, whom Nero induced by great promises to come to Rome; and since he was prevented by bad weather from exhibiting him to the people on the day appointed by proclamation, he produced him at the first favourable opportunity, with the praetorian cohorts drawn up in full armour about the temples in the Forum, while he himself sat in a curule chair on the rostra [apud rostra] in the attire of a triumphing general, surrounded by military ensigns and standards” (Lives of the Caesars, 2[bk.6, s.13]: 102–3). The rostra was known in the eighteenth century as the “tribunal of harangues.” Marginal note: “Rome.”

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of the city as far as Ostia and from there, by means of a channel, to have the sea brought into the old city. 127 It was in Naples that Nero appeared for the first time in public (I have said where in the description of the churches of this city). While he was singing, the theatre was suddenly shaken by an earthquake, without this event preventing him from continuing or even making him pause the tune that he was singing. He sang in public several times in a row in this city, only taking off the time needed to recover his voice. 128 This emperor sometimes ate in public, in the spot where naumachiae were held or in the Circus Maximus, among the most debauched and lowest sort of women. Every time that he went down the Tiber to Ostia, or when he sailed through the Gulf of Baiae, booths where erected the length of the banks, where there were courtesans who begged him to come ashore. (See in your Suetonius the festival after this taste that he gave upon a lake and place it in the description of this lake.) He had built, says Suetonius, a house that stretched from the palace all the way to the Esquiline Hill, which he initially labelled transitional, and soon after, when it had burned down and then rebuilt completely new, he called the Golden House.129 To make one grasp its size and splendour, suffice it to say that in the vestibule was placed a colossal statue in the spot that I have indicated in the description, which depicted Nero and that was one hundred and forty feet high; that its porticoes with three rows of columns were a thousand feet long, that it had fields, meadows, vineyards, and groves, with a number of beasts of various sorts, both domestic and wild, and a pond like a sea.130 The surrounding buildings were like a city. For the main building, everything dazzled with gold, gems, and mother-of-pearl. The floors and eating chambers with laminated ivory panels that one could turn at will to reveal pipes through which flowers and perfumes were sprinkled from above.131 The principal one of these dining halls resembled the world both in terms of shape and motion, because beside the fact that it was round, it turned without cease, day and night. There were baths of all sorts, and salt water and fresh water was seen to flow therein. When he entered it for the first time, he gave no other praise than to say that finally he was housed like a human. With regards to the prodigious size of this house, verses were composed to the effect that, since Rome was no longer going to be but a single house, it was necessary for the Romans to move to Veii, as long as this house did not stretch all the way to Veii. 132 Regarding what is called the Grotto of the Sibyl, on Lake Averno, that I have strongly asserted in the description to not at all be that, Suetonius sets forth two opinions. Nero, says he, wanted to conduct from Miseno an entirely covered and enclosed pool, in which 127 Marginal note: “Naples.” 128 Marginal note: “Rome. Word for word.” 129 Suetonius writes: “He made a palace extending all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline, which at first he called the House of Passage, but when it was burned shortly after its completion and rebuilt, the Golden House” (Lives of the Caesars, 2[bk.6, s.31]:130–1). 130 Marginal note: “Word for word.” 131 Sade has garbled the meaning, which I have only partially restored. Suetonius writes: “Its vestibule was large enough to contain a colossal statue of the emperor a hundred and twenty feet high; and it was so extensive that it had a triple colonnade a mile long. There was a pond, too, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities, besides tracts of country, varied by tilled fields, vineyards, pastures and woods, with great numbers of wild and domestic animals. In the rest of the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-pearl” (Lives of the Caesars, 2[bk.6, s.31]:130–1). 132 Marginal note: “Tour of Pozzuoli, Baiae, etc.”

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he planned to turn all the hot springs of Baiae. Further on, the same author, says he [sic], also had a plan to make a canal from Averno all the way to Ostia, one hundred and sixty miles long and wide enough for two galleys with five rows of oars to be able to pass each other, so that navigation could bypass the sea. I think that in the description regarding the verification of places and resting upon the opinion of the learned Monsieur Chaupy, I have preferred this opinion, but it seems to me now, however, that the former is preferable insofar as this grotto is not wide enough for two galleys with five rows of oars to pass each other and that, moreover, it seems to me more directed towards Miseno than towards Ostia. 133 The hot springs that are found there, would they not appear to also incline to the first opinion? Check what has been said in both Chaupy and in the description before settling upon one or the other judgment. Besides, Nero undertook these two works without finishing them, in spite of the multitude of workers that he employed and the hope for the treasures of Dido that a Roman knight assured him were hidden in Africa, in a spot with which he was familiar and from which they could be gotten out without great cost. (Suetonius, Vie de Néron, sec. XXXI.)134 135 Before imagining the ship in which Nero had his mother perish in Baiae, the details of which I have thoroughly given (in the description), he had imagined a floor that was supposed to collapse [from under] her while she slept, but the accomplices divulged the plan and undid its success by their indiscretion. Even before this, Suetonius asserts that the monster had thrice used poison, but in vain, which made him realize that she was armed with antidotes. (Put this before the story of her death in Baiae.) Near Nero’s Golden House, there were granaries the site of which he desired, and he said that in the fire that he was planning for Rome, the thickness of the walls of these granaries would protect them entirely. He destroyed them with engines of war. The greatest part of the monuments of Antiquity and everything that was most beautiful and most admirable, says Suetonius, was laid waste in that fire that lasted for six days and seven nights. Nero watched from the top of the tower of Maecenas, dressed for the stage and singing of the destruction of Troy. He pushed the infamy as far as prohibiting owners from digging in their ruined properties, in order to profit from them. This monster died in the villa belonging to Phaon, one of his freedmen, located four miles from Rome, between the Via Salaria or Salt Road and the Via Nomentana.136 This villa will still be seen today, in the same location, and about in the same style that Suetonius describes.137 138 His funeral cost 200,000 small sesterces, his body being covered with a white robe embroidered with gold that he had worn upon the first day of the year. Egloge and Alexandria, his nurses, and Acte, his concubine, placed his ashes in the monument of the 133 Marginal note: “Note for me.” 134 The non sequitur is Sade’s. Suetonius does, however, mention Nero’s increasingly ambitious projects and he hopes for funding them: “He was led to such mad extravagance, in addition to his confidence in the resources of the empire, by the hope of a vast hidden treasure, suddenly inspired by the assurance of a Roman knight, who declared positively that the enormous wealth which queen Dido had taken with of old in her flight from Tyre was hidden away in huge caves in Africa and could be recovered with but trifling labour” (Lives of the Caesars, 2:132–3). 135 Marginal note: “Baiae.” 136 Marginal note: “Surrounding areas of Rome.” 137 Between the lines: “Everything that relates to this death belongs to the section on History. You will excerpt it from Suetonius, where it is better than elsewhere, and put it there.” 138 Marginal note: “Hill of the gardens of Rome. / Word for word.”

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Domitians, his ancestors, which on the top of the Hill of Gardens, is visible from the Campus Martius. The base of it is made of porphyry; the altar above of Luna marble, and the whole is surrounded by a balustrade of Thasian stone (see what is said in the description about this). If all the monuments of Antiquity were described with such exactitude, so many arguments among scholars would not arise. The island of Aenaria is today Ischia. Upon arriving there dig deep in Suetonius to extract all that he says about this isle. I believe the Aeneid also mentions it; look at it. The senators sat in the orchestra at the theatre. Nuceria was a town in the Duchy of Spoleto; see what is said about it in your Suetonius. Pandataria, island close to Terracina; see Suetonius. 139 The emperor Galba was born in a village situated at the foot of a hill fairly close to Terracina, upon the left hand, heading in the direction of Fondi.140 This emperor often spent summers in Tusculum, today Frascati. On this matter, Suetonius tells us that he enforced the observation of a custom there that was hardly practised outside of his household,141 which consisted in having all his domestics come before him twice daily, to bid him good morning and good evening, one at time. 142 It is at Fondi that his residence was, when he lived as a mere private individual. 143 There was at Frascati or Tusculum a temple dedicated to Fortuna, because we learn that Galba, when he acceded to Imperial authority, had set aside a necklace made of pearls and other gems to adorn that goddess, [and] that he subsequently changed [his mind] and dedicated it to the Capitoline Venus. This emperor was butchered in the Forum Romanum, close to the Lake of Curtius, by men on horseback sent by Otho.144 His body was buried in private gardens that he had close to the Aurelian Way. The Senate voted a statue to this emperor, upon a column with a ship’s prow, upon the very spot where he was assassinated. But it was never erected, and Vespasian annulled the decree, thinking that Galba had previously sent men to Judea to kill him. It was below the Temple of Saturn, close to the gilded mile post, in the Forum Romanum, which Suetonius always simply calls the Square, that Otho had ordered his accomplices to await him, at the time of the conspiracy he had formed against Galba. As soon as his emissaries saw them posted there, they ran to inform him in the palace where he had gone, as usual, to bid the emperor good morning. He was told that the architects had arrived: this was the signal. He left, was carried as in triumph to the camp, and sent from there the men who assassinated Galba. The Golden House was completed by Otho, or at least Suetonius tells us that the first grant he signed was for five hundred thousand sesterces in order to complete this project.145 There was a road called the Vitellian Road that stretched from the Janiculum Hill all the way to the sea, that flatterers during the reign of Vitellius regarded as proof of the greatness and

139 140 141 142 143 144 145

Marginal note: “Terracina / Fondi.” Sade notes: “See whether travellers discuss this village, and put it in.” Marginal note: “Frascati / Word for word.” Marginal note: “Fondi.” Marginal note: “Frascati.” Between the lines: “Note to be put in the thorough description that I make of this place.” Marginal note: “A large sesterce was worth a thousand small ones or twenty-five scudi. A small one was worth about eighteen deniers.”

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ancientness of his family, which had subsequently settled at Nuceria,146 a town in the Duchy of Spoleto, and from there they came to Rome, where they were put into the senatorial class. 147 This emperor had spent his youth upon the isle of Capri, where it is held that his beauty had gotten him admitted to the scandalous pleasures of Tiberius and that it had served the advancement of his father, whom the Senate had honoured with a statue with the inscription Of unshakeable piety towards his prince and a public funeral. 148 At Pozzuoli, Vitellius surprised Asiaticus, his favourite, with whom, says Suetonius, he had formerly enjoyed the infamous conversation of mutual prostitution; he surprised him there selling oxycrate.149 This emperor forced Flavius, whom he feared, to withdraw to the Capitol, then he set fire to it, where the majority perished. During this time, he was in the house of Tiberius being entertained and enjoying fine fare, all the while contemplating the flames. We learn from Suetonius that the paternal house of this emperor was upon the Aventine Hill and that he withdrew there at the time of those disturbances that were threatening his life, but believing them calmed, he came back to the palace, whence he was promptly torn away and taken to a spot where he was cruelly put to death, after a thousand abuses. After which, dragging his body with a hook, he was thrown into the Tiber. The family of Vespasian was from Reate, a town that today marks the border of the Kingdom of Naples and the Ecclesiastical States above Terni.150 He himself was born in the territory of the Sabines, in a small village called Falacrina, beyond the town of Reate. (See in Chaupy whether Reate itself didn’t belong to the Sabines).151 Some flatterers made him out to be a descendent of the founders of that town. 152 Six miles from Nursia, heading towards Spoleto, upon a high mountain, there is still to this day, says Suetonius (who is speaking of his day), a place that carries the name of Vespasian, where several monuments of the Vespasians are found that allow us to grasp the grandeur and antiquity of this house. 153 Rome having prodigiously lost its beauty (Suetonius, word for word) because of fallen buildings and fires, Vespasian allowed anyone to occupy the vacant spots and to build therein, if the owners were unwilling to take care of them. Having planned to undertake repairs of the Capitol, he was the first to lend a hand with the work, himself carrying away upon his head some of the debris. It was he who built that famous Temple of Peace, close to the Place, says Suetonius, [and] that of Claudius, upon the Caelian Hill, that Agrippina had begun, but that Nero had almost entirely wrecked. He built as well the famous amphitheatre that still exists today, almost entirely intact, that Suetonius says was in the middle of the city – and that today, is located entirely outside. Suetonius adds that Augustus had had the same plan for this amphitheatre. In Suetonius’s day, the tomb of Hercules was to be seen on the Via Salaria. 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153

Marginal note: “Duchy of Spoleto.” Marginal note: “Capri.” Marginal note: “Pozzuoli.” The Latin term is posca: a mixture of water, vinegar, and herbs; it was a common drink of the soldiery and lower classes. Marginal note: “Terni.” Sade would have found that Chaupy correctly asserted that Reate, modern Rieti, was a Sabine town, and one of its chief ones at that (see Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace, 3:128). Marginal note: “Spoleto.” Marginal note: “Rome.”

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Vespasian had the stage of the theatre of Marcellus redone, and upon the day of its dedication, games were put on there in which Vespasian put back into practice the ancient custom of reciting jocular tales. This same emperor rewarded actors handsomely. At burials, comedians were employed. The best usually took on the role of the deceased, and he imitated his gestures and his actions. We read, in Suetonius, that Favor, master of the mimes during Vespasian’s rule, depicted this emperor at the time of his obsequies, and poking fun of the stinginess with which this Caesar had been reproached, he asked in a loud voice how much the ceremony cost. “A hundred sesterces,” came the response. “Ah well! Give them to me,” replied the joker, “and throw my body in the Tiber!” 154 This emperor returned to Reate, his fatherland, with great pleasure. He ordinarily spent the summers there. It was there where he ruined his bowels by drinking the cold water from this region, the rawness of which is extreme and which has a very petrifying power, as one sees from that flowing in the place called the waterfall of Terni. 155 It was Titus who dedicated the lovely amphitheatre of Vespasian, his father. He had hastily built the steam baths hard by (see whether this is not what is called the Baths of Nero that, inasmuch as I can remember, are not very far off). During the reign of this emperor, there was a large fire at Mount Vesuvius (see Father Della Torre).156 At about the same time, there was a fire in Rome that lasted three days and three nights, and an outbreak of plague, says Suetonius, as big as had ever been. Titus proved so popular that he allowed even the common people to enter these steam baths while he was bathing. (Put this in the discussion of the Baths of Titus.) Domitian (says Suetonius) was born in the sixth ward of the city, on the Pomegranate Road, in a house that he later turned into a temple that he dedicated to the Flavian family.

154 Marginal note: “Terni.” 155 Marginal note: “Rome.” 156 Giovanni Maria Della Torre, author of Storia e fenomeni del Vesuvio (Naples, 1755); translated into French as Histoire et phénomènes du Vésuve (Naples, 1771). On the eruption of Vesuvius during the reign of Titus, including references to Suetonius, see pp. 80–1 and 85 of the latter.

Dossier II

Florence

Summary History of Florence1 Tuscany stretches from the Apennines to the sea. It contains many more plains than Liguria, given that the Apennines are farther way. It is full of large and quite populous valleys. The Tuscan town of Sarzana was much envied by the Genoese, and subsequently, the Tuscans traded it for Leghorn. Close to the sea, there are the quarries of Massa and of Carrara, much esteemed for their marble, and Pietrasanta and Seravezza, the former famed for its oils and its fortress, the latter for its gold and silver mines. You see on the Serchio River the Republic of Lucca, on the Arno is Pisa and, farther on, Florence, one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, not to mention in Christendom, and then Pistoia, Volterra, famous for its alabaster quarries, Montepulciano, renowned for its wine, Chiari [viz., Chiusi], ancient Etruscan town and fatherland of Porsena, Arezzo, the fatherland of many great men, among others the poet Aretino, and Cortona, famed for having given birth to the great painter Pietro da Cortona. The Republic of Lucca jealously guards its freedom. It is three miles around, fortified, well stocked with artillery and war munitions. (I cannot conceive how it is in the political interest of the grand duke to preserve this small republic in the middle of his States.) Its population, we are told, is some forty thousand souls, and the countryside that belongs to it has, we are told, sixty thousand. In the north, this small republic borders upon Garfagnana Buona Valle, filled with brave, bellicose, and willing folk. For the rest, it is everywhere surrounded by the States of the grand duke. Pisa was famous for the various wars that it waged with the Venetians and the Genoese. Florence has (according to this Italian author [i.e., Varchi]) a population of ninety thousand, forty-four parishes; twenty-one trade guilds, among which the seven main ones are

1 Two notebooks of 20 and 24 pages, respectively, entirely in Sade’s hand. The first has the subtitle “Translation specific to this subject” and the annotation “No. 1 of Florence.” The second is subtitled “Excerpted from Varchi, follow up to the large notebook numbered 1st,” and below is noted “No. 2 of Florence.” The summary that follows is by and large extracted from the Storia fiorentina of the humanist, poet, and historian Benedetto Varchi (1502–1562). Unvarnished, Varchi’s history of the city and its political upheavals was published only posthumously, in Cologne in 1721. It was translated into French by Jean-Baptiste Requier as Histoire des Révolutions de Florence, sous les Médicis (Paris, 1764); Sade’s page references correspond to this edition.

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the merchants, moneychangers, wool manufacturers, silk manufacturers, goldsmiths, and likely the apothecaries and furriers; sixty-six monasteries, and thirty-seven hospitals. This city bought its freedom from the emperor Rudolf for six thousand scudi, as that of Lucca bought its for ten thousand. Afterwards, it flourished greatly. Today, it has developed to the extent that it would, if need be, put thirty thousand men on alert and the surrounding countryside sixty thousand. It is fortified by a solid wall and a platform, mainly towards the north. But on the other side, it is overlooked by mountains. This has been remedied, in truth, by the construction of some forts. There is a citadel built by Duke Alexander [i.e., Alessandro de’ Medici] and enlarged by Cosimo I [de’ Medici].2 The streets of Florence are mainly remarkable for their length, their lovely paving, and their cleanness. It is, in a word, in this city that we see a most beautiful assemblage of lovely structures, both public and private. This is what made Charles, the archduke of Austria, exclaim that here was a city only to be shown upon feast days. There is no country more cultivated and more abundantly laden with everything, such as wine, oil, fruits of all sorts, grains and vegetables of all sorts, and the countryside looks thick so entirely sown is it. With all this, who would believe that this abundant country does not provide what is needed to feed its inhabitants for a third of the year? What makes this not inexplicable is that they are spending two million scudi to buy back Pisa. All the virtues of the Tuscans are manifest in the highest degree in the Florentines: sharp wit, thrift (pushed even to the point of stinginess), prudence, diligence, industry, aptitude for the military as well as liberal arts, never acting but when appropriate and never neglecting anything. They have always guarded their freedom to the utmost, but thanks to their all too sharp wits, they always lived in perpetual discord, and their excessive investment in politics was almost always the cause of their downfall. We know to what extent the factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines brought ruin to both Pistoia and Florence, and, as it were, to all of Tuscany. In those days, two young men were coming from the chancellor’s house, and one of them was gravely wounded. The father of the one who was not, wanting to calm the affair, sent his son to ask pardon from the one who was wounded. But the result was quite contrary to his wishes, for the father of the one who was wounded laid hold of the young man who had wounded his son – had his servants, I say, lay hold of him and had his hand chopped off in the manger. And sending him back to his father, he says: “Go! Tell your own that wounds are not washed away with words but with iron.” From this was born two cruel wars between these two families known as the “the whites” and, on the other side, the “the blacks.” The entire city (of Pistoia, doubtless) withdrew, and there was no one left but combatants. And the Florentines, instead of killing the leaders of the faction, received them in exile into their city, and from this blindly accorded protection were born the powerful factions that so long divided them. The Etruscans are, without question, the people most anciently known in Italy. It is in vain that one would claim to make them descend from a Greek colony. A multitude of monuments in their favour, even their name, confirm that they are indigenous, and I believe that no one any longer thinks to dispute them this claim today. With them was born the celebrated art of divination. We know that the Romans sent them young people to be instructed in that frivolous art of divining future events – a famous art that the Egyptians and the Jews, following them, so often brought into vogue and that often decided the course of events. These peoples were for a long time celebrated. The Romans feared them and 2 The citadel in question is the Fortezza da Basso.

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their conquests for quite a long while matched their courage. Porsena, one of the kings of their twelve historically famous towns, undertook to put Tarquin the Proud back upon the throne. We know, upon this subject, all the events that followed. Once subjected to that dominion against which nothing resisted, they changed names and that of Tuscan, which was given to them, indicates the appellation in vogue with them and concerning which I have just discussed a moment ago. The possessions of these peoples were much more extensive than today. A part of the patrimony of Saint Peter was in their dominion. Several of their ancient towns still exist. You still see the remnants of them. Weary of the Roman yoke, a little bit after being subjected to their empire, they nonetheless attempted to escape from it. They sought some allies who betrayed them and became in the end totally subjected to Roman power. There are few well-done and quite precise histories of this people, and it is hardly but in the Roman historians, such as Titus Livy, Valerius Maximus, etc., that we can learn the particulars of their wars, their mores, and their origin. Finally, in the year 645 of the Roman calendar, Sulla’s soldiers, taken with the rather lovely position that one on the banks of the Arno below Fiesole offered them, resolved to build a town there that was first named Flaentia, subsequently Florentia. The triumvirs beautified it. Totila, King of the Goths, destroyed it. Charlemagne, after the destruction of the Kingdom of Lombardy, had it rebuilt and augmented it to the detriment of Fiesole, situated upon a height across from it and which is no longer anything but a wretched village today, which nonetheless bears the title of the bishopric. After this latter epoch, it became a republic. Several powerful families stirred up the political order and sought to gain the reins of empire. Few cities have been subject to as many troubles and factions. Finally, the Medici got the upper hand, and it is from this moment on that this city begins truly to play a historical role and it is from here that I am going to take it up and follow it with a bit more detailed description, so as to arrive at the present era into which I will introduce my traveller.3 This Medici house is only well known starting from Filippo de’ Medici [of Foriano], renowned for his prudence and wisdom and from whom the Guelphs of Florence always sought counsel towards the middle of the thirteenth century during their disputes with the Ghibellines. The latter wanted to exterminate this house, but destroyed by the Guelphs, they were brought back by them as if triumphant to their city and immediately given the main responsibilities for the Republic of Florence. This house, the origins of which were plebian, nevertheless furnished the Church with three popes: Leo X, Leo XI, and Clement VII; two queens of France: Catherine de’ Medici, wife of Henry II, and Marie de’ Medici, wife of Henry IV; five out of seven gonfalonieri of the Republic and eight grand dukes including Alessandro, who was the first who took this title. The gonfalonieri were: Averardo de’ Medici, gonfaloniere in 1314. Giovanni de’ Medici, likewise gonfaloniere in 1360. Cosimo de’ Medici, known as “Father of the Nation,” held the same position in 1436.4

3 Marginal note: “I have thought it necessary to establish the filiation or origin or establishment of a grand duke of Tuscany. This historical feature leads to the rest, to the continuation in a word, and from there follows the entire remainder of the reign of these princes for the 200 [years] that they reigned in Tuscany.” 4 Marginal note: “Engraved upon his tomb was: ‘Father of the people and liberator of the nation.’”

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Piero, son of Cosimo, was also gonfaloniere after his father, but at least in 1465 and not in 1460 as Monsieur Richard would have it, which is impossible, because Cosimo only died in 1464 and possessed the position until his death. Pierfrancesco II de’ Medici, gonfaloniere of Florence in 1516. In 1527, the Florentines expelled from their city two princes of this house: Ippolito, natural son of Giuliano the Magnificent, and Alessandro, natural son of Lorenzo the Younger. But in 1530, these princes made themselves absolute masters of the city. Alessandro wanted to have sole authority. For this, he soldered his alliance with Charles V, who married Margaret, his natural daughter, to him and had him made the grand duke of Florence. Son of the reigning pope (Clement VII had ascended to the throne on the 29th of November 1523 and died only in 1534), son-in-law of a great emperor who favoured him, Alessandro thought himself capable of daring all, but this conduct made him so odious to his family that this family conspired against him. Lorenzino, his cousin, had him assassinated in 1536.5 Until then, the Medici had only occupied the highest post in the republic under the name of gonfaloniere (dux) or doge. The Republic paid a salary to this first officer that was as high as twelve thousand scudi d’oro.6 There was a senate and an assembly of two hundred citizens where business was concluded by a plurality of votes. This assembly nominated the magistrates, and these were then chosen by lots, as is still the case today in all republics. Alessandro was thus the first who changed – not the administration – but who doubled the power of the leader by setting himself up as grand duke. He had no issue.7 The Histoire de Florence by Varchi, who wrote the annals of this period, tells us that no sooner was Clement VII adorned with the tiara than he had no other ambition but to have reign in Florence Ippolito, natural son of Giuliano the Magnificent, and Alessandro his son. But this undertaking was not easy. The Medici had many enemies. However, the Florentine deputies, sent to Clement VII to congratulate him, beseeched him to dictate himself the form of government for his unfortunate fatherland, so long torn asunder by so many troubles, and they seemed, in asking him for this favour, to mark out for leadership the young princes Ippolito and Alessandro. But the pope was too good a politician to show his hand so quickly. Moreover, he feared Giovanni [viz., Ludovico] de’ Medici, whose authority he had despoiled in order to take it up himself. This prince, young and burning for glory, would not have patiently suffered the pope to hand over to others this authority that he already quite impatiently suffered to see torn from him. However, Ippolito, fifteen years old, governed under the supervision of Silvio Passerini, Cardinal of Cortona, a prideful and hardly spiritual man, slave of the pope and annoying to everyone. Florence, divided by two powerful factions, one of which wanted governance to remain theirs, was unceasingly the centre of troubles and division. These two parties, Varchi tells us, did not cease to tear each other asunder, and both seemed only to await an opportunity

5 Sade notes: “And not in 1534, as stated by Richard, who doubtless did not consult the manuscript on the life of this prince, which in Florence is as viewable as you please. Close to the Riccardi Palace, you see an empty site where this assassination was committed.” 6 Sade notes: “You can see what this sum might come to in our money using the table that I have provided of various relations between the coinage of Florence and that of France appended further on.” See pp. 482–3 herein. 7 Marginal note: “At this point I will set down, following history, the succession from Cosimo to Alessandro, which it seems to me, leaves a sizeable interregnum.”

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to explode. The death of the brave Giovanni de’ Medici,8 who opposed close to Mantua the attempted incursion into Italy by the Germans, seemed to be the moment that would determine the glory of one or the other of these parties and make one or the other victorious. It was at this time that the towers that crowned the ramparts were torn down and that it was discovered that the construction was so strong and so solid that the chisel could not bite. And while what the best that the city had was thus being destroyed, work took place besides to divert the Mugnone, a mountain stream that has its source in the Apennines like the Arno, and an attempt was made to make its waters flow into the city’s moats.9 The main gates were fortified at the same time. The icon of Our Lady of Impruneta, about whom I will have occasion to speak in what follows, was paraded in the city, and all this out of the apprehension caused by the various troubles that were felt to be close to collapsing onto the city. Furthermore, Empoli, a castle fifteen miles from Florence on the side of Pisa, Prato, and other important, border areas, was fortified, and the most trusted citizens of the Republic were posted as commanders. During this period, force and violence sustained the Medici, and it was only by mistreating and by imprisoning that those who dared speak ill were punished. However, the heedlessness of Clement VII who, himself besieged in the Castel Sant’Angelo, seemed to want to drag down his entire fatherland with him in his defeat, kept everyone in a state of alarm and fright.10 The monasteries became the asylum for both young women and for the citizens’ treasures. Everyone hastily concealed therein whatever he had of the most value. However, one must think of a way to becalm so many troubles. Bourbon del Monte goes to Naples, confers with [Filippo] Strozzi, who was prisoner there, and [they] agree with the viceroy and the powerful party that they have in Florence, at the head of which is Capponi, to entirely remove Florence from the power of the Holy Father. This is agreed, and Strozzi’s freedom, which will be accorded as soon as the pope asks for it, becomes one of the shrewdest means upon which is agreed the execution of this plan. But a short while later, Strozzi obtains his liberty which became a condition of the treaty that the pope made with the emperor, who considering this same treaty, withdrew his entire army from the Kingdom of Naples. The army dismissed (an enormous mistake from which the pope could not come away clean), [Charles III, Duke of] Bourbon marches on Rome and threatens Florence, besieges and takes several Tuscan castles, pillages and sacks everything and at last sets up camp in Arezzo. You can imagine how such actions kept Florence in a state of alarm, and each individual found in these troubles a reason to further or to increase his party. At this juncture, the cardinal of Cortona convokes a citizen assembly at the Medici Palace. Niccolò Capponi says that the Medici Palace is not in the least where such an assembly should be held, but rather in that of the Signoria. All these divisions only heated spirits the more. And at the same time, the police, impotent, allowed every imaginable crime to be committed in public.11 Finally, the departure of the cardinal and of the court, which goes to Castello, country villa of Cosimo Il Vecchio, two miles from the city, to coordinate certain movements with the army of the league that favoured Florence, is the signal for the revolt. Everyone arms and everyone assembles.   8 Marginal note: “Clement VII was quite pleased with this death, since Giovanni de’ Medici had twice deprived him of sovereignty over Florence.”   9 Marginal note: “page 71.” 10 Marginal note: “Varchi 73.” 11 Marginal note: “1527.”

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The streets resounded with but two words: “people” and “liberty.” And the armed youth demanded that the gonfalonieri publicly declare the Medici rebels. The assembled Signoria12 passed the ballot box all around the Council. All the beans are black, and the Medici are unanimously declared proscribed, and anyone banished or exiled by them is recalled. All is trouble and agitation. A daring man brings to six captains six black beans and tells them that they should take them and consider them the symbol by which the Republic orders them to command the troops, to abjure the Medici, and to combat henceforth only for the Republic. However, the friends of the Medici, gathered in their palace, were very few in number. But the presence of the sovereign, of the legate, of the generals of the league, and of most of the infantry soon offers them hope, and in an instant, the cries of Palle13 succeed those of popolo, libertà, and the riot was promptly dissipated. Any remaining members of the revolt withdrew into the Palace of the Signoria and were besieged therein. The young nobles who were inside defended themselves valiantly, although they lacked weapons and ammunition; they had in total only seven rifles, but they aimed well and the advantage of the place allowed them to kill several soldiers. The defence of this palace was most lively; the besieged, lacking powder, threw stones that they found placed there for defending the palace, and they finally forced the soldiers to withdraw with this vigorous act.14 As the generals of the league advanced into the city and as the Medici withdrew, hope – in spite of the defeat at the palace – grew stronger in the hearts of its partisans, and soon they ran in arms to seize that palace that the army had been unable to gain. They blockaded it. However, capitulation came about and the settlement was instantly endorsed by everyone and signed by the Medici and their dependants. But the rebels demand that the duke of Urbino and all the generals of the league sign it. This done, everything is forgotten and everything that has been done against the Medici is nullified. However, says Varchi’s translator: “Florence, despoiled of the precious treasure of liberty, at the very moment that she had just recovered it, was full of sadness and fright.” The two armies that were at their gates, as much that of protector as that of the declared enemy that Bourbon commanded, both alike made them tremble. All the enemies of the Medici, feeling as a consequence the necessity of being united at such a juncture, hastened to go and kneel before them. The cardinal of Cortona, who was acting only by orders of the court of Rome, was himself quite non-plussed and dared not take a sure stand against the rebels; he made do with condemning three of the most recalcitrant to a monetary fine. The first orders that he received from Rome were to guard the city and principally the two palaces, and to do so most punctiliously. So much outrivalling upon the Medici side and the well-founded fear in which they were that the pope was only awaiting, before declaring the fate of the rebels, to know what the success of Bourbon’s army would mean for him, filled the latter with vexation and dread.15 Such was, parenthetically, the period when the adroit Venetians judged it apropos to renew their alliance with Florence. The document was drawn up, and the Florentines stipulated therein what would be the nature of the aid they were committing to give the 12 Marginal note: “The primary Council of Florence.” 13 Marginal note: “which means ‘balls,’ from the Medici’s coat of arms.” 14 Marginal note: “This attack took place in what is today called the Old Palace [Palazzo Vecchio], which in those days was that of the Republic. It only became the Medici’s after they were unanimously acknowledged as sovereigns. The Medici, in those days, resided where the present-day Riccardi Palace is.” 15 Marginal note: “They were called piagnoni, which means weepers.”

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Republic of Venice. Mention was made of several other articles, the main one of which was to not take up any alliance with the emperor without the consent of the two parties; a treaty that, doubtless passed because of the instigation of the duke of Urbino, was made with the greatest independence from the pope and that carries, in its tone, the marks of the hatred the general had for the sovereign pontiff whose troops, while feigning to protect him, ravaged his fatherland and always came up with justified delays in coming to his aid when [Charles de] Bourbon began to vex him. Finally, the duke decamped with his army and left, notwithstanding, a fairly numerous garrison to contain and strike fear into the rebels. The news of the sack of Rome by Bourbon, and of Clement VII besieged in Castel Sant’Angelo, then reanimated the Republican’s hope and offered them yet another moment of hope for liberty. The frightened cardinal supplicated Filippo Strozzi, who had left Rome, to come to Florence in order to keep the city for the Medici, and Capponi, his brother-inlaw, likewise solicited from him the same thing, but with the very different aim of bringing freedom to his fatherland. Strozzi, confused, sent his wife Clarice to sound out the terrain. The latter was born of the House of Medici. However, she does not waver; as soon as she arrives, she takes up the side of liberty and heaps reproaches upon the cardinal the instant she sees him. This audacious and intrepid woman does more: she dares declare clearly to the cardinal and to the two young dukes Ippolito and Alessandro that it would be more prudent for them to leave the city willingly than to wait to be hounded out. “The pope is in a bad spot,” says she, “It is no longer the moment to confront the people: his fortune must be followed.” “Remember the fate of our ancestors,” she says to the cardinal, “Banished by the people, they left Florence.” “Recalled [by] this same people, they returned. Believe me, depart,” says she to the young dukes. At this moment, the tumult begins, an arquebus shot strikes the door of the room in which Clarice was. The latter escapes, crying out that she is being made to leave by armed force from the house of her fathers. She gets to her house, accompanied by a multitude of citizens, and writes to her husband that he should come as soon as possible. Strozzi immediately goes to the country villa of Capponi, located two miles from Florence. And the most illustrious republicans gathered together, they consider the circumstances. Strozzi, cashier of the public purse, first of all refuses money to the cardinal, who after this cannot extend loans to the soldiers. Consequently, the cardinal declares that he is abandoning care for affairs to the Signoria and has this tribunal summoned in order to take control of their handling. Finally, Strozzi arrives in Florence and goes, escorted only by his brother and small number of citizens, to make a call upon the two young dukes. Ippolito begs him forcefully to back them: himself, Vettori, one of his most illustrious and bold friends, and Capponi, his brother-in-law. Strozzi goes against his wife, swears to vigorously take up the interests of a house to which he is allied, and hastens, after these words, to the Palace of the Signoria. But he finds matters already completely disposed towards the republican government, after the abandonment that the cardinal had just committed, which had been followed by a renunciation in due form by the young dukes. This generosity upon their part, the fruit of fear more than of patriotism, taken however in the best light, earns them a most favourable decision in their favour by the Senate, which declares them free and citizens. Strozzi shores himself up with this already taken decision in order to excuse himself in the eyes of the young dukes for not having been able to do anything in their favour, out of fear of making them unprofitably lose the fruit of an act of generosity and disinterest that did them so much honour.

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The joy of these various events instantly spreads to every heart. However, Strozzi and Capponi, still making use of guile, persuade the young dukes and the cardinal that it would be better for them if they withdrew to Poggio a Caiano. The latter do so and ask only that – so great is their fear of the people – two citizens escort them. Strozzi is shrewdly named one of these two hostages. The intention was that he might obtain from these princes, by escorting them, the surrender of the two citadels of Pisa and of Leghorn. But they, well informed, feign not to have the countersignature and content themselves with an order to each of the commanders of these places, enjoining them to obey the Signoria. This done, they arrive at the country villa, which you cannot help but see with interest today, once you know both this historical episode and a few others about which I will have occasion to speak and that have lent it renown. But a rumour that spreads everywhere and that throws trouble and terror into spirits obliges them to leave promptly for Pistoia and thence with great haste to Lucca. This rumour was that Clement was free and that the Medici in arms were marching back towards Florence. However, Florence was not the freer for all this, and the Medici having withdrawn left still in her bosom other ambitious souls who claimed to govern her. And the people, who suspected this was so, were no more tranquil. The secret assemblies that continued at the houses of the nobles played to the opinion of this people and inflamed it all over again. They glimpsed that it was not the re-establishment of a popular government that was being sought but an aristocracy from which they would gain absolutely nothing. They frightened Capponi, leader of this new party and likewise at the head of the one that had chased out the Medici. The people throng into the Palace of the Signoria, and with their full authority depose the magistrates and forbid the election of new members of this council. At the same time, they seize the gates of the city and of the palace, and finally, they convince everyone to accept the republican government. As a consequence, the elections and dispositions take place, and joy spreads in the hearts of all. There was the matter of having the fortress surrendered. Strozzi was written to so that he might do everything possible with the young dukes to put them back in the hands of the Republic. But the manoeuvres turned out so poorly that all that resulted from them was shame for those who were desired to be sent to seize them and more in the way of encouragement for the various commanders of the fortress to remain faithful to the interests of the Medici. Strozzi is vigorously condemned; he is recalled and blanketed with reproaches for not having been able to make himself master of both the princes and the citadels. At this time, the army of the league demanded of the new government the same oath that it had concluded with the former one.16 There was an assembly; there was debate. Soderini is on the side of the league. Capponi claims that it is superfluous and pernicious. “This league,” he says, “which might have been necessary for maintaining the despotism of the Medici, is no longer for our current government.” He makes a persuasive case that the Florentines have nothing to do with the powerful interests of the sovereigns in whose favour is the league, that what is needed is to get upon the right side of everyone without taking up anyone’s side, and concludes with its perfect uselessness. However, fear wins 16 Marginal note: “This league was made with the pope, the king of France, the Venetians, and the duke of Milan.” This is the so-called League of Cognac, an alliance of France, England, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, and Pope Clement VII against Charles V, the Habsburg ruler of the Holy Roman Empire and of Spain.

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out over all reasoning, and the league is renewed, to the great disadvantage of the Florentines, as history proves. At this juncture, Capponi is elected gonfaloniere, and his first actions tend to concord and general reconciliation. He desires that the pope be allayed. But the enemies of the Medici, who only have vengeance in their hearts, do not adopt all of his precepts equally. I will provide here a little subdivision of Florence that will serve not only to explain the following events but also to give the reader a notion of the this city in those days, which can only please him. Florence then, as today, was divided into four quarters. The first included the area beyond the Arno and was called the quarter of Holy Spirit [Santo Spirito], from the name of the principal church that is still seen there today. The three others were on this side of the river and likewise took their names, as at present, from their principal churches: Holy Cross, Saint Mary the New, and Saint John [Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and San Giovanni].17 Each quarter had four gonfalonieri under whose orders it was united, with an ensign adorned with a distinguishing mark upon its banner, whence the term gonfaloniere comes.18 The signs of the Holy Spirit quarter were scale, kite, whip, and dragon; Holy Cross had a chariot, ox, black lion, and spinning wheel; Saint Mary the New had a viper, a unicorn, a red lion, and a white lion; and Saint John had vair, dragon, keys, and a gold lion. All the families of Florence were included within these four quarters, and at first command were supposed to hasten in arms beneath the ensigns of their gonfalonieri, who had under them various subaltern officers, who went by names of captain or of standard-bearer. Once there, they were supposed to defend both liberty and the Palace of the Signoria, asylum of the leaders who maintained it. The common term for these leaders was the Sixteen or the Venerables. After the Signoria, it was the most distinguished council in Florence. There was another council, called the Twelve Good Fellows.19 § 20No citizen of Florence had the right to become a member of the Council, nor could he take up any office, if his grandfather or father had not been a member of one of these three collegi or designated to be so. To acquire the title of citizen of Florence, it was necessary to be registered in one of the twenty-two guilds of arts or trades or born of ancestors who had been, whether practising or not. One could not take up any office, nor even be placed in the electoral purse, if one did not confirm this enrolment among the arts and trades that are in question.21 There were seven of these that were called the major guilds [arti maggiori]: these were the judges,22 notaries, doctors, bankers, silk merchants, spice merchants, and furriers. The others were called “arts of second rank [arti minori],” numbering fourteen, as follows: 1. Bakers; 2. Butchers and sausage makers; 3. Oil merchants; 4. Wine merchants; 5. Innkeepers; 6. Rag-dealers; 7. Linen drapers; 8. 17 Marginal note: “This is too close to the current subdivision that you have provided; I think it is unnecessary. Change the style here; it is poor and, moreover, too slavishly copied from Requier. This subdivision is still the same today.” 18 The term gonfaloniere translates to “standard-bearer” or “ensign bearer.” 19 Sade is referring to the council of the Dodici Buonuomini. 20 Marginal note: “Everything here is word for word from §.” 21 The “electoral purse” refers to the borsa or sack into which the names of those eligible for the Florentine Consiglio Maggiore or Greater Council were placed and then drawn. Election by lots was a common practice for councils in Italy and subject to a variety of abuses. See Guido Ruggiero, The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 95. 22 Marginal note: “The lawyers were formerly called judges in Florence.”

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Masons and stone-cutters; 9. Carpenters; 10. Ironmongers and Locksmiths; 11. Shoemakers and cobblers; 12. Rope makers; 13. Strap makers; and […]23 There were in Florence several other arts and trades, but having no body or community proper, found themselves included under one of those that has just been named. These corporations had fixed locale for their meetings; members had their consuls, their syndics, and other officers who dispensed justice for anyone in the guild in civil cases. During parades or other public gatherings, their leaders have their rank indicated. From their origin, they had their ensign, under which those enrolled marched, armed when needed for the defence of liberty. The origin of this establishment was the law that the people made in 1282, when, after having destroyed the nobility, they declared that it would become, in the future, an exclusionary title for positions in the magistracy. It happened that those who wished to practise one of these were obliged to be accepted into one of these trade guilds. In truth, this put an end to the civil disturbances, but snuffed out all nobility and all generosity in the soul of the Florentines and diminished, as Varchi says, the power and grandeur of the city, proportionately to the pride and insolence of the nobles being beaten down and who, since those days, have never raised themselves back up.24 The arts corporations were sometimes more numerous, sometimes less.25 They often had disputes among themselves and more than once came to blows. Those of second rank once had granted that the gonfaloniere could only be drawn from their corporation; then, it was decided that he could, on the contrary, only come from the first rank and that those of the second could not fill more than a quarter of all the other offices. Whereby all of Florence was made up of only two sorts of inhabitants: those who paid tithes from their possessions and were called supportanti, and those who paid nothing and were call non supportanti, or plebeians. And it is from this class, which ought never to have any claim on a well-policed republican government, whence issued almost always those

23 Marginal note: “Find out what should go here.” Sade’s blank space, in fact, corresponds to an elision in Requier’s translation of Varchi. See Benedetto Varchi, Histoire des Révolutions de Florence, sous les Médicis, trans. Jean-Baptiste Requier (Paris, 1764), 1:193. Varchi’s complete list, to be found in his Storia fiorentina di Messer Benedetto Varchi (Cologne, 1721) reads as follows: “Beccai, Calzolai, Fabbri, Rigattieri, Maestri cioè Muratori, e Scarpellini, Vinattieri, Albergatori, Oliandoli, e Pizzicagnoli, e Funaiuoli, Calzaiuoli, Corazzai, Chiavaluoli, Coreggiai, Legnaiuoli, Fornai [butchers, shoemakers, locksmiths, ragdealers, masters, i.e., masons, and stone-cutters, wine merchants, innkeepers, oil vendors and cheesemongers, rope makers, cobblers, armourers, locksmiths, saddlers, carpenters, bakers]” (67). 24 Sade adds: “IMPORTANT NOTE. In fact, nothing is more doubtful today in Florence than the origins of all the noble houses. The reason for this is simple: the commoner and the great lord, both equally obliged to have themselves inscribed into these trade corporations in order to take on responsibilities, were confounded to the point that when the arrangement ended, it was no longer possible to sort out anything. The one side gained while the other lost, but everything was equal, and all that has come out of this today, only being able to cite the same forebears, is that it is difficult to make out whether the ancestors of these forebears had lost or gained in the mixture. After this had occurred, the Medici came along, and in changing the form of the government, they also altered the illustriousness of the nobles, by decorating whomever pleased them. The responsibilities that they conferred, the Order of Saint Stephen that they instituted – everything conspired to make a perfect jumble and to make the greatest house liable, upon the matter of the ancientness of titles, to the most justified and difficult-to-refute criticism.” Sade adds in the margin: “When you transcribe this, cast yet another glance over your pages on Florence, where the subject is marked with a cross, given that I have just marked it thus.” 25 Marginal note: “Still copied word for word.”

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who led it.26 The supportanti were of two types: those who, in truth, paid taxes, but who did not enjoy for all that rights of citizenship, which is to say, they had no point of access to the Council and could not take up any office; and this was because none of their ancestors had been included in one or the other of the three colleges. However, they were still called citizens, but they were so in name alone, given their inability to share in the honours and advantages of the city. As for those who participated therein, they were of two types: those who were registered in one of the first-rank guilds, and those who were in one of the second. The people of Florence were thus, by this means, composed of four types of citizens: plebeians, citizens who did not participate in the government, citizens enrolled in one of the lesser, and citizens of the greater. There was also a fifth sort: those from the countryside who paid taxes and were called contadini,27 or rustic citizens. Such was the order and arrangement of this republic that I have fancied that no one would be annoyed to have before one’s eyes, both for comparison with the present government and to have a better context for revolutions that I have described and that I will describe further. However, Capponi, gonfaloniere, stirred up jealousy all around. His politics, which led him to favour the nobility and principally the friends of the Medici, only served to increase the number of those who envied him. He was suspected of either wanting to hand over the government to them or, at least, of wanting to submit this tumultuous city, which so boasted of having escaped therefrom, once again to the pope. The troubles and factions started up again, and everyone gave new names to his party. The great Council, with unpardonable imprudence,28 wanted, in spite of the accord made with the Medici, to name syndics to make known all the frauds committed since all the troubles began.29 Five other syndics who were named to levy taxes became, because of the way in which they divided the friends of this house, a new scourge for it, not to be less feared than the first that I have just mentioned and the function of which was, as I have just said, to make known the troubles or the crimes committed under the government of the young princes and of the cardinal. But the pressing demand for money, and the way in which supplying it promptly was gone about, became a new affront for the Medici and, most of all, for Clement VII. This pontiff, in the hope of getting at the money that would come from the sale of the tenth part of the possessions of the Church and ecclesiastical properties, had given two consecutive briefs to press for the sale of these effects. But this careless undertaking was suddenly put back in force, as soon as his credit and his house were expelled from Florence. Still detained in the Castel Sant’Angelo, the pontiff, irritated that anyone should prefer the needs of the Republic to his own – and not knowing how much to criticize something that he had only been able to allow with a view to the real needs of the city – decided to openly condemn those who laid hands upon the Church’s goods. The new gonfaloniere, however, went about doing everything that his position might permit him. He reformed mores, renewed punishments enjoined for sodomy, which was ever the predominant vice of the nation and for which it is claimed that they had obtained 26 Marginal note: “Word for word, page 196.” Although not quite: “In well-ordered governments, men of this rank ought not aspire to conducting public affairs, nor even think to do so. In Florence, however, they held more than once the reins” (Varchi, Histoire, 1:196). 27 Marginal note: “Check if this word is right.” It is. 28 Marginal note: “See whether what follows will prove to you that this was imprudent.” 29 Marginal note: “From 1512 until 1527.”

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from this same Clement VII several plenary indulgences.30 He made regulations that proscribed Jewish usury. He forbade these same Jews to stay any longer than two weeks in the land under the dominion of the Republic, and he made, in a word, several other provisions, that all proved his good intentions, but that under the present circumstances appeared too premature. Licence is the natural result of troubles; the people give themselves over to it with ardour, but in order to repress it everything must be quite extinguished, for man’s natural penchant for debauchery would often suffice to reignite the discord in the shadow of which he always hopes to give himself over to it with greater tranquillity. The law courts into which corruption had been introduced were also reformed; all the ways in which the various councils or tribunals were made up were put right. Opinions upon all matters were generally now only given in writing, and it was necessary beforehand to take an oath at the foot of the altars, in the hands of the monks of San Marco who served the palace chapel, to speak the truth and say what you were thinking without any passion nor partiality. But all these cares nonetheless did not prevent many abuses from slipping into the majority of these arrangements, through which one cannot help but see more in the way of minutiae than of veritable good (see Varchi). And what one notes with surprise in all these institutions, says our Tuscan historian, is that “the government of Florence, at the time such an 30 Sade notes: “Sodomy, whatever Monsieur Lalande might say on this subject, is still very much in vogue in Florence, above all among the priests and monks. In the street in the evening, the partisans of this debauchery display themselves with all the more insolence insofar as women are almost never present then, as I will discuss in the article about them. Generally, all vices of impurity are quite tolerated in Florence: incest, adultery, masculine and feminine sodomy do not number among the exceptional cases. The climate, say the upright Tuscans most phlegmatically, excuses our penchants and God who had us born therein will take no offence at the excesses to which the climate impels us. There is an old law in Florence, the execution of which is doubtless shrouded in mystery, but which I am assured is of quite ancient provenance. This law holds that wives, on Fat Thursday, must accord everything to their husbands, without any restrictions, and in case of refusal on their part, the latter can constrain them to submit. A joker claimed, on this topic, that Carnival was quite long in Florence or that one had never had much trouble in forcing them to do so. Such a law, in our more temperate climates, would perhaps please some depraved husband, but I doubt that we would find as in Florence wives disposed to submit without repugnance.” Sade adds in the margin: “Write this passage somewhat better.” Sade has already added a bit of commentary in his notes on Varchi, as his translation only states that the new gonfaloniere “renewed the punishment for the sin of sodomy” (Histoire, 1:213). Concerning Florentine sexual mores, Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, in his Voyage d’un François en Italie, fait dans les années 1765 & 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), states: Since gentler, more commodious, more sociable mores have replaced the jealous humour of the sixteenth-century Florentines, you no longer hear tell of the depraved taste with which they were reproached in Dante’s epitaph in Ravenna, where you read these words (a): Pravi Florentia mater amoris [Florence, mother of perverse love]. In former times, illicit love was in truth so common in Florence that a prince, or so it is claimed, decreed a law that women would be obliged to go around with bare breasts. Whatever the case may be, the remark seemingly proclaims an era when it was necessary to recall men’s taste to objects that Nature alone should have pointed out to them and from which they seemingly ought never to have strayed. (2:320–1) The indication (a) leads to this note: “The Florentines say that Parvi [small; modest] and not Pravi [perverse] was intended” (2:321). In fact, the last lines of Dante’s epitaph read: “HIC CLAVDOR DANTES PATRIIS EXTORRIS AB ORIS / QVEM GENVIT PARVI FLORENTIA MATER AMORIS.” That is: “Within I am enclosed, Dante, exiled from the fatherland’s shore, / whom Florence, that little-loving mother, bore.” The ascribed Italian and particularly Florentine penchant for sodomy is treated at length in the introduction to this volume.

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enemy of the great, should have established a law much more suited to aristocracy than to democracy.” You can easily guess that all these changes must have frightened the Medici, who, as a final blow, also lost the fortresses at this time, whose commanders relinquished them upon the conditions that had been demanded. The pope, however, weary of his detention and remarking the feebleness – or rather the insouciance – that the army of the league brought to his rescue, prompted compromises with the prince of Orange, who had been commanding the enemy army since the death of the duke of Bourbon.31 The latter straightaway sent to the pontiff the viceroy of Naples, who concluded the pact under the conditions that the Castel Sant’Angelo, along with all its artillery, would be straightaway put into the hands of the Imperial forces, that he would pay four hundred thousand ducats, that he would return to the Colonna both their properties and their dignities, that he would accord a plenary indulgence to all those who had calumniated the Holy See, and that Ostia, Civitavecchia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, along with all their dependencies, would be straightaway put back into the hands of the emperor, and that His Holiness and all the cardinals who were at the time located in the Castel Sant’Angelo should be brought as prisoners to Naples or to any other place that might be agreeable to His Imperial Majesty. The sum is paid at the expense of the treasury of Loreto, which is entirely despoiled. The hostages are delivered, and Florence trembles that everything is now turning against her. As a result, the Republic takes up arms and entrusts the soldiers that were able to be recruited, whoever remained from the brave troops of Giovanni de’ Medici, of Orazio Bagnoli, the younger brother of Malatesta, a general as courageous as he was sanguinary and cruel. The foreign ministers, out of fear of their excessive attachment to the Medici and because it is known that they have always maintained intercourse with them, are changed. You can easily imagine that all these things did not lead to tranquillity and that the ardour of the factions only reignited with the more violence. A horrific plague ended up increasing the trouble.32 Our historian says that up to fifteen hundred people per day were dying. However, the spreading terror that the approach of the German army, which made it clear that it would deal with Florence as it had just dealt with Rome, calmed the internal strife. Petty particular interests are forgotten when the common cause demands, and dissension is forgotten when the general good wills it so. All the necessary arrangements thought necessary for the safety of the Republic were made; soldiers were enlisted, but always making sure to handle the emperor with care. The same political reason entailed handling the Sienese carefully, which ancient divisions made almost always considered as enemies of the Republic. The troops of the league were not numerous and poorly disciplined. They were under the orders of the duke of Urbino, who, in order to be able to defend the various places he was supposed to, kept them stationed beyond the Teverone, four miles from Perugia. But the little taste that they had for coming into conflict with the Imperial troops, which they skirted by this manoeuvre, was rather quite truly the pretext for their position. The Imperial army was hardly more numerous, nor in any better order, and at least as unhappy and mutinous with regards to its generals as the league was against its own. Close to Spoleto, there was a small clash in which the army of the league got the upper hand. However, the emperor seemed to learn with chagrin both about the sack of Rome

31 Marginal note: “Make sure that the said Bourbon was, in fact, supreme commander.” 32 Marginal note: “1527 or 28.”

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and the success of his troops, which excepting the minor defeat that I have just mentioned, frightened and ravaged the country. There is a letter from him to the king of England in which he seeks to apologize for the great scandal that his victories have just caused in Rome and in which he begs him to provide him with succour and council. Here, Clement handled things poorly, and one cannot help but observing that, had he fired the aversion for Charles V that took hold throughout Europe, upon the occasion of the outrages that he and his city had received from him, he might have without fail made him odious to all. But detained as a prisoner, he dared not do so. However, the other leaves with a new army of auxiliary troops sent by the king of France, lays low Genoa, plunders Pavia, and marches towards Bologna and Piacenza. Capponi, during all these troubles, had moved mountains trying to reconcile Florence with the emperor. That was by far the best strategy. He had wanted this to happen before the other crossed the Alps. The internal divisions had vexed this admirable plan, and those who most openly opposed it located in this political manoeuvre, so they said, the certain plan to have Florence, without anyone noticing it, returned to the Medici. The Council assembled; opinions were given. Young Almani declares himself in favour of the emperor, although in order to preserve the alliance with him, one must openly renounce that of the king of France and of the pope; Tommaso Soderini rebuts him and demonstrates that the opposite tack has the greatest advantages. The latter opinion wins the day. It is agreed to hold steady, to renew the alliance with Francis I, however it should please this monarch to dictate the terms, and provide Lautrec all the aid that he could desire for the expedition to the Kingdom of Naples, where it seemed that he planned to direct his steps. All the new preparations are done with this intent. Fresh supplies are gathered; orders are given so that the citizens might not abscond; funds are replaced in the treasury; and in a word, all the precautions are taken that the nature of the new plan that has just been embraced seems to require. Added to all this, they resolve to send an ambassador to the king of England and likewise to the protector of the league,33 but the main aim is a loan of three hundred thousand ducats that could put the Republic in a state to withstand so many new defeats. But they are turned away, and the envoy recognizes that the interests of the pope were dearer to Henry VIII than had been thought. The cardinal of York counsels them, after that, not only to send ambassadors to Clement, but to pay him the greatest tributes. But in Florence they were quite far from this way of thinking, since at the same moment, the youth of Florence bore witness, with the greatest act of scorn, to all the hatred that the city had for the Holy See and particularly for those sovereign pontiffs from the House of Medici; the statues of Leo X and those of Clement VII are overturned in the Church of the Annunziata, and these imprudent young people adduce the example of the Romans to legitimate their innocence. But Clement, less distressed by this abasement than one thought, makes use of it to make himself an object of sympathy in the courts of his party: “What would they do to me,” he cries, “since it is thus that they treat my image?” At last, the emperor consents to the pope’s freedom, and the price put upon this is that he promptly bribe the troops who are in Rome, so as to promptly put them in condition to march to Lautrec, who was already advancing towards Bologna. Clement patches things up with the cardinals whom he believes are in condition to provide him with the necessary aid required for his release, and he put on auction seven cardinals’ hats which will help 33 Marginal note: “Page 273, volume I.”

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provide these funds. At last, he just about obtains them, and provides as the remainder of his payment five cardinals as hostages, three of whom were taken to the Castel Nuovo in Naples; two others remain under the direction of cardinal Colonna, who is answerable for them. And as for himself, as soon as his treaty was concluded, he pre-empts the time at which he had announced his departure and, disguised as a furrier, departs during the night, via a small door, through the gardens of the castle, and, on a horse provided by Louis de Gonzaga, who is accompanying him, makes it to Monte Fiascone. Escorted by a solid detachment at Orvieto, a very fortified spot thanks to its position, you can easily imagine the dread that such an action produced in Florence. Cardinal Ridolfi, whose34 standing rendered him suspect, is expelled, and urgent repairs to the fortresses are put in order. However, hardly did the Republic learn that General Lautrec was in Bologna than it sent two ambassadors to welcome him and named at the same time commissioners to provision his army. The pope’s freedom, however, only allowed the party of the Medici in Florence to grow, and consequently, it was decided that it was necessary to put the palace under guard in case of need – a precaution that disconcerted those of this party. This guard requested a banner, which was granted to it, upon the condition that it would be fastened to an iron against a column of the palace’s gallery, where no one could remove it without the permission of the Signoria, under penalty of death. This banner was made of taffeta with gold braiding: upon one side was depicted the image of Christ, and upon the other that of liberty. However, the gonfaloniere handled with care the monks, whose party was numerous in Florence, who had gotten in their heads a certain Dominican from Ferrara named Girolamo Savonarola, a dangerous frenetic who had created in those days a very strong cabal in league with the king of France.35 34 Notebook no. 2 starts here. Marginal note: “Remember that all that precedes Alessandro and the epochs taken from Varchi, you have taken from Machiavelli and Guicciardini.” Sade apparently had two copies of Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia (1537–1540) in French translation in his personal library at La Coste. See Alice M. Laborde, La bibliothèque du marquis de Sade au château de La Coste (en 1776) (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 56 and 76. A likely edition would have been Histoire des guerres d’Italie, traduite de l’Italien de François Guichardin (London, 1738). Although there is no evidence of Niccolò Machiavelli’s Istorie fiorentine (1532) in Sade’s library, the translation that he likely consulted was Histoire de Florence de Nicolas Machivel (Amsterdam, 1694). 35 Sade notes: “Consult the story of Savonarola in the Dictionnaire d’Italie and copy the entry at the word ‘Savonarola,’ page 486.” Sade’s reference, from the anonymously published Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie (Paris: Chez Lacombe, 1775), explains: Dominican, born in Ferrara, of noble parentage, in 1452. He early on earned a great reputation for the Pulpit. It was in Florence, where the inhabitants were divided between France and the Medici, that he declared himself for France; and either out of mental derangement or in order to enlarge his faction, he explicated some passages from the Apocalypse, in which he discovered the misfortunes that would come crashing down on the opposing faction; announced the reform of the Church, and the scourges with which the vices of the Clergy and the Court of Rome were threatened. Instead of mending his ways, Alexander VI excommunicated and interdicted him. Savonarola preached nonetheless. Alexander and the Medici provoked a Cordelier against him. He begged to differ with some of the theses that Savonarola had put about, and offered to prove that they were heretical. The Cordeliers and the Jacobins took sides, and the dispute became very heated. The Dominican thought to put forward an unbeatable argument by offering trial by fire; but the Cordelier made the same offer in order to prove that Savonarola was an imposter and a Heretic. The challenges were accepted, and the pyres lit. The Franciscan and the Dominican appeared; their courage, however, vanished upon seeing the flames of the pyres. The Dominican only desired to enter the pyre with the host in his hand. The Magistrate refused him this; he refused to undergo the ordeal. The People chased him; he sought refuge in the Convent; the Cordeliers stirred

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In full council the mercy of God was invoked, his son was declared as protector, and upon the main entrance to the palace were written the following words.36 Terror was quite certainly the reason for all these religious proceedings. Devoutness is man’s refuge when he is afraid. The wrathful God, of whom he has made a false image, throws his imagination into alarm, troubles it, and lets him no longer see hope but in his chimerical bounty. How contemptible and vile is religion, although ever disregarded by men of reason? It does not become a refuge until sickness or death has totally enfeebled his mind and his judgment.37 The pope wanted to send a negotiator to the Republic, his forces not allowing him to resist all that was moving forward to subjugate him once more. But this action was so little agreeable to Florence that immediately was sent to meet him [sic], to beg him to not even set a foot in the States of the Republic. But Clement did not weary. “Go back,” says he to a friend, “go back and negotiate with these cruel compatriots.” “I would prefer,” he added, “to renounce being buried upon holy ground than the hope of returning some day to that city.” Thirteen thousand ducats were added to these solicitations, and he bought thereby that which he could not obtain otherwise. However, the affairs of France and of the Empire were not on their way to reconciliation. Francis I made proposals concerning which Charles V was too difficult and too fastidious. The chief heralds of France and England consequently declared war upon the emperor, that of France making it felt in his declaration that the offended rights of the pontiff were one of the reasons for his master’s anger and forced him to take the side of the vicar of Jesus Christ – an accusation from which the emperor defended himself, asserting that the harm done to the pontiff in Rome by poorly disciplined troops had not been done upon his orders and that, besides, as astonished as he might be to see himself defied by Francis I, his prisoner, he would answer as he ought. I am vexed that the limitations of my work do not allow me to transcribe here the two cartels that these two sovereigns, that of France of that of the Empire, mutually sent. I will content myself with referring the reader elsewhere, where he can see them in the various up the populace, who forced the doors. To calm them, Savonarola was seized. He was interrogated; convicted of imposture and heresy, and Alexander VI had him condemned, along with two Dominicans, to be hanged and burned. His enemies, just as fanatical as he, triumphed; and Pico della Mirandola, Ambrosius Catharinus, Marsilio Ficino, Bzovius, and Neri maintained in their writings that Savonarola performed miracles that attested to his innocence. (2:486–7) 36 Sade notes: “When you do the copying out, you will copy them [i.e., the words] from the first volume of the Histoire de Florence, page 288.” These words are: CHRISTO REGI SUO DOMINO DOMINANTIUM LIBERATORI, DEO SUMMO, OPT. MAX. MARIÆQUE VIRGINI REGINÆ DICAVIT, AN. S. M.D.XXVII. S.P.Q.F. [Dedicated to Christ the King, Its Lord To the Liberators of the Realm To God the Highest, Best, and Greatest And to the Queen Virgin Mary, in the Year 1527. The Senate and People of Florence] 37 Marginal note: “Write all this better.”

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histories of this century, where they will be found reported by several authors, and I will only observe that there seemed to me much more nobility and grandeur evident in the one from the emperor than in that of the king of France.38 The Florentines, however, at Lautrec’s request, ordered their troops to join with those of that general. And at this juncture, the Viscount of Turenne went to reassure the pope regarding the promise that the king of France had made to defend the republic of Florence against her enemies and, at the same time, to appeal to him to join the league. But lacking money and credit, the pope refused. At the same time, Lautrec had frightened the prince of Orange, who had leaped into Naples, pursues him to its very walls and decides to make it into his seat. And the Florentines, still taken up with the preservation of their freedom and finding themselves more at ease because of the success of their allies, continued with their decrees and their regulations for proper order and for the maintenance of this freedom that appeared to be the sole aim of their politics as of their desires. However, factions were still carrying on in the capital. The arrival of the duke of Brunswick with fresh troops, which had entered into Italy via Trento, utterly disconcerted the Medici party and made all of Tuscany in general fear that this new army might cross through it, as was claimed: news received from those who preferred German and Swiss troops to their very own, whom they distrusted with reason. However, Brunswick withdraws without being able to come to the aid of Naples, given the losses that his army suffers, and we see him leave Italy with as much pleasure as when he was burning and bloodying it.39 The Venetians complained bitterly at this point about not having been aided by the Florentines and threatened them with reprisals. However, the king of France was still urging the pope to join the league, and the latter was still persisting in his refusal. Finally, he raised troops. From all quarters it is asserted that this is to regain Florence, but Clement does not agree to this aim and with speeches much to the contrary, he avoids everything that might tend to raise such suspicions. Notwithstanding, these preparations are not done without eliciting a bit of terror in the Florentines, who hardly sure of the Sienese, at once dreaded that the latter might straightaway allow passage to the enemies. However, personal interests made them opt for joining with the Florentines and embracing their particular quarrels with the pontiff. They promised to refuse everything to the Imperial troops should the prince of Orange wish to cross through Tuscany. But all this was nothing but politics and lasted but an instant, and the Sienese, completely committed to the Ghibelline party, could not but hate the Florentines, who were Guelphs. However, the defection of Admiral Doria,40 who suddenly went from serving France to serving the Empire, brought about a major change on both sides. This is the same Doria 38 Sade notes: “See Varchi, Requier’s translation, Histoire de Florence, reign of Francis I, etc. Check to be sure whether it is in the Histoire de France.” 39 Marginal note: “Put in a note the fine response of the duke of Urbino, page 314 of the first volume.” When the duke of Brunswick explained that killing inhabitants and setting fire to houses wherever he passed was done on the orders of the emperor, the duke of Urbino is said to have responded: “Since you set fires, you will not be surprised if henceforth I set to roasting. I assure you that I will burn just as many Germans who fall into my hands” (Varchi, Histoire, 1:317). 40 Sade notes: “Andrea Doria, a Genoese, was the greatest seaman of his century. Francis I had given him absolute command of his naval forces. He was done a disservice in the French court, and the monarch wanted to have him arrested. Doria was warned and went over, as I have said, to serving the emperor. Upon returning to his country, he chased out the French and liberated it. A statue was erected to him with an inscription that bestowed upon him the title liberator and father of the nation.a Made general of the pope’s

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that we see during the troubles in Genoa a short while later become the liberator of his fatherland, of which he could have become the sovereign. The scourge of the plague and of diseases inflicted upon Lautrec’s army by the bad air of Naples and by the multitude of foreigners from all nations that the circumstances attracted either to the exterior or to the interior of this city ended up increasing the joy of the enemies of the league still more. It was then that the Florentines sent two thousand men to reinforce the French army, weakened by so many fiascos and which ended up losing its general. The same misfortune happened to that of the Tuscan troops. The count of Pepoli, who was commanding them, died in Capua, and all these disasters were not without strongly impacting the Republic. Diseases and desertions in the end brought about the utter loss of this army, and it was soon enough entirely out of the picture. However, the Florentines were not perturbed and, on the contrary, busied themselves with repairing the losses that they had suffered. As for Clement, it is said that the news of the all these disorders had made him decide to reconcile with the emperor, and his conduct proved that he would be quite content to return to Rome. A hat given to the general of the Franciscans, who was Spanish, proves the desire that he had to court Charles. He gave orders for places within Romagna to be fortified. Finally, the Florentines were quite disconcerted when an enciphered letter was intercepted that their ambassador close to the Empire wrote to Clement VII, in which he revealed to the pontiff that nothing would make the emperor give up his designs on Italy and that he would rather abandon Spain than renounce his claims upon this beautiful country. This letter, which seemed to reveal an understanding with the pope, displeased the Florentines immensely, who reasonably considered that it was to them that their ambassador ought to provide such opinions and not to the pope with whom they were at war and who at the time was in Viterbo, ensconced in the citadel and devoured by worry concerning the initiative of Cardinal Farnese (afterwards pope under the name of Paul III), who had just abruptly left for his legation in Rome, without the motives for such haste being guessed. As ever taken up with his secret plan to regain Florence, he would have preferred that this might have been guessed and that he might have thereby been excused the trouble of explaining that the emperor, in a word, had accepted his friendship and that he had always preserved that of the king of France, and all this with the hope of taking his vengeance upon his compatriots. “I ask only to be recognized as pope in Florence,” he unceasingly wrote to all quarters. “Let them repudiate me as their fellow citizen,” he continued, “I mind it not, but can they without it being a crime not consider me sovereign of the Church of their professed religion?” He added to this the request for his niece and the cessation of the taxes with which his party was overwhelmed. Finally, no navy, he won important victories and was made knight of the Golden Fleece by Charles V. He did important services for this emperor, such that allowed him to be his country’s sovereign, but Doria preferred to be its restorer. He enacted some handsome decrees that tended to the perfection of the government. Giovanni Luigi Fieschi, Count of Lavagna, conspired against this house, but he lost his life in this vain enterprise. Doria became only grander and dearer to his country. There are still Doria in Genoa who descend from the former, but not in direct line from Andrea, who died without issue at the age of ninety-four years, in 1560. “The palace of this house, one of the most beautiful in Genoa, is made entirely of marble. Its architecture is lovely. This palace is not inhabited. The infanta Luisa Maria Theresa of Parma was received here in 1765.” a Sade’s note on this note: “This statue is by [Giovanni Angelo] Montorsoli, a Florentine sculptor. It was intended to adorn Saint Matthew’s square [Piazza San Matteo] and has been placed, however, on one of the sides of the main entrance to the Royal Palace.”

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longer able to disguise his feelings, he wrote to his nephews, the young princes Ippolito and Alessandro, who had withdrawn to Chieri in Savoy,41 to come to Piacenza – which they did with utmost speed. And during this entire time, His Holiness carefully handled Perugia as a secure location from which he could undertake his plans regarding Florence. But his stay in Viterbo was not long; he left soon enough in order to make for Rome, escorted by two thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry, and he arrived there threatened by the elements that seemed to conspire against him upon that day. You can easily imagine that this return worried the Florentines, who at the same time, received a thousand marks of political affection from Francis I, the aim of which – and well they sensed this – was to urge them to amply contribute to the costs of the war against the Empire. But the clever republicans responded to the viscount of Turenne, whom the king had sent as an envoy to them, that they ought not, in such an instance, provide any counsel to a king such as Francis I42 and that all they could do was to contribute for their part to the tax by a third, and so they confronted the situation. Florence Dubbed “The Beautiful”43 The city of Florence, so famous for the many revolutions that I have just summarized, is situated in the most delightful spot imaginable. The pretty name that it goes by comes from the pleasant terrain where it is located, which flowers and trees unceasingly crown and do so in almost every season of the year. Above all, the iris, known in botany by the name of Florentine iris, grows here in abundance.44 It is not surprising that such a delightful location should have stopped Sulla’s soldiers and encouraged them to build in this place. Florence, at the confluence of the Arno and the Mugnone, a river that flows into the Arno a mile below the city, is located at 29˚ longitude and at 43˚ 46′ latitude.45 Historians 41 Marginal note: “If I have not discussed this on my route, discuss it there, in a note.” 42 Marginal note: “Shrewd response so that no one might impute to them any of the unfortunate consequences that might result from the plan to continue this war.” 43 Original notebook of 16 pages, along with two notebooks of notes (12 and 16 pages, respectively). All three are in Sade’s hand. 44 Sade notes: “The Iris: Known by the name of Florentine iris – Iris florentina – has a white root with the odour of violets, a bitter and acrid taste, made up of oblong pieces, geniculate, a bit flat, and thumb-sized. This plant grows without any cultivation in the environs of Florence. The rind of this root, which is yellowish red, is peeled on site. This is why the hulled iris always looks stippled. It is claimed that the Florentines wash this root before sending it to us, and that this is the only way of giving it its good odour. The plant from which it is taken does not differ from the ordinary iris by the shape of its roots, of its leaves, and of its flowers, but only by the colour, since the leaves of the Florentine iris tend more towards sea green; the flowers have little odour; they are milky white. This flower is also called White Flame.” Florentine iris, which Sade correctly identifies by its scientific name, was a source of orris root oil, used in perfumery and for medicinal purposes. 45 Sade notes: “The Arno, a river, has its source in the Apennines, close to that of the Tiber; it traverses Tuscany, after having divided Florence into two parts, and flows into the Tuscan sea, three miles from Leghorn, after having crossed through Pisa, as it does Florence. The Chiana, a river that receives the waters of all the streams from the mountains, settles half into the Tiber and half into the Arno, enlarging both the one and the other, not without making them experience dangerous overflows. In the year 166 on the calendar of Rome, this capital of the world experienced such upheaval from flooding that Asinius Gallus proposed in the Senate consulting the books of the Sibyls. Mysterious in disposition, Tiberius, who says Tacitus, wanted to make a mystery of everything and to obscure the divine as well as the human, opposed this project. He

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have differed greatly upon the origin of its name. Some have held the opinion that I have just laid down; others that its original name was Florentia [sic] because of the confluence that I have just mentioned is at its location. Finally, some have adopted the hardly probable notion that this city had taken the name Florentia from the blooming lily upon its coat of arms. But what is the likelihood that it would have adopted a coat of arms prior to a name? And how can we not be persuaded, to the contrary, that it was only after having its name that it chose its heraldic devices? Around the blossoming lily was engraved: Det tibi vere florere Florentia, and we see subsequently upon the reverse of coins struck with this motto a seated Saint John, clothed with sheepskin and with a quite long beard.46 This city, after all the augmentations that have been made there at various epochs, is today one of the largest cities in Italy. It occupies a charming basin situated at the base of the Apennines, which surround it on one side, descending and forming hillsides covered with olive trees and graced with a prodigious number of country villas. On the other is a lovely plain that goes up to the sea and in which are positioned in likewise pleasing locations the beautiful cities of Prato, Pistoia, Pisa, Lucca, and Leghorn, which seem to enrich and to furnish this plain so as to create the most beauteous countryside in the universe. For Tuscany is without question the most charming region of Italy. There is no other in which the foreigner finds himself more at ease, none in which he lingers with more pleasure, and one can truthfully say that it is to this beautiful part of Europe what Touraine is to France. The city of Florence, which is its capital, is surrounded by rather high towers that appear to have been flanked by some towers of which only remnants still remain. We must have seen, in the preceding historical section, the periods in which they were constructed and demolished. The sweetness of the peace that is in general tasted today in this beautiful land make this enclosure rather useless as far as the dangers of war are concerned, but necessary to the vexations of the farming entrepreneurs who rigorously exercise tyranny in this city, where it seems that one ought only to enter, as if into another Sybaris, in order to taste peace and rest and to give yourself over to the soft charms that its delightful situation inspires.47 Two small forts, one of which is built to the north of the city and the other above the Pitti Palace, works of the Medici, and which I will discuss in due course, are the only fortifications that defend this capital and guard it from the mountains that dominate it. Florence is six miles around. Its shape is almost circular, and it is about a mile from the centre to any one of its gates, which yields a diameter of approximately two miles. These

named two commissioners, Aruncius and Aetius Capito, to find the cause of these disorders. These experts found no other solution except diverting the rivers and lakes that flowed into the Tiber. Had this project been carried out, it would have made the Chiana flow back into the Arno, and Florence would have been clearly flooded. This city remonstrated; the project was discussed from both angles, and it ended up remaining there. Subsequently, however, a large causeway was built from one mountain to the other which left nothing but aperture on the side of the Tiber to discharge it into the waters of the Chiana.” 46 Sade has erred slightly. The motto of this early gold coin or florin, first struck in 1252, was the following couplet: “Det tibi florere / Christus Florentia vere [Florence, may Christ truly grant that you flourish].” He has here followed Dr Mesny’s account in a letter; see pp. 472–3 below, and in the Correspondence, p. 611. 47 Although Sade’s point is somewhat obscure, he is presumably referring to the practice in Italy from the thirteenth century onwards of “letting out entire estates by managerial leasehold to capitalist entrepreneurs or speculators, middlemen on the make.” Philip Jones, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 171. Sade’s expression (entrepreneurs de fermes) appears to be a fairly literal translation of one designation for these economically powerful actors: mercanti di campagna.

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gates number six. That of San Gallo, in front of which is a lovely modern triumphal arch that must not be confused with the gate itself, as many travellers have done – and namely, Monsieur Lalande. This gate, through which you pass when arriving from Bologna, aligns with that of San Pier Gattolini, which leads to the route to Rome. Those of San Frediano and San Niccolò, of which the first goes to Leghorn and the other to Arezzo, are likewise situated across from one another, and except for a few bends that the roads that lead from one to the other make, their alignment is almost perfect. The gates of Prato and of the Cross are the two final ones; their layout is the same, and the alignments of these gates are one of the beauties of Florence. The former of these two last gates that I have just mentioned leads one to Pistoia and to Lucca, the other into the region called Casentino, where Poppi, Bibbiena, etc. are, and then into all of Romagna. You can add to these six main gates a smaller and almost unknown one called Pinti, which heads towards ancient Fiesole. But let’s pass over that one, which offers absolutely nothing noteworthy, and return to the various objects that are located outside of these six main ones that I have just named. Outside of that of San Gallo is the triumphal arch that was just mentioned, built from the lovely stone of this land. Its intent was to illustrate and eternalize the entry into Florence of Francis of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany and last emperor, in 1739. The monument, located two hundred feet from the entrance to the city, is in the Composite order with three openings and in the grand style of Antiquity. Upon the pediment is the bronze statue of the emperor, accompanied by some other made of the same metal that relates to his virtues. The bas-reliefs celebrate and immortalize the most beautiful episodes in the life of this prince. In one, you see his victory over the lands, when he commanded the army of Charles VI; in the other, his coronation in Frankfurt, etc. All is handled with force and imagination in this lovely monument. The opening of the arch is stately; it seems that Constantine’s in Rome furnished grand ideas to its creator; you see that he was everywhere immersed in his subject and in the beauties of his model. Nicolas Jadot [Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey], born in Lunéville, designed and had erected this piece made to immortalize him. This learned artist – all the more praiseworthy since unlike the examples of those today, he did not neglect the masculine marks of Antiquity in yielding to those of his genius – had already made a name for himself in Buda where he oversaw the lovely Palace of the Hungarian States, which all foreign travellers admire and which is one of the loveliest adornments of this city. It is not customary to pass underneath this arch. Is this out of respect? Is it fear concerning its solidity? Both of these appear to me nugatory. Whatever the case may be, it is closed off with large chains that block entry from either side. Vendors of refreshments and of cocomeri48 are allowed to set up beneath it, and yet one is not allowed to pass through. This policy seems contradictory, but the Florentines do not pride themselves on being particularly logical; I will perhaps have the opportunity to prove this. Upon the right is a small garden surrounded by a ditch and planted with three lovely alleys of mulberry trees, 48 Sade notes: “Cocomero: this is the name in Florence for those sorts of very watery melons the flesh of which is red and the seeds black. They are called pastèques in the southern provinces of France, where they are likewise common. This fruit, filled with water that is more tasteless than pleasant, is prized in hot regions. Women, above all, make much of it. As it is distributed in large quantities and at almost every crossroads in the cities of Italy, workers, domestics, day labourers, and porters consume quite a large quantity thereof, and this is a way of taking refreshment that is not as damaging to their health as if they were simply to drink water. There is a shop in Florence where it is kept upon ice, for which one has to pay more dearly, and where more well-to-do people go to eat it. In this way, this naturally tasteless and not particularly pleasant fruit can be eaten with a bit more enjoyment.” The fruit in question is, of course, watermelon.

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where people of good fellowship sometimes come for a stroll. You leave your coach at the gate and momentarily take the air in this garden, nonetheless taking care to climb promptly back into your carriage as soon as the moment to close the gate comes, although often this is the only time one can breathe and you can have it opened at any time; but this costs some money. This is an established payment, and the Florentine has never known the pleasure that he would have to purchase for a small expense. His stinginess about this is pushed to the extreme; I will perhaps have the opportunity to note a few examples. Beyond the San Pier Gattolini Gate is a superb double avenue planted with live oaks interwoven with cypresses that, as you cover the distance of a gently sloping mile, leads to the pretty house of the grand duke, which goes by the name of Poggio Imperiale. Outside of the San Frediano Gate there are few interesting objects. Through that of San Niccolò, you get to a lovely Olivetan monastery,49 and that of the Prato offers to the left the lovely promenade that goes by the name delle Cascine.50 You get there via a cheerful path, planted with pines to the left and right and that, given their height and diameter, appear to be quite ancient.51 This promenade is made up of several lovely alleys of trees that line a woods along the Arno and that divide up large green meadows, which are singularly refreshing. Everyone is allowed to go and walk there. There are but few cities that have in their reach such a delightful promenade. At the entrance is a farm where the coaches stop and in which will be found, cleanly and carefully prepared, all the possible sorts of dairy that will be consumed with delight upon the cool grass of these charming meadows. The high society of every type who goes there, above all, on Sundays, the various little country meals that each group arranges, the crowd of carriages, the beauty, the freshness and salubriousness of the air, in a word everything, contribute to making of this delightful promenade the most diverse and enchanting spectacle.52 Beyond the Gate of the Cross are patibulary forks: emblems of Florence’s hardly harsh justice, upon which have not been seen for a long time the barbaric and inhuman spectacle of a man hung up like a calf in a butchery, all in order to teach another man that he must not do, out of his own interest, that which he sees to have been done here out of that of a

49 Sade notes: “Olivetans: congregation that is only known in Italy, where the rage to extinguish the human species multiplies in all manner of shapes. Giovanni Tolomei, Ambrogio Piccolomini, and Patricio Patrici, Sienese, were its founders, and they gallantly placed the order under the protection of the brown Mary, who by virtue of her estate must have loved those in frocks. This brotherhood established in the sixteenth century follows the Order of Saint Benedict: their clothing is white. Their general resides at Monte Oliveto in Tuscany. There are eighty monasteries dependent upon him; those in Naples and in Bologna are the largest. In some of these houses, only gentlemen are accepted. The superior takes on the title of abbot and officiates pontifically. The one in Florence is located on the San Bartolomeo mount; from there you have the loveliest view over Florence and its surroundings that you could possibly enjoy. If you wish to assess this beautiful land, you must absolutely go and spend a few hours there. Otherwise the house offers nothing of interest.” 50 Sade notes: “Cascina in Italian means ‘dairy.’ This place is a spot [sic] reserved for the prince and in which he allows promenades; pheasants are kept there.” 51 Sade notes: “An English imbecile, contrary to the custom of his nation, wanted, for I know not what purpose, to buy these lovely trees. A rogue appears and sells them to him; the Englishman pays and readies himself to have [them] cut down. This is noticed in time; he is stopped, and he pleads his permission based upon the purchase that he had made … they laugh in his face … he demands the rogue, but he has disappeared, and they continued to oppose the plan that this Englishman had to do the same to the entire avenue.” 52 Sade notes: “Given this, one is stunned that Monsier Lalande should have dared write that there are no promenades in Florence.”

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justice that certainly will not constrain him if, as it always happens, the imperious voice of Nature speaks more loudly than that of Blind Justice. On the whole, all the environs of Florence are lovely and well cultivated. It is difficult to grasp the number of different species of things that the grower harvests in the smallest plot of ground. But it is time to enter into that lovely city that Charles V said ought only to be shown on feast days. At first glance, in spite of the beauty of its paving, made up of large, flat stones, the alignment of its roads, its squares, its palaces, and its statues appears, it appears a bit sad. You might, I think, attribute this effect to the surprising height of its enormous palaces, built of dark stone, hewn in diamond heads, all of rusticated architecture, uniform, and looking like fortresses. Those of the famous houses from the time of the internal strife, such as the Strozzi, Salviati, and Capponi, are the main reason that this comparative notion arises. The awful troubles that for so long tore apart this city made these constructions necessary; one had to be sheltered in one’s home from spear thrusts and musket fire. We have seen that there was fighting in the streets and on the squares. Each was trying to expel the other from the fatherland. Pacification was sought in vain, the animosity being such that only the utter defeat of the vanquished could have appeased the frenzy of the vanquishers. Behoof,53 as we have seen, was almost always the cause of all these troubles.54 For you can truthfully say that if this god is generally Italy’s, it is doubtless in Florence that it has the most worshipers and altars. Whence the necessity of building upon high ground and raising the windows a great height above the ground floor, so as at least to find shelter in the room that the extreme heat of this climate forces one to inhabit during the summer. The old streets of Florence, unclean, narrow, and vile, might also contribute not a little to that unfavourable first sight, which I just mentioned is how this capital presents itself. Let us dare to say so. On the whole, as much in these older constructions as in the new ones, you do not make out at all, in spite of the sublime genius of the great architects who have built them – the sort of particularly celebrated architects with which this capital has swarmed – you do not make out at all, I say, that taste, that delicacy, that easy manner that we possess in abundance in France. Everything linked to the genius of the nation finds itself sacrificed to the ceremonial and nothing to convenience. You see in these lovely palaces, like in our ancient Gothic castles, those immense hearths, where the mantel is more than six feet high and before which a large family could warm itself with ease. Yet it is not without reason that this city is considered beautiful, and I will, I hope, make the case in the description. Florence is divided into four quarters. The first, located upon the left bank of the Arno, is called Santo Spirito, after the principal church in this sector. The three others are upon the right bank and also take their names from the principal churches. These are called Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and San Giovanni. Four bridges link these two parts. The most beautiful of these bridges is that of the Trinity. Ammannati built it in 1540,55 and some years later56 a terrible flood, which also 53 Sade notes: “The reader will easily grasp that what is given to be understood here is that sordid behoof for which ‘avarice’ is the synonym.” 54 Sade notes: “As it is still today the root of all those petty private cleavages.” 55 Sade notes: “Bartolomeo Ammannati was a sculptor and architect, but it was the latter talent alone that made his name. He was born in Florence in the year 1511 and died there in 1586. His various works are in Florence and in Rome, but mainly in the first of these two cities. We are sadly missing his collection of plans in which were found all those that might most embellish a city. Ferdinando de’ Medici had this work, and we are assured that it has not reappeared since. This manuscript is a dead loss, and some modern architect might someday make up for it.” 56 Marginal note: “It was, I think, in 1557.”

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ravaged the entire city of Florence, carried away the bridge, which was utterly lacking in solidity. Cosimo I had it rebuilt based upon the designs by the same architect.57 The arches were opened up more, and the entire work was, in short, constructed with more grace and solidity. This bridge that the author of the Voyage en France et en Italie has falsely stated is made of marble is only faced with it in certain spots: among which are the arches, some cornices, the moulding upon the arcades, and the coats of arms, but the supporting walls or parapets are made of stone.58 It is made up of three arches of which the centre one has an aperture of 93 feet. They used, as with ancient Roman bridges, segmental arches, which allows for the easy flow of high water, protecting it from accidents. Further, the spurs placed upon the pilings present the flow with an extremely acute angle, break its impetuousness by dividing it, and become an additional precaution taken by the creator, who becomes responsible for the lastingness of his work. One of the great beauties of this bridge is the cut and construction of the arches, which appear absolutely flat. It was by properly adapting this method and by embellishing this beautiful design that one succeeded in making the Pont d’Orléans, the surface of which is such that one can see a straw at one end from the other. To the right and left of the Bridge of the Trinity [Ponte Santa Trinità] are parapets where benches are placed in the evening. The custom in summer is to rest upon these benches, to stroll upon the bridge, and in a word, to come there to breathe and to compensate a bit for the burning heat of the day. At each bridgehead are two statues that depict the Four Seasons, made by different hands. These pieces would be considered beautiful in a land where one’s eyes were not spoiled by so many masterpieces. Two lovely streets abut this bridge. It is here that takes place all the hustle and bustle of the city; it is the most frequented crossing for the carriages that head off from there, the length of the quays that line the Arno, to the various quarters of the city. All these reasons combine to ensure that this quarter is deemed the most beautiful and most charming one in the city. Facing the Via Maggio, one of the two loveliest streets that terminate at this bridge, there are two others to its left and one to the right. Of the two to the left, one is called Il Ponte Vecchio, or the Goldsmiths’ Bridge. The only thing you note about this one is the same defect as the Pont Notre-Dame in Paris, that is, cutting off the road with the buildings on top, which like the one in France’s capital, deprives you of the pleasant sight that the row of all these bridges would offer. The other is called della Carraia; it is located at the entrance to the city, near the gates.59 It is esteemed for its remarkable solidity, but its construction is otherwise ordinary. The bridge to the right was formerly called Ponte a Rubaconte, from the name of a magistrate of the Republic who had it built. An image of the Virgin placed at the entrance, on the side of the quarter of Santo Spirito and that, it is said, does miracles, like all those of its type, and at whose shrine you see a numerous parade of people every evening, has caused it to be called the 57 Sade notes: “Both Messieurs Richard and Lalande likewise assert that this bridge was remade by Ammannati, but neither says this was the same architect who originally built it and that it was but a few years after its construction that the flood carried it away. The former says that it was Grand Duke Cosimo I who ordered its reconstruction, but doubtless forgets that a few pages before he said that Cosimo only became grand duke in 1569, which is correct. Therefore, he was not so at the time of the flood that took place in 1557. He ought simply to have said Cosimo I, but not Grand Duke Cosimo, since he was not yet so.” 58 Anon., Voyage en France, en Italie et aux îles de l’Archipel, trans. Philippe-Florent de Puisieux (Paris, 1766) remarks that that bridge is “made entirely of white marble” (3:268). 59 Marginal note: “Put the names in.” The closest gate to the bridge is the Porta San Frediano, while the road across the bridge leads directly to the Porta Romana.

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Bridge of Graces [Ponte alle Grazie]. A joker, seeing the image of the Madonna, claimed that the place of the “r” in this word ought to be changed and that the bridge would then perfectly match the name of its patron.60 On the whole, all the bridges are solidly constructed, and this quality becomes all the more necessary given that the stream of the Arno in overflowing is often quite disastrous for the city. We read, in certain quarters of Florence, inscriptions that, attesting to its great flooding, visibly prove that ground floors and even the second floors of the low quarters of the city must have been filled with water.61 I would be quite pleased to be able to grant Monsieur Lalande a little contradiction here, if not with himself, at least with what is possible, it being exceedingly contrary to my character to bring to the public’s attention blunders as major as the one that I am going to reveal. But how to silently disregard it? This famous astronomer says (page 267 of the second volume) that the Bridge of the Trinity is 319 feet long and on page 309 of the same volume, he says that the Arno is 70 toises in width as it crosses through Florence. But if the river is 420 feet wide, and the bridge were only 319 feet long, then it would necessarily follow (according to Monsieur Lalande) that the bridge would be too short for the river by a hundred feet, which would certainly make crossing over it difficult. You see in Beaune, in Burgundy, an inscription upon the town’s bridge that states that this bridge was made upon the spot. But in this case, it seems that it was not done likewise, that the artificer made his measurements poorly, and that when he delivered the bridge, it was too late to rectify the situation.62 I feel that revealing such gaffes is cause for blushing. But you will grant me that he who wrote them ought to blush even more and that it is extraordinary that people who write – and who write well – should be so blind as to cite Messieurs Richard and Lalande as those who have best written about Italy (see the introduction to Monsieur Targe’s Histoire d’Italie, vol. 1).63 To set the reader straight, let me state that this bridge is 305 feet, 3 inches long exactly, which suffices to cover the breadth of the river, which in truth at other spots, such as at the Bridge of Graces, is a bit wider; but you will never find a 100 foot difference, as would be 60 Sade notes: “This man, who doubtless didn’t have the good fortune to be of our holy and respectable religion, knew not the profound veneration that weak mortals owe to a blessed girl, in whose breast a God came to be born. Let us send that impious man to Loreto, and we will soon see him return petrified by the ineffable mystery performed by the beautiful panther, the brown Mary, and good Saint Joseph – and all with the help of a God who really must be added to every sauce.” A marginal note here adds: “Cut this nasty joke, as well as the note.” The joke consists in turning the French word grâces (graces, mercies, thanks) into garces (equivalent to “whores” or “bitches”). 61 Sade notes: “This inscription will be seen on the Santa Croce square, about thirteen feet high. It reads: A D M D L V I I xiii settembre arrivo l’aqua d’Arno a questa altezza.” That is: “In the year of our Lord 1557, on the 13th of September, the waters of Arno reached this high.” The date marks one of the most significant floods in Florentine history. 62 Sade’s witticism depends on knowing that the dramatist Alexis Piron (1689–1773) had reported that there was a bridge in Beaune with the inscription “Hîc pons factus est anno … [The bridge was made on this spot in the year…],” when the inscription should have read “Hic pons factus est anno [This bridge was built in the year…].” The Beaunois themselves protested that Piron had mischievously added the barely noticeable diacritic mark that changes the meaning of the inscription. See Régis-Jean-François Vaysse de Villiers, Description routière et géographique de l’empire Français (Paris, 1817), 19:192. 63 In his Histoire générale d’Italie, depuis la décadence de l’Empire Romain jusqu’au temps présent (Paris, 1774), Jean-Baptiste Targe explains that he has foregone a descriptive introduction to Italy because “the reader will find ample instruction upon the matter in the two works of M. de Lalande and M. l’abbé Richard” (1:14).

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required in order to justify Monsieur Lalande’s calculation. At the Old Bridge, it is a little bit less wide than at the Bridge of the Trinity. Taking measurements oneself and a bit less faith in vulgar opinions would save such authors from many a blunder. The interior of Florence contains a large number of statues, of columns, and of public monuments, erected thanks to the largesse of the Medici, who so well know how to encourage the arts. I will describe here only the most noteworthy – and these as they presented themselves to me and not by following that typographical and methodical order that the learned Monsieur Lalande imposed upon himself and that the whim of every traveller daily vexes and undoes. There are five main columns. Pope Pius V bequeathed the first, which I am going to describe, to Cosimo I. It is a beautiful column made from a single block of granite64 64 Sade notes: “Granite – Granitum: type of marble made up of very hard, small, granulated stones that a natural cement both tightly binds and holds together. It gives off sparks when struck with steel, and this is what makes it considered a hard stone, yet more composite and not as hard as porphyry. The greater or lesser strength or perfection of the stone’s cement constitutes its greater or lesser beauty and utility. It is found in various colours. In some, the base is white; in others, red. The hardest have a base of green or yellow, and these are the most beautiful. Although usually granite is called a type of marble, there is nonetheless a difference between the one and the other, and mainly in the constitutive parts: marble is a calcinable stone, whereas granite, made up of small, hard grains of vitreous matter and of a cement mingled with flecks of mica, is fire resistant without vitrifying. The quarries of Egypt provide this type of stone in abundance. We know that the kings of Egypt beautified their cities with it; we discern this from the lovely obelisks brought from this land to Rome, overturned by time or the efforts of the barbarians, and that the largesse of Sixtus V raised anew (see what is said on this topic in a note on the obelisks in the entry under the heading ‘Vatican’). The latter are a purplish red that the Italians call granito rosso. Some persons, doubtless based upon the size and immenseness of the rock, have incorrectly thought that they were artificially put together; discoveries of these singular marbles made in our climes have proven the contrary. We see white or greyish granite in the isles of the archipelago, naturally shot through with bits of blackish and brilliant talc. There is some in Constantinople that is dun, flecked with steel-coloured splotches; in Cyprus, there is some called oriental violet granite, which is marked with red and white. That of San Bonifacio in Corsica is red mixed with white splotches; in Monte Antico, near Siena, a green and black sort is found; the Romans quarried a lot from the island of Elba, which sort was reddish. In Saxony, you find a purple type; in London you see some very lovely tabletops made of red and white granite, inlaid with black, and another type, white and yellow, both of which come from the island of Minorca and are quite beautiful. England and Ireland furnish their own sorts: very hard black and white, and a most beautiful red, white, and black. In France, close to Agen, to Mont-Dauphin de Sommières, and in Burgundy, Alençon, Limoges, and Nantes, the sources of the Dordogne, in Saint-Sever in Lower Normandy, and in Granville, granite is found that, according to Monsieur Guettard and to Valmont de Bomare, could vie with that of the quarries of Siena. It is found, as with the latter granites, in rock masses of enormous size. ‘There are,’ says Monsieur Guettard,’ the same sorts in the fossils and various terrains of Egypt, Asia, and France. It seems that there is, as in France, a marlacious band that produces nothing but white building stones, surrounded by a schistose band that contains marbles, granite, and all sorts of metallic productions, and which in turn is surrounded by a purely sandy band.’ There are many provinces in France where it is unknowingly used. Rome is without doubt the city in Italy where it is put to the most use for decorative objects, remnants of the former magnificence of these masters of the world, which have successively adorned the temples of multiple idols, decorating the sanctuary of whatever one was fashionable to worship, and that perhaps in a few centuries will be rendered once again to temples erected by a new superstition. For it is with gods as with dress: History teaches us that in all epochs, man has felt obliged to recognize a being that has been in turn graced with empty names. Each century has brought, so to speak, a different cult. Atheism alone has never varied, and in whatever guise one has deemed fit to depict the gods, there have ever been found philosophers wise enough to feel that Nature has no need of a master and that the one that superstition lends her is only a monster of the imagination.” Sade is drawing from the entry “granite” in Jacques-Christophe Valmont de Bomare, Dictionnaire raisonné universel d’histoire naturelle (Yverdon, 1768), 5:194–8, and provides the citation attributed to the

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that he had taken from the thermae of Antony [i.e., the Baths of Caracalla].65 Cosimo had placed upon the top of the statue of Justice66 that was done in alabaster,67 draped in bronze, and that was placed in front of the law courts. The work has its beauties, and the details are grand in style. We only could have wished that it did not turn its back to the courts, which has made some jokers say that Justice was fleeing Florence: an allegory that, judging from the current good administration, can only be true on account of the uselessness of the sword with which the statue is armed. We cannot imagine what might have made Monsieur Lalande say that this figure was made of bronze painted a reddish colour. His astronomical glass was surely poorly adjusted that day, and his memory or his imagination just as poor as his eyesight, when he says that it is proverbial in Florence to complain allegorically that the statue of Justice is placed so high that no one can attain it. Isn’t this divinity originally located in heaven? The allegorical elevation is quite a bit greater, and yet no one complains. I have never heard in Florence any witticism arising from its position excepting that the part it presents to the men of the court is that by which you get ahead in this capital. But the one about its height has never been written down except by Misson, and it was on this basis that Monsieur Lalande copied it (see Misson, volume III, page 91, at note a).68 The second column is upon the Square of Saint Felicity [Piazza di Santa Felicità]; it is made of granite. The third supports a statue of Abundance and is located upon the Square of the Old Market [Piazza del Mercato Vecchio].

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ground-breaking mineralogist Jean-Étienne Guettard above (see 5:198). Valmont de Bomare’s source, in turn, is Guettard, Mémoire et carte minéralogique sur la nature & la situation des terreins qui traversent la France & l’Angleterre (Paris, 1746). Marginal note: “This is poorly written.” Marginal note: “Add that this statue is located across from the Church of the Holy Trinity.” Sade notes: “Alabaster – Alabastrum: Calcinable stone, less hard than marble, white the colour of flesh that makes it very apt for creating beautiful statues. It is highly transparent; there are various sorts of white, and even reddish and ruddy. That with veins or stripes is the most beautiful insofar as it comes closest to the precious stone known as onyx. There is also a type found filled with little black splotches that represent strips of grass, that resemble dendrites or herborized stones. There are some the surface of which seems to show folds or waves: this is called agate alabaster; another is sawn so that it reveals a needlelike surface; finally, there is another, found mainly in the quarries of Volterra, in Tuscany, that is milk white and quite soft. In Florence, small and quite pretty objects made of this type of alabaster are sold and that one can quite reasonably purchase. In general, alabaster being nothing other than a type of stalactite, makers of statuary like to use it less, since its softness does not allow it to take the same polish as marble. The look of alabaster is usually that of a piece of fat a bit past its prime. Two types are distinguished: the oriental and the common; the colours of the former are livelier and it has a much finer grain than the other. The importance attached to it raises its value, yet it is not rare: the region of Mâcon, Lorraine, various German provinces, and Italy furnish it. There are certain gypseous stones, about which I may have occasion to speak, that have been confused with alabaster, but which nonetheless are not; you have to know how to tell them apart. The latter have a shiny surface that true alabaster, which is a calcareous rock that effervesces when exposed to acids and turns into chalk due to calcination, does not have at all. Analysing this rock, you easily recognize that it is naught but a calcareous stalactite and that it is marble or a chalky stone that produces this stalactite.” In the margin next to this note: “Redo entirely and add more order.” In his Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), François Maximilien Misson writes: “Close to the Church of the Trinity, there is a lovely Column that supports a statue of Justice, larger than life; it is made of porphyry. It is said that the Column was formerly at the Pantheon, & that it was given by the Pope to Cosimo Gal. Guald. Prior [i.e., Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany and second Duke of Florence]. The proverb goes in Florence that Justice is so high up on it that no one can reach it” (3:91).

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The fourth, made of white marble from Serravezza, and not of granite as Monsieur Richard would have it, is located across from Saint Felix [Chiesa di San Felice], as testimony to the battle that Cosimo I won at Marciano against the Siennese. The fifth, fruit of a ridiculous superstition, is upon the Square of the Duomo, in memory of a supposed miracle carried off, it is said, by Saint Zenobius, the bishop of Florence (see Misson, volume III, page 92).69 In front of the doors of the Baptistery, located upon the same square, you still see two lovely porphyry70 columns given to the Florentines by the Pisans  – and not taken from them, as some modern writers would have it. In Florence there are more than sixty public squares to be counted. But this way of counting, which is only used by authors from the country in question or by those who, like Monsieur Lalande, have copied them, is very much of a piece with Florentine exaggeration. Of these sixty squares, there are at the very most twelve to fifteen worthy of some note. I will take the reader upon a walk through those of the latter number that have struck me as the most significant. The first and the most adorned – and the one that consequently might pass for the most beautiful, albeit irregularly shaped – is without question that of the grand duke, so called because of the statue of Cosimo I that has been erected there. It is upon this square that is located what is called the Old Palace [Palazzo Vecchio], in which were formerly held the assemblies of the Republic and which was called for this reason the Palace of the Signoria. The grand dukes resided there before moving to the Pitti Palace once Cosimo I had acquired it, and today it serves as the residence for the sovereign of Tuscany. Ferdinando I, second son of Cosimo I and 3rd Duke of Tuscany, erected this statue

69 With equal scepticism, Misson writes: “I will tell you nothing concerning the other Column that will be seen close by: it is a memorial to a supposed miracle that happened upon this spot, when the body of St Zenobius was transported from St Lawrence to the Cathedral. His chasuble, it is said, touched by chance the trunk of a dried-up tree that was there and that straightaway sprouted flowers and fruits. I forget the rest of the story” (ibid., 3:92). 70 Sade notes: “Porphyry is an opaque hard stone, harder but less dense than jasper. It is usually red or brown, sometimes violet and green. This hard stone consists of an irregular quartz called feldspar, filled with granules of felsite, which is another sort of very hard stone that looks less like a rocky marl than a granulated silex and a milky fat. These granules or splotches always run counter to the stone that serves as their matrix; they are sometimes whitish, sometimes round, and sometimes rectangular, as if crystalized and cemented together. There are some where the splotches are black and shiny. The various types of porphyry are: Red porphyry, which comes from eastern Dalarna. Egyptian brocatelle porphyry, which has yellowish splotches. The green found in Siberia and in the Auvergne; it is fairly rare. That which is called antique green porphyry is much rarer still; its splotches or rectangles are often found disposed in a cross shape. Red porphyry with black splotches, which some inappropriately call red granite. “True porphyries are very hard and very difficult to work; they spark with steel and vitrify in fire. You still see in Rome a great number of columns and vases made thereof. The ancients esteemed this stone to the point of making out of it jewels and brooches that they wore as amulets in order stop the blood and dissipate melancholy. “Monsieur Valmont de Bomare, whose learned research will guide my notes having to do with natural history and from whom I borrow the above in its entirety, has observed thereof in the forest of the Esterel, close to Fréjus, in Provence. He says that its beauty and hardness are more than the equals of Arabian porphyry.”

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to his father in 1594. It is the work of Giambologna,71 done in a grand style and in which unites some most assured beauties. The horse, however, is not as lovely as the rest; Monsieur Cochin with reason found it a bit stiff.72 As for the main figure, it is well done. The bas-reliefs seem even better than the work as a whole, in spite of the opinion of Monsieur Lalande, who characterized them as mediocre, all doubtless with the same eyes as those that made him see the comet that a few years back was going to consume the universe in fire.73 These bas-reliefs that take up the four sides of the pedestal depict: On the first one, there is following inscription: COSMO MEDICI MAGNO ETRURIÆ DUCI PRIMO, PIO, FELICI, INVICTO, IVSTO, CLEMENTI; SACRÆ MILITIÆ PACISQUE IN ETRVIA AUTHORI. PATRI ET PRINCIPI OPTIMO FERDINANVS MAGNVS DVX III EREXIT A M. D L X X X X IIII.74

The second is Cosimo unanimously acknowledged by his fellow citizens as worthy of being their commander. 71 Sade notes: “Jean de Boulogne [known as Giambologna], disciple of Michelangelo, who must not be confused with Il Bolognese [i.e., Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi] nor with the engraver Giovanni da Castel Bolognese, was from Boulogne in Picardy. He was as successful in small compositions as in large ones. I have been unable to procure more extensive anecdotes about this artist. He flourished in the sixteenth century and was the pupil of Michelangelo. His principal works are in Florence, where he died around 1600. The horse of Henry IV in Paris is by him.” In the margins by this note: “Rewrite this item; it is poorly written and not cohesive.” 72 In his Voyage d’Italie, ou Recueil de Notes sur les Ouvrages de Peinture & de Sculpture, qu’on voit dans les principales villes d’Italie (Paris, 1773), Charles-Nicolas Cochin writes: “There are in Florence two equestrian statues, made of bronze, one in front of the old palace, the other in front of the Church of the Annunziata: they are both good. The horses are good, although without one being able to say that they are quite beautiful; the muscles on them are not sensed with taste & it seems that everything is stiffly handled” (1:95–6). 73 Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, beyond his work as a travel writer, was first and foremost an astronomer. Sade’s jocular reference is to an episode in which Lalande was thought to have predicted at a presentation to the Académie des Sciences in Paris the imminent end of our planet – 20 May 1773, in this instance – thanks to an incoming comet and to the public panic that ensued. Lalande’s actual view was clarified with the publication of his Réflexions sur les comètes qui peuvent approcher de la Terre [Reflections on comets that might come close to the Earth] (Paris, 1773). Voltaire addressed the hysteria in a pamphlet entitled Lettre sur la prétendue comète [Letter on the supposed comet] (Lausanne, 1773) that, although dismissing the fears of “some Parisians who are not philosophical and who, if we are to believe them, will not have the time to become so,” more or less exonerated Lalande without naming him: “[These Parisians] await that day for a comet that must needs take our little globe from the rear and reduce it to impalpable dust, according to a certain prediction from the Académie des Sciences, which was not at all made” (5–6). 74 Translated: “To Cosimo de’ Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, pious, blessed, unconquered, just, clement; to the founder of the holy militia and of peace in Tuscany; erected by Grand Duke Ferdinando, the 3rd, to the best of fathers and of princes in the year 1594.” The inscription is somewhat confusing in that although Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1549–1609) was the third to hold the title Grand Duke of Tuscany, he was the first Ferdinando to do so. In 1561, Cosimo de’ Medici founded the Holy Military Order of Saint Stephen Pope and Martyr, usually known simply as the Order of Saint Stephen.

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The third is his triumphal entry into Siena, after he had rejoined it to the duchy. In the fourth, you see him kneeling before Pope Pius V, who is conferring upon him the title of grand duke. You read the following inscription: OB ZELVM RELIGIONIS PRÆCIVVMQUE IVSTITIÆ STVDIUM.75

In one of the corners of this square is an octagonal fountain that Cosimo I had built under Ammannati’s direction. It is octagonal in shape; the main figure is a Neptune some fifteen or sixteen feet high, accompanied by three tritons. The god of the seas stands upon a conch that four seahorses are pulling. The whole is made of variously coloured marbles. The complements, made up of fifteen different bronze statues, some reclining and others upright, depict all the aquatic deities; they are said to be by Giambologna. The ensemble is well done but there is a bit too much pretension in the details, from which one might possibly adduce some faults against Nature. On the whole, there is verve and genius in this entire work; the execution is beautiful, easy, and all this fountain is lacking is a bit more water and a more advantageous location. The whole is protected and surrounded by an iron balustrade that, furthermore, has nothing remarkable about it. A large portico in the Gothic architectural style built from the designs of Andrea Orcagna takes up one of the sides of this square.76 The covered space that this portico creates is called the loggia. Upon a plinth about four feet high stand large arcades of semicircular arches that make up this structure, which had to be kept from falling down at the beginning of this century. Under each is a lovely group. The first depicts the Rape of the Sabines, done in marble by Giambologna, a truly sublime piece and that by itself made him immortal. All the postures are correct, all the expressions are felt, and throughout this work there reigns a fire and verve so striking that you might dare venture that it is almost worthy of the finest chisels of Antiquity. The pedestal of this monument is adorned with a bronze bas-relief that depicts the entire story from which is taken the episode that provided this grand subject. The second group depicts Perseus arriving to cut off Medusa’s head. The Gorgon is at his feet; in one hand the hero holds her head; in the other, the weapon that just served him.77 75 Translated: “On account of zeal for religion and especially pursuit of justice.” 76 Sade notes: “Andrea Orcagna, like almost all Italian artists, gathered together the three genres of painting, sculpture, and architecture. But it was the first of these talents that best served to make him known, and what remains by him allows you to see that if he had had better models, he might have become still more famous. Orcagna, born in Florence in 1329, in an era when the return of the arts was still yet in its infancy, could but follow. Yet in him is to be remarked an easy genius. It was in Pisa that he did most of his work; there he painted a Judgment Day in which he placed all his friends in Heaven and all his enemies in Hell. He died in Florence in 1389 at the age of sixty. His virtue, his gaiety, and his talents made him loved, sought out, and everywhere esteemed.” In the margin of this note: “Not cohesive. Rewrite better and more cohesion.” 77 Sade notes: “To comprehend this statue and the accompanying bas-relief requires familiarity with two myths charmingly described in Ovid. An informed reader needs only to have the essence recalled at this point. For the statue: Perseus was the son of Jupiter and Danaë, the fruit of this god’s love when he metamorphosed into golden rain in order to ravish the daughter of Acrisius. This king of Argos, furious because of the shame brought upon his daughter, had her exposed upon the sea in a wretched boat. Good fortune brought her to the island of Seriphos. Polydectes, who was king upon this island, courteously received Danaë, but subsequently fell in love with her. Perseus, grown up, hindered him; he [i.e., Polydectes] sought to distance him, and he ordered him to go and do battle with the Gorgons, daughters of Phorcys, horrible creatures that had among them but one eye that they employed in turns and whose hair consisted of horrible

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This piece, done in bronze, is not without animation – you will truly find some therein – but it is nonetheless less natural than the one that I have just mentioned. Upon the pedestal is a bas-relief, likewise made of bronze, which depicts the myth of Andromeda and Perseus. The whole is the work of Benvenuto Cellini, fine artist from the reign of Cosimo I, whose taste for the arts cannily united in his capital all the most celebrated names of Italy.78 One recalls with pleasure, when examining this piece, these lines from Ovid in which the poet has his hero himself recount the dreadful adventure with the Gorgon: Narrat Abantiades [i.e., Agenorides]; gelido sub Atlante jacentem Esse locum, solidae tutum munimine molis, Cujus in introitu geminas habitasse sorores Phorcyda[s], unius partitas luminis usum. Id se sollerti furtim, dum traditur, astu Supposita cepisse manu; perque abdita longe Deviaque et silvis horrenti[a] saxa fragosis, Gorgoneas tetigisse domos, passimque per agros Perque vias vidisse hominum simulacra ferarumque In silicem ex ipsis visa conversa Medusa; Se tamen horrendae, clipei quod laeva gerebat Aere repercusso, formam adspexisse Medusae: Dumque gravis somnus colubrasque ipsamque tenebat, Eripuisse caput collo; pennisque fugacem Pegason et fratrem, matris de sanguine natos.79 serpents. Medusa was their queen. Perseus had orders to bring her head, and as one of the powers of this woman’s gaze was to petrify all upon whom she looked, Perseus had need of aid. Child of the lord of the gods, he could hope to get some from Olympus. Minerva gave him her shield, Pluto his helm, Mercury his wings. Perseus vanquished the Gorgons and brought back the head of Medusa. The lines that I have cited from Ovid explain much better still this lovely group. Various ancient authors are not in agreement about the person of Medusa. Some say that she was a very beautiful girl who, with her gaze, petrified all who looked upon her; Pindar, Virgil, Diodorus, Athenaeus, Palaephatus, all reason in different ways. One could, by consulting these various authors, see in each one his different view and the way in which they have explained the allegory, which does not have to do with the subject before us.   “As for comprehension of the bas-relief, it is enough to recall that Andromeda – daughter of Cepheus, king of Aethiopia, and of Cassiopeia – who had the temerity to believe that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, incited the vengeance of Neptune. Consequently, this god created a sea monster that laid waste to the country. The oracle Jupiter Ammon having been consulted on the means to put paid to this scourge, answered that it was necessary to expose Andromeda to the rage of the monster. This was done. The young princess was exposed, but Perseus, mounted on Pegasus, which Minerva had lent him, came to her rescue, killed the monster, and married the young princess (see Ovid, Metam., book IV).” 78 Sade notes: “Benvenuto Cellini was Florentine, he united several talents, even including that of soldier. Clement VII, who knew his bravery, entrusted him with the protection of the Castel Sant’Angelo during the troubles agitating the Holy See during his pontificate. Benvenuto defended it with valour. Several princes, including among others Francis I, honoured him with their esteem and favoured him with their generosity. Cellini had begun with goldsmithery, then developed a taste for engraving, and next for painting and sculpture. We have several written works by him: 1st, his life; 2nd, a treatise on sculpture; 3rd, one on the way to handle gold. This man, who was furthermore praiseworthy for his virtues and his morals, was born in Florence in 1500 and died there at the age of seventy.” 79 Translated: “[The descendant of Agenor, i.e., Perseus] told how beneath cold Atlas there was a place safe under the protection of the rocky mass. At the entrance to this place two sisters dwelt, both daughters of old Phorcys, who shared one eye between them. This eye by craft and stealth, while it was being passed

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And casting your eyes upon the bas-relief, you are pleased to rediscover these: Clauserat Hippotades aeterno carcere ventos, Admonitorque operum caelo clarissimus alto Lucifer ortus erat. Pennis ligat ille resumptis Parte ab utraque pedes, teloque accingitur unco, Et liquidum motis talaribus aera findit. Gentibus innumeris circumque infraque relictis, Aethiopum populos Cepheaque conspicit arva. Illic immeritam maternae pendere linguae Andromedam poenas immitis jusserat Ammon. Quam simul ad duras religatam brachia cautes Vidit Abantiades, nisi quod levis aura capillos Moverat, et tepido manabant lumina fletu, Marmoreum ratus esset opus. Trahit inscius ignes, Et stupet et, visae correptus imagine formae, Paene suas quatere est oblitus in aere pennas. Ut stetit: ’O, dixit, non isti digna catenis, Pande requirenti nomen terraeque tuumque, Sed quibus inter se cupidi juguntur amantes.80

The third group is Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, statue that seems dangerous to allow standing in a monarchical state and that, apart from the indecency and ridiculousness of this historical episode, is handled by Donatello with all the force and vigour imaginable.81 The particularity of this subject is excused when one knows that this from one sister to the other, Perseus stole away, and travelling far through trackless and secret ways, rough woods, and bristling rocks, he came at last to where the Gorgons lived. On all sides through the fields and along the ways he saw forms of men and beasts changed into stone by one look at Medusa’s face. But he himself had looked upon the image of that dread face reflected from the bright bronze shield his left hand bore; and while deep sleep held fast both the snakes and her who wore them, he smote her head clear from her neck, and from the blood of his mother swift-winged Pegasus and his brother sprang.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 1[bk.4, ll.772–86]:232–3. Both Abantiades (descendant of Abas) and Agenorides (descendant of Agenor) are circumlocutions for Perseus in Ovid’s poem. 80 Translated: “Now Aeolus, the son of Hippotas, had shut the winds in their prison beneath Etna, and the bright morning star that wakes men to their toil had risen in the heavens. Then Perseus bound on both his feet the wings he had laid by, girt on his hooked sword, and soon in swift flight was cleaving the thin air. Having left behind countless peoples all around him and below, he spied at last the Ethiopians and Cepheus’s realm. There unrighteous Ammon had bidden Andromeda, though innocent, to pay the penalty of her mother’s words. As soon as Perseus saw her there bound by the arms to the rough cliff – save that her hair gently stirred in the breeze, and the warm tears were trickling down her cheeks, he would have thought her a marble statue – he took fire unwitting, and stood dumb. Smitten by the sight of the beauty he sees, he almost forgot to move his wings in the air. Then, when he alighted near the maiden, he said: ‘Oh! those are not the chains you deserve to wear, but rather those that link fond lovers together!’” Metamorphoses, 1[bk.4, ll.663–80]:224–7. 81 Sade notes: “Donatello, Florentine, was an architect and sculptor. He considered this group of Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes his masterpiece. On the whole, this artist can be thought of as one of the restorers of fine sculpture. The statue of Gattamelata that the Venetians had erected to this general of their troops upon one of the squares of Padua is by him. I will note in their places his other works, if the

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celebrated artist did this piece for the Senate of Florence, during those troubled times when one regarded as suspect anything that might tend to the seizure of public liberty. But today the subjugated Florentines ought to suffer at the sight of this statue, which must needs perpetually remind them of the era in which it was made. And it seems that they ought to have broken it with the same hand with which they crowned Cosimo I. Monsieur Richard has Jesuitically found confidence and courage in the heroine’s face. As for me, I found nothing but impudence and audacity. At the base of this iniquitous monument will be read: PVBLICÆ SALVTIS EXEMPLVM CIVES POSVERE.82

These words were all that was lacking to make better felt the current inconsistency of allowing it to stand. This is great proof of the goodness of princes and of their trust, or rather of their fear of their subjects. For if the first of these can be conceived, the second can likewise serve as an explanation, due to the dread with which they would be stricken if making it perceptible that they understood the danger thereof.83 At the entrance to the Palace of the Signoria will also be seen two other groups of the greatest beauty: one the work of Michelangelo and depicting David killing Goliath;84 the opportunity presents itself. He flourished at the outset of the fifteenth century, and not of the sixteenth, as Monsieur Richard would have it. Cosimo the Great employed him for various works, but Cosimo was alive in the middle of the fifteenth century.” Marginal note on this note: “This artist came into the world in 1383. Lorenzo di Bicci was his drawing master. He was contemporary with Brunelleschi. Roberto Maretti [i.e., Martelli] supported him and Cosimo, father of the Fatherland, had him do much work. We read, in the Lives of Famous Painters and Sculptors [by Vasari], a charming anecdote about a challenge between these two artists [Brunelleschi and Donatello], the subject of which was a Christ.” Another marginal note: “To be rewritten.” The anecdote to which Sade refers begins when Donatello asks his friend Brunelleschi to give him an honest opinion of a crucifixion he has just carved and that he believes to be excellent. Brunelleschi, his expectations high, finds that the work is not so impressive after all and offers the criticism that the body of Christ is that of a peasant. Donatello, offended, tells his friend that he should try to do better. Taking up the challenge, Brunelleschi discreetly carves his own crucifixion and then, months later, invites his friend for a meal. The two are on their way to Brunelleschi’s house from the market when the latter, feigning an errand, tells Donatello to take the ingredients, go to his home, and wait for him. Donatello enters and sees the carving. Awestruck, he drops what he was carrying, including eggs. He is still agog when Brunelleschi returns and asks Donatello what the eating plan is now. He responds: “I’ve had my share for this morning. If you want yours, you take it. But no more, please. Your job is making Christs, and mine is making peasants.” Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, ed. and trans George Bull (New York: Penguin, 1987), 176. 82 “The citizens erected this example of public welfare.” 83 Sade notes: “I will not provide any explanatory note for this already too-well-known fable, and one that never had the least basis. We know at present that the Book of Judith is a parable made up to console the Jews during the era when Antiochus Epiphanes came into Judea. It is before such statues, paintings of this sort, that Jacques Clément, Ravaillac, Damiens, and their ilk went to fire their minds, to commune, and to commit to crime. It has been noted – not exactly flatly, I will admit – that peoples who did not believe in a god made man, who did not fancy that one might eat this god in some bread, would not assassinate their kings.” 84 Sade notes: “Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Chiusi, one of the twelve ancient Etruscan towns of which the historians speak, in 1474. His family, of which there are still descendants in Florence, was of good and ancient stock. Michelangelo suckled, so to speak, the milk of the arts: his nurse was the wife of a sculptor, and Nature served him so well from birth that one was promptly obliged to give him a master. His talents developed with such rapidity that at the age of sixteen, his first attempts were already comparable to Antiquity. An infinite number of popes and princes employed him. Lorenzo de’ Medici, who unfortunately rather for his criminal pleasures than for the encouragement of the arts, had established

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The Bacchus that Raphael took for made by Phidias or by Praxiteles was probably of this number. On the whole, this famous man’s brush brought together the proud, the dreadful – and always the grand and beautiful nature. But he never prettified it, so much did he fear departing from it, and that grand nobility at which he always aimed often did harm to gracefulness. He has also been reproached for too much cheerlessness in his use of colour, which he sometimes made a bit too red. Certain of his figures are noteworthy for their excessive force, and the simple art lover might have desired in him less learning and more charm. Be that as it may, it can be said that if he was not the best painter in his century, he was at least the most learned draftsman. “The gentle and upright mores of Michelangelo no longer permit us to believe in the story published about him, concerning a wretch that he crucified, it is said, to better render the moment of death in a Christ that he was painting, which will be seen in the Charterhouse in Naples. Moreover, the model was wrong. The contortions of Christ, dying willingly and as a madman desirous of immortality, must have been quite different from those of a wretch taken by force, dying against his will, and in the utter anguish of coercion and violence. I am quite far from condoning what is indubitably such a violent and intolerable excess for an art as frivolous as painting. But if something in the world could make such a crime tolerable, it would be the art of surgery: an art necessary to human preservation and for the perfection of which an experiment done in a living state would perhaps shed light upon a huge number of doubts and conjectures, which never will be on account of the foolish and ridiculous timidity that prevents sacrificing a villain whose life is good for nothing, to learn perhaps how to preserve those of a hundred thousand subjects useful to the State. But we have not yet reached that point in philosophy necessary for this useful tolerance, and it is certainly much more worthwhile to allow justice annually to assassinate fifty or sixty thousand citizens, who have done no other wrong than to prefer their interests to those of their neighbour, than to allow the useful arts to be extended at the expense of some obscure beings whose annihilation, indifferent to the entire universe, would perhaps enable the preservation of those whose existence is so precious to it. The Romans, masters of the entire universe, reckoned the life of men as less when, for the mere amusement of the people, they threw them to the beasts in the amphitheatre. Are we wiser and more virtuous now that there is no longer but a specific class that has the right to sacrifice them to their whims or to their inanity? “All of Italy possesses precious treasures issued from the various talents of Michelangelo. But Rome, Florence, Venice, and Bologna are the main places where he left the most of these. Some are to be seen in Versailles, and others in the Palais-Royal, which were doubtless bought at great expense. We know that this [artist] had in his possession the three genres and that he excelled in all three. He was the student of Ghirlandaio, a Florentine painter, for whom such a pupil constituted his entire worth and who soon enough was pained to see himself surpassed by him. [Pope] Julius II gave him some dissatisfaction, and soon sought to see him again. Seeing that this disgrace had distanced from Rome one whom he had considered before as his friend and the greatest artist that Italy had had since its prime centuries, he recalled him. In the end, Michelangelo, honoured by his masters who had even sent him upon a mission to the Supreme Pontiff, died in Rome in 1564, after having served seven popes and two emperors, all of whom showered him with honours. The popes made him sit before them; and Cosimo de’ Medici took off his hat to speak to him. Even jealous to possess after his death, Cosimo I had his body taken from the Church of the Holy Apostles where he was in Rome and had him transferred to the Church of the Holy Cross in Florence, where his ashes rest today beneath a magnificent mausoleum that every artist and every poet rushes to adorn, and where they still caress in tears the three statues of the different arts that he cultivated with such superiority.” A marginal note here states: “This bit is one of the most poorly written. Give it cohesion and begin by rereading entirely beforehand. But you can dispense with doing research; this is all done and you have all that is required.”

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other by Bandinelli depicting the battle between Hercules and Cacus,85 which has the merit of being yet more beautiful, even after the group by Michelangelo.86 Close to here are also two statues depicting herms that, although much inferior to the objects about which I have just spoken, are not, however, without merit nor worthy of the scorn that Monsieur Cochin heaped upon them. Also to be admired upon this square, before leaving it, is the façade of the Uguccione house, located across from the customs house, work by Michelangelo that leaves nothing to be desired, neither with regard to taste nor with regard to the beauty of its execution. Close by is the elongated and narrow square formed by the buildings of the Medici Galleries [i.e., Galleria degli Uffizi] and made based upon Vasari’s designs.87 This square, which Monsieur Lalande compares for I know not what reason to that of San Marco in Venice and that certainly in no wise resembles it, is properly speaking nothing but a sort of interior courtyard that creates a rectangle adorned with porticoes. Of the two long sides, one of them terminates at the loggia and the other very close to the building of the Palazzo Vecchio. A street passes between, and above, you see, forming an arch over the street, the communication corridor that links these two objects [i.e., the Medici Galleries and the Palazzo Vecchio] and that, in unbroken sequence, even crossing the river over the Ponte Vecchio, eventually terminates at the Pitti Palace, which is quite a long stretch, the work of Cosimo, who wanted to pass under cover from one of these palaces to the other.88 The first level is composed of pilasters and of columns in the Doric order. Above is a mezzanine. Over the mezzanine is a second level lit by large windows, and finally a third decorated with columns. All of the architecture upon this square is stately. A large archway flanked by small porticoes opens it onto the riverside and makes one of the short sides of the rectangle; 85 Sade notes: “Baccio Bandinelli was born in Florence in 1471; he died there in 1559. Imitator, rival, and contemporary of Michelangelo, like him he brought together the genres of painting and of sculpture, but his canvases were absolutely lacking with regard to coloration and did not have, like those of his compatriot, that superiority of drawing made to recompense. Baccio abandoned the former genre to give himself over entirely to the latter, and his chisel alone made him immortal.” 86 Sade notes: “Cacus, son of Vulcan, was an infamous monster whose refuge was on the Aventine Hill. Virgil painted him as frightfully large and having only half a human body. He vomited forth flames, and bloody remains were ever seen at the door of his frightful abode. Hercules, pasturing his herds on the bank of the Tiber, fell asleep. Cacus came and stole eight oxen and forced them backwards into his den in order to hide from Hercules the traces of this theft. But Caca, sister of the monster, informed our hero. Hercules lent an ear and heard, in fact, the lowing of his cattle. He hies to the monster’s refuge, tears away the rock that prevents entry therein, braves the flames exhaled by the monster, seizes him, clamps down upon his throat, and strangles him. This is the moment that the artist has captured.” 87 Sade notes: “Giorgio Vasari was born in Arezzo in Tuscany in 1511 and died in Florence at the age of sixty-four in 1575. He was a student of Michelangelo and of Andrea del Sarto. Need alone put the brush in his hand. He was too neglectful of colouring and his works no longer stand out much today. The role of ornamentation, which he understood well, urged him to give himself over to architecture. The Medici employed him for a long time. His memory was so prodigious that at nine years of age he knew the entire Aeneid by heart. He furnished a Life of the Painters in which today modern writers dealing with the same topic draw. May God grant that they be more accurate and more aloof from the reasons that committed Vasari to praise his contemporaries and that they be less adulatory and truer. It was in Florence and Rome that this artist worked the most, although some of his compositions will also be seen in Naples; but these are much rarer than in the former two cities. I will describe in the appropriate spot those of his compositions that I will have the occasion to discuss.” 88 Sade is describing the enclosed passageway built in 1565 and known as the Vasari Corridor, or Corridoio Vasariano, commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, who not unreasonably wanted a secure connection between his properties.

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the other allows free access on the Palazzo Vecchio side of the square and is not closed off by anything. The proportions that I will provide of the interior rooms, which run the entire length of the three wings, will explain those of the square. You will see that it is not one hundred toises long, as the not-so-accurate Monsieur Lalande has it. I do not know whether imagination here lends its charms to art, but the sombreness that reigns in this square, the simple beauty of its architecture, everything elevates and enlarges the soul; you feel gripped by something celestial that announces that you are here in the forecourt of the Temple of the Arts. Messieurs Cochin and Lalande have found flaws in the top level; they [these flaws] can, I admit, be striking separately but that do not at all trouble the sensation that the whole makes felt. It is through this sort of long square that mask wearers pass all day long during Carnival time. Under the porticoes of the two wings are located various offices, which gives this part the name gli Uffizi; and above, on one side are the lodgings of the labourers working on the famous Florence mosaic and on the other the Magliabechi Library.89 In what follows, I will have occasion to discuss in detail both of these things. In the wing that overlooks the Quay of the Arno and that links the two others, you see a lovely statue of Cosimo I on foot made by Giambologna, flanked by two other reclining figures attributed to Vincenzo Danti.90 These statues crown the large portico that makes up this small linking wing and finally lends the entire structure a feeling of grandeur and magnificence. From this square, you return to that of the grand duke and via fairly straight small streets you arrive at the one called that of the Dome, il Duomo being the name by which a cathedral is designated throughout Italy. This square, as irregularly shaped as the other, has as main sights the cathedral, the tower or campanile, the baptistery, which I will soon describe, and the column of which I have spoken. There is nothing noteworthy about it other than its customary use as a meeting place, in the evening, for all the carriages that the hour of the closing of the gates quite often forces to return, as I have observed, at the time most favourable for promenading and that come here because it is one of the most open spots in the city, in order to pass what is known as the first hour in Italy and, in a nutshell, to await the customary time to meet for conversations or gatherings, known and called by this name, at which one arrives only at one or one thirty in the night.91 The best and most renowned cafés are upon this square, and it is here that the gallant cicisbeo must parade his magnificence, quite certain only to be prized in his beauty’s mind on account of the extent of his gifts, for if Florentine ladies give little, they receive a lot, and it has for a long while

89 Originally the enormous private collection of Antonio Magliabechi (1633–1714), which he bequeathed to the city of Florence. In 1747, the so-called Magliabechiana was opened to the public and in 1861 merged with the Biblioteca Palatina Lorenese. Together they formed the basis of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. 90 Sade notes: “Vincenzo Danti, son of Pietro Vincenzo Danti, from the Rinaldi family of Perugia, who was given this famous name because of his facility in imitating the lines of the famous Dante. The one in question here was a mathematician, painter, and sculptor. He was tasked with making a plan for the Escurial in Madrid; he sent it back. Philip II, King of Spain, was so taken with it that he offered him riches to come and carry it out. Danti refused; the delicacy of his health was the pretext that he used to temper his excuse, and he preferred the pleasure of being useful to his fatherland. He died in Perugia in the year 1576 at the age of forty-six.” 91 Sade notes: “The reader knows and has seen in every account that you begin counting hours in Italy starting from sunset and from then up to twenty-four hours. Watches are made and set accordingly. I will not repeat here the explanations found on every page of our modern travellers.”

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been set down that in order to be welcome with them, one must advertise money as much as physical faculties. Leaving the Square of the Duomo, you must go to that of the Annunziata, adorned with porticoes and graced with a bronze statue by Giambologna that depicts Ferdinando I on horseback; the base is made of granite. The inscription to be read there explains that it was [erected] in 1640 in honour of [viz., as a tribute undertaken by] Ferdinando II, nephew of the former. The metal of this statue was taken from cannons and other bronze weapons that the Tuscan galleys took from corsairs. There is much that is beautiful about this statue, and you do not note with respect to the horse the same inaccuracies as with the one in the Square of the Grand Duke, which is nevertheless fashioned by the same hand. I saw nothing of that stiffness, I admit, with which Monsieur Lalande reproaches it. But ways of seeing are as various as tastes, and we must not dispute them. On either side of this statue are two fountains grotesquely wrought by [Pietro] Tacca.92 Monsieur Lalande incorrectly calls these ornaments mermen; they are grotesques, which represent nothing and relate to everything – but they are no more mermen than some other thing. This square, moreover nicely built, is perhaps one of the most regular in Florence. The Square of the New Market [Mercato Nuovo] once served as the gathering spot for merchants, back when commerce was vital in Florence. You see there a sort of loggia or exchange, a rather stately structure, supported by columns and built following the plans of Bernardo Tasso [viz., Giovanni Battista del Tasso] in 1548. In the upper part of this building public documents were formerly deposited. These are now brought to San Michele in Orto, as I will soon explain. Monsieur Grosley is mistaken when he says (page 202 of volume III) that the custom is still to deposit copies in the upper rooms of this structure.93 This has not been done for quite a while. Beneath this loggia, you see a bronze 92 Sade notes: “Tacca or Tadda, fifteenth-century sculptor, possessed, it is said, a secret by dint of which he did what he wished with porphyries and other hard marbles. He carried out the experiment in front of Cosimo the Great. He made several works that are quite esteemed. Otherwise, we have few certain anecdotes about him, and his quite fabulous secret did not survive him. Those responsible for the Dictionnaire d’Italie, who did not tax themselves with exactness to any extent beyond slavishly copying the likes of Richard, Grosley, Lalande, and others, have set down in the entry on this artist – doubtless based upon one of the aforementioned gentlemen – the most beautiful anachronism that a man of letters might commit. They assert that Tadda flourished in the fourteenth century and that he did the portrait of Grand Duke Cosimo and of his wife, neither of whom existed prior to the sixteenth century. If we suppose that they would have, Tadda being born right at the end of the fourteenth century, that is to say, in 1399, and that they would have him doing the portrait of the grand duke and of his wife in 1540, which is the earliest that he could have done so, since this prince was born in 1519 and in likelihood only married twenty years later, it would then require – after all these suppositions that are the most likely ones that we can attribute to these gentlemen – it would then require, I say, that Tadda did the portrait of this prince at the age of one hundred and forty one, which you will grant me is a little improbable! Yet here is the accuracy with which all travels in Italy have been treated up to the present. Let it be said that this goal, however many times one might have tried, remains yet to be reached.” Sade is himself doubly mistaken. First, he confuses Pietro Tacca, a seventeenth-century sculptor born in Carrara and who died in 1640, with Francesco Ferrucci, dubbed del Tadda. Sade is clearly referring to the latter, and here he makes another mistake, since Ferrucci del Tadda, who was born in Fiesole and who died in 1585, was indeed the contemporary of Cosimo I and his wife, of whom he made porphyry busts. He was renowned for his ability to carve this type of stone. 93 In his Nouveaux Mémoires, ou Observations sur l’Italie et sur les Italiens, par deux Gentilshommes Suédois (London, 1764), Pierre-Jean Grosley remarks that Florentines always had an eye to posterity and this is why for several centuries they have “for the preservation of acts of interest to the fortune and state of the

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boar that shoots water out of its snout; the basin into which the water falls is graced with a hem or rim of bronze upon which several very artistically rendered aquatic animals have been engraved. The artist responsible for these embellishments is unknown, but the boar, a lovely copy of the one made of precious ancient marble that will be seen in the Medici Gallery, was made by Tacca or Tadda [i.e., Pietro Tacca], whom I mentioned just previously. The ancient one, which will be seen in the part of that gallery where the fire started, has, in truth, suffered a bit from the blaze, but it did not perish, as Monsieur Richard asserts, and it is still there for the admiration of connoisseurs.94 Absolutely nothing essential was lost in that fire. Moreover, not a single traveller provides us with a description of the paving of this loggia. Notwithstanding, we find here an interesting object, and I beg my readers to direct their gaze thereupon, daring to assure them that they will see with satisfaction a marble wheel designed to call up the idea of the carroccio or chariot that the Republic of Florence used when waging war and upon which was a bell that served to give the battle signal. I was stunned to see that the meticulous Monsieur Lalande had nary a word to say about this object, which recalling a historical characteristic linked to national mores, seemed to me by that alone worthy of finding a place in his dissertation. The covered market or Mercato del Grano creates yet another rather stately portico, the columns of which are lovely and each made of a single piece. At one of the corners will be seen a rather pretty fountain made of white marble.95 The Square of the Old Market [Mercato Vecchio] has nothing of note other than the column that I mentioned, which marks the centre of the city and from which can be measured the mile that I have said will be found from this point to each of the gates of the city. A portico, beneath which various markets take place, graces one of the sides of this square. Saint Mark’s Square. You must pass through here and stop for a moment to reflect upon the inanity of the past centuries that refused a sepulchre for the famous Galilei, who was buried in this square – and not in that of the Holy Cross, as Monsieur Lalande says – at the foot of the first step of the church,96 whence it cost unimaginable trouble for him to be exhumed in order to be transported to the Church of the Holy Cross, where will be seen the monument to this great man that will give me an opportunity to discuss him.

Citizens” thought up a method that “gives an air of barbarity to the best policed of our Northern countries.” He explains that this method is to have two depositories for these acts, one in the Church of Orsanmichele and the other in “the vast suits of rooms that occupy the upper part of the New Market,” that is, Mercato Nuovo (3:201–2). He then describes in detail the method of deposit, along with the wisdom of duplication and of keeping the storage facilities separate. 94 The ancient sculpture of the wild boar was discovered in Rome and given by Pope Pius IV to Cosimo I. Originally placed in the Palazzo Pitti, the sculpture was moved to the Uffizi in 1683. Damaged in the Uffizi fire of 1762, it was subsequently restored. The boar was thus likely not on view when Richard made his visit. On this sculpture, see Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500–1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 161–3; and Giovanni di Pascale and Fabrizio Paolucci, Uffizi: The Ancient Sculptures, trans. Catherine Frost (Florence: Giunti Gruppo Editoriale, 2001), 69. 95 Marginal note: “Find out whether this is not the same thing as the Old Market.” It was not. 96 Sade notes: “Or of the door of the Dominican noviciate, as Monsieur Grosley, whom I will not contradict, writes. His entry on this topic is handled with detail and erudition (see pages 185 and following, volume III).” Grosley states that Galileo “as a heretic strongly suspected of being a relapsus” had been “interred on profane ground, on the square of Saint Mark’s, opposite the door of the noviciate of the Dominicans” (Nouveaux Mémoires, 3:188).

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Leaving Saint Mark’s Square, you return to the right to take that lovely street called via Larga, which terminates on Saint Lawrence’s Square [Piazza San Lorenzo], upon which you must see a pedestal that is triangular in shape and that was supposed to be used for the statue of Giovanni de’ Medici, father of Cosimo I, which was put in the Old Palace. Bandinelli, who created the bas-reliefs that you see upon this base, sought his revenge upon Baldassare Turini, datary of Leo X, concerning whom he had a grudge. You become convinced that this is so when you see the foolish role that he has been made to play in this depiction: he has him carrying a pig upon his shoulders.97 These bas-reliefs depict the victories of Giovanni de’ Medici; they are handled with much art and warmth. Close by is the Square of Saint Mary the New [Santa Maria Novella] upon which will be noted two small pyramids erected at either end of the square and that serve as start and finish markers for the chariot races: famous games that are celebrated in Florence every year, the eve of Saint John the Baptist, doubtless following the example of those that were celebrated in the circuses. These pyramids are made of marble and rest upon bronze tortoises that raise them some eight or nine inches above the pedestal that supports them. This square is, furthermore, rather lovely; the portico of the church that gives it its name is its main adornment. It is from this square to the one of the Holy Cross that the promenade along the race route during Carnival takes place, and it is there that the mask wearers assemble. The latter creates a rectangle and is not noteworthy other than for its use for that custom. It is usually surrounded by a rather ugly wooden balustrade that spoils it, the purpose of which is to prevent carriages from passing through the centre. This promenade along the race route is organized in the same manner as the one along the boulevards in Paris: soldiers ensure that the lines are respected and the pyramids upon the Square of Saint Mary the New serve, yet again, as start and finish markers for the coachmen upon this occasion. When it happens that few vehicles are promenading, they are happy to turn along the length of the barricades at the Saint Mark’s Square, and it is only when the show becomes larger that the lines stretch to the Square of Saint Mary the New. The Church of the Holy Cross, located at the back of the square that I have just described, gives it its name. Close by are the quarters marked out for prostitutes [femmes publiques], concerning which I will discuss in the section on mores. The Pitti and Holy Spirit [San Spirito] squares, both located fairly close to one another in the quarter of the left bank of the Arno, have nothing of note about them. The former takes its name from the sovereign’s palace that is located there and that takes up the entire length; the other is fairly vast, capable of adornment but utterly bare and even the buildings are lacking any sort of regularity. The quarter takes its name from the Church of the Holy Spirit, as does the square. You must see there some paintings that are quite old and that go the length of the outside walls of the houses on the left-hand side, when one is facing the portal.98 It is said that these date from the era of the revitalization of the arts; they provide an idea of the genius of this era, when the overriding taste for painting meant that the exteriors of houses were quite often adorned therewith. Large painted crosses have today replaced this mania, giving 97 The story behind the alleged depiction of Baldassare Turini da Brescia carrying a pig is told in Giorgio Vasari, Lives of The Most Eminent Painters Sculptors & Architects, trans. Gaston du C. De Vere (London: Philip Lee Warner, 1912–1915), 7:78–83. Sade learned the anecdote, however, from his correspondent Doctor Mesny (see p. 619 herein). 98 Chiara Moldetti lived in one of these houses: second to the last on the left, facing the church. See the introduction to this volume on Sade’s affair with her, as well as her correspondence with him to be found at the end of this volume.

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a cemetery-like feel to most all of the streets; these are there, it is said, to prevent passers-by from relieving themselves upon the sides of houses. This is assuredly a singular use of the religion’s most revered symbol! Such absurdities alone put us in a position to judge a nation. While discussing the most beautiful squares of Florence, I have of necessity described the public monuments that decorate them and that are among the 160 public statues with which this city is graced. Let us tour yet a few more of these monuments – more swiftly, so as not to tire the reader with monotonous and boring description, and so let me make sure to mention only a very small number of the most noteworthy. You will see, at the base of the Ponte Vecchio, a magnificent group depicting Ajax wounded and supported by a soldier.99 This antiquity is purely Greek, and in spite of the 99 Sade notes: “Ajax, from a Greek word meaning ‘eagle,’ son of Telamon and of Periboea, granddaughter of Pelops, King of Megaria, was one of the most valiant captains who went to the siege of Troy. His character was very similar to Achilles’; he was like him invulnerable, excepting a small part of his body. The greatest impiety was ever his greatest virtue – for dare we give the name ‘vice’ to that power of imagination that, raising a man above his peers, makes him justly scorn the nugatory objects of his vain and contemptible superstition? No, Ajax was impious, and I would place among his virtues the strength that made him scorn the gods. What need have I of gods in order to conquer? Upon departing, this is what he yelled out to his father, who was putting them forward as the principal guarantors of his courage. Cowards often triumph with such help. My strength is enough, and your gods are useless to me. Minerva wanted to protect him; he haughtily refused her aid and pushed impiety to the point of having rubbed out the owl, bird consecrated to this deity as a symbol of vigilance, that had been painted upon his shield. He carried out prodigies of valour at the siege of Troy; he did battle several times against Hector without being vanquished; and he repulsed the Trojans in spite of the protection afforded them by Jupiter himself. The palladium, which he thought he deserved because of his great value, was granted to Ulysses in preference to him, and this was, it is said, the cause of his death. His spite spoke too volubly; Ulysses, it is said, had him killed. Others say that he perished in his battle with Paris. But the most probable reason is that he killed himself, unable to bear life any longer after the horrible insult that the crying injustice that had just been done him cast upon him. In one of his tragedies, Sophocles depicts him for us busied with whipping the ram that he takes for Ulysses – hardly a noble vengeance for a hero. “Mythologists are in disagreement about the burial of Ajax. Some claim that his body was placed close to the promontory of Sigeion; others upon that of Rhoiteion. This was one of the tombs that aroused the veneration of Alexander. Others have claimed that he had no sepulchre at all. Horace is among this number: Ne quis humasse velit Aiacem, Atrida vetas. Cur? [“Son of Atreus, you forbid us to think of burying Ajax. Why is this?” Satire 2.3, l.187, in Horace, Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 168–9.] “But we see that, in this passage, he alludes to that incident in Sophocles’ tragedy when it appears that Agamemnon does not want anyone to bury Ajax. Be that as it may, this hero received after his death every possible honour. Pausanias assures us that these still existed in his day. A temple was erected to him at Salamis, the Greeks invoked him before the battle that took place upon that spot, and one of the vessels seized from the Persians on that day was consecrated to him. Ajax was gigantic in size; all authors are in agreement on this point. “If in order to consider now that statue with more interest, we desire a few passages from Ovid, let us recall the following. They will enhance the enthusiasm that this piece cannot fail to inspire in vivid, ardent imaginations. Let us listen to his speech to the chiefs of the army in order to obtain the arms of Achilles: Intendensque manus: “Agimus, proh Iuppiter! inquit, Ante rates causam, et mecum confertur Ulixes! At non Hectoreis dubitavit cedere flammis, Quas ego sustinui, quas hac a classe fugavi. Tutius est igitur fictis contendere verbis, Quam pugnare manu: sed nec mihi dicere promptum,

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Nec facere est isti; quantumque ego marte feroci Inque acie valeo, tantum valet iste loquendo.” [“…then pointing to these, ‘By Jupiter!’ he cried, ‘in the presence of these ships I plead my cause, and my competitor is – Ulysses! But he did not hesitate to give way before Hector’s torches, which I withstood, nay, which I drove away from this fleet. ’Tis safer, then, to fight with lying words than with hands. But I am not prompt to speak, as he is not to act; and I am as much his master in the fierce conflict of the battle-line as he is mine in talk.’” Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 2[bk.13, ll.5–12]:228–9.] “And then further on: Atque ego, si virtus in me dubitabilis esset, Nobilitate potens essem, Telamone creatus, Moenia qui forti Troiana sub Hercule cepit, Littoraque intravit Pagasea Colcha carina. Æacon huic pater est, qui iura silentibus illic Reddit, ubi Æoliden saxum grave Sysyphon urget. Æacon agnoscit summus prolemque fatetur Iuppiter esse suam: sic ab Iove tertius Aiax. [“And even if my valour were in doubt, I should still be his superior in birth; for Telamon was my father, who in company with valiant Hercules took the walls of Troy and with the Pagasaean ship sailed to Colchis. His father was Aeacus, who is passing judgment in that silent world where Sisyphus Aeolides strains to his heavy stone; and most high Jupiter acknowledges Aeacus as his son. Thus Ajax is the third remove from Jove.” Metamorphoses, 2[bk.13, ll.20–8]:228–31.] “And this other passage: Servavique animam (minimum est hoc laudis) inertem. Si perstas certare, locum redeamus ad illum; Redde hostem, vulnus [que] tuum, solitumque timorem; Post clypeumque late, et mecum contende sub illo. [“… and I saved his worthless life – small praise in that. If you persist in this contention let us go back to that spot; bring back the enemy, your wound and your accustomed fear; hide behind my shield and contend with me beneath it.” Metamorphoses, 2[bk.13, ll.76–9]:232–3.] “And the pride of these lines: Quod si vera licet mihi dicere, quæritur istis, Quam mihi, maior honos; coniunctaque gloria nostra est; Atque Aiax armis, non Aiaci arma petuntur. […] Ipse nitor galeæ, claro radiantis ab auro, Insidias prodet, manifestabitque latentem. Sed neque Dulichius sub Achillis casside vertex Pondera tanta feret; nec non onerosa gravisque Pelias hasta potest imbellibus esse lacertis; Nec clypeus, vasti cælatus imagine mundi, Conveniet timidae natæque ad furta sinistræ. Debilitaturum quid te petis, improbe, munus? Quod tibi si populi donaverit error Achivi, Cur spolieris erit, non cur metuaris ab hoste; Et fuga, qua sola cunctos, timidissime, vincis, Tarda futura tibi est, gestamina tanta trahenti. Adde quod iste tuus, tam raro proelia passus, Integer est clypeus: nostro, qui tela ferendo Mille patet plagis, novus es successor habendus. Denique quid verbis opus est? Spectemur agendo:

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opinion of Monsieur Cochin and of Monsieur Lalande – who copies the former word for word upon this topic100 – I dare assure the reader that my research and the view of learned artists, both foreign and native, whom I have consulted about this, have persuaded me and make me write Arma viri fortis medios mittantur in hostes; Inde iubete peti, et referentem ornate relatis. [“But if I may speak truth, the arms claim greater honour than do I; they share my glory, and the arms seek Ajax, not Ajax the arms. (…) The very glint of the helmet gleaming with bright gold will betray his snares and discover him as he hides. But neither will the Dulichian’s head beneath the helmet of Achilles be able to bear so great a weight, nor can the spear-shaft, cut on Pelion, be otherwise than burdensome and heavy to his unwarlike arm. The shield also, a moulded picture of the vast universe, will not become his timid hand, the left one, made for stealing. Why do you seek a prize, you shameless fellow, that will overtax your strength; a prize which, if by some mistake the Greeks should give it to you, will be the reason for the foe to spoil, not fear you? And flight, in which alone you surpass all others, most timid as you are, will prove but slow for you if you carry such a weight. Consider also that that shield of yours, so rarely used in battle, is quite uninjured; while mine, pierced in a thousand places by the thrusts of spears, needs a fresh shield to take its place. “Finally, what need of words? Let us be seen in action! Let the brave hero’s arms be sent into the enemy’s midst; bid them be recovered, and to the rescuer present the rescued arms.” Metamorphoses, 2[bk.13, ll.95–7 and ll.105–20]:234–7.] “Penetrated with these lovely lines, go and see the statue of Ajax and cry for a hero that honour, glory, and ambition made into a murderer of himself for not having been able to obtain the mark of victory of which he was so worthy and who came to his end: … in pectus tum demum vulnera passum, Qua patuit ferro letalem condidit ensem. Nec valuere manus infixum educere telum. [“… in his breast, which had not until then suffered any wound. No hand was strong enough to draw away the deep-driven steel.” Metamorphoses, 2[bk.13, ll.391–3]:256–7.] “Here is without a doubt the instant in which we grasp the artist, but: Expulit ipse cruor; rubefacta sanguine tellus Purpureum viridi genuit de cæspite florem, Qui prius Œbalio fuerat de vulnere natus. Littera communis mediis pueroque viroque Inscripta est foliis: hæc nominis, illas querelae. [“… the blood itself drove it out. The ensanguined ground produced from the green sod a purple flower, which in old time had sprung from Hyacinthus’ blood. The petals are inscribed with letters, serving alike for hero and for boy: this one a name, and that, a cry of woe.” Metamorphoses, 2[bk.13, ll.394–8]:256–7.]” 100 Sade notes: “You can convince yourself of this by comparing page 173 of volume II of Lalande and 56 of volume II of Cochin; you will see just how slavish was the copyist Lalande.” Lalande writes: “Close to Bardi Road, you will see a lovely group placed upon a small fountain, known by the name Alexander the Great; it is quite beautiful, in the judgment of Mr Cochin, although others find more faults in it than beauties. It depicts Ajax, son of Telamon, pierced by the fatal blow that he had given himself, in despair that Ulysses had gotten Achilles’s arms instead of him. Others think that it is Patroclus’s body, carried off from the Trojan by Ajax. However, the head of the clothed and helmeted figure seems more like that of a soldier than of a hero. Some say that this is a Greek antiquity; Mr Cochin says that it could also be by Giambologna.” Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande, Voyage d’un François en Italie (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 2:173–4. Although Lalande makes no effort to hide his source, he does follow Cochin verbatim: “You will see another piece by the same sculptor [i.e., Giambologna], which is very lovely: it depicts Ajax dying, carried by a soldier, or the body of Patrocles, carried off from the Trojans by Ajax. However, the head of the clothed and helmeted figure seems more like that of a soldier than of a hero,” Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Voyage d’Italie, ou Recueil de notes sur les ouvrages de peinture & de sculpture, qu’on voit dans les principals villes d’Italie (Paris, 1773), 2:56.

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with certainty that this piece is one of the most beautiful Greek antiquities that have come down to us. Ferdinando II gave three hundred ducats to [Ludovico] Salvetti, skilled sculptor of his era, to restore it, and that artist succeeded in making his work resemble that of antiquity itself. A thousand tales have been told about this group, which committed me to seeking greater accuracy in my research. And what I am putting forward, if anyone lays down a challenge, will be certified by more than twenty witnesses more authentic than our feather-brained contemporary travellers who, forever copying one another, to this day have only succeeded in heaping stories upon stories and in transmitting to posterity, by dint of their empty and inaccurate descriptions, all the lies that humiliate us when abroad by proving that our frivolity makes us incapable of any serious research and any assiduous labour. An equestrian statue of the god Mars, taken from his temple, was located upon the same spot where we see that of Ajax today. Once, when the Arno flooded, it was dragged to the depths of its current, thus depriving our century the chance to admire it. Not far from the cathedral is another magnificent piece and one that, although by a modern artist, has nonetheless all the grace and beauty of Antiquity. It is by Giambologna; it depicts Hercules laying low the centaur Nessus.101 It would be impossible to admire too much the strength, accuracy, and correctness of this piece that, from the way in which the

101 Sade notes: “The second myth in the ninth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which I will transcribe in its entirety, will provide more than anything else an understanding of this statue: At te, Nesse ferox, eiusdem virginis ardor Perdiderat volucri traiectum terga sagitta. Namque nova repetens patrios cum coniuge muros Venerat Eveni rapidas Iove natus ad undas. Uberior solito, nimbis hiemalibus auctus Verticibusque frequens erat atque impervius amnis. Intrepidum pro se, curam de coniuge agentem Nessus adit membrisque valens scitusque vadorum: “Officio” que “meo ripa sistetur in illa Hæc,” ait “Alcide; tu viribus utere nando.” Pallentemque metu fluviumque ipsumque timentem Tradidit Aonius pavidam Calydonida Nesso. Mox, ut erat pharetraque gravis spolioque leonis (Nam clavam et curvos trans ripam miserat arcus): “Quandoquidem coepi, superentur flumina” dixit; Nec dubitat, nec, qua sit clementissimus amnis, Quærit et obsequio deferri spernit aquarum. Iamque tenens ripam, missos cum tolleret arcus, Conjugis agnovit vocem Nessoque paranti Fallere depositum: “Quo te fiducia” clamat “Vana pedum, violente, rapit? Tibi, Nesse biformis, Dicimus; exaudi nec res intercipe nostras. Si te nulla mei reverentia movit, at orbes Concubitus vetitos poterant inhibere paterni. Haud tamen effugies, quamvis ope fidis equina; Vulnere, non pedibus te consequar.” Ultima dicta Re probat et missa fugientia terga sagitta Traicit; extabat ferrum de pectore aduncum. Quod simul evulsum est, sanguis per utrumque foramen Emicuit, mixtus Lernæi tabe veneni. Excipit hunc Nessus: “Neque enim moriemur inulti.” Secum ait et calido velamina tincta cruore Dat munus raptæ velut irritamen amoris.

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artist grasped it, presented unnerving challenges. Grand Duke Cosimo II never passed by without first circling it in admiration. Blessed be the princes who are such connoisseurs and who know how to feel all the challenges of art, and more blessed still the artists who have the good fortune to serve them! This group is raised upon a large pedestal. It is said to be made of a single block of marble, although it is unfortunate that we do not see it gracing some lovely square. It is hard to appreciate it where it is. After these outside descriptions, the correct thing to do is to lead my readers within the precious monuments, be they sacred or profane, that this capital contains in profusion. I will not undertake to describe them all; such an undertaking would be utterly beyond the plan that I have laid out. I will only indicate those churches and palaces that seemed to me the most apt to stimulate the curiosity of the reader or of the traveller who has deigned take me as guide, and let me warn once and for all that in the interiors of both, I have, insofar as possible, avoided the inventory style adopted by my predecessors and that I have preferred concision – pointing out nonetheless everything that seemed to me worthy of being so – to the detailed and lifeless descriptions found everywhere else. Miscellanea on Florence, Excerpted from Doctor Mesny’s Letters102 Historians are much at variance on the origin of Florence’s name. Some would have it that it was called Fluentia, because of its location at the confluence of the Arno and the Mugnone, another river that flows into the Arno a mile below Florence. Others assert that the terrain upon which it was built, scattered with irises, a flower that still blooms a lot in the surrounding area, bestowed upon it the name Florentia and is perhaps also the origin of its coat of arms, which was a flowering lily with this motto: det tibi vere florere, Florentia. [But, O savage Nessus, a passion for the same maiden utterly destroyed you, pierced through the body by a flying arrow. For, seeking his native city with his bride, the son of Jove had come to the swift waters of Euenus. The stream was higher than its wont, swollen with winter rains, full of wild eddies, and quite impassable. As the hero stood undaunted for himself, but anxious for his bride, Nessus came up, strong of limb and well acquainted with the fords, and said: “By my assistance, Alcides, she shall be set on yonder bank; and do you use your strength and swim across!” The Theban accordingly entrusted to Nessus’s care the Calydonian maid, pale and trembling, fearing the river and the centaur himself. At once, just as he was, burdened with his quiver and the lion’s skin (for he had tossed his club and curving bow across to the other bank), the hero said: ‘“Since I have undertaken it, these waters shall be overcome.” And in he plunged; nor did he seek out where the stream was easiest, and scorned to take advantage of the smoother waters. And now he had just gained the other bank, and was picking up his bow which he had thrown across, when he heard his wife’s voice calling; and to Nessus, who was in act to betray his trust, he shouted: “Where is your vain confidence in your fleetness carrying you, you ravisher? To you, two-formed Nessus, I am talking: listen, and do not dare come between me and mine. If no fear of me has weight with you, at least your father’s whirling wheel should prevent the outrage you intend. You shall not escape, however much you trust in your horse’s fleetness. With my deadly wound, if not with my feet, I shall overtake you.” Suiting the action to his last words, he shot an arrow straight into the back of the fleeing centaur. The barbed point protruded from his breast. This he tore out, and spurting forth from both wounds came the blood mixed with the deadly poison of the Lernaean hydra. Nessus caught this, and muttering, “I shall not die unavenged,” he gave his tunic, soaked with his blood, to Deianira as a gift, potent to revive waning love. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 2[bk.9, ll.101–33]:8–13.] “The son of Jupiter, to take revenge for the affront to the forehead of a demigod, is ready to stun Nessus. Besides, everything was balanced: Hercules’s wife required naught but a centaur.” 102 Following the first notebook of the “Voyage d’Italie.” In Sade’s hand.

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Upon the reverse of coins struck with this motto you saw a seated Saint John, clothed in a lion skin and sporting a very long beard. This city was increased by a third around 1078. Today, the Arno divides it into two unequal parts. The one upon the right contains the three quarters of Saint John, Holy Cross, and Saint Mary the New. The other contains that of the Holy Spirit. Four bridges serve to link these two parts, and on both sides are quays which give it a feeling of grandeur and magnificence. Florence owes its present growth to the inhabitants of Fiesole, an ancient Etruscan town. A learned man from this land, seeking to burnish his fatherland, has claimed that it itself is an Etruscan city. But his proofs do not seem well enough founded, and he will allow us to doubt of them (its true origin goes back to Sulla, as I have already said). Towards the fifth century, it set itself up as a republic. A short while later, Totila, King of the Goths, destroyed it.103 You still see some remnants of structures that escaped his fury, such as an aqueduct, public baths, etc. Finally, when the Western Empire found a master once again in that brigand Charlemagne,104 Florence was rebuilt and regained its splendour. This restoration caused a horrific jealously to spring up between its inhabitants and those of Fiesole, the origins of which went back so far that it could with reason flatter itself with having numbered among the twelve Etruscan colonies that resisted the Romans and that united in order to put the Tarquins back upon the throne. In about the year 1010, more than two hundred years after Charlemagne has re-established it – and not during his era, as Monsieur Richard has it – the Florentines destroyed Fiesole, and following the example of the first conquests of the Romans, forced the inhabitants to come and reside within their walls. From the epoch of its re-establishment up until eleven hundred and some, it had individual sovereigns. In this period, the consuls and the bishop had the greatest authority. Then, the people grabbed hold of this authority and set up at its head those magistrates to whom was given the name gonfalonieri. Henceforth, you see several of those Medici hold the reins of the government, and as it was in this epoch that this city begins to play a major historical role, it is also starting from then that I will treat of it. Epochs It was in 541 that Totila, King of the Goths and quite young at the time, sent Bleda, Roderic, and Uliaris to lay siege to Florence, where Justin was in command.105 Narses retook it in 553. Lothair, sent by his father the emperor to Italy in 829, had published an ordinance for the regulation of public schools and for the study of letters, which had totally fallen thanks to the negligence of the clergy. He declared in this ordinance that all young people of Tuscany should go and study in Florence, which proves that at this time, it had begun to flourish once again, although it had not been long re-established.

103 Marginal note: “All this must be incorporated into its history.” 104 Marginal note: “Let one read the history of this king and then consider whether either divine or human laws allow us to give him another name than this.” 105 Sade or Mesny seems to be excerpting almost verbatim from Charles-Hugues Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire générale de l’Italie (Paris, 1761), 1:105.

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Continuation of Doctor Mesny’s Notes106 Today the city of Florence is sizeable thanks to the additions of the two towns, which at different times served to enlarge it. The city, divided into four quarters, as I have said, [is] located at the foot of the Apennines, in a charming basin, surrounded by mountains only on one side; but on the other, that is to say, on the side of the sea, a vast plain that stretches all the way to the lovely towns of Pistoia, Lucca, Pisa, and Leghorn. It is surrounded by fairly high walls, which formerly were flanked by some towers, but are quite wrecked today. These walls serve today much more to prevent contraband trade in tobacco, the import of which, along with other commodities, makes up a majority of its revenue, than for protecting it from enemies. Two fortresses  – one located to the south and called Saint John the Baptist [Fortezza di San Giovanni Battista] or the fortress Da Basso, built by Duke Alessandro, added to by Cosimo I, and a small fort built above the Pitti Palace – safeguard it on the side of the overshadowing mountains. Generally speaking, you notice in Florence that all the old palaces – above all, those of the families famous during the troubles such as the Strozzi, Salviati, Capponi, etc. – resemble fortresses as much as on account of their size as of their elevated construction. The dreadful troubles that for a long time tore this city asunder, such as those between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, made these troubles [sic; i.e., fortresslike palaces] necessary. In this regard, you notice that the windows of the ground floor are more than eight feet high, a precaution demanded by the need to be protected, in your own home, from spear thrusts and musket shots, since the history of the revolutions in this city teaches us that there was fighting in the streets and upon the squares. They took turns at getting expelled. The princes, families, sovereign pontiffs sought in vain to bring about peace; the animosity was such that only the rout of the vanquished could appease the fury of the vanquishers, and it was noted at the time – as today – that the most sordid behoof was almost always the cause of all these troubles. For we can truthfully say that if this god is generally speaking Italy’s, it is in Florence that it has the most worshipers and altars. The old streets of Florence are vile. They are narrow, unclean, stinking. Generally speaking, as much in the old constructions as in the modern ones, we can say that if the city of Florence has produced great architects, as we shall see when describing the great monuments that have brought them renown, it has not produced any who have a taste for order and commodity with which we in France are so familiar. Everything, formerly, being tied to the genius of the nation, was sacrificed to the ceremonial and nothing to convenience. You still see, in those immense palaces, hearths where a five-and-a-half foot-tall man can stand upright under the mantel and before which an entire family warmed itself. The city of Florence was again increased in 1284 and was put about in the state that it is today.107 That is to say, the part to the south, beyond the Arno, was bound with lovely walls flanked by square towers, topped with crenellations. The Republic had a fortress called Saint Miniato here. In any event, Florence is a beautiful city, located in a delightful clime, and is quite similar to certain parts of Provence.

106 Following the first notebook of the “Voyage d’Italie.” In Sade’s hand. 107 Marginal note: “Place with the historical background of the year in question.”

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The churches of Florence, although generally quite lovely, several are Gothic in architecture and dark inside [sic]. But what they lack are façades. I believe there is only one that has one. Moreover, I will address this better in the individual descriptions that I will undertake of the most significant ones. The city of Florence is almost circular in shape; it is close to a mile in length from the centre to each of its gates, which gives us a diameter of about two miles. These gates number six for the main ones: that of San Gallo, before which is a lovely triumphal arch that I will describe in its place and which must not be confused with the gate itself, as does Monsieur Lalande. This gate, which heads to Bologna, is aligned with the gate of San Pier Gattolini, which leads to Rome. The San Frediano and San Niccolò gates, of which the first goes to Leghorn and the other to Arezzo, are likewise situated across from one another, and, except for a few bends that the roads that lead from one to the other make, they are in almost unbroken alignment. Finally, the Prato and Cross gates, likewise aligned, lead to Pistoia and Lucca for the former and for the latter into the region called Casentino, where Poppi and Bibbiena are, and, in a nutshell, into all of Romagna. There is also another small gate called Pinti, situated in the direction of ancient Fiesole, but there is nothing noteworthy about it. Let us now return to the various objects that are located outside of these gates. Outside that of San Gallo is a sort of small garden surrounded by a ditch and planted with three lovely alleys of mulberry trees where proper folk are very much in the habit of coming for a stroll. Outside of that of San Pier Gattolini is a superb avenue planted with live oaks and cypresses, a mile long, that leads to the Poggio Imperiale, the beautiful house of the grand duke, about which I will have occasion to speak. There is nothing of interest to be remarked. Outside of the Gate of San Frediano is a lovely Olivetan monastery; outside that [of] San Niccolò, you remark nothing worthy of being written about other than those magnificent outdoors, such as all those that surround the beautiful and delightful Florence, which we can state without fear of being gainsaid is one of the most pleasant cities in Europe. Outside of the Prato Gate are several marshes or vegetable gardens that lead, if you go alongside them, to the lovely Cacine108 ramble, via a charming path planted with pines of a prodigious size.109 This ramble is made up of several lovely alleys of trees bordering a wooded area, alongside the Arno, in which there are large meadows divided up by these alleys and in which you stroll on foot. This part of the exterior of Florence is particularly pleasant and refreshing. I know few cities where there is an exterior ramble as delightful as this one, although Monsieur Lalande has asserted that there is nowhere to stroll in Florence. Beyond the Gate of the Cross are the patibulary forks that have a less pleasing appearance. Generally speaking, all the surrounding areas of Florence are lovely and well cultivated, evincing a feeling of abundance that is surprising. (See the large notebook translated from Italian.) The Arno, which I have said divides the city into two parts of different sizes, has its source in the Apennines and follows a very irregular course, as do all the waterways that 108 Marginal note: “Check whether this is spelled correctly.” Sade had, in fact, written “cacine” for “Cascine.” In his correspondance with Doctor Mesny, he will request the proper spelling. See p. 628 herein. 109 Marginal note: “One day a rogue was brazen enough to sell these trees to an Englishman who, straightaway, had them cut down. Fortunately, the matter was perceived in time, and the damage was stopped. But the rogue made off with the money.”

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flow from these mountains. Its source is close to that of the Tiber, and after having incorporated several other streams that increase its waters, it eventually flows into the sea, some two or three miles from Leghorn. Four bridges link the two quarters of the city. The most beautiful is that of the Trinity. Its architecture is lovely; it was Ammannati who built it in 1500 and some. Some years later, it collapsed; this was in 1557. Grand Duke Cosimo I had it right away rebuilt. The structure is assured as well as solid. Attention was paid to open up the archways in the manner of all Roman bridges, which facilitates the flow of water in spates and safeguards the bridge from an accident like the one that already happened to it. The spurs placed upon the pilings and that present a very acute angle are likewise done out of a surplus of precaution by the artist and speak to the extreme solidity of the work. On both sides are parapets upon which, in the evening, benches are placed that make, at night, this part of the city the most suited for taking the air and compensating for the stifling heat of the day. I will have occasion to speak of the oft-practised custom of passing summer evenings there. One of the beauties of this bridge is the cut and construction of the arches, which appear utterly flat. It is by adjusting this style and working on this lovely design that they managed to make the beautiful Orleans Bridge, which is completely flat. Four lovely statues, placed at the head of the two entrances to this bridge and that depict the Four Seasons, put the finishing touch on its ornamentation and make it one of the city’s most beautiful monuments. The two loveliest streets terminate at this bridge and furnish even more of a sense of grandeur and magnificence to this quarter of the city. Facing the Via Maggio – one of these beautiful streets – you have, to your left, two other bridges, namely, that of the Goldsmiths, usually called Il Ponte Vecchio, which having the same flaws as the Pont Notre-Dame in Paris of having buildings on both sides, offers nothing in the way of a pleasing sight. Above this bridge is the great linking corridor that, over the length of almost half a mile, goes from the Pitti Palace to the famous Medici Gallery, located close to the Old Palace, upon the square called that of the Grand Duke. Further along is another bridge called Ponte alla Carraia, which is located at the entrance to the city, next to the […]110 gates and that, no more than the one upon the right, in the position that I have indicated, has nothing remarkable about it other than its solidity. The latter was formerly known as Ponte a Rubaconte, the name of a Republican magistrate who had it built. Today, it is called the Bridge of Graces because of a Madonna, supposedly miraculous, just like all of them in Italy, who has there an oratory, where the people come to pray every evening. The solidity of these bridges is all the more important insofar as the flow of the Arno has often been seen to become very dire for the city. You see some inscriptions that record the extent to which it has sometimes risen, which make you shudder because of the height and leave you to infer that the ground floors and even the second floors in the low quarters of the city must have been filled with water. Continuation of the Description of Florence, Based upon Doctor Mesny’s Dispatches111 You see in this city five columns, one of which is made of granite, in the Doric order, upon which is placed a porphyry figure depicting Justice. In one hand, she holds a sword and in the other, a scale; her mantle is made of bronze. This piece is as a whole lovely and 110 A third of a line of ellipses here. Sade never filled in this lacuna, although he planned to do so (see p. 452n59 above). 111 Following the first notebook of the “Voyage d’Italie.” In Sade’s hand.

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the details are in a grand style. It is believed that the column was at the Baths of Antony. Cosimo I got it from Pope Pius IV: he had the statue made that is on top and had it put where it is seen today. You cannot help but notice that this statue turns its back upon the law courts in front of which it is erected. Some jokers claim that she is fleeing. The allegory might be true at present, but in Florence they flatter themselves that the good administration of the reigning grand duke will re-establish things and that in the future this divinity will only appear to be fleeing by dint of the uselessness of the sword with which she is armed. Upon the Square of Saint Felicity is another granite column. Upon that of the Old Market, a third with a statue of Abundance on top. Across from Saint Felix is the fourth, erected in memory of the Battle of Marciano, won over the Siennese by Grand Duke Cosimo I. It is not made of granite, as Monsieur Richard says, but of white and red marble from the quarries of Seravezza. The fifth is upon the Square of the Duomo, in front of the Baptistery. A supposed miracle by Saint Zenobius caused it to be erected here. You see upon the Square of the New Market a sort of exchange or loggia that served as the gathering spot for merchants, back when commerce was vital in Florence. This is a structure supported by columns that has something stately about it. Formerly, the upper part of this building was used for depositing public documents that are now brought to San Michele in Orto, concerning which I shall shortly speak. This monument is by Bernardo Tasso [viz., Giovanni Battista del Tasso]. Upon the front side and in the middle of this building is a lovely bronze boar that shoots water out of its snout. The basin into which it falls is graced with a hem or rim of bronze upon which some very artistically rendered aquatic animals have been engraved. This boar work [sic] is by Tacca. It is based upon the marble piece, lovely antiquity in the Gallery and that suffered a bit in this building’s recent fire, but it did not perish, as Monsieur Richard asserts. Absolutely nothing essential was lost in that blaze. Few persons have mentioned the paving of this portico and consequently few have taken into consideration a singular object found thereupon. This is a marble wheel that calls up the idea of the carroccio or chariot that […]112 used when waging war and upon which was a bell that served to give the battle signal. The covered market creates another rather stately portico, the columns of which are lovely and each made out of a single piece. In one corner is a rather pretty fountain made of white marble. The triumphal arch that you see in front of the San Gallo Gate is excellently handled. It is by Nicolas Jadot of Lunéville [Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey], already renowned for the beautiful Palace of the Hungarian States in Buda. This arch is adorned with beautiful bas-reliefs that relate to various episodes in the life of the deceased emperor [i.e., Francis I] for whom it was erected at the time of his entrance into Florence. We see him, in one of these pieces, triumphing over the Turks, when he commanded the army of Charles VI. In the other is his coronation at Frankfurt. This monument is in the Composite order; above you see the equestrian statue of this prince, accompanied by some others that serve as attributes of his virtues or of his talents, the majority of which are made of bronze. Generally speaking, everything about it is stately and grand, and you see that the creator was imbued with grand ideas from Antiquity. That of Constantine in Rome almost seems to have provided his initial notions. It is not customary to pass underneath this arch. Large chains prohibit entry. It seems to me that it would have been better to extend the houses of the city to this point, which would 112 Space left blank. Sade would later add “the Republic of Florence” (cf. supra) in his revisions.

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have been a matter of fifty toises at most on each side, and to turn this monument into one of the entrances to the city, which would create a lovely effect and make for a useful beautification, instead of today’s isolated and useless monument, its function having been fulfilled. There are several lovely engravings of this piece. Poggio Imperiale is a pretty country villa where the grand duke passes a part of the year and has it almost always under construction. You see lovely paintings and modern furnishings in the latest fashion there. The Medici built it.113 In Florence there are more than sixty public squares to be counted, but I will deduct, however, a bit from this Italian calculus. We know that exaggeration is the weakness of the nation and that in matters of counting, one never errs on the side of too few. Of these sixty squares, there are at most some fifteen that merit mention. The first of these is the one called that of the Grand Duke, quite adorned, albeit irregularly shaped. Thereupon you see the statue of Cosimo I in bronze, made by Giambologna. This piece is most beautiful; it was erected by Ferdinando I in 1594. The bas-reliefs upon the pedestal, which are even better, if possible, than the statue, depict various episodes in the life of this sovereign. One is upset to learn that they did not have the good fortune to please Monsieur Lalande. In one of the corners of this square is a lovely octagonal fountain, erected by Cosimo I and decorated by Ammannati. The main figure is the most mediocre: a Neptune some fifteen feet tall, placed upon a conch drawn by four seahorses, the whole fashioned from variously coloured marbles. Around are various figures with an emblematic relation to the subject, some reclining, others upright, numbering fifteen, done in bronze. Generally speaking, however, this piece is full of genius, its execution is beautiful, and about the only thing that one could wish for with respect to this fountain would be a bit more water than it provides. The whole is protected and surrounded by an iron balustrade that, furthermore, has nothing remarkable about it. A large portico in the Gothic architectural style takes up one of the sides of this square. There you will see three of the most beautiful groups. The first depicts the Rape of the Sabines, done in marble by Giambologna  – a piece full of strength and truth. All the postures are correct, all the expressions are felt, and there reigns throughout this work a fire and verve so striking that you might dare venture that it is almost worthy of the finest chisels of Antiquity. The pedestal of this monument is adorned with bronze bas-reliefs that depict the entire story from which is taken the episode that provided this grand subject. The second piece depicts Perseus arriving to cut off the head of Medusa, whom he has at his feet. In one hand, he holds his sabre; in the other, that dreadful Gorgon’s head. There is animation and truth in this piece, done in bronze, but it does not appear as natural as the one that I just mentioned. The bas-relief upon the pedestal depicts the myth of Andromeda and Perseus. The whole is the work of Benvenuto Cellini, famous artist from the reign of Cosimo I, whose taste for the arts united in his capital the most celebrated names of Italy. The third group is Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, a statue that seems dangerous to allow standing in a monarchical state and that, apart from the indecency and ridiculousness of this historical episode, is handled by Donatello with all the force and nerve 113 Sade notes: “The goldsmiths in Florence are neither rich nor magnificent, and if their powers be measured by appearances, we can assert that they are poor. Notwithstanding, they have jewels there, but poorly mounted and old, and as a consequence of the lack of taste or of the avarice of the nobles in this regard, this branch of commerce is quite middling in Tuscany.”

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imaginable. We know that this celebrated artist, who can be called the restorer of sculpture, did this piece for the Senate of Florence, and that he considered it his masterpiece. At the entrance to the ducal palace (see what has been said about this in the notebooks) will be seen two other groups of the greatest beauty: one made by the renowned Michelangelo and that depicts David killing Goliath; the other by Bandinelli is a battle between Hercules and Cacus. The one is worthy of the grand master who produced it; the other still lovely beside the former masterpiece. Baccio Bandinelli was born in Florence in 1471; he died in 1559. Imitator and contemporary of Michelangelo, like him he brought together the genres of painting and of sculpture, but his canvases were lacking with regard to coloration, and his chisel alone brought him everlasting fame.114 Close to here are also two statues depicting herms that, although much inferior to the objects about which I have just spoken, are not however without merit. Do not forget to say that in the back of the second floor of the Galleries will be seen a beautiful statue of Grand Duke Cosimo I, larger than life, with two symbolic figures at his feet. This statue is by Giovanni di Bologna, that is, Jean de Boulogne. You will also say that the square made by these Galleries is rectangular and with beautiful architecture, graced with columns in the Tuscan order. You must also admire upon that Square of the Grand Duke the architecture of the façade of the Uguccione house, the work of Michelangelo, which leaves nothing to be desired, neither in terms of taste, nor in terms of execution. From this square, you take the street that leads to the dome or cathedral. At the entrance to this street is a building known as San Michele in Orto, an isolated monument, square in shape. This was formerly the Exchange. In 1337, it was turned into a church in which is adored a Virgin who, like all the famous depictions of this modern idol, does lots of miracles in return for lots of vows and offerings. This edifice never served for the selling of wheat, as Monsieur Richard says. Its function was as a loggia or Exchange in which [merchants] gathered to attend to their business. The upper part of the building, against all the ecclesiastical rules that forbid building in the top parts of churches, serves as the public archives, and in spite of the solidity of the walls and of the vaults, which protect this monument from fire, it is nonetheless still forbidden, out of a surplus of caution, to bring light therein. Here titles and public papers are preserved with the greatest care. Pride and avarice, the chief faults of this nation, have doubtless dictated the severe laws that are observed to safeguard these deposits and that I have seen nowhere else conserved with such secure and such well thoughtthrough precautions. The building’s tower is full of niches in which have been placed several well-made statues, in bronze as well as marble. You see four by Donatello, by [Lorenzo] Ghiberti, by Simone of Fiesole [i.e., Simone Ferrucci], a Saint John by Baccio da Montelupo; four by Nanni, otherwise known as Giovanni di Antonio di Banco, a student of Donatello. In a word, it would be impossible to examine too attentively the masterpieces placed in the outside walls of this building; they present a multitude of beauties that the connoisseur’s eye cannot contemplate with too much pleasure. From here to the Square of the Duomo there is nothing noteworthy. When you arrive at this square, the three objects that strike you are the cathedral, Giotto’s tower or Campanile, situated to the side, and the Baptistery, an octagonal and isolated monument that will be

114 Sade notes: “Michelangelo was born in 1474 and Bandinelli in 1471. The former died in 1564 and the latter in 1559.”

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seen in the middle of this square. But let us take up each of these building one at a time in order to mark their various beauties. This Is Only an Excerpt on the Baptistery, Dome, and Steeple, which I Have Already Positioned, while Awaiting the Amplifications that I Am Expecting from Florence115 The Baptistery, which is said to be an ancient temple to Mars, is at present dedicated to Saint John the precursor. It is octagonal in shape; you will admire therein the two porphyry columns that the Pisans gave to the Florentines, the three lovely bronze doors, of which two are by Lorenzo Ghiberti, a Florentine sculptor who spent forty years on this sublime work. The third is by Andrea d’Ugolino, a Pisan. These doors are done in bas-relief and magnificently wrought. You will also mark in this lovely edifice the beautiful bronze figures placed upon the cornices of the doors. The Dome is a large building without a porch, a flaw, as I think I have already mentioned, shared by almost all of the churches in Florence. The Dome is the work of Brunelleschi. Some critics assert, however, that the idea is not his. In any case, he carried it out and that of Saint Peter’s was only ventured after this one. The choir is very beautiful. It is made of white marble. You see many beautiful pieces by Michelangelo and by Baccio Bandinelli. The pilasters of the choir are very beautiful pieces of sculpture at their bases. The bas-reliefs number 1901, all of the greatest beauty, but which can hardly be enjoyed on account of the darkness that reigns in this building, caused by that coloured glasswork that was used in former times. The tower or campanile that will be seen adjoining this building is adorned by Donatello. The plan for this tower, which is square in shape, is by Giotto. One might not be upset to find a note about some of the episodes in the life of this famous pupil of the great Cimabue, the restorer of painting and the founder of the Florentine school.116 Leaving the Dome, you must go to the Square of the Annunziata, where there is a lovely bronze equestrian statue made by Giambologna, depicting Ferdinando I, placed upon a granite pedestal. This statue is made of melted-down metal from cannons and other bronze weapons that Tuscan galleys took from the corsairs. Upon this same square will be seen two grotesque fountains, done in bronze by Pietro Tacca. This square – moreover one of Florence’s most regularly shaped – is graced with porticoes to the right and left.117

115 Following the first notebook of the “Voyage d’Italie.” In Sade’s hand. 116 Marginal note: “When you copy this out, you will excerpt from and change the entry on Giotto (page 92 of volume III of the Dictionnaire).” The reference is to Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique; ou Histoire Abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un Nom par le Génie, les Talens, les Vertus, les Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772). Sade understandably usually refers to this work simply as the Dictionnaire des grands hommes. 117 Sade’s notes: “Do not forget, if the doctor [i.e., Mesny] sends nothing about the other public buildings, to mention the Centaur close to Saint Mary Major [Santa Maria Maggiore] and the group of Alexander the Great. “Include that you do not know how Monsieur Lalande could have said that the courtyard of the Galleries (which you will say, moreover, are used during the Carnival festivities) looks like Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, a bit like the Place Royale looks like that of Louis XV. “Include that you have not worried yourself with the literal and classical order that Monsieur Lalande has followed, given that all it takes is a monarch’s whim to destroy it all. There are some spots where you

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have been overly scrupulous in this manner and you are upset about this, given that this is labour lost in a few years. [Marginal note: “You have said this in the text.”] “Do not forget to talk in your description of the Gallery about a room that contains all the medals and that are worthy of mention. “Do not forget to talk about the two pyramids supported upon tortoises that are in the Square of Saint Mary the New, a square that is also used in the chariot races that take place every year in Florence. “Talk about that statue of Paulo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, by [Francesco da] Sangallo, which will be seen at the entrance of the cloister of the canons of San Lorenzo. See Paul Jove in the Dictionnaire. “Talk about the church of Santa Croce because of the tomb of Michelangelo. V. Lalande, vol. II, page 299. “You must say that the Accademia della Crusca is held at the University. “Talk about the paving, which I think you have already done. “See what Tacitus says on the topic of the deputation of the Florentines with respect to the Arno: 310 of Lalande. “Refute Lalande when he says that there is no place to stroll in Florence and use this opportunity to talk about the Cascine. “See my note, and use this as a starting point to refute page 319 of the 2nd volume of Lalande. “Write that, concerning information about Antiquity, Monsieur Lalande got his from the first porter that he found upon the square, known in Italian as a facchino. They will always be found there ready to serve as your cicerone, and it was from them, as the least costly, that Monsieur Lalande drew his remarks and comments. I have met in Naples a facchino lazzarone who assured me that he had provided half of his book; there still remain some strong traces in his narration, and you see that the style still clings a bit to that of the New Market or the Piazza del Carmine. [In the margin: “This is the square in Florence that corresponds to the Place Maubert in Paris (i.e., a major urban marketplace).”] “As for information on mores and on legislation, it was either his innkeeper or his valet-de-place who dictated it to him, and, like Diogenes, lantern in hand, Monsieur Lalande sought in the public squares not men, but memories. “Letters, for so long cultivated in Florence, are now in the greatest state of abasement. Is this lack of genius or of encouragement? And isn’t it astonishing that, after having flourished in the midst of troubles and conspiracies, they are, under the current reign of peace and repose, so forgotten and neglected that you can hardly meet with a skilled artist or find a man of genius to quote? “Prince Leopold, brother of Grand Duke Ferdinando II, had established around 1600 an academy specially for interpreting Dante. But to make more certain of this anecdote, if need be, see under Dante in the Dictionnaire. “Monsieur Lalande inflated his entry on Florence with three quite sizeable chapters on ancient and modern literature and on poetry. It seems to me that these topics – which are moreover interesting with respect to literature, I am willing to admit – are nonetheless hardly so for a traveller who desires objects and facts that arouse his present curiosity. These three chapters are, moreover, in part copied from the Dictionnaire des hommes illustres, dryly handled, and must consequently tire the reader much more than they interest him, and it seems to me that this was quite useless to put into a travelogue. “The Florentines, although renowned for the beauty of their language, are notwithstanding not the people with the best pronunciation. Siena is the city where Italian is generally spoken most correctly. All over Italy they joke about the harsh and unpleasant way in which Florentines substitute almost always an ‘h’ – a letter which is taken out of their language to soften it – for a ‘c.’ For example: they pronounce al corso as al horso, and so forth. This pronunciation is unpleasant and makes them mimicked even upon the stage. “Refute Monsieur Lalande, who says that the degradation of the arts and of geniuses in Florence comes from the government’s lack of competiveness. The public school that no one attends, about which you have spoken and that the grand duke founded, is certainly a proof that it is the fault of the genius of the nation and not of the government. (Lalande, page 369). “The Maremmas of Tuscany are flooded country regions on the edge of the sea. The air there is very bad.

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[Other Notes on Florence]118 Note in the voyage to Florence that the reigning grand duke has had brought from Rome, from the Villa Medici, to the lower apartments of the Pitti Palace, those two beautiful statues of Niobe that tell her story. They are by Phidias. Mrs Moldetti was thirty years old; she was residing in the Square of the Holy Spirit in Florence, second-to-last door upon the left, when facing the church. She had four sons and a daughter, and was pregnant with a fifth child. Her eldest son was ugly. The younger was fairly decent, looked like Latour.119 The two little ones promised to be attractive; the little girl had been sent to the wet nurse’s and was being retrieved. The country place of Mrs Moldetti was upon a height half a league from the royal house at Poggio a Caiano. Her husband was employed at customs. She was the daughter of Doctor Mesny, physician (from Lorraine) for the hospitals of His Royal Highness. She had a sister who was married to a French painter from Rouen, name of Tierce, at Naples; another to a podesta in Tuscany, a nun, and one in Florence still not married. Florentine Currency FLORENCE120 COINS Florentine Piastra: Scudo d’Oro: Scudo of 10 Giulii or Paoli: Paolo: Lira: Florentine Pistola: Sequino: Ducato: Testone:

MONETARY VALUE IN THE COUNTRY OF FLORENCE  5 15  7 10  6 13 4

30 paoli 20 paoli 10 paoli and a half   3 paoli

13 20

4

“Counter Lalande in the entry on the Poggio Imperiale, when he says that it formerly belonged to an individual from whom it was confiscated. See what you have noted about this matter; you will see, I think, that it was built by the Medici – and this is true. “Say a word about Pratolino in the description of your voyage from Bologna to Florence.” 118 In the manuscript notebook entitled “First volume of Rome.” In Sade’s hand. 119 Sade’s valet and participant in the so-called affaire de Marseilles, about which see the introduction to this volume. 120 Loose leaf in the handwriting of the copyist. In the margin, in Sade’s hand: “Note that Monsieur Lalande has provided this inaccurate and incomplete table.”

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IN RELATION TO PARIS



COINS Florentine Piastra: Scudo d’Oro: 10-Giulio Scudo: Paolo: Lira d’Oro: Lira currente: Florentine Pistola: Sequino: Ducato: Testone: Soldo d’Oro: Soldo currente:



MONETARY VALUE IN FRANCE     4 l.   17 s.   6   6   5   5   10   5   1   16   15   15   10   10   5   10   1   11   5

      8 d.    6       2 2/5ths     10 2/5ths    0    3    6       2/3     10

PARIS EXCHANGES WITH FLORENCE VIA LEGHORN

Dossier III

Rome

To Put in the Preface1 The churches will make for a separate letter, the palaces another, the country villas a third, and I will finish with antiquities. When these are superior to the object that I am describing, they will be positioned separately within that entry. When these are fused with the new monument and when all that can be made out are mere vestiges or bare memory, I will only recall them; and the description, which will no longer be for them, will belong entirely to the new object. So, for example, the Pantheon will not be treated as a church, because, although it is one today, it is nonetheless still more ancient temple than church. For this reason, when speaking of it, I will say: “and this ancient temple is today such and such church.” And when discussing Saint Sabina upon the site of the ancient Temple of Diana, upon the Aventine Hill, as nothing of this temple will be seen today and there is absolutely nothing anymore but a church, I will place this object in the category of churches and I will say: “… and this church was formerly such and such temple.” I hope that this will be understood and that this difference, which is only meant to make myself more methodical and clear, will be felt. Plan for the Work to Be Followed When Copied Out2 A letter on the churches along with the arrival in Rome. A letter on the palaces. One on the villae or country estates in which will be the major surroundings. One on mores, practices, customs, etc. Continuation of the Spada Palace3 A circle of rays that were placed above the heads makes you think that the artist wanted to make saints Anne and Mary. This circle and this notion harm the pleasure that the painting 1 At the front of the “Rome” notebook labelled as the “third volume.” In Sade’s hand. 2 Located as above. In Sade’s hand. 3 Located as above. In Sade’s hand, with the following note on placement: “After these words in the 2nd volume: you cannot pull yourself away from this painting.”

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produces. I would prefer it not to be spelled out. It is charming as a good rustic woman having her daughter work at her side; it becomes cold as soon as the fabulous is inserted. A fairly lovely Magdalene, from the school of Guercino [i.e., Giovanni Francesco Barbieri]. A pagan sacrifice, by Pietro Testa. A lovely Saint Jerome, by Lo Spagnoletto [i.e., Jusepe de Ribera]. The Judgment of Paris in the midst of three goddesses, learned and charming composition by Paolo Veronese. A philosopher reflecting upon death, sublime head by Lucas the Dutch [Lucas van Leyden]. Two portraits that could not help but resemble one another: one of the mother of Raphael; the other of him, but when he was young. A lovely fall of Christ under the burden of the cross, by Pietro da Cortona. The abduction of Helen, by Guido. The meeting of the Magdalene with Saint Anne, by Andrea del Sarto. The Death of Lucretia by a German.4 It seems, however, that the painter put all the expression of which he was capable of furnishing into Lucretia alone, at the expense of that which he deprived all the spectators. Collatinus, one of the most interested in the scene, is mute. A severe critic might even make out in his features a feeling of joy rather than despair; at least astonishment. But when I was making this observation, a foreigner who was, like me, contemplating this painting said all of sudden: “Isn’t it obvious, Monsieur, that the painter wanted to make a French husband?” I had nothing in the way of repartee to this jest and moved on to another painting. A birth of Jupiter, in the finest manner of C. Maratta. Several family portraits, done by Titian. Spring and Summer, two pieces by [Carlo] Cignani. Time uncovering Truth, lovely piece by [Giuseppe Bartolomeo] Chiari. Four lovely pieces that are pendants, by Carlo Maratta. Daphne changing into a laurel, less vividly imagined than the group in the Villa Borghese. The marriage feast of Bacchus and Ariadne. Another the subject of which escapes me at the moment, and a lovely Metamorphosis from Ovid. Dido abandoned by Aeneas, sublime piece by Guercino; the sadness of that beautiful queen is captured in all the truth of the most beautiful expressiveness. Two merry painters enlivened by the juice of Bacchus, charming little piece by Michelangelo da Caravaggio; it is Nature itself. The Banquet of Antony and Cleopatra, in which the latter, by swallowing one of her pearls dissolved in vinegar, is winning the wager made to spend more than a hundred sesterces for a meal; this was the price of the jewel, and Munatius Plancus, arbiter of this exercise in luxury, as absurd as misguided, ruled in her favour. This painting is by [Francesco] Trevisani. Roman Charity, by Caravaggio. A lovely Saint Francis, by Lo Spagnoletto. A superb Christ in the antique manner. 4 Daniel Seiter (c. 1647–1705), who was Viennese but trained and spent his entire painting career in Italy.

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Several frescoes by [Federico] Zuccari, in one of the rooms of this house, are also worthy of some attention, and definitely in the chapel, a lovely Adoration of the Magi by Pietro Perugino, Raphael’s master. You will see in this palace a small gallery with stucco work by Daniele da Volterra, whose various pieces are all quite esteemed. The paintings of note therein are by Perino del Vaga, and the one on the ceiling by Domenichino [i.e., Domenico Zampieri]. Over the door is depicted Jupiter’s metamorphosis into golden rain in order to seduce Danaë, a subject all the better chosen since it will be forever true. In this palace is another gallery with antique busts, but these are mediocre, both in terms of their actual mediocrity and in terms of the restoration. You see in the lower suites a superb head of Laocoön and eight pieces of bas-relief found, it is said, when excavating Saint Agnes [Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone]; a small Hercules in the style of the one in the Farnese Palace, but mediocre; a Flora, but it looks like Livia and is often taken for her; a rather good emperor’s bust; and in a neighbouring room, a lovely painting of Jesus going to Calvary, by Raphael’s master, whom I have just mentioned. In the garden is a quite lovely perspective colonnade that, seen from the windows of the palace, you would say is forty feet in size and that, when measured, is not even ten; the art of deceiving, so familiar to the Italians. But the sublime piece of architecture that will be contemplated with the most pleasure in this house is Callisthenes listening to the teachings of Seneca, his master, a Greek statue of the utmost beauty. In the same room are several busts of popes from this house, quite the contrast in every way with this lovely piece. The architecture of this palace is beautiful; the bas-reliefs that depict the Battle of the Centaurs, the ornaments of the first stringcourse, which are double festoons, and the arabesques of the last one, are imitated from the antique and give this building a certain feeling of magnificence and stateliness. Reflections to Find a Place For5 Surely found nothing better than the two statues that you see, to the left and right, in the back of the vestibule of Saint Peter’s, Constantine and Charlemagne. The Christian religion owes what it is to the former and the Church only increased from the donations of the latter. Charlemagne is upon the right, because he who gives to Rome always holds the place of honour. As for Constantine, they thought it sufficient to put him at the foot of the Vatican. The obligations due him have begun to get so old! Whatever the case may be as far as these two statues are concerned, they are superb. The niche for Constantine is much lovelier than the one for Charlemagne. It seems that Constantine, positioned as I have said at the foot of the Vatican staircase, is coming down to make way for the Cross that symbolizes the religion and consequently the pope, who prepares to go up. The horse is much too mannered. The practice of carrying the dead uncovered is quite ancient in Italy. We know that the daughter of the consular family who Apollonius of Tyana resuscitated, during the reign of Nero, was carried upon an open litter.

5 At the end of the notebook titled “First volume of Rome.” In Sade’s hand.

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Transtevere means living beyond the Teverone. Under Augustus, [between] year I and the 30th of Jesus Christ, the arts had reached perfection.6 Under Constantine, in 337, they were degenerating and only reappeared with the taking of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453. Artists at that time spread in Italy. It cost me twenty-two sequins altogether to get from Florence to Rome. The coachman cost 13 of these. Abridged Descriptions (Very Abridged at That) of Saint Peter’s Basilica Observations upon This Church7 I will not undertake to provide an exhaustive description of this church. Such an undertaking, done more out of curiosity than necessity, will lead me into an infinite number of details. I will nonetheless provide the shape of its layout and the main parts that make it up. Then, I will demonstrate the reasons for which the immensity of the interior of this structure does not appear as large as it, in fact, is. The shape of this church is a Latin cross both inside and outside. The sides as well as the far end are terminated with culs-de-four the width of the nave. At their meeting point arises a dome of surprising diameter and height, which dome is accompanied by four chapels with cupolas located in the diagonal spaces and creating rows in the side aisles of the nave. The nave is decorated with pilasters in the Corinthian order, the bases of which are placed upon the paving, in the in-between spaces of which arise arcades that include the height of the arches. A semicircular-arch vault, magnificently adorned with caissons, terminates the interior of this monument. The same order is used for the perimeter of the aisles as well as for the dome. The porch extends the width of the nave and the side aisles, in front of which on the outside extend two galleries fanning inward, pierced with windows, and adorned with pilasters in the Doric order. This enclosure is preceded by a colonnade in the Doric order and oval in shape. The smaller side of the ellipse faces out and presents a sizeable opening. In the middle of this square there is a granite obelisk, accompanied by two spurting fountains. It is with reason that this church has been called the wonder of the world and the theatre of religion. Its immense size, the magnificence with which it is decorated, the most precious marbles, the bronzes and, indeed, metals of all types have been used in the construction of this structure. It seems that all the riches of the entire world were exhausted in order to arrive at its utter perfection. The sublime proportions of this building  – the exact relation of the parts of which it is composed – take your imagination by surprise. Everything about it is grand. The astonished soul feels instantly struck with a mute emotion. It knows not how to express 6 Sade’s dating is somewhat mysterious, as Augustus’s dates on the Julian calendar are 63 BCE to 14 CE and he reigned from 27 BCE until his death. His point is nonetheless clear: the apogee of the arts in the classical era coincides with the emperor’s rule and the opening of the Christian era indicates their eventual decline. This understanding was standard in Sade’s day (see the introduction to this volume). 7 Four manuscript pages in the copyist’s hand, with annotations in Sade’s hand.

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why. Without being able to judge its extent, it remains in this state. As it moves forward, it discovers novel objects with each step. The aisles broaden, the dome grows larger in every direction, effects multiply to infinity from various points of view. At that point, charm takes hold of your senses; admiration yields to the mind that, sated with astonishment, wants to make certain that the sensation just felt is in accord with the idea attached to real grandeur, that is to say, to the space remaining between one wall and another, of parts with the whole, and finally, that which must be nailed down in order to reach a precise judgment. Soon afterwards this feeling of surprise is forgotten; comparisons are sought among the objects in detail. Everything here is grand; you can only appeal to the ordinary size of a human, which is a weak aid for the observing mind. From whatever distance you might position it [i.e., the ordinary size of a human], it already seems small close to you by comparison with the building. If it draws closer to the object while distancing itself from you, losing its proportions even, the objects to which it draws closer shrink to the same extent. But we do not easily abandon the human scale. We cannot judge from a distance of some hundred and twenty feet the width of a solid body when we are not aided by more discernible points of comparison. For would you guess, at the same distance, that the pilasters of the nave are about eight and a half feet wide, that the figures upon the sectioned surfaces of the dome are four times the natural size? The […] have judged it to be half this amount, and certainly the size of whatever man would appear to us diminished in proportion to this amount.8 What if we sought outside for something that might come close to its immense size? There is nothing as large – not even anything in this genre. All the churches that come closest to this shape in certain respects would certainly appear to us infinitely smaller if we chose to compare them. Doubtless it will not be credited that the Church of the Gesù in Rome has a nave only half the width of the one we are discussing; that the dome of the Invalides comes out proportionally the same with respect to that of Saint Peter’s in terms of height. Thus, if you cannot be persuaded of this, I will therefore assert that this building does not appear as large as it, in fact, is. This is the effect that it makes upon all those who see it for the first time, and it has been observed as well that you must have been there often to be convinced that it must only be quite colossal in every aspect. We must, therefore, conclude that it is impossible not to say that it is a very large building, yet anyone would still be astonished to hear it said that the nave is 80 feet wide, with a height of 144. Under the cupola, the width of the dome is 132 feet within and 340 high, measured from its highest vaults. How to explain what prevents judging from the first view the interior size of a building of whatever type at all? To prove this more appreciably, I will furnish as an example the Basilica of Saint Peter’s in Rome. What we must call “emptiness” in architecture is the space that remains between one body and another. Transitory emptiness would be the interval between the most distant objects, both in terms of length and breadth. So, the more space there is in the layout of the design, the more you will be persuaded that the structure is large. This is what is admired

8 There is a blank in the manuscript here; along with the tortured grammar and logic, another indication of the roughness of this draft.

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in Gothic buildings, as well as the lightness of their construction. I shift to Saint Peter’s. Dare I say that I am more than astonished? I take in at the same instant its entire surface area. My soul, seized with respect and admiration, is enveloped in an inexplicable mystery. Will it be doubted that this is a temple consecrated to the divine? The pious man meditates here completely. The sublimity of this building consists in its layout. The lightness of its construction – the way in which its constituent columns are arranged – offers the most imposing spectacle. The simplicity of its decoration, the richness of the various points of view, without attracting one’s curiosity, ever preserves the first feeling of astonishment and of respect. The Church of Saint Peter, in another style and with another type of decoration, could have been built with more lightness. The pillars of the nave present your eye with a considerable unfolding. From whatever spot you might position yourself, you cannot avoid seeing the interior surface area, as well as its thickness. Thus, if one of the pillars is 24 feet wide and 12 feet thick, from these portions taken together from the same point of view, compared with the emptiness of the width of the nave, it is no longer possible that I discern that it [i.e., the width] is 13 toises [78 feet], when its relation is more than the half, from a given angle of observation, and it is to the utter richness with which this building is decorated and the sublimity of its overall proportions that we owe the scant attention paid to explaining why it does not appear so large. Another observation that ought not be separated from the above is the extension of the nave, which has led to significant drawbacks. This church was based upon the plans of the famous architect [Donato] Bramante. He conceived the idea of making a temple in the form of a Greek cross, of constructing a dome of surprising diameter, and one that would consequently require a proportionate height. He deemed that the greatest interior distance from where it ought to be seen should not be too far off and that one would enjoy the surprise when approaching the midpoint. If the dome were to be the main thing in a church, it would thus be necessary to sacrifice the other parts so that it would appear as such. This principle is acknowledged in all compositions such that, whatever they may be, an essential point controlling the scene is established. Do we not see this in all famous works of painting and sculpture? But if, when entering this building, I only perceive two-thirds of its circumference, I will hardly divine that the middle part is occupied by a dome. Two drawbacks result from this. The first, by creating too great a distance point, destroys the dome. The second, by diminishing its exterior height, obliges you in order to perceive it to distance yourself infinitely more than the space allows, in order to make out simultaneously the whole and the detailed parts that adorn it. Can such flaws be examined without blushing for him who was but the labourer on this work? Of all the domes that have been built, this is the most astonishing and the most audacious that has dared been built. Both its exterior and interior form is admirable. The architecture is not particularly pure, but the details that make it up are among themselves in a perfect harmony that makes this bearable. Never has a curve that appears so perfect been built. It seems that from the outside you must only guess at the even intercolumniations and that the entablature does not project as it does upon the couplings. These flaws break the circular shape in a muddled manner. The construction has not been artfully overseen. The flawed cut of the stones, which seems to be the sole thing that was neglected in this work, has produced several gaps that have created cracks in the flying buttresses that hold back the pressure spots. The learned

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Father Jacquier has concerned himself with the cause of this occurrence. It has been remedied by following the means he has proposed to stop its progress.9 The porch will be the only important thing that I will only very tersely discuss. It has no character; you might rather think that it was the façade of a palace rather than the frontispiece of a temple. Either way it would be just as ridiculous. The colonnade that comes before it is by Cavaliere Bernini. The architecture is carried out well enough. Description of the Vatican10 There were formerly two temples built upon the site that today is occupied by the vast enclosure of the Vatican, among which I include the buildings of the pope’s palace, his gardens, and the famous Church of Saint Peter. Of these two temples, one was consecrated to Apollo and the other to Mars. It was at the latter that was readied the triumphal procession, which left from there and made its way to the Capitol via the triumphal bridge, of which some vestiges remain. Apart from the route, the two objects were the same, and still today it is the first point in order to get to the second that the pontifical procession (different, however, from the triumphal parade, insofar as the one was the recompense of valour and the former is only the work of fanaticism and weakness), it is, as I was saying, to get from the first point to the second that the pontifical procession crosses through the city of Rome via the Sant’Angelo Bridge, in order to get to Saint John Lateran via the Capitol. The first of these processions presented consuls or emperors fresh from territorial conquest and raised upon a chariot surrounded by slaves and pulling behind them vanquished kings and hard-won riches. The second presents a priest – a fairly poor rider – astride a mule, escorted by the College of Cardinals in burlesque getups and dragging behind him, not kings, but henchmen and some effeminate soldiers. Cheers accompanied the former procession; laughter and mockery accompany the latter. And here we can say, in the words of the famous author of the Henriade: Fortunate priests trample with tranquil step The tombs of Catos and the ashes of Aemilii. Henriade, Song IV11

At the same site was the circus of Gaius Caligula and of Nero, which stretched up to the Marius Hill. Close by were also the gardens of the second emperor. Everything that was found in this spot, when the foundations were being dug for the first basilica of Saint Peter, allows for no doubt on this score. It was here that, out of a barbaric principle much more than a religious one, Nero, that ferocious emperor, entertained himself by lighting his gardens with the bodies of Christians, positioned at intervals to be used as torches, an

  9 François Jacquier (1711–1788) was a member of the Franciscan order, a mathematician, and physicist, who resided and worked in Italy for most of his life. He wrote numerous works on calculus, physics, and moral philosophy, including contributions to the multi-authored Scritture concernenti i danni della cupola di San Pietro di Roma e i loro rimedi [Writings on the damages to the cupola of Saint Peter’s in Rome and their remedies] (Venice, 1742), by Thomas Leseur et al. 10 Twelve-page notebook in Sade’s hand. 11 Voltaire’s original lines read: “Des prêtres fortunés foulent d’un pied tranquille / Les tombeaux des Catons et la cendre d’Émile.” La Henriade, in Les Œuvres complètes de Voltaire/The Complete Works of Voltaire, ed. O.R. Taylor (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1970), 2[song 4, ll.183–4]:449.

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inhuman episode reported by Tacitus12 and one that the present-day despots will perhaps revive upon the same spot, over which they now rule, for those who might undertake to attack the religious structure that serves as the foundation of their throne. Close to these spots upon which is presently built the admirable Basilica of Saint Peter was the Vatican Hill that Martial tells us was covered, in his day, with vineyards that formed the basis of a rather poor wine: Quid te Tucca, juvat vetulo, miscere Falerno In Vaticanis condita musta cadis? Quid tantum fecere boni tibi pessima vina? Aut quid fecerunt optima vina mali?13

And in another place: Coelatus tibi cum sit Anniane, Serpens in patera Myronos arte Vaticana bibis: bibis venenum.14

In a third: Imputet ipse deus nectar mihi fiet acetum Et Vaticani perfida vappa cadi.15 12 Sade notes: “Let us listen to the historian himself speak about this: ‘He had the Christians cruelly put to death as arsonists (and guilty of having set Rome ablaze). These Christians were persons hated for their villainy, whom the people called Christians because of Christ, their founder, who was executed during the reign of Tiberius by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. But this pernicious sect, after having been repressed for a time, proliferated once again, not only in its birthplace, but in Rome itself, which is like the meeting place and sewer where to flows all the world’s ordure. First were seized, therefore, those who avowed this religion, and by their confessions, a multitude of others were discovered who were not so much convicted for the crime of which they had been accused as of hatred for the human race. They were mocked even at their deaths, by being covered with the skins of wild beasts, by being used at night as torches and lights (it was then that one could say lux in luce). “Nero offered his gardens for these spectacles, to which he had added the pleasures of the circus, and he was seen there, among the people, dressed as a charioteer or himself seated upon a chariot. Even if these wretches were not innocent and even merited execution, nonetheless compassion for them began to arise, because the ruler did not so much make them die for the public good as in order to satisfy his cruelty’ (Translation by Ablancourt, Annals of Tacitus, bk. XV). “It is certainly upsetting to see such a great historian speak of our religion with so little respect. But the least biased reader will be unable, I think, to refrain from seeing here that from the outset this sect must have been blackened with many real crimes to have been, as the historian says, reproached with hatred for the human race. And if, as we repeat daily, it has strayed far from the spirit of the founder, we must, instead of bemoaning this, be much more pleased to be Christians in this day and age than Christians in those when they merited the utmost punishments. Unless what we have here is an instance of the trite expression, which seems to me so very apt in this case: of the two positions, the better is good for nothing.” For Sade’s source, see Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt, Les Œuvres de Tacite de la Traduction de N. Perrot Sieur d’Ablancourt (Paris, 1658), 424. 13 Martial, Epigrams, trans. D.R. Shackleton Bailey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993): “Tucca, what satisfaction do you get out of mixing must stored in Vatican jars with old Falernian? What great good have vile wines done you or fine wines what harm?” (1[bk.1, ep.18]:52–3). 14 “A serpent chased by Myron’s art is on your wine bowl, Annianus, and you drink Vatican. You drink poison” (ibid., 2[bk.6, ep.92]:68–9). 15 “Should a god himself debit me with nectar, it would turn to vinegar and the treacherous, flat content of a Vatican jar” (ibid., 3[bk.12, ep.48]:128–9).

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In the early days of Rome, the Romans found established soothsayers there whom they consulted. An oak upon which Etruscan letters were found proves that originally the soothsayers of this nation resided there. Pliny mentions this in book XXXVI, and it is thought that the etymology comes from the word vaticinari, which means to divine, predict, etc.16 An older belief has a god residing there who gave it his name. This god, called Vaticanus, presided over speech. Aulus Gellius tells us that the reason for this is that the first cry of infants is the first syllable of the name of the god: Va, Va. This god was also called Vagitanus.17 Monsieur Richard assures us that the tomb of Scipio Africanus was formerly to be seen at the foot of the Vatican (page 356 in the note). This author doubtless did not know that Scipio Africanus died in Campania, in his house at Linternus, some miles above Cumae. The vestiges of the monument that contains the ashes of this great man will still be seen with a quite remarkable epitaph that I will discuss at the proper moment, and Monsieur Richard, who has made the trip to Naples and its vicinity, ought to have seen them and not have made such a mistake. In Naples, engravings of this monument are openly sold, which it seems to me, ought to have disabused him. The family tomb, located in quite a different spot and which will be seen close to Rome, which I will also discuss, might have further served to save Monsieur Richard from committing what, from the point of view of reason, is an inconceivable error. There are several caves fashioned into the interior of this mountain, which perhaps were originally excavated by the augurs that were consulted in these caves and afterwards served to bury the bodies of those wretched partisans of Christ, whose punishments served as entertainment for emperors. Whatever the case, it is in these caves that was built what is called the Vatican cemetery [i.e., Vatican Necropolis]. The common belief of the first Christians, in spite of history and truth, being that Saint Peter had been buried there, Pope Anacletus built a chapel upon this spot, his intent being to construct a fraudulent enterprise, the extent of which he was far from grasping, but which he deemed necessary, however, for bolstering the faith in these early days.18 This 16 In his Natural History, Volume IV: Books 12–16, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945), Pliny the Elder writes: “On the Vatican Hill there is a holm-oak that is older than the city; it has a bronze tablet on it with an inscription written in Etruscan characters, indicating that even in those days the tree was deemed venerable” (540–1 [bk.36, s.87]). 17 Aulus Gellius, in an eighteenth-century translation on the meaning of the word “Vaticanus,” writes: “We have been told that the word Vatican is applied to the hill, and the deity who presides over it, from the vaticinia, or prophecies, which took place there by power and inspiration of the god; but Marcus Varro, in his book on Divine Things, gives another reason for this name. “As Aius,” says Gellius, “was called a deity, and an altar built to his honour in the lowest part of the new road, because in that place a voice from heaven was heard, so this deity was called Vaticanus, because he presided over the principles of the human voice; for infants, as soon as they are born, make the sound which forms the first syllable in Vaticanus, and are therefore said vagire (to cry) which word expresses the noise which an infant first makes.” Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, trans. by W. Beloe (London, 1795), 3[bk.16, ch.17]:247–8. Aius Locutius was a god who had manifested himself in voice to a plebeian, warning of an attack on Rome by the Gauls in the fourth century BCE; while the warning went unheeded and the city was burned, a temple was afterwards built to propitiate the mysterious vocal numen. Vagitanus was an alternative form of Vaticanus, although Sade is perhaps indulging in wordplay. Jérôme Richard provides a considerably more extensive account of the matter in his Description historique et critique de l’Italie (Paris and Dijon, 1766), 5:354–6. 18 Here Sade notes: “Peter, today so celebrated and so sanctified in Rome, was a poor fisherman from Bethsaida who was originally named Simon. He was one of the first idlers that the opportunist Jesus came across and whom he reckoned thanks to his absurdness worthy of following him, and it was at the home of his mother-in-law that the new magician of the Jews did his first tricks. It was quite necessary to begin with

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one’s family. Some critics are astonished that this valorous associate demonstrated such vigour when he cut off, in the Garden of Olives, the ear of one of the soldiers who came to seize his master, only to deny, a moment later, this same master in front of the Caiaphas. Erasmus remarked on this topic that it was rather odd that the chief of Christian religion should have begun his first ministry by adoring a golden calf. But he repented of this, and this is what made it so that he was fortunate enough to bear witness to the resurrection and the ascension. Peter, after the death of his master, endowed by him with the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, set about becoming a missionary and converter. He provided the first example of the avarice and cupidity of his successors. The story of Ananias and of Sapphira furnishes this. What a fortunate branch and how has the clergy cleaved to this since! At this point, the same critics are somewhat astonished again that a Jew, slave of the Romans, should have ordered all those who believed in Christ to give over their inheritance and to lay the prize at his feet. Peter traveled a lot, taught little, and was everywhere ill-treated. Many miracles are attributed to him that his sectarians certified but that few people saw. It is said that he came to Rome, that in Nero’s palace there was an odd combat between him and Simon Magus. A thousand other absurdities are told about him, all equally unworthy of credence. It is likely that Peter had never been to Rome and that he was satisfied with catechizing in Judea (or perhaps in some other unknown corner of Asia). To claim that he was bishop of this city is an odious blunder that cannot be admitted by those who are familiar with history, who know about the persecutions that had to be endured during the first two centuries of Christianity by anyone who dared avow belonging to this sect that Lucian depicts for us as an assembly of ragged tramps with feral miens, maniacal comportment, sighing, contorting themselves, swearing by the son who had come from the father, predicting a thousand misfortunes for the empire, blaspheming against the emperor and against anyone who did not think like they. “This tradition of Peter, Bishop of Rome, is all the more iffy insofar as everyone knows that it was only after two hundred years that the business of Christians began to take on a bit more consistency in Rome and that they were consequently able to have bishops. The only evidence that we have of Peter’s voyage to Rome is a letter dated from Babylon, that interpreters have decided could only have been from Rome, since at that time, the Christians labelled Rome ‘a Babylon.’ But this supposition cannot, so it seems to me, ever pass as proof. “All the escapes that Peter made from various prisons where he was held, aided by angels, are an extension of all these absurdities, which only serve to prove that when it comes to lies, impunity emboldens and that the first is never the last. Be that as it may, it was his name that made his fortune. Peter, you are the rock, said the popes, and upon this rock I will build my kitchen. The loveliest of all these miracles is, without question, the one that made one of the most powerful sovereigns in Italy the successor of a poor fisherman, and these despots must have a good laugh in the depths of their private chambers about the fortunate pun that made their predecessor be taken as the first pontiff and the first head of the Church. That Constantine, Emperor of Rome and wanting to favour the Christians, should have flattered this belief and perpetuated this first imposture made by Anacletus – nothing could be easier. If a Babylonian king had had the same thought, the same myth, with much better reason, he would have been credited in his empire. “Finally, our opportunist died by the same torture as his master, with the exception that out of humility he asked the favour of being crucified upside down. Such is the impostor that the sovereign pontiffs of the Church consider to be their head, that the Christians revere as friend and confidant of their founder, as if it were decided that the Christian superstition should only ever choose its heroes at the gallows. But isn’t the greatest of all these absurdities to have dared assert that Peter was seated in Rome for 25 years during the reign of Nero, whereas Nero only reigned for thirteen and a half years.” Sade further notes: “Add to the note on Saint Peter that it was supposed that Rome was called Babylon in order to explain the letter dated from this city and to pass it off as being written in Rome. But this is truly a gratuitous supposition, and never was Rome called this at any time other than by those interested in fomenting this lie.” Desiderius Erasmus addresses Jesus’s response to Peter cutting off the ear of the soldier Malchus in his Paraphrase on John, in vol. 46 of Collected Works of Erasmus, trans. and ed. Robert D. Sider and Jane E. Phillips (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 199–200. He also addresses the topic in his Paraphrase on Luke 11–24, in vol. 48 of Collected Works of Erasmus, trans. and ed. trans. Jane E. Phillips (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 200–2. Given the phrasing, however, Sade’s source is Voltaire, whose entry on “Saint Peter” states: “Erasmus, on the topic of Peter, remarked that it was rather odd that the chief of Christian religion began his apostolate by denying Jesus Christ and that the first pontiff of the Jews began his ministry by adoring a golden calf.” Dictionnaire Philosophique (II), vol. 36 of Œuvres complètes de Voltaire/Complete Works of Voltaire, ed. Christiane Mervaud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 452.

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chapel survived up to Constantine’s days. Several political reasons having led this emperor to adopt the most widespread sect in Rome at the time, he thought it necessary to give the greatest honours to the chief of the apostles and to strengthen the belief that Anacletus had spread. The ground was excavated upon the spot of this first chapel. The first bones found became indubitably those of the apostle. They were enclosed in a silver box that was placed in a second box made of bronze and five feet squared, topped off by a golden cross weighing five hundred pounds, the whole adorned with an inscription and the names of Helena and of Constantine.19 But these honours were not enough. It was necessary to put this monument in a church, and such was the origin of that first Saint Peter’s Basilica erected by Constantine that, although infinitely inferior to that which we see today, was nonetheless sizeable and had its beauties. This church thus lasted eleven hundred and some years. Nicholas V, during his pontificate that lasted from 1447 to 1455, undertook to re-establish it and in order to do so to tear down the old one, with the plan to build a new one. The authentic proofs that vouchsafe the view that this first basilica was built by Constantine are: First, the Latin inscription: [An empty space here with the note: “Awaiting the answer from Rome to fill in this blank.”] Second, several stones upon which were engraved the names Helena and Constantine that were found when digging the foundations of the new church and that belonged to the old one. Third, a gold medallion upon which was struck a cross and the image of the son and the mother, a medallion doubtless placed under the first stone of this building that was probably laid by the emperor.

19 Marginal note: “Saint Helena, mother of Constantine. In copying this out, place here an additional note on Saint Helena that you will find on page 164, in Lord Bolingbroke’s summary, third volume of the large anthology. “Helena was from the town of Drepanum in Bithynia. Her birth is so obscure that no one has been able to throw any light upon it. Her pretty face made her known, and even more so the favours that her beauty made desired and that she granted without trouble. She was, according to Ambrose, Eusebius, Nicephorus, and Jerome, a stabularia, or stable-maid, in the household of Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine. Constantius got her with child, and out of weakness married her. But as soon as he was named Caesar, he repudiated her. Constantine was born of this concubinage, for he was born before Constantius had married Helena, as Zosimus, who wrote the history of the emperors at the outset of the fifth century, assures us. Once repudiated, Helena doubtless returned to her prior status. What we know for certain is that she did not appear again until her bastard ascended to the throne. At that time, she was recalled, had the title of Augusta, and controlled everything during the reign of Constantine. (Put here what I said about the invention of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena that you will find in my Rome notebooks and that you will add.) Helena died finally in the arms of her son at the age of eighty, in the year 327. As she had built many churches and as Christianity, in these early days, had need of encouragement, there was a rush to place the concubine of Chlorus among the number of saints. In spite of good works that Constantine did for her, she never forgave him his crimes and his murders. Those of Constantine, who was himself the executioner of his own family, were made to frighten a mother. See Crevier, page 243 and following.” Sade’s references will be found in Voltaire, L’Examen important de milord Bolingbroke, vol. 62 of Les Œuvres complètes de Voltaire/The Complete Works of Voltaire, ed. Roland Mortier (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1987), 305; and in Jean-Baptiste-Louis Crevier, Histoire des empereurs Romains, depuis Auguste jusqu’à Constantin (Paris, 1749–1755), 12:243–8. It is not clear from which anthology Sade was drawing for his reference to L’Examen important de milord Bolingbroke, which Voltaire (falsely) attributed to Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke. Although the author indicated, perhaps truthfully, that the work was written in 1736, it was first published in 1766 (see Mortier’s introduction, 129–39).

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Before the construction of this first monument, the practice had long been to bury popes close to the supposed tomb of Saint Peter. The emperors Heliogabalus and Decius suppressed this practice, which came back strong under Constantine and which has been fairly consistently observed ever since. Let us now take back up the chronological history of the present church, which I have just said was begun by Nicholas V,20 based upon the plans by Bernardo Rossellino. In these initial plans, the tribune was raised and the walls came some three or four feet out of the ground.21 The tragic death of this pontiff suspended construction, but Paul II, a few years later, spent five thousand scudi to continue it. However, there were few things completed when Julius II carried on the plans of his predecessors, albeit by destroying that which they had begun under the direction of Bramante, who had made a Gothic design.22 The pontiff laid the first stone on 18 April 1506. We see from the plan that the shape of the church was supposed to be a Latin cross with two campaniles at the two corners of the façade. It was supposed, we are told, to take up much more space than that of Nicholas V’s, with the intent to enclose therein the many tombs sanctified by superstition. The new architect wanted to break and destroy all that his predecessors had done. But it is claimed that Michelangelo, who was at most thirty-two at the time, was opposed to this and was the reason that many things were preserved. The tribune was of this number. However, neither the pontiff nor the artist were able to finish their project: death surprised them both within one year apart, and at this time, what had been made consisted of the four enormous pilasters that support the cupola, which built with too much haste, were lacking in solidity; a part of the eastern branch of the cross; and a large part of the facing of the walls, which was done with those enormous masses of dressed stones called travertine. Leo X, ex-cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, vigorously carried on. He had brought to his homeland Giuliano da Sangallo, Giocondo da Verona, and Raphael da Urbino. But one left Rome, and the other two died a short time apart from one another. The pope summoned 20 Sade notes: “This philosophical pontiff and friend of letters was universally mourned. He loved the fine arts, favourably welcomed refugee men of letters from Greece, and enriched the Vatican Library with several manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He paid up to five thousand ducats for the Hebrew manuscript of the Gospel of Saint Matthew, which today is one of the most beautiful monuments of this collection. He beautified Rome in several spots, tried to pacify the troubles with which Italy was shaken, and died from poisoning, which was confirmed by the exact report of the doctors who autopsied him.” 21 Sade notes: “Tribune is the term used in Italy for the recess that in architecture is known as a demi-cupola in churches and as a cul-de-four in chapels. I will use them both indifferently.” 22 Sade notes: “Bramante da Urbino, born in Castel Durante, in the territory of Urbino, was a very skilled architect. At first, he applied himself to painting, but his natural dispositions soon made him choose architecture. Alexander VI named him his architect; Julius II next made him intendant of his buildings. It was he who decided this pontiff to demolish what his predecessors had done before in order to carry out a new design. The plan that he furnished was approved; but Bramante, sixty-two years of age when he first put his hand to it, was overhasty and spoiled several things that should have been used again; among others, many marbles and mosaics. Michelangelo Buonarroti, who was born in 1474 and who was consequently thirtytwo at the time of this occurrence, had strength enough to oppose him, and much was preserved. Monsieur de Lalande says: Michelangelo complained in his day about Bramante’s proceedings. This way of putting it suggests that Michelangelo came much later than Bramante. The author doubtless did not verify the dates and, seeing that Bramante was born in 1444 and died in 1514 and that Michelangelo was born in 1474 and died in 1564, he would have had plenty of time to see Bramante. That he set himself against him was not an odd thing; we know about the precocious talents of Michelangelo who, at the age of sixteen, was already doing things the equal of Antiquity.”

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Baldassare Peruzzi who, seeing that it was impossible to carry out Bramante’s plan without enormous expense, reduced the project to a Greek cross with four equal parts with the superb cupola in the middle that will be seen there today. But the death of Leo X in 1521, on the 1st of December, once again suspended everything. Pope Adrian VI, tutor of Charles V and not at all a familiar presence in Rome during his pontificate, took little interest in it; he did nothing. The troubles that tore apart Rome under Clement VII also did not allow for more work on this vast structure. During his reign all that was finished was the tribune that Bramante had begun. Under Paul III, who was elected in 1534, the work was vigorously restarted. The pontiff at first gave oversight to the nephew of Giuliano Sangallo, who died without having done anything other than the wooden model that you will see today in the chambers of the Vatican and that cost, it is said, four thousand Roman scudi. Paul then summoned the famous Michelangelo Buonarroti, to whom he handed over complete oversight of the work and who accepted the commission with difficulty. Twentyfive scudi were enough for him to make his plan, and this thriftiness so pleased that he was instantly named by the pontiff chief architect of the Basilica of Saint Peter. It was the glory of this celebrated man to furnish a design that hardly changed at all. He corrected in many ways Bramante’s, which the nephew of Sangallo had naught but imitated. He gave more stateliness and majesty to the building, and pared away useless bits. He provided light – which his predecessors had overly neglected – and provided the plan for that superb cupola that was constructed with more solidity and which exists fully today based upon these plans, and who was taken away in the end from such a beautiful undertaking, after having worked under the pontificates of Paul III, Julius III, Marcellus II, Paul IV, and Pius IV.23 Vignola and Pirro Ligorio, who had worked under Michelangelo, were ordered by Pius V to follow the plan without any changes, and one of them even lost his position for having wanted to change something. Vignola continued the revetting of the walls, but did few other noteworthy things.24 The wars against the Turks unsettled both the plans and the work. Vignola had chosen Giacomo della Porta to succeed him. Both had the same view and the same respect for Michelangelo, and this committed them to not adding anything new to his designs. Gregory XIII (Boncompagni) deferred to this choice, and after nine years the former restarted the work of the other and made the lovely Gregorian Chapel. Sixtus V, overly busy beautifying Rome, was [nevertheless] not, as is believed, one of the least engaged in completing this great work. He provided Domenico Fontana as an 23 Sade notes: “And not under five pontificates, as Monsieur Lalande has it, who apart from a few anachronisms is nonetheless on this subject much more extensive and more accurate than Monsieur Richard.” 24 Sade notes: “Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola was born in 1507 in Vignola, territory of Bologna. He was a painter in his youth, but the taste for architecture winning out, he went to Rome to study Antiquity; there he developed to the point of becoming famous. He went to France during the reign of Francis I. This monarch put him to work on various things. The chateau of Chambord, which Louis XV gave to the Marshal de Saxe, was built based upon his designs. He helped Francesco Primaticcio, of Bologna, who was in the king’s employ, to cast in bronze the antiques that are at Fontainebleau. The magnificent Villa Caprarola, which Cardinal Farnese had built three miles from Rome, is another of his works. Paul IV employed him for Saint Peter’s, and this excellent artist died at last in Rome in the year 1573, at the age of sixty-six, after having left many monuments to his taste and even some works of his art. It was he who built the two little domes that accompany the large one.”

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assistant to Giacomo della Porta, and they finished the dome. The raising of the obelisk that adorns the lovely Square of Saint Peter’s was also their work, and in twenty-two months they did more of need than some of their predecessors had done in several years in this regard. In November of 1590, this magnificent dome, with its revetting, was brought completely to perfection. The successors of Sixtus V, Urban VII, Gregory XIV and Innocent IX, who altogether reigned but a year, made little progress. They were content to finish the lantern and to cover the cupola, which was found to have been a sixth higher than Michelangelo had figured and this was not indicated upon his plans, with lead. Clement VIII, who ascended to the throne on 29 January 1592, still under the guidance of Giacomo della Porta, decorated the interior, made the lovely marble flooring, faced the mosaic dome, adorned the vault with gilded stuccoes, and replaced the tribunal of the old church, which still survived, by the Clementine Chapel that was placed opposite of that of Saint Gregory. Leo XI, from the House of Medici, who reigned for only twenty-six days, was not numbered among the famous constructors of this beautiful church. But Paul V Borghese, raised to the tiara on 11 May 1605, arduously laboured on it. Carlo Maderno was chosen by him to be the architect of this celebrated work, and it was he who had the glory of finishing it.25 What remained of Constantine’s former basilica that could still be seen in 1606 – and consequently even more so in 1505 – was knocked down. Monsieur Lalande, who himself also describes this fact, ought not consider it extraordinary. Maderno found himself obliged to change the designs of Michelangelo who, solely committed to the beauty of the structure, had neglected many things essential to liturgical functions. In the end, he furnished the final form that we have today, that is to say, that of a Latin cross, and in seven years, the façade and the enlargements were completely finished. Cavaliere Lorenzo Bernini, under Urban VIII, tried to erect the bell tower, but the ground underneath sunk.26 Bernini wanted to justify himself; he demonstrated the solidity of his foundations, 25 Sade notes: “Carlo Maderno was born in Bissone, in the territory of Como, in 1556. The reputation of [Domenico] Fontana, whose nephew he was, gave rise in him the desire to come to Rome. His first craft was to work on stuccoes; then, he gave himself over to architecture, and the various works that he made in Rome gained for him such a reputation that Paul V chose him to complete Saint Peter’s. But Maderno wanted to innovate, and he spoiled things. He was not forgiven for having, in order to substitute the Latin cross for the Greek one, extended the fourth arm that remained for him to do. As a result of this there were flaws, instead of that beautiful simplicity that governed Michelangelo’s designs. There was no longer proportion, and this magic element of all the arts, which consists in making appear more than there, in fact, is, was utterly destroyed. The building appeared, on the contrary, smaller than it is. The façade that he constructed based upon his own plans alone hardly redounded to his own either. However, so true is it that there is nothing like grand undertakings to acquire fame that Maderno became fashionable, although it was quite certain that he had deviated in every aspect from the true rules of his art. He made many buildings in Rome; and all over Italy, they no longer wanted to work except based upon his designs. Paul V sent him to visit all the ports of his States and draw up plans for the fortress of Ferrara. Finally, he died in Rome in 1629, busied at the time with the Barberini Palace. I will point out his various structures in the body of the work, when I give a detailed description in Rome of the objects with which he was involved.” 26 Sade notes: “Gian Lorenzo Bernini, known as Cavaliere Bernini, excelled in the three genres of painting, sculpture, and architecture, although he has been justifiably reproached for being a bit too mannered in the second of these genres and often weak in the first. He was born in Naples in 1598 and died in Rome in 1680. Paul V, who saw his first work, was connoisseur enough to predict what he would one day become. Gregory XV made him a knight; he had the respect and friendship of several pontiffs. His talents and the regularity of his morals earned him this. Independently of such preferential treatment, Bernini received visits from queen Christina and was welcomed by Louis XIV. This prince, friend and protector of the arts,

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but in order to be safer, Innocent X, whom the enemies of Bernini had seduced, had what he had done demolished. Under Alexander VII, the grand colonnade was begun by the same architect, who finished it under the subsequent pontificate, that is, that of Clement IX. In 1660, it was begun under Alexander VII, and it was finished in 1668, under Clement IX. It took about seven or eight years. This great work was carried out under thirty-one pontiffs, lasted two hundred and twentyone years, and cost close to 250 million in French money,27 if we add to the calculation of the forty-seven million Roman scudi that Fontana gave,28 that of the bell towers and their demolition under Urban VIII and Innocent X, I believe that you would come out with a sum quite close to four [i.e., four hundred million], if you add to this the designs and all the decorations made since Fontana’s calculation. Be that as it may, this monument, which I will attempt to describe, is – a few flaws notwithstanding – equal to the enormous expense and to the time that it took, and it can stand without question as the most magnificent and superb temple in the universe. Description of Saint Peter’s The order that I will follow requires that before discussing the church, I say a word about the beautiful square that leads to it. This square is divided into two parts. One of these is nothing but a large space, poorly decorated and that has nothing noteworthy about it. The other, which must be marked as starting from Bernini’s beautiful colonnade, is exceedingly lovely, adorned with two beautiful fountains and an obelisk. It ends at the façade of the church. To the right are the immense buildings of the Vatican. Benedict XIII spent eightyeight thousand Roman scudi to pave this square. Begun in 1661 under Alexander VII, this colonnade was finished shortly afterwards, under the pontificate of Clement IX.29

showered him with generosity: he had him come to Paris for the plans for the Louvre. Besides paying for the voyage, the king granted him a stipend of five louis d’or per diem. He gave him a bonus of fifty thousand écus, a pension of two thousand écus, of which five hundred écus were revertible to his son, and his portrait enriched with diamonds. His plans were nonetheless not accepted; those of Claude Perrault won out, and Bernini had the wit to say, seeing the plans of his competitor, that it was useless to import artists when such good ones were locally available. The king wanted to have his portrait done by him; in France we have by the hand of this celebrated artist the bust of Louis XIV and the M. Curtius at Versailles. I will discuss these Italian masterpieces where appropriate. See Vie des hommes illustres d’Italie, page 160, volume II.” Sade’s reference is to the entry on Bernini in Giulio Roberto di Sanseverino, Les Vies des hommes et des femmes illustres d’Italie, depuis le rétablissement des sciences & des beaux arts, trans. Jean-Pierre d’Açarq (Paris, 1767), 2:160–7. Concerning the statue of Marcus Curtius that Sade mentions, this was originally an equestrian statue of Louis XIV. The king was, however, displeased with Bernini’s likeness, and François Girardon subsequently transformed the figure into the legendary Roman hero, who had ridden his horse into a pit opened up by an earthquake in order to propitiate the gods of the underworld. 27 Marginal note: “This calculation in French coin is incorrect; check it.” 28 Marginal note: “46 million, eight-hundred thousand, four hundred and eighty scudi. This is Fontana’s exact sum.” 29 Marginal note: “It will be necessary to insert this note: Several editions of Monsieur Lalande state Clement XI, but this is a printing error. If that were the case, the work would have lasted forty years. Bernini would not have been able to finish it, since he died twenty years before the era of Clement XI, who ascended to the throne on 23 November 1700, and Bernini, as I have said above, died in Rome in 1680.”

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It creates a court that is initially elliptical where it begins [sic], then rectangular because of the two wings, which are pierced with windows and decorated with pilasters in the Doric order, that get closer as they come to the two ends of the façade. Nothing could be more stately and magnificent than this adornment. This colonnade is opened up at its two ends by a large and lovely portico that is fifty-six feet wide, which serves as an entryway to30 the covered walkways that go all around the square31 and that are accompanied by two other, smaller ones that form side paths, the whole supported by four rows of large columns of travertine stone and in the Doric order. It is with reason that abbé Richard says that it is a shame that the monument was not done in marble: never should have Antiquity produced anything so superb, and this would have been possible without increasing the expense by more than a third. This colonnade, which, as beautiful as it is, sins nonetheless by being too massive and heavy, forms six avant-corps and four recessed pavilions. The entablature, in the same order as the columns, supports a balustrade decorated with statues of saints that creates the loveliest effect. The columns are raised upon three steps and are forty feet high; the statues are seventeen and the entire structure sixty-five. The whole colonnade consists of 320 large columns and the statues that crown it number thirty-six.32 From the two angles of the colonnade take off two superb wings that create the rectangle of the second court and that terminate with the lovely openings at the vestibule of Saint Peter’s. Coupled pilasters support the entablature on top of which, moreover, are placed 44 statues on each side, made in 1700, under the pontificate of Clement XI. The cost of the entirety of these wings and of the colonnade, decorations and statues included, is estimated at eight hundred and fifty thousand Roman scudi. In each widening of the oval portion of the court, or rather in the middle of the recessed parts of this oval, are two magnificent fountains that perpetually send forth water in such abundance that, after having been shot up quite high, falls down in a fine rain and moistens a circumference more than twenty feet in diameter. An important prince, arriving at Saint Peter’s, after having delighted for a moment in these magnificent sprays, commanded that they be stopped, and great was his astonishment when he was assured that the flow was continuous. With respect to the first fountain – the one upon the right – Monsieur Lalande here makes a glaring anachronism in saying that it was begun under Innocent VIII and finished under Alexander VII.33 This fountain was made under the pontificate of Paul V, subsequently decorated by Cavaliere Bernini, who constructed all of the second one under the pontificate of Clement X.34 These two fountains are faced with marble and the receiving basin for the water is made of granite. They draw their water from Lake Bracciano, located in the countryside of Trevignano. Both are placed equidistant from the obelisk that adorns the middle of this beautiful square. This obelisk, such as we see it today, is but a part of what it ought to be. Uchoreus, one of the successors of Ozymandias, the third king of Egypt, which Uchoreus founded 30 A notebook of 18 pages in Sade’s hand titled “Continuation of the description of the Vatican – notebook two on this topic” starts here. 31 Marginal note: “I think that you can boldly assert that at the façade there are only three doors.” 32 Marginal note: “Insert this note: Monsieur Lalande is manifestly mistaken in the counting of these statues and columns, since he makes it 280 for the columns and 146 for the statues.” 33 Sade notes: “Giovanni Cybo, cardinal of Malta, Genoese, was elected pope under the name Innocent VIII, on the 29th of August, 1485, and Alexander VII died on the 22nd of May, 1664, which would assume that this fountain took eighty-three years to build, which is evidently false. If it were not for these three mistakes in a row, we might still be able to assume the error to be in the printing.” 34 Sade notes: “And not Innocent X, as Monsieur Richard has it.”

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the lovely city of Memphis in 1815 Anno Mundi (2188 years before J.C.), had this superb monument hewn from the quarry in Syene, doubtless to be placed in his new city, but it broke in the quarry.35 Uchoreus had the larger part erected; the other, which was the pointed part, remained in the quarry and was not hewn with hieroglyphs, as one can observe.36 Gaius Caligula had it transported to Rome in the second year of his reign, 39 AD. This emperor decorated his circus with it and dedicated it to the divine Caesar, son of the divine Julius and of his son Tiberius Caesar, as we see from the following inscription engraved at the base, not the supporting one, but that of the obelisk proper: DIVO CÆSARI, DIVI IVLII F. TIBERIO CÆSARI D. AVG. F. AVGVSTI SACRVM.37

Which does not in the least prove, as Monsieur Crevier has it in his Histoire des empereurs (page 56, volume 3) that Gaius wanted to have this monument dedicated to the sacrilegious cult that he demanded for himself (you will admit that this is a case of what is known as writing history with partiality).38 It was merely a monument that this emperor erected to his predecessors, and we see nothing but praiseworthiness in this undertaking. This inscription made it for a long time believed that the ashes of Augustus had been enclosed in the bowl that crowned it.39 Fontana, to whom, as I will presently mention, was given the task of setting up this obelisk, opened up this bowl and it was discovered that it was a single piece and that it had been cast in a mould without any opening being made therein. Nonetheless, it was shot through with several projectiles, which doubtless happened during the sack of Rome, and the first of these that had gotten in via these fissures and that the wind had brought there, gave rise to the belief about Augustus’s ashes [sic].40 This obelisk is made of a single piece of Oriental red granite of the sort known as pyropedices because of the fiery blotches upon it.41 Caligula had his circus decorated with 35 Syene is modern-day Aswan. Diodorus of Sicily dedicates several paragraphs to Ουχορεύς (Greek) or Uchoreus (rendered in Latin) as purported founder of Memphis and the eighth son of Osymandias (Ramses II), on the key position that the city held on the Nile River delta in terms of controlling commerce, and the king’s erection of a palace on the site. See Diodorus of Sicily, The Library of History, trans. C.H. Oldfather (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), 1:176–81. 36 Sade adds: “Note to be inserted: It is easy to distinguish between obelisks carried off from Egyptian towns and those taken from quarries. The former are covered with hieroglyphs; the latter, such as this one, do not have any and were either broken pieces or left in the quarry, as yet undecorated by the sculptor’s chisel. The one at Saint Peter’s is certainly of this sort.” 37 Translated and expanded: “Consecrated to Divine Caesar, son of Divine Julius, and to the Divine Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of Augustus.” There are transcription errors in Sade’s version. 38 Crevier had put forward the supposition: “Perhaps Gaius had wanted” this obelisk to serve “the sacrilegious cult that he demanded for himself” (Histoire des empereurs Romains, 3:56). 39 Marginal note: “Note to be inserted: this same inscription has led to the belief that this obelisk was brought out of Egypt by Augustus and that it remained in Alexandria. It is quite likely that only with Caligula was it transported from Alexandria to Rome – a transportation that, perhaps like the one at Saint John Lateran that Constantius [II] had brought over and about which I will have occasion to speak, had frightened Augustus.” 40 Marginal note: “Have this note inserted: we are cognizant, moreover, of the lovely monument that Augustus had had erected for himself and for the gods. I will speak of the remnants that will be seen of this. Based upon this, it would have been absurd to imagine that his ashes would have been placed in a bowl upon the top of an obelisk.” 41 A misspelling of lapis pyrrhopoecilus, the Latin term for Syenite, also known as red or pink Aswan granite. See Carmelo G. Malacrino, Constructing the Ancient World: Architectural Techniques of the Greeks and Romans, trans. Jay Hyams (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2010), 28.

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it. Pliny [the Elder] says that never had a larger nor more peculiar boat been seen than the one that transported it from Alexandria to Rome.42 You are still shown today, in an exterior angle of the sacristy of Saint Peter’s, the spot where it stood. It is the only one in Rome to be respected by the inconstancy or the tumult of the times. Even the zealous Constantine, when he destroyed the circus to build his church for the prince of the apostles, allowed it to remain.43 Finally, it was knocked down and lay unknown, forgotten in the dust, when Sixtus V, still but a monk, went to contemplate it, shedding tears on account of the neglect of one of the most beautiful monuments of ancient Rome. He only wanted to be pope, said he, in order to return it to its ancient splendour. In fact, he dedicated his first cares to it, and an entire year was spent labouring merely to bring it where it was in the middle of the square. The pope named Fontana to carry out its erection, and we still see, in a room of the Vatican, the ingenious machine that he used for this lovely operation. Sixtus V was not the only pope who had conceived of the project to raise this monument again. Julius II, Paul III, and Paul IV had thought to do so before him. They had even conferred with several artists who, all affrighted at the undertaking, left to the enterprising Sixtus the honour of shunting aside all of the difficulties and to the celebrated Fontana that of vanquishing them by carrying it out. Sixtus established a congregation of cardinals who assembled to advise as to the best means of undertaking this grand work, and he often attended their meetings in order to confer with them about it. Finally, the pedestal was undertaken, at the base of which, besides several medallions of popes and cardinals that he allowed to be struck,44 was placed a marble table upon which was engraved in Latin the name of the pope, that of his architect, his country, his family, and an inscription that explained the manner in which the raising of this obelisk had been gone about and the time taken up to do so. Then, they finished the support and engraved thereon: ECCE CRVCEM DOMINI FVGITE PARTES ADVERSÆ VINCIT LEO DE TRIBV IUDA.45

42 In the margin: “It is 72 feet.” 43 Marginal note: “Monsieur Richard wrongly asserts that it is larger than the others and that it appears of more majestic proportions. That of Saint John Lateran is larger. One ought not, it seems to me, hazard such things, when it is so easy to prove the contrary.” 44 Sade notes: “Sixtus V’s jest to the ambassador of the king of Spain: the count of Olivarez, the Spanish ambassador, had one struck upon which the face of the king, his master, and his own took up the two sides; he showed this to the pope with the intention of having it placed in the monument. But Sixtus, understandably disgusted, ingeniously responded: I advise you, my good count, to reserve this beautiful medallion for the first palace that you should build in Madrid. (See: Gregorio Leti, Vie de Sixte V.)” Sade’s entire account of the obelisk and its raising by Sixtus V is a compressed, often literal, at times garbled or unclear borrowing from Gregorio Leti, La Vie du Pape Sixte Cinquième. Traduit de l’Italien (Paris, 1758); see esp. 2:91–105. It is, e.g., hardly evident from Sade’s version that the medallions were to be placed within the base of the pedestal. The translation of Leti’s work, by Louis-Antoine Le Peletier, was originally published in 1683. 45 Translated: “Behold the cross of the Lord. Flee, enemy nations, the Lion who conquered the Tribe of Judah.”

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All in honour of the holy use to which its restoration was put. Then, six large trenches were dug, forty cranes were erected, and finally, by means of the beautiful machine that Fontana had invented, along with nine hundred workers and forty-five horses,46 the monument was placed upon the four lions that seem to support it in the air, but, in fact, on top of massive iron rods that hold it steadfastly in place and with the utmost stability upon its pedestal.47 The cost of this undertaking was thirty-eight thousand Roman scudi,48 without counting the cross, the support lions, and other embellishments that the Camera incurred and that it paid.49 I will now provide in Roman measurements the proportions of this beautiful monument. I leave to the curious reader the task of translating, should he desire, this measurement to ours by means of the scale that I have provided of the Roman palm to the royal foot. The obelisk, from the base resting upon the lion up to the part where it becomes sharper, is a hundred and seven palms. From there to the most acute point, there are seven, and sixteen from the tip up to the beam of the star that supports the cross.50 This cross is eleven palms; the entirety of the base is forty, which makes for a total height of a hundred and eighty palms. The weight of this enormous mass is, if we are to believe Fontana’s calculations, some nine hundred and seventy three thousand, nine hundred and thirty seven Roman pounds, which differs from the account of Misson who, based upon the assessment of J.-J. Boissard, whom he cites, put it at only nine hundred and fifty-six thousand, one hundred and eight pounds.51 But in all likelihood he had not weighed it. After having admired this superb monument of the greatest antiquity, you advance via the rectangular space that creates a second court, as it were, adorned both to the right and left by the beautiful porticoes of which I have spoken up to the steps that ascend from the court to the vestibule. From the foot of that staircase, you can contemplate the façade, the height of which does not appear at all in proportion to the magnificence of such a building: a defect into which Maderno was forced in order not to obscure the cupola but that deprives the portal of the complete magnificence that it ought to have and makes it look much more like the façade of a palace than the frontispiece of a temple. This portal, erected above the stairway with three landings, from the bottom of which we are considering it, is in the Corinthian order, topped by an attic with three openings, with lovely niches in the

46 Sade notes: “Monsieur Richard has absurdly multiplied the thing, and he doubtless did not sense that the hundred and sixty horses that he claims were used for this operation would be less apt for the task than forty-five, insofar as they would be more harmful than helpful. At every instant, we see the lack of trustworthiness of the tomes that this author used for his research.” Sade’s contempt aside, Richard here appears to follow the antiquarian Jean-Jacques Boissard (1528– 1602), who mentions a hundred and sixty horses in his account of the erection of the obelisk in his Pars Romanae Vrbis Topographiae (Frankfurt, 1597), 197. 47 Marginal note: “See in the Dictionnaire d’Italie, under the word Fontana, the numerous details on this, and insert some of them.” This is a reference to the anonymously authored Dictionnaire historique et géographique portatif de l’Italie (Paris: Chez Lacombe, 1775), which details Domenico Fontana’s raising of the obelisk in its entry on the architect (see 1:463–4). 48 Sade notes: “About two hundred and thirty thousand livres in French money. One could, if desired, verify more exactly by means of the currency table that I have placed at the end of the entry on Rome.” 49 Marginal note: “Cost and measurements.” 50 Marginal note: “Part taken up by three mountains; the devices of Sixtus V.” 51 See François Maximilien Misson, Voyage d’Italie (Amsterdam, 1743), 2:204. Boissard discusses the obelisk in detail in his Pars Romanae Vrbis Topographiae (196–8).

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spaces in-between. Eight columns, the diameter of which is twelve palms,52 support the upper portico, with the same number of windows, with the one in the middle forming the balcony from which the pope gives his benediction upon ceremonial occasions and that is called the loggia.53 Above everything else is an attic upon which is placed Jesus Christ in the midst of his two apostles, in the same proportions as the statues that crown the colonnade of the square. Generally speaking, everything about this portico is slender, everything is small and meticulous. You notice charm and adornment, but nothing sublime, and Michelangelo’s vast imagination would have been incapable of conceiving in this manner; there is neither distinction nor majesty, and you see that the artist would have been better suited to decorate a festival room than the temple of the divine. Above the third stairway is a large landing where the clergy of this basilica gathers to receive the pope when he comes to Saint Peter’s for reasons of ceremony. This is also where the sovereign would be received if he were to come to Rome in fiocchi. At the feet of the stairway are statues of Saint Peter and of Saint Paul. This stairway was begun by Paul V and finished by Alexander VII. The two statues were ordered by Pius II and executed by an artist of little renown. Above the middle doorway is a marble bas-relief done by [Ambrogio] Buonvicino, which depicts Saint Peter receiving the keys from his master. From there you enter into the vestibule, the length and breadth of which are statelier than the portal would appear to herald. This vestibule stretches all the way along and terminates, to the right and left, in two galleries that link the façade to two wing buildings adorned with porticoes and pilasters of which I have spoken and that are decorated with the two statues of Charlemagne and of Constantine that serve as perspective points for these two end points of the vestibule, the five outward facing openings of which correspond to the entryways of the church. Several bas-reliefs done by the greatest masters adorn this vestibule, the ceiling of which is made of stucco decorated with compartments. When you are in this vestibule and the doors of the church are closed, you cannot help but be astonished at the trifling manner in which this superb edifice is introduced. You would think that you had seen everything having been in this vestibule, and it is then that you make out and really feel that enormous difference between these modern works at which you must guess and those beautiful temples of Antiquity, absolutely isolated on every side and whose majesty struck one from as far off as they could be seen. You would say that Christians blush at their god and that they love to hide his temple, a bit like how their pious teachings seek to veil the features thereof. The statue of Constantine, which terminates the vestibule to the left hand upon exiting and that is located at the bottom of the grand stairway of the Vatican is by Cavaliere Bernini. It depicts the moment when the cross appeared to him. Monsieur Lalande seems to judge it too hastily. This statue is overwrought, I agree; perhaps there is too much movement; it seems that the horse is spooked by the holy object appearing to its master. But through all these flaws, we discern beauties from which this grand master’s chisel was never exempt. 52 Sade notes: “I will not repeat the other measurements, which are everywhere cited. I will content myself with observing these details in less well-known monuments, where my observant guides have given up on exactitude, lacking books to translate that might indicate measurements as with Saint Peter’s and that they have done nothing but copied.” 53 Sade notes: “Main building that is closed during conclaves and in which there are rooms and apartments for the conclavists.”

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As for the one of Charlemagne, executed by [Agostino] Cornacchini, who depicts Charlemagne on horseback and crowned with laurel, it is feeble and entirely lacking in warmth. This is a confession owed to truth that I cannot stop myself from making in this regard. 54 Otherwise, surely nothing is better imagined than this tribute of recognition erected by the popes to the first benefactors of their church. The Christian superstition surely owes its growth to the politics of the first,55 and the patrimony of Saint Peter was but enriched by 54 Marginal note: “Examination of the motives that led Constantine to Christianity. Ridiculousness of Monsieur Crevier, who puts in fanciful opposition the two portraits of Maxentius and Constantine.” Crevier provides a long account of the power struggle between Maxentius and Constantine, characterizing the former as tyrannical and libertine, in his Histoire des empereurs romains, 12:74–98. 55 “Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, which Chlorus became emperor on account of the abdication of Diocletian, did not ostensibly have greater right to the empire than Maxentius, who was the son of the emperor Maximian Herculius, whom Diocletian had associated to the empire. Christianity awarded the one the title of ‘Great’ because it was favoured by him and to the other that of ‘tyrant’ because of the persecutions that it suffered from him. But in philosophical enquiries we ought not take Christianity as guide. Maxentius was in Rome; he had been acknowledged as Augustus by the Senate; he departs in order to combat his rival; he is beaten by Constantine.a Is this a matter of rights? Up to this point, I see nothing but those of force. The eve of that battle, Constantine sees a cross in a dream: J.C. appears to him. This entire beautiful vision, dictated by his political program, had no other principle than that of handling the Christian sect of J.C., powerful in Rome and that was drawing near to his rival. He used it [i.e., the vision] to open the doors of the capital by heralding himself as its [i.e., Christianity’s] protector. He sensed, says Monsieur Fleuri, his inferiority to Maxentius and he believed it necessary to have aid from on high. One will grant me that it will ever be hard to credit that Constantine, a pagan, should have believed that he might vanquish Maxentius with the aid of a cross in which he had no faith. For it was not immediately after this even that he became a Christian; on the contrary, since upon entering Rome he was made the high priest of Jupiter. Notwithstanding the motive that I have just stated, almost the entire army of Constantine, made up of Gauls, Britons, and Allobroges, was Christian, and his soldiers believed themselves invincible as soon as they saw their leader not only adopt but even publicly advertise their chimeras. All of this succeeded marvellously, and even prior to the battle, Christians formed a plot in Rome in his favour. Constantine enters Rome triumphantly and the Senate erects a triumphal arch to him about which I will speak. Of those quarreling over the empire – Maxentius, Galerius, Licinius, etc. – it was clear that the most politic and most Christian should carry it off. Constantine sensed this, and here lies his greatness. Once in Rome, the same political principle led him to hand down rulings in favour of those whom he knew to be of his party. He granted liberty to the Christians whom Maxentius had persecuted; allowed the cult that the latter had repressed, and sustained himself thusly. But was he less of a villain? Did he any less assassinate his son Crispus whom he had from his first marriage with Minervina? And his wife Fausta who had saved his life? And the father of that wife, Maximian Herculius, whom he cruelly had choose the manner of death he preferred and whom he forced to hang himself, and this upon the slightest and least plausible pretext? Did he any less barbarously have done in his brother-in-law Licinius, his nephew, and his friends? (See Eutropius, page 150 – the Latin passage by Eutropius, page 20 of the République des lettres, volume VI). “But, I ask if so many crimes, which Monsieur Crevier labels petty flaws, ought merit the name ‘the Great’ for the villain who sullied himself with them. Finally, after so many crimes, Zosimus informs us that this monster, constantly appealed to by Christian priests, who sensed how important it was for them to have at last a Christian emperor, asked them in which religion he could find expiation for his infamous deeds. The answer was clear, and Constantine had himself baptized. Licinius, the year after and still battling Maximian, had recourse to the same ruse as Constantine. An angel appeared to him, dictated a prayer to him that he had his soldiers recite three times before doing battle, and he conquered his rival. But Licinius, who did not have the same motive as Constantine for carrying on, divulged it and became one of the greatest persecutors of that sect to whose artifices he had appealed. All these persecutions led to the growth of this sect. If it had been left in peace, it would have soon died of destitution. It can be asserted that a persecuted religion flourishes sooner or later. Let us not doubt this: the revolutions that must annihilate Catholicism are not distant; Luther or Calvin will replace [it] for a while, because one doesn’t dare to utterly destroy the idol, since then all will crumble and some new error will take up the place of the former. New men will

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laugh at our old errors, like we laugh today at those of the Caesars and of the likes of Heliogabalus, and they will no more understand our crazed worship to some bread and a hanged man than we understand that which Greece gave to Mars and to Venus. As long as there are men on earth, there will be superstitions. Why should we complain about the one of the moment? And who will assure us that the one to follow will not be stuffed with so many extravagances? “After having laid forth the reasons that led Constantine to adopt our chimeras, let us consider what he did with them and try to disentangle whether faith or politics had the greater hold upon his conscience. In 325, we see our fanatic assemble a council at Nicaea in Bithynia and openly declare that he understands nothing of the divinity of J.C. and that, moreover, this matter, which seems to him of little import, is of the utmost indifference to him. Here are some rather insubstantial sentiments for this new proselyte! Let it be noted, on this occasion, that it is the emperor who is convoking the council; even the pope does not attend; Pope Sylvester did not show up at this one. It was here that Christian intolerance in its entirety appeared in all its strength. The emperor published an edict condemning to death all of the Arians. At last, at this fatal epoch, the empire is destroyed and an insolent priest climbs to the throne of the Caesars; unrest and faction everywhere reign, and the new holy religion makes more blood flow than ever did that of the likes of Hercules or of Osiris. At last, the emperor who had up to now not been definitively anything, seeing himself close to death, requested baptism. It seems to me that a well-settled calling ought to not wait until that moment. He received it and had himself buried in the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople, after having received all the sacraments at the same time.b It is impossible not to be struck here that an emperor who owes his throne to a religion, the errors of which he invoked, should take such a long time before being initiated into it; that this emperor so dear to Christians should, in turn, adopt and combat its errors so frivolously, as his conduct with regard to the Arians demonstrates. When considered with care, we see in Constantine nothing but a very ambitious, a very politic man, and one who, notwithstanding, out of thoughtlessness or fickleness destroyed Rome and delivered it over to error; we see a prodigal who spent upon follies and upon useless works all the coins of the Public Treasury, a parricide, a murderer, and a traitor. “Let us leave to the Greeks the task of sainting him, to the Christians that of seeing him as a great man,c and stripped of the prejudices that rule their conduct, let us see in this monster nothing but a tyrant and the assassin of his family, the destroyer of Rome and of the empire, and the imbecilic protector of the odious fable that subjugates Europe today. As for the all the rest of those events that have built up both the Christian religion and the power of the popes, I refer one to everything that has been said in my preliminary discourse. “Constantine had his son Crispus put to death because Fausta, his wife, had said to him that he was in love with her and that he wanted to molest her. The emperor relegated his son to Pula, in Istria, and had him put to death there by the combination of torture by iron and by poison. Helena, mother of the emperor, enlightened her son and gave him to see that this wife, so scrupulous, was herself guilty of adultery with the meanest palace staff. Such doings are not very admirable in a saint; there is little Christian charity. Constantine, enraged and ever cruel and bizarre regarding his torments, forced this unfortunate wife, who had given him three princes who attained the empire, into a bath of boiling water. I ask what more the likes of Nero and Tiberius would have done. It was all of these horrors that caused the following couplet to be engraved upon the door of the emperor’s palace: Saturni aurea secla quis requirat [?] Sunt hæc gemmea sed neroniana. Sid. Apoll.: V, ep. 8 [Who pines for the Golden Age of Saturn? Here be gems, but those of Nero. Sidonius Apollinaris: V, epistle 8] “I will note here with Monsieur Crevier that it is unfortunate that in the life of the first Christian emperor, there should be found such actions, not only contrary to the sanctity of Christianity, but to laws of an entirely human virtue.d Zosimus tells us that Constantine consulted the pagan priests in order to know whether he could expiate his crimes; rebuffed by their assurance that nothing could wash them away, the emperor turned to the Christians, who, eager to have him join their sect, undertook with their ceremonies to assuage the torments of his conscience. In his refutation of Zosimus, Monsieur Crevier assures us that the false part of his account and that which proves his ill will is that when Constantine had his son Crispus killed, he had been a Christian for fourteen years. The fact is laughably false, and in order to defend his

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No, doubtless not. Following the actions of the emperor from this point up until the year 337, we will see that he favoured this party, but that he never openly professed it. If he were to have done so, why would his baptism have been put off? And why would this ceremony only be done in the year of his death? Let us admit that the fraud and bias are thus to be found with Monsieur Crevier and not with Zosimus, who wrote seventy-three years after, completely naturally, of facts too recent to be truncated and that it is much more likely that Christian deception should have altered them. But, says Monsieur Crevier, in 326, we see him mocking idolatrous practices and even forbidding worship and superstition. Agreed. He did just the same with respect to Christianity when he asked what was the purpose of J.C.’s divinity. In this, I see a politic prince and one who saw the faults of both the one and the other form of worship – and one who, finally, upon his death, cedes to those who persecute him more. Had not the fickleness of his character shown itself in his conduct regarding the Arians? Yet never do I see a Christian – and, above all, one made a Christian two years before the battle with the tyrant Maxentius, the only period when he fancied adopting their errors for all the reasons that I have deduced above. And please don’t bring me as proof of the long-standingness of Constantine’s Christianity that statue that he had erected, where he will be seen, cross in hand, or those medallions that were struck in which he was depicted praying! All of that was either a homage from the Christians or a consequence of the initial motive that led him to conjure the labarume and the vision of the cross. In vain does Monsieur Crevier see the profession of faith and the most ardent conversion to Christianity; I persist in seeing nothing but a double-dealer who mocked everything equally and who adopted nothing but what his ambition offered him that was most apt to advance it. But the height of all the follies of this prince was this: the destruction of the wise law that made it so that the unmarried were unable to inherit and that otherwise harshly restricted them. This law, set down out of love for population and consequently for the human race, was abolished by this villain who, not only did not wish anyone to have children, but who killed his own. That he adopted the whimsies of nascent Christianity as long as it advanced his ambition, acceptable. But that he created laws regarding what made him odious and useless to society: here is what is horrible and that makes us see that after having committed so many crimes, this emperor’s head necessarily underwent a change for the worse and he went insane. Here, nonetheless, is the sublime act that Monsieur Crevier admires and upon which, doubtless, he has built his myth of the long-standingness of Constantine’s Christianity. Dare we, after all this, rely upon all our Catholic writers who write History?!” Marginal comments on this note are given in superscript and are as follows: a) “When writing, change twice this entire note on Constantine, which is not at all coherent and which is very poorly written” b) “The day of Pentecost, 22 May 337” c) “The Christians have, I believe, also sainted him. Check this fact” d) “Put this in place of what you have put further above” e) “The labarum was a purple banner adorned with gold and precious stones. Constantine had put on it the sign of J.C. (see Misson, volume II, page 331, and copy out the sign).” The primary source for the several authors cited or mentioned in this long note is Zosimus, the Byzantine historian, working in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. His Nova Historia, written in Greek, itself draws from several earlier sources and was of great interest to devout and philosophical authors alike in the eighteenth century insofar as the author, a polytheist, was critical of Constantine and subsequent Christian emperors. Sade’s reference to “Fleuri” is to the monumental 40-volume history of the Church by Claude Fleury et al., Histoire ecclésiastique (Paris, 1720–1737). Publication originally began in 1691 and under the sole authorship of Fleury, after whose death the work was continued (according to Antoine Alexandre Barbier) by Jean-Claude Fabre and Claude-Pierre Goujet, and the full title, starting with vol. 21, is Histoire ecclé-

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the munificence of the second. Charlemagne is to the right because he who gives always has the place of honour in Rome. With respect to Constantine, since the obligations owed him begin to grow old, he has been put at the bottom of the stairway. Opposite him is the triumphal cross, which appears on the contrary ready to fly to the top of the steps, an all too direly truthful reminder of what would soon happen under the reign of that imbecilic emperor, whose conduct levelled the direst blow to the throne that he occupied and that that wretched cross that he embraced was soon to overturn. The floor of the vestibule is made up of marbles of different types. It was done under Clement X. Twenty lovely columns adorn the interior, in which you will also note some statues of various pontiffs by various artists. You must also contemplate, above the main doorway, the mosaic that goes by the name of Navicella, which depicts Saint Peter upon the water. You see several devils that, in the guise of wind, cause the little boat to shake and teeter. The reason for this emblem is not so clear, since the skip made it to a decent enough port. This monument, which provides a notion of the arts of those first centuries, is the work of Giotto; it was situated in the old church. I do not know why Monsieur Lalande writes that it was done under Benedict IX. If it was Giotto that made it, this is impossible, since Giotto flourished in the fourteenth century and Benedict IX reigned in the eleventh. Here we have those little errors in chronology about which it is quite difficult to pass over in silence. But this is even more likely to be the fault of the copyist, and Monsieur Lalande would have intended to have Benedict XI, who in fact employed Giotto. It was Alexander VII who had this piece placed where we see it today. Entry into the old Basilica of Saint Peter was via five gates as today. These five gates had names: the first Argentea, because of the silver blades with which it was faced; the second Porta Romana, set aside for Romans and more specifically still for apostolic women; the third, located on the side of the palace, was called Quidonia [viz., Guidonea; the Pilgrims’ Gate] on account of the custom of having foreigners who came to visit the church enter here; the fourth, located to the south after the Argentea doorway was called the Porta Ravenniana [viz., Ravignana or Ravennate] because of the practice of having the Trasteverites, that is, those resident on the other side of the Tiber and long known as Ravennati, siastique, pour servir de continuation à celle de M. L’Abbé Fleury. The discussion of Constantine’s vision and appeal to an “aid from on high” will be found in 2: 610–12. It is likely that Sade was, in fact, drawing on Jean-Martin de Prades, Abrégé de l’Histoire Ecclésiastique de Fleury (Berne, 1766), where de Prades discusses the vision and its impact (1:65–7). Constantine’s “bad faith” and “perjury” with regard to Licinius according to Roman historian Flavius Eutropius will be found in an account of Zosimus in Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens, Mémoires secrets de la République des Lettres, ou Le Théâtre de la Vérité (Amsterdam, 1744), 6:24. As Sade notes, this work provides a citation in Latin from Eutropius. Although I have been unable to find an exact match for the page reference, the discussion of Licinius will be found in a contemporaneous bilingual Latin and English edition of Eutropius, Historiæ Romanæ Breviarium, trans. John Clarke (London, 1769), 152–4. For Crevier’s overall account of Constantine and Maxentius, see op. cit. The citation from Sidonius Apollinaris (“Saturni aurea …”) is given in Crevier, Histoire des empereurs romains, 12:179. It will also be found in a critical discussion of Constantine’s “cruelties” in Voltaire’s Examen important de milord Bolingbroke, vol. 62 of Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, 310–11. Sade’s page references to Misson’s Voyage d’Italie usually refer to the Amsterdam edition on 1743, which discusses the labarum and also provides an illustration of it (3:129); the page numbers provided above do not refer to any edition of Misson’s work that I have been able to locate.

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enter here; finally, the last one was called the Gate of Judgment, because it served those about to be summoned, that is to say, for the dead that passed through en route to their final resting place. The one that serves the same purpose has preserved more or less the same name and is also called the Gate of the Dead. The same number of gates survives today, and the last one to the right opposite the portal was called the Holy Gate, the opening and closing of which is done at the beginning and at the end of the Jubilee,56 with a theatrical 56 Sade notes: “The Jubilee is an entirely pagan institution and based upon the secular games of the Ancients that were celebrated in Rome every one hundred years. The public herald, in his invitation announcing these games, would say that no one of all those living at the time had seen these spectacles and that nobody would see them again; about the same invitation was made to Christians when the opening of the holy door only occurred every one hundred years. The interests of the court of Rome, whose revenues grew mightily during these holy periods, sparked a desire to hold it a bit more frequently. Boniface VIII had followed the pagan custom and was pleased to renew this ceremony every hundred years; Clement VI put it at every fiftieth, Urban VI at every 33 years, and, finally, Paul II at four times per century. It is not true that the opening of the holy door, as the Christians believe, is one of the most ancient ceremonies of the Church. This practice does not go back very far; the origin of it is an altar to the Virgin adjacent to that door; in order to better honour this altar, a door in front of it was fashioned, an event that by chance happened during the time of the Jubilee. Making a ceremony of this was dreamed up, because everything theatrical is enjoyed in Rome and brings in money. “The day of the opening of this door, the pope, carried in his gestatorial chair by eight men, arrives at the Saint Peter’s Square, preceded by cardinals wearing capes and mitres embroidered with gold, archbishops, bishops, chiefs of all the divisions of his staff, and his guard; he takes his seat upon a throne located in the vestibule, close to the holy door; the cardinals come in adoration; after a few orations that are necessary to impress the people, this pontiff takes a golden hammer, strikes three blows, and masons on the scene promptly complete the breach. The pope then enters on his knees, followed by the cardinals; and from there he is brought before the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, whence, after vespers, he is carried back, followed by the same procession. The ceremony of the closing is about the same, with the difference that the pope arrives at the seat located in the vestibule via the Church of Saint Peter’s itself and that he lays on the first measure of plaster with a golden trowel. All the cardinals make it an honour to send a brick to create the partition wall of the closing, and they usually mark it with the coat of arms or with the first letter of their name. It is rather curious thing to see the hastiness with which this door is demolished and rebuilt as soon as the Holy Father first puts his hand to it. The ceremony of the opening and of the closing of the holy door takes place at the four main basilicas of Rome that I will name in order: Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, Saint Peter’s, and Saint Paul Outside of the Walls. Cardinals chosen by the pope perform in the three basilicas of Saint John, Saint Mary, and Saint Paul the same function that he does at Saint Peter’s at the beginning and the end of each Jubilee. “What happy days, cries out enthusiastically the author of the Théologie portative, are those days of play and gaiety that the pope grants his sheep when they may frolic in the spiritual meadow in a thousand amusing manners that ever contribute to the fertilization of the Church’s soil. This period is like to the Carnival in Venice and commonly known in this capital as given over to debauchery and libertinism; everyone indulges with all the more excess insofar as the objects thereof abound in Rome at this time, insofar as one may do so with utter impunity, and insofar as one is at the wellspring of forgiveness. Pius VI willed that there never be an execution in Rome during the holy year. This moderation is in truth quite praiseworthy, but it would have at the least been necessary during this period to take all possible precautions to ward off disorder, and this is what was not at all done. Rome and its environs became a thicket in which voyaging required taking all sorts of precautions. That accursed race of pilgrims – frenetic idlers who fancy that the trip to Rome absolves them of every crime – committed as many as they could manage while awaiting absolution. This abuse of pilgrimage, about which I will have occasion to speak again, is perhaps one of the most dangerous vices of the ecclesiastical government. An entire tome would not suffice to demonstrate its disadvantages, but the court of Rome will make sure not to remedy them: the pilgrims are a powerful branch of commerce for the Holy See, and the pilgrims an even stronger source of libertinism for the priests and, above all, the cardinals of Rome; they call this quail season,a and they are right, for the majority of those young innocents whose parents have com-

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ceremony in which the Holy Father, dressed in a mason’s apron, armed with a trowel, is seen to place the first stone when closing takes place and tosses it out when it is demolished: a symbol of the influx of graces and indulgences offered to Christians during this holy time, of which they are deprived once the year is past. For in the religion of Christ, one must take advantage of the moment. It is true that with money, one can have it [i.e., the Jubilee] reinstated at will. The Church is a good mother, similar to the mum who in Paris traffics the mutual pleasures of the youth; it’s simply a matter of paying for the merchandise: you can then have whatever sort you desire. The main door, which is located opposite the main opening of the façade, is made entirely of bronze. Two sibling artists named Antonio and Simone Filarete laboured on it and engraved thereupon some episodes from the life of Eugene IV, under whose pontificate they [the doors] were made. One might have taken up a more becoming subject, since we know that this pope, at the Council at Basel in 1431, was declared disturber of the peace and of the unity of the Church, a simoniac, perjurer, incorrigible schismatic and heretic, and deposed as a consequence of these numerous crimes. This was not, it seems to me, the hero to choose for setting forth his mighty deeds at the entrance of the temple of God; and he who forces kings to violate a peace sworn upon the Gospel,57 upon the pretext that it had been settled without the participation of the pope, ought not, it seems to me, be the hero chosen to appear at the entrance to the church of the prince of the apostles. In the vestibule, mainly above and between the doors, will be seen several inscriptions and Christian monuments, among others: 1st The institution of the Jubilee by Boniface VIII, that tumultuous and turbulent pontiff, so historically renowned for his quarrels with Philip the Fair, who dared say in a bull that God had set him over kings and over kingdoms, and who ultimately put France in a state of interdiction, asserting that he had the power to govern kings with a rod of iron and to break them like potter’s vessels: a maxim that might still be that of the court of Rome, if fear did

mitted them to this idle trade fall easily into the nets of those men of God and become the game of the moment. What evil can he commit who absolves them all? Here is an ultramontane form of tolerance that has produced more horrors than ever did good the Christianity from which emanated this celebrated maxim.”b Sade’s reference and source for the citation on the Jubilee above (“… those days of play and gaiety…”) is Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach, Théologie portative ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne. Par M. L’Abbé Bernier (London, 1768), 120. Marginalia to this note are indicated by superscript letters: a) “la stagione delle quaglie” b) “To arouse the charity of the Nazarenes, says the affable author of the Lettres juives, the pontiff from time to time opens the doors of Heaven. One must not imagine that the path to paradise is absolutely closed at other times, but the passage is narrower and the imposts paid for entry are more considerable. During the Jubilee, paradise is a free fair; the cost of customs is cut in half. Once the days of exemption have run out, the former rights and tolls are put back in place. There are few jests that are better and more truthful than this one.” Sade’s latter marginal comment paraphrases Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens, Lettres juives, ou Corréspondence philosophique, historique, et critique (Amsterdam, 1736), 1:79. 57 Marginal note: “The kings of Poland and of Hungary, by arousing them against the Turks (see the Histoire ecclésiastique).” The various deeds and misdeeds of Pope Eugene IV are discussed throughout vol. 22 of Histoire ecclésiastique, with the particular episode of Eugene asserting that a pact with the Turks could be broken because made without his knowledge (421–2). Sade’s actual source is likely de Prades, Abrégé de l’Histoire Ecclésiastique de Fleury, 2:148–53.

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not triumph over ambition and if felicitous philosophy had not begun to shake the errors and deceptions of the throne of the impudent patriarch.58 2nd The epitaph that Charlemagne made for Pope Adrian I, who, ceding to him rights that he did not himself have, conferred upon him the patriciate of Rome, the right to regulate the election of popes, to confirm it [i.e., papal election], etc., certainly merited some minor recognition upon the part of that ambitious conqueror. 3rd The donation made by Gregory II to the Church of Saint Peter for the costs of lighting. 4th Above the main doorway of the church, a bas-relief by Cavaliere Bernini that depicts the Christian founder handing over the blessed care of his flock to Simon Bar-Jona, when he says to him: Pasce oves meas [Tend to my sheep]. Blessed charge that to this day seems to have worked out infinitely better for the pastor than for his sheep. After observing these various objects, you finally enter this magnificent monument that, in spite of all its flaws, ravishes, stuns, enraptures, and produces such a forceful feeling in the soul of respect and awe that one is happy to make momentarily real the chimera in order to better enjoy the entire illusion that its temple produces. Before going on to detail all the beauties enclosed in this superb edifice, let me bring forth a few preliminary reflections, needed to make it more easily conceivable by furnishing a general notion thereof. The shape of this church is, as I have said, that of a Latin cross. Both inside and outside, the sides and ends terminate in culs-de-four the width of the nave, at the meeting of which arises a dome of surprising diameter and height. This dome is accompanied by four chapels in cupola form, located upon the diagonals and linked via the side aisle of the nave. This nave is adorned with Corinthian pilasters, the bases of which stand upon the floor and in between which arises an arcade that comprehends the height of the columns. The interior of this monument terminates in a magnificently decorated arched vault, and the same order is used at the perimeter of the aisles as well as for the dome. With justification is this church called the marvel of the world and the theatre of religion. The immensity of its extent, the magnificence with which it is decorated, the precious marbles with which it is faced, the bronze and other metals used in its construction have you believe that all the riches of the universe had been exhausted in order to arrive at its utter perfection. However – and this is something that I have already said – all is not what it should be. Is it right to be forced to guess at the colossal proportions of this building? Is it wrong to not take in at a single glance all the grandeur and immensity of this temple? It seems that in this palace of the divine, the sanctuary ought be the sole main object. However, it is here only an accessory; what you see the least, what must be guessed at, what must be59 sought out, and from which you are perpetually diverted by the beauties of detail that obscure it. By dint of seeing when you enter Saint Peter’s, you see nothing. It is only when you move forward that the whole unfolds; at this point, the aisles widen, the dome grows, the effects multiply, and the charm that seizes your senses veils the defects that escape all but the eye of the enlightened artist. But isn’t that necessity of moving forward in order to 58 Marginal note: “It was said of this pope that he had ascended to the pontifical throne like a fox, that he had reigned like a lion, and that he had died like a dog. This scoundrel was as impious as he was insolent.” 59 A notebook of 16 pages in Sade’s hand with the heading “On the description of Saint Peter’s and of the Vatican” starts here.

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conceive a bit jolting? Likewise, being forced to visit upon several occasions to take it all in? And the temple of the divine, concomitantly pure and simple, should it be loaded with extraneous ornaments for its embellishment? Let us now examine what might be the reasons that prevent one from discerning at first glance the immensity of this edifice. What in architecture is known as “void” is the space between one body and another. Void in a temple is the interval between the most distant objects, with respect to both length and breadth. The more space that is left over in the layout of a floor plan, the more one will be convinced that the edifice is large. It is particularly in this regard that gothic buildings are admired; it is in this regard that many connoisseurs prefer the bare and barren Church of Saint Paul,60 which in a single glance lays forth its entire surface area and simultaneously makes a delight of its entire surface area. There, tranquil, occupied only with the main object, my soul can comfortably meditate; I am no longer distracted by an indiscreet wealth of ornamentation, and my spirit is no longer disturbed by the resultant charm. Let us dare to say it: at Saint Peter’s, the pillars of the nave present to the eye a significant unfolding.61 At whatever spot you might stand, you cannot avoid seeing the interior surface, and at that point the dimensions of the pillars no longer appear proportionate to those of the nave. The extension of one of the arms of the aforementioned cross and that Maderno dreamed up is another one of the major defects that, as I have said, get in the way of judging this church as it, in fact, is. The dome was created for a Greek cross and not for a Latin cross in the initial plans. In raising it up as it is, it was imagined that the largest interior distance at which it could be made out would not be too great and that the surprise when drawing near to the centre would be enjoyable. But, Maderno’s extension made it such that upon entering you saw no more than two-thirds of the circumference and hardly could you then guess that the area in the centre was taken up by a dome. Two disadvantages resulted from this. First, the excessive distance destroyed the diameter of this dome; second, its exterior height found itself likewise diminished, since in order to see it you are forced to back up infinitely more than the given distance allows. Such defects do considerable harm to the culpable party, thanks to a stubbornness all the more misplaced insofar as he ought to have seen everything that had been done and designed for a Greek cross could never fit aptly with a Latin cross. As for this dome, it can be asserted that it is doubtless the boldest that anyone has ever dared to construct; its shape, both on the inside as well as the outside, is truly admirable. The architecture, however, is not of the greatest purity, but the details that make it up are among themselves so sublimely concordant that in deference to this essential consideration, you are willing to forget about the rest. Perhaps never has a more perfect curvature been executed. It were only to have been wished that the exterior intercolumniations were uniform and that the entablature did not project as it does upon the couplings. These projections break the circular shape in a muddling manner. But the construction of this dome has not been artfully managed. Defects in the cutting of the stones, particularly neglected in this work, have produced several gaps that have created cracks in the flying buttresses that hold back the horizontal force. These make you fear for its solidity. The learned Father Jacquier, who took a lively

60 Marginal note: “One of the four basilicas of Rome.” 61 Marginal note: “Is this clear?”

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interest in working out the cause of this occurrence, has remedied this and seems to have suspended its progress. If he succeeded, as it appears, he will be owed for having passed this monument to posterity, which otherwise would have run the serious risk of not lasting perhaps to the end of the century.62 I dare to hope that nobody will condemn me for having placed these observations that are necessary to serve as an antidote to the powerful magic that the immense riches with which this temple is lavished produces and that, impressing the often barely exercised eye of the enthusiast, cause him to disregard seeing the real defects that I have mentioned, in order to surrender himself solely to the rapture produced by these beauties.63 Let us now consider them. It is time for the reader, doubtless impatient to run through with me both the proportions and the details of this astonishing assemblage of sublimities that one could without fear of exaggeration call the triumph of the arts and of magnificence, to enter therein.

62 Sade notes: “Father Jacquier, a Minim friar resident in Rome. This learned man, truly worthy in terms of his piety, mores, and the extent of his genius, took up in 1761 the lecturer’s chair in experimental physics at the College of Sapienza and that of professor of Holy Scripture at the College of the Propaganda; that year he had printed an excellent Latin work on logic. This scholar continues to enjoy in Rome a great reputation, and he is worthy of it in every respect. He has also penned some other works jointly with Father Sueur that relate to mathematics and physics, a commentary on Newton, etc., all works made to form the most favourable opinion of his genius and talent.” On Jacquier, see p. 490n9. 63 Sade notes: “Monsieur Lalande has said, based upon the Mémoires de Trévoux, which he cites, that at Saint Peter’s the defects in the details that you encounter therein get lost in the great beauties of the whole. I dare to think the contrary and to say that the beauties of the details are what dazzle and what make one forget the great defects of the whole. And I ask if those that I have mentioned are defects in the details or of the whole. (See Lalande, 3:47.) “The miracle of the beautiful proportions of Saint Peter’s, says this same author further down, is to produce not a single feeling on first sight. I know not where he could have come across such reasoning, for there is no one, I believe, who denies that it is better to be little and appear great than to be great and appear little. Everything that is aimed at the eyes will surely be submitted to this formula, and moreover, it is clear that this miracle that strikes and surprises Monsieur Lalande is only produced by the defect for which Maderno has been so reproached of having changed Michelangelo’s plans and having opted to adapt for a Latin cross the beauties designed and constructed for a Greek cross, which could not but be utterly lacking in effect, as is all too certainly the case. “Further on, Monsieur Lalande has also said that at Saint Peter’s one saw a beautiful and grand cupola that accords perfectly with the church. In this case, Michelangelo is a fool, because he had made it for a much less great length and positioned in relation to a completely different distance; it is impossible for it to accord. One will grant me that without affecting too bitter a criticism, by proving as I have done that which I have said, I may be allowed to oppose those who put forward formulas grounded in that which I am combating. At least I will not be accused of having so maligned this author who, in order to avoid praising too much has fallen into criticisms of defects observed by him alone or that he has taken from the poorly organized heads of those schoolboys of the French Academy, idiotic whippersnappers that the king pays with the notion that they are working and who only serve to furnish Rome with the fine manners of Parisian cafés, taking pleasure moreover in swindling with their writings or tossed-off plans – which are almost always incorrect – money from strangers who have the good nature to pay them for work that they have commissioned with the upright intention of filling their portfolios with descriptions of the objects that have struck them and that they entrust to these young scatterbrains, believing themselves well served. This is where – and I have it upon good authority – Monsieur Lalande has gotten his critique. I leave it now to the reader to judge how much importance he wants to attach to this.” Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande remarks the “miracle of the beautiful proportions of Saint Peter’s” and the “beautiful and grand cupola that accords perfectly with the church” in his Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), 3:58 and 3:63, respectively.

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Proportions of the Church of Saint Peter The landing of the stairway level with the vestibule is 190 feet wide and a hundred long. The façade is three hundred and sixty-four feet in length. The total height of the façade, statue included, is 158 feet. The length of the vestibule is two hundred and twenty feet not including the width of the walls and four hundred [and forty] eight including the two galleries that are at each end and in which are the statues of Constantine and Charlemagne. The width of this vestibule is forty feet. The length of the church, from the entry doorway up to the Chair of Saint Peter that terminates the apse, is 600 feet, not including the width of the walls, according to Monsieur Richard, 575 according to Monsieur Lalande, and 572 feet, in fact – a calculation where we see that Monsieur Lalande’s error is utterly less egregious here than that of Monsieur Richard.64 The nave is 80 feet wide. Its height is 144 up to the vault. The diameter of the cupola is 132 not including the width of the walls. The height of the dome, from the ground up to the Eternal Father, who is depicted at the highest part of the vault of the cupola, is 340 feet. The length of the crossing, from the altar of Saint Processus to that of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, is 422 feet. The pillars are 24 feet wide by twelve thick, which gives them a circumference of 72 feet. The total height of the building from the ground up to tip of the cross is 410 feet. The cross is fourteen feet high and the ball 7 feet, 6 inches in diameter. You would hold therein more than twenty or thirty people, supposing that half of them climbed upon the shoulders of the others. Many other proportions could be detailed, but this would be utterly too meticulous. I have been content with the main ones and with those of most interest to the reader, which I have determined based upon the avidity with which they have been asked for. The entire floor of this church is made of compartmented marble and was done by Bernini and Giacomo della Porta. Regrettably, perpetually profaned by pilgrims’ shoes with their large nails, this extravagance gets broken and is normally in need of major repairs after each Jubilee. The vault of this church is supported by four large arches created by the pillars that I have mentioned and that form to the right and left as many large openings that terminate in four main chapels. These pillars are adorned with pilasters that form between them

64 Sade notes: “The proportions given by Monsieur Lalande are all incorrect; I will prove this by this single error. This author asserts that the church is, not including the width of the walls, 575 feet; then, in another spot, he says that it is, from the portico, including the width of the walls, 662 feet. Let us deduce: “575 feet for the church and 39 that he gives for the vestibule makes 614. It would take 46 feet to get to 660, which Monsieur Lalande thus attributes to the thickness [of the walls], which is manifestly ridiculous. If it were possible for me to likewise demonstrate the inaccuracy of his other calculations, I would do so just as easily. But this can only be done on site or using floor plans. For me it suffices to have produced this sample of contradictions in order to convince the reader of the faith that can be placed in his descriptions.”

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recesses; those on the bottom are decorated with statues made of stucco by various artists that emblematically present virtues, among which many are of trifling value. In the recesses of the first two pillars are located those famous fonts65 held up by angels and that have no other merit than that of the perspective bestowed by the peculiar proportions of this church, which makes them very small when viewed from the entrance although they are in reality six or seven feet high. They are by Cornacchini and some other modern artists; this is one of the most recent works in this church. The basin used for the lustral water is made of giallo antico.66 All the rest has little merit. In the last pillar to the right is the famous statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, transformed into Saint Peter, as ever by a series of ordinary transmigrations from paganism to Christianity and that the people, thanks to a superstition that ought to be punished, are wearing out with holy kisses.67 The high altar is located under the dome; it stands under a beautiful bronze canopy supported by four superb helical columns made of the same metal and in the Composite order. The monument as a whole has its beauties, in spite, however, being full of essential flaws, of which the main one is being too small for the premises and not tall enough relative to the general proportions. All the material used to make this baldachin as well as for the columns was taken from the roof of the Pantheon. It was certainly necessary to unclothe somewhat the gods of paganism to honour our own. Four gigantic angel figures, which nonetheless appear small from below, are located at the tops of these columns and along the perimeter of the baldachin are groups of angels holding the tiara and keys, by Le Flamand.68 65 Marginal note: “These were made under Benedict XIII.” 66 Sade notes: “What name other than the one bestowed by the pagans should we give to this superstitious water? They made absolutely the same use of it as we do, kept it like us at the doorways to their temples, in the house of the dead, etc. What besides correspondences would you find in the two religions in seeking to corroborate them? And this supposition entails that the name is a matter of human opinion and that there is certainly no more reason to adopt one [i.e., religion] over the other, I leave it to the reader to decide whether the ancient or the modern is the worthier.” 67 Sade notes: “All sorts of powers are attributed to this ridiculous idol. Figures of Asclepius also cured all sorts of ills. This statue is poor; it is said to date from the fifth century.” 68 Sade notes: “François Duquesnoy, called Le Flamand, excelled mainly in bas-reliefs and in the arabesques required by groups of angels or cherubs. Obliged by his work in this genre to make use of young boys that he had stripped bare and placed into poses necessary to him, beautiful nature [la belle nature], which is profoundly unrelated to sex, inflamed him, and the artist dared surrender himself to a philosophical curiosity the unfortunate experience of which has often made so many proselytes. This aberration, which in this case could rather be considered as a proof of good morals in the case of Duquesnoy, who avoided the company of women in order to give himself over entirely to his art, was taken the wrong way. They recalled the noxious emanations of Sodom. They fancied that the lake of sulphur that engulfed these five cities flowed only as a punishment for their [i.e., the people of Sodom] use of these little boys for something other than arabesques and that human justice here and now ought to be a fine copy of heavenly wrath, and, acting from spirituality, Duquesnoy was burned – he to whom altars should rather have been raised on account of the sublimity of his genius and the lightness of his precious chisel. But man will be forever savage, and in his eyes never will great talents serve to excuse petty faults. I well know that this is not the language of the zealous, because talents are not made for them, but this will surely be that of the philosophy that is familiar with them [i.e., talents], that knows what it costs to acquire them, and can appreciate them accordingly.” Sade’s syntax is sometimes garbled in the note above. He has also confused François Duquesnoy (1597–1643) with his brother, the sculptor and architect Jerôme Duquesnoy, the Younger (1602–1654). He was a native of Ghent, and it was there that he was accused of sodomizing two young boys, found guilty,

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These columns are exceedingly ornate. There are bees thereupon, the heraldic devices of Urban VIII, who commissioned this adornment that Bernini carried out and that cost forty thousand Roman scudi in gilding alone and a hundred thousand scudi for carrying out the whole.69 Under the baldachin, which is in the shape of a square, is located the high altar, which is very simple in form and upon which there is never any other adornment but a silver cross and six matching candlesticks. I did not observe that these had been exchanged for golden candlesticks, as Monsieur Lalande says, and I saw the Holy Father officiate upon Christmas day with the same decoration that I had seen before and that I saw since gracing the altar. This altar, positioned towards the Orient in keeping with the ancient custom of the Church, faces the entry door and is isolated from everything else. The pope alone has the right to officiate there, and it would only be thanks to a papal brief that whoever else might obtain the same right. The height of this entire ornament is a hundred and twenty feet, which in spite of this does not prevent it from seeming small, as I have said a moment ago, considering the overall proportions. Seen from above, from along the gallery at the entablature of the cupola, it looks like a ceremonial bed. The sublime mystery of the mass – that ineffable sacrifice in which a God is accommodating enough to come and turn into bread for our sins – is it not thus the most sublime one of the Christians, and if it is, the monument in which it is celebrated ought it not be the most magnificent and the most visible in the entire temple?70 It is from here that one can most easily contemplate the beautiful cupola that crowns this monument; it is lit by sixteen windows and entirely decorated with mosaics. Around it is the inscription that is the basis of the devotion to the church and in general to the entire Christian machine: TV ES PETRVS ET SVPER HANC PETRAM ÆDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM.71

The letters are done in mosaic, the pieces of which are larger than small coins; each letter is at least four feet high and the inscription from below seems nonetheless of ordinary monumental size. On top is the lantern that rises up another 60 feet and that crowns the whole, at least as far as the interior goes. It is completely at the top of this last bit that we find the Eternal Father, arms outstretched, done in mosaic like the rest, from the designs of Cavaliere d’Arpino and executed by Marcello Provenzale. An adoration of angels, cherubim, other angels carrying the instruments of the Passion, the Virgin and the apostles, Saint Paul, some representations of popes whose bodies are buried in the church, the Evangelists with infants crowned with flowers, make up the other mosaics carried out in this cupola by pretty much the same artists. and sentenced to strangulation at the stake and then burning. On this incident and Sade’s attitude to sodomy, see the introduction to this volume. 69 Sade notes: “I have said the Roman scudo was worth 55 sols in our coinage. See the money calculation at the end of the description of each city.” 70 Sade notes: “The illuminated cross that happens upon Holy Thursday is not at all suspended from the baldachin of this altar, as Monsieur Lalande has it. It is placed at the end of the nave, opposite the altar, and in this manner produces the most sublime effect upon every side, which could not be the case were it where Monsieur Lalande is eager to put it.” 71 From Matthew 16:18, AV: “Thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”

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This cupola and the lantern, including the ball and the cross, were the work of twentynine months, under the pontificate of Sixtus V and the direction of Giacomo della Porta. This pontiff died, however, in the meantime; the work was suspended for a while, but the total time to finish the work was only twenty-nine months. To better judge this cupola, the lantern, the ball, the cross, the astonishing height at which it stands, its enormous diameter, larger than that of the Pantheon, you must climb up, tour about, visit everything, and let nothing escape your curiosity. As for a more detailed description of this object, it seems to me that only an artist would need such a thing; a curious soul sees for himself and does not read a detailed description that, moreover, can only be cold by its nature and redundant, since you find it stated and located everywhere, there being few monuments in the world about which so much has been written as this one. The first altar made in the place of the one we see today, built under Constantine, was entirely covered in precious stones and adorned with porphyry columns; the devotion of the faithful soon wore down, by scraping and kissing them, these objects that were thought of as relics of the highest order. Clement VIII ordered the construction of the second altar, which was finished under Urban VIII and with Bernini’s supervision, as I have already mentioned. This first altar was carefully preserved and as the ground was raised, it will be seen today in the crypt, at the same spot that it was. This is what is called the Confession of Saint Peter [i.e., the Confessio, or Chapel of the Confession], since this first altar had been placed exactly on top of the supposed tomb of the apostle and since the second, placed above the first, is still linked to it; you go down into it via a double ramp of seventeen steps, all made of marble as well as the balustrade, and the greatest indulgences are granted to those who descend with the requisite devotion and humility. A hundred silver lamps burn perpetually around this holy repository, enclosed, they say, within this subterranean altar about which I have just spoken and that the faithful are allowed to see through a grated window. Stored there for some time is the pallium with which the pope adorns the primates of the Catholic Church.72 The decorations of this subterranean chapel are of the greatest beauty; the marbles of the staircase have been chosen among the most rare and most precious. Therein will be seen four beautiful alabaster columns, the colour of quince and of a quite precious quality. Also to be seen in the same spot are the statues of Saint Peter and of Saint Paul, created in bronze by Buonvicino. Via a door made of the same metal you enter into the subterranean chamber in which are preserved the precious knickknacks mentioned above. Therein will be seen paintings related to the initial intentions that Archbishop Anacletus had to sanctify and to preserve these deposits concerning which he doubtless anticipated that the idiotic superstition of coming centuries would link to the brilliant fortune of his successors.73 72 Sade notes: “The pallium, which the Greeks call homophorium, was a sort of imperial cloak very similar to the church vestment that we today call a cape. Subsequently, this became a sort of stole that, hanging in front and behind, [was] decorated with four scarlet crosses arranged on the four sides of the pallium. As this honour was purely a favour of the emperors, the pallium was not bestowed without their consent. Since then, the popes having inherited the seat of the empire and the rights of the emperor, they also inherited the latter; they have invested it with sacred sanction and they bestow it today as an honour upon primates who please them. Saint Caesarius, the archbishop of Arles, was the first to wear the pallium in the West. (See in the notebook of expanded annotations the rest of the pallium entry.)” 73 Sade notes: “I do not know why Lalande, who is not much for chronology, has made Anacletus the second successor of Saint Peter (see Lalande, page 57, volume III). This error commits me to placing here, for the

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Also to be seen is the consecration of the altar carried out by Saint Sylvester and Paul V giving homage at the said chapel; there are two doors that lead to subterranean grottoes that likewise belonged to the ancient basilica erected by Constantine.74 I have forgotten to say that the construction of this chapel occurred under Paul V and based upon plans by Maderno. Let us now descend into these grottoes and point out in general what they offer to our curiosity; the detailed description of this immense cathedral [i.e., basilica] would lead us too far. One can, moreover, find this in so many authors that, by investing too much in minutiae, I could but repeat what has been everywhere said.75 I have mentioned that Clement VIII had the present ground of Saint Peter’s raised. It is in these grottoes that I will be discussing that this elevation can be discerned, since the vault built to support the new floor sits upon the former one. Imbecilic veneration was the reason for the respect that they opted to show for this ancient pavement, awash, so they said, with the blood of martyrs and scattered with their precious bones. Were they not worthy of being honoured? And, consequently, various popes decorated these underground areas. However, they were not always given over to pious works, and sensationalist accounts assure us that the prohibition on women entering that will be read upon a marble at the doorway was only put in place to ward off the quite scandalous deeds that were committed there when everyone was allowed in – silence and darkness lending themselves to debauchery. Many folk rather reasonably imagined that by the act of creating living beings, the dark thoughts to which the sombre residence of the dead naturally gives birth were brightened up. For this reason, the fair sex, with the exception of a single day during the year,76 was banned from going to seek edification in these holy retreats, and so that even upon that one day edification might not be troubled by extraneous objects, the door was barred to the sex whose company the women would have doubtless preferred to that of cadavers, whose final material remnants one was pleased to allow exclusive access for contemplation. In these underground areas you see several bas-reliefs created in the early days and that have no other merit than that of permitting us to judge of the progress and falling off of the arts, before and after, by the comparative notions that can be applied to them. Our Lord carrying his cross, in mosaic; the original is by Sacchi.77

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reader to see, a little chronology of the popes or bishops of Rome starting from the first century, so that one can discern whether he is mistaken or not. “Saint Peter founded, it is said, the papacy in Rome in the year 41, and died on the 29th of June, 66. Saint Linus succeeded on the 29th of June 66, and died 23 September 67. Saint Clement: 24 September 67, abdicates 3 December 76, and dies in 100. Saint Cletus: 16 February 77, and dies 26 April 96. Saint Anacletus: 7 September 84, and dies 13 July 96. Saint Evaristus: 13 July 96, and dies 26 October 108.” Sade’s chronology, apparently based upon ancient authorities, is itself deeply flawed by contemporary scholarly standards; this includes the separate attributions of Anacletus and Cletus, generally regarded today as one and the same. Marginal note: “Rewrite this better. It’s bad.” Marginal note: “You have already said this. Correct yourself.” Sade notes: “Pentecost Monday.” Sade notes: “Andrea Sacchi, painter, born in Rome; he was trained under his father and improved under [Francesco] Albano. The latter will often be seen in the gracefulness and the delightful softness so characteristic of the works of his illustrious pupil. Sacchi was often more correct than he whom he gloried to imitate; his figures are deeply expressive, his draperies are simple and true, his touch is delicate, and his ideas are noble. You perceive that this artist studied Nature a lot and that he had a strong understanding of

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Saint Helena, Saint Longinus, Saint Andrew, all pieces in mosaic done from the paintings by the same artist; the statue of Saint James that you see at the high altar of the old basilica; a stone cross that, it is said, adorned the old façade; some paintings by Giotto; a bull of Gregory III’s, of which only a portion remains to be seen; a decree of a council held in this church by the same pope, engraved, like the other monument, onto stone. This council was held in Rome in 732, at the time of the iconoclasts or destroyers of images, for at all times there were found in the Church people wise enough to deny and to combat its idolatry and its errors. An image of the Virgin that, according to what we are told, was struck by an impious person and bled; in Rome wretched things of the sort are ever available for the worship of the faithful. A statue of Benedict XII.78

composition, much facility and lively expressions. There was causticness in his character and consequently he had many enemies; his main works are in Rome, where he died 1661 at the age of sixty-two.” 78 Sade notes: “Benedict XII, dubbed Le Fournier [lit., “the oven tender,” although “Fournier” is itself a common French surname] because he was the son of a baker. He was born in Saverdun in the Comté de Foix; he was doctor [of theology] in Paris and cardinal priest of Saint Prisca. He was called the white cardinal, both in relation to his extraction, which doubtless, as a child, meant that he was often covered in flour, and also because he had been a monk in the Cistercian order. He was elected in 1334 after John XXII and hardly brought to the pontifical throne more well-ordered morals than those of his predecessor (it was John XXII who established the tax for the absolution of all crimes in the court of Rome). He [Benedict XII] bought the sister of Petrarch to make of her his mistress. However, he did enact some reforms, among others that of the young Ganymedes, commonly in the service of the Abbey of Cîteaux. Doubtless, having been a member of this order, he was familiar with this indecency, and he thought it necessary to repress it, doubtless in order better to hide his own dissoluteness. Finally, he provided the famous solution regarding the beatific vision advocated by his precursor; he set down that the souls of the blessed are in Paradise before the reunion with their bodies and the Last Judgment and that they see God face to face.a He died in Avignon in 1342 and laid the foundations of the Palais des Papes, today destined for vice-legates and that still exists in this city. “There is no accusing him of nepotism, for he claimed that a pope should not know his relatives. His statue is here on account of the major repairs that he did to the former basilica. However, what has been written about him doing all that he could have to persuade Petrarch to marry Laura is incorrect.”b Marginal notes indicated by superscript letters above: a) “We will not analyse such platitudes; they are not worth bothering over for an instant.” b) “Monsieurs Fleury and Villaret have falsely stated – doubtless both ignorant that Laura was married when Petrarch came to know her to Hugues de Sade, of the ancient house of that name that still exists in the Comtat. (See the Mémoires sur Pétrarque by Monsieur l’abbé de Sade, one of the descendants of this family.) “Anecdote on this topic take from these Mémoires. “Laura, of the House of Noves, today deceased, was born in a village close to Avignon in 1308. She was the daughter of Audibert de Noves (and not Audifret, as the Dictionnaire des grands hommes has it in its entry). She was married to Hugues de Sade, Lord of Saumane, territory still in the possession today of the head of the eldest branch of this house. Her marriage took place in 1325, this period confirmed by the marriage contract held in the archives of the House of Sade, dated at Noves on the 16th of January, 1325. Petrarch saw Laura for the first time in the church of the nuns of Sainte-Claire in Avignon on 6 April 1327. Comparing these dates is enough, I think, to convince one of the ignorance or inexactitude of the two authors whom I have cited (see what has been said about Petrarch).” The reference is to the entry “Noves, (Laure de),” which gives her as the daughter of “Audifret de Noves,” in Louis-Mayeul Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique; ou Histoire Abrégée de tous les Hommes qui se sont fait un nom par le Génie, des Talens, des Vertus, des Forfaits, des Erreurs même, &c. depuis le commencement du monde jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1772), 4[pt.2]:750.

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A Saint Peter posed in about the same way as all popes; decoration doubtless from the old basilica. Remnants of the tomb of Urban VI, this pope, whose ill humour and harshness gave rise to the great Western Schism, so well known in History. Urban VI was elected in Rome to end the popular uprising that held the conclave in a state of siege, but he soon had a competitor in Clement VII, whom the cardinals at ease in Fondi went about electing. At that point, all of Europe found itself divided. Upon seeing the remnants of the monument made for him, you cannot help but recall his horrific cruelty towards the six cardinals who where not of his party and whom he had arrested and condemned to such horrific torture that he could not find anyone to carry out his barbarous plans.79 A marble cross found, we are told, when excavating the new portico. A statue of J.C. with angels. The depiction of the tabernacle that John VIII had made for the Volto Santo (or Holy Shroud) with a copy of the inscription seen thereon. A statue of Boniface VIII that would be more fitting for the gates of Hell.80 79 Sade notes: “This pontiff was villainous in the manner of Nero. Torture him, he said to the executioner of Luigi d’Ornato [viz., Donato], the Cardinal of Venice, torture him until I hear his cries, and to be assured of the fact, His Holiness walked, breviary in hand, in the gardens of the Castle of Nocera, in the dungeon of which the torment was taking place. Besieged in this town by Charles of the Peace [i.e., Charles III of Naples, also Charles of Durazzo, as well as other titles over the course of his life], he excommunicated the enemy army four times per day, standing in order to do so at a window with a bell in one hand and a torch in the other. Finally, he withdrew and brought with him the enemy cardinals whom he was holding imprisoned. On the road, the bishop of Aquila, who was among the number of the proscribed, unable to go as fast as the pope because of his poor mount, this pontiff had him killed. I ask what do the reigns of the likes of Tiberius and Caligula have that is more horrific [?] “The feast of the Visitation of the Virgin, the reduction of the Jubilee, and some other regulations are the work of this villain. Let us discern from this the faith that must be placed in the institutions of suchlike monsters and if it is reasonable that we seek to diminish the blindness in which a large part of the peoples of Europe still lives with respect to this ambulatory idol. I don’t know why Monsieur the Marquis d’Argens has attributed all of these faults to Urban II. Assuredly he has poorly consulted the history books. See his reflections upon Ocellus Lucanus, page 251.” Sade’s reference above has Urban II, who was pope from 1088 until 1099, although Urban VI is meant. The latter was consecrated in 1364 and died in 1389. The mistake could well be a printer’s error. For this reference, as for Sade, the pontiff serves as a relatively modern example of the corruption of the papacy: “In these recent centuries, and not long before Luther and Calvin, we see in Rome popes undertaking cruelties greater than those of Caligula, Nero, and their ilk. Urban II had tortured several cardinals and several bishops who had wanted to abandon him in Naples; he conducted, on the galleys of that Republic [i.e., of Naples], these cardinals and bishops crippled and chained; one of these bishops, half-dead and unable to reach the shore quickly enough, according to the pope’s whim, he had his throat slit en route, and when he had arrived at Genoa, he had five of these prisoner cardinals put to death using various tortures. After so many cruelties, Urban died peacefully and without remorse in Rome.” Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d’Argens, Ocellus Lucanus, en grec et en françois avec des dissertations sur les principales questions de la Metaphysique, de la Phisique, & de la Morale des anciens; qui peuvent servir de suite à la Philosophie du Bon Sens (Berlin, 1762), 251–2. 80 Sade notes: “Upon demolishing the old church to build the new one, his body was found fresh and intact. Some jesters asserted, upon seeing this phenomenon, that doubtless the devil had not wanted him. Monsieur Richard, doubtless quite the partisan of this pontiff, anticipates this miracle by aging the phenomenon by seventy-five years. It is stated (page 348 of volume V) that this cadaver was found fresh more than two hundred and twenty years after his death. This is false, and here is the proof. Boniface VIII died on 11 October 1103, and it was under Nicholas V, in 1447 and ’48 that the new basilica was begun and, consequently, at this time that the cadaver was found, since during this pontificate everything was shifted about

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A Virgin holding the Infant Jesus in her arms. Representations of Leo I, Leo IV, and Leo IX, all three dead exuding the scent of holiness. A bas-relief depicting Nero condemning Peter and Paul to death. Statues of the evangelists and of doctors of the Church. Bas-reliefs of the Virgin and of her Son. Then, you go into the ancient grottoes, where among an infinite number of pieces of interest to Christianity, you note: The tomb of Cardinal Stefano Nardini. That of Charlotte, Queen of Cypress, Jerusalem, and Armenia, who died in Rome during the pontificate of Innocent VIII. A marble containing a fragment of the famous donation of Countess Matilda. A similar fragment of a donation made to the church by Cardinal Barbo, a Venetian, who was pope under the name of Paul II. Renowned for his vanity: he was a handsome man and he knew it; for his bad faith: he kept not a one of the commitments that his had made at the conclave before being elected; for his effeminacy and his avarice: it was thanks to this pontiff that the cardinals owed the privilege of wearing purple. An epitaph for Amaury, Count of Montfort.81 A sepulchral stone upon which will be seen the likeness of Alexander VI.82 and the walls of the new church already rose from the ground, which assumes foundations excavated and filled in. Yet, from 1303, period of the death of Boniface VIII, until 1448, period when it is likely that this cadaver was found, there are, it seems to me, only one hundred and forty-five years, and the error required to land on the two hundred and twenty that Monsieur Richard cites must be according to this seventy-five years. These are not rough errors of calculation. If you want to be even more fastidious and only count the destruction of the old basilica starting from Julius II, this would never get you Monsieur Richard’s number. Julius II got to work in 1503. But, from 1303 to 1503 it is only two hundred years and not more than two hundred and twenty. Monsieur Lalande gives three hundred and two years as the space of time; this is much worse still. It is likely that both the one and the other are mistaken, and the body was found when the old basilica was demolished. In the grottoes will be seen this tomb made of marble.”a Marginal note indicated by the superscript letter a): “Organize this better.” Richard states that Boniface’s body was found intact “more than two hundred and twenty years after his death” and that “all that was missing were his nose and lips” (Description, 5:348). Lalande remarks that the pope’s “body was found intact after three hundred and two years, excepting the lips and nostrils” (Voyage d’un françois en Italie, 3:115). 81 Sade notes: “Amaury, Count of Montfort, son of the famous Simon de Montfort, so well known for the cruelties that he inflicted upon the heretics, and of Alix de Montmorency. Amaury continued the war against the Albigensians, but with much less cruelty than his father. Saint Louis made him constable in 1231 and sent him to the Orient to give succour to the Christians whom the Infidels were oppressing. Montfort was taken in a battle that took place near Gaza in 1241; he regained his liberty and died the same year from an apoplexy. He was very different from his father. Perhaps he was not as great, but that intolerant zeal of his father’s that caused so much blood to be shed did not move him and consequently made him less criminal.” 82 Sade notes: “Borgia, a Spaniard, native of Valencia, pope under the name Alexander VI, was without question the most shameless and most incestuous of all the pontiffs who sat upon the Chair of Saint Peter. His real name was Lenzuolo; he took that of Borgia from his mother, when his maternal uncle Calixtus III was made pope. He ascended to the throne on 19 August 1496, and reigned for eleven years and eight days. He had been made cardinal in 1455; then archbishop of Valencia and vice chancellor. In each of these different offices, Borgia demonstrated wit, but also everywhere displayed – and, above all, in Spain – an unbelievable moral dissoluteness. He had with a Roman woman named Vanozza four sons and a daughter, all five of whom, in their infancy, he made serve his incestuous and sodomitical passions. Such an education made them as unconstrained as their father. Cesare Borgia, when he was a bit older, quarrelled with Gandia [i.e., Giovanni Borgia, 2nd Duke of Gandia], his brother, about who would enjoy Lucrezia, their sister; he killed him and threw him into the Tiber. Finally, Alexander, desirous of ruling in

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order to commit his felonies more comfortably, bought the tiara after the death of Innocent VIII. Borgia the pontiff no longer felt shame. Cesare, the lover of his sister and murderer of his brother, became, doubtless on account of these crimes that brought him closer to his father, the most faithful of the favourites of this blind and villainous father. There was no crime of which he did not make use to raise this horrible son, whom Machiavelli makes his hero, to all the lofty goals to which he might possibly aspire. Louis XII, who needed the pope in order to sever his marriage with the daughter of Louis XI, treated him with consideration and lent himself to the ascent and aggrandizement of that horrific son. He lent him troops to conquer Romagna and made him Duke of Valentinois. It was during the course of these unjust conquests that his passions overflowed their banks all the more. He fell hopelessly in love with Astorre Manfredi, a young man, eighteen years of age, who gave back Faenza to him. This young man was exceedingly beautiful; Borgia had him held, raped him, and had him thrown into the Tiber with the wife of a [member of the House of] Caraccioli whom he had abused in the same manner. A short time later, he had Giulio Varano and his children seized; he had them murdered at the same moment they were signing the capitulation of their State of Camerino. “During this entire era, Alexander used more or less the same means of usurpation and delectation. He had Cardinal Orsini arrested and confiscated all the properties of this house; and irritated at not having found in the estate of this cardinal a pearl of immense size that will still be found in the papal treasury, he poisoned him with the poison known as cantarella, of which he made quite frequent use in order to increase his domains. Finally, the pearl was handed over in order to save the life of the cardinal, but the deed was done. Alexander, not satisfied with all the crimes that avarice, deceit, and usurpation could make one commit, once again brought incest into the bosom of his family. Lucrezia, since the little games of his childhood, had always stayed dear to him. He had at first married her to a Spanish lord, but wishing to enjoy her at his leisure and fearful of the jealousy of the Spaniard, he took her away from him and gave her to Giovanni Sforza, the prince of Pesaro, then to Alfonso of Aragon, whom he had murdered, unable to take her away from him as he had with the others; and at last to the eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara, heir of the House of Este. “However, this pontiff, in spite of all his vices, made sure that he had ties to every prince. Yet this was only so that he could play them all or in order to draw money from them. Neither does his private life furnish us with episodes that redound more to his glory. Everyone knows the story of that infamous supper, the account of which can still be seen in the Vatican archives and the description of which has been handed down to us by Burchardi [Johann Burchard], his grand master of ceremonies. The last Sunday of the month of October, says the historian, fifty honourable courtesans supped with the Duke of Valentinois in his apartment in the Vatican. They danced after the meal with the duke’s attendants and the other people who were present, at first dressed and subsequently entirely naked. After everyone had supped, the candelabras from the table were arranged upon the floor and chestnuts were thrown onto the floor, which the nude courtesans gathered while passing through the candelabras. The pope, the Duke of Valentinois, and Lucrezia his sister were present and watched attentively. At last, the battle prize was announced: these were silk fabrics, laced shoes, various hairpieces, which would be distributed to those who would have carnal knowledge of the greatest number of these courtesans, which was carried out before the eyes of all those who were in the palace and following the whimsy of the combatants, who subsequently received prizes for their prowess. (Specimen historiae arcanae, sive anecdotae de vita Alexandri VI, papae, seu excerpta ex diaro Joannis Burchardi argentinensis capelae Alexandri papae clerici ceremoniarum magistri edente. G.-G. L. [Leibnitz]. Hanoverae, MDCXCVI, page 77.) “It is probable that the Holy Father, excited by such a spectacle, soon mingled in the party, either with the duke, whom he particularly cherished, or with his daughter, whom we know that he bedded on a daily basis. Such episodes, I agree, are astonishing in the life of the visible head of the Church, of the successor of Saint Peter, and of the representative of the son of God made man for all of our sins. But it is for those very reasons that he is above everything and that ‘potest de injustitia facere justitiam, papa (according to Bellarmine) est supra jus, contra jus, et extra jus [able to make justice from injustice, the pope is above law, contrary to law, and beyond law].’ “Finally, this villain, who can only be compared to the likes of Tiberius and Caligula, died from poison that he had intended for others. On 18 August 1503, he had prepared in concert with his dear Borgia a bottle of wine dosed with his cantarella and that four cardinals whose inheritance he wanted were supposed to drink; among these was Cardinal Cornetto. The butler made a mistake, the pope and his son drank the wine. The former died in horrific convulsions, and the latter only escaped by having himself put in the belly of a mule. Such was the deplorable end of the most abominable of monsters, who nonetheless had not the art of disguise: the only flaw he lacked to unite them all.”

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Two statues of Saint Peter and of Saint Paul, etc., etc. The tomb of Adrian IV, made of oriental granite. Upon seeing this monument, you cannot help but imagine the peculiar metamorphosis of that adventurer who from the condition of beggar, in which he had the cruelty to leave his mother even after his rise, reached the pontificate. You remember the trouble that this unfortunate had in obtaining a post as servitor with the canons of Saint Rufus, where he subsequently became the abbot. Eugene III made him cardinal and bishop of Albano, and sent him as legate to Denmark and Norway. Upon his return, the Holy College gave him the tiara, but he was harsh and intolerant. Zealous to the point of insanity with regard to the temporal assets of the Church, he excommunicated William, King of Sicily, whom he claimed had usurped the properties of the Church, he determined to claim from Frederick I the fiefs of Countess Matilda, an undertaking that ended, as I have said, under Innocent III, and during this entire time allowing, as I have just mentioned, his mother to die of starvation. Here we see ambition, avarice, intolerance, and religious cruelty demonstrated in the conduct of this fanatic. The marble tomb of Pius II, pontiff renowned for the wisdom with which he settled the great dispute between the Franciscans and the Dominicans regarding the blood of J.C. when his body was in the tomb. Pius had them come before him, heard them out, and sent them back at the end of three days, allowing each party to retain its opinion.84 That of Pius III, nephew of Pius II, who succeeded Alexander VI and only reigned twenty-one days. The tomb of Boniface VIII, some other ones belonging to cardinals, and several epitaphs of distinguished persons. That of Christina, Queen of Sweden.85 The body of Maria Clementina, Queen of England, whose mausoleum we will see in the church, etc.86 A painting of the Virgin by a pupil of Perugino. Several large, poorly done bas-reliefs depicting J.C. giving the keys to Saint Peter in front of the apostles, and some others of the same sort depicting some adventure or other of the celestial steward. 83

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As Sade notes, the account “Concerning the supper of fifty prostitutes with the Duke of Valentinois” will be found in Johann Burchard, Specimen Historiæ Arcanæ sive Anecdotæ de Vita Alexandri VI Papae (Hanover, 1696), 77–82. Sade’s actual source, including the page reference, is Jean-Baptiste de Boyer d’Argens’s translation of the episode in Histoire de l’esprit humain ou mémoires secrets et universels de la république des lettres (Berlin, 1767), 7:277–8. Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), was a Counter-Reformation theologian, Jesuit, defender of papal authority, and Cardinal Inquisitor during the trial of Giordano Bruno, all strikes against him for a philosophe. A notebook of 24 pages in Sade’s hand entitled “Fourth notebook of the description of Saint Peter’s” starts here. Marginal note: “The great squire of the famous knight of La Mancha would not have judged better on his island. For humanity’s sake it were to be wished that all theological discussions – those thorny disputes the grounds of which are never anything but phantasms or puns – it were to be desired, I say, that all of them be thus terminated! Much less blood would have been spilled in God’s name, and perhaps we would be disgusted with that sanguinary branch of erudition!” Sade notes: “You will put the following parenthesis in a note: (please refer to what has been said in the note concerning the mausoleum of this princess [Maria Clementina Sobieska] that I will describe shortly.)” Marginal note: “Check in the continuation of the work whether you have spoken of this as you have promised to do here.”

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And very last of all, the tomb, made of Paros marble, of Junius Bassus, who died while prefect of Rome in the year 359. Having examined these objects, you go back up into the church and position yourself at one of the corners of the canopy of the high altar in order to contemplate the transept, which extends from the altar of Saint Processus to that of Saint Simon and Saint Jude. From here you can also judge the breadth of this beautiful church. It is from this same position that, stately to the highest degree imaginable, the four superb pillars that support the cupola stand forth. The circumference of these pillars is such that one is shown in Rome an entire monastery,87 its church, the residence of the monks, and the cloisters with a circumference equal to that of these enormous pillars. It is upon these that sit the arches upon which the drum of the cupola rests. The four inside areas of these pillars are adorned with altars and marble statues above which are balconies that serve as adornments of beautiful and apt proportions for the tribunes, whatever Monsieur Lalande might say, and that quite suitably adorn these enormous masses. The four statues that I have mentioned are colossal; they are placed in marble recesses. One of them, by [Francesco] Mochi, represents Saint Veronica: a work that is not utterly bereft of merit, but in which, however, major defects will be observed, above all, in the drapery. The author of the Voyage en France, [en Italie] et dans les îles de l’Archipel88 inappropriately gives it the highest praise. The second depicts Saint Longinus; it is by Bernini, who furnished the designs for the decorations of these four pillars and who rather poorly carried out the single one that he assigned to himself. The third is a Saint Helena by Andrea Bolgi. He has captured her at the moment when she has just found the holy relics of the Passion; she is holding them in her hands. This piece has its beauties, but these have scant impact compared with Antiquity. The fourth is a Saint Andrew by Il Fiammingo [i.e., François Duquesnoy], which might pass without quarrel as the most polished and the best of the four. He prided himself on his honour, and teased by Bernini about the genre of depicting children at which, as mentioned above, he excelled, he desired to make his colleague see that he was also capable of every genre. He proved this by surpassing him. The upper tribunals with niches of which I have previously spoken serve to show the people, upon certain days, precious playthings, known as relics by the sectarians of Christ and that have, so they say, sublime powers.89 87 Marginal note: “Do not forget to look for its name in your notebooks on Rome.” 88 A reference to Anon. [sometimes attributed to Maihows], A Tour through Several Parts of Europe and the East; Especially the Following Places: Bologne, Paris and Its Environs, Nemours and Lyons, Avignon, Aix in Provence, Marseilles, Toulon, Genoa, Vicenza, Venice, Rome, Naples, Leghorn and Pisa, Florence, Bologna, Crete, Candia, and Other Places; In a Series of Letters by a Distinguished Gentleman Containing the Writer’s Observations on the Productions of Nature, the Monuments of Art and the Manners of the Inhabitants, 2 vols. (London, 1760). Sade knew this work in the translation by Philippe-Florent de Puisieux as Voyage en France, en Italie et aux îles de l’Archipel, ou lettres écrites de plusieurs endroits de l’Europe et du Levant en 1750, avec des observations de l’auteur sur les diverses productions de la nature et de l’art (Paris, 1766). 89 Sade notes: “Conserved there are the Holy Shroud, or sheet in which Christ was wrapped after his death, the spear that pierced his side, the wood of the cross found by Helena, and the head of Saint Andrew. I have shown in an earlier note the amount of faith that we might have in the wood of the cross found by Helena Stabularia. The same goes for all the others; each in its own category has no more probability. The time has long since come to sense that it is no longer on such absurdities that the religious system ought to be based and that the share of worship required of the people for these trinkets is ever at the expense of that owed to the prime mover. ‘Yet you therefore believe in him,’ someone might say to me

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The other church pillars, likewise graced with recesses, also contain statues by various masters, praised and described by all travellers and concerning which I will not speak, given the trifling pleasure they gave me. Let us now retrace our steps and describe in a leisurely fashion all the various beauties that the aisles and the superb associated chapels contain. On either side of the nave, located in the collateral aisles, are three chapels preceded by cupolas adorned with mosaics; these were built by Paul V and decorated by Innocent X. The first upon the right is called the Chapel of the Crucifix, and takes it name from a wooden crucifix made by Pietro Cavallini90 that, so they say, does unheard of miracles, like all those of its type. The object that has replaced it is of much more interesting artistry: one made from a single block of marble. Michelangelo made the lovely group of the Pietà that will be seen there today, and he succeeded in putting so much soul and expression into both of these figures that he almost makes his subject move us, if one could ever be moved by the death of a double-dealer and imposter resting upon the lap of a whore. The piece that the artist just mentioned made at the age of twenty-four is universally regarded as his first masterpiece. The cupola of this chapel is decorated with mosaics that refer to pious subjects, carried out by Fabio Cristofari based upon designs by Pietro da Cortona. Upon the vault are the highly esteemed frescoes by [Giovanni] Lanfranco that depict the Triumph of the Cross. How vexing that this universally esteemed piece did not have the good fortune to please Monsieur Lalande. It was in a small chapel, heading back, that the miraculous Christ, since removed, was located, and it bestowed its name once more to this chapel that it adorned.91 It is decorated with stuccoes and based upon Bernini’s designs. There you will see Anicius Probus’s funerary urn, adorned with bas-reliefs.92 Also preserved there is one of the columns that Constantine had used to adorn the high altar.93

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here, who, based upon what he had already read of this book, might already have judged of my convictions. ‘Assuredly not,’ I would respond, ‘but what I do believe is that if religion is useful with respect to the people, who without it might give themselves over to crimes that the man of wit avoids for better reasons than that of a debt-collecting and vengeful god; if, I say, it is necessary, at least let it be simple, that it not have for its aim anything other than the worship of a true or false god, and that it not water down this primary and sole belief with all the mummeries with which priests have enlarged this form of worship for reasons that are easy to divine.’” Sade notes: “Pietro Cavallini, fourteenth-century painter and sculptor, was born in Rome and died there at the age of eighty-five. He was a student of Giotto; he is regarded as a saint, and it is doubtless for that reason that his works were so esteemed. It was also he who made the famous crucifix of Saint Paul, about which I will shortly have occasion to speak, and he who had a long conversation with Saint Bridget, about which I will have the occasion to speak by and by.” Although the attribution is uncertain, a wooden Crucifixion, sculpted in the fourteenth century and that was displayed in the original Saint Peter’s, was moved from its location in the new basilica in 1749 to accommodate the display of Michelangelo’s Pietà. Sade’s syntax is garbled, but along the same lines Lalande states that the “Chapelle du Crucifix” was so named because of the crucifix made by Pietro Cavallini – “revered since the year 1300 or thereabouts” – that was initially placed here and that is now located in the neighbouring chapel (Voyage, 3:81). Sade notes: “Sextus [Claudius Petronius] Probus Anicius was Praetorian prefect and Roman Consul. His exceeding humanity and astonishing wisdom won him the love of the people and immortality. The two philosophers who came to see Saint Ambrose in Milan in 390 wanted to pass via Rome with the sole aim of conversing with this great man.” Marginal note: “Avoid saying the word ‘chapel’ so often.”

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The ceiling of the shoulders of the cupola opposite this chapel is adorned with highly regarded mosaics by Ciro Ferri. Saint Nicholas’s, simply decorated with mosaics, is across from this. Between this chapel, which is today called that of the Pietà, and the one that we shall see next, which is dedicated to Saint Sebastian, are two monuments worthy of contemplation. The first contains the ashes of Pope Innocent XIII, utterly bereft of ornamentation. Such simplicity corresponds to that of his life, or rather to the short duration of his reign, which was famous neither for any crime nor for any virtue. This pontiff was of the House of Conti and only sat upon Saint Peter’s chair for three years. The eighth pope from this house, it is peculiar that his descendants should have allowed so much simplicity to predominate in this monument. The second is the mausoleum of Queen Christina of Sweden,94 adorned with a bas-relief related to her abdication at Innsbruck in 1655; it is the work of a French sculptor named Jean-Baptiste Théodon. Having seen this object, you enter the second chapel, which is dedicated to Saint Sebastian. [Guido Ubaldi] Abbatini decorated the cupola of this chapel with mosaics; he took the designs from works by Pietra da Cortona.95 The subjects thereof are the myths of the Apocalypse and other historical episodes from the Old Testament. At the main altar is the copy done in mosaic by Cavaliere Pietro Paulo Cristofari of the renowned painting by Domenichino that depicts the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, the original of which is at the Carthusians [i.e., Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri].96 94 Sade notes: “Christina, Queen of Sweden: see the three supplemental notebooks of annotations made on this topic.” 95 Sade notes: “Pietro Berrettini was born in Cortona, one of the oldest towns of Tuscany, in the year 1596. He was both architect and painter. At first, he fared poorly in the latter of these arts. But his talents developing little by little, he astonished his contemporaries. He belonged to the school of Rome, but Florence also frequently enjoyed possession of him. Alexander VII made him knight of the Golden Spur; the emperor Ferdinand II esteemed him. It was in front of this prince that this artist made a game of proving the ease with which he could do what he liked with his brush by making a child, whom Ferdinand was enjoying watching him paint, both laugh and cry almost simultaneously. This artist, whose company was pleasant, whose soul was sensitive, and whose morals upright, died of the gout in 1669. Berrettini required grand subjects; he was utterly less compelling with small compositions. His postures are generally graceful, his colouring vivid and pleasant, his ideas beautiful and almost always noble. But his brush was often incorrect, his draperies were dull, lacking in truth, and the grouping of his figures often appeared heavy. He was usually known by the name Pietro da Cortona.” For the sake of clarity, compare this account of Sade’s anecdote on the artist’s skills to be found in James Elmes, The Arts and Artists, or Anecdotes and Relics of the Schools of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (London, 1825): “That prince [i.e., Ferdinand II] one day admiring the figure of a child weeping, which he had just painted, he only gave it one touch of the pencil, and it appeared laughing; then, with another touch, he put it in its former state: ‘Prince,’ said Beretin, ‘you see how easily children laugh and cry’” (3:214). 96 Sade notes: “Domenico Zampieri, known as Domenichino,a belonged to the school of Lombardy. He was a student of [Annibale] Carracci. His first studies were laboured; his master compared him to an ox. No artist was more envied, and the Neapolitans played a thousand tricks on him, each more hateful than the previous. It is even claimed that they ended up poisoning him. Rome and Naples have almost all of his beautiful works. Domenichino was mainly successful with expressive subjects. His lively brush makes every passion breathe; his postures are truthful, his treatment of heads simple and almost always varied. On occasion he is heavy, but always stately and assured. He died in 1604 at the age of sixty. His modest and withdrawn life, his gentle and upright character, could not prevent jealousy from cutting short his days, so true is it that our own actions have but a secondary influence upon our destiny and that those of others almost always determine it more generally, which would lead to the conclusion that predestination is the least ambiguous and perhaps the most reasonable of all systems, that our actions, whatever they may be, are almost always immaterial for us, that they only have an impact upon our destiny because of the way that they are grasped

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As you exit this chapel, you see a monument erected to Pope Innocent XII, a Neopolitan from the House of Pignatelli, who died in 1700. It rests upon the sepulchral urn. At his sides, close by, are two statues of Charity and Justice: emblems made to typify the edifying life of the holy pontiff upon whom it would be desirable that every one modelled himself. Filippo della Valle was the sole artist for the ensemble. Behind the second pillar of the church and facing this monument is that of Countess Matilda,97 erected by Urban VIII based upon designs by Cavaliere Bernini. There is more stateliness than spirit in this ensemble. The statue of the countess has been placed in a recess. She is holding keys and cradling the tiara: emblems of her donation and of how with it she supported the Church.98 Below is the sarcophagus, decorated in military style, in a light and pleasing fashion. To the sides are two little angels and two infants holding up the coat of arms. Upon the front of the sarcophagus is a bas-relief depicting the public penance of Henry IV at the Castle of Canossa, a monument erected by papal pride, which would not allow that of sovereigns to survive. Several artists worked on this mausoleum. The statue of the princess, which is not without defect, was the work of two artists: Cavaliere Bernini made the head; Luigi Bernini made the rest. The infants that hold up the coat of arms are by [Matteo] Bonarelli; they are mediocre. The two others are: the one upon the right, by Bolgi; the other by Luigi Bernini. The urn and the bas-relief are by Stefano Speranza. The proportions of the urn are quite lovely, but the bas-relief joins multiple defects to the ridiculousness of the subject. Generally, this entire monument is not marvellous; as an ensemble it appears cold, and the subject seemingly ought to have furnished subtler and more spiritual allegories. The next chapel is that of the Holy Sacrament. The mosaics depict the inconceivable mysteries of transubstantiation. Upon the cupola are subjects from the Old Testament that might, via forced allegories, be linked to the former. The work is by Guido Ubaldi Abbatini, based upon designs by Pietro da Cortona. The altar painting depicts the Holy Trinity, by the same artist; the gilded bronze tabernacle, embellished with lapis lazuli and flanked by two angels, is a lovely piece done after Borromini’s designs under Urban VIII and not by Bernini and under Clement X, as Monsieur Lalande has it. It is true that this latter artist designed the two angels, but Borromini designed and had carried out the remainder under Urban VIII.99

by others, and that consequently conduct either uniformly vicious or virtuous can indifferently make us happy or unhappy, by dint of the place that we live in or the men whose company we keep. But there is nothing real in itself; nothing, once more, other than the opinions of others.” Marginal comment marked by superscript letter “a” in the note above: “Check the Mercure, where I think that he is discussed.” Sade’s memory is correct. An overview of Domenico Zampieri’s life and career had recently appeared in the pages of the long-running gazette and literary magazine. See Jean de la Harpe, “Extrait des différens Ouvrages publiés sur la vie des peintres; par M.D.L.F.” in Mercure de France (July, 2nd vol., 1776): 91–4. La Harpe’s piece is a review, primarily with excerpts from Denis-Pierre-Jean Papillon de La Ferté’s anthology Extrait des différens ouvrages publiés sur la vie des peintres (Paris, 1776), which treats Zampieri on 1:302–7. 97 Marginal note: “See in notebook with the expanded annotations the entry on this countess, which is marked thus: ƒƒƒƒƒƒ.” 98 Marginal note: “See the note made about this celebrated countess.” For this see pp. 538–44. 99 Sade notes: “Francesco Borromini was an architect, sculptor, and painter. He was born in Bissone, in the territory of Como, in 1599. When quite young he came to Rome for improvement. Carlo Maderno, his relative, gave him architecture lessons. He succeeded him in the title of architect of Saint Peter’s, but his

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To the left, upon entering this chapel, is an altar dedicated to Saint Maurice, adorned with a painting relating to the saint revered in this spot, the work of Cavaliere Bernini.100 At this altar are two columns that formerly adorned the high altar of Saint Peter’s. It was here that, in the old basilica, emperors were consecrated before having them take up the crown at the altar of the prince of the apostles: a humiliating ceremony that declared that the successors of the Caesars were quite close to being the titled lackeys of Saint Peter. Close by is the tomb of Sixtus IV, rising just barely above the ground, a beautiful and large work done in bronze and adorned with bas-reliefs made of the same metal by [Antonio del] Pollaiuolo under the pontificate of Julius II, who was also buried there.101 Opposite competition with Bernini, under whose supervision he was forced to be for some time, made him so terribly jealous that this was, as we shall see, the cause of his death. “I will discuss his various works when describing the monuments that owe him their brilliance. What might perhaps have done good for another spoiled this man, who in spite of this was always renowned: I mean working under Bernini. In order to surpass him, he desired to innovate and changed simple beauty into whimsy and irregularity. The Church of Saint Charles at the Four Fountains [San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane] is proof of this. However, his renown was great. He made designs for the king of Spain, who bestowed upon him as recompense a thousand pistoles and the Cross of Saint John, a reward even more flattering than money. Urban VIII made much use of him and made him a knight of the Order of Christ, with three thousand Roman scudi as pension and a post in the court. Finally, his unceasing jealousy of Bernini (a blessed rivalry in the century where it is found thanks to the masterpieces that it must needs produce) made him fall ill. He travelled. “On his return to Rome, when he was having engraved the collection of his works, he was seized by another fit: he let out horrible cries and fell down in a sort of spasm that left him two inches from the grave. It was believed necessary to forbid him from working, but this austere regime only increased his delirium. At last, one summer night, overwhelmed with insomnia, he demanded a quill, ink, and paper, and when this was refused him, he ran himself through with his sword. He lived for a few more days and repented, it is said, his suicide, the fruit of a fit of delirium and not of cold, sound reason. It is possible that this remorse existed, and it is as natural in this case as it would be in that where, calm and in good health, disgust for life should have inspired in him the very natural desire to shuffle it off. “Borromini’s morals were irreproachable, his genius was fertile, and his thoughts noble and bold. His jealously alone caused his downfall and the peculiarities found in his works.” 100 Sade notes: “Saint Maurice was an officer in the Theban Legion under the emperor Maximian. This legion was, as we know, made up entirely of Christians. The emperor ordered them to march on the Christians who were in Gaul. These mutineers refused. Maurice encouraged their revolt and wanted to prove to Maximian that Christians owed to God before the emperor – an insolent and seditious reproof that proves that the religion of Christ always pulled away from the obedience owed to its sovereigns and that it is thereby dangerous in all monarchical states. The indignant emperor had Maurice and his men put to the sword. Subsequently, Rome did not fail to canonize such an act of disobedience and insubordination. How astonished would Maximian have been if he had been told that it would be at the altar of this traitor that his successors would one day by consecrated before being deemed fit to wear the crown!” 101 Sade notes: “Sixtus IV. Francesco Albisola della Rovere was the son of a fisherman from the town of Celle, five leagues from Savona. He was a Franciscan. It was Paul II who made him cardinal, and after the death of his protector, he succeeded him in 1471. Hardly seated upon the Chair of Saint Peter, he made three children into cardinals. Two of these – Pietro Riario da Savona and his brother Girolamo – were, so it was said, his bastards. Giuliano, son of a brother and later pope under the name Julius II, was also raised when quite young to the cardinalate. Pietro, whom he showered with goods, was the most debauched and the most prodigal man of his century. He died at the age of twenty-eight from venereal disease. Girolamo was hardly a better subject, but he nonetheless had less taste for sensual debauchery. It was for his benefit and aggrandizement that the pontiff tried to make himself master of Florence and that he encouraged the infamous conspiracy incited by Salviati, the archbishop of Pisa, against Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici. It was at the Church of Santa Reparata, as I have already said,a while the two brothers were attending mass, that it was deemed fitting to assassinate them. Giuliano died straightaway; Lorenzo was only

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Dossier III wounded and was fortunate enough to save himself, which irritated the pope so much that he had him excommunicated and placed an interdiction upon the city of Florence. “This pope’s life provides nothing but a web of similar injustices committed for the benefit of his friends, of his partisans, and those who endorsed the outrageous debaucheries – excessive and of every sort – to which this pontiff was devoted and that committed him to expanding the House of della Rovere, with the sole aim of enjoying this house’s extraordinary privilege of gathering the first fruits of all the newlywed women who married their vassals. Outraged at his horrific lust, a poet wrote these lines for him: At tu implume caput cui tanta licentia quondam Fæmineos fuit in coitus: tua furta putabas Hic quoque prætextu mitræ impunita relinqui. Sic meruit tua fœda Venus: sic prodiga in omnem Nequitiam ad virtutis opus tua avara libido Illa Dioneæ Cithereia munera conchæ Illa pudicitiam quibus impugnare solebas Et noctes emere et nudæ indulgere palestræ [But you, unfeathered head who once put so much wantonness Into your effeminate couplings: you thought that your deceits Would go unpunished since you wore the mitre. This is what your foul venery has merited, and this your greedy lust: So prodigal in every vice and so mean in virtue. These Cytherian tributes to Aphrodite’s clams, With these you were accustomed to impugn modesty And to dedicate your nights and to indulge in nude wrestling] “We know that to this pope, attentive to the needs of concupiscence, is owed the fine institution of the brothels of Rome. Each prostitute rendered unto him a giulio per week, which at the end of a year yielded him, it is said, more than twenty thousand ducats: item noted in accounts received, as one can still see in the archives of the Vatican. The upright Sixtus did not stop there. He was admonished that granting permission to the young ladies was not all and that this licence might at best satisfy a third of the capital – vulgar sorts for whom anything is fine and who are happy enough with the ordinary big job. But, it was objected, more dainty dishes were needed for that throng of benefactors and men of the Church, the Monsignori and the cardinals: folks bored with the ordinary pleasure and whose taste or the disadvantages ever to be feared when associating with the fair sex kept from going to visit the newly instituted quarter. Albisola felt this, and fleshing out the licence that meant he would tolerate the effervescence of the blood during the torrid days of summer – the season in which all the crimes of impurity commonly double everywhere – he thus granted permission that during the three months of June, July, and August, each might exercise as he pleased the natural taste that Italians have for sodomy. The cardinal of Santa Lucia, doubtless inclined to this disorder, had learnedly explained to the Holy Father, surely based upon personal experience – an explanation that Sixtus’s own would soon legitimate – he had, as I was saying, explained that during this period of extreme heat, women left over a surplus of desires and that their physical structure did not fulfil these nor satisfy them all. The pontiff, who had experienced this, placed at the bottom of the request that the cardinal had presented him with on this topic: ‘Let it be done as requested.’ At about the same time, Sixtus, who, like working girls, believes that devotion to the Holy Virgin erases all crimes, atoned for the licence of this toleration with the great indulgences that he accorded to those who zealously celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin, which was the cause of much discussion between the Dominicans and Franciscans. But these absurdities happily not falling within my competence, I will refer those who might be curious about them to all the platitudes produced and printed on this topic. “During the pontificate of this pope there were many other disputes among the monks, all pretty much of the same importance. In 1745, year of the Jubilee thanks to the reduction that Paul II had made in this regard and that I noted above, the king of Naples came to Rome. This action so satisfied the pope that he remitted for this sovereign and for his successors the tribute that his kingdom was in the practice of paying to the Roman Church upon the condition that he would annually make him a gift of a white hackney mare: a ceremony about which Ferdinand IV sometimes quibbles, but that nonetheless is still quite regularly

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is the organ, and upon the right side of the main altar of this chapel a secret staircase that leads from the Vatican Palace to the church. The cupola of the dome that precedes this chapel is adorned with mosaics done by [Francesco] Vanni based upon designs by Pietra da Cortona. Here is where the little aisle that Paul V added to the initial project of the Greek cross terminates. observed and the aim of which is to prove that the kingdom falls within the ambit of the Holy See, to whom the fief belongs. Every year, on the eve of the Feast of Saint Peter, an ambassador comes to present this hackney.b “I will not conclude this note without clearing Sixtus IV of that reproach that I have levelled at him following several historians of having signed a permission to practise sodomy for three months of the year. Nothing could imaginably be less probable that this anecdote. Let me even dare say along with [Pierre] Bayle that it is impossible. Devotees of this crime, the impetuosity of which we are familiar, are neither folks who would be satisfied with three months nor folks to go and ask for permission, and it is incredible, whatever morals we suppose of a pope, to imagine that he would allow this crime. A debauched sovereign can indulge everything – he can tolerate his errors even in others, if you like – but he will certainly not authorize them. Here is the simplest way that this anecdote can be explained and a way that will appear much more probable. Sixtus IV was extraordinarily easy about granting everything that was desired of him and putting “Good” at the bottom of every request. This ease on his part was pushed to such an extreme that he was obliged to have a secretary expressly for the purpose of keeping a record of the favours he accorded, given that he ended up frequently according the same one to two or three people. The history of the permission for sodomy is only and can only be an inside joke between the cardinal of Santa Lucia and the pope, neither of whom cared about the matter. The cardinal presented the request to the pope who, following his customary practice, signed it without looking at it. Then, the cardinal unsealed it and read the notice signed by the pope, and both of them likely found this humorous. But it is not said whether this example made Sixtus IV more prudent in the future. It is astonishing that Monsieur Bayle, who filled two or three pages with discussion on this topic tending to exonerate Sixtus, did not present the episode in this light – the only perspective from which it appears likely. It can even be added that it thus acquires such a high degree of verisimilitude, that we can set the odds at two-to-one that the fact is true. Of all the episodes that history leaves wrapped in darkness and that we can only untangle using calculations of probability, there is not a one that seems more certain that this one, and when verisimilitude must march in aid of verity, we are fortunate to be able to get as close as I believe that I have just done in this slight essay. “In conclusion, Sixtus died on 13 August 1484, out of despondency, so it is said, over the peace that had been concluded between the Duke of Ferrara and the Republic of Venice, a war that he had incited for the benefit of the former. His allies abandoned him, and the peace was concluded without his participation. His spite was such that his gout flared up and did away with him on the fifth day. Here we see the man, here we see the result of his passion. And dignity, religion, supposedly sacred character will never change in any way the imperious laws of Nature, to which the vicar of Jesus Christ, Christ himself, and his entire flock are yoked, like the lightest atom that crawls upon the surface of the earth or is mixed into the immensity of the atmosphere.” Marginal notes indicated by superscript letters: a) “This assumes the summary of Florentine history”; b) “Note to insert once you have received an answer from Rome about the hackney mare.” The lines of the poem above are cited by Pierre Bayle, who gives their source, correctly, as Baptista Mantuanus and who explains their context as Jupiter hailing an unnamed holder of high Church office in Hell. Bayle examines at length the debate over who is thus hailed: Sixtus IV or Pietro Riario (1445–1474). See Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique (Amsterdam, 1740), 4:220–2. The two men were closely allied, and Sixtus IV had elevated Riario to bishop of Treviso in 1471 and subsequently to archbishop of Florence in 1473. The latter was known for his humanist learning and for his decadent feasts. Bayle’s primary point of reference in the debate over attribution is Pierre Jurieu, Prejugez légitimes contre le papisme (Amsterdam, 1685). As Sade notes, Bayle rejects the assertion that Sixtus IV “accorded the practice of sodomy for three months per annum” (222). Baptista Spagnuoli Mantuanus (1447–1516) was deeply involved in the reforms of the Carmelite order, a critic of papal corruption, and a prolific poet. The lines in question will be found in book IV of his Alphonsus. See Prima pars operum in qua sunt Alphonsus, etc. [n.p., 1507], n.p.

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At the pilaster that supports the vault of this chapel and that forms one of the sides of the cross, you will see the mausoleum of Gregory XIII, from the House of Boncompagni;102 and opposite, at the third pillar, that of Gregory XIV, erected without either any luxury or any magnificence.103 Cardinal Boncompagni had the other erected under the direction of the architect Camillo Rusconi. The pontiff, on top of the urn, has at one side Religion, who is holding his works, and at the other Strength, who is lifting the mantle that was hiding the urn. There is verve and imagination in this grouping, which is not however lacking in flaws. Upon the front of the tomb is a bas-relief that depicts the revision of the calendar by the pontiff in 1582. At the end of the nave, to the right, in the bend, is the magnificent Gregorian Chapel erected by the pontiff. The first object that strikes one is the mosaic done by Cristofari based upon the superb painting of the Communion of Saint Jerome by Domenichino, about which I will have occasion to speak in the entry upon the Church of the Charity [San Girolamo della Carità] where it is. All of the sublimity of the original has been maintained in this beautiful copy, and it is by examining it, more than any other, that one gets enthusiastic about that sublime secret by which all the gracefulness and all the vividness of the most beautiful originals are made to pass into immortality. The altar of this chapel is quite magnificent. Giacomo della Porta was tasked with its decoration, and we see that the pontiff’s intention was to neglect nothing regarding its embellishment; he had brought in an old image of the Madonna, known by the name of del Soccorso, miraculous like all its ilk. At the corners of the cupola are four Doctors of the Church done by Marcello [Provenzale] and [Giovanni Battista] Calandra based upon designs by Muziano.104 102 Sade notes: “Gregory XIII (Boncompagni) was born in Bologna and succeeded Pius V in the year 1572. He was deeply versed in civil and canonical jurisprudence. It is less to him, however, than to a Roman physician that is owed the renowned reform of the calendar, for which the pontiff enjoyed all the credit. It was difficult to get Protestant nations to accept this new arrangement. It was enough for it to have come from the pope for them to reject it, whence the practice of adding to dates the terms ‘Old Style’ for those who have retained the Julian year and ‘New Style’ for the Gregorian year. The Russians and the Swedes still follow the old system, although Monsieur Lalande asserts that today all of Europe has adopted the Gregorian calendar. In the end, this pope, who was learned but whose governance was soft and lacking vigour, expired on 7 April 1585, having sullied his reign with the infamously base act of giving thanks to God for the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. His fanaticism was such that he had a thousand Roman scudi bonus given to the rider who brought him the news. The cannon at the Castel Sant’Angelo was shot, celebratory bonfires lit, the pope decreed a Jubilee, and so that the memory of an infamy so very much to the taste of the Roman court should not be lost, a painting was made, which still exists and about which I will have occasion to talk.” 103 Sade notes: “Gregory XIV (Niccolò Sfondrati) lived for a short while – happily for Italy. At the urging of Philip II, King of Spain, he made a dent in the treasury that Sixtus V had left for the defence of Italy in order to raise troops against Henry IV, King of France. Ercole, his nephew and general, advanced into France, but his troops were beaten and scattered the moment that they appeared, and all that remained for him was the shame of the project and the humiliation of having ministered to the animosity of the Spanish monarch. This madman had published monitorial letters in France against the king. The parlements seated at Tours and at Châlons condemned them to be burned. Otherwise, this monarch was outwardly sober; it is noted that he drank nothing but water.” 104 Sade notes: “Girolamo Muziano was born in 1528 in the territory of Brescia, today a dependency of the Republic of Venice. Girolamo Romanino, a Brescian, was his master. He came to Venice where the paintings of Titian incited his spirit. His style came along wonderfully; the cardinals of Este and of Farnese made much use of him. His reputation gained him the trust that Gregory XIII put in him in giving him the commission for designing the cartoons of his chapel. He made use of this acknowledgment to found in

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In the wall of this chapel will be seen the urn that contained the body of Saint Gregory, which was out of respect and devotion transported here by the pontiff of the same name, whom I just said was its founder. Synopsis of the Vatican Museum Created by Ganganelli or to Attach to the Large Synopsis that Will Be Given to Me by the Abbé Grazzini on the Entire Vatican Palace105 A statue of Juno. One of Diana. One of an actor playing the role of a valet. A bust of a masked songstress. You make out the same exaggeration in the features of the masque as you see in the comic ones painted at the front of the lovely Terence manuscript seen at the Vatican Library. Superb statue of Sardanapalus. Lovely group of a Faun accosting a nymph. The latter is laughing and seems quite at ease with the union. Her physiognomy is more libertine than charming, and the heat of desire is already visible in her features; a sense of modesty as ridiculous as it is imbecilic has caused the suppression of that which in the satyr most vividly expressed the feeling of his ecstasy. This subtraction of humanity is quite the done thing in Rome. And why would you fear statues doing what one dares to do on a daily basis with one’s fellows? An Amazon statue. Another of a sleeping Faun. One of a discus thrower. A bust of Pluto made of basalt. Two lovely candlesticks discovered at Saint Agnes Outside the Walls. A statue of a seated nymph. A Narcissus looking at himself in the water. Trajan seated; a very true-to-life piece. A statue of the muse Melpomene. A precious vase of green porphyry; it is hollow. A statue of Augustus. A small statue of a gladiator. Rome the Academy of Saint Luke, which he headed. Sixtus V ratified this institution with a brief. Muziano, who had a profound grasp of history, nevertheless preferred to focus upon landscape and portraiture. In him will be noted a developed taste for design and a charming coloration gained from the serious study that he made of Titian. This artist never painted without a model [de pratique]. His landscapes are very reminiscent of the Flemish manner; it has been remarked that he chose chestnut rather than other trees because the branches have, according to him, something picturesque about them. His designs done in India ink are admirable for their accuracy of stroke, for the expressiveness of his faces, and for the wonderful foliage of his trees. (Dictionnaire des hommes illustres, in the entry on Muziano).” Indeed, Sade follows closely the entry on Muziano in the mentioned work. See “MUTIAN, (Jérôme)” in Chaudon et al., Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, etc. (Paris, 1772), 4[pt.1]:654. From Anon. [Claude Boutet?], Traité de la peinture en mignature (The Hague, 1708), 257: to paint “de pratique” meant “to paint something from imagination,” without a model in Nature. 105 Inserted into the manuscript notebook of the “Vicinity of Rome” entitled “Voyage to Frascati, Grottaferrata, Marino …” (in Sade’s hand). Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli was born in 1705, and reigned as Pope Clement XIV from 1769 until his death in 1774. On Grazzini, see p. 391n19 above.

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A lovely one of Seneca. Two highly esteemed candlesticks that Ganganelli bought from the House of Barberini. A beautiful pairing of busts that consists of that of Antinoüs, forever near to that of Hadrian. It would have been a defect of verisimilitude if that passion were not religiously respected in the Vatican. Antoninus Pius. [Julia] Mamaea. Juba, King of Mauretania. A charming Heliogabalus, made, if it looks like him, to excuse this emperor’s bizarre mania of only wanting to enjoy the pleasures of love as does a woman. In a country where Nero had found a husband, Heliogabalus must have had more than one lover (see Cassius Dio’s Life of this emperor).106 A Caesar Balbinus in bronze. A Caesar Augustus. A head believed to be Cicero, but did not seem to me to look like him. A Lysimachus, a Zeno, an Antisthenes, a Plato, an Aristophanes, an unknown Greek hero – all pieces full of life and that recall the cherished memories of these great men. A Lucius Verus, a Commodus, and close to him his wife Crispina; a Pertinax, a Clodius Albinus, a Marcus Agrippa, Euclid, a crowned Augustus, Julia, daughter of Titus, Marcia Otacilia and Philippus her son, Valerian, Saloninus Caesar, Julia Mamaea, wife of Alexander Severus, an unknown Greek hero, Sabina rival of Antinoüs and wife of Hadrian, a Greek orator, a Lar deity, a Flaminius, Roman priest. Bust of an unknown emperor. An Etruscan urn made of the alabaster known as quince because it resembles the colour of that fruit. A small ancient tomb. Two unknown busts. A Silenus of striking truthfulness; it is one of the pieces that gives the most pleasure. Porcia and Cato holding hands and one of […]107 up to the half-belt: a highly esteemed piece and done in the loveliest style. A philosopher’s head, a Julia Messa, a Manlia Scantilla. In another section, but adjoining this one: A superb Meleager, with the dog and boar at his sides, his usual emblems. A statue of Caesar. Another in this Etruscan style, depicting a Greek virgin at a footrace; I did not discover in this piece all the lightness of which it would be liable. A Serapis, Egyptian deity. A statue of Jupiter. A bust of the Ocean. A small statue of a Moor, one of those who served in the baths. Although it is made of a quite white marble, you recognize from the facial features that this must be a Moor. 106 An emperor in the later Sadeian vein, as an early modern edition of Cassius Dio’s account of Heliogabalus puts it, he wallowed in “every vice and misdeed,” was “sullied with human blood,” “polluted and contaminated with every sort of filth” and was married to both sexes, “for he served as both man and as woman, engaging in the office of both the one and the other with a dissolute and hateful lust.” Cassius Dio, L’Histoire de Dion Cassivs de Nicæe, contenant les vies des vingt-six empereurs, qui ont regné depuis Iules Cæsar, etc. (Paris, 1616), 405. The author then explores some of these proclivities in considerably greater detail. 107 Left blank.

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A small statue of Ariadne. A Satyr pulling a thorn from the foot of a Faun, a grouping rendered with equal measures of verity and naturalness. A little vessel done in bas-relief, upon which you see two rows of oars, which copying the example of other nations, the Romans used in their construction. We must not forget upon this topic that it was at the time of the first wars with the Carthaginians that they began to have a marine force and that their first ships were built in imitation of those of that nation. A lovely statue of Perseus. A small one of a Bacchus. An Egyptian woman of about the same size. Two peafowl, one male and the other female. A lamb about to be immolated. A magnificent Cleopatra, larger than life, in the most vigorous and sublime style. She is placed upon a large pedestal decorated with bas-reliefs; above is a bust of Plautina, wife of Trajan. A very small Cleopatra that I believe is modern and copied from the large one beside it. The she-goat Amalthea who nursed Jupiter upon the island of Crete, because it seems that the birth and first years of the gods and of great men must always be shrouded in mystery. Moses and Romulus are found upon the water; Jesus Christ is born between an ox and an ass, etc. So many connections! So many analogies! And why must the marvellous always serve as the basis of superstition? A large, highly valued candlestick. A toad made of red marble. A fox, a lion, a hare, a tiger, a rabbit, the head of an ass, one of a she-goat, a Minotaur bust, a head of a sheep, a head of a wild goat, a cat at the throat of a chicken, a small statue of naval Victory, an owl, a stork, the Egyptian idol Ibis, a cock, an eagle, a lovely vase decorated with bas-reliefs of animals, a small statue of Ceres, two small statues of lowcomedy players wearing masks. An equestrian statue of the emperor Commodus, smaller than life. Two superb columns of verd antique. A lovely bas-relief of a seaport, the torso of a cupid, a group of hares, a bas-relief by Michelangelo, which depicts Cosimo I after the conquest of Pisa. A cow. The goddess of Justice. A beautiful vase. A superb guard dog; it is of a surprising truthfulness. Such are the curious pieces that this magnificent collection has on offer. Under the portico that surrounds the courtyard of this museum and that is entirely faced with marble, you see, in wooden recesses made to safeguard against climatic damages, a Greek Apollo that is beautiful to the highest degree. The grand duke of Tuscany upon seeing it exclaimed: “Here is the husband of my Venus!” It is a shame to make out such poor restorations on pieces of such distinction. That of the right foot utterly dishonours the sublime beauty of this precious work. It is of such a perfect lightness that, provided that you don’t examine it for too long, you would say that it is flying towards you and that it is breaking free of the pedestal. This beautiful statue was found in the port of Anzio, during the pontificate of Julius II.108

108 The statue in question is the renowned Apollo Belvedere, rediscovered in the fifteenth century and lavished with praise by eighteenth-century neoclassicists, most notably, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), who called it “the highest ideal of art among all the works of antiquity that have escaped

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A Laocoön between his two children; the serpent is entwining them and devouring them. Nothing could be more powerful and more expressive than the beautiful head of the old man. Fashioning it, the artist seems to have exhausted himself; it carries off all the genius, the rest appearing a bit cold. This piece was found in the Baths of Titus. The stucco restoration of the right arm of the old man was surely not the work of an artist, supposing that this name belongs only to those for whom the fire of genius seems uniquely intended to bestow it.109 A statue of Antinoüs that is beautiful enough, but without arms; and although these were perhaps not the bodily parts that his master and lover found to be the most essential, we are in spite of this vexed to not be able to enjoy all the beauties of the favourite of so great an emperor. The emperor Commodus disguised as Hercules, and an unworthily restored Venus. In the middle of the small courtyard of this building is a fountain that flows into a large porphyry vase of the greatest beauty and that comes from the gardens of Julius III outside of the Gate of the People. Augmentation of the Notes Made at the Vatican110 Zosimus, who transcribed for us facts related to Constantine, was veritably a pagan, but was he less credible for this? This Zosimus was a count and an advocate of the treasury, a very honourable position and one that would not have been given to a dishonest man. This historian has been unfairly taxed with too great an animosity towards the Christians. Léonclavius, who has furnished an edition of his works, fully exonerates him from this false imputation and asserts that Photius was wrong to compare him to a barking dog.111 A historian must speak the truth. As such, could he silently pass over the murders, the parricides of Constantine, the exorbitant taxes that he had imposed upon the people? The animosity of priests towards Zosimus is natural; he spoke ill of Constantine who protected them and well of Julian who abhorred them. Based upon this, their feelings about this historian could not be equivocal. “Those upright ecclesiastics,” pleasantly says the author of the République des lettres (volume VI, page 7), “would have desired that Zosimus, acting in their manner, had endeavored to transform Julian’s virtues into crimes and Constantine’s crimes into virtues.”112 I have mentioned the principal horrors of which this historian

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destruction,” in his History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2006), 333. Another touchstone of neoclassical aesthetics and the subject of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s exploration of the artistic mediation of suffering in his Laokoon: oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (Berlin, 1766). Notebook of 12 pages in Sade’s hand, with the subtitle: “Additions on Constantine to the notes inserted into the description of Saint Peter’s.” Photius or Photios (c. 810–c. 893) was twice Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (858–867 and 877–886) and author of the Bibliotheca or Myriobiblon, a collection of brief accounts of and extracts from classical historians, literature, rhetoric, patristic writings, and so forth; Zosimus is the subject of Codex 98 of this work. Jean Léonclavius is the gallicized form of Johannes Leunclavius or Löwenklau, the sixteenth-century German jurist, historian, translator, and erudite, whose Latin edition of Zosimus, including a vindication of the author, was first published in 1576. Sade’s source, however, is the account of Zosimus in vol. 6 of Boyer d’Argens, Mémoires secrets de la République des Lettres; on Leunclavius and Photius, see 6:3–6. Cited from Boyer d’Argens, Mémoires secrets, 6:7.

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accuses the emperor. Let us see what he adds upon the topic of religion. I will transcribe him word for word: However, Constantine, wracked with remorse over so many horrific infamies, asked the priests for purification by lustration. But the latter answered that his crimes were so great that they could never be erased. However, a certain Egyptian who had come from Spain to Rome and who had made the acquaintance of several palace women, held with their intercession some conversations with Constantine in which he persuaded him that the Christian religion could absolve the greatest of crimes and the greatest villains who embraced it were utterly purged of their past offences. Constantine, seduced by the discourses of this Egyptian, abandoned the religion of his forefathers and embraced the beliefs of the Christians. He subsequently forbade divination, because having often experienced its certainty in matters that had been predicted for him, he feared that others might use it against him and that they would desire to know what would happen to him. Finally, having gone to the Capitol upon a festival day, he gave the most impious speeches and entirely abandoned worship of the gods. This conduct made him the horror of the Senate and of the Roman people, and as he himself knew how much he was hated and mortified by this, he resolved to abandon Rome and build a city that would be its equal in grandeur and magnificence. At first he had a very large enclosure built near to ancient Troy and laid the foundations for a large city. But he subsequently changed plans, and having left incomplete what he had undertaken, he withdrew to Byzantium. Struck by the beauty of this city’s location, he worked to enhance and to adorn it, and he made of it the capital of the empire by making it his abode.113

But is Zosimus the only one who dares speak of Constantine’s crimes? Suidas, who wrote during a superstitious century – under Alexius Comnenus, at a time when it seemed that disguising the crimes of Roman emperors was an act of piety – Suidas himself speaks as does Zosimus and says absolutely the same things.114 Will we object that Eusebius of Pamphilia, who lived under Constantine, never spoke of this emperor’s main murders? This would have quite little weight faced with the universal attestations of all the other historians, and it is so slight that I [do not] believe it to be the least necessary to assert it. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Saint Jerome, Zonaras, and Orosius have all spoken pretty much like Zosimus. The emperor Julian, successor of the son of that emperor, reproaches him with the same crimes as the historian Zosimus. “Constantine,” wrote this emperor in his Caesars, “withdrew with his son, who cried out to anyone: ‘Whoever feels culpable of rapes, murders, of whatever other abominable crime, let him boldly come here. As soon as I have washed him with this water, I will make him entirely clean. If he falls once more into the infamy of the same vices, I will make it so that after having struck his head and beaten his breast, he will become pure and clean as before.’”115 These words well prove both that 113 Cited from ibid., 6:14–16. 114 The Suda is an encyclopedic Byzantine lexicon from the tenth century. Its title was incorrectly taken for the name of an author, and the work long attributed to a certain Suidas. 115 Cited from Boyer d’Argens, Mémoires secrets, 6:21–2. The source is Emperor Julian’s comic sketch The Caesars or Kronia, written in Constantinople for the Saturnalia in 361 CE. The sense of the original, garbled in Boyer d’Argens and thus in Sade, becomes clear with a slightly longer citation: “As for Constantine, he could not discover among the gods the model of his own career, but when he caught sight of Pleasure, who was not far off, he ran to her. She received him tenderly and embraced him, then after dressing him in raiment of many colours and otherwise making him beautiful, she led him away to In-

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Constantine was a villain prior to his conversion and that he became no better afterwards. Don’t we see this from his conduct, after the famous vision that seemed to attach him forever to the laws and to the practices of the new God that he adopted? He recalled [i.e., from exile] Arius, who denied the divinity of J.C. He relegated Saint Athanasius to Trier and thereby levelled the most stinging blow to the Catholic faith. Did he not expressly outrage a council by blackening the name of that holy man and imputing to him imaginary crimes? It was claimed that he had raped a young girl, killed a bishop, and burned a chalice. But all these horrors came only from the emperor’s fancy. Saint Athanasius proved himself innocent and the son of the emperor rehabilitated him some time afterwards. Finally, this monster both by his behaviour and by his thoughtlessness set the stage for all the ills that would tear apart the Church during the reign of his children. It seems to me that these are crimes, said the Marquis d’Argens, that are as great for a Christian prince as those for which Zosimus qua pagan historian reproaches him.116 But what men, dare I add, does God use to put his aims into action, or rather, to what villains does superstition attribute them? The assassin of Uriah and the most dissolute of kings is for the Jews the instrument that God uses to build his nation? And imposter priests dare to canonize Bathsheba’s adulterer?117 It is from such impure blood that the Christian God was born. Behold the golden rod whence he was deemed to spring and the belly of a whore that served as his refuge!118 Judas, the most treacherous of men, becomes an instrument necessary for the salvation of mankind! Constantine, the most villainous of men, is the first to bring to the Imperial throne the holy religion that we profess. And the first king who allows it in France is also the most abominable of tyrants, with neither faith nor law, executioner of his family, and, like Constantine, only adopting the newfangled chimera out of policy.119 Oh, providential design and divine wisdom! Oh, the depths that are not for us to sound! I am no longer astonished that crime should be so enticing, since it is only through it that your decrees are carried out! It was indeed necessary to attach a few charms to the means that you desired be used by your interpreters, your assignees, and your mouthpieces.120

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continence. There too he found Jesus, who had taken up his abode with her and cried aloud to all comers: ‘He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer, he that is sacrilegious and infamous, let him approach without fear! For with this water will I wash him and will straightaway make him clean. And though he should be guilty of those same sins a second time, let him but smite his breast and beat his head and I will make him clean again.’” Julian, The Works of the Emperor Julian, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright (London: William Heinemann, 1913), 2:413. Cited from Boyer d’Argens, Mémoires secrets, 6:27. “Bathsheba’s adulterer” and the “assassin of Uriah” both refer to David (see 2 Samuel:11), as Sade indulges in a typical philosophical critique of biblical heroism and morality. See Isaiah 11:1, AV: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” The allusion is to Clovis I, the “new Constantine” in Gregory of Tours’s account. Clovis was said to have instigated the murder of Sigobert the Lame, another Frankish king, at the hands of Chlodoric, Sigobert’s own son. He became a convert to Catholicism and was baptized in 496. Sade notes: “RELATED NOTE. Do not forget to say that it is to this emperor that was owed the fall of the empire. If he had not left Rome, the empire would have been sustained, and he only left it behind because he could not stand the cruel reproaches of the pagans, into whose religion he had been born and that he was abandoning. Rome left to itself succumbed to the internal factions by which it was torn; the fights between Christians among themselves and with the former against the pagans completed its undoing. The power of the popes was raised up by these rifts, and Christian Rome, although weak and superstitious, destroyed pagan Rome, although enterprising and mistress of the entire universe. Must we lavish praise upon this change? And wouldn’t it have been as worthwhile for us to be dependants of Caesar and worshippers

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Animate and Inanimate Things Mentioned in the Vatican Notes121 Spectacles of the burning of Christians that Nero put on in his gardens located at the Vatican.   1. Saint Peter’s. Saint Helena, sketched. To redo.   2. Nicholas V. Bramante. Vignola. Sixtus V. To do. Carlo Maderno. Bernini.   3. Innocent VIII. The Count of Olivares. Constantine, emperor. The Jubilee. Father Jacquier, of the Trinità dei Monti. Holy water. François Duquesnoy. The pallium. Andrea Sacchi.   4. Benedict XII, with clarifications concerning Laura.   5. Urban VI.   6. Boniface VIII. Countess Matilda. Amaury, Count of Montfort.   7. Alexander XI [viz., VI].   8. Pius II. Note where is explained how to recognize Egyptian obelisks or those taken from quarries by the Romans, such as the one in the square of Saint Peter’s. A word on Augustus’s mausoleum. Relics preserved in the pillars of the cupola of Saint Peter’s in Rome. Pietro Cavallini. Probus Anicius. Christina, Queen of Sweden. Long note. Pietro da Cortona. Domenico Zampieri, called Domenichino. Francesco Borromini, architect.   9. Sixtus IV. 10. Gregory XIII. 11. Gregory XIV. Muziano.

of Mars or of Venus than slaves of a Bourbon and imbecilic zealots of the successors of Simon Bar-Jona and his master, the Galilean?” 121 Manuscript notebook of 8 pages, 6 of which are blank, in Sade’s hand.

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Complete Note on Countess Matilda to Be Inserted into the Manuscript at the Spot Where I Have Made Do with Indicating with a Cross-Reference to This Notebook, Rough Draft122 Matilda, daughter of Beatrice and Boniface, the Duke and Duchess of Tuscany, was born, according to Muratori, in the year 1046.123 Her birthplace is uncertain. Some authors have her born in Lucca and others in Mantua. The latter view appears the most likely. Caccino is of this opinion, and the learned disgression124 by Monsieur Saint-Marc upon this topic likewise seems to favour this view.125 The deaths of Frederick and of Beatrice, who like Matilda were children of the duke and duchess of Tuscany, made the young Matilda the heir of the Duchy of Tuscany from the most tender age. Matilda spent her first years in the fortress of Canossa so that she would be shielded from the claims of the emperor Henry III upon the states of which the death of her brother and of her sister had made her heir.126 Boniface died and Pope Leo IX thought up, in order to vouchsafe defenders for the Church, the marriage of Godfrey the Bearded with the widowed Duchess Beatrice and at the same time that of the young duke, son of Godfrey, with the young Beatrice. The death of the latter upset his plans, and Matilda, sister of Beatrice, having become the sole heir, as I have just mentioned, was marked for the son of Godfrey. The young Frederick, presumptive heir of that crown and who died but a few months after these arrangements, cast some suspicion upon the plans of Leo IX by his premature death, since the latter might possibly be accused of having had this child poisoned in order to pass possession of Tuscany to the Godfreys, who were the son and grandson of Agnes, first cousin of this pontiff. But let us be satisfied with simply commenting the fact and let us not impute crimes of such blackness to this holy patriarch who was canonized by the Church. The marriage was thus resolved upon in 1053; for the young Godfrey, dubbed “the Hunchback,” it assured him not only the Duchy of Tuscany but also all the fiefs and allodial properties of the Marquis Boniface and of the Duchess Beatrice, thereby making him one of the most powerful princes in Italy. Too young, Matilda could not yet marry the son of Godfrey. But when she had reached the age of eighteen, she married him; this was in 1063.127 Shortly after this marriage, her 122 In Sade’s hand and following the “Augmentation of the notes made at the Vatican.” Throughout this note Sade closely follows Charles-Hugues Le Febvre de Saint-Marc’s account of Matilda in his Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire générale d’Italie (Paris, 1756), 3[pt.2]:1231ff. Sade appears not to have consulted first-hand any of the sources that Le Febvre de Saint-Marc mentions or cites. 123 Sade’s reference is to the Italian historian and polemicist Ludovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750), although he is citing Le Febvre de Saint-Marc’s digression on Matilda’s birthplace; see Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1231–2 (cf. infra). Sade would have found Muratori’s account of Matilda in Delle Antichità estensi ed italiane (1717–1740), which was later reprinted in the Raccolta delle opere minori di Lodovico Antonio Muratori (Naples, 1761), see esp. 13:22–44. 124 Marginal note: “Remember that it is written digression and not disgression.” In the manuscript, Sade had written “disgression” and then struck out the first “s.” 125 Sade’s reference to Caccino is uncertain. He likely intended Benedetto Luchino, who gives Mantua as the Matilda’s birthplace, in his Cronica della vera origine, et attioni della illustrissima, & famosissima Contessa Matilda (Mantua, 1592), 49. Contrary to Sade’s assertion, Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, after considering various sources and possibilities, including Luchino, had concluded: “In truth, the birthplace of Countess Matilda is completely unknown” (Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1232). 126 Marginal note: “Here I will discuss this renowned woman only in relation to her famous donation. Her major deeds are described in the extract that I have provided on Tuscany and, besides, I will not undertake her biography; in her regard, I will relate what is useful to my topic.” 127 Marginal note: “This princess was physically very beautiful and pleasing. In the features of her face, majesty was joined to beauty; her gentle and gracious look simultaneously inspired respect and fear; and her entire person projected a certain seriousness and manliness.”

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mother gave her a share in the governance of Tuscany, because she became the proprietary sovereign of her father’s estates, as her mother Beatrice was usufructuary sovereign of them. In 1076, Matilda was widowed. Godfrey, her husband, died in Anvers, according to Muratori, quite violently: having gone to relieve himself in the lavatories, an arrow pierced him through the anus.128 It is claimed that this was upon the orders of Robert, Count of Flanders. Whatever the case, you have to admit that this is a very Italian way to put someone to death. A great supporter of Henry IV,129 Godfrey was resultantly little loved by Gregory VII, and the subsequent understanding of this pope with the countess – the major assets that came to the Church as a result – could also give rise to terrible suspicions about the tragic death of this prince. And Gregory, at once the most enterprising and one of the greatest villains that the Church ever had as pontiff, could have committed this crime besides and have all the more done so insofar as he could have already calculated the happy consequences thereof. It will be noted here that Matilda had always lived very poorly with her husband. Fiorentini, an Italian author, does not vacillate in his belief that this princess’s ill feelings towards her husband came about at the pope’s instigation and that this became the motive that committed the latter [Godfrey] to take up the helm of Cencius’s conspiracy against the pontiff’s person.130 Muratori is not of this opinion, but does this prevent it being most probable? However, Gregory prayed for him: “Sinner as I doubtless am,” he says in a letter written to Hermann, a relative of the countess, “I remember … both your fraternal charity and Matilda’s prayer commit me to wishing for his salvation.” Consequently, Matilda from then on began to prove her love and her charity for the Church by making large donations for the repose and peace of the soul of this dear spouse, who some historians have believed to have perished by her hand.131 If suspicions have come to this point, I will be allowed to say that they are quite close to being levelled against Gregory VII, who at this time had already entirely gained the trust of Matilda, who, like a faithful daughter of Saint Peter, as Contelorio has it, almost never strayed far from the pope.132 In the end, Matilda was remarried to Welf, Duke of Bavaria,133 who, according to president Hénault, repudiated her upon her refusal to cohabitate with

128 Le Febvre de Saint-Marc remarks that Muratori provided accounts from three different sources on the duke’s demise, all of which concur that Godfrey was brought down by an injury sustained while relieving himself at night and in the “most secret hind part,” although there is some ambiguity about the precise nature of the weapon – pike or simply “cruel point” (Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1237–8). 129 Marginal note: “You ought to clarify whether this is Henry III or IV. The historian Le Febvre de SaintMarc says III, yet everywhere I find IV. This must be III.” Annotation to the side of this: “It is IV.” 130 Francesco Maria Fiorentini, the author of Memorie della grande contessa Matilda (Lucca, 1642). Cencius Stephani, a member of the Roman nobility, was responsible for the abduction and brief incarceration of Pope Gregory VII in 1075. This act took place in the context of attempts to reform the papacy and was presumably meant to force the pope’s abdication. See I.A. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073–1198: Continuity and Innovation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 6–7. 131 Marginal note: “Change this.” The citation in question is from Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, who himself cites not from Muratori but rather Fiorentini; see Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1238. 132 A reference to the posthumously published Mathildis Comitissae Genealogia [Genealogy of Countess Matilda] (Terni, 1557 [i.e., 1657]), by Felice Contelori, who is usually known by his Latin name Felix Contelorius (1588–1652). Contelori was, among other things, doctor of law and philosophy, keeper of the Vatican Library, director of the Vatican Archives, historian, poet, and genealogist. 133 Marginal note: “REFLECTION. The bishops and all of Matilda’s Estates enlisted her to remarry. Would it not be possible that she did so to provide cover for her understanding with the pope, both of them sure that they could rid themselves of this one as they had the other, or of passing him off as impotent? Thus we see that Welf says that some sort of spell had been used.”

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him.134 But Villani is not in agreement with him upon this matter.135 On the contrary, he maintains that it was the Bavarian’s impotence that put off Matilda and that was the true motive of her separation from him, and considering Gregory VII’s manoeuvrings, this view is much more likely. Besides, there are many historical uncertainties about this second marriage of Matilda. Some writers have thought that she had married Azzo d’Este. According to this supposition, this marriage, which Gregory VII annulled upon the pretext that it was incestuous, favours the view that one is tempted to generate that Gregory ceaselessly laboured to isolate the countess in order to enjoy her at his will. But the uncertainty concerning this marriage and seeming obviousness, on the contrary, that the Matilda who married Azzo is not Matilda of Tuscany, leads me to distance myself from this calumny, which I have relayed only to show to what point historians have pushed hatred and deceit in everything concerning Gregory VII. The story of her marriage with Welf and her dismissal of the latter because of his impotence – motive that Monsieur the president Hénault does not want to accept – seems more likely than the allegations of the marriage with Azzo. And all the more so given that several trustworthy historians attest to it. Let us hearken to Cosmas of Prague: “When the spouses were together in bed, Welf, after some futile attempts, alleged as excuse that love so poorly acted his second because, in order to make a fool of him, some evil charm had been hidden by order of the princess or the malice of her ladies in Matilda’s clothing or in the bed linens; he protested that if he had not what was needed to meet his wife’s desires, he would not have come looking for her; the same excuse was made the same evening; then finally upon the third day, Matilda shut herself unattended in her chamber with Welf alone, and she positioned herself completely naked upon the table so that he might see that she was not hiding any sort of evil charm; after having waited for a long time for what such an examination ought to have produced, she got up, justifiably indignant, and grasping Welf by the quiff with her left hand, she gave him a massive slap with the right, and threw him out of the chamber, threatening him with death if he should appear before her the following day; Welf fled, utterly shamed, and reported to his men the matter of his eternal vexation.”136 134 See Charles-Jean-François Hénault, Nouvel Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de France, new ed. (Paris, 1768), 162. Having served as the president of the Chambre des Enquêtes, a chamber of supreme court during the Ancien Régime that oversaw investigations, the author was generally known as “le président Hénault”; his history of France was widely read. 135 Sade is referring to the Florentine politician and historian Giovanni Villani (c. 1276–1348), who reports that Welf was “unable to know his wife carnally” because of impotence or other impediment, and so accused her of using enchantments. See Villani, Istorie fiorentine (Milan, 1802), 1:203; cf. infra. Once again, Sade’s source is almost certainly not the original but rather Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, who reports that Villani refers to Welf as “Gulfo” and says that “Matilda dismissed him because he was incapable of consummating the marriage” (Abrégé chronologique 3[pt.2]:1242). 136 Once again, Sade’s source is Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, citing Cosmas of Prague’s account of Welf’s tribulations; see Abrégé chronologique 3[pt.2]:1254. De Saint-Marc also provides his source’s original Latin text, which is more elaborate, humorous, and frank than the French version. Below is a recent English translation that cleaves to the original. It is from Cosmas of Prague, The Chronicle of the Czechs, trans. Lisa Wolverton (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2009): … Night came, they entered her chamber, they placed themselves together upon a deep coverlet, and Duke Welf lay with the virgin Matilda without Venus [i.e., without consummation]. There, among and after everything, amid such things as did happen, Duke Welf said: “O Lady, what did you want of me? Why did you summon me? In order to make a laughing stock of me and subject me to the hissing of the people and shaking of the head? You confound yourself more, if you wish to confound me. Surely

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Berthold of Constance and Contelori have written the same thing.137 Who, therefore, could have made Monsieur the president Hénault think the opposite and make him fall into such a major mistake upon the matter of this divorce? Whatever the case, this was always on the part of this woman a major act of bad faith in relation to her marriage with said Welf, which consisted in having assured said Welf properties that she had previously given to the Church: more than sufficient pretext to provoke distaste in Matilda, who, wishing to keep this donation secret, was doubtless furious that it was made plain, and took this as a pretext to dismiss her husband by taxing him with impotence138 – conduct towards her husband that was only suggested to her by the pope, who sensed that the donation would be nullified if Matilda had children, and who had the strongest interest in unceasingly setting her at odds with her spouses, and made him sometimes put forward politics as an excuse and sometimes religion.139 Be that as it may, the wrongdoings of the princess are evident throughout this entire intrigue and make us clearly see that the pope participated therein because Welf, who up to this point had been the most unwavering supporter of the Church, suddenly made an about face and joined the emperor. And it is certain the father and the son, that is to say, Matilda’s husband and her spouse,140 never embraced Henry’s side until they had something to complain about in Matilda’s unworthy proceedings and when they suspected the pope’s conduct. Whatever we make of all the contradictions that history furnishes concerning the marriage, break-up, celibacy, and eternal virginity of Matilda, it is no less certain that we discern in all of this the scheming spirit of the court of Rome that, recognizing this woman as one of the most powerful sovereigns of Italy, sought ever and at all times to secure her inheritance. And it is this that doubtless gives this famous woman that courage, rare for her sex, to direct the operations of her armies, which she often commanded herself in person. In the abbreviated history of Tuscany that I have provided as preface to the description of

either by your order or through your handmaids something evil hides either in your clothes or in your sheets. Believe me, if I was of a frigid nature, I would never have responded to your will. Since on the first and second night the duke had been exposed to the lady, on the third day she led him alone into the bedchamber, placed a three-legged stool in the middle and a dining table above, and showed herself naked as she came from her mother’s womb. “Behold!” she said. “Whatever has been hidden I lay it all before you. Nor is there any place where some evil might hide.” Then he stood with his ears drooping like an ass with a nasty disposition, or like a butcher who stands in the meat market sharpening his knife over a skinned fat cow, desiring to disembowel it. Next, the woman sat a long time upon the table like a goose when it makes itself a nest, turning its tail here and there, but in vain. Finally the nude woman, indignant, arose and took the collar of the half-alive man in her left hand and, spitting in her right hand, gave him a great slap. Then she threw him outside, saying: “Go far from here, monster, so that you might not pollute our kingdom. You are viler than a worm, viler than discarded seaweed. If you appear before me tomorrow, you will die a bad death.” Thus disgraced, Duke Welf fled and told all his men of his disgrace into eternity. It suffices to have said these things briefly, which I rather ought not to have said! (154–5) 137 Sade is still following Le Febvre de Saint-Marc’s compilation of various views of Matilda; see Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1255–9. Berthold of Reichenau (d. 1088), also known as Bertholdus Constantiensis, was a Benedictine monk and chronicler at the Abbey of Reichenau, located on Lake Constance. On Contelori, see p. 539n132 above. 138 Marginal note: “Separation from Welf: 1095.” 139 Marginal note: “Matilda’s donation: 1077.” 140 Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, was the son of Azzo II of Este. Although Sade rejects the historical claim that Matilda was married to Azzo, he nonetheless confusingly alludes to it above.

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Florence, I have sketched the countess’s major deeds, and in this note I will stick to speaking only of her private life and, above all, everything that has to do with her important donation to the Church. The tight, criminal association of this princess with Pope Gregory VII doubtless becomes one of the primary secret motives for this donation. This association will be refuted in vain: all the contemporaneous historians have spoken of it in a fashion too clear to allow the tiniest doubt about this scandalous anecdote. Finally, this warrior princess, this sovereign skilled in the art of ruling, died in the year 1115 at the age of sixtynine, and not seventy-six, as claimed by the good authors of the Dictionnaire des hommes illustres, who nonetheless have some authors on their side, among others Gasparo Sardi.141 She dies during the pontificate of Paschal II and the reign of Philip I, King of France. But this author whom they have copied had her die in 1113 and not in 1115 like they do, which would then not agree any more with the certain moment that I have given of her birth, but that these gentlemen do not state. These are, more or less, the anecdotes concerning the death of this famous woman, written by Domnizo:142 “When she was staying in the town of Bondeno, in the diocese of Reggio, a locale neighbouring the monastery of Polidore [viz., Polirone, spelled correctly below], desiring to celebrate in that locale called Bondeno the festival of Christmas, Pons de Mercueil, the abbot of Cluny, came to see her. The countess received him and the abbot celebrated in this place the Christmas service, to which the princess came. But she suffered so much from the excessive cold that particular evening that she was obliged to keep to her bed after leaving the divine liturgy. However, she attended mass again upon the day of the Epiphany, but she promptly took to bed once more. When abbot Pons departed, she showered him with cloaks, sacred ornaments, silver vases, and gave him among other things a cross embellished with precious stones (so much did this princess’s temperament lead her to give to the Church). Finding herself in worse condition towards Lent, she desired in spite of this to fast. It was then that bishops proposed to her that she buy herself off from fasting by giving alms to the Church (pious practice that the ministers of the Saviour always deem better than a fruitless diet), which the countess carried out, first by showering goods upon the Church of Canossa: 141 Marginal note: “Sigonius.” Carlo Signonio or Carolus Sigonius (1524–1584) was a Hellenist, antiquarian, historian, and rhetorician who held a professorship first in Venice and subsequently the chair of eloquence in Padua. He gives Matilda’s age at death as 76 and in the year 1115, in his Historiarum de Regno Italiæ (Basel, 1575), 410. Gasparo or Guasparo Sardi (1480–1564) was a native of Ferrara, historian, and man of letters. He, too, remarks Matilda’s age at death as 76 and in the year 1115 (contrary to Sade’s assertion), in the second book of his Historie ferraresi (Ferrara, 1556), 52. In neither case has Sade consulted the originals, which had not been translated into French, but follows his source, Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, in whose Abrégé chronologique, we find the death date of 1113 misattributed to Sardi (3[pt.2]:1267). As for the Dictionnaire des hommes illustres, Sade almost certainly means Chaudon’s Nouveau Dictionnaire historique. Sade refers to this work by various abbreviated – and inaccurate titles – but had at hand the 1772 edition, which gives Matilda’s final age as 76 and records the year of her death as 1115. See Nouveau Dictionnaire historique, 4[pt.1]:421. Although Chaudon was the sole author of initial editions of this work, authorship was always attributed to “une société de gens de lettres [a society of men of letters],” which explains Sade’s reference to the “good authors.” 142 Donizo or Domnizo of Canossa (c. 1001–c. 1087) was a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Sant’Apollonio of Canossa. His Vita Matildis, or life of Matilda, was a celebration in hexameter of his subject and of her family history. In the section within quotation marks above, Sade is citing Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, with a few interpellations, and de Saint-Marc in turn Domnizo; see Abrégé chronologique, 3[pt.2]:1270–1.

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Amplicare studens tunc ecclesias beneplures Non est oblita quin ecclesiam Canusiam.143 Domnizo, etc.

She had one of these built in front of the house in which she was sick in honour of God and under the patronage of James, son of Zebedee. This church was richly endowed by the countess, and the bishop of Reggio dedicated it during her lifetime. It was he who ministered the last sacraments, and the circumstances of her death relayed by the historian whom I am citing are all very Christian and quite touching. But in reading about them, you cannot but see therein, nonetheless, a sinful woman and one who admits being guilty of great sins. ‘Deign, O my God,’ she cries bitterly, ‘purify me of the horrible stains of all my sins.’” And this same Domnizo whom I have just transcribed seems likewise to support the view that would have this woman guilty of many errors, for he appeals to all the saints that she might be forgiven and that they might have pity upon her – and, above all, Saint Peter, whom he calls upon most confidently – and to the immense assets that the countess is leaving to his Church. Her body was carried to the Abbey of Polirone, in the diocese of Mantua, where it was placed in an alabaster sarcophagus that was placed upon eight columns to the left side of the church, between the first and second columns of the nave. But these columns having degraded, 330 years after her death, the monument was relocated in 1445 to the Chapel of Our Lady, opposite that of Saint Martin, in the same church; the following epitaph was put thereupon: Quae meruit clara Mathildis nomina vide: Pro qua Pontifici reddita Roma fuit, Et tunc disposuit turmas invicta virago Qualis Amazonides Penthesilea solet, Qua numquam saevi per tot discrimina belli Mars potuit veri vincere jura dei.144 Hoc igitur tanto belli defuncta labore, Hoc nivea tandem marmore clausa jacet.145

We see here how much the priests praised her, above all, for having protected the Church and delivered Rome to the pope. Close to this tomb was placed her portrait,

143 Sade provides his own somewhat rough translation in a note: “So taken up at that time with endowing so many churches, how could she not have showered with goods that of Canossa.” 144 Marginal note: “This linkage of false gods to the true one was rather peculiar.” 145 Translated: Behold what the illustrious name of Matilda merited; Thanks to her, Rome was restored to the Pontiff, And then, unvanquished heroine, she commanded the troops Like Penthesilea used to do the Amazons, And in whom, through so many dangers of savage war, Mars was never able to conquer the laws of the true God. She, therefore, done with the labours of so much war, Lies at last, enclosed in snowy marble.

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on horseback, holding a pomegranate in her hand: an allusion to her eternal virginity, as claimed by some ignorant historians, who doubtless were so much so that they didn’t even know that the pomegranate was sacred to the goddess of impurity.146 However, the body of Matilda had not yet reached its final destination. Enriched by Matilda, the popes could not leave her there. Urban VIII, that villain who brought death to more than a hundred and fifty thousand Protestants in Ireland, while simultaneously settling the serious matter of the shape of the Capuchins’s cowl; he who reformed the women Jesuits because, as he stated, it was not part of the founding of that order to include that sex; and as he jotted down poor lines of verse upon the subject, he dreamt of honouring the benefactress of the Church as she deserved to be. He had her transported to Rome, where he had her kept into the Castel Sant’Angelo until the beautiful mausoleum that will be seen at Saint Peter’s Basilica was built, and on the 10th of March 1635, the opening of the coffin took place. Contelori, who relates these facts as eyewitness, says that “the body was found large and all the bones intact.”147 “Then,” continues the historian-cum-eyewitness still, “it was dressed again in a silk dress, placed into a copper casket, and placed into the mausoleum where it will still be seen today,” with the inscription that I will quote in the entry upon this monument. Fiorentini exhausts himself on this matter, with praise for this deed of Urban VIII, who fundamentally committed an act of gratitude legitimately enough owed. Let us now risk some conjectures about that infamous inheritance, the consequences of which cost so much blood and that, in fact, is the era of the popes’ true grandeur. This donation – the sure result of Gregory VII’s policy, Matilda’s weakness, and the criminal understanding of both – was renewed again under Paschal II, who, fearing that the initial act of donating by the princess to Gregory might not have had all the results that could have been expected, sent to her Bernard, the abbot of Vallombrosa, in order to obtain from the countess the renewal of the donation of all her assets to the Roman Church (see Muratori). The countess, this historian adds, had already made the complete donation of her assets to the Church dating from the pontificate of Gregory VII. But during the major upheavals that occurred afterwards, the decree of this donation had gone astray. Consequently, Matilda, at the Castle of Canossa on the 17th of October 1102, renewed this donation to the Church, both within and without the hills, placed into the hand of said Bernard, abbot of Vallombrosa, whom I have just mentioned. Several people have […]148 146 The pomegranate was a symbol of fertility in ancient Greece and Rome and one of the attributes of Aphrodite. It was also mythically associated with Persephone, who ate the fruit in Hades and thus became bound to the underworld. Since Persephone’s annual return from her infernal above symbolized the coming of spring, the pomegranate by extension became a symbol of this resurrection. This symbol would later be adopted in Christianity, confirming in this instance Sade’s claim that the latter religion did not stray far from paganism at times and that the meeting of the two created odd hybrids. 147 In Mathildis Comitissae Genealogia, Contelori had described Mathilda’s cadaver in these terms: “procerum corpus ossibus integrum [body extended with bones intact]” (82). Sade, still following his source Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, has rendered procerum, i.e., “tall” or “extended,” into the rather more odd grand, i.e., “large.” Sade, again following de Saint-Marc, has opening of the coffin taking place in 1635, whereas Contelori gives 10 March 1644. 148 The manuscript ends here.

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Rome Its Foundation, Kings, Growth, Reputation, and Emperors Decadence of Its Empire Christian Rome Contemporary Rome149 Profound obscurity almost always veils the origins of great men or of enterprising legislators. Their true history is unceasingly confused in an ocean of errors and lies. Moses, from the bosom of the waters, comes to give laws to the Jewish nation and to persuade it that he receives from the very God of that benighted nation these laws that are equally imbecilic … Mohammed, following his example, born of a woman widowed ten months prior, founds a religion just as ridiculous. A leader of brigands, like Mohammed’s rival the issue of a woman lost to debauchery, Romulus lays the foundations of the world’s greatest city – of that superb Rome that will one day see kings at its feet and will command, alone, all the nations of the earth. But let’s go back to the origin of this chaos of myths. Let us penetrate into furthest Antiquity and present that which probability allows us to adopt as the most veridical. Why must it be that the charming sex, which Nature seems to create for our pleasures, is ever, for this very reason, almost always the instrument of our greatest pains? Paris arrives in Sparta, violates the laws of hospitality by seducing Helen, the wife of Menelaus who welcomed him into his home; he makes off with her, takes her to Troy, and starts a horrible war of which the dire consequences are the utter ruin of his country. Aeneas, son of Anchises and Venus and grandson of Jupiter, escapes with Antenor, and after having sailed the sea for a long time, wanders from shore to shore in order to satisfy Juno’s vengeance, and finally arrives in Latium after having left his companions in misfortune upon the banks of the Adriatic Sea where he founds Padua.150 Aeneas, having disembarked in Latium, finds there as king Latinus, son of Faunus, who had had as successors [viz., forefathers] Picus, Saturnus, and Janus. It was during the reign of Faunas that Evander, sixty years prior to the taking of Troy, had led into the territory of today’s Rome a colony of Arcadians whom he had made cultivate the Palatine Hill and its vicinity and who, a peaceful leader of both the colonists and the aboriginals that he had found settled there, he made his authority cherished by the wise laws and pious forms of worship that he instituted. In spite of Virgil’s supposition, Aeneas could therefore not have seen Evander when he arrived in the lands of King Latinus, nor could he have gone to visit him in his town of Pallanteum, which he had thus named from Pallas, his great-grandfather, and which, in turn, immortalized the Palatine Hill. The Trojan prince, therefore, quite simply made an alliance with the king in the states where he disembarked and married Lavinia, his daughter, who gave her name to the city that he decided to build in this very place. 149 Notebook of 27 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. What follows are primarily notes drawing on Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la république romaine by René Aubert de Vertot (1655– 1735). This work was first published in Paris in 1719 and frequently reprinted afterwards. The author was a Premonstratensian and often called simply abbé Vertot. 150 To dispel a confusion of meaning or at least of syntax, the legendary founder of Patavium (present-day Padua), was Antenor and not Aeneas. See Virgil, Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 278–9 [bk.1, ll.242–9].

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But Turnus, King of the Rutuli, to whom Latinus had promised his daughter, angered at the choice, declares war upon the Trojan prince and upon his father-in-law. Only the first survives, which leaves him the unflurried possessor of Latium. But new enemies appear. Mezentius, King of the Etruscans, whom the inhabitants of Caere had expelled because of his horrific acts of cruelty,151 the barbarous Mezentius returns to do battle with the son of Anchises and perishes in the battle. Ascanius, son of Aeneas, succeeds his father, triumphs over his enemies, grants them a peace accord, and thirty years after the founding of Lavinium, establishes himself upon the Alban Hill upon which he built the famous Alba Longa, where fourteen kings governed from Ascanius up to the traitor Amulius. Numitor, his brother, having more evident rights to the throne, so thoroughly inflamed Amulius’s jealousy that the barbarian forced his niece Silvia to become a Vestal. But the latter, hardly inquisitive about keeping vows that were rejected by her heart and by Nature, surrendered to the desires that she felt. Romulus and Remus become the fruit of her intemperance, and subsequently the revengers of their grandfather, raised mysteriously by a she-wolf or, what is more likely, by their mother herself, who thanks to her offence henceforth deserved this epithet, which the Ancients gave to women who had stumbled with respect to their honour. Numitor is put back upon the throne of Alba, and the young opportunists, not far from their father’s city, undertake the founding of a new one, upon the same spot that the good Evander had of yore assembled his Arcadians. Remus, who had derisively leapt the ditch of his brother’s town, soon perished by his malicious and cruel hand, and Romulus carried on with this enclosure. This mediocre enclosure, initially marked out by cart-drawn ploughshare, originally contained only a camp that the politic and audacious legislator filled with brigands and refugees whom he turned into soldiers. This establishment took hold and proves that might and courage are often more useful than virtues and religion to institute a society. However, corruption weakens its first foundations and the laws – the sacred brakes that initially conjured freedom but that soon were no longer but the arms of tyranny – the laws, I say, become necessary. A form of government is instituted, and equal and free men choose whoever seems to them to have the fewest obvious disadvantages. The power of the leader, to whom is given over the futile care of making the gods adored, is nonetheless mitigated in other respects by a council or senate and by the popular assembly: happy form of government that all peoples ought to adopt, since it is the only one that comes close to that initial pact that the first men concluded among themselves, when they renounced one part of their liberty in order to preserve the other, upon the quite just condition that he into whose hands they transferred this portion would rely upon their counsel in order to lead them. Romulus is too good a politician to not sense that the most certain means to subjugate spirits is to enchain them with superstition. His first laws instituted a form of worship. Once man is accustomed to revere the gods, he more easily honours kings. How sweet it is, moreover, to create for them a despotic phantom, the figure of which soon presents itself! However, this first religion is reasonable. Needs produce these initial chimeras, and it is only to these needful things that the still naive people offers thanks, its primitive vows, and its

151 Marginal note: “One of his great pleasures was to attach a living man to a dead one and to leave him slowly to die thus.”

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worship. From the purity of these first homages is, nevertheless, born deceit and deception, and Rome at its birth, like today, must have seen in its bosom treason ever in the vicinity of the temple and always upon the same altar the sword of intolerance beside the sacrificial knife. The entrails of beasts are queried. There, at the will of the impious sacrificer, must the fate of kings be discovered, the destiny of empires, and the will of the gods. And the mysterious feints that the leader skilfully grasps become the first foundations of his throne. Finally, with a happy machination familiar to all adroit legislators, all foreign deities are banished from the Republic. It was already sensed how much the plurality of views must vex men as well as the general interest, which must only ever busy itself with expanding and so of necessity repressed all that tended to divide it. There is no disadvantage in the plurality of religions in a tranquil and firmly established state; on the contrary, liberty of conscience must only make it flourish the more. It is not the same with a state at the outset. The need to solidify itself necessarily entails that it have no topic up for discussion. And you must have but one and the same god, if you want to have one and the same spirit. However, several wise institutions ended up bonding the feeble beginnings of the sturdiest empire. Shame prohibits women from parting with their husbands and restricts them within the narrowest moral boundaries while, on the other hand, privileging the unconquerable disgust that a man feels after long enjoyment, it allows the latter to repudiate his wife and to choose another. What could be a comelier law for a people seeking to expand and a sovereign who must have more subjects as his sole desire? Because – may I be allowed this reflection – what are the consequences of a worn-out taste, of an extinguished passion, which no longer has even the spirit to be free honestly to rekindle for another object? Prepared by the wise legislation that enables the change, crime and the most frightful debauchery, the loss of a thousand subjects, assert the most despotic authority over its children.152 This, too, is one of the laws of the first rulers of nascent Rome. And if some disadvantages arise from such a wise arrangement that entailed its eventual abolition, how beneficial is it not for a purely military and conquering state? “What barbarism,” someone cries, “to have joined to this cruel law the even more horrific one of allowing a father to get rid of his deformed children!” Where is the atrocity in this? I do not see it; above all, not if we never lose the aim from view and consider along with the legislator of such a wise law that in a warlike nation, anyone unable to wield weapons could only be a burden to the government … “But what about Nature?” someone then asks. Nature? It is non-existent when egoism speaks. Or rather, it is utterly so in this instance. The first law that it engraved in the heart of the first citizens of Rome was to increase and to preserve themselves; the second was to only adopt that which would favour this goal. Blind and useless tenderness, which softens our hearts concerning the fate of those beings who have emanated from us, only held rank in the souls of those brave warriors following the general interest, from which particular happiness arose. And those tyrannical laws spoke always more loudly than anything else to the spirit of republican and hard-working man. Side by side with this barbaric law was, however, that which forbade killing an enemy prisoner. Let us judge, based upon this fact, how much politics had influenced, more than 152 Albeit the structure of the sentence in the original is less than clear, Sade is simply asserting that divorce in the early Roman Republic was initially a right extended to husbands but not to wives. Although this is true in part, Roman laws and customs were generally much more balanced in this regard than Sade claims. See Susan Treggiari, “Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It?” in Beryl Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 31–46.

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anything else, the institution of those first laws. Hardly were they in force when the leader dreams of his security. Three thousand, three hundred men was the sum of the population of his subjects. He divided them into three classes and each of these took up a quarter of the town, hereby creating the first division of Rome, which all historians teach us at first had but three different quarters. The divisions, necessary subdivisions, completed this arrangement. The lands were divided, the Senate was established, and, in a nutshell, everything took such a wise and solid form that people hastily rushed in from all sides to live in the shadow of such a peaceful government. Rome soon grew to the point that there were not enough women to provide for its citizens. Romulus seeks alliances with his neighbours. They propose ties to the Sabines, a bellicose people who inhabited that part of Italy that still today carries the same name and that is located between the Tiber, Teverone, and the Appenines. This people, who governed themselves in about the same way as the Romans, either from fear or from pride, doubtless alarmed at the new power in their vicinity, haughtily refuses the alliances that are proposed. But brigands, who know naught but force, soon find the means to appropriate through abduction what one does not want to grant them willingly. The violation of hospitality and attack upon the right of peoples succeed in putting in Roman possession the women needed to double in size – to grow the new, small republic that soon, in order to sustain the atrocity of its actions, which were nonetheless authorized by the barbaric policy of their leader, is obliged to defend its new spouses and to maintain long wars that the tears of these same women, abducted and happily reconciled to their fate, alone manage to pacify, in the end. The authority of the leaders of both nations is divided and the peoples unite. This union ends up making Rome the most sizeable city in the land, and starting with the three thousand, one [sic] hundred men that we saw at the outset of its founding, it is, at the end of Romulus’s reign, brought up to forty-seven thousand subjects, singularly occupied with conquering, defending, or preserving its rights.153 So many successes, however, become the downfall of the leader to whom they are due. Romulus, to whom the founding and the growth of the new republic is alone due, desires to reject counsel and popular authority by which his despotism has wisely been tempered. He turns from legislator into tyrant. This is the progression. He died and became the first victim of the policies whose laws he taught,154 but as if apotheosis ought stifle the parricide’s remorse or as a secondary effect of these policies or in recognition, this people, says Vertot elegantly, made a god of he whom they had been unable to bear as sovereign.155 Altars were raised to him. A fairly long interval takes place during the interregnum. The Senate, jealous of its authority and of Romulus to whom this Senate was certainly his death [sic], wants to taste for a while the sweet sensation of governing alone. This anarchy tires the people. They demand a king. Numa Pompilius succeeds Romulus and brings to the throne fewer warlike virtues, but doubtless more politic ones. Numa understood all the power that a religious 153 Marginal note: “Too slavishly copied from Vertot.” On Vertot, see p. 545n149. 154 Marginal note: “Rome’s 37th.” The reference is to the thirty-seventh year on the Roman calendar. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romulus became king of the newly founded Rome at the age of 18 and died at the age of 55 after 37 years of rule. All further marginal numbers in the notebook likewise refer to years; they were given by Vertot in the margins of his history, and Sade is simply following this practice. 155 René Aubert de Vertot, Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la république romaine (Paris, 1727), 1:24–5.

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prince might draw from superstition.156 He sensed that with a naturally ferocious and coarse people, wonder would solidify his place upon a throne whence the warlike ardour of his subjects might throw him down like his predecessor. He became, therefore, the mouthpiece of the gods and the nymph Egeria, imaginary divinity that he would go and consult at the edge of the forests, in the obscure grotto of a mysterious spring, dictated to him all that he should say. And this adroit mummery, copied at least from the Jews, made holy all his institutions. Several temples are erected during his reign. The Vestals, as formerly in Alba, are introduced into Rome.157 At last the State is tranquil, but it is superstitious and consequently weaker, for if knowledge of the gods civilizes a nation, experience nonetheless proves, for many a century now, that this was only at the expense of its grandeur. Rome did not grow at all, therefore, under a pious king, but became aware of duties more holy than those of always vanquishing. In imitation of the legislators of the Hebrews, Numa forbade the worship of images, and for a long time the Roman people dared not revere them in their temples, ever busy with useful institutions. It was to this second king of Rome that the reformation of the calendar is owed. In the end, the new legislator passed away after a career of eighty years and was buried at the foot of the Janiculum Hill, where the tears of the entire people came to give homage to gentle virtues that were no more except for posterity. His sacred works are placed in his tomb and burned four hundred years later, by order of the Senate, which doubtless felt that the time to lead the people with chimeras had past. Tullius Hostilius succeeded Numa.158 Deprived of his predecessor’s virtues, it seems that it was only to those of Romulus that he aspired. But the gods who were overseeing that empire and preserving it for such great things justly put upon the throne a bellicose prince after a devout prince, and Rome’s neighbours, already jealous of its power and its tranquility,159 required a warlike prince who might repress their attacks. War flares up with the Albans and furnishes for the annals of mighty deeds at arms that handsome combat between the Horatii and the Curiatii, the story of which everyone knows and that ought to serve as an example for sovereigns and teach them to handle the blood of their citizens with care by placing their interests in the hands of a small number of brave men, whose death it seems to me would well suffice to confirm their rights and settle their differences. How many horrors, how much blood, how many infamies would be spared upon the earth, if that wise policy were to find imitators?! Horatius, returning victorious to Rome and stabbing his sister, who is crying when she greets him because she sees him draped with the surcoat with which her hands had clothed Curiatius, her lover and dead by her brother’s hand – Horatius, I say, condemned, victorious as he was, and forced to appeal to the people by the very counsel of the king, will serve to persuade us that Tullius Hostilius continued to share sovereign authority with the Senate and the people and did not seek to escape it as did Romulus. This reflection serving to develop the genius of the people and of the government could not have been passed over in silence. Victorious Rome, however, destroys Alba, its initial cradle,160 and still as a consequence of the same policy of growing at the expense of its neighbours, it constrains the latter to 156 Marginal note: “39.” 157 Sade notes: “Numa introduced the barbaric custom of whipping them for the slightest infraction. This right was reserved for the sovereign pontiff alone and consequently for him.” 158 Marginal note: “81.” 159 Marginal note: “To be changed.” 160 Marginal note: “Here a note.”

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come and reside within its walls. New wars against the Sabines take up a few more of Tullius’s years. He dies at last, after thirty-two years of rule. Ancus Marcius is named king,161 and the Senate ratifies this choice of the popular assembly. This prince, grandson of Numa, wishes to adopt the virtues of his ancestor. His piety does not enjoy the same success. Enemies come to attack him en masse. However, it is only in the name of the gods that Ancus takes up his defence, in the name of the Roman people, a slogan that must not be lost from sight [sic]. A herald at arms,162 javelin in hand, declares, in the presence of the gods whom he invokes, that it is only to repel the Latins’ injustice that the Roman people takes up arms. The motive of this war was too legitimate to not come out advantageously. Ancus triumphs over his enemies and obliges, in keeping with custom, these same vanquished enemies to come and reside in Rome. It is at this time that he enclosed the Aventine Hill in Rome in order to lodge these new guests there. This was not the sole augmentation that this prince undertook. New conquests obliged him to grow more; he added the valley of Murcia, consecrated to Venus, which extends from the Aventine Hill to the Palatine Hill. (Subsequently the Circus Maximus was built, about which I will have occasion to speak later on.)163 During his reign, the arts progress somewhat, public buildings are arrayed and grow larger, the city’s enclosure is fortified. We read in Titus Livy that the new ditch with which he encircled the city is called fossa Quiritium. The Janiculum Hill, exposed to frequent incursions by the Etruscans,164 is fortified by him with a good citadel and also contained within the enclosure of the city. He constructs the Sublicius Bridge, creates the port of Ostia, and extends his states up to the mouth of the Tiber, renders the port of Rome navigable and safe for the large barges that commerce is attracting, makes some policing regulation to suppress the crimes that were beginning to be committed in this city, which only grows, as is usual, at the expense of its morals. He constructs the public prison at the base of the Capitol that will still be seen today.165 In a word, Rome had not until then had a king who seemed more apt for ruling over a warlike and superstitious nation, since not a one seemed to unite in his person both Numa’s piety and Hostilius’s bravery. Lastly, he dies after ruling for twenty-four years and living for sixty.166 Tarquinius Priscus, born at Tarquinii, one of the most beautiful Etruscan towns, known in Rome for his accomplished valour when he had led upon orders from Ancus detachments against the Latins, so won over his trust that at his death, he left his children in his guardianship. Considered the first general of the State after the king, Tarquin has no trouble winning universal approval: he is elected. It is just to reward one’s minions; the new king increases to three hundred the number of senators and introduces therein a hundred of his minions. For a long time, the Senate remains constituted in this fashion. The people 161 Marginal note: “114.” 162 Marginal note: “The herald who was going to declare war or undertake similar missions carried an irontipped javelina as a sign of his mission. He was called a fecialien [viz., fecial].” Additional note marked by the superscript: a) “that he threw onto enemy territory. This practice was attributed to the king himself.” 163 Marginal note: “This entire parenthesis will be put in note.” 164 Marginal note: “Because of his policies beyond the Tiber, a river that formed the boundaries of the two states.” 165 Marginal note: “It is in this prison that, etc.” 166 Marginal note: “138.”

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continued, however, to have majority share in governance, divided into thirty assemblies that were called curiae. All decisions, elections, even votes, everything was done, took place, and was concluded there. A senatus consultum was a sort of edict or decree by which the king and the Senate convoked the assembly. A similar edict ratified the deliberations thereof, which, because of the number and authority of the popular voice, almost always found itself to be its own rather than that of the of the Senate or of the leader. Tarquin undertakes a war lasting twenty years against the Latins and his [viz., their] conquests; his moderation, the advantageous alliance that he makes with these peoples, in short everything earns him, upon re-entering Rome, that honour so sought after of returning with triumphal honours. However, the twelve most sizeable towns of Etruria take up arms together against the Romans, and Tarquin, by subjugating them and making them into new allies of the Roman people, earns for a second time triumphal honours. The military prowess of this king is not for him an obstacle to political virtues; he makes some advantageous changes in governance and policing. He increases the number of Vestals and brings them up to six, undertakes several beautifications of Rome, surrounds it with a stone wall (which before had been nothing but dirt), has the Circus Maximus built in the lovely Murcia and that, subsequently becomes one of the loveliest monuments in Rome, creates aqueducts, magnificent sewers, and lays the foundations of the Capitol with the intention to erect there a temple to Jupiter, to Juno, and to Minerva. Finally, Servius Tullius, whose birth is accompanied by prodigies and consequently by deceptions, wins the trust of Tarquin, marries his daughter and succeeds him upon the throne. We know the tragic end of this great prince who the children of Ancus had struck upon the head and who thus died, after thirty-eight years of the most flourishing and fortunate reign. Servius Tullius,167 more republican than monarchical, only thought of Rome’s welfare, and various changes that he wrought have almost never any other goal than making the state aristocratic. He finds during his reign eighty thousand subjects capable of bearing arms, which he divides into six classes that he then subdivides into various centuries, distinguished by the value of their assets, and in the end makes it so that the people, with regard to its various needs, shall assemble according to centuries in the Campus Martius. But he mingles so much skill and politics into these arrangements that all authority becomes, without anyone noticing, transferred to the patrician class – and this solely on account of the new ways that he furnishes for passing laws. (See Dionysius of Halicarnassus.) A volume would be needed to describe the arrangements that this good king made in Rome; the institution of the census, which is nothing other than the enumeration which I just mentioned, whence was derived shortly thereafter equality of taxation among the citizens, was doubtless one of these that did him the most honour, albeit among those that met with the most resistance, since it was impossible to do what was right without meeting with it. But what matters public outcry, when the general interest demands a reasonable change? Tullius enclosed within Rome the Viminal Hill and the Esquiline Hill. He built his palace there. He divided the city into four quarters and the people into as many tribes, which took their names from their different quarters: Suburana, Esquiliana, Collatina, and Palatina. He instituted festivals to the Lares, ordered that at the birth of every infant a piece of money (the use of which he introduced) be brought to the treasury of Juno Lucina, the divinity who presided over childbirth, a second, towards the middle of life, to the Temple 167 Marginal note: “175.”

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of Hebe, and a third, at death, to the Temple of Venus Libitina. Finally, because of this last act of his wisdom and of his politics, he creates but a single and selfsame republic out of all the peoples of Latium, of which Rome is the capital, and enlists these various peoples to build, from shared expenses, a temple to Diana upon the Aventine Hill, to which he obliges them to come and sacrifice annually. This sublime alliance, engraved in Greek letters onto a bronze column, was still to be seen in Rome during the era of Augustus. In the end, this generous monarch, in a final patriotic effort, wants to show the Romans that a king is of no use to them, and proposes to them that he will renounce the sceptre in favour of two magistrates serving yearly terms which he assures will be enough for the maintenance of the laws and of liberty. But Tarquin the Proud’s desire to ascend to the throne does not allow his father-in-law time to execute a project that would have brought his glory to perfection.168 Tarquin doubtless foresaw this, and hastened his death in order to ascend to the throne that his predecessor was going to abolish. But who will not shudder upon seeing that this damnable plan is inspired in Lucius by his wife, herself daughter of the king whose design makes her desire his demise? And how much do we revolt in horror when we pass through still today that same street – Cyprian Street – since named the Scelerata Street, where that parricidal and impious woman ordered the driver of her chariot to drive over the bloody cadaver of her father, whom her emissary – or those of her husband – had just assassinated when, conquered by the cabal of this odious son-in-law, he flees towards his house where he thinks he will find asylum in the arms of that same ungrateful and parricidal daughter who plunges the knife into his heart. This magnanimous prince, even greater for his patriotism than for his military actions, although he had several wars against the Etruscans to wage and thrice obtained triumphal honours  – this prince, I say, more lamented for the quality of his heart and his upright views than for a momentary bravery, which is never but the fierce virtue of kings, foes of humanity, for whom great crimes have earned the name of hero, was generally mourned. Tarquinia, his wife, gives him funeral rites in a countryside close to Rome, and straightaway mingles his ashes with her own. Such a great loss does not allow her to survive that cherished spouse, who doubtless exercised domestically the same gentle and generous virtue that had characterized him upon the throne. Lucius Tarquinius, dubbed the Proud, thus tries to sit upon a throne that he owes only to violence and to parricide, which he usurps without the participation of either the people or the Senate, and upon which he maintains himself only by dint of violent acts and crimes. However, if he appears arrogant and inhuman with respect to the nobles, he becomes informal and popular with the soldiers. This policy is necessary to he who seems to want to make himself sovereign only by force. His emissaries go from quarter to quarter, listening to what is said, intercepting inclinations, and putting to death those who appear to want to oppose the new tyranny of this new monarch; acts of cruelty all the greater insofar as they are the more perceived following the reign of a leader who was a friend to liberty. Tarquin feels the need to distract the people in order to prevent them from feeling the yoke. He orders public works, which were nonetheless useful. He digs the foundations of the Capitol that the other Tarquin had only prepared. A head found under the iron of the spades becomes the

168 Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, also known as Tarquin the Proud. His wife was Tullia Minor, daughter of Servius Tullius.

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most auspicious augur, and we know the blessed fashion in which skilled priests cast that horoscope. Tarquin extends the sewers begun by his predecessors for the cleanliness of the city up to the Tiber. These works are so solid that when we examine them still today in Rome, they appear to be made only a few centuries earlier. The Circus [Maximus] is decorated by him; he adds vast porticoes that could put the spectacles under cover and at last completes the Capitol, a building that was at the time two hundred feet long by one hundred and twenty wide. Moreover, this prince makes several alliances, and following Tullius’s example, he erects upon the mountain of Alba the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, where he obliges the Volsci, the Hernici, and the conquered peoples in his alliance to come and celebrate annually and to assemble there sometimes afterwards to deliberate upon various items of business, commerce, and their mutual interests. The horrific assault of Sextus, one of the sons of Tarquin, his cruel immodesty towards Lucretia, one of the most beautiful women of Rome, whom Collatinus, her husband, had imprudently offered to his gaze, awakens the soul of Brutus, who had hitherto been believed to be enveloped in the thick darkness of imbecility. The great man, who only gets angry for political reasons, shows the assembled people the dagger stained with the blood of that unfortunate knifed woman. “Behold, Romans,” he cries, exposing the cadaver in the middle of the square, “behold here exposed the horrific impurity of the son of your tyrants.” Such a spectacle produces the effect that we might expect. The name of Tarquin is joined to that of tyrant and appears to the Romans in the same horrific light. Anyone carrying the name of either is expelled from Rome. The revolution is sudden, and this people, as a group, creates consuls for itself and forever abjures monarchical government in order to shift to an aristocratic one, for which Servius Tullius has provided the plan and put forward the first notions. Brutus and the husband of the unfortunate Lucretia are elected as the first consuls. Thanks is owed to the one; recompense to the other. And the firmness of the former is so great that he himself sacrifices his own children whom he believes capable of having entered into the conspiracy formed by the Tarquins to return to Rome. The repeated efforts of the latter are ever without success. We know of his alliance with Porsena and all the attempts that he made. Everything is fruitless, and even the death of Brutus changes nothing of the horror that the people had at last conceived of tyranny. We recall here with pleasure the particular attachment that the fair sex shows for the avenger of their rights, wearing mourning for his death for an entire year. In a word, it is from this new republican viewpoint that we will imagine the succinct history of Rome and the short exposé that we have proposed to undertake, in order to subsequently take the reader upon a more compelling journey through the scattered ruins of that capital of the world. However, Collatinus, Lucretia’s husband, is suspected of still favouring the monarchical state: he is immediately banished. Publius Valerius replaces him and soon remains alone, because of the death of Brutus, killed in a battle that the Tarquins’ faction brings to the Romans near the city. A house that Valerius builds upon a hill makes the people suspect him of having some claims to reign alone. He tears it down, and choosing a colleague, enacts a law that significantly diminishes the authority of the consuls and increases that of the people. Such an action, by destroying the suspicions that were raised about his pride, cannot help but be agreeable to the State. This law entailed that the people’s decision in the future would no longer require a senatus consultum and added to this, on the contrary, that even the decision of the council (which was much stronger) would be brought before the popular assembly.

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He adds to all this some external marks of respect that he desires that the council show before the people’s assembly, allows for the public execution of whomever appears to aspire to monarchical rule, refuses control of the public treasury, orders that it be brought to the Temple of Saturn, guarded by two new officers whom he has elected by the people under the name of quaestors, selects Lucretius, the father of Lucretia, as his colleague, and, in a word, earns the epithet “popular” (Publicola) on account of so many moderate and prudent actions. The Senate favours such handsome projects and makes the people free and happy by all the regulations that it can imagine being the most apt to prevent it from regretting their kings, now delivered from the vexations caused by the Tarquins. The Senate and the patricians, nonetheless, take back their influence, and if Rome no longer has a king, it at least has the pain of seeing the monarchical spirit still reign in its Senate and consuls. The wealth, the authority, and the responsibilities that this rank of the Republic possesses do not delay in making it soon enough odious to the other, and from this come the troubles and bloody factions that must soon enough make them understand that they had gained little from the change. The committees [i.e., meetings of the comitia], or assemblies of this people, were always respected, I admit, but divided. They were made to feel this cruel distinction, born of pride and that Nature disavows. They did not join in the alliances of the nobles, and insensibly the republican spirit transformed entirely into aristocracy. Insensibly, views began to differ. The people wants order and equality within, and the patricians only want war and conquests, because this tumultuous and military life fulfils two goals at the same time: it makes them command and occupies the people, who during wartime, feel less the weight of the chains with which one wants to bind them. From this initial inequality was born one of the greatest matters of debate. At first, at the beginning of the Republic, all equal Roman citizens had equal property. To the extent that it grew, the conquered lands paid for the war expenses, increasing the more, by equal shares, the domains of private individuals. This notion, sacred under all the kings, is insensibly lost under the consuls. The nobles, who seem to have no other aim but subjugating the people, begin by appropriating in very unequal shares the share of conquered lands, or, in an even more odious manoeuvre, they usurp the share intended for the poor and thus make their own portion far superior to that of the plebeians. Weakening thus this part of the state, soon obliged it to have recourse to the other. The loans taken out on one side and the usurious excesses exacted by the other on account of these loans soon shifted the inheritance of the soldier to that of his leaders, and the wretchedness to which they sought to reduce him soon softened him entirely to the yoke. Yet he perceived his condition, and complaints bursting forth, threats soon enough opened eyes to so many injustices repeatedly committed so little time after the expulsion of the kings.169 Soon these threats brought results. Tarquin’s latest manoeuvres, by which he managed to bring into his faction all of Rome’s neighbours, already naturally inclined to let their jealously about the growth of this new capital burst forth, worried the Romans once again. Then alone do the senators and patricians acknowledge their errors and the people refuses to take up arms. “Why,” they cry, “defend a fatherland in which we find naught but injustice and shackles?” Then is felt how important it is to carefully handle men upon whom depends the fate of the State. The people loudly demand relief: they want the abolition 169 Marginal note: “255.”

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of debts. The Senate assembles and several voices argue in favour of granting the plebeians the satisfaction demanded. But this opinion soon finds naysayers among the rich and among those that such popular satisfaction would ruin without fail. Appius Claudius, the strict senator, who along with his descendants played such a role in the Republic’s troubles, vigorously opposes all changes, claiming that in a republic, the slightest one can be damaging. This Appius was a foreigner whom Rome had welcomed into its walls as it welcomed therein all adventurers who showed up. He was from an illustrious Sabine family, and his wisdom and his steeliness had led to him being accepted among the senators. The most solid reasons are put forward by him in favour of the creditors, and he proves beyond dispute that every principle of equity and justice is overturned if the debtor is favoured and is lent aid, which justifies him at failing to meet his commitments. These charges were doubtless reasonable, but it was necessary to deny the premise; it was necessary to examine how these wretches became indebted, and returning to the premise, it was impossible to refuse providing them with the just aid that they demanded, or at least to diminish the avarice and cupidity of the patricians.170 Several opinions were heard with extreme positions, along with others more inclined to popular liberty. In the end, the Senate does not conclude in favour of any and is satisfied with granting the debtors a suspension of payments that allows them to turn their attention to the pressing cares required by the needs of the State before thinking of their individual concerns. But this continuance, which only makes felt the more the need that one has of the people and that at bottom only seems to promise them passing satisfaction, is quite far from appeasing them. Their unhappiness and cries simply burst out with greater strength. Such disorders commit the Senate to proposing to the people a higher officer who, armed with powerful authority, might become the mediator of all these troubles. It is agreed that his powers will be restricted to six months, and without suspecting it, the new republic leaves to posterity a striking example of the superiority of the monarchical state over all other types, since in debates between two estates in a republic, one is almost always obliged to have recourse to one alone in order to settle the debates. The first consul has the right to name the dictator; this is a sort of recompense that hardly makes up for his loss of authority. Q. Clelius thus names his colleague T. Largius, and the magistrate, taking on the title of dictator of a republic, becomes in effect king of Rome. I will not recall at this point the rights annexed to this eminent position, about which Titus Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus have transmitted to us so many details.171 Suffice it to say that they were immense and that, upon leaving his charge, he did not have to account for what he had done during the time he had held it. T. Largius moderated the heated spirits by his surprising resolve, and no one, under such a leader, rejects the help for which the State asks. However, the rumours of war vanish. The name “Roman” was already beginning to make Italy tremble, and it was only on account of internal discord that the enemy could conceive of the desire to weaken it. Yet exterior calm only paved the way sooner for internal strife, and the end of the dictatorship finished by summoning once again the spirit of revolt. Under these circumstances, the Senate brought down the consulship upon Appius Claudius and gave him as adjunct Servilius, who seemed

170 Marginal note: “250.” 171 Marginal note: “259.”

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a friend of the people and who, on account of his gentleness and affability, alone seemed capable of tempering Appius’s ardour and resolve. From the joining of these two magistrates happened something that ought to have been easily foreseen: one made himself a friend to the rich, the other to the people, and the disorder remained the same. At last, the uprising grows. A wretch escapes the irons of his creditors, shows to the assembled people a body sagging with age, covered by the enemy’s wounds, and recently shredded by an overzealous creditor. This spectacle speaks to the soul; dissension grows. The consuls are obliged to flee in hasty escape from the animosity of the people, furious and embittered. It is decreed that the creditors, until further notice, will no longer have any right to take hold of debtors. The crowd dissipates. The Senate assembles, but the divide between the consuls only factionalizes minds the more. And the fire is ready to blaze up again when new rumours of war arrive and put an end to vexed minds, humiliate the nobles, and make the people victorious. Unrest grows, animosity increases, and the enemy – the Volsci, as it happens – is at the city gates. However, Servilius, Appius’s colleague and more loved than he by the soldiers, succeeds in uniting them under his command, but this is only after having committed to seeing that justice is done, as soon as he has made sure that the primary needs of the State are taken care of. The generous spirit of the Romans: it seems that those very ones who, during the uprising, showed themselves most relentless, are those who enlist with the greatest eagerness and pleasure, so true is it that all that is required to lead the multitude is skill. The enemy is undone and the pillage is unreservedly left to the people.172 No means of calming them was neglected, but the promises made them were notwithstanding still not honoured. And Appius’s firmness wins out once more over all the oaths. Servilius has committed himself in vain. His tribunal is implored. Patrician power and authority are as ever stronger than all else, and Servilius becomes at once an object of the people’s scorn and odious to the nobility, annoyed by his obstinacy. Renewed rioting, of which Rome’s neighbours as ever know how to take advantage, bringing trouble right up to within its walls; but this time, a genuine refusal to march in defence of a State that consists only of oppressors. A. Virginus and T. Veturius succeed to the consulship and hope to end the tumult by some striking feats that only serve to double the unrest.173 The Senate assembles under such delicate circumstances. Largius, the former dictator, comes out in favour of the people and asserts Servilius’s promise as an inescapable commitment. Appius continues to hold out in favour of the rich and argues for the election of a new dictator. Some young senators, whose personal interests make them incline to Appius’s side, based upon his resolve alone, want to bestow upon him the charge, which they deem a necessary step. Other, wiser senators, for the same reason, judge it inappropriate to bestow it upon him, and M. Valerius, seventy years old, is in the end unanimously elected. The magistrate of the Publicola family once more puts before the people, in the first assembly that he holds for them in the public square used for the comitia, that their rights could not be in better hands, and by liberating them, their belongings, and their assets, he enlists them to no longer busy themselves with anything but the public defence for the moment. The legions assemble, and, hearts full of hope, the enemies are beaten as soon as they are seen. Veturius, one of the two consuls,

172 Sade notes: “It was the custom to reserve a share of the spoils for the Public Treasury.” 173 Marginal note: “260.”

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defeats the Volsci and pursues them all the way to Velitrae, today’s Velletri, their capital. The Sabines and the Aequi, another people found in Latium, suffer the same fate, and the dictator, in spite of the advice of the Senate, which feared that the harassment would return along with the troops, disbands his army, dismisses the soldiers, and arrives in Rome to urge the Senate to respect the commitments made to the people, giving it full satisfaction concerning the abolition of debts. But Appius’s cabal wins out once again, and the dictator is accused of being too servilely the friend of the people, grown audacious, and that the sole business should be to master them.174 At this point, Valerius offers before the full Senate to abdicate the dictatorship: “O, Conscript Fathers,” exclaims the generous old man, “take back, take back a charge that only serves to make me hated by some and scorned by others. Find, if there are any, other means to pacify the people, who have only conquered for you in hope of the promises to them to which I committed on their behalf. As for me, I withdraw.” With these words, he departs and immediately assembles the people. Then, with the most moving and touching speech, he asks for their pardon for the immovability that he finds in the Senate for making good on the promises he had made to them. “Take my life,” he cries, “if it can recompense you for the involuntary trickery that I have foisted upon you. I prefer to lose it by your hands, in your midst, than to prolong it any further and so witness so much injustice.” The dictator moves the assembly, inclines it to his side, but his speech only further inflames the people’s hatred for the Senate. At this point, the defection is widespread. The people assembles, and after careful considerations, of which some would have been horrific for the Senate and for the consuls, in the end decides to quit Rome and, under the leadership of Sicinius Bellutus, heads off some three miles from Rome, to Mons Sacer, close to the Teverone, where they set up camp and commit themselves to an implacable obstinacy. Little by little, this multitude of rebels grows and Rome soon trembles at a seditious army threatening its gates, takes precautions, and all who remain in the city prepare to meet the enemy. However, capitulation is sought, but the first attempts are as fruitless as they are awkward at the outset of such great passion. It is the time for the election of the consuls. One can easily imagine that the decision is not easy during such a troubled juncture. However, Postumius Cominius and Spurius Cassius Viscellinus, who are thought equally agreeable to both the people and the patricians, are elected with the intention of committing them to bringing minds back around. The Senate, convoked by the comitia under these critical circumstances, provides again a heap of contradictory views. Menenius Agrippa is of the opinion that the people should be pacified at any price whatsoever, and he gives a glimpse of the greatest danger should the division last longer. The former dictator Valerius adds to Agrippa’s opinion all the reasons that he believes the most effective for bringing the rich around to clemency. He makes Appius and his resoluteness suspect, and he himself condemns the abuse of the dictatorship that has begun to take place. He makes the Senate glimpse that this charge will soon cause the rebirth of monarchy in Rome and that such a one who projects so much resolve does so perhaps only to gain it for himself, and in doing so only desires perhaps, in his mind, the means to become thereby the fatherland’s tyrant. 174 Marginal note: “Valerius as dictator.”

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Appius responds with bitterness to Valerius’s speech. He seeks to justify and to show his resolution as disinterested by his very conduct. In his turn he paints the opinion and the word of Valerius as suspect, makes it understood that what the people demands shakes the constitution of the fundamental laws of the State, and that the claims of this frenzied populace are multiplied by acquiescing to those that, without doubt, are the most harmful of all, that without doubt now is not the moment to bend, when they are evidently readied for the final act of revolt and mutiny, and that such a course, while gaining nothing, would cause much to be lost by putting on a display of fear and of terror. “Moreover, why fear,” adds the senator, “a troop of rebels that everywhere, outside of Rome, will encounter misery and masters, and will the more refrain from a general uprising insofar as they could only undertake the destruction of Rome by burying under its walls all that they hold most dear?” Appius adds that all that remains is to arm the slaves. The colonies should be recalled, and that it is, in short, quite easy to substitute this subject people, who can be controlled straightaway, for that rebel people who strays. “Ultimately,” continues this ardent defender of the patricians (but also of injustice), “I would prefer to grant the Latins the right of Roman citizenship and call them to our aid than the shameful position of bending before the rebels.” He concludes, nonetheless, for mercy if the rebels ask for pardon and for the most extreme resolve if they persist in forgetting their duty and their subordinacy. This bold view prevails, and the consuls who still wish to take the side of the people are strongly reprimanded by the entire youth, more interested than anyone else in Appius’s position. The resolve of these ones [apparently the consuls siding with the people] does not, however, abandon them to the invectives of the young senators. They answer with threats of excluding them from the assembly by setting the age at which they will have voting rights; and against the doggedness of the old senators, they assert the law that submitted to the popular assembly every decision of the Senate, and they finally succeed in bringing things back to a more moderate disposition, in spite of proud Appius, who still continues to hold to his view, albeit almost alone or accompanied only by those that false pride rather than true love for the fatherland commits to this obstinacy. Finally, deputies are named who will work towards general reconciliation. Largius, Agrippa, and Valerius are at the head of this deputation. They go to the rebel camp. They are respectfully received. Valerius offers, in a word or two, utter reconciliation and the most extensive amnesty, and he urges these voluntary expatriates to return to the arms of their women and their children. But Sicinius and Lucius Junius, the two leaders of the people, had readied their answer. One of them begins to speak, vaunts the initiative that the Senate and the patricians are undertaking, encourages the people to fear nothing, demands that the envoys declare which is truly the culpable faction and that they assert that neither he nor his companions have been made to be treated as such. He recalls the monarchical government, dares to say that never were the Roman people happier, and regrets even the rule of Tarquin, whom he praises for his largesse and love of the people, recalls at this point all the services that the patricians have gotten from them, ever met with empty promises; services all the worse misapprehended on their part, insofar as by refusing them, they would have discovered that liberty refused to them, and concludes by asserting that this separation is a fortunate one even for the Senate, which, sooner or later, if they were to return only soon to be tricked once again, would succumb to the civil war that would then become inevitable; that it would be better to leave them to go in search, arms in hand, of a climate where they would find less slavery and tyranny, and that this hope of liberty and of mildness would make them soon everywhere rediscover the fatherland and soon dry the

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useless tears that some among them might shed over what they had been forced to leave behind and that the majority of them abandoned with as few regrets as composure.175 Largius answers poorly to such a proud speech, more frank and more honest than politic. He wants to fall back upon the distinctions among various crimes or counts of indictment that the Senate imputes to the people, which are not in the least timely and only lend more strength to those revolting, who decide with as much boldness as pride, obliging the envoys to lay out more clearly their mission, which an empty recrimination does not explain, or to depart straightaway from an assembly where there is no desire to suffer them longer. At that point, Menenius speaks up and mends the inopportune discourse of his comrade with a full promise of abolishing current debts and to provide new regulations for future ones, which would be jointly agreed by the people and the Senate. And they will sacrifice themselves and their children to the infernal gods, if they do not make good on their word. He adds to this, however, some reasoning that tends to show that in a well-policed State, those who are taxed with overseeing the laws and the preservation of the conjoint privileges of the two ranks must be wealthier than the others. But since he ends this speech with all the pathos of which his soul is capable and with the most vivid entreaties to return to Rome and to follow them – they who have only come in order to reconcile them with the Senate – and to lead them into the arms of their spouses and their children, he moves and brings to tears with his vivid pictures and his truthful demeanour. And everyone offers to follow him immediately. However, the orator Junius speaks again and demands as a guarantee for so many handsome promises that the people be henceforth allowed to choose officers that can only ever be drawn from their ranks, in order to have at least, in the future, someone who by status would be interested in taking their side in the various humiliations that one might, perhaps again, try and make them suffer. The people applauds a new demand that throws the minds of the mediators into great confusion and upset, since they could not have been provided with orders for such a proposition, impossible to foresee. One of them offers, notwithstanding, to go forthwith to report to the Senate and promises to promptly return. Valerius sets forth his mission to the Senate and with the liveliest of entreaties even asks that they carry it out, giving them to sense that a people of soldiers cannot be led like a vile populace and that from this new arrangement a good might even result by putting in place further guardians against the invasion of their authority. Continuation of the Summary of Roman History176 We can easily imagine how Appius cries out against such an arrangement, which he views as prejudicial, more and more, to the Senate’s authority. He predicts in the Senate that it is going to allow a serpent to feed in its bosom that, sooner or later, will end up devouring it. But the general good wins out over the vain rhetoric of these senators, whose obstinacy is familiar, and that which the people demand is granted, including the creation of these new magistrates who will be called tribunes of the people. A senatus consultum is decreed to this effect and that also affirms the abolition of debts, and the envoys bring this edict to the camp to seal the reconciliation and their triumph.177 175 Sade had initially written “with as much joy as composure,” which makes more sense syntactically and logically. 176 Notebook of 9 pages, entirely in Sade’s hand. In the margin by the title: “Notebook two.” 177 Marginal note: “Word for word; change this.”

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But the people, ever dogged in its views, does not want to re-enter the city without the tribunes being chosen then and there. The two leaders of the revolt who came to orate in the assembly are immediately and unanimously invested with these duties. Appointed these honours as well are C. and P. Licinius and Spicilius Ruga.178 Not content with this, the people also wants to declare sacred the persons of the officers that they have chosen; they make a formal law upon this matter. The Romans altogether swear to observe this, and after having thanked the gods upon the very spot that so many memorable events had made famous, they re-entered Rome, with their tribunes and the Senate’s envoys leading the way.179 Rome thus, once again, changes government and from the aristocracy that we have just seen her as, she becomes, thanks to the creation of the tribunals, a democracy of sorts. At first, what these magistrates look after is limited to a few external policing functions and to representing the interests of the people in the decisions of the Senate, into which they are brought only when summoned. Soon, they ask for adjuncts for their duties, which the Senate grants and to whom is given the name aediles, and these, by increasing the power of the people and of the tribunes, necessarily diminishes that of the Senate. The function of these new officers was concerned with the inspection of temple buildings and other public monuments, and several other things that originally fell within the competence of the consuls and consequently diminished their power. But the reconciliation of the people and the patricians was more upon the surface than sincere, and the former were only waiting for an occasion to revive their discussions and let their hatred burst forth.180 A grain shortage, solely caused by the Mons Sacer revolt, which had prevented workers from sowing the earth, and that the Senate had tried to remedy to the best of its ability, serves as a pretext and reignites the spirit of revolt. The leaders of the people – the same ones as those who had led them to rebel and to whom was owed the creation of the new positions, of which they had taken care to take ownership – inflame tempers and broadcast that this famine which is laying waste to the people is due solely to hoarding on the part of the rich. The people is assembled. Great debates about precedence, and everyone quarrels over the honour of speaking to it. In the end, the consuls win out upon the first day and the tribunes upon the second. At the assembly of this latter one, the people is strongly urged to uphold the rights and the power of the tribunes, both the services and advantages gained from them is vaunted, and ultimately they are given to understand that they owe and will ever owe their misery only to the ambition and avarice of the patricians. And the product of this assembly is a law that prohibits whomsoever from perturbing the tribunal in his functions and, above all, when holding forth upon the public square. At first, the consuls try to oppose this law; soon the Senate allows it, still with the holy and praiseworthy motive of maintaining peace; and the people, content with this deference, endure the evils of the overwhelming famine without complaint. Finally, under the

178 Sade’s source has “C. & P. Licinius, & Sp. Icilius Ruga”; see Vertot, Histoire des revolutions, 1:122; see also 1:260. In vol. 4 of his Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943), Dionysius of Halicarnassus states that “Gaius and Publius Licinius and Gaius Visellius Ruga,” along with “Lucius Junius Brutus and Gaius Sicinius Bellutus,” were the first to receive tribunician power in ancient Rome (120–1 [bk.6.89, 1–2]). 179 Note: “From here I have begun to recount much more quickly. This summation, as is, would be far too long.” 180 Marginal note: “261.”

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consulate of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, this scourge comes to an end due to a surplus of grains that arrives at the port of Rome thanks to the efforts of the Senate, which had sent out in search for it all the way to Sicily. The Senate, ever lenient, wants the needs of the people to be looked after for free; but one senator, whose name will become famous, opposes this condescension and displaces Appius with his eloquence and resoluteness. He makes forcefully seen that the people are far from having merited such generosity and it will only serve, if it is granted them, to make them more insolent by making visible that they are feared. Coriolanus, which is the name of the senator about whom I am speaking, joins all the moral virtues to all the skills of a great general, but his resolution and his pride, his inflexibility, make him a dangerous republican. He rises up all the more forcefully both against the Senate’s generosity and against all innovations and the popular offices insofar as he is insulted that his all-too-familiar virtues have attracted to him on the part of that people the refusal of the consulship of which he was desirous, and he concludes by showing that a second revolt by this mutinous people is of little danger. The tribunes of the people present at this speech, the rapid progress of which they see in the Senate, assemble the people tumultuously and conspire for the downfall of this new tyrant. It is thus that they call Coriolanus, who will rise up in Rome, overturn all the ranks, and become the master thereof. The tribunes summon Coriolanus to their tribunal, but one can easily imagine that the latter’s pride revolts at such a humiliation. They resolve upon attacking him as he leaves the Senate and of seizing him by force. But Coriolanus, escorted by his friends and his patrons defends himself. The tumult increases; there are several strikes and counter-strikes on each side. At last, after much debating and long discussions, the consuls succeed in stopping the tumult. But the seditious magistrates of the people do not stop here, and during an assembly held upon the following day, succeed in making Coriolanus odious to the masses, nonetheless leaving the tribunes free, and whoever among the patricians desirous of undertaking his defence. Minucius, the first consul, arises and with much gentleness attempts to knock down the false accusations imputed to the Senate, affirms once again the dignity of the tribunes, and leaves the people free concerning the distribution of grain and the price that must be put upon it. As for Coriolanus, he forcefully takes up his defence, recalls his services, the very conditions that the people put in place upon their re-entry to Rome, which never consisted of denying a senator permission to speak his views in the Senate, and ends by urgently demanding of this irritated people the complete rehabilitation of Coriolanus in its spirit and his total absolution. This speech makes the greatest impact, but the leaders of the people, pricked by Minucius’s eloquence, seek, by summoning Coriolanus himself, to sting his pride in order to obtain thereby new reasons for reanimating the seditious spirit of the people. The artifice was adroitly prepared. Coriolanus rises up with more fury than ever against that supposed authority of the people’s tribunes, and declares that, if he is guilty, he will only acknowledge the consuls and the Senate as judges. Such an attack is instantly punished, and, neglecting all formalities, they boldly declare this hero guilty and condemn him to be thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, a punishment marked for enemies of the State. The aediles want to seize Coriolanus, but the entire nobility serves as his rampart, and the people, that such a sentence by their tribunes leads by its too-great violence more to leniency than to anger, and who furthermore dare not swoop down upon a body as respectable as that which they see take up Coriolanus’s defence, lends no aid to the aediles. Junius

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Brutus and Sicinius, who have created all these new troubles and fearful lest the people’s weakness will let their prey escape and cause them to lose authority, decide, therefore, to limit themselves to having the Senate consent to relinquishing Coriolanus to them and to convoking an assembly upon the matter as in former times, as opposed to Servius Tullius’s new arrangement, which vested almost all authority in the nobles without the people suspecting this. Consequently, he [i.e., Sicinius] mounts the rostrum, defers the appearance of Coriolanus for twenty-seven days, a delay that he only grants in order for him to prepare his defence. And as for the matter of the grain, he concludes, in dismissing the assembly, that if the Senate did provide it in a manner agreeable to the people, the tribunes would keep an eye on it. However, the senators confer with the tribunes and try to persuade them that never was the Senate’s authority contested, even by the kings. They induce from various arguments similar to the previous proof that the matter of Coriolanus concerns them entirely, but that if this senator is truly guilty, they will make sure to send him back to them with a senatus consultum that will make them his masters, but at least in accordance with the usual forms up to now. After several debates, the tribunes yield upon the sole condition that they be admitted and heard in the Senate concerning their grievances levelled at Coriolanus. They enter. One of them, Decius, makes a long speech tending to prove that Coriolanus is culpable of the greatest of crimes of which a citizen can be guilty with regard to the fatherland181 and that any delay on the part of the senators in delivering him into their hands will only rouse the fear that the sentiments of this seditious man are those of the entire Senate, and that they are supported by the law made by Valerius Publicola. He calls upon this, he says, to authorize his rights and those of the entire people, and concludes by summoning Coriolanus to appear before the assembly of the people, sorted by tribes rather than by centuries, which was how the votes remained almost entirely with the patricians, in order that he justify his conduct or to atone for it by a sincere disavowal.182 Opinions are gathered after this speech. Proud Appius, ever the zealous guardian of senatorial right, recalls to the assembly the ardour with which he has opposed the desire to perpetually condescend to the people, that he had well foreseen was becoming with every passing day more prejudicial to the authority of the Senate. He continues to make his colleagues feel the abuse of a tribunal that they have tolerated and to which alone is due the terrible insolence that had thought to slaughter a senator and a general in the very arms of companions of his rank and of his worth. He demonstrates that the Valerian Law, made by Publicola and with which Decius had legitimized the transfer of Coriolanus to the tribunal, had never been made with such a licentious intent. He describes it in detail and shows that it is an abuse to believe that the plebeians are authorized by this law to lead a senator to the tribunal of their tribunes, and concludes by showing that the Coriolanus affair is one for the entire Senate and that abandoning him runs the greatest danger to the authority of the sole and veritable magistrates of the republic, who are and can only be the consuls and the Senate. 181 Marginal note: “He gives a glimpse of all the consequences that this crime would have had if his seditious advice had been followed by the Senate.” 182 The Tribal Assembly during the Roman Republic was made up of the thirty-five urban and rural “tribes,” determined by geographical area. The Centuriate Assembly was organized by classes. As the text suggests, the former was more akin to a popular assembly and less tied to military status and wealth.

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But all these discussions only serve as a pretext for larger projects. And the ambition of the two parties burst out on both sides in this affair, of which Coriolanus was the pretext and was going to be the victim. Here Valerius, one of the ministers of the reconciliation that took place upon the Mons Sacer, tries to persuade the Senate that peace on either side cannot be bought at too dear a price. He asserts that his opinion is to relinquish the Coriolanus affair to the people, certain that this people, touched by this new excess of generosity, will not dare to condemn this illustrious culprit, whose birth on the one hand and whose services on the other will restrain their animosity. He is even of the opinion that at the moment of the ruling, several senators should spread throughout the assembly in order to recall so many reasons for leniency with regard to this culprit to those who neither had the soul or wit to conceive of it nor the resolve to disclose it, and thereby to put an end to the animosity of the rest. Then, painting in the most pathetic terms the ills that Coriolanus’s resistance was perhaps going to bring down on the State, he urges this senator himself – to whom he addresses his speech – to pledge himself to the public good, to public peace, and to go and present himself before the popular assembly. The tears of this senator, respectable on account of his age and of his conduct, draw the assembly to his opinion. Encouraged by the impact of his powerful eloquence, Valerius goes further: he dares demonstrate to the senators that, for the good and preservation of the republic, there are infinitely fewer disadvantages in placing the entrustment of liberty in the hands of the weakest party than in those of the strongest, which is always tempted to appropriate authority when it sees itself invested with that sacred entrustment of liberty. “This right to name a dictator – a right that remains with you always,” says he to the Senate, “is for you a sure guarantee that this people will not abuse that authority that you cede to them, of which nothing will prevent you yourselves from taking advantage if it is conferred upon you.” “It is thus,” continues this virtuous senator, “that some, unceasingly watching over the others and, when the need arises, the dictator over everyone, reciprocal equality will always be maintained – a sure guarantee of the repression of tyranny, of the solid constitution of the government, and of interior peace that the present circumstances make more and more desirable and necessary.” Several other senators shared this view and further added that the senatus consultum that the tribunes were demanding in order to have the right to transfer Coriolanus to their tribunals would subsequently become a new basis of claim for the power and authority of the Senate. After so many conforming opinions, a senatus consultum is drawn up. However, Coriolanus, abandoned only for having too ardently argued the interests of his own, after having made this visible to the Senate, asks in the end what his crime is and through what provision he is being handed over to the fury of his enemies. By this adroit question, Coriolanus wants to confuse the tribunes, but they sense this and declare that all the accusations levelled against him are driven solely by the tyranny imputed to him. At that point, Coriolanus gives his own opinion and defers to the senatus consultum that is set to deliver him to the people, to which the Senate has joined a second one by which it releases Coriolanus from the speech made by him against the tribunate and the grain affair, so that, as the tribunes had said, the accusations levelled at Coriolanus only had to do with tyranny and so that it would not be discussed in a popular assembly the extent to which the senators might freely express their views. The senatus consultum is read to the people, and every one of its members prepares to unleash his hatred against this illustrious innocent, so true is it that holding a felicitous opinion in a weak government is a dangerous thing. A striking example that should

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convince us that the man powerful enough to hold an opinion both solid and truly tending to the general good must in the interest of that same public good take hold of the reins of the State rather than try to become the reformer thereof.183 Explanation of the Paintings in the Barberini Palace184 First Part The first painting, that is, the one in the middle, depicts divine Providence, replete with majesty and splendour, seated upon a cloud, sceptre in hand, appearing in charge of present and future. It is for this reason that beneath her are the Parcae, attending to their respective duties, and Time, which in the form of Saturn, devours his own children. She is surrounded by a great number of virtues and attributes, each one distinguished by symbols proper to them, among these are first of all Faith, Hope, and Charity; then Justice, Mercy, Eternity, Truth, Security, Beauty, and many others, all ready to carry out her bidding. Immortality among others appears to have received orders, since she appears to climb on high to crown the coat of arms of Urban VIII, surrounded by two large branches of laurel that, joining at both sides, create a shield in the middle of which fly three bees. These three branches are supported by three beautiful girls that we can regard as the three principal Muses – Urania, Calliope, and Clio – who, crowning the bees with laurel, indicate the fame that the celebrated poems of Urban VIII have been awarded. Two other girls are above. One holds keys and represents ecclesiastical power. The other has the tiara or triregnum and represents Holy Rome. Various genii play among the foliage made by these branches, and one among them, holding a laurel garland, keeps himself at a distance and seems to want to draw closer. He signifies Quality or the poetic knowledge with which this glorious pontiff was adorned. Second Part The second part will be seen above the door that leads to the garden. Depicted here is the defence of the Church in the guise of giants vanquished by the goddess Pallas, symbol of wisdom, who combats them and lays them low and does so in a manner that they remain weighed down and buried under the enormous mountains that they had piled up with the intention of waging war and climbing up to heaven. The majesty and grandeur of the figures, along with the various ways that the vanquished are positioned, merits the applause and admiration of connoisseurs. Third Part The third part is located above the baldachin. It depicts a kneeling Virgin, raised upon a cloud, symbol of the knowledge of divine things. She has her two arms raised in the air, holding a fiery flame in her right hand to signify that her being is such that it rises towards heaven; and in her left one she holds a book that expresses knowledge of objects that are related to this. 183 Marginal note: “Insert the years; you forgot to do so.” 184 Four manuscript pages in copyist’s hand; corrections in Sade’s hand. These pages are almost certainly a translation “of a letter from Iberti, and there are numerous syntactical errors and other solecisms. They principally describe Pietra da Cortona’s massive, complex allegorical fresco in the Palazzo Barberini.

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The winged young man, adorned with a shield, is divine succour who, with the laurel that he holds in his hand, promises immortality to whomever does not abuse it. The respectable old woman who, above the same cloud, holds the gilded tripod with the lit fire, represents religion offering incense to God. Under the sides of this cloud are the vices of gluttony and of lust. The first is in the guise of Silenus, for whom the fauns and the satyrs prepare wine in the large cup; and one of the Bacchantes carries the infant Bacchus in her arms, and he greedily makes for the grapes, demonstrating thereby the poor upbringing of children. On the other side, lust is depicted by a Venus reclining upon a sensuous bed, who although modestly clothed, appears to get up in fright upon seeing her son Cupid, put to flight by chaste Love, accompanied by purity in the guise of a girl dressed in white, in her hand […]185 Here, a fountain will be seen, somewhat in the distance, with many women around it, one of whom appears to preen and to primp, symbol of the vanity of things here below. In the middle of a large painting, you see a plow pulled by two bees, guided by a third, who leads them with a rod. This is one of the heraldic devices of the House of Barberini. Fourth Part Further on, above the pulpit, comes temporal government, represented in the guise of two girls who appear to descend from on high. One, with the consular fasces, signifies authority, who commands Hercules and chases away the Harpies with the help of his club, thereby wanting to demonstrate the punishment of the guilty. The other girl, who pours the cornucopia, signifies liberality; and in front of her, you will see a number of old men, young children, widows, and all sorts of persons kneeling in the hope of being favoured with the gifts she is granting. With such virtues, Urban marked and immortalized his name. Below the decoration of the bas-relief is the club of the same Hercules, from which offshoots grow. This is another attribute of the House of Barberini. Fifth Part The fifth part is above the fireplace. Here there is a depiction of papal dignity, holding the caduceus in her right hand to show that she extends to the entire world; in her left a key, a sign of her authority. Prudence presents her with a mirror with a very respectful expression, and on the other side Power, who seems to be acting as a deputy, is making ready to leave, holding in one hand a written sheet and in the other a key. Further on, Fame, with two trumpets in hand, near to Peace, who is shutting the gates of the Temple of Janus, which remained open during wartime. Fury remains enchained, outside of the same temple, bound upon a pile of weapons, holding two lit torches that she shakes in rage. Mildness seeks to pacify her and restrains her, held by a rope. Here you see, beaten down and lifeless, certain furies who abandon themselves upon their own torches. There you see Vulcan’s forge and the Cyclopes, tired and busy making weapons for war, intending to show the wise foresight one must have during peacetime. Another attribute of the House of Barberini is the rising sun, which will be seen below all of these paintings. What now remains to be seen are the four corners, with paintings in chiaroscuro of so many historical deeds, depicting the four cardinal virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. They are accompanied by symbols that are proper to each one of them. To 185 A word is missing. The figure of Chastity holds a stem of white lilies.

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follow in order the explanation of these paintings, you must begin at the left with the corner between Silenus and Hercules where Prudence has been depicted emblematically as Fabius Cunctator studying the movements of Hannibal and remaining enclosed in his encampment. The symbols of this virtue are she-bears hiding their cubs so that they improve over time. In the corner to the right comes Justice exemplified by Titus Manlius, who orders the decapitation of his son, who had, in spite of orders to the contrary, given battle to the enemy. Given to him as symbol is the griffin, as a cruel and strict animal, defender of Justice. Temperance is in the opposite corner, represented by Publius Scipio Africanus who is sending his young spouse back to Saguntinus without even having seen her, and the symbol that accompanies her is the unicorn, celebrated for her chastity. Finally, in the last corner, you will admire strength and courage in Mucius Scaevola in the act of allowing his right hand to burn after having killed by mistake a common person instead of the king Porsena who is present. You see a superb lion, symbol enough of courage. Explanation of the Vault of Divine Wisdom After having seen this last corner of the room, you see straight ahead the doorway that leads to the apartment called that of Divine Wisdom on account of the vault that will be seen in the third room, a famous work painted admirably by Andrea Sacchi. You will see a respectable old woman seated upon a majestic throne, lavishly dressed, sceptre in hand, with which she seems to govern the entire universe, represented by the globe that she has below her. She wears the royal crown upon her head, the sun upon her chest, mirror in her hand, eye fixed upon the tip of the sceptre, symbol of the greatest wisdom. To the right, she is accompanied by various attributes in guises that have been depicted with the utmost taste. The first, triangle in hand, represents the essence of the divine. The one beside holds a lyre and denotes the harmony and order of things. The one holding the circle created by a serpent figures forth eternity. The one after, wrapped in a sheet, a crown in hand, represents Knowledge. Justice is in the guise of the one holding scales. The one who is turned, supported by her right hand upon the club and who creates the loveliest contrast, represents Power. The last one, who appears to fertilize the earth with her own milk, holding in her right [hand] an ear of grain, is Fecundity. To the left are four other virtues that are related to the divine, namely, the figure holding a swan in her arms, representing purity. The seated one, covered with a veil, a cross in one hand and supporting an altar with the other, is Holiness. Below is Contemplation, resting upon her right arm with the eagle watching her. The last one, with a cheerful expression, is Beauty, plaiting by hand Berenice’s hair to signify that the splendour and triumph of women consists in the ampleness and beauty of their hair. On either side, on high, are celestial spirits. The one, to the right and combating a lion, symbol of force, can be taken as invincible courage; the other, on account of the hare, symbol of timidity, signifies holy trepidation, foundation of all the virtues. [Various Notes]186 It had wandered far from true music to explain the passions and feelings of the soul with very boring and repetitive passages and trills, which are the product of the singular 186 Six manuscript pages in an unknown hand. They were doubtless written by an Italian correspondent, which explains certain Italianisms and numerous blunders in French usage. I have tried to represent the errors and flavour while squeezing some sense from the text. Annotations are in Sade’s hand.

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ignorance of the chapel master who composes the music or of the cantor who executes it. This shows the true lack of knowledge for finding the difficult and, so to speak, the only expression which is suited to this feeling. This manner of singing is difficult and tiresome, and perishes in the face of the cantor of expression, of support, and of composure. In this way turning their eyes, they look like singing turkeys. Concerning the Rope187 In Rome there are two equally detestable manners that this torture is given. The most usual is for all the highway thieves known as borsaioli, that is, cutpurses, to those who pay visits to others’ pockets, for all those insolences done in public gatherings, in deeds, words, up to and including making an ordinary woman lose respect on the via del Corso. A quite lovely lady, at the Carnival of 1776, was masked and with a prelate with whom she had had public intrigues, and at a time when all of Rome knew that this lady188 enjoyed the interested friendship of a powerful knight, she must have suffered with extreme displeasure that her secret lover, who was a dancer, was forced abroad because she was taken by surprise at night in a garden by the knight, who ordered that he be treated to a caning, the following night, until dead. The aforementioned dancer went abroad and thereby avoided death. Those who carried out the caning made a mistake and shredded his companion.189 This lady, renowned for a thousand other deeds and adventures, wanted to pass along the via del Corso and ran the risk of upending the coachman: the lady’s knight’s very own. Seeing himself so close to falling, he pronounced these words: “Must I take a tumble for this buggering tramp?” (She merited this title on account of the life that she led.) This wretch was immediately seized, and upon the spot tortured, that is, put to the rope. An interesting thing, that is to say a singular accident, occurred in Rome, where innocence was the victim of injustice. During the night, in a quite narrow street, the coaches of the Borghese prince and of Marquis Grillo caught hold of one another, and being so muddled, and given that these two lords are close relatives, got down voluntarily from their car. The coaches were detached, and a strap was broken on the coach of the knight in such a way as the horses could get up off the ground. Then, agreed, the cars were fixed up as best as could be, and they went their separate ways amicably. The flaw of the government is that it is very necessary that there be spies, which unable to produce a reason for what happens in the name of the government, must upon the spot, immediately, search out what has happened, which not being examined from close up by esteemed professors, sometimes ambiguities have occurred. One of these wretches found himself present at this accident, but however at some distance, and from the uniformity of the liveries, believed that Prince Borghese having snagged Marquis Grillo, and having made the horses fall, he had contemptuously cut the strap, returned to the tribunal and recounted the fact to the wise chancellor, who judged it necessary to pass the information to Monsignor Cornero, governor, who being in a congregation of cardinals before the pope, could only receive his information by a note that the worthy prelate was imprudent enough to read before the assembly. The so-called wise man, swollen with mature discrimination and prudence, wanted to be immediately within reach of the incident and to know the contents of the letter. Having read it, wisely believing that the judgment of Saint Peter, solemnly applied to 187 That is, the torture usually known as strappado. 188 Marginal note in Sade’s hand: “Piccolomini, I believe.” 189 Marginal note in Sade’s hand: “who played before him women’s roles, but who secondly danced.”

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the action, could not fail, ordered a public sequestration of Prince Borghese, who the night before had attended the baths of his spouse from 3 in the night, when the event happened after midnight. In the morning, the prince while he was taking a walk in his delightful country house received the news from his secretary. Immediately he sends his justification. The Holy Father, mortified at having missed the mark in this way and of having punished an innocent man, went to complain to the Holy Spirit, who in this matter had pulled the wool over his eyes. But not receiving any response to his complaints, thought to level a strong reprimand at the governor, who received every day benefits from the House of Borghese, and unable to rebel against the pope and his violent resolution, resolved to send the chancellor to the galleys – and very justly so – because he did not have the prophetic spirit to know whether the report of the spy was true or false. And then, he justly weighed the crimes of the spy with that of the chancellor. It was thoughtfully considered to give him a lesser punishment, while he had not been lacking in attention, but fear for his life alone kept him at a distance from accidents, he did not have grounds for examining it. He was thus punished with three strokes of the rope, which had no other effect upon him, given that he was very sinewy and robust, than to do him in a few hours later. And so this crime was marvellously punished that in any other country, more than this one ignorant and inconvenient of the true criminal, would have condemned as criminal principally the primary leader of the unjust sentence. This torture is known as the queen of torments, and it is the most ignorant, the most unjust, and a man who bears it one time, it makes no impression upon him; and bears it like nothing; he can without great trouble continue his crimes. On the contrary, to a large and replete man, it is an unfailing instrument and one of the most barbaric. While his bones are smashed, his membranes torn asunder, which often occurs, causes him one of the cruelest deaths imaginable. Sometimes even, they lose all their natural powers, and are people useless to society and crippled for their entire life. It happens also to the sufferer, that some vessel in the chest is broken. This is the product of the ignorance of doctors who are unfamiliar with Nature’s strength; with one out of weakness, another for being too fat, they undergo lacerations of vessels, which produce a slow and painful death, a swift death upon the scaffold being a thousand times more desirable. Therefore, the rope is one of the most unjust of instruments, while it is never a punishment proportionate to the crimes, being variable according to the weight and strength of the various persons subjected to it. Those who welcome the rope as a torture, as a means to get evidence, it seems to me equally ill-suited. As for evidence, either this is strong enough or it is not. If it is, it is useless to give them anticipatory tortures, being unjust to punish them twice over. If the evidence is insufficient, then not only is it useless to torture them, because in order to hide their crimes, they will bear it without difficulty, persuading themselves that they will hereby avoid the ultimate punishment. If they are innocent, in those places where religion is vigorous, they will suffer and will say that God sees their innocence. This practice is so uncertain and ridiculous that when someone suffers the torture, no longer able to bear it, he accuses himself as criminal, and subsequently declares his innocence again; he is once again tortured, such that in the end his is forced to declare himself criminal once and for all. On the contrary, he who has the strength to bear it continues ever to deny, although guilty is absolved. The weak religious man was fleeing, as I have already said, and the robust man was dying of despair, or he was procuring for himself a swift death by his own hand.

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The form of torment is a rope passed over a pulley quite high up. The criminal is hoisted up to the pulley, and then suddenly dropped to about an ell from the ground. Then he is hoisted back up in the same manner, for five or six times, so that more often than not he remains convulsing and trembling for several hours. In Rome, all the merits and particularities of other nations are gathered together, as they imitate the French in gallantry and England in incivility; and thereby, they outdo the cannibals in terms of their ferocity. The convents of Christian doctrine are three. Rome has fifteen named gates: Gate of the People, Porta Pinciana, Porta Salaria, Porta Pia, Gate of Saint Lawrence, Larger Gate, Gate of Saint John Lateran, Gate of Saint Sebastian, Gate of Saint Paul, Gate Portese, Gate of Saint Pancras, Light Horse Gate, Gate Fabbrica, and Gate Angelica. [In Sade’s hand:] Colline Gate. [Below, still in Sade’s hand, in pencil:] I’ve found one more of these: Porta Pertusa. Rome Curious, Philosophical, and Critical Notes190 first chapter: subjects that make up the ecclesiastical state 1st. The prince who cuts a double figure, namely, that of a despot and that of the first bishop and who, similar to Numa, gathers together in himself ecclesiastical and temporal power. 2nd. The cardinals who make up two ranks: the first of which tends to the bishoprics and to other ecclesiastical duties; the second to legislation. The latter is composed of a large number of cardinals, several of whom do not even say mass. 3rd. The rank of prelates, divided into three classes: the first of which tends to the bishoprics, the second to civil governance, and the third to criminal governance. 4th. The numerous courts of Rome. 5th. The various religious orders. 6th. The canons and an infinity of other ecclesiastical ranks that can easily lead to the most considerable duties and sometimes even to the tiara. 7th. A small number of princes. An impotent nobility. Few wealthy citizens. Many courtiers. A middling amount of artists and an infinite number of idle libertines to whom one can join a multitude of convents that maintain women, useless due to their laziness and idleness, [consecrated by fanaticism, abandoned to despair, and become the State’s loss. Each one of these classes in particular will be examined]. chapter ii: on the prince The prince is an elected absolute despot, distinguished from other sovereigns by the name of pope, which in the early days of the Church was applied to all bishops and was subsequently given particularly to the first bishop alone, [although his is the fruit and work of scorning all the laws that even the conclave imposes upon them: the work, in a word, of fraud and perjury. It is no less regarded as the working of the holy spirit].

190 Two notebooks of 10 pages each in the hand of the copyist. Probably a translation of an account written by Iberti. The title is in Sade’s hand, as well as the words and phrases in brackets.

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This [deification] makes him superior to other men. [How, in this regard, not to affirm] his speech is inspired every time that, from the apostolic seat, he makes pronouncements upon whatever concerns religion, such as excommunications, bulls, and other suchlike things? This prince is adored by the people who always bow in his presence. It is thus that he shares in the worship due to God and uses force to maintain it, rigorously punishing those who refuse to submit to it and whoever refuses to avow it. The cardinals are the counsellors of this prince. His ambassadors are the prelates bearing the title of nuncios, and the governors of the principal towns subject to the pontiff are named legates. But as this prince only maintains himself today by the blind belief of men and not by force of arms, he must needs put to use all those means that can lead the ignorant to believe him superior to themselves. With this intent, he is careful to have himself surrounded by a numerous court, which professing many lies and much hypocrisy, makes use thereof as a veil and free rein to the most unspeakable crimes such as treason, fraud, plunder, calumny, tortures, simony, absolute power, and deception. All of these mask wearers, decked out in prelate’s clothing or purple, surround the throne. In the days of the first Church, simplicity of worship demanded neither grandeur nor despotism, which is the reason that they have sought the means to introduce all these ceremonies full of idolatry as the most capable of dazzling and of invigorating fanaticism. And despite their maintaining that papal ceremonies are original and supernatural, nonetheless, a long series of facts that cannot be denied prove as obvious that they derive from paganism. Without mentioning so many monuments that prove the truth of what is being advanced, it suffices to remark certain points that cannot be doubted. The continual use of incense and of perfumes from pagan times about which Tertullian speaks when he says that pagan worship would sooner do without idols than incense, and for the reason that the perfumers who sold incense to the pagans were banned from the Church, if after having converted to Christianity, they did not renounce this trade. The primitive Church took great care not to admit into its form of worship anything that could have had an association with idolatry. But in his day, Gregory of Nyssa bestowed great praise upon Gregory Thaumaturgus for having turned the festivals and ceremonies of the pagans into Christian ones in order to more easily attract them to the religion. But when Christianity was established and politics maintained popular errors, the Church, as Saint Jerome himself said, diminished in virtue in proportion to the increase in its power and authority. At that point, not only were perfumers allowed in, but the censer was used at Christianity’s altar, and joined thereto was an utter ban upon books so that ignorance could be preserved as useful to governance. It is with such resources that a wretched pastor became the greatest monarch, that he made himself adored by force, by imposing upon his fake authority a necessary silence. And making himself head of a religion, he knew how to take and to shape a party from the factions of empires and the internal wars that were tearing apart the provinces; and to arrive more easily at despotism, he upon several occasions stabilized the crown upon the head of various princes who, seeing their throne upon shaky ground, have had recourse to religion, which handled and used with the most enlightened talents, managed to procure great treasures for the Church, which demanded great sums from all Christendom. But these princes, enlarged by royal force and authority, once supported by the name of religion, maintained themselves with weapons and no longer had need of its aid. And to the extent that they grow in grandeur, so does their liberality to the Church diminish, which is the reason for which the pontiffs can no longer achieve that great magnificence that they

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previously enjoyed. However, the pope maintains a very brilliant court, made up of an infinite number of persons, who decked out with the most impressive duties, know how to amass considerable sums, and it is certain that every subject who has wit and talent can make his fortune when he has served under a pontificate. The main officers are the cardinal pro-datary, the secretary of memorials, the secretary of briefs, the secretary of State, the pro-auditor, the major-domo or chief steward, the gentleman of the bed chamber, the sacristan, the gentleman of the sacred palace, the secretary of ciphers, the sub-datary, the secretary of briefs to princes, the secretary of Latin letters, the cup bearer or officer who serves drinks, the ambassadorial secretary, the librarian, the officer of the wardrobe, the prince’s personal doctor, two for the court, the chief steward of the palace, and the carving squire. There are ten to twenty privy chamberlains and thirty or so supernumerary ones. The domestic prelates number about fifty. The honorary chamberlains, dressed in purple, number twenty-five. The privy chaplains number six, among which are the caudatary and the cross bearer. These officers sometimes have three or four supernumeraries. There are six privy chamberlains of the sword and cape, and there can be up to thirty supernumeraries. The master of the hospice, the grand master of the household, and the master of the horse. The honorary chamberlains and those of the sword and cape number around fifty. The knights of the guard or of the broken lances number ten, with six to seven supernumeraries. There are two privy clerics and six common chaplains with four supernumeraries and five aides de chambre. Finally, the sub-sacristan, the confessor of the court or of the family, the sub-keeper of the wardrobe, the computist or officer of palace accounts, and the sub-computist. The sovereign is surrounded by three separate guards: two are local, one of which is called the light cavalry, consisting of eighty masters not counting officers, and the other the cuirassiers, consisting of seventy men not counting officers, called the Swiss Guard, which proves the scant trust of the prince and his just apprehension he must have for the subjects he tyrannizes, having need of a foreign guard for his defence.191 The pope wears, in particular, a cassock of white silk, the rochet, and a little mantle of red velvet for the winter and of taffeta for the summer with the shoulder cape. His slippers are made of red fabric, embroidered with gold, stitched, and adorned with a cross in the middle, which is put there for the express purpose of being kissed; and there is no one who dares present himself before the pope without having first kissed his feet. Seneca says that this is the ultimate degree of humiliation and ignominy that tyranny and insolence can require of slavery. We shall observe here that this practice comes from the Persians. They require this mark of respect from their slaves. Caligula, the worst and most impious of emperors, introduced it into Rome (how could the leaders of this category not have followed his example?). What to make of a ceremony that draws its origin from the most vain of all peoples and the cruelest of all tyrants? When His Holiness leaves his apartments, he wears the stole over the just mentioned ornaments. During Advent, Lent, and fast days, he exchanges the silk cassock for a woolen one, and from the Sunday before Easter until Quasimodo Sunday, he wears the white mantle and shoulder cape. The pontifical vestments are of two sorts, namely, those that he uses for mass and those for public ceremonies. When he celebrates mass, he wears the cassock,

191 Marginal note in Sade’s hand: “Change this reflection, seeing that it is false.” The division of three guards above somehow becomes two, at least syntactically.

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sandals on his feet, the rochet, alb, cincture, pectoral cross, stole, maniple, dalmatic, chasuble, pallium, mitre, and gloves. These ornaments change in colour. He wears red during Pentecost and on the days of feasts of martyrs; white at Easter and on feasts of [the] Virgin and [of the] confessors; purple during Lent and Advent and upon vigil days; and black on Holy Friday and for masses for the dead. The pope carries out all duties with the plurial [skullcap?], mitre, and tiara, excepting the night of Christmas when he wears the mantle [camauro?]. The pope attends consistories in ordinary garments, except at that of his elevation and then he wears the plurial and mitre. When he is wearing the mitre or tiara, before him proceed first of all the deacons, the priests come second, and the bishops are third. When he proceeds without these two ornaments, he proceeds first and is followed first by the cardinal bishops, next the priests, and finally the bishops. The current pontiff is Pius VI. He is a vain and proud man, puffed up with himself, quick to act first, with a sanguinary and fiery temperament. His powers of thought are lively and quick. He loves pleasure, and those of the table and of women do not seem to be indifferent to him, loving his comforts, etc. chapter iii The cardinals are divided into deacons, priests, and bishops. There can be as many as seventy-two, but they are usually only seventy, given that two hats remain to be bestowed in case of the conversion of some infidel prince. All contribute to the elevation of the pope, and each among them can be named to the throne, with the exception of those who are dependants of crowns [i.e., monarchs], who can never make a claim to the papacy, for fear that they might then become partisans of the princes upon whom they depend. The Catholic crowns have the right to name one or two cardinals, who are declared unsuited for the throne. The cardinals have divided among themselves the entire government of Rome, and with the help of some congregations, they decide public cases, which go to the majority of votes. The pontiff himself decides nothing without their counsel, which is called a consistory; it is divided off secretly and is created by the election of only a few cardinals, and it deals with matters of the utmost importance. The second one is semi-public, and the third is public and other persons are admitted into it. The first requires swearing an oath to keep it secret, and in the third one, that is to say the one that is public, ambassadors and prelates are allowed in. In this latter one are chosen the legates a latere and the nuncios, and also made public there are the names of the cardinals who have been elevated, those who are beatified and those who have been canonized. There are twelve consistorial advocates, among whom can number a Bolognese, a Ferraran, a Milanese, a Venetian, a Neapolitan, a Tuscan, and a Luccan. Their responsibility is to speak in public and other suchlike things. There are six cardinal bishops: the one from Ostia is from Velletri, the bishop of Prato is from San Ruffino, the bishop of Albano, the bishop of Sabina, of Tusculum, and that of Palestrina. The cardinal priests are attached to titular churches and there are fifty with this title. Fourteen cardinal deacons are the directors of as many deaconates that they must oversee. The Lateran Council obliges them to take care of their dependent churches and to visit them at least once a year.

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The most senior of the cardinals is installed as dean and represents the entire Sacred College, which means that all ambassadors and all newly elevated cardinals must pay him their first visit. The cardinals must have funds of four thousand scudi in ecclesiastical revenue, and if they do not possess this, the State gives them a privy salary. The cardinal vicar exercises vescovile [i.e., episcopal] jurisdiction that includes the city and forty miles around. He is also the judge with competency over Jews and prostitutes and one of the inquisitors of the Holy Office. He attends the tribunal for petitions for favours [i.e., Signatura Gratiae] and presides over his own tribunal. The major penitentiary cardinal is he who has the ability to absolve all heinous infractions of confession. Added to this main power are those of absolving apostates, of transferring nuns from one order to another, as well as regulars, and other similar things. The vice-chancellor cardinal exercises one of the most honourable employments. The most important matters of the consistory, all apostolic letters of conferral, stamped with the leaden seal, are delivered in his name. The cardinal prodatary takes his name from the registry that he keeps of the days and months when the pontiff accords some favour. He produces the records and can dispose of some benefices of little importance. The cardinal secretary of memorials receives all decisions from ministers, reports them to the pontiff, and returns his responses; he presents and signs those of favour and of justice, and has other privileges. The cardinal secretary of State is the president general of the entire State and enjoys very extensive powers over all regular, political, and economic ecclesiastical matters. He receives the letters from the cardinal legates of dependent provinces, from legates, governors, and the nuncios must provide him with reports upon foreign affairs. The cardinal secretary of briefs informs His Holiness of all matters and memorials that must be dispatched by means of briefs. The cardinal pro-auditor is a jurisconsult, who gives his opinion upon all cases presented to the pontiff. The major-domo is the prefect of the sacred apostolic palaces and superintendent of the house of His Holiness. This charge profits from the cardinalate. The cardinal librarian oversees the increase of the Vatican Library. The cardinal Camerlengo represents the person of the archdeacon of the Roman Church. He is prefect of the apostolic camera, which gives him the special right to know about, along with the tribunal of the camera, all cases related to farms and other matters. He names public locations for vendors in various places in the city, he takes care of road repairs and decorations, and grants letters of authorization. chapter iv The order of prelates forms the largest part of the tribunals. Almost all are nobles and must have a private salary from a seminary: a veritable refuge of ignorance, governed by monks that have no other aim but profit. These characters will take up the first ranks of the judicial administration and of the regulation of the State. One of them, known as the “prefect of food supplies,” passing through a field planted with reeds, exclaimed that God must be thanked for allowing us an abundant harvest, incapable of telling reeds apart from grain. Each of them in turn rises up, through the ranks, taking on various duties: sometimes from

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civil to criminal, from criminal to political, and from there to economic, indiscriminately exercising each employment, each of which would require the entire life of a man dedicated to that occupation alone in order to be equitably carried out, without any particular aptitude. Hereby individuals are provided for and not employments filled. And these same persons, taught by example, fearful of not becoming eternally famous by remaining in his post [sic], does what he can to do it awry, so that he is advanced out of necessity, since those who do carry out their employments honourably are those about whom one thinks the least. chapter v The Roman tribunal is made of judges, advocates, procurers, besides notaries and other necessary roles. Cardinals, prelates, and citizens contribute to this court. A large number of specific tribunals, with liberty of appeals without established specifications, provide support for so many thousands of people. Here is something truly surprising to see and that, as much as it oppresses the unfortunate, deluded from one year to the next by these monsters rabid with the blood of those who have the itch for pleading, so does it […]192 […]193 to disinherit their close relatives, in order to be more worthy in the eyes of God and to thus enrich their houses. Mendicants, then, who, going from door to door, armed with a beggar’s bag, collecting bread and deceiving the populace with a holy exterior, extract numerous contributions of bread, wine, and all that might feed them, and even enough to sell some to make money and so to sate their desires entirely. Are they not the same as the mendicant priests of paganism? Cicero said, speaking of them, that the government had reduced the number to a single order of priests, and only upon certain days, since they only served to increase superstition and to ruin families. In Rome there are: 34 convents. 9 conservatories, and the number of these girls goes higher than 1,700. 4,500 monks approximately. 2,600 priests approximately. The monasteries are divided into: 2 for Canons Regular of Saint John Lateran. 2 for Canons Regular of the Saviour. 3 others for Canons Regular. 2 for Clerics Regular. 2 for Theatines. 7 monasteries or houses of the Society of Jesus. 7 colleges dependent upon them, today run by priests. 2 for Barnabites. 2 for Ministers to the Sick. 2 for Clerics Minor.

192 End of the first notebook; the rest is missing. 193 Second notebook; the beginning is missing.

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2 for Clerics Regular of the Mother of God. 6 for FF. of the Pious Schools, and their colleges. 2 communal congregations [?]. 111 of Christian Doctrine. 11 of Missionaries. 2 of Pious Works and their colleges. 1 congregation of priests known as Saint John the Baptist. 15 for secular priests. 1 of the Order of Monte Cassino. 2 of Camaldolese. 2 of hermit Camaldolese. 4 of Cistercians. 4 of Reformed Cistercians. 1 of Celestines. 1 of Our Lady of the Mount. 3 of Mount Olivet. 1 of the Order of Saint Jerome [also known as Hieronymites]. 4 of Carthusians. 8 of Dominican friars. 3 of Friars Minor of the Observance. 5 of Reformed Friars Minor of the Observance. 1 of Capuchin minors. 5 of Friars Minor Conventuals. 3 of the Third Order of Saint Francis. 1 of the Order of Saint Augustine. 2 of the same order; of Lombardy. 3 of Discalced Augustinians. 5 of Carmelites. 1 of Reformed Carmelites. 5 of Discalced Carmelites. 1 of FF. of the Mercidarian Order. 2 of Trinitarians. 4 of Reformed Trinitarians. 5 of Minims. 2 of the blessed Pierre de Risa [?].194 2 of Good Brothers [?].195 1 of Saint Paul, the first hermit. 1 of the Order of Saint Anthony, abbot of Mount Lebanon. 1 of Hermits who live communally. 13 colleges governed by secular clergy. 194 Presumably, Pietro Gambacorta (1355–1435), also known as Pietro da Pisa. Founder with Nicola da Forca Palena of the Poor Hermits of Saint Jerome. Not to be confused with the Order of Saint Jerome or Hieronymites, mentioned above. 195 Presumably the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God, founded in 1572, whose members are known as Fatebenefratelli or the “Brothers who do good.”

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Convents of cloistered nuns under the care of secular priests: 1 of canonesses of Saint John Lateran. 2 of Benedictines. 1 of the Order of Saint Clare. 4 of the Third Order of Saint Francis. 6 of Augustinians. 1 of Capuchins. 2 of Saint Teresa. 1 of Cistercians. 1 of the Order of Saint Francis de Sales. 2 of Carmelites of the Order of Saint Mary Magdalene of the Mad. 2 private establishments. 9 unenclosed convents. 1 convent governed by those from Monte Cassino. 4 of Dominicans. 3 of Minors of the Observance. 1 of Capuchin Minors. 2 of Discalced Carmelites. 7 conservatories. 5 under the protection of apostolic Succour [?]. chapter vii [sic] In the service of all the churches – parish, basilican, and those for canons – an infinite number of priests is employed, just as at the Curia with all the cardinals, prelates, and other nobles, which provides yet more financial support. They extract for the most part a decent profit for their daily upkeep, without being occupied all the day long. The result is that after having fulfilled their obligations, they dedicate the remainder of their time to idleness mingled with hypocrisy and refinements. There is not, as it were, a single house not directed by some priests, who out of fraternal jealousy take care to exclude the secular clergy therefrom, and often work the miracle of multiplication, this being the most suited path to advancement. It is quite natural that a majority of people with good sense, knowing that there is in life nothing more preferable than having all its conveniences, apply themselves entirely thereto. These priests must have an income of three ducats per month in order not to sink into poverty. They apply themselves to the bar, to medicine, to trade, and to finance; in the end, they take away the bread of the poor secular clergy who, burdened with families, languish in poverty. chapter viii The main princely families number approximately forty. The most noteworthy are Bracciani Giustiniani Rezzonico Chigi Rignano Mondragone Buoncompagni

Albani Conti Doria Pantacroce Orsini Zante Sforza

Cafarelli Salviati Mettei Cesarini Bonelli d’Arci Lancellotti

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Montelibretto Altieri Ruspoli Colonna Sermoneta, and   others

Strozzi Tiano Grillo Pallavicini

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Rospigliosi Gabrielli Corsini Borghese

After these houses come many other distinguished ones, namely, houses of counts, marquises, and other nobles who, although they are not titled, are equal and perhaps superior in nobility in terms of the ancientness: namely, the Falconieri, Cenci, and Massimi families, etc. Many of these families possess magnificent palaces and gardens, and all that many sovereigns would have difficulty gathering in their royal palaces. Their revenues are quite considerable, and yet little proportioned to the expenses they are obliged to make, which lead them to deprive the poor of their labours, in order to fatten up their patrimonies. When these lords remained on their lands, their vassals were better treated, given that the flowing tears of unfortunate subordinate families were in sight. But today when the ministry’s laziness gives them free rein, the more he [sic] rips the poor man asunder, the more he gains and creates his estate. The presence, however, of feudatory princes on lands dependent upon him [i.e., the sovereign], increased disorders with regard to justice, because making use of their authority, they oppressed and ruined whomever they liked. You will still see today, in the older castles, secret prisons, and other hidden tortures: unspoken instruments of the vengeance of individual princes. But the sovereign, in decreasing their authority, has distanced them from their lands, which exude only slavery and poverty. Sixtus V disrupted agriculture and laid waste to the countryside to prevent the power of the nobles from becoming formidable; and so the State has begun to languish. When it was necessary to employ the poor for cultivating the land, he gained a profit proportionate to his labour and for the upkeep of his family. But once agriculture was diminished and, as it were, abolished, the proprietor is free to choose labourers who – proposing whatever he likes – are forced by him to take little rather than nothing, and he puts them in a situation where they labour indifferently, having no other goal than to gain this little bit with the least possible amount of fatigue. The result is that the pope’s subjects are accused of laziness and of demonstrating scant talents in their works, which comes from the meanness of the earnings that they extract from their labour. The pontiffs, who have created these families of princes and who have enriched them to the extent that we see, have done so most often by giving them what belongs to the State, so that with taxation, the body of the citizenry has been impoverished and the nobility has gained. Confiscations have enriched them even more, at the expense of the public who, obliged to maintain all the members of the government, as well as houses [i.e., noble families] and people who have committed some crime, must profit from everything belonging to it, in order not to be subject to new obligations for the support of the same officers. Among a multitude of examples, the House of Cenci provides one of the greatest. Their properties having been confiscated on account of a parricide, rather than handing them over for the benefit of the public, it was thought better to use them to create the treasures of the House of Borghese. Poverty wins out and gets the upper hand; all the more so that since wealth is concentrated in a few houses, a large number of dead and useless assets accumulate that serve neither growth nor the State. And as these assets include few objects and no one pays any regard to equal partition, the other members of the State must perforce languish, which creates general destitution.

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These wealthy ones maintain a numerous court, to which they give so little money that it is almost impossible that those people in their service can support their families, and it is difficult to guess how these courtiers can maintain themselves with so much luxury and splendour. But through clever schemes, the profits that they require of those who have need of them, money from priests and from those little gallant prelates who spread in their families: everything serves to create maintenance for these proud courtiers who, for the most part, leave behind a rich inheritance of debts. These secular princes in no wise go in for governance; they possess only a few offices, which are entirely dependent upon superior prelates or cardinals, and they profess the most profound ignorance. True stallions of the human race, they only consider the propagation of the species, calling upon the help of the mantle and purple.196 They have no other pastime than caring for their horses: the noblest occupation for these sublime wits who pass the entire day in their stables. They depend in all matters upon their agents, who take advantage of their simplicity to grow rich. Their social gatherings, consisting in the most brilliant youth from the prelates, exude a certain atmosphere of gravity: at all times, mystery and politics are observed. A great deal of respect is shown them, because they can from one moment to the next change in status, and consequently, one fears having them as enemies. The spouses of these great men often have considerable wit; they assemble in their circles those who possess the highest responsibilities; they obtain all that they desire. Sometimes, since they doff the hats of cardinals, they take care to distance their husbands from the house, so that the latter might recover from jealousy and so that they learn to respect the wisdom and conduct of their wives. It is with such support that the men can easily establish their fortunes. A prudent prince is absolutely obliged to suffer all in silence, otherwise he would do harm to his interest and would attract everyone’s enmity. chapter ix The citizens rarely have properties in their possession; they boil down to large numbers of lawyers, doctors, and to all those who have embraced the liberal arts. In view of the reasons given above with regard to the nobles, it is natural that the former can possess nothing, since custom contributes more than all the rest to their apparent grandeur and to their real destitution. The majority of them go – not on account of their own merit but as a requirement of advancement – go, I say, little by little, from extreme want to a lucrative and abundant living. But, at the same time, it is necessary to put oneself at the same level as others, to have a superb apartment hung with silk, with gilded sculptures, and beautiful paintings. Such a fortune can only be amassed approaching fifty years of age, death knocks, and a poor family remains behind, devoid of all that could preserve it. The most lucrative offices are obtained via supernumeraries, and not by merit but by turns. The wives of citizens have cold dispositions. Easy enough in appearance, they really only have their sights upon lucre. Incapable of tenderness and, consequently, apt for plucking the wealthiest, their deceitful caresses provide much to be hoped for. But inherently indifferent, with their artificial refusals they foment passions and sell their pleasures at a

196 Purple, along with signifying sovereignty and power more generally, was metonymic for the cardinal ranks in the Roman Church.

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high price. The majority of citizens, for lack of trade, direct their children to the ecclesiastical and monastic stations. But as they enter therein at an age incapable of reflection, they fill the city with malcontents who do nothing but curse their cruel situation. chapter x A large part of those who reside in Rome make for the Court. Most often, you will see them rapidly pass from the low state of coachman, porter, or lackey to a more elevated state, and become arbiters and advisers of nobles, cardinals, and even of the prince. They wear the same clothes as their master, and if they have youth and beauty going for them, the purple often makes them a quick fortune. You often see their wives in coaches, dressed in velvet, with watch and jewels; and at the same time, their husband [sic] holds the door for this lady, who sometimes makes circulate in her veins the blood of the most distinguished nobility of Rome. These wretches are forever creating new scenes in the country, and continually move from wealth to poverty, on account of the government being electoral and of short duration; the second comers rise up on the ruin of the first, and so it goes with others in turn. chapter xi There are very few artists because there is no commerce and because the arts are not encouraged. They are accomplished imitators, but who cannot and dare not invent, out of uncertainty about where they will sell their labour. Their toils are barely recompensed, and most often they are denied the earnings that should be justly accorded them because the enduring uncertainty of the courts, the infinite resources of these people of bad faith, and the apprehension of having to pay the trial costs in addition – everything prevents these people from extracting the honest earnings that they deserve. It happens sometimes that the agent of a house says to those who have laboured: “I do not have the master’s money to give you; I can lend you some of mine, but I never give money without profit for myself. Therefore, sign over to me a part of your claim, and draw up a receipt for the whole.” The need to live forces these unfortunates to subscribe to this horrible usury, fruit of the surety of these protected persons, who enjoy their master’s credit. chapter xii The death of masters, the inevitable decadence of courtiers, the scarcity of public employments, the large number of handouts that ensure certain aid for idleness, all this produces that prodigious multitude of riff-raff who live in Rome without any profession. You cannot take a step without encountering a beggar who torments you for half an hour and only leaves you be after having received something. They can, if they took the trouble to do so, sup ten to twelve times per day, since all the convents give to the poor the excess of their tables. A number of conventions favourable to these bandits confirms this flaw in the government. In a well-regulated State, alms must be excluded, each member fit to be useful to the public and for his preservation must be employed therein, and it is reasonable that he sacrifice his freedom and the surplus of his labour to the public good, persuaded that he will withdraw therefrom, in case of sickness or old age, the support necessary for himself and for his family, which must not be seen as charity, but as a real right. These wretches fill the country with crimes that proceed from another source that we shall examine in due course.

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chapter xiii Rome is divided into 18 quarters, each of which has a public apothecary, a doctor, a surgeon, and three paoli of alms per day for every sick person. The highest-ranking person governing these quarters is ordinarily called the chief.197 He is a sort of officer of the people, that is it to say, officer of troops of burghers who are levied when the first seat is vacant [?]; these are veritable Roman troops that are dependent upon the Capitol. These quarters have a number of parishes, which overall amount to 82, and altogether they consist of about 26,000 souls. The households or families included number around 35,600. There are 28 hospitals for public relief, both for the sick as well as for convalescents. When the sick have suffered some disease in a hospital, they depart therefrom to go into another and spend a gentle three-day convalescence in a place called the Trinity, where they are very well treated. There are hospitals for foreigners, pilgrims, who are treated for three days, and the following days, they find public locales intended for their maintenance, and in this manner they can get along for five to six days. Behold the fons et origo of true destitution, because while the interior languishes, wealth is lavished upon the upkeep of an infinite number of brigands who inundate this unfortunate country. And thus, the Camera, that is to say, the public, contracting new debts, must rebuild itself upon the backs of the poor inhabitants for useless expenditures consecrated to pomp and impiety. chapter xiv The land and sea forces of this State are more limited. Rome only contains in itself one [force] of 300 soldiers, of which the officers do not even know what a bomb is; they have no experience with swords and know nothing about matters of war. This troop is employed for repressing disorders that could arise in the city; the major occupation is levelling and cleaning the city, putting its houses level. These troops are of second rank, and fittingly commanded by a prelate. Nine hundred soldiers make up the corps called the Reds and they form the most respectable guard; it has divisions in several quarters of the city and is commanded by another Monsignor who has the title of commissioner of arms, who in the courtyard of his palace has military exercises done. These troops stand guard at the palace of the prince and are used for crowd containment, for accompanying processions, for directing the coaches that are going to some particular spot, and for taking to social gatherings the most entitled of their respective masters. To this honourable employment an officer who sees to his advancement via the noble exercise of directing coachmen presides in the road. The third corps of troops is called the Corsicans and is made up of 300 men. They guard the gates. These soldiers were formerly a sort of sbirri who prowled the countryside, and today they have been shaped into a corps for guarding the gates. They may have to undertake expeditions against bandits in the countryside; they are likewise subordinate to a prelate admitted to the Council, by which this troop is directed.198

197 The chief administrator of each region or rione of Rome was called in Italian the Caporione. At the time of Sade’s journey, there were fourteen and not eighteen districts as stated above. 198 The troops in question were originally made up of Corsicans and retained the name corsi in the eighteenth century, although made up primarily of papal subjects at this time. On these and the rossi or “reds,” see

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The galleys of Civitavecchia contain two hundred soldiers, whose uniform is the colour red. They are employed in expeditions that the pontiff upon rare occasions makes against the corsairs. Of the five galleys that are in this port, only three do service; they cannot take a single step without express orders from the pope, and before departing from the port, the ceremony is so solemn that everyone is informed months in advance: this here is the easiest way to take the pirates by surprise. 50 soldiers form the guard and serve for the defence of the Castle of Civitavecchia; 50 for that of Urbino; and 500 for Ferrara. The pope would be a formidable prince if, by means of agriculture, he knew how to take steps to populate his country properly and, consequently, to have a number of well-ordered troops, as well as warships at sea, and to add to this a solid defence of maritime fortresses. He has the two seas: the Mediterranean and the Adriatic; he could entirely prevent trade from the Levant, and collect for himself those immense riches that the English and the Dutch extract therefrom. A long chain of mountains defends […]199

Hanns Gross, Rome in the Age of Enlightenment: The Post-Tridentine Syndrome and the Ancien Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 214ff. 199 The rest is missing.

Correspondence

1  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade1 (Florence, August-September 1775) My dear friend, With these two lines, I send you my greeting. I am anxious to know how you are faring since yesterday evening; I have not seen you since and am quite distraught, since I would not want to be at the root of your trouble. Moreover, it was raining when you left, and I would not want that to have worsened your pain. Let me know something that will calm me. I am sending you the stiletto and the book; it was my understanding that it will bring you pleasure; I beg that you accept it and consider it as a very weak exchange for all the favours that I have received from you and that I will never be able to return. Yet accept a good heart: sincere in its love for you. The more quickly that you come and see me today, the greater will be my pleasure. Farewell.

2  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, August-September 1775) My dear, I give you my greetings and inform you that there are great changes concerning your lodging with me, and my mother-in-law is the reason for this. We will discuss this together today. I give you my word that this has put me in such an agitated state that I have been unable to sleep a wink. At this time, I cannot tell you more, as I am in such great distress, and my spouse as well. Forgive me if I do not go on at length and [am writing] in haste. Goodbye, my dear.

3  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade2 (Florence, August-September 1775) Forgive me for having bothered you so early, but I could not find peace, knowing how lacking I’ve been and, consequently, how unworthy of you. But I love you, my dear, and I swear to do 1 Chiara Moldetti’s letters to Sade are in Italian in the original. They contain numerous solecisms. 2 Sade’s annotation: “From Mme Moldetti of Florence.”

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in the future everything that will please you. Forgive the one who loves you with the liveliest feelings of a sincere heart. I write you all this with tears accompanying my sincerest feelings. I await you with the greatest impatience this evening at my home, to embrace you. Your most faithful. Farewell.

4  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, August-September 1775) Dear Count, I am infinitely obliged for the attention that you have shown me. Forgive me for not having been able to receive your servant, but I was unable to do so at the time. I will tell you that I am much better rested than on the other nights. Now, I want to know if you are faring well, which is for me the most pressing matter. Remember to drink iced water, as you said yesterday evening, for your health. If it were allowed me, how fortunate would I count myself to be able to give you a glass, of which I would drink the half. Think of the one who tenderly loves you. Goodbye, dear. As you have promised me, do not receive visitors.

5  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade3 (Florence, 23 October 1775) My dear, Accept these two lines that I send you before departing for the country. I cannot go without writing to you. I want to know if you have happily arrived in Rome and if you have had a good journey, which is the most pressing for me since I love you too much to fail to give you this small proof. I am awaiting a dear letter from you next Tuesday, as we have agreed; I have not failed to alert my sister so that she will be punctual in sending someone to the post office and seeking the same. She asks me to send you her compliments. I beg you, my dear, to think of the one who adores you. Truly believe that my sole pleasure is to turn my mind to you and to recall the happy moments that we have spent together. Oh! How much more would I seemingly do, if at present I were able to hold you in my arms in order to embrace you and kiss you and give you all those proofs that one can give when one loves so tenderly? But for one of the sincerest proofs of my love for you, remember that I revealed to you that you were the first to whom I said that the love that remains most faithfully yours today was inspired in me at first sight. Hugs. Farewell. P.S. I hope to be calmer when I write you again; I had to start over three times in order to write you these two lines.

6  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 4 November 1775) Sir, The feeling of respectful attachment that I have devoted to you was beginning to torment me, not seeing any letters from you; but happily for my peace of mind, I have received two this morning of 4 November. I do not fail to answer them and to thank you for having provided me with news of your dear health, as well as the generous care that you have taken at the instant of your arrival of busying yourself with the favour that I had asked of you to 3 Sade notes at the top: “Mme Moldetti, addressed to Rome.”

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procure a coin of the reigning pontiff, considering the value of which, shall mean that I no longer dare beg anything more of you. In the letter of notification that was remitted to me, I learn that I will receive two more still. I have had other proofs, sir, of your kindness, which I beg you to keep for me. I have attentively read concerning what has happened to you, both about the success of Monsieur Doni’s letter as well as about the one that I had taken the liberty of giving you. The contrast between the ardour of the one and the frigidity of the other, about which I had warned you, must doubtless have quite struck you and not put you at ease – adding to this the young doctor lost in Rome, but who would have surely helped you, is not easy to find.4 I nonetheless hope, my lord count, that by the time this one [i.e., letter] arrives, you will have settled matters a bit and that Monsieur Huart, to whom I am writing, will have done something to procure for you lodging both decent and to your taste. As for Doctor Iberti’s address, I know of no other than the one that I put on the letter, for I would not have failed to give you the necessary indications, knowing what it means to be a stranger in a city like Rome, where you do not reckon on making a long sojourn as long as you find there a vacuum, either because of the lack of acquaintances or of shows. I know that you are discreet, but there are nonetheless quite a few Frenchmen in Rome. You are to be pitied; however, it is only the others who are losing out. You love to concentrate on contemplating beautiful buildings and the beautiful remains of learned Antiquity, in taking judicious notes: with these propensities, you will enjoy yourself. How much would I wish, sir, to be my own master! I would come to amuse you, and in the case that ancient and modern were insufficient, I would do so in such a way that you would not be so bored. I have the audacity, in spite of my tone of pathos, to believe that I would amuse you. But if that is not the case, why have you flattered me? I have been and I come once more from the post office to see whether you have received letters from France; I have not found any there. Count on me should any arrive. I hope that if you go to Naples, you will find things a bit more enjoyable. You will find there one of my daughters and my son-in-law, a talented man, who will already be well informed on the region and could be of use to you. I am vexed at not having been able to touch the tepidity of Monsieur Huart; if you had not seen my letters, I would do more to justify myself. My spouse and my daughters have the honour of sending you their regards. We speak of you, sir, every day. We would all of us like to serve you in this country. We have nothing new to report. The rains begin; for the moment, they only do good. I await that at your convenience you will tell me something of your voyage and your observations on the city of Rome. Awaiting this moment, I have the honour, sir, to respectfully be your very humble and very obedient servant. Doctor Mesny

7  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade5 (7 November 1775) My dear friend, I have received your dear one [i.e., letter] on the seventh of this one [i.e., month], which I was already beginning to get vexed that I would not receive. So, I am going to tell you that it

4 The reference is doubtless to Giuseppe Iberti (see infra). 5 Sade has written at the top: “Addressed to Rome.”

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did not seem fitting to tell my husband just now that I have received your letter, while I have until present not told him that you had written me, and myself likewise, and so let him see that we have made use of a third party, that is, my sister the nun. Therefore, I have said nothing, but I beg you rather to write my husband a couple lines, and not to tell him that you have written me. You had promised him that as soon as you had arrived in Rome, you would write him, and he wonders that he has not seen a letter from you. But I can assure you that he does not fail to go to the post office to inquire after your letter, yet never is there one to be found. How sorry am I, my dear, to hear that you are so mistreated, both in terms of dining as well as company! How would I not give to be at your side and to do for thee all that you desire!6 I have no other ambition but to make you happy! You ask me if I will soon deliver. I will answer that I am relieved that this may happen today or tomorrow. But the consolation that I would desire, I know it not nor even hope for it, which is to have you close to me. I am writing to you in haste, since I have a cold and at present have a bit of a fever, but I hope that this will be nothing. I ever believed that you would more or less console me by mentioning to me your return to our elevated spot, but I was mistaken.7 I hope that you have received my two letters, and I beg you to let me know for my peace of mind, and moreover, it would give me pleasure if you were to write to me, because I am ever afraid that these [i.e., letters] have gone astray. Give me, I beg of you, news of your health and [tell me] who are the men or women with whom you keep company all the day long. Everyone tells me – and my mother, too – that you will stay for a long while and that you also wish to go to Naples. I think, my dear friend, that these are not the pacts that we made together, but I grant you your freedom entirely and will see thereby whether you love me as you say. As for me, I swear to you, I keep my word to you and will keep it until death, because I love you truly. Come back quickly, my dear, to console the one who loves you and who is ever in pain since your departure. I would like to have a few of my little necessities before going to bed; if you send me some in your letter, I would be grateful. Forgive my freedom, which you gave so that I could make use of it. Farewell. Take care of yourself for the sake of your Chiara who loves you and who only lives in you and is faithful to you alone.

8  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 11 November 1775) Sir, I was quite stunned at receiving the honour of yours [i.e., letter], in which you tell me that you await news from me, since I had precisely answered your first, which contained a zecchino of the reigning pontiff. I was mightily moved by the feeling of the liveliest gratitude to put off bearing witness of this to you. In my same letter of response, I had adjoined thereto one for Monsieur Huart, with the intention of putting that ridiculous phlegm, which it seems to me he puts on, into motion. I had certainly warned you that you would find a frigid man, but in truth, sir, I find in his behaviour a boggy phlegm that smells of the poor wellspring whence he came. But let’s forget about this coarse automaton, made for folks who are not within our sphere and who do not sense that we honour them. For what more could I have 6 Sade’s correspondent switches in mid-sentence from the formal to the familiar form of address. 7 Sade had noted that the “country house of [Chiara] Moldetti was upon an elevated spot, half a league from Poggio a Caiano, the royal home.”

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done? Neither attentions nor the polite advances towards his wife, as you have seen, have been [spared?], to my mind, on top of what you yourself have done. The only thing that displeases me is to have exposed you and to have abased myself in vain with respect to that churl. I am charmed, on the contrary, that you have been happier with my little man;8 the latter was of my choosing, and the former out of a sort of necessity. I am philosophical enough not to get bent out of shape, but rather to maintain utter indifference. I find it quite displeasing that he has in his hands a casket of medals that belongs to me, which will oblige me to once more deal with him when I desire to get them back, and that I hope that you will be willing to bring back to me, as I have begged you. I guess from your letter that you will have had to make do with the cicerone that your gentleman relative recommended to you. I would have been delighted to do it for you, but my body cannot heed the feelings of my heart. If all men thought like me, I would not have had the good fortune of holding such a happy spot in your mind. The nicety of Monsieur Huart has left me in an advantageous light in your eyes. If I had been little doctor Iberti’s age, I could well have been less suited for what you might have expected from me, supposing nonetheless that I should have had the good fortune to please you. But I am not fishing for compliments, since I have been and am still today well recompensed for the desire that I have had to be useful to you. Florence’s antiquities and beauties do not provide as much material as those of Rome for sustained discussions. We have seen the galleries, some palaces, some churches, and there you have it. In Rome, you cannot go a hundred feet without finding material that brings to mind historical episodes. If the structures remain intact, one admires the art and recalls the epoch thereof. If they are ruins, one discusses the event and the causes of destruction. If the structures today serve another purpose, such as temples converted into churches, one is almost vexed to see the change that has been brought about; not that the end isn’t quite praiseworthy; one is vexed – or at least this is how I felt – to see the Tarpeian Rock not as high; one is moved by a number of different sentiments; one would like to see the Temple of Peace in all its splendour, to see therein the spoils of the famous Temple of Jerusalem; one regrets the bronzes of the Pantheon, melted down by the Barberini, and knowing that they are the cause of the ruin of the Colosseum or Colossus; one abhors the memory of the Huns, the Goths, the Vandals, and their kings; one is angry with the pontiffs, such as Saint Gregory, who had thrown into the Tiber numerous beautiful statues because they represented Venus, Diana, Vesta, or Juno. Desirous of sanctifying everything, they have made us ignorant. By despoiling mausoleums of their ornaments, ours ideas have been shrunk. All that remains for you is a feeble notion of Hadrian’s tomb, and as for the temples, I am going to state something coarse: I know not whether Saint Peter’s is more bold and more stately than those of Jupiter Fulminans and of Concord, of which there remain such lovely columns behind the Capitol. But I digress and bore you. You see, sir, whether I would have been well suited as cicerone. I know more still, but this is more than enough for a single go. If I had had some news to give you, I would not have stopped at telling you trivialities: banter is good when it does not go so far. Forgive me, this will be the only time. I have given word of you to my daughter in Naples. Please be so good as to tell me when you think you might leave, so that I have time to send you a letter.

8 The reference is to Dr Iberti.

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We have nothing in particular going on. Some rainy days have made the time seem to pass slowly for us; man is never happy! The court has returned to Florence in good health. We have seen a sizeable outbreak of catarrh, but without causing significant disease; this is passing. I have hardly felt it at all, nor my spouse as well as my daughter Françoise, who both send you their greetings. Madame Moldetti has not yet delivered and the vigil, in spite of all, goes as well as possible. I hope to receive at your convenience notification of receipt of the one [i.e., letter] that I dated the fourth. I beg you to give me your orders for that province. I have the honour of being, with respect, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Doctor Mesny [etc.] P.S. I have received my diploma from Mannheim [etc.]

9  From Pierre-Ange Goudar to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 11 November 1775) My dear count, I have received your letter, which truly gave me pleasure. I was persuaded the city of Rome would surprise you with its grandeur and magnificence; you will be even more so when you shall have seen all that there is to see.9 Notwithstanding, it is only a sketch of that city that was formerly the wonder of the universe. You will discover them [sic] by the wreckage that remains thereof. One must carefully attend to distinguishing Greek works from those of the Romans, for it is in this difference that the entire foundation of ancient history consists. The Greeks, who had derived the arts from the Egyptians, perfected them and subsequently passed them on to the Romans, but the latter were never as great masters as their masters. This is something that you yourself will mark in comparing a statue of the latter with one of the former. Nonetheless, Saint Peter’s of Rome is worth more than all that the eras of Demosthenes and Augustus produced at their greatest. They did not have the notion of erecting a vault in one entire piece on top of a building of such immense size; this is an advantage that we have over them in this area of architecture, as well as in grandeur of design in painting, as we see from Raphael and from the other artists that came after him. I know not whether they had the upper hand on us in warfare; in any case, this is not a matter of great import, for a science that limits itself to killing men is not worthy of the name. As for me, I believe that Frederick [II of Prussia] would have beaten Scipio. You must know this better than I, you who are a military man. We are quite obliged by the kind offer that you made us of coming to Rome to see the coronation of the pope and of even passing the winter there.10 This was in effect our plan, but having examined the state of our finances, we have found them too tight, and this because we spent thirty thousand livres in fourteen months in Tuscany and utter boredom. Nonetheless, let us know how long you will remain, and it will not be impossible to see us there; this depends upon a couple of bills of exchange that I have sent to France, the sooner the payment of which arrives the sooner I would depart.

  9 Sade had been in Rome for two weeks at this point, having arrived on 27 Oct. 1775. 10 The papal coronation of Giovanni Angelo Braschi or Pius VI was, in fact, on 22 February 1775; however, the ceremony of possession of the cathedra took place – Sade in attendance – on 30 November.

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Correspondence

We learn from the gazettes that the Baron de Breteuil will perhaps get the war department in France, vacated by the death of the Count de Muy.11 If this is so, we will be able to do you some service, my spouse and I, since we know him well. I am with all possible respect, my dear count, your very humble and very obedient servant. Chevalier Goudar

10  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (21 November 1775) Sir, Because you wish it, I will take advantage of the tokens of your kindness and of your friendship that you deign to give me, and in this regard will ask you for some objects for my cabinet, either something in the way of natural history or in the way of medals. You say such obliging things to me that I am unable to resist. I am quite put out that Monsieur Huart’s rusticity should have been incapable of turning into some glimmer of urbanity with respect to your person. In a way, this man has been little accustomed to society manners. His wife, as dull and coarse as he, left eight days ago without the slightest thanks given to those who had shown her favour during her stay in Florence. The Latin proverb might be applied to them: Rustica progenies nescit habere modum.12 Before I would compromise myself with regard to them, deer will graze in the ether – excuse me, I will cite no more.13 I have received a response from my young doctor who, as you have stated, has the skill to please you and to converse with you. This one at least recompenses me, as I see from your latest [letter]. I read therein that you had found decent lodgings and a passable caterer. You are so interesting that everything having to do with you affects me. You tell me how many things you are doing, how much you are admiring, contemplating, and, all said and done, how little time this leaves you for your pleasures. You will perhaps not be put out, my dear count: you will rediscover that French ladies are more lovable and more playful than the bulk of those about whom you speak to me. Yes, monsieur, as far as society goes, there is naught but the French. Other nations have their virtues. If the French are frivolous, others have false dazzle, ponderousness, haughtiness, and melancholy. The French will be able to cure themselves; they were once sturdy. As for the others, if they have kept their original character, I consider them – without prejudice to their virtue – like pieces of non-malleable metal thrown into moulds.

11 Louis Nicolas Victor de Félix, Count de Muy died on 10 Oct. 1775. The former French ambassador to Naples (1772–1774), where Goudar likely became his acquaintance, Louis Charles Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil was sent to Vienna in Sept. 1774. He was not, however, named minister of war; ClaudeLouis, Count de Saint-Germain was instead (see p. 592 and p. 592n18 below). 12 Translated: “A rustic people knows no bounds.” Although proverbial, the expression had been applied recently to a woman taking her leave senza salutare or without a proper goodbye in Carlo Goldoni’s 1764 comedy Il Ventaglio [The Fan]. See Collezione completa delle comedie di Signor Carlo Goldoni (Livorno, 1789), 9:108. 13 The citation to which Mesny refers here is from Virgil’s Eclogues: “Sooner, then, shall the nimble stag graze in air [Antes leves ergo pascentur in aethere cervi], and the seas leave their fish bare on the strand – sooner, each wandering over the other’s frontiers, shall the Parthian in exile drink the Arar and the German the Tigris, than that look of his shall fade from my heart.” Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough and revised by G.P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 28–9 [ll.59–63].

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You ask that I write to my son-in-law in Naples in order to establish correspondence with him.14 I will do so, but I must warn you: this man is quite busy; he must hasten his return to France and set up business there. He has wit and talent. He is fair, extremely sharp, a touch talkative. While he charms on first impression, you would think him a bit calmer. He is not from my fatherland; in spite of that, I am familiar with the defects of his nation as well as those of my own. From Lorraine or from Nancy to the pyre of the Maid of Orleans, the same distance lies between his character and mine.15 The native of Lorraine is stubborn, bold, grudging, but straightforward. I leave you, sir, to compare the one with the other when you have met him. I have my reasons for explaining myself in such a wise. I do not claim to inform you that he is lacking in probity; I cannot say it without harming my conscience, but he has picked some quarrels with me and said some injurious things in society that have been quite sensitive for me. Happily, people know me, but it is quite unpleasant to find yourself in such a situation. Keep this secret. As for my daughter, it would not be fitting to tell you things to her advantage. I will say broadly that she is still young. She was quite lively; her husband must have quite worried her with his hotheaded spells, from which he quickly recovers. Besides, she is sweet and was sincere like the rest of us. She wanted this man whom she was told was quite a find; in the end, knowing him, that says it all. I have reproached Madame Moldetti, who says she has not received your letters. My wife asks me to pass along her humble greetings; my daughter adds the same sentiments. I have not heard tell a word about Mr nor Mrs Goudar; I have not seen him either. You know, Monsieur, that the Vannini, from whom I might have had some news, do not belong to the same world that I inhabit.16 A few medical men, a few philosophers, a few curious sorts: these are my people. We have had major rains, it begins to get cold and there is snow on our mountains. There will be still some masks and perhaps some balls in our theatres: these are about all the resources I have to furnish you with matters to make you laugh with pity.

11  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (21 November 1775) My dear count, I know not whether it’s because of my sister’s negligence, but I am still pained to receive your letters two or three days after the others. I write to you in haste. Consider well everything that I am going to say to you in this letter. You know already that I write to you without anyone’s knowledge and that nobody must know this. It is thus, my love, that you have instructed me to act, and this is why I am persuaded that you keep the secret for me. I tell you this because my mother assured me yesterday that she knew that you were writing to me. I denied it, and I intend to stand firm, as long as you support me, provided that you have not

14 The person in question is Jean-Baptiste Antoine Tierce, a French landscape artist, resident in Naples, and husband of one of Dr Mesny’s daughters (see the introduction to this volume). 15 As the doctor implies, he was from Lorraine, while Tierce was born in Rouen. 16 Attilio Vannini, an innkeeper and doctor of philosophy, had married an Englishwoman named Mary Boyd. His establishment, located near the Ponte alla Carraia on the Borgo Ognissanti, was one of the most esteemed in Florence. Casanova stayed there when visiting the city. See Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, History of My Life, vols. 7–8, trans. Willard R. Trask (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 145 and 544n16. An erstwhile financier or businessman, Vannini also kept a stable of race horses.

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already told my mother, which would cause me much vexation, along with another thing that I will refrain from telling you until you are again close to me. I was writing you before having received your letter, but someone has just brought it to me this instant. While I was expecting so much joy from it, I see myself on the contrary wrongly accused, and you let me know, with this very letter, how much you have changed in my regard. You accuse me wrongly, my dear. But be more sincere and tell me that you are using this as a pretext to go to Naples: I was expecting this since the day you were far from me. This is not, my dear, the reward that I deserve, nor what you had promised me. You wish to feign and hide perhaps that you have received three letters from me. I thought that the last, above all, would have committed you to returning to see the one who loves you. But well I see that unhappiness is all that remains for me, and that it wants to persecute me in every respect. Oh, cursed Naples! And Rome, which I cannot bless either! These two cities will have been the death of me. Me, who was awaiting this time a tender letter, one full of those feelings that I had known from you and that I have lost, well do I see it! I can attribute all this only to my misfortune. Oh, how you are mistaken, my love! And how much do you make me tremble with rage and pain to receive such a cold letter without having deserved it, when I was expecting something utterly the contrary. But I want to flatter myself, knowing that you are a man of reason, that you will change your mind and lend more attention to my letters, and that you will not cause me the chagrin of going to Naples. Oh, how unhappy I am – me, who spends not a moment, not a day, without reckoning when you will return. Yes, it is thus that at every moment I busy myself thinking of you – and with such pleasure! But no, I do not believe that you wish to inflict this suffering on me! I await you: come, my sole hope, come back to console the one who adores you, and you will see whether I deserve the fatal sentence with which you threaten to condemn me. Ah no, my love, consider first and next confirm what you have told me, if this seems fair and deserved to she who loves you, your poor Chiara who loves you so much and who impatiently awaits the moment she will hold you tightly in her arms. Oh, my treasure, if you abandon me, I will only say that you have found this excuse to abandon me, and I will discern in you one of the most barbaric and most deceitful hearts, because this will mean that you have never loved me. Hurrying to send you a response both quick and clear, I send you a thousand kisses that you will perhaps reject. But me, faithful for all eternity, I embrace you with this heart’s most burning passion – this heart that you have taken such pleasure in afflicting. But I am prepared to receive anything from you. Even death, from your hand, would be dear. Goodbye. P.S. I would have never thought to suffer so at this moment, when I am going to give birth one day soon. P.S. I had begged you to write to my husband and you have not done so. This tells me everything! P.S. If you love me, I beg of you, don’t tell a soul that I have written you.

12  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (27 November 1775) Sir, I am truly surprised that you should complain, in your letter to my father, that I have not written you. Yesterday evening he sent me your letter dated the 20th. It must be that you have not received my letters, or that you did this on purpose so that it be known that we were writing one another. I have found myself in an unfortunate position, since I have always denied that I was writing you, and consequently that I was receiving news from you. I was

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not doing anything other than keeping in this way the secret to which we had together agreed prior to your departure. I assure you that I have been deeply afflicted to be taken for a liar, since this is not my fault. Perhaps you know my faults better than I, since one sees better the mote in the eyes of others than the beam in one’s own. In spite of everything, I cannot dissimulate my respect, and I deem myself your very humble servant. Chiara Moldetti

13  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (28 November 1775) Sir, I have been very affected by the last letter that you did the honour of writing me, in which I read of the rudeness and impertinence that Monsieur Huart has done you. You judge well, sir, that I am in no wise the guarantor of either the humour or the soundness of men’s heads. If, for having made civilities to that man’s wife, we have been linked [?] in such manner, if he has claims to make, this absolutely ought not be done via you. And as for me, if I forgo them in his case, this is because I am entitled to hold him in contempt, since I am familiar with his extraction. His manners confirm well enough the education that he has received and what he is. If he believes himself entitled to behave untowardly to you, you are likewise so to bring him to his senses. He has a superior in Rome whom HRH, my master, has made responsible for dealings relative to Tuscany. The postal service falls within this competence, and if he is responsible for the management thereof, this is not a right that he can be negligent about with anyone, let alone someone of your rank. Do you want me to write him? This puts me in a position to suffer some other disgusting slight. You know, sir, that I had warned you about what I thought of him. In order to prove to you, however, my singular devotion, I will do it on the off chance. He has a casket of medals that belong to me; I fear his spite, but I do not think he would be without honour. On your end, sir, register your resentment with the minister made responsible by S.A.R. for the behaviour of that man; you have motives and entitlements enough, based upon what you have indicated to me. I will speak to him about your trunk. I have seen what you say about the beautiful monuments of Rome and the judicious observations that you make. Certainly, Saint Peter’s is one of the masterpieces of modern times, but it is the only one in Europe. Saint Paul’s in London is spoken of with admiration; I have not seen it. But if in Europe there are only a few scattered works, in which several objects are particularly admirable, products of the fine arts, Greece was adorned almost everywhere with statues, temples, public buildings, and singular furnishings, such as vases of jasper, alabaster, marble, porphyry, which did not belong, I mean to say, to kings, to princes, to tyrants, but to private individuals, you will agree, sir, either that they were greater, more tasteful, or more splendid, but also richer than the moderns, which provided artists with more resources and maintained the taste for the beautiful and the vast. History tells us that not only armies made off with plunder, but Cicero’s pleas also inform us about the despoilment and theft of consuls in various provinces. If those unhappy times returned, what would be plundered from us? In spite of all the gold that America, Guinea, and mines of Europe have provided for us, are we as well off as were the Ancients, before the incursion of Huns, Goths, and all the barbarians? Who, of our rich men today, orders urns made of granite and of porphyry? We equal in porcelain, perhaps, the vases improperly called Etruscan, the shapes and accuracy of the drawings, mysterious symbols, represented either religion or heroic

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deeds; we are very far, I say, from having such instructive earthenware utensils and ones that might be admired by posterity. But I glimpse that I am not writing a letter, that I am not discoursing, that I am only saying words and that I am boring you. Pardon me, sir, I am going to finish up as soon as I have presented you with the reverences of my family, while assuring you that I will always respectfully be, sir, your very humble and most obedient servant. Doctor Mesny, physician consultant, etc. P.S. You ought to have received the letter for Naples.

14  From Pierre-Ange Goudar to Marquis de Sade (Florence, 5 December 1775) My dear count, I have received with great pleasure the honour of your letter. I see that you are keeping yourself quite entertained in Rome and that you have much there to entertain you, but one must be pleased with that sort of entertainment. As for us, we are hardly entertained here, and if it were possible for us to leave this city, we would have already done so. Let me know how you have been received by Cardinal de Bernis.17 If you met him on one of his good days and he wasn’t suffering from any heart troubles, you will have found him quite amiable. It is also the case that he has not forgotten that he was lodged in a rooming house at Butte Saint-Roch, at the rate of twelve livres, as prescribed for indigent folk. It hardly happens that those rooming houses provide cardinals for Rome and that those cardinals become French ambassadors. You must have been quite surprised that Monsieur de Saint-Germain had been made minister of war.18 He was reduced to poverty and was planting cabbages when someone came to deliver the news to him. He could not help but shed tears of joy, given this unexpected change of fortune. I could not tell you whether this has been well done. He is a very upright man, brave and courageous. He knows how to wield a sword, but I am unsure whether he will know how to wield a pen well. A good officer can be a very poor minister. Perhaps the talent for one is incompatible with that for the other. The former must be adept with the ways of war, and the latter with the ways of affairs; one must have skill for the general, and the other a knack for details – a talent that cannot be acquired in middle age, because it is born of obstacles, of assiduousness, and of continuity in affairs. Whence it happens that a senior office clerk is often in a better position to fill that spot than a senior officer. This is because the former has spent forty years around a table writing up orders concerning war and the other has spent forty years carrying out military orders, which makes for two men whose essential qualities must be different. But you know that in France, they don’t act in accordance with the way things really are; they make do, and usually for the worse. I am sending you the letter that Madame has published on the Carnival in Tuscany.19 I have added one or two strokes of my own: the one about English travellers, where you will 17 François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis (1715–1794) was a French cardinal and France’s ambassador to Rome at the time of Sade’s visit. He came from a noble but impecunious family. 18 Claude-Louis, Comte de Saint Germain (1707–1778) was a French general who, after professional setbacks during the Seven Years War, served the king of Denmark and was responsible for the reorganization of his army. Having returned to France in 1766, he lost his savings in a financial crisis. He was appointed minister of war on 25 October 1775. 19 Sara Goudar, Relation historique des divertissements du Carnaval de Toscane, ou Lettre de Mme Sara G. à M. Tilney (Monaco, 1775). The author is highly critical of balls and other entertainments given in Florence between the 15th of September and the 3rd of November of 1775. It was apparently printed in Florence in

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see how I nicely I treat them. I had been charmed to find this occasion to treat thus those haughty and supercilious islanders who regard all other nations on the Earth as inferior to their own. I am, with every possible consideration, my dear count, your very humble and very obedient servant. Chevalier Goudar

15  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 9 December 1775) Sir, Having watched three mail coaches go by without having received any dear letters from you, I know not what to think. I don’t know whether the letter that I have had the honour of writing you – and that contained one for Naples – has made it to you. Tell me please whether you were happy with it. I am sending you herewith attached an answer from Monsieur Huart that you will read. You will see that he shall receive your trunk. I am desirous that I might be otherwise useful to you. My wife and my family send along their humble compliments and salutations. Mme Moldetti has not yet given birth. Nothing new here; it is cold but clear. I have the honour of being respectfully, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny P.S. Please give my best, if I dare trouble you so, to Doctor Iberti.

16  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 9 December 1775) Sir, I was beginning to no longer know what to think of your silence, when over the course of a few hours I received three of your signals – allow me the term. They inform me that you are thinking of me and about the state of your dear health, a matter most engaging. The first, which I was able to judge from the date, was the vivid account of the ceremony of Pius VI’s taking possession of the papacy.20 The description that you were so kind as to make for me was so exacting, so detailed, that it seemed to me that I was present, and I said to myself: “This is what it means to know how to write!” I am quite of your opinion, sir: pomp and ceremony always impress; they are a powerful motive [for] the spirit of the populace, and the nobles, thanks to the figure they cut, find happiness in putting their importance on display, which is not for them a small source of satisfaction, since their vanity desires an occasional paying of tribute. The philosopher knows the value (in all of this), but all the same he is not unaffected. I have said enough on this score; exempt me from discussing the sentiment that despots feel.

spite of place of publication being given as Monaco; the Tuscan government ordered the work destroyed, although copies survive. As with other of Sara Goudar’s writings, it is assumed to be the work of Ange Goudar (who intimates as much above). See Francis-L. Mars, “Ange Goudar, cet inconnu (1708–1791): Essai bio-bibliographique sur un aventurier polygraphe du XVIIIe siècle,” Casanova Gleanings 9 (1966): 1–65. The original text appears to have been republished and expanded as Lettre de madame Sara Goudar sur le carnival de Toscane à monsieur L. (n.p., 1776). 20 See also letter 9 above, from Ange Goudar, and p. 587n10.

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The second signal was enclosed in a paper with my address but without a word of correspondence for me: another matter for a hypochondriac who, as you will have heard tell, are skilled at tormenting themselves with examinations of conscience. What was contained in this paper is a surer token of the kindness that you feel for me. I was quite happy with the engraving of the piece. What’s more, the pontiff, a man of genius, will reignite this in a country where it has begun to die down, in spite of what had been done in centuries past, so true is it that without Maecenas and his ilk we will see no more Virgils. I will wax less rhetorical about the third, dating from a few days after, doubtless, the medal was sent, since I received this morning your letter and yesterday evening your gracious gift. You seem anxious, sir, that you have not received a response from Monsieur Tierce, who, in a letter in his hand from the month of November, promises me that he will do everything he can to procure for you facilities inasmuch as it is in his power such that you will be comfortably lodged in Naples, and I do not doubt his word. Via another letter that I have recently received from my daughter, she assures me that they will both do their best to prove their esteem for you. I could send you the letter from my daughter, but I will adjoin one with a loose seal for you to remit to her. I have nothing private to pass along to her. I noted that you have been persuaded that I had written to Monsieur Huart. You have seen what he says on the matter of your trunk. You have been upset on my behalf by his response. I am feeling, but philosophical when need be. I will not make a to-do, but I will have the opportunity to let him understand that his way of proceeding is unique, since he is alone among a thousand men to have acted in this manner. You send me your compliments on the newborn; you phrase it so obligingly that it flatters me. May God will it that he has more feeling than he who has given him his origin! A mystery was made concerning who ought to represent you: this stunned me, not thinking myself suspect in an affair of that sort. I will address my letters to Dr Iberti, but I hope that the latter will find you still in Rome. Accept the compliments of my wife and daughter. I will take advantage of your gracious offers to ingratiate me in Naples. I have the honour of being, with the most respectful attachment, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny, etc. P.S. Please accept, sir, our wishes for the coming new year, etc.

17  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (5 January 1776) Sir, I hope that this one [i.e., letter] will find you in good health in Naples. This was one of the wishes that I had, along with many others for you, at this New Year’s season. You will see, sir, from my style that I am not of the present day, where this practice has been abolished. For better or worse, I have not left my social circle for about sixty years. Old people have considerable difficulty in shuffling off their prejudices; you are fortunate, sir count, to be young enough to this century not to have the absurd airs of those of my sort. I saw with satisfaction that you received, prior to your departure for Naples, a letter from Monsieur Tierce, who writes to you, you say, quite obligingly. I would certainly have bet that he would not have failed to do that which I begged him, in order to oblige you – and myself also. You have given me quite an ingenuous description of your impatience with the servant

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who brought you the letter in question. I am of your mind, sir: it is only in Italy where the sacred safeguarding of letters is violated with impunity. This, however, as you know, is of the greatest consequence. It is to violate the law of nations, to abuse public trust, to betray family secrets, to compromise the honour of foreigners, to endanger the fortunes of private individuals and the reputation of everyone, if prudent means do not put an end to such disorder. Rulers who have arrogated the right to enjoy the advantage that this good institution provides them ought to oversee religiously this part of policing. I am astonished that Monsieur de Montesquieu said nothing about this aspect of commerce; it is perhaps the case that he had not been exposed to this wrong. The comportment of your antiquarian dealer did not astonish me. If this is the one that Monsieur Donis or Monsieur Lucattini recommended to you, I will not fail to let them know to what sort of beast they sent you. I am delighted that you confess that my prejudices are not so great and that I have weighed that which I had the honour of telling you such that you would not be compromised – for this was also a matter of my reputation – in not lightly passing a judgment that you would have been able to verify and that would have landed back on me. Here you already have three or four who have confirmed that which I was desirous that you might avoid. You still have said nothing to me about Monsieur Iberti. I am quite obliged to you, sir, for your inclination while in Rome to procure something for me to my taste. You have proved to me quite enough kindness by making me a gift of coins and medals relative to Pius VI. For that was not a reproach when I had the honour of telling you that the lovely medal was in a blank letter. It is true that the one [i.e., letter] wherein you announced it to me contained many particularities, and above all, the ceremony of taking possession that was, as I think that I mentioned to you, so well depicted that I seemed to see the objects. I had humbly asked Dr Iberti to procure for me some natural history pieces, but I see that he has thought no more of this. I would very much wish to be in Naples with you; I would be able to procure for myself some curiosity. Monsieur Tierce and his wife have already gotten for me several pieces, but the thirst of naturalists is comparable to that of misers, excepting that stones, rocks, plants, and shells are not made of gold, but do cost money. I am familiar with your generosity, but I must not tax it. I reproached Madame Moldetti, who let me know the impossible situation she was in as far as satisfying the duty that she had towards you of informing you about her health and that of your goddaughter.21 She was quite out of sorts, both physically and mentally. Her mother-in-law has been so poorly for several days that in the end she ceased to be. There has been neither rest nor calm, day or night. Her daughters – that is, of the deceased – were up and down at all hours and every moment. There was always something new. In addition, she has had an inflammation of the fingers. But at present, she is enjoying a bit more peace. We have no particular news here. It rained heavily for two days in a row; the season has been quite cold. The Arno has been frozen over, but there has been no sickness as in Paris, according to what the gazette tells us, for excepting the month of November when there was an outbreak of fluxionary or catarrhal fevers, everyone, if I can put it thus, is in fine fettle.

21 Sade was the godfather by proxy of Moldetti’s recently born child.

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My wife and my daughter are quite touched by the honour that you do them and pass along that they have made good wishes for you. This letter is quite long enough, so I will bring it to a close and assure you of the respect of which I have the honour of being, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Doctor Mesny P.S. A thousand salutations, please, to Monsieur and Madame Tierce on all our behalves. Madame Moldetti sent a letter to you in Rome.

18  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (7 January 1776)

Sir, I have just had the honour of receiving your letter dated the 8th, from Naples, which informs me that you have arrived in good health and that you have been very graciously received by Monsieur and Madame Tierce. The terms of your letter give me much satisfaction, for you provide evidence of the greatest sensibility concerning the good offices that they have done and that they desire to do for you. I could not be more pleased by the contentment that you feel and by how they have facilitated your meeting respectable persons and enjoying good company. For my part, I will make known my thanks to Monsieur and Madame Tierce. You could assuredly exempt me from so many marks of obligation; I am nonetheless very flattered. You have acquired every right over me; this was the least that I could have done, since you had given me so many signs of your attachment and trust. May you continue to have for me, if you please, the dispositions that your dear letter, which I will preserve always, announces to me, or, to put it better, confirms. I am fond of your admiration for the sight of the sweet union that exists between Monsieur Tierce and my daughter. This is a sign that each of them is doing their part. I know that Madame Tierce is very sweet, and if that is worth something with respect to all husbands, Monsieur Tierce did not choose poorly. I am charmed that they are well regarded in Naples, and I hope this contributes to the success of my son-in-law, who is quite touched when someone respects him. I ask, sir, that I continue to have the honour of writing to you like I did to Rome. This invitation is an order that I will not fail to obey. It is useful for me to maintain this correspondence in more than one regard. The time that I spend on it is the most enjoyable of my week. You will have doubtless seen how in Florence I sought you out. I found much pleasure in this. Why couldn’t I be with you in Naples for a few days? If we were not discussing Antiquity, we would amuse ourselves, I think, with natural history. We would go to count the buildings of Herculaneum, we would wonder at the thickness of the lava, we would see whether with each eruption the lava has the same colour. We would go to trace the various outlets whence these torrents of fire come. We would perhaps push ourselves quite close to the mouth: I am a bit on the bold side. They still recount in the region of Volterra my intrepidity for having descended quite far into a sulphurous mofette into which my guide dared not follow me at a distance of twenty paces. I was not foolhardy, however, but did not give way to prejudice. I know that it is something other than a Vesuvius, and I dare say it, I believe that there are times when you can go quite close, and I think that this is never after rain. But I am going on too long. Let me change the topic. Since Monsieur Tierce writes me that the volcano has issued forth, you will have doubtless been to San

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Gennaro. You will have been curious to see how miracles are done.22 You will have learned how the saints are invoked, the lovely things that are said to them when one hopes to flatter them, the epithets that are given to them. I have been told, among other things, that he is called Muso giallo [Yellow Mug] because he has a gilded head. These gallantries certainly merit that the Saint allows himself to be moved. God knows if the lovely ladies don’t tell him anything more … Only a little bit late do I perceive that I am in a country where, for suchlike things, you might be imprisoned by the Inquisition. I will make a retraction: I admire God’s power and his works. It would be well worth the trouble, but too many things stand in the way of the plans of a poor naturalist who is far away. Many times have I regretted that during the long voyages on land that I have undertaken, I have never seen an active volcano; I have only seen extinct ones. But it has been such a long time there have been no more, only a few pieces of rock that have been tossed up here and there, I had spoken to you of the Radicofani one. There had been one in the vicinity of Trento, and when you return to Rome, you will see another on your route, the whereabouts of which I will indicate. You offer me your services, sir count. You urge me to ask you for something for my cabinet. I will take advantage of this. The post is going to leave. I only have a moment to write to Monsieur Tierce, to whom I am going to address both this one [i.e., letter] and his. My wife thanks you for keeping her in your memory. She speaks of you always, sir, with lively interest. She, along with my daughter, request that I send you their humble compliments. I let you know that there was a letter to Rome from Madame Moldetti; I said this on the back of my last. I will tell her what you have written to me. If it has been a while since I have written you, I have made up for this – and perhaps taxed your patience – with this one. Give me your orders, continue to hold me in favour, and trust that I have the honour of being, with attachment and respect, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny

19  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (25 January 1776) I am quite stunned to not receive letters from you – at least in response to mine – all the more so in that I am told that you reproach me for not writing you. But well do I see that the opposite is the case. I wrote once again to you via the latest post, but I addressed my letter to Rome. I had several times sought information on your whereabouts; I had been told Rome. I was not done the favour of learning from you yourself when you were leaving, nor where you would be staying in Naples, in order to know where to address my letters. I beg you therefore to have the kindness to have my latest letters remitted to you in Naples, and you will then see that it is not I at fault but, indeed, you. But I ought to find a reason in all of this and believe that your numerous occupations have doubtless prevented you from writing me. When one sees novel things that one doesn’t see in one’s homeland, they always make it so one forgets those one has already seen or those of which one has heard tell. Naples, for example, which you had never seen, has become your principal

22 Sade gives his assessment of the miraculous liquefaction of the saint’s blood on p. 233; see also p. 390n14.

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occupation, and according to what I have been told, things that surprise on account of their beauty are to be seen there. I beg you to give me some news of you, which I would greatly appreciate. I suppose that you are already lodging with my sister, to whom I beg you to say many things on my behalf, and that she deigns answer my last letter. I impatiently await your news. You will find perhaps a little moment when you know not what to do, while I, with lasting esteem, sign off as your most sincere friend. Chiara Moldetti P.S. Know that nobody loves you as much as I. Goodbye.

20  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade23 (Florence, 29 January 1776) I am surprised not to receive a single one of your letters, which gave me so much pleasure. I was expecting at least a response to two of mine and I don’t see any. This leads me to think in a way that I fear might be proved true, that is, after the reproaches that you had ever unjustly laid at my door, you only wished to let me understand that you are tired of receiving letters from me, and consequently bothersome, and to see if in this wise I might renounce writing you. Be persuaded, on the contrary, that you will constantly be bothered by my letters, and although you might desire to deprive me of your gracious lines, I will take pleasure in rereading those that I have with me, and in which I have always thought to find sincere feelings. I no longer know what to think on this matter. I was told that you were stunned that you are no longer spoken of as being the godfather. That surprised me quite a bit, knowing that my husband did not fail to inform you right away, as was his duty, and that you had been so kind as to answer straightaway, but without saying anything of the honour that you would do us by holding our child over the baptismal font. You had answered briefly concerning the Aleatico24 about which my husband had asked you and to express your joy that that I had come through happily – nothing more. But I think that I am going to leave all these suspicions behind. They are perhaps empty, who knows? It is the harshness of the season that makes my thoughts cold and sullen; I hope that with smiling springtide feelings will naturally grow and bloom, pure and sincere like the whitest of roses. I have nothing else to say to you other than now is Carnival season: look to entertaining yourself and enjoying what pleasures you may. I have not yet gone to the theatre, but I have attended all the festivals. There is a proper little party at Madame La Per’s, to which I am going, as to all the festivals, with my parents and sister, for we always go together. Since you were kind enough to ask me several times, my family is in good health and our most recent little one has recovered, for he was doing quite poorly. When you see my sister, I beg you to tell her many things on my behalf, as well as to my brother-in-law. I have the honour of calling myself, with the sincerest respect, your very devoted and very grateful servant. Chiara Moldetti

23 The address is: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, in Naples.” Below her signature Sade has written: “She whom I loved in Florence [Celle que j’aimais à Florence].” 24 An Italian grape varietal that usually goes into making a sweet red wine. The Tuscan version of Aleatico or Leatico was described in Sade’s day as a “wine of great flavour and substance, as well as spirited, sweet, and perfumed [Vino di gran sapore e sostanza, ed insieme spiritoso, amabile, e odoroso].” Giovanni Cosimo Villifranchi, Oenologia toscana, o sia, Memoria sopra i vini ed in specie toscani (Florence, 1773), 2:60.

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21  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade25 (6 February 1776) Sir, I have the satisfaction of learning, thanks to the honour of the one [i.e., letter] that I just received dated the 30th of January, that you have received my last two. You had remarked in yours the hassles that you had suffered from the insolence of a little quill pusher or clerk, to whom is given the moniker of secretary, perhaps stretching things too much these days. But what can be done about this? Today it is the taste of the times to bestow many titles, which makes many creatures bumptious and causes them to get above themselves; but since everyone is happy to be deceived, or better, to deceive, the torrent of illusions must be allowed to flow. I admit that it is very unpleasant to find oneself in suchlike situations, and as philosophical as one might be, there are things quite apt to bend us out of shape, especially when we sense such a monstrous discrepancy. It is a consolation to find relief in telling those whom we love the abominations we have suffered. I have shared in them as much as I can. You know, sir count, how unbothered I am by the comportment of certain creatures who have occasionally heated my bile. A moment of reflection has calmed me down, thinking for a while that for one arrogant man who thinks poorly, there are a hundred who are ready to grant us the justice that our conduct and our manners deserve, and if there were tribunals where one might bring these sorts of affairs, it would be necessary to double the number of magistrates required to see that reparations are done to those who every day find themselves in these unpleasant situations. I know not whether this tone of pretentiousness will soon be over and whether this so-called philosophical century will soon bring an end to the extravagant behaviour that we witness on a daily basis. You have done very well to have rebuffed this insult, especially in a foreign country. Honour that petty creature with supreme scorn. Insults like the prejudices we experience pass in the end, says the spectator. No, we must not become misanthropical, but philosophical. I might well relate some example, but I am not writing a discourse; rather a quite simple letter. I am delighted that my oldfashioned tone has been to your taste. You have made an apt comparison between solid epochs and this century of triviality, and there is, to all appearances, good reason to fear, if this continues, that we will fall back into ignorance and barbarity. Let’s muddle out of this in the least bad way we can. I am charmed that you have been pleased enough to remark the courtesies that Monsieur and Madame Tierce have done you. I will tell them how affected I am by this. I know and they recognize – for they have discernment – the favours that you merit. It is not essential that a person who travels in order to become philosophical and to enjoy the marvels of Nature be presented to a king, but I am nonetheless quite delighted that this should be the case. You will not observe the Grotto of the Dog with any less exactitude,26 you will not examine with less care the beautiful galleries of Portici, the fine paintings of the king of the Two Sicilies, the beautiful Greek statues rediscovered in Herculaneum, the Etruscan vases, the engraved stones, the rich collections of medals, the effects of the volcano that, as you were telling me, is still vomiting forth lava. Oh, how pleased would I have been to see this phenomenon! In the end, I must learn to live with it and be satisfied with reading descriptions. You have been so kind, sir count, to demand that I ask you for something for my cabinet. I obey in order to show my faith in your generosity. I cannot specify anything, but if you find something maritime, either plants or shells, or crabs, or, in other words, crustaceans,

25 Addressed to: “To Monsieur the Count of Mazan, etc., in Naples.” 26 On Sade’s visit to the Grotta del cane, see chapter V, pp. 263–4, and the introduction to this volume (pp. xli–xliii).

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I would be most obliged. You know that I already have quite a few of these. I will never mention medals; it is too easy to be tricked. But I would not want you to put a lot of money into these objects; I know how generous you are; this is what restrains me. If some pieces of lava are available, but nothing large, because I […]27 some, the awkward part being that I already have some. You see from my manner of speaking how much faith I have in you. Do not expect to hear news from Monsieur Goudar and Madame Sara, who has furnished a Letter about the Florentine autumn in which she quite ill-treats the nobility.28 Monsieur Goudar brought me a copy a few days ago and asked me if you had done me the honour of writing to me and where you were. They are at present in town, but I have not been to visit, for I know not where they are lodging. He told me that he had sent you a copy in Rome, but he didn’t know whether you had received it. You ask me whether the death of mother Moldetti will put them more at their ease. That ought to be so, but they are still quite burdened. I have asked them if they had written you; they have both assured me that they have done so more than once. You provide me with news about your satisfaction with Dr Iberti; I am delighted. The weather here is quite bad. After having had a nasty month of January, both in terms of cold and snow, February is proving to be just as fickle. We have no news. My entire family enjoys the benefit of passing along their compliments to you. I have the honour of respectfully deeming myself, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny

22  From Chiara Moldetti to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 9 February 1776) My dear godfather, The hope of receiving some answer to my letters deprived me of the pleasure of writing for the last mail, all the more so in that I was expecting the joy of learning the date of your so-desired return. But I see that you are planning even greater happiness for me by giving me a pleasant surprise. Whatever the case, it shall ever be an immense consolation to me. Believe, my love, that nobody has so worried my heart as much as you. I have your lovable person ever present before my eyes. This is the sole pleasure that I have tasted in this world since I have had the luck to know you. I would like, my love, to tell you all that I think, but I cannot. Oh, what sorrow to have to hold back! Only the pleasure that I take in writing to you prevents me from giving in to the sorrow that oppresses my heart. But I hope one day to have the satisfaction of having you explain this to me. Forgive me if you find foolish expressions. If you were here, you would understand why. Goodbye. Your most F.e [i.e., Fedele or Faithful] C.a M.ti

23  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade29 (Florence, 27 February 1776) My lord and most kind count, What has become of you? Would it be that Vesuvius has taken you by the feet in the spread of its flowing lava? Or would it be that you have fallen into one of its abysses, desirous to see 27 There is a word missing here from the seal being broken. 28 This is the same work mentioned by Ange Goudar himself in letter 14 above. 29 Address: “To Monsieur the Count of Mazan, in Naples or the Elysian Fields.”

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Nature from too close up? Have you been retained or devoured by some siren who, as you know, inhabits the shores that you travel? Given my doubts, I shall write to the Elysian Fields so that I might have news of you. I do not doubt that some lovely shade whom I knew while alive will deign to inform me. You had promised to write me as regularly as you did in Rome; I was committed to being as punctual with you, sir, as long as you gave me signs of life. Beyond keeping my word to you by responding to the honour of yours, I wrote two for one; I love to have credit. I say to myself, seeing myself without letters from you: do I have something to reproach myself for with regard to my lord the count? Or would it be that he has become a misanthrope, as he was threatening? Perhaps he has made some conquest that has made him forget his former cicerone from Florence. But to become, I say to myself, misanthropic on account of an impertinent fellow who has no other merit than wielding a quill beneath the mask of a name that has been presented as that of secretary, the thing is not possible. Temper fades quickly when we consider from afar and leaves but scorn in its place. Should my lord Mazan30 have contracted some lovely passion, this would be fitting and would distance him from misanthropy – or least from the half of it. Perhaps he will tell me – and this would be more amusing for him to tell me something about than conversing with me about Vesuvius’s eruptions, describing to me the march of lava on Mount Somma,31 and what was then its viscosity and coloration. If, I say, my lord the count has found himself in the above-mentioned situation, he will hardly think any more of Florence, he will no longer think about the witty creations of the amiable – but perhaps too bold – Madame Goudar, who has just distributed to us gratis a Letter about the Carnival of Florence,32 providing a critique of everything that she saw there, surrendering a bit too much to her spleen,33 condemning what others enjoyed – I will not say myself, for apart from the fact that I put no store by the taste for those pleasures, I have not even seen the feathers that adorn the hairdo of that apostate Englishwoman, who does not at all approve of the spirit of her own nation, but who cedes it to the French while robbing them of good sense – who condemns the customs of the Italians, who dares not speak of the Germans, and as the height of ill humour doesn’t even want to be bought by a Swiss. Such are the expressions of her Letter or those of that horrid husband of hers, to whom one can, of course, fashion a retort about which I shall inform you.34 I don’t know how someone can utter a stream of such rudeness. It may well be that outrage has been pushed too far: she criticizes the suppression of the Venetian riddoto.35 But there would be too much to say about 30 Sade was by inheritance lord of the manors of La Coste and Saumane, and co-lord of Mazan. He used the title Count de Mazan while a fugitive in Italy. 31 Mount Somma is the name of the smaller of the two peaks of Mount Vesuvius. It was formerly a considerably larger volcano that collapsed into a caldera. 32 Presumably, the Lettre seconde de Madame Sara Goudar sur le carnaval de Toscane à monsieur L*** (n.p., n.d. [1776]). 33 English in the original. Sara Goudar, the purported author of the work in question, was Irish, although usually referred to as English. “Spleen” (peevishness and melancholia) was considered the dominant humour of the English nation. 34 Goudar’s accounts of Florentine mores produced responses in the form of two fictional letters by a supposed Swiss from Lausanne and an Englishman living in Rome. Goudar responded, in turn, with a refutation entitled Lettre troisième de Madame Sara Goudar sur le carnaval de Toscane à monsieur L*** (n.p., n.d.), published at the beginning of March 1776. See Mars, “Ange Goudar, cet inconnu,” 46. 35 Il Ridotto was a famed Venetian gambling house, the operation of which was taken over by the government in 1638. Owing to the efforts of the reformer Giorgio Pisani, what has been dubbed “the world’s first casino” was closed in 1774. See Bjørn Thomassen, Liminality and the Modern: Living through the In-Between (Burlington: Ashgate, 2014), 160.

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this matter. Have you gotten her Letter about the autumn that I mentioned to you in my last? You’ll find much to amuse you. We have had quite poor weather during this Carnival. The opera, we are told, has been quite lovely. We have here, as you know TRH Madame the Archduchess Christina and the Prince of Saxony, her husband, who have been quite fêted. I have yet to see them. I am like certain people who are weary of seeing, doubtless; the passage of the years and the number of things that I have seen, with the exception of Vesuvius, have tired my eyes. My senses are dulled; at my age, I don’t have that much longer to go, and the only things for which I still have a taste and to which I would cling are rocks, minerals, shells – and not gold, which I would, however, amass – Antiquity not excepted. Give me your orders. Accept the humble compliments of my wife and of my children. I have the honour of being with as much affection as respect, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny P.S. I beg you, sir, to be so kind as to say many things to Monsieur Tierce and madam his wife on behalf of all of us. Monsieur and Madame Moldetti, who have arrived at the instant that I am ready to seal my letter, beg me to pass along their sincere respects.

24  From Pierre-Ange Goudar to the Marquis de Sade36 (Florence, 5 March 1776) Sir, I wrote you about two months ago in Rome, and I have not received a response to that letter. Perhaps you did not receive it. I send you the second letter on the Tuscan Carnival by Madame Goudar, which, maybe, will entertain you for a few instants.37 Let me know when you are returning and whether you will go via Florence. Madame Goudar asks that I send you her regards. As we know of your generosity, both of us dare to ask you for a little deputation, which is a subscription to a work in which I am personally interested and of which I am sending you the frontispiece. The book consists of two volumes and the price is one sequin, which needs to be paid upon receipt of the first volume.38 A sequin is doubtless a little dear, but this comes from the considerable outlay that was required in order to have precise manuscripts. I am impatient to know how you have found Naples. That city, full of uneducated people, abounds in a luxury that seems made for people who ought to be so [i.e., educated]. I am persuaded that you will have made plenty of reflections on that capital and still more on the antiquities that you will have seen there. Honour me with your response and let me know the names of those you will have enlisted in the subscription. It is true that Naples is hardly fitting for these literary undertakings. They are unheard of in a country where nobody thinks of anything but entertainment.

36 Addressed to: “Monsieur the Count of Mazan, in Naples.” 37 Clearly, the Lettre seconde de Madame Sara Goudar (see p. 601n32). 38 Perhaps a reference to Ange Goudar’s anonymously published La Mort de Ricci, dernier général des Jésuites, avec quelques réflections générales sur l’extinction de la Société (Amsterdam, 1776), which was first printed in May of 1776, with a subsequent corrected edition in August. See Mars, “Ange Goudar, cet inconnu,” 47–8. The work discusses the recent death of Lorenzo Ricci in late 1775, the suppression of the Jesuit order, and provides an assessment of that order. The book does not have a frontispiece per se, however, but a headpiece of skull, crossbones, and floral motifs.

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I am, with all possible esteem, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Chevalier Goudar

25  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade39 (Florence, 12 March 1776) Sir, You will have at present received my letters that will tell you that I was quite troubled about your health. I respond now to two of yours that I received some five hours ago. The first is dated the 26th of February and the other the 4th of March. I will react in accord with the dates to the items to which I think it necessary to respond. I am charmed, sir, that you have seen an end to your unease and that you should be recognized as the person who one is unable to misjudge when one has a certain sensitivity, which is only given to men of a certain manner. Those annoyances have led to a happy result, since you have been able to relish all the enjoyments that you could have hoped for. Going incognito made you live as a philosopher and now, here you are, redelivered to the whirlwind of high society. In fact, you were not yet made for that monotonous life of the philosopher. Keeping company with me in Florence might perhaps have communicated that gloomy manner that I believe to be mine; this is also to a small extent the effect of age and of my sad profession, or for want of finding from time to time witty and affable people who, like you sir, might make me emerge from the solemn state in which I most often live. You made me the slight reproach of not having acquainted you with the kind Monsieur Collini.40 I would have thought that Madame Tierce would have mentioned him to you. This was not done out of a jealous mind, but if this were the case, I would be forgivable. If women are by nature jealous, many men become so when they sense the loss that they will undergo. In this case, I would be forgivable, but I would be unfair. Yes, sir, the estimable Monsieur Collini, if I were not familiar with your feelings for me, might cast some very long shadows onto my painted canvas and have the effect of a thick smoke that obscures everything. Spite notwithstanding, I am charmed that you have been able to arrange to tour around with him. He is a solid scientist, he has a profound knowledge of natural history, he communicates excellently. You have wisdom and much taste; you will probably become a proselyte or sectarian of today’s tastes – I mean in natural history. You do me the favour of telling me that you are thinking of putting together something to add to my shells, to my rocks, and to what

39 Addressed to: “Monsieur the Count of Mazan, etc., in Naples.” 40 Cosimo Alessandro Collini (1727–1806) was a Florentine nobleman by birth, a historian, amateur mineralogist, and Voltaire’s secretary from 1752 to 1756. He had met Voltaire in Berlin, when the latter was in the service of Frederick the Great. Collini was held along with Voltaire in 1753 when the philosophe was ordered detained by the Prussian ruler. He was the author of numerous and wide-ranging works, including Discours sur l’histoire d’Allemagne (Frankfurt, 1761), an essay on chess entitled Solution du problème du cavalier au jeu des échecs (Mannheim, 1773), Considerations sur les montagnes volcaniques (Mannheim, 1781), Lettres sur les allemands (Hamburg, 1790), and an account of his time as Voltaire’s secretary, Mon séjour auprès de Voltaire et lettres inédites (Paris, 1807). In 1784, serving as director of the Natural History Collection (Naturalienkabinett) in Mannheim, Collini provided the first description of a pterodactyl in his essay “Sur quelques zoolithes du Cabinet d’Histoire naturelle de S.A.S.E. Palatine & de Bavière, à Mannheim,” in Historia et Commentationes Academiae Electoralis Scientiarum et Elegantiorum Litterarum Theodoro-Palatinae (Mannheim, 1784), 58–103.

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I have. You tell me, sir, that you fear doubling or trebling my objects. Never mind that; my gratitude will owe to the feeling of generosity that which good will has intended. I will write to Monsieur Huart on the matter of your trunk. I will endeavour to extract you from anxiety in which that sullen man leaves you, on the assumption that this is his fault. If you had spoken to me of this sooner, I would have already replied to you. Let’s talk a bit about Monsieur Goudar and Madame Sara, who perhaps uses her launderer to scribble her letters.41 I had mentioned to you something about the one that she furnished on the Tuscan Carnival. One of my friends has given a response that will not flatter her,42 I alone am privy to this information. I recently saw the Goudar male. He has heard something of this. He asked if I knew, and I played ignorant. But this is not all: there is another one; nothing more foolish could be imagined. I asked him how madam was doing. He tells me the same as ever; she has returned to the countryside. He asked me if I had received news from you; I told him no. I’m afraid that he might send those two other Letters to you via the post; I would like them to be sent back to him. I will do the errand that you asked of me, provided that I can find what you want. She declares – Madame Goudar, that is – that her letters are being reprinted in Switzerland. It remains to be seen whether this is true. In any case, if this is done, we will have them; but I will do everything to get you the one about Naples.43 By now you will have heard in Naples the news of the happy delivery of HRH who three days ago brought a beautiful prince into being. You will see in a while HRH Madame the Archduchess Christina, lovely princess, in Naples with Prince Albert, her spouse. I fear that these events will retain you in Naples. My wife and my entire family send you their humble compliments. The weather has been fairly ridiculous for the past two or three months. I have been suffering a bit with rheumatism; a bleeding and some purgatives have put me in shape to offer you my services and to assure you of the affection and respect with which I have the honour of being, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny

26  From Pierre-Ange Goudar to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 25 March 1776) My dear count, I no longer knew what had become of you when I received the honour of your last letter. I had asked several times for news of you from the doctor,44 who had told me he believed you

41 The term that Sade’s correspondent employs here is teinturier, which means “fabric dyer,” by extension “launderer,” and figuratively, in the eighteenth century, “ghost writer.” 42 The author of this response, presumably one of the two mentioned above in n1266, has retained anonymity to this day. Perhaps the text in question is Lettre de Mme Sophie***: pour servir de réponse à la première lettre de Mme Sara Goudar sur le carnaval de Toscane (n.p., n.d. [1776]), which includes a “Supplement au réponse abregée à la seconde lettre de Madame Sara Goudar sur le carnaval de Toscane.” 43 Sade was trying to procure Ange Goudar’s pamphlet entitled Naples: Ce qu’il faut faire pour rendre ce royaume florissant. Où l’on traite des avantages que le gouvernement peut retirer de sa fertilité, de l’abondance de ses denrées, des facilités pour perfectionner les arts, de sa position favorable pour s’emparer des premières branches du Commerce Étranger (Amsterdam, 1769). This work was ordered by Bernardo Tanucci to be burned by the executioner of Naples on 13 Sept. 1774. Sade had asked Goudar for a copy, to which the author had replied (see infra) that the first run was out of print. See Mars, “Ange Goudar, cet inconnu,” 30–1. 44 Evidently Dr Mesny.

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still in Naples. I am vexed that you have set to looking so late for the book entitled Naples: the remainder of the printing has been devoured; it was ripped from my hands once it had been burned. A second edition with a response from the author about his exile to the prime minister of Naples is underway. You may rest assured that it will be lively and entertaining, for there is very copious material in this regard.45 I see that you will not pass through Florence, since you are taking the Loreto route. It is not possible for me to write you about the plans for our voyage to Languedoc; it depends on a certain financial arrangement on which I am working. My wife is still sick:46 since that unfortunate Naples affair, she has never enjoyed perfect health. Let me know if you have enlisted some subscribers. Madam sends you her greetings. I am with all possible esteem, my dear count …

27  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (26 March 1776) Sir, You will see, via the adjoined letter, that I have done what you were expecting of me with respect to your trunk. This was taken very poorly by Monsieur Huart, who regurgitated his ill humour onto me. I don’t know what to do. I have certainly written to him most courteously. I am neither vulgar nor pretentious. I attempt to behave like a man who weighs what he says and what he does. I am quite slow to feel and mild in complaining. I have had the misfortune to be brusquely handled, yet have not responded to a very harsh letter. I took out of the bag what there was therein. I would be displeased that, if my medals were not tightly packed, they might lose their value. But what to do? Shall I drop to my knees? No. I have had the pleasure of serving you on a matter that I thought my duty. I am deprived of the honour of your letters. I await them at your convenience and have the honour of being, with respectful affection, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny, physician, etc. Accept, please, the humble compliments of my spouse and my family.

28  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade47 (Florence, 9 April 1776) Sir, A moment after having received your dear letter, I set about answering it so as to leave no doubt about my way of thinking and to bear witness to the interest that I take in your health

45 In addition to a 1771 republication of the first edition, Ange Goudar did indeed put out a second edition of work on Naples (see p. 612n60), this time with the title Naples. Ce qu’il faut faire pour rendre ce royaume florissant. Seconde édition, la première ayant été brûlé. Avec une lettre de l’auteur à S. E. Monsieur le marquis T**** (Amsterdam, 1775). The T**** in the title is evidently “Tanucci.” Given what the author writes to Sade, however, this second edition must have actually appeared in publication somewhat later than the printed date. 46 According to Henry Swinburne, in his The Courts of Europe at the Close of the Last Century (London, 1841), she was infected with the pox, which led to Ferdinand IV’s rejection of her and to the Goudars’s disgrace (1:134). This account is likely apocryphal, although it is taken up again by Harold Acton in The Bourbons of Naples (London: Methuen, 1956), 186. 47 Addressed as: “To Monsieur the Count of Mazan, in Naples.”

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and your amusement in the lovely climate in which you are living, albeit perhaps without discovering the pleasure that you had promised yourself. I have seen, sir, that you have just done a circuit lasting several days and that you have been to the Isle of Capri, formerly such a delightful sojourn for the wicked Tiberius. Scandalous memorials teach us about the debauches of that ruler, but these you are only familiar with from history. If you were an antiquarian, you would understand that I mean to speak of the spintrian medals that were a satire on his moral and physical excesses, which would probably not have prevented him from following the impulsion of his wretched character and of abusing his power.48 I am very desirous of seeing your observations on the ruins of those Greek towns that you have just seen. You have doubtless been to Scilla to see the famous reefs and main area of the conquest of Guiscard and the Normans.49 When I have the honour of seeing you on your return, we will talk about this, because their little history greatly interests me. I know some particularities thereof. It is said that the region is very fertile. Guiscard was right to plant himself there. His race was not there long. I know not whether they were good rulers. I am curious about these folks only up to a certain point, which means that I will continue on to other parts of your letter in order to answer it more precisely. You quite flatter me, sir count, telling me that you will not forget your Florentine cicerone. I will find this to be to my advantage in every respect, but you will find in return an affection that will have little to equal it. I believe that you have received a few days ago one of my letters, which contains another in response to what I wrote to that impudent Huart; you will recall that I laid out the matter for you. In the end, what is there to do? He can only take out of the sack what there is. He has, however, not sent back to me my casket of medals; I ascertain that my response has confounded his rudeness. I said to him in two words that I believed that I was allowed to make such a fair request of him and that if he considered himself offended, he was in a position to revenge himself even upon my casket; that for money, I would be able to extract myself from the petty trouble that it [i.e., the casket] was causing him and that the services that I provided to his poor father during the final days of his life were well worth recalling, but that I would refrain from such a proceeding. That unfortunate casket has had not a little misfortune in Rome. I hope that it will make a happy return, for I will recommend it to Monsieur the Count of Mazan. But that’s enough talk about men; let’s talk about women. You have seen the work of Madame Sara, not she who gives such wise counsel to her husband, but she to whom the husband would do well to give it, for the parallel, or so it seems to me, suits nicely. She would doubtless mark your pre-eminence, since she takes care to make you remember her somewhat dearly, to tell the truth, because I think that this is a little revenge for a day in the country with Madame Moldetti. Whatever the case, it is nice to be in her good graces. As for me, I even suspect that I have lost, not what I didn’t have, but her trust. Sir her husband, who doubtless knows her tastes, gave me to glimpse, when I delivered your billet on the very day that the post arrived, that my advice was no

48 On these spintrian medals, see chapter V (Environs of Naples), p. 316, as well as pp. 316–18n116. 49 Scilla in Calabria was by tradition the site associated with the sea monster Scylla, the most famous appearance of which is in book 12 of Homer’s Odyssey; see the edition translated by A.T. Murray and revised by George E. Dimock (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 464–7. Robert Guiscard was a key figure in the Norman conquest of southern Italy in the eleventh century. Sade discusses this conquest at length in chapter VI (Route from Rome to Naples or from Naples to Rome), pp. 325–31.

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longer apropos, for even though he might have said to me, not long before, that madam still had the spleen, he did not let me in to see her, although it was about noon. I do not know, sir, whether you will judge the same, but I am ruined in that court. Monsieur Goudar spoke to me of the book Naples; he told me that there are no more. I have made an attempt; if it succeeds, you will have it. He spoke to me of my report on elephant teeth.50 I told him that I would bring him a copy. I hear you from here telling me that I was desirous of reinstating my ties. Believe whatever you want, but this was a reciprocal politeness, for he had just given me a response to a criticism that one of my compatriots had made to Madame Goudar’s letter on the Carnival.51 That’s all there is to it. When you return from Naples, if I am back in good graces, you will see me quite joyful. I am quite obliged to you, sir, for your desire and the care that you take to gather something for me, but against the storm, we cannot always hold back the sea. If the opportunity arises, I would be happy, either something in plants, or shells, or rocks. You haven’t told me when you intend on returning. If it is not indiscreet, I ask you approximately. Monsieur Collini will depart soon for the Palatine Court.52 He brought HRH some natural history pieces, which got him the gift of a lovely golden snuffbox. I believe that my letter is long enough; my hand tells me that there is enough for one go. My entire family has the honour of assuring you of their regards. I have the honour of respectfully calling myself, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Mesny

29  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 23 April 1776) Sir, I cannot express to you what I have just felt upon opening your letter, given the resolution you have made and the news that you give me that I will no longer have the honour of seeing you again in Florence on your passing through or return voyage, unless you come back to travel about the province. If I were less attached to you, sir, this would cause me fewer feelings. You promise, sir, the consolation of receiving your news when you have reached your hearth once more. I will receive them always with renewed pleasure, and I will try to preserve a share in your honourable memory by continuing our correspondence, as you invite me to do and that you have seen that I have cultivated with considerable feeling. You have seen my steadfastness, in spite of some delays that your touring and your business occasioned. Finally, sir, since you have been to Praeneste, the die is cast. You know that the Ancients went there to seek Fortune’s counsel; this voyage doubtless had a motive. That says it all. I do not know whether this one [i.e., letter] will find you in Rome, where you tell me to send it, supposing that it has the good fortune to fall into your hands with the address of Monsieur Ceas, brigadier, etc. In any case, I say, I wish you with all my heart the greatest 50 The work in question is Barthélemy Mesny, Observations sur les fossiles d’éléphants qui se trouvent en Toscane (Florence, n.d.). 51 Presumably, Lettre troisième de Madame Sara Goudar. 52 Collini had become the private secretary of Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, in 1759 and served as the electoral Palatine historiographer. See also p. 603n40.

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possible felicity. I offer you whatever services are in my power, and if I live another few years, during this lapse a tender memory of you will remain and regret at not seeing you anymore. My wife, Monsieur and Madame Moldetti, as well as my daughter, have been quite sensitive, and even in tears, at the news that I gave them in spite of myself. And so life passes, in pleasures that are short and pains that are long. But what is the use of moralizing? I am pleased that your received your trunk. Had I been able to foresee it, I would have avoided this Huart business. But let us speak no more of this. I have more need than another of a bit of philosophy. I am flattered that you do me the honour of telling me so honourably that I have been useful to you in Italy. I will take advantage of your gracious offers when you are back in France. I ask you please to tell me on what terms you left Monsieur Tierce. Farewell, my dear count. Forgive this familiar address to a man who loves you. It takes nothing away from the respectful sentiments with which I have the honour of being forever, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny, physician consultant, etc.

30  From the Marquis de Sade to Doctor Iberti [Spring-Summer 1776] questions on rome asked and not answered

The Latin inscription found in the old basilica – which you said was written in mosaic in that old basilica – will it still be seen? I believe not, seeing that nothing must be left of that old basilica. What is that Latin inscription that you had begun with these words: Quod duce te mundum, etc.?53 Write it in large letters, as well as the proper names of both artists and popes or cardinals or other famous men that you mention, seeing that I am unable to read it and I am losing thereby half of the fruit of the work. I will mention hereafter those that I am unable to read. I find that you state that this inscription is (which supposes that it is extant) in the major and triumphal arcade of the basilica. This would suppose that it is presently extant. But as the rest is neither clear nor certain, you must be so kind as to answer whether that inscription will be read at present or if it was formerly readable, and whether it is there, seeing that I was unable to read it. Why do you state that there is an interval of eighty years between the works that Nicholas V did to the Vatican and those of his successor Paul II? There is only an interval of sixteen years between their two pontificates. I beg you to do more accurate research for me. This is a significant error. Why do you state that Paul III succeeded Adrian VI? It was Clement VII who succeeded Adrian, and Paul III followed Clement VII. These are quite some almighty anachronisms. You have stated that Clement VIII made a second Saint Gregory chapel opposite the first and on the spot of the former tribunal. This is false: it is the Clementine chapel, which he made in his name and not a second Gregorian one as you say. 53 The inscription in question, which was on the arch of the ancient basilica, would have read: “Quod duce te mundus surrexit in astra triumphans / hanc Constantinus victor tibi condidit aulam [Because with you (i.e., Christ) as leader the world rose triumphant to the stars / Constantine the victor built this hall for you].” See Franciscus Buecheler and Alexander Riese, eds., Anthologia Latina sive Poesis Latinae Supplementum (Leipzig, 1895), 2[pt1]:145.

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I beg you to write better. Definitively, who made the bell tower of Saint Peter’s? Since he [reference unclear; Jérôme Richard?] is like Lalande, they have both translated from the same author. What is the diameter of the columns of Saint Peter’s? The names of popes who have had fountains built. I beg you to make observations of the obelisk on Saint Peter’s Square in order to know whether it has character or not. Some gallant adventures about Rome.

31  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade (Florence, 28 June 1776) Sir, A few days ago I received your dear letters dated from Bologna. I was quite tempted to set off to find you and thereby give you a sincere demonstration of my inviolable devotion. My doubtfulness as to whether I would still find you there, since you told me you were in a hurry to get home, kept me from travelling. The kind regards that you made me feel keep me ever attached to your dear self. It seems to me that you very much regret having lost considerable time touring a region unworthy of your curiosity. Nonetheless, as an enlightened traveller, you will have known how to take advantage of what was on offer. You will have untangled the material from the spiritual in the Holy House of Loreto, and you will have been persuaded that the Arabs might well have set their sights on this beneficial property, which is worth more, I do say, than the mosque at Medina, where they kiss more earth than the gold that is found in such great quantity in Loreto, and which proves that we have better taste than they and especially our European jinans.54 You will have seen the shores of the Adriatic. You will have seen abundance, on the one hand, and depopulation. You will have considered the state of commerce. But you would have needed to go to see the fair of Sinigaglia in order to compare it with that in your vicinity, I mean to say Beaucaire: here’s a rather good focus for a speculating mind.55

54 Mesny likely intends jina, a Sanskrit word meaning “victor,” here over all passions. It is the root of Jainism, and Sade’s correspondent is, in any case, clearly making a sarcastic comparison between the wisdom, insight, and asceticism of Christian clerics and more exotic holy men. 55 Sinigaglia, or Senigallia today, was the site of a major annual trade fair held in late July that brought in traders from around the Adriatic and well beyond. Beaucaire in southern France was similarly famous for its trade fair, known as La Foire de la Madeleine. For a colourful description of Sinigalia from approximately the time of Sade’s voyage, see Pierre Jean Grosley, New Observations on Italy and Its Inhabitants, trans. Thomas Nugent (London, 1769), 1:158–64. He recounts, e.g., how Palaces, houses, the whole city is a warehouse; the harbor, the quays, the streets are one continued shop, and, in the midst of them, a thousand little ambulatory shops moving backwards and forwards. What sweating the heat of the dog-days, amidst such bustle and such a crowd, and in such a climate, must occasion, may easily be imagined. The ditches, glacis, and the outworks of the city are covered with tents, huts, kitchens, and horses standing at pickets; and in every little cottage are stowed several families. The people of fashion shelter themselves in the coffee-houses, where abbes [sic] are always gallanting the ladies, and these tricked up in all their finery in the French mode. (1:160)

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You tell me, sir, of your displeasure at not having made some collection for me in Naples. I won’t hold this against you. If I had not thought that it would be difficult, I would have appealed to you the more. But I reserve your goodwill for France, and even for Grenoble and the Dauphiné, where I hope that the latter will find you as you inform me. In this land, towards Sassenage, there are natural curiosities of the fossil type, such as fish, hedgehogs, and swallow stones.56 Please remark that these petrifactions are not pressing, but when you have a propitious opportunity, via Marseilles and Leghorn, I would be very grateful if you would route some examples to me. The Feuillant household of Marseilles will be the most convenient path. You will return, you tell me, to see beautiful Florence, where you left many things without taking notes as you did when you observed them – I mean other remarkable objects – in Rome and Naples, where you made comments to fill a couple volumes. Assuredly, sir, Florence deserves a share in your memoirs. I have seen, via your letter, what you would like me to describe for you, although I know not whether I shall succeed. This will perhaps cast an unfavourable shadow on your work, because I will not be able to depict as well as you. In any case, you will remove that which you don’t find pleasing, and I will labour without any other purpose except to be of use to you, and if the first attempt that I send you in this one [i.e., letter] is to your taste, I will continue, unable to cover, at one go, what you wish. If you had passed back through here, I would have served you better than via letter. So I begin. Florence originates in the inhabitants of Fiesole, who were Etruscans. Monsieur Lamy wanted to make it a colony of this people, but he has not proved this with sufficient certainty. Yet it is indubitable that Fiesole was its mother. Florence is very old and had little lustre in ancient times. It was small in area when Totila sacked it. A few vestiges of ancient public buildings are to be seen, such as an aqueduct and public baths, which, unfortunately for us, the Christian religion destroyed, doubtless because the police did not know how to regulate morality, or else because this practice had been abolished on account of scruples. However, that has probably been the cause of many blood and skin diseases, which these waters cleansed. Florence remained for a while in this state of ruination, as did many other towns, until the Western [Roman] Empire, rediscovering a mayor in the great Charles [i.e., Charlemagne], also rediscovered a restorer who contributed to its beautification by founding 56 Mesny’s term is pierres d’hirondelle, translated literally above. Swallows, like many other birds, do produce gastroliths, and these, also known as chelidonii, were reputed to have special powers. The small stones found in the area of Sassenage were not from birds, however, although some may have originally thought so. As the naturalist Jacques-Christophe Valmont de Bomare in his Minéralogie, ou Nouvelle exposition du regne mineral (Paris, 1762), explains the nature of “lenticular agates”: These are small grains of agate that take on a determinate shape, either semi-spherical or oval, or again semi-spherical and concave, or squared off. The majority look like what are called crayfish eyes. They are about the size of a lentil, sometimes of a grain of flax; they are found in sand or within other agates. Their colour varies: sometimes white, sometimes grey, and sometimes bluish. It is not yet certain whether these isolated grains are formed by drops of stony water in the manner of stalactites or whether these are small fragments of agate triturated by friction. There are sometimes called “Sassenage stones” or “swallow stones.” (1:200–1) Or, from Jean-François-Pierre Deterville, ed., Nouveau Dictionnaire d’histoire naturelle appliqué aux arts, Appliqué aux Arts, principalement à l’Agriculture et à l’Économie Rurale & Domestique (Paris, 1804): “False Chelidonius, a very inappropriate name given to small lenticular chalcidony found in a creek close to Sassenage in the Dauphiné. They are also called ‘swallow stones.’ Someday it will be acknowledged that the matrix of such stones is a sort of lava” (8:300).

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churches, giving them funds, having the walls of the enclosure rebuilt, and sending inhabitants here, etc. Those from Fiesole watched this restoration with jealousy, which brought about a mutual hatred between them, but to the detriment of those from Fiesole, whom the Florentines destroyed in approximately the year 1001, two hundred years after the re-establishment of Florence by Charlemagne. The city of Florence is at present sizeable on account of an increase by two areas (or burgs) that were added at different times. The Arno constituted its southern border and a small brook called the Mugnone to the east; the latter flows into the Arno. This stream is sometimes quite large, as is the Arno, which, in summer, is almost always dried up, like the brook Cedron,57 and its waters also rather saline. Historians are much at variance on the origin of Florence’s name. Some would have it that the first name was Fluentia on account of the confluence of the Arno and Mugnone where the town was built; others on account of the numerous iris flowers or gladioli that flower in this vicinity, which gave it the name Florentia and the arms of which were an iris in full blossom and graced with this ancient motto: det tibi vere florere Florentia.58 The other side or obverse of the coin was Saint John seated on a chair, with a large beard, clothed with sheepskin. The town of Florence, which was enlarged by a third about the year 1078, today includes within its borders the Arno, about which the Tuscans speak as if it were the Rhine or the Danube, the Rhone or the Tiber. The city is surrounded by fairly high walls, not out of fear of enemies but of contraband, which would harm the revenues of the Republic after a while, and subsequently a grand duke, for the latter draws a very large part of his revenue from the entry taxes of all commodities, of whatever sort. There are two citadels that dominate the city and its countryside, both of which were built by the family of its first tyrants, the Medici; for from the outset of their instalment on the throne, they feared conspiracies, seeing that they had broken up several of these. In those days, there were very wealthy families such the Strozzi, the Salviati, the Capponi, etc. Even the houses of these private individuals resembled citadels or forts, both in terms of their construction and their size. And as Florence was a city divided by the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, it had been judged necessary to make oneself quite protected in one’s home. The ground-floor windows are still, in many large houses, at a height of eight feet, at least, to provide shelter from lance thrusts and musket fire, for there was fighting in the streets and on the squares; at times someone was shoved outside of a gate and the vanquished party was outlawed. The relatives and friends of these [i.e., Guelph and Ghibelline factions] did all they could to pacify the fatherland. Princes and pontiffs used their credit. The story of how the Guelphs and Ghibellines came about is told in various ways, but profit was the prime mover. And what doesn’t it do, in a country where the name or word honour is a term empty of meaning, where probity has no place, and where the quality of uprightness in a powerful man is considered a weakness, although this has nothing to do with the construction or site of the city! A nation’s genius may have a significant influence on the shape of its habitations. The proof of this is seen in modern constructions that are in a different taste than ancient ones. The old streets of Florence have something odious about them, and although in France there are still small cities that are still quite narrow and quite dirty, old Florence is nonetheless more unpleasant, more unhealthy, worse illuminated, more absurdly laid out. And if the 57 Presumably a reference to John 18:1, AV: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples.” 58 “Florence, may he grant you to truly flourish.” Sade apparently copied this slightly deformed citation of the motto into his notebooks (see p. 448).

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Italians have furnished great architects, as cannot be doubted considering the great buildings that I will discuss, it seems that they were unfamiliar with either the conveniences of living or the way in which the terrain can be handled, or how to situate a flight of stairs. In former times, sacrifices were made to ceremonial features that were refused to convenience and to the favourable lighting of apartments. In these great palaces or hôtels, as we say in France59 – which have changed quite a bit as far as we are concerned as well, but a century before other nations – I tell you that you see only fireplaces where a man five and half feet tall might stand quite easily under the mantle. We infer from these that the entire family warmed themselves by the same fire. But what is truly surprising is that in these large hearths, in immense living rooms, the only thing burned is vine cuttings. I see that I am mixing customs with the make-up of the city, but I take my subject up again. The city of Florence grew again in 1284 and reached the area that we see today, that is to say, that the southern part or the part on the other side of the Arno was enclosed within strong and lovely walls, flanked with square towers, surmounted with crenellations. The Republic had a fairly substantial fortress on that side that was called San Miniato. It is said that from there, Charles VIII, King of France, after his expedition to the Kingdom of Naples, etc., made Florence ultimately contribute some amount; I will not discuss this episode, which does not enter into my plan. In general, Florence is a beautiful city. It has very beautiful churches, of which a portion are Gothic architecture of the grand style and a portion beautiful modern architecture, a succinct description of which I will provide, unable to enter into details, except that I will mention singular features and paintings or distinguished monuments. And there, sir, if you are satisfied with it, is what I am able to give you at present. If I have forgotten something, mention it to me, and if you would like more detail, let me know. There are many things that I could add, but my letter would be too large. Monsieur Goudar has spent five or six days in prison; one of his servants was then put in his place. His secretary brought me the Lettre de Naples, but as you are no longer here, I did not accept it; he wanted twenty-five paoli for it.60 I have the honour of being, with respect, your very humble and obedient servant. Dr Mesny

32  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade61 [July 1776] Sir, In spite of being unsure if you were happy with the first description that I made for you concerning Florence, I have the honour of producing yet another while awaiting your response, without excluding the risk of putting right in the future what is missing via others [i.e., descriptions], and this so as to not impede your work, which I am desirous to see.

59 That is, hôtels particuliers, large private homes or mansions. 60 This would suggest that the second edition of Goudar’s work on Naples, dated 1775, did not appear in print until around June of 1776 (see p. 605n45 above). Sade did finally get his hands on a copy of this text, although which edition is uncertain, as revealed in the inventory of his library made after his return to La Coste in July of the same year. See Alice Laborde, La bibliothèque du marquis de Sade au château de La Coste (en 1776) (Geneva: Slatkine, 1991), 115. 61 The address is: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan.” Starting with the second paragraph, Sade made vertical strikes to indicate that he had used the material provided.

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The city of Florence is almost circular; from its centre to each of its gates is about a mile, which makes it two miles across. It has six main gates, the names of which are as follows: The one that leads to Bologna is called the Saint Gall Gate [Porta San Gallo]. There is outside, just adjacent, a beautiful triumphal arch that was erected to the honour of François III of Lorraine, deceased emperor.62 This arch was built by Monsieur Nicolas Jadot [Jean-Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey], from Lorraine, born in Lunéville. This man was very skilled in his art and made various grand buildings, above all, the Palace of the Hungarian States in Buda, the distance of which puts it out of reach. The triumphal arch is most tasteful, approaching that of Constantine. It is adorned with bas-reliefs, the principal ones of which are episodes from life of the late emperor: one depicts him as triumphing over the Turks when he commanded the armies of the emperor Charles VI, and the one opposite, his coronation at Frankfurt. This monument is adorned with statues symbolizing his talents or his virtues. It has been engraved. Outside of this gate, there is a sort of garden surrounded by a ditch where those of merit and rank may enter. There are three lovely alleys planted with mulberry trees and some vegetable gardens are grown there. The Gate of Saint Gall is aligned with the Gate of Saint Peter Gattolini [Porta a San Pier Gattolini] or the gate that leads to Rome. Outside of that gate, on the left when exiting, you see a large alley of trees, both cypress and live oaks, which is a mile long and that leads to a very beautiful pleasure palace of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, where that ruler resides during the summer. The reigning grand duke has for several years been continuing to build onto it. In that country villa there are some very beautiful paintings and modern furnishings in the latest fashion made of pekin. This house or palace, constructed by the Medici, was too small to satisfy such a large court, which is what decided the sovereign to add on. The gates of Saint Frediano and Saint Nicholas [Porta San Niccolò] are opposite each other and situated on the main routes heading to Leghorn, in the first instance, and towards Arezzo, in the second. The pathway traversing the city between these two areas is not unbroken, and while the streets take some turns, they are on the same axis. The Prato and Cross gates run in the same direction: the Prato one leads to Prato, a pretty little town, from there to Pistoia, Pescia, and Lucca, each some ten miles distant from one another. That of the Cross, so named because outside of that gate are patibulary forks, the path leads to the region known as Casentino, where Poppi and Bibbiena are located, in the direction of Romagna. Another small gate, called Pinti, heads towards ancient Fiesole, which has nothing remarkable about it except that it was an Etruscan town, where you can still see parts of the old walls and vestiges of an amphitheatre that has nothing particularly deserving of attention. All the environs of Florence are fertile and well cultivated. At all the gates, there is nothing deserving of note other than at that of Saint Gall. The Arno, which I have mentioned, originates in the Appenines, close to the sources of the Tiber, and ends up flowing into the sea some two or three miles from Leghorn, after having been joined by several tributaries. The river is crossed in Florence via four quite solid stone bridges, of which one alone merits, owing to the beauty of its architecture, the admiration of travellers. Its architect was Bartolomeo Ammannati in the century 1500 and [some] years [sic]. It was knocked down in the year 1557 and rebuilt by the very same Ammannati by order

62 Francis I (1708–1765) was Holy Roman Emperor and grand duke of Tuscany. He was duke of Lorraine as François III from 1728 to 1737.

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of Grand Duke Cosimo I. This bridge is called the Holy Trinity. The spans of the archways appear almost flat. It is graced with four statues, which depict the four seasons and are quite esteemed. This bridge connects to two lovely streets of the city. The Bridge of Carraia will be seen below and last, downstream. There is nothing noteworthy about it. That of Old Bridge [i.e., Ponte Vecchio] is further upstream than that of the Holy Trinity, on which silversmiths maintain their shops, which are neither lavish nor magnificent. You can judge the skills of these artisans by appearances. It is not that there are not jewels in Florence among the nobility and even among some citizens, but the rich are unfamiliar with that taste for making artisans labour, and certainly the effects are everywhere felt, for they have declined in every genre [of artisanship]. Why has this come about? The fourth bridge – or the first, since I see that I have not followed the natural order – was called Ponte a Rubaconte, the name of a podestà or chief magistrate in Florence, in the year 1235. Today, it is called the Bridge of the Graces, because there is an oratory of the Holy Virgin called of the Graces [Santa Maria delle Grazie]. This bridge violently breaks the water; it is solid and has nothing unique about it, but this is not a trifling effect, for the river is sometimes so high that water overflows into the city via the gutters and tops the parapets: such is the result of torrential flows. I know not whether I ought discuss buildings now or the ornaments that embellish the city, but you, sir, will order this as you see fit. I will discuss the columns, five in number, one of which is granite, in the Doric order, on which is set a porphyry figure representing justice with sword in one hand and scales in the other, clothed with a lovely bronze mantle, which produces a marvellous effect. It is thought that this column was at the thermae of Antoninus. Grand Duke Cosimo I got it from the pontiff Pius IV. He had made the statue that is on top and had it erected in Florence. We shall hope that the reigning grand duke will cause those beautiful centuries in which the Medici knew to encourage the arts and sciences to be reborn. A peculiar thing is to be observed in the positioning of this statue, which is that it turns its back to the tribunals – and the comment is judicious, for it is said that justice has fled them. It is true that many a minister has rather a bad soul. The grand duke is watching them and will make them become what they ought to be, but he still has much to do in spite of his zeal for the public good. In Florence there are public buildings that I will not mix up with sacred buildings. There is, above all, one that has become useless, because trade here has changed since its construction. It served almost the same function as the exchange at Marseilles. It is a portico. On this spot, merchants came around noon. The number of columns is […]63 The building is in the Ionic order, with capitals partially in the Corinthian order. The upper part of this monument, which is not very high, serves for posting notarial acts, which are subsequently transferred to the public archive, not far from there. And fire is never brought into these archives: a very wise precaution that, if it had been followed in Paris, would have prevented the recent conflagration that happened in 1776.64 The Italians take great care to preserve everything of this nature: which is in the interest of the state and of families to not see perish. The architect was Bernardo Tasso.65 At the front, in the middle of this building and worthy of admiration, there is a very 63 Left blank. 64 A fire in January of 1776 had severely damaged the Palais de Justice in Paris, with significant losses to the records stored there. See Edgard Boutaric, Actes du Parlement de Paris: Inventaires et Documents publiés par ordre de l’Empereur (Paris, 1863), 1:cclviii–cclix. 65 The edifice in question is the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo, designed by Giovanni Battista del Tasso and built in the middle of the sixteenth century. Bernardo Tasso (1493–1569) was an esteemed poet and father of Torquato Tasso. Mesny has confused the two or simply committed a lapsus calami (cf. pp. 465 and 477 above).

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lovely bronze boar that shoots water from its maw. The basin into which it falls is graced with a rim with a bronze border on which insects and aquatic reptiles are to be admired. The original from which this boar was copied is in the galleries of the grand duke; it is Greek. [Pietro] Tacca was commissioned with this work in bronze. The other is made of marble and suffered a bit of calcination in the fire in one small part of the galleries, but it [the fire] did not destroy any essential pieces. There is something else to be remarked in the pavement of this portico: this is the marble image of a wheel; it recalls the notion of the carroccio, which was a chariot that carried a bell. In war, the sound of this bell was the combat signal. This is a curious note.66 There is another portico that creates what you would call a covered market. The columns form single blocks of four on each side, but the back is not open to the air like the other sides. This rather lovely building is the grain market [Loggia del Grano], which in other cities is not to be seen constructed in such a stately fashion. There is a plated fountain made of white marble visible in the corners of this portico. There are three or four other columns standing in various spots in this city, which all signify that some event gave rise to their erection: one made of granite on the Square of Saint Felicity [Piazza Santa Felícita]; another opposite Saint Felix, which is made of Serravezza marble, white and red, placed there in memory of the victory of Marciano. This was Cosimo I, Grand Duke.67 A third or fourth close to the Duomo, in front of the Baptistery or baptismal fonts, in memory of one of Saint Zenobius’s miracles. I remain your very humble servant. Mesny

33  From the Marquis de Sade to Doctor Mesny68 [July/August, 1776] [Q] Which nation used the Carroccio about which you spoke to carry a bell into war? You did not say. [A] The Republic of Florence. [Q] The granite column that supports the statue of abundance is it not on the square of Saint Felicity? If it is not there, on which is it? Well then, what does the one depict that you indicated being on the square of Saint Felicity? [A] It’s justice; she holds the sword and scales opposite the Holy Trinity church.

66 Mesny has conflated the carroccio, an ox-drawn wheeled altar that carried a standard, and the martinella, a bell that travelled alongside in its own cart. Both were indeed curious features of medieval Italian warfare. For a colourful description, see Henry Edward Napier, Florentine History, from the Earliest Authentic Records to the Accession of Ferdinand the Third, Grand Duke of Tuscany (London: Edward Moxon, 1846), 1:214–17. To excerpt but a small bit, Napier writes: “In order to give more dignity to the national army and form a rallying point for the troops, there had been established a great car called the Carroccio drawn by two beautiful oxen which carrying the Florentine standard generally accompanied them to the field. This car was painted vermilion, the bullocks were covered with scarlet cloth, and the driver, a man of some consequence, was dressed in crimson, was exempt from taxation, and served without pay: these oxen were maintained at the public charge in a public hospital and the white and red banner of the city was spread above the car between two lofty spars” (1.214). As for the “great bell called ‘Martinella’ or ‘Campana degli Asini’” that accompanied the carroccio, for “thirty days before hostilities began,” it “tolled continually day and night from the arch of ‘Porta Santa Maria’ as a public declaration of war and as the ancient chronicle hath it ‘for greatness of mind that the enemy might have full time to prepare himself’” (1.217). 67 Cosimo I de’ Medici waged a campaign to incorporate the formerly independent Republic of Siena into the Grand Duchy of Tuscany culminating in the victory of his forces in the Battle of Marciano in 1554. 68 The questions are on the left-hand side of the page, with the answers on the right.

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[Q] Send me also, I beg of you, a little description of the other public monuments that can be found in the city and are of interest. [No answer.] [Q] The notes on the Baptistery and the Duomo were obviously too short and went into too little detail, and they have been unusable in that condition. [A] This will be done in the future. [Q] The four churches and the four palaces, with a bit of ancient and modern history. Items asked for in my last [letter], then all is said and done.

34  From the Marquis de Sade to Doctor Mesny69 [July/August 1776] new questions that monsieur the doctor would please kindly return with answers in the margin

[Q] Are pheasants still raised at the Cascine [i.e., Parco delle Cascine], and to whom does that farm belong? [A] The grand duke keeps pheasants for his pleasure at the Cascine, as well as at Poggio a Caiano; it’s not a farm, but a reserve for him. [Q] Is it true, as asserts some one of our modern travellers, that the Trinity Bridge is made entirely of marble? [A] No, it is in part. The parapets or support walls are made of ordinary stone, the spans are made of marble, but only the exterior. Some cornices or the stringcourse on the archways and the arms of the grand duke and statues, four in number; the rest is stone. Travellers are exaggerators, and quite often liars. Men take a certain pleasure in astonishing others. [Q] Send me, please, the correct width of the Arno in order to refute Monsieur Lalande, who in a gaffe that is inexcusable in a writer, makes the Trinity Bridge more than a hundred feet shorter than it needs to be for the width that he gives the river. But send me this in fathoms or French feet, please. [A] The bridge is three hundred and five feet and two or three king’s inches in length. It extends further into the riverbed. It is eighty-one geom. paces in length; I measured it twice. The Arno, in other spots, is in fact a bit wider. The bridge’s architect wished to diminish the length of these arches, which would have made them have more of a bow, whereas they are flatter. Nota: The Arno, at the Bridge of Graces, at the upper part of Florence, is a hundred and twenty geometric paces; it is the longest of all. The Old Bridge is shorter than that of the Holy Trinity, by about ten geometric paces. [Q] Who is the first grand duke who lived in the Pitti Palace? [A] Cosimo, the first grand duke, who bought it from a certain Luca (or Luke) Pitti, a gentleman who had had it built. But this palace at the time had only eight windows; he augmented it and his son [i.e., as did his son]. [Q] (Sent back for clarification.) All authors indicate six public columns in Florence; you have only sent five. What could this sixth be? [A] There are in fact six, of which one on the marketplace where those who are put in shackles

69 As above, questions on the left-hand side of the page and answers on the right.

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are attached (perhaps this horrific notion had given me the slip): that of the Holy Trinity, of Saint Felicity, Saint Felix, near Saint John the Baptist [Battistero di San Giovanni], and that of the Croce al Trebbio or Trivio that was erected after the war that I will deem civil against the Albigensians [i.e., Cathars] in Florence. Which you saw in the cloister of Saint Mary Novella, where Monsieur d’Hancarville showed us the plans for the cupola of the Duomo before Brunelleschi built it.70 [Q] The covered market, is this not the same thing that they call the Old Market? [A] Mercato al Grano that I discussed using the term portico; not far from the Old Palace. [Q] How could Donatello have been, as you tell me, he who restored sculpture? He was, it seems to me, contemporary with Michelangelo, who was born in 1474. Didn’t both have some artist who preceded them, some escapee from Constantinople in 1453?71 Provide me, please, with some anecdote about Donatello. I find nothing about him anywhere. [A] Donatello was born in 1383; in terms of drawing he was the disciple of Lorenzo di Bicci; he was contemporary with Brunelleschi. Roberto Martelli supported him, and Cosimo, father of the nation, worked him considerably. In those days, the fine arts were unknown in Constantinople; this can be discerned from the medal of John Palaiologos, Emperor, and by the medals of those feeble emperors, among whom there were some quite wicked ones. This pitiful era gives a glimpse of what the masters of the Greek Empire were. One must read the Life of Famous Painters and Sculptors72 for Donatello anecdotes. He had made a Christ that he showed to Brunelleschi who did not consider it good. He challenged him to make one. He did it without saying anything. After a while, Brunelleschi came to see him and invited him to dinner; he took leave of him and asked that he bring some eggs with him. This he did and put them in his apron. Upon entering, he saw the Christ, found it beautiful, and so beautiful that he was so astonished that he released his apron and the eggs fell onto the ground. At that instant, Brunelleschi returned and found Donatello in ecstasy. He said to him: “Hey! What are we going to dine on?” Donatello, come to his senses, left and said to his friend: “Dine however you like. I have dined!” This jolt may have nicely served to put Donatello right, for his Christ was harsh and too muscular, and resembled more the body of a porter than the beautiful human shape that ought to be given to such a beautiful subject.73 [Q] Are they monkeys or tritons that ornament the two fountains at the Annunciation Square? [A] No, these are composite grotesques that are a mixture, that is, neither monkeys nor tritons but quite a fine imagination to make up these grotesques or monsters [sic].

70 The column is not actually in the cloister, as Mesny would have it, but in a small square close to the Church of Santa Maria Novella. 71 Constantinople fell to the troops of Mehmed II in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire along with the Palaiologos dynasty. 72 Mesny evidently means Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori da Cimabue insino a’ tempi nostri [Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects from Cimabue to Our Times], first published in 1560 and in an expanded edition in 1568. It is somewhat surprising that Sade appears to have been unaware of the reference. The inventory of his library from later 1776 indicates that he had righted this oversight and that a two-volume edition of the Vie des peintres (edition unknown) graced a little shelf next to the large desk. See Laborde, La bibliothèque du marquis de Sade, 120. 73 This anecdote, more or less accurately recounted by Mesny, was something Sade intended to include in his final version of the “Voyage d’Italie”; see dossier III (on Rome), p. 461n81.

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[Q] A little summation, later, on Volterra, Fiesole, and Arezzo, voyage that you undertook with such profit, would not displease me. [A] I will do this some other time. [Q] And the anecdotes about the Florentines that you told me are in Lorraine? Shall it ever be possible to see them? I would be quite flattered if you would entrust me with them. [A] I can get them into your keeping; this is also a matter of our history. But that man from Lorraine who wrote [them], said what happened in that era and the state of the Tuscan nation, mores, faces, events. It is a rather curious memoir.

questions unrelated to florence, but which i would be grateful if you would likewise answer

[Q] What is the hackney that the king of Naples sent to the pope? Is it a horse or a mule? Upon what occasion does it appear got up and who presents it? [A] Hackney is an old French word that means female horse or mare. It is claimed that this word is Spanish or Celtic. At present the hackney is a mule that is made to enter the apartments of the pontiff all gotten up, caparisoned, magnificently trained to genuflect before the pope. The ambassador of the king of Naples presents it annually, on the eve of the Feast of Saint Peter, as a sign of the Kingdom of Naple’s vassalage and along with a sum of eighty thousand crowns. It is said that for a few years this takes place with money and that the ceremony is no longer done. The gazettes say this. Iberti will tell you more positively. I had written to him; I have sent you the father’s response. [Q] Question concerning my health. Cologne water, in which I place considerable faith, taken internally and mixed into some liqueur, can it assuage stomach pains occasioned by slow and painful digestion? Does it have any drawbacks? I am subject to these troubles. [A] Cologne water is made up of spirit of wine and of essential oils of orange, citron, and others. It can be good for indigestion, but it would be better not to put yourself in that situation: eat less, walk more, and consume healthy things, less fatty foods, few pastries.

35  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade74 (Florence, 9 August 1776) [Doubtless, sir count, you will have put me on trial, you will have judged and condemned me. Three of your letters and even four – including the one from the 25th of July, where I see that I am thought of in a manner utterly different from what I am – tell me sufficiently, notwithstanding with much politeness, that you are, as it were, vexed to have approached me, to have asked me for little literary services that another would have been charmed to provide. If you were to recount your grievances to another, I would be stoned. But if my letters did not take the road to hell, I hope that they will see the light again and that they will justify me before you, sir, and that if you had accused me in the eyes of the world, as a good Christian you ought to restore my distorted uprightness. Now you have two or three responses in which

74 The address found on this letter is: “To Mr the Count of Mazan.” Sade made ample use of the letter when composing the “Voyage d’Italie,” striking out paragraphs that he had used and inserting subsection titles. At the top of the first page is written in his hand: “Places and mores. All that is struck out has been used.” At top left: “All that remains for me to use from this are mores and a church.” The passages that were struck out are given in brackets above.

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I am obliged to pen frantic periods to repulse suspicions. Here is the latest attempt, whether my letters fall into the Lethe or into the Phlegethon.] [The last that I had the honour of writing to you was 2 August. Your last, as I have just pointed out to you, was dated the 25th of July. Your letters reach me and mine are libertine and unfaithful. How can this be? I had accompanied you in the same letter up to the square of the Annunciation, but as I was tired and unable to carry on, I pick you up again where I left you in order to tour you around the city’s principal squares, only stopping where there is something noteworthy. Saint Mark’s Square is unremarkable, except that the famed Galilei was buried on this square as irreligious, at the foot of the first level of the square or landing, if this were a house, of the Church of Saint Mark,] whence he was exhumed afterwards in order to be brought to the Church of the Holy Cross [i.e., Basilica di Santa Croce], which has become the Westminster of Florence ever since several great men have been interred there. Saint Mark, to which we shall not return, is the grave of the famed Pico della Mirandola, the most learned man of his age.75 It is also the final resting place of the celebrated Doctor Gori, a great adherent of Etruscan antiquities.76 It would be better if all famous men were kept together; that they not be put, if deemed undesirable, with the Medici in Saint Lawrence [i.e., Basilica di San Lorenzo]. It is only English kings who are knowing enough to honour great men by providing them the same honours of the sepulchre as they. [Leaving Saint Mark’s Square, you return on the right to take that beautiful road called via Larga, which comes to an end close to the square of Saint Lawrence, which I will now discuss. On that square, you admire a triangular-shaped base adorned with a bas-relief of singular beauty made by Baccio Bandinelli. This bas-relief depicts Giovanni de’ Medici – John de’ Medici – to whom is led various prisoners and the spoils of nations. He worked hard to depict thereupon Baldassare Turini, datary of Leo X, carrying that odious creature the pig on his shoulders. The latter, qua priest and influential, had occasioned or done some wrong to Bandinelli.77 After having left the square of Saint Lawrence, where there is nothing more to see than the church (but in a separate item I will discuss what is pertinent in that regard), we move along, I say, not far from there, to the square of Santa Maria Novella, where we note two pyramids positioned at either end of the square, the function is which is to serve as markers or endpoints for chariot races: games that take place annually, on the eve of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, just like circus games. These pyramids are made of marble and rest on bronze tortoises that raise them above their bases or pedestals on which they are placed by approximately eight to nine inches. This square is beautiful, with a portico opposite the church that makes a quite nice effect. There remain no more than two or three of these bits to talk to you about. The court square, called de Pitti, of which the palace takes up the entire front side; but as this is all there is, let us move quickly on to the square called that of the Holy Cross, because of the church of this name that is at the back. It is a rectangle surrounded by some very nasty pieces of wood to prevent vehicles from crossing through.

75 Mesny’s syntax notwithstanding, the philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) is simply buried in the Chiesa di San Marco. 76 Antonio Francesco Gori (1691–1757), antiquarian and author, among other works, of the Museum Etruscum exhibens insignia veterum Etruscorum monumenta, 3 vols. (Florence, 1737–43), a compilation of ancient Etruscan inscriptions. 77 Mesny drew this account of Baldassare Turini da Brescia and the pig from Vasari’s Lives (see p. 467 and p. 467n97).

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This is the refuge of maskers, who promenade here towards the end of day in amenable weather. Coaches are routed around these barriers, and when the amount of vehicles is sizeable, the route is extended accordingly and makes a rather large detour in a quite orderly fashion, until the hour to attend the theatre arrives. Sentinels on the street corners oblige the vehicles to maintain order, such that a line of vehicles comes and another goes, from Holy Cross Square to that of Santa Maria Novella, turning around the pyramids that I mentioned, which still function as markers in this manner. I will not discuss the marketplace, which has nothing special other than a portico on one of the sides and a column in the middle. From this column it is a mile to each of the gates. I have enough space to put on this page two or three monuments that embellish the city. Near the Arno, which is to the south, you see at the foot of the Old Bridge a group consisting of two figures, one mortally wounded who represents Ajax supported by a Greek soldier; this Greek piece has been restored to excellence by Salvetti, to whom the G D [i.e., Grand Duke] Ferdinando II gave three hundred ducats.78 On the spot where the statue is, it is said that there was in former times an equestrian statue of the god Mars which was removed from its temple and that a terrible flood cast it into the Arno. The other statue that I wanted to speak about on the other side of the page is the beautiful Centaur fashioned by Giambologna [Jean de Boulogne]. Grand Duke Cosimo II never passed this spot without reviewing it. This beautiful group is isolated. Hercules, doubtless to avenge himself for the outrage committed against a demigod before his eyes, is ready to knock out Nessus, who I know not in what manner had caressed Dejanira. Besides, no less than a centaur was required for the wife of Hercules. If one were to set this as a problem to be resolved, wouldn’t it be necessary to give it to the ladies? This digression of mine is not long, so you will excuse me. Yet I will not do this often, as the material might scandalize someone. Mythology is often libertine. Let’s change the subject, then. And at my age this sort of thing no longer suits. You are familiar enough, sir, with the mores, broadly speaking, of this nation. You know that they love very dearly their pleasures and amusements. I have not had sufficient intimacy to judge well of the delicacy of their taste; I know not whether they mark out sensual pleasure. The more I consider them on this point, the less I am persuaded. Their expenses are always calculated, although they have many vague desires. The majority only satisfy a third of them. The ladies are so sullen on account of their education that when the flowers of youth are past, they remain like termini. Some of them have complexion and pleasing plumpness; above all, their mouths and hands are nothing less than attractive. You be the judge of the rest in hot countries (fie! such base thoughts!). They eat a lot of garlic and strong things here. I leave you to think about how that works out, and as they are quite miserly, they are sparing even with water, for fear of wearing out the rope for the well. If money is given to ladies, this is for their upkeep; if they earn any, this is to buy jewels that they retain in case of widowhood. These are little treasures of iniquity that can be put to use. Do you think, sir, that they use almond pastes here, powders for teeth, iris for armpits, and other little daintinesses? This is as rare as white blackbirds; I am not even sure whether if they were

78 This so-called restoration, alternatively known as Menelaus supporting Patroclus, is more of an imagined extrapolation building on a mutilated fragment of an ancient Roman sculpture. Although some of the details are unclear, older and more recent sources converge on Sade’s attribution: the work was apparently commissioned by Ferdinando II of Tuscany, designed by Pietro Tacca (1577–1640), and executed by his pupil Lodovico Salvetti c. 1620. See, e.g., Maria Teresa Caracciolo, Da Lille a Roma: Jean-Baptiste Wicar e l’Italia (Milan: Electra, 2002), 86. The group is now located in the Loggia dei Lanza in Florence.

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provided with them, they would use them. The fair sex is, however, fairly beautiful here, but second class; they know the art of composing themselves and have taste. A trifle does them honour – I mean, the ladies. They are not delicate about linens. If a lady or citizen forgets her handkerchief, she unconcernedly takes that of the man who holds her hand and then gives it back to him; this will go on for an entire afternoon and evening. I have witnessed an era when they were much more backward in taste and cleanliness. Such and such a woman had a velvet dress of the which the blouse had spent at least the past eight days on her body; one carried a pocket handkerchief for a fortnight and others for a month, and still today knights wearing the cross of Saint Stephen carry handkerchiefs that cobblers in France would be ashamed to use. To describe all these ridiculous customs would require more than one letter; to depict their mores, you would need almost a book. But I am touching only on the general and those of a certain status. They are unfamiliar here with a certain sense of honour about money. It is honour, it is probity provided that an Italian gets something out of it, either at the court, or with his equals or even his inferiors; he does and suffers all. There are even genteel men who act as spies for the wretched benefit of getting free entry to the theatre. What can I say about cuisine? Very little. Besides, they have in common with the Dutch an indecent parsimony. If you see them eating cheese on their minestra, this is because so little meat is put in the pot that the amount is unable to provide substance to the stock and the cheese that is added for a sol spares five or six in meat. Here they make a dish with five or six sols: they call this polpette: this is bread mashed with a pound of minced meat that is rolled in flour and mixed with some spices. They cook this hodgepodge in fat or in naught. They praise this like another would praise an excellent pâté. The ladies that are attentively catered for in the great houses have a little pigeon. A thrush, two larks, a bit of fruit, constitutes, when dining alone, the table of a senator, of a marquis. Coffee is not taken at home, as this costs too much. There are not twenty-five houses in Florence that put seven dishes on the table. If this does not suffice, I will go into greater detail: you are familiar with my respectful devotion.

36  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade79 (Florence, 5 September 1776) Sir, Here I am saved from worrying about the fate of my letters and whether I ought to continue to write you. I have seen what you want; I understand what I must add and the enigma that I must clarify for you. There is a very difficult matter, which is that of the Etruscans, about whom you find no sufficiently clear explanation, except what Titus Livy and Tacitus state. These authors, closer to these ancient peoples than us, are not very well informed about them. Apparently, Dionysius of Halicarnassus also discusses them quite succinctly. Neither do I have knowledge and insight enough. Some consider them aborigines or ab origines, and I think that if we understood the meaning of the word aborigine differently – that is, construing it not as sons of the earth that they inhabited but ab alia origine [from another source] – the meaning would be more apt. I would have to write a dissertation to explain this point properly; I am going to risk discussing it the least poorly that I can, because I do not claim to speak accurately. The history of the earliest times is too muddled and obscure on certain points. We do not know anymore who the Umbri were, the Ausones, the Ligures, etc. There are philosophers

79 Written at the top in Sade’s hand: “All about the Etruscans.”

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who think that all these names have significations, but when it becomes necessary to reconcile them with Holy Scripture, all these opinions take a tumble. We know about the dispersion of peoples at the time of the confusion of tongues. Japheth or rather his descendants populated Greece. We know that the Pelasgians made two ventures into Italy, some under Oenotrus, the others under Evander, and this at approximately the time of the Trojan War. If I must cite for you the epochs, it will be easy for me to do so in another letter; but that there were already peoples in Italy, this is not in doubt according to the authors. The Etruscans are they thus not the descendants of the Pelasgians or Pelagosians, which means folk who inhabit the maritime or marshy terrains?80 The Pelasgians were the first to cross the Ionian Sea. These peoples came from Arcadia (consult an ancient map). Oenotrus was son of Lycaon (see also the Tablettes chronologiques of abbé Lenglet Du Fresnoy on the kings of Arcadia).81 But whatever their origin, the Etruscans existed and were a great nation in Italy of which there were twelve towns that were as many kingdoms [sic]. They inhabited mainly the region called Tuscany and a part of the patrimony of Saint Peter.82 There still remain several of these towns, but a number have been destroyed; above all, Velsuna or Bolsena, where you have passed through, near Viterbo, and Roselle, in the Maremma, Populonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea, which took its name (this sea) from towers that the Etruscans, when they arrived, built. There is Volterra, still extant, where quite solid ancient walls are to be seen; Cortona, likewise Perusia (or Perugia), Fiesole, very close to Florence, Clusium or Chiusi, where Porsena, so well known as the ally of the Gauls, reigned. These kings bore the title Lucomon, an Etruscan word. As you know, we have lost that language, but we have their alphabet, which several scholars claim is the Pelasgian alphabet. The Etruscan nation educated itself about the religious ceremonies of the Romans, since augurs, haruspices, sacrificers, and soothsayers were taken from among them. This point shows that they had (these Etruscans) been instructed by nations that had taken their religion from the Orient. Etymologies are indicative: the word Thuscians comes from Thyoscous, instructed in matters of worship; Thespiodos signifies prediction. All of this was thus new to the Romans who had not yet, in the body of their nation, men educated about ceremonies, worship, and the future – which proves that the Etruscans were at that time a great nation in Italy, whether it came from the Lydians, which because of a great famine were obliged to seek to subsist elsewhere, or whether it had the Pelasgians as origin. But this race, already ancient within Italy, had notions, therefore, of policing, divine worship, and the arts. They (the Etruscans) had an alphabet, which, as I think I’ve said, resembles the Pelasgian. But, in that case it would appear that their origin is Greek. Mister Guernaccia from Volterra would have things otherwise; he settles in his own way the origins of the Etruscans, saying that Diodorus of Sicily and Dionysius of Halicarnassus were happy to grant the Greeks the glory owed to the Etruscans, that the latter are the most direct descendants of Noah (see page 102).83 This learned man tries people’s patience by wishing to prove that the Etruscans are the first descendants of the separate human race, that they 80 Mesny writes “Pélasges” or “Pélasgues,” emphasizing what he takes to be the term’s etymon, namely, πέλαγος [pelagos] (Greek for “sea”). 81 See vol. 1 of Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy, Tablettes chronologiques de l’histoire universelle sacrée et prophane, ecclésiastique et civile, Depuis la Création du Monde, jusqu’à l’an 1743 (Paris, 1744), 13, 21, and 37. This work was originally published in 1729 and subsequently updated and expanded. 82 Patrimonium Sancti Petri was a medieval designation for the territorial possessions of the Church of Rome. 83 Mario Guarnacci (1701–1785) was an avid collector of Italian antiquities and donated his artefacts and library to the citizens of his home town of Volterra in 1761 (today, the Etruscan Guarnacci Museum). The work to which Mesny refers was Guarnacci’s controversial Le Origine Italiche, o Siano Memorie

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repopulated and even governed the Greeks who had come to Italy, such that neither the Umbri, nor the Ausones, nor all those men – Cicones, Caucones – nor Pelasgians preceded the Etruscans in Tuscia or Tuscany. We must praise his zeal for the fatherland and excuse his weakness and his enthusiasm for his people who, if we follow him correctly, had nothing that other nations could have contested them as having seen them much later than them – I mean the Etruscans – or to reproach them for having left the others in a state of imperfection or ignorance [sic]. For ultimately, a nation that makes for itself a religion or that has had a legislator, must have had something characteristic in its theocracy, or, better put, in its theogony, in its government, and above all, in its arts. For he who can imagine can bring to perfection – which did not at all happen with the Etruscans. They were only, in all probability, servile imitators of the customs and rituals of those who preceded them. The arts remained quite coarse with them, which you can judge from what they have left us; firstly from their idols, from their coinage, from their tombs, and from the shape of their letters, as limited in these arts of taste [sciences de goût] as the Jews, before they were forbidden to make graven images. The Egyptians, who ceased making monuments in accordance with their taste at about the same time as the Etruscans, were subjugated by the Romans, when the Greeks were educating everyone. If we consider therefore the porphyry and basalt figures of the Egyptians, if we examine the hieroglyphs engraved on granite, and if we compare the sculpture – either the bas-reliefs fashioned into hypogea or the cinerary urns of the Etruscans – we will see less skill and less inventiveness than with the Egyptians. And, if we may judge by the symbols, the figures, by the representations related to the religion of the Etruscans, we shall see that it was the same as the Pelasgians and the Greeks in general: same mythology, same theogony, except that the arts made great progress with the Greeks and that the Etruscans left things at the same degree of coarseness that they had before. On the majority of those square-shaped urns, however, where the ashes of the dead were placed, we usually only see the adventures and misfortunes of Ulysses, his combats along with his troops against the Cyclopes, whence he afterwards travelled on to the land of the Laestrygonians, of Circe, etc. The sculpting of these bas-reliefs has nothing beautiful or precise about it. I admit that they might be (these objects) very ancient, but they would not be from the first migrations of the Pelasgians; they are Etruscan or Tyrrhenian, the name that they took as time passed. We know that many peoples took the names of their leaders. I think that I mentioned that they got the name Tyrrhenian from the towers that they built and in which they lived, on some elevated areas on the shores of the sea, which is why this was called the Tyrrhenian Sea. We have already grasped that this nation grew in size and became much spoken about. As for those beautiful Etruscan vases, you must not be deceived; these vases, let me say, the shapes of which are so elegant and which are so artistically painted, and which often depict victories, sacrifices, games, processions, marriages, or memorable deeds of pagan Antiquity: all that is the work of the Greeks who arrived and inhabited Magna Graecia, which as you know, forms part of the Kingdom of Naples. It is not that the Etruscans didn’t make some good vases, but they never achieved that perfection in painting. This is the sentiment of several great antiquarians: Monsieur d’Hancarville,84 who knew quite well how to tell the difference between Greek and Istorico-Etrusche, 3 vols. (Lucca, 1767–1772). Noah as the “populator” of Italy, and his relation to the Etruscans is discussed in 1:102–3 and at greater length in 1:136–67. 84 Pierre-François Hugues, self-styled Baron d’Hancarville, was a French antiquarian and sometimes dealer in antiquities. He was the author, along with William Hamilton, of the Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon.ble W.m Hamilton, His Britannick Maiestys Envoy

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Etruscan, says that these must not be confused. But then, if the Etruscans had the divinities and the ceremonies that the Greeks had, they would come from regions where the same form of worship had been established prior to their emigration. For another proof of this conjecture: if these are not truths, this is that everything that remains of them is quite analogous to the Greek or Pelasgian, whereas other nations, as with the Egyptians, have other divinities such as Osiris and Isis, which are neither Janus with two faces nor Jupiter, etc. Shall I mention the Chaldeans, the Assyrians with their Belus, Belphegor, Atargatis, Astaroth, etc.? The Greeks, like the Etruscans, honoured Pan and especially Priapus, of which we see so many idols that are found every day in the ruins of our Etruscan towns, and others that the Romans worshipped, as well as those of many nations. I know that the Egyptians had phallic ones [i.e., idols], but this form of worship is of another sort. But let’s bring this item on the Etruscans to a close. I do not believe that this people was a separate nation; it has no other heroes than those of the Greeks. Other peoples have said very few things about them. Their mores were those of the Greeks, and there remain to them – supposing that there are still Etruscans – many of the tastes of their fathers and the jest about fides Graeca retains all its entire force in Etruria.85 Besides, we find so few monuments that we cannot build on nothing. There was a certain Annius from Viterbo who, out of fanaticism, published an infinity of lies about the Etruscans.86 This is a proof that, from time to time, the spirit of the nation that preceded them [i.e., contemporary Tuscans] awakens and that, whether they were augurs, soothsayers, or liars, we rediscover the same fundamental falsity; or else attribute, if you like, all these dispositions to the climate. I have the honour of being entirely yours. Mesny

37  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade87 (13 September 1776) Sir, As I thought that, keeping to the order of things, I would speak to you about the Etruscans before saying something about the Medici family, I put the former first. The account may have seemed a bit long to you, but this topic being obscure, I was unable to abridge it without leaving out something essential. In any case, you will cut out what you deem superfluous, but I have, it seems to me, considered the matter studiously. This one will not be short, unless I were to excise topics that ought to be treated concerning these men who have caused themselves to be much discussed, either on account of merit or subsequently because of the villainy that was so great that we shall not bemoan the scythe blows that harvested Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Court of Naples/Antiquités étrusques, grecques, et romaines tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton, envoyé extraordinaire et plenipotentiaire de. S.M. Britannique en cour de Naples (Naples, 1766–1767); note that this refers to the full four-volume set – the first two volumes were published in 1766 and the second two in 1767. See the introduction to this volume. 85 “Greek faith” or “trust”; the equivalent of fides Punica or Punic faith, i.e., treachery, according to the Romans. 86 Giovanni Nanni (c. 1432–1502), known as Annius of Viterbo, was a member of the Dominican Order and a prolific theologian, antiquarian, and historian. His discoveries, claims, and expertise – including knowledge of the Etruscan language – were subsequently found to be fraudulent. 87 With the address: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, at the chateau of La Coste, close to Apt.” Written at the top in Sade’s hand: “On the Medici, first letter.”

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them – perhaps not soon enough. Men in general, whether good or bad, always find someone on their side, and those who are rich find adulators; the weak preach patience. Sometimes men of courage are abandoned: the likes of Cato and Brutus have not always been fortunate. We must go back to the origins of the Medici to understand those who made the name. They were plebeians. They came from that part of Tuscany known as Mugello, 12 miles from Florence, to the east. They resided in Florence, traded there, and amassed significant properties. Cosimo, called the “father of the nation,” made his name famous. There were those among the powerful who were jealous of him, but the people, whom he made labour, respected him. He was nonetheless banished by the opposing faction, then recalled. We know that sometimes the Guelphs had the upper hand, and at other times the Ghibellines. It was noticed that during Cosimo’s absence – he had withdrawn to Venice – commerce dropped off and the people grumbled. Cosimo’s manners, his conduct, his wealth, his liberality on certain occasions, had attracted considerable esteem and credit to him. Several times he had been at the head of the government of the Republic; that family had for a long while played a dazzling role. And when that bloodline was not at the head of affairs, it was notwithstanding influential, almost on everything, so many friends did it have. Some rich imitators, such as the Soderini, the Strozzi, the Pazzi, the Caponi, were their enemies out of jealousy. We know the famous conspiracy of the Pazzi, which happened under the grandson of Cosimo, “father of the nation,” in 1478. Cosimo’s successor was Piero, and Piero’s Giuliano and Lorenzo, against whom this conspiracy was hatched. I must not forget to mention those institutions that Cosimo funded: such as the Church of Saint Lawrence,88 where every year they still pronounce an orison in his honour; the Abbey of Saint Bartholomew next to, or better put, at the foot of Fiesole;89 the church of the monks of Saint Jerome [San Girolamo, near Volterra] a bit higher up; he built the Church of Saint Mark on that square; a church for nuns called Saint Verdiana [Santa Verdiana]; and in Mugello, he founded a convent for the Friars Minor of Saint Francis [Convento del Bosco ai Frati]; he provided funds for the upkeep and expenses of the same. He had built magnificent altars and chapels in other churches; he donated ornaments besides. Other than these sacred buildings, he made many private ones. He built three beautiful palaces in Florence and especially the one that is close to Saint Lawrence, which is called the cradle of the arts, not far from there, on account of judicious consideration of their tombs (Saint Lawrence). You can judge, based on this and on many other facts, how great this private individual was in his homeland, adding besides his personal qualities. He was survived by his son Piero, whom his friends wanted to be exalted like the father, which always aroused the jealousy of rich – and consequently powerful – citizens, who were very vexed to see almost in succession the worthy office of gonfaloniere in the hands of the Medici and other stations in those of their partisans, which incited the conspiracy in which Giuliano was assassinated and Lorenzo wounded. Monsieur Le Noble and I think Varillas have published on this.90 Lorenzo escaping this peril became

88 The Chiesa di San Lorenzo was consecrated a millennium prior to the rise of the Medici family. With funding provided by Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (c. 1360–1429), Cosimo’s father, the Romanesque church dating from the eleventh century was replaced by the structure that stands today, with Filippo Brunelleschi as primary architect. The Cappelle Medicee or Medici Chapels are located in the apse, and the church contains the tombs and funerary monuments of many important Medici family members. 89 The Badia di San Bartolomeo, now known as the Badia Fiesolana. 90 Eustache Le Noble had published a long account of the conspiracy in his L’Histoire secrete des plus fameuses conspirations de la conjuration des Pazzi contre les Medicis (Paris, 1698), subsequently included

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dearer to the people and more powerful in the Republic. He took on bodyguards and displayed an air of grandeur; he was the first to make use of public money in an arbitrary fashion. He was prince of Urbino, or either duke. He was a learned man, a lover of literature and protector of the literate, who found that all manner of resources flowed from him. Piero de Medici91 had a brother who became pope under the name Leo X, man of merit but who excelled neither in morals nor religion, no more than Lorenzo. We know that these men were rather debauched, in spite of having as their companions men who were all deemed philosophers (Paolo Giovio, Marsilio Ficino, etc.). When Giuliano died, he left behind a son who was called Giulio by order of Lorenzo, his brother, who knew that he was the natural child of his brother and the daughter of a Corsini. This infant became pope under the name Clement VII. He did not have so noble or so elevated a soul as his ancestors. Therefore, he was not in such great esteem with princes and kings. Charles V kissed his feet but bound his hands and held him for a long time and wretchedly in the Sant’Angelo castle. Those times and that century was [sic] that of malignity, vice, and perfidy. For it was not only the Medici who were wicked, but as they were powerful, they did wrong with the most impunity, as that has almost ever been. The conspiracy of the Pazzi proves this well enough. But in what place, at what moment, and by whom, and which accomplices, what excesses of cruelty was not the result of this event [sic]? How many people strangled, how many assassinated, even after many days and weeks, by the party of the Medici, who took no care to stop so many horrors? They wished to leave no ferment or leaven for this conspiracy, which they were unable to finish off. Finally, a manuscript that I have read twice says that not only the archbishop of Pisa, one of the Salviati, was hanged from a window of the Palace of the Republic but other Salviati as well, some two or three others from the same family, twenty people from the cardinal’s company, twenty others from the archbishop’s retinue, who were all put to death, and of the podestà’s men, fifty in number, all hanged and others very ill-treated with wounds. It was even on Sunday that this was done. You know that that Count [Girolamo] Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, and his brother the cardinal of Savona [i.e., Raffaele Riario], along with the magnificent Roberto da Rimini [i.e., Roberto Malatesta] and other lords, were accomplices to this conspiracy, all with the consent of the pope. Renato and Jacopo de’ Pazzi were subsequently hanged. This execution was carried out in the name of the Republic as a result of the affection that was felt for the Medici. On the feast day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the captain who led the armed men of Count Girolamo Riario was beheaded at the door of the palace. Everything thus went in favour of the Medici. Can one doubt of the credit and power that this family had acquired and the singular respect that was had for Lorenzo, who was still young, for he only died many years later, at the age of eighty, in 1491? He had had, during the calm years, ever at his home and at his expense, the most famous men, which is hardly ever seen in courts. These sorts of generosities well deserved that he be honoured and

in his collected works. See Les Œuvres de Mr Le Noble (Paris, 1718), 12:121–234. Antoine Varillas was the author of Les anecdotes de Florence, ou L’histoire secrète de la maison de Medicis (The Hague, 1685). 91 Piero de’ Medici (1472–1503), dubbed Piero the Unfortunate; son of Lorenzo de’ Medici and brother of Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, who would become Pope Leo X. Not Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici (1416– 1469), dubbed the Gouty, son of Cosimo de’ Medici, grandfather of Piero the Unfortunate, and mentioned above.

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loved. Thus, he was Europe’s arbiter. So many prerogatives raised this family to the rank of sovereignty, as if by succession. Lorenzo’s successor was Piero, his eldest son, who was raised amid humanistic learning and noble training, but he was quite given over to the pleasures of love. He had three other sons, namely, Giuliano, Giovanni, and Lorenzo, from his legitimate wife Clarice Orsini; he also had four daughters.92 In terms of character, Piero was quite disposed to anger and to impatience and to haughtiness. He was, in effect, a rather bad lot, his father had foreseen this. He was so antipathetic that he would have caused the ruin and dishonour of his forebears, without the remonstrations of his friends. It seems that, from that moment, vices took the place of virtues in that family (it was not during the lifetime of Cosimo the Great that the name “father of the nation” was bestowed on him; it was after his death, by a decree that his successors and his friends obtained from the Senate: this is good to know). Piero, whom I discussed above, had a brother named Giovanni who was later pope under the name Leo X, which you will see in abridged form on the 3rd page. Don’t get confused, but for your greater clarity, in case I might have been obscure, I will send you a little genealogical map that I had expressly drawn up. Leo X, about whom I said a word, was a very debauched man. Fortune smiled on him. I return to the story of Piero, who was regarded as a traitor to his fatherland, but who served his family. When King Charles VIII came to Italy, the former was chosen along with other men of the state to go, in the capacity of ambassador, and pay his respects to the king. He did not want to be joined with the others, he went ahead of them, and exceeded the limits of his commission, for he placed into the king’s hands the fortress[es] of Pisa and of Leghorn, which brought down the hatred of the Florentines on him to such a degree that he along with his brothers had to leave the city of Florence, with odium and a price on his and his brothers’ heads. They left their properties to be plundered, such that an infinity of lavish items, curiosities, and rarities, accumulated during the days of his forefathers, were lost and dispersed. His peace was only made with his fatherland when King Charles VIII entered Florence. He went to take up lodging at the Medici’s, today the Riccardi palace or mansion. The wife of Piero, named Alfonsina, depicted to the king the wrong that his [Piero’s] attachment for the king had done him. If this goes well, I will provide the sequel, but this will take more than two or three pages. I have the honour of being as ever.

38  From the Marquis de Sade to Doctor Mesny93 (End of September, 1776) new questions on florence94

What has become of the Pitti Library? Is it still made up of 68 thousand volumes, as Monsieur Lalande says?

92 Mesny’s information is confused. The issue of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini (c. 1453–1488) numbered ten: twins who died after birth; five daughters; and three sons. The correspondent has likely confused the full names of the sons, which include their father’s forename – Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici – with a supposed additional son, Lorenzo. 93 Most of the questions are repeated in the following letter; this is presumably a draft. 94 Above, in Sade’s hand: “Answered.”

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Is it true that there are statues from Antiquity in Boboli, as Lalande says? What is the historical episode about a room that is shown for the sake of curiosity at Poggio a Caiano and that we were made to look at while it was being recounted? How does one clean the statues in Florence? Don’t forget that comment about a fresco in the convent of the Dominicans of Saint Mary Novella. Send the Church of Saint Mark, so full of beautiful monuments and discuss again the new one they put there, that, I think, is Doctor Lami’s. You will tell me about his character and his talents.95 A word on the Academy della Crusca. Above all, in everything, let’s avoid encounters with Lalande. Is what Lalande says true: that an abbé should have been in the business of putting on shows in Florence, that another should have been a fencing master?96 Or can I refute him on abbés being shop clerks? Isn’t it the Cascine [Park] beyond the Prato Gate? And how exactly is this word written in Italian? A word on the Academy della Crusca: its origins, its gatherings, its purposes, and whether it is still operative. A word on Corilla the improviser: what is this? Is her talent sublime? And, in general, a word about improvisers.97 Who is Monsieur de Digni, manager of Accounts, about whom Lalande goes into such great detail? A word about commerce, concerning which we have not spoken at all.

95 Giovanni Lami (1697–1700) was a doctor of law, jurist, theologian, historian, and antiquarian, who was made professor of Church history at the University of Florence and a counsellor to the Grand Duke; his tomb is in the Basilica di Santa Croce. 96 In his Voyage d’un françois en Italie dans les années 1765 et 1766 (Yverdon, 1769–1770), Joseph Jérôme Le François de Lalande writes: A Frenchman was astonished a few years back to find himself accosted in Florence by an ecclesiastic whose conversation was rather odd relative to our mores. At stake were the shows put on in Florence, and the abbé complained that the difficulties involved in keeping good actors were inconceivable, that at the most recent Carnival the best of his castrati, whom he had brought up from Naples, had abandoned him, that his tenor had fallen ill, that for fear of seeing his public desert his opera he had beefed up the dancers, that there was above all one of these, who thanks to her face and to her talents was admired by the whole town, but that an Englishman had debauched her. Hearing such words the Frenchman, unable to imagine with whom he was dealing, politely asked him who he was. “Sono l’imprenditore dell’ opera per servir la [I’m the operator of the opera, at your service],” he replied. The Frenchman thought he was in jest, yet nothing could be truer.” (2:13–14) Lalande goes on to describe a clergyman-cum-fencing master and to conclude: “there are so many ecclesiastics in Italy that they are obliged to meddle in many professions that we in France would regard as incompatible with their station” (2:315). 97 Sade is referring to improvisatori or poetic improvisers, an important feature of the literary and cultural landscape from the fourteenth century and still active in the eighteenth century. Corilla Olimpica, the pseudonym of Maria Maddalena Morelli (1727–1800), was one of the most celebrated of the female improvisers. See Paola Giuli, “Fame and Reputation of Women Improvisers in Arcadia,” in Paula Findlen, Wendy Wassyng Roworth, and Catherine M. Sama, eds., Italy’s Eighteenth Century: Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 304–30.

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39  From the Marquis de Sade to Doctor Mesny98 (End of September, 1776) The following items were held back because I did not want to insert them into the last parcel and thereby make it too voluminous. I assure my dear doctor of all my sentiments and beg him to answer me quite precisely, as soon as possible, and always to keep a bit of friendship for me.

questions to answer in the margin by returning the same page

[Q] The Pitti Library is it as magnificent as is said and made up, in fact, of 68 thousand volumes as Lalande writes? [A] The Pitti Library no longer exists in the ducal palace; it never comprised such a number of books, not even with the Lorraine one [i.e., Biblioteca Palatina Lorenese ] that was seen to be adjacent. This library has been moved; it was put with the one that was already in the Galleries [i.e., Galleria degli Uffizi] that was established by Cosimo, the third grand duke with this name. The reigning grand duke has had the following division introduced: all the oriental manuscripts that were previously there have been transferred to Saint Lawrence [i.e., Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana] with the Greek and Latin ones. The late emperor Francis had bought a great number from the House of Gaddi to add as well to the Saint Lawrence. All science books such as astronomy, physics, medicine, laws, etc. have been brought to the palace that he wants to turn into an Academy of Sciences, and the redundant copies have been sent to Pisa. Such that the library of the Galleries and that of Pitti and Lorraine would come to about 56 thousand or 58 thousand volumes. [Q] Is it true that there are statues from Antiquity in Boboli? [A] There are no good antique statues in Boboli, but two or three busts. There are some good modern ones such as Giambologna and Bandinelli. Nota: In the courtyard of the Pitti, there are three antique ones and especially the Hercules made by Myron. The story of this famous statue has been written a short while ago by Monsieur d’Hancarville in his handsome work on Etruscan and Greek vases. [Q] What is the historical episode about a room that is expressly shown at Poggio a Caiano and that we were made to look at while it was being recounted? I would like a little bit of detail on that house, and will not make room for this explanation [sic]. Would you please put this on a separate page at some length? [A] It is the room where Duke Francesco 1 de’ Medici was poisoned with Bianca Cappello by his brother the cardinal who became grand duke, under the name Ferdinando 1 or Ferdinandone. I will tell you the rest when I discuss this prince, about whom I will provide a summary of his life; that will cover a lot, but you will have a little history of these princes that has not been done in French. But this requires time and research. You already have up to Cosimo, the first grand duke.

98 The questions are on the left half of the page; the answers on the right.

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[Q] How are the marble statues in Boboli washed? What chemical is used and what is the procedure employed? [A] With soap, detergent, and pumice stone. [Q] Don’t forget that comment that was made to us about a fresco in Saint Mary Novella. [A] The comment about the fresco will come with the description of the Church of Saint Mary Novella. It’s about the cupola of the dome [i.e., cathedral] that was designed by someone else before Brunelleschi executed it. The dogs that are splotched black and white represent the sedition in Florence at the time of the Albigensians [i.e., Cathars]. [Q] Let the Church of Saint Mark, so full of lovely monuments, be among the four that I asked you for – and above all, do not forget the new mausoleum, erected, I believe, for Doctor Lami. [A] There are busts and tombs of illustrious men. I will do this also. I will discuss others in the description of Holy Cross, such as those of Michelangelo Buonarroti and Galileo.99 [Q] A note on that man [Doctor Lami], on his character and talents. [A] Learned in Greek and Latin, a great critic, enemy of the Jesuits, good poet who lived like a Diogenes, but without being scandalous. He drank rather willingly. [Q] A word about the Academy della Crusca. [A] I will explain this better, but it’s for the purity of the language. [Q] Is it true, as Lalande writes, that an abbé should have been in the business of putting on shows in Florence, that another should have been a fencing master, and others shop clerks? Or can I refute the authors who say this? If this is the case, this is a ridiculous custom that one is right to joke about. [A] That could be. But an abbé’s outfit means nothing here; it is worn out of decorum and especially for the sake of economy. There are some who do worse, for they act as go-betweens100 and are priests; they present the chamber pot to the doctors when the mistress of the house is giving birth; and these domestic abbés are those in charge of the education of the children of the house. I have known a certain abbé Legata, fencing master, but he was not tonsured. In effect, this appears to us as quite ridiculous. It could be arranged to procure for you the exposition of Florentine customs.101 [Q] Isn’t the pretty promenade of the Cascine [Park] beyond the Prato Gate? And how exactly is this word written in Italian? [A] The Cascine [plural in Italian] are located outside of the Prato Gate. Cascina means a pasturage. The trees of the alley are very beautiful pines. [Q] A note about the improviser Corilla, about her talent, her person, her mores, and in generally a note about that sort of talent that is so in vogue in Florence. [A] The talent for improvising is fairly common in Italy, but especially in Florence and Rome. We have here two or three women who possess it. They are given a topic or a historical subject, they sing in unmetred verse, but nonetheless the number of feet is observed, albeit not with exceeding rigour. There must be two persons to answer and argue with one another; they peck at each other with witty repartees; this sometimes lasts more than an hour and a half; a guitar is plucked on a pitch while singing.

  99 The tombs of Michelangelo and Galileo are both located in the Basilica di Santa Croce. 100 In Mesny’s account, these abbés “font les mercures [act as Mercurys].” As the anonymously authored Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (Paris, 1762) explains: “On appelle figurément Mercure, l’entremetteur d’un mauvais commerce [The term Mercury is used figuratively for go-betweens in illicit affairs]” (2:125). 101 This sentence is a syntactic muddle. Mesny seems to mean something like: “I could procure for you a treatise on Florentine customs.”

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[Q] Who is this Monsieur de Digni, manager of Accounts, about whom modern travellers have so sung the praises? [A] Monsieur Digny is French, an upright man, who is the manager of the office of Accounts of the [tax] farm or else administration [sic]. He wanted to make a machine in the Maremma that he had a good deal of trouble carrying out, in spite of Lord Renard, clockmaker for the court, making a model of it. This machine, in the manner of Bélidor’s for raising water by means of steam, otherwise known as a fire machine, has been carried out at last thanks to repeated attempts and money, for it cost more than 600,000 livres.102 This upright man would have done better if he had only been involved in accounts: ne sutor ultra crepidam.103 He is nonetheless quite worthy otherwise. [Q] A word about commerce, concerning which we have not spoken at all. [A] Life is dear in this excellent country. Commerce is in silk manufacture and wines, which are the most excellent in Italy. There are few products beyond what is necessary for the province. There is also oil that is made in Tuscany and is sent to England and to the north. The merchants of Leghorn are almost all agents; the Jews handle considerable business; also many lambskins, goatskins, and sheepskins are sent.104 Outside [Leghorn], English leather is hardly ever imported anymore. They are working to ensure that they make domestically what is needed, but have not yet brought this to completion. [In Sade’s hand]: I embrace you with all my heart and eagerly await the wine from Madame Moldetti. Subito che sara ricevuto, mandaro il denaro.105

40  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade106 (4 October 1776) Sir, I have almost answered all of the questions that you had put to me, as you will see on the adjoined page. I see that you wish to make your voyage interesting. To do so, you must not 102 Louis Guillaume de Cambray de Digny (1723–1798) was Royal Accounts manager (directeur de l’Épargne de Son Altesse Royale) for Peter Leopold I, Grand Duke of Tuscany in the Habsburg-Lorraine line from 1765 to 1790. Digny was also an engineer and describes a steam machine he designed for salt production in his Description d’une machine à feu construite pour les salines de Castiglione Avec des details sur les Machines de cette espéce les plus connües, & sur quelques autres Machines Hydrauliques (Parma, 1766). Bernard Forest de Bélidor (1698–1761) wrote, among other works on engineering and mathematics, L’Architecture hydraulique, ou l’Art de conduire, d’élever, et de ménager les eaux pour les différens besoins de la vie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1737–1739). 103 “Shoemaker, not beyond the sandal,” that is, “One should not judge outside his or her expertise.” In his The Natural History, Volume IX: Books 33–35, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), Pliny the Elder has this to say on the painter Apelles: “it was said that he was found fault with by a shoemaker because in drawing a subject’s sandals he had represented the loops in them as one too few, and the next day the same critic was so proud of the artist’s correcting the fault indicated by his previous objection that he found fault with the leg, but Apelles indignantly looked out from behind the picture and rebuked him, saying that a shoemaker in his criticism must not go beyond the sandal [ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret] – a remark that has also passed into a proverb” (322–5 [bk.35]). Vasari depicted the incident in fresco in his Florentine home (1561–1569). 104 The implication appears to be that agents in Leghorn imported leather from outside of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which they then sent on for processing elsewhere within the duchy – on which commerce see Domenico Sella, Trade and Industry in Early Modern Italy (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 102. 105 Translated from the Italian: “As soon I receive it, I will send the money.” 106 With the address: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, at the chateau of La Coste, close to Apt. Via Aix-en-Provence.” Written at the top in Sade’s hand: “On the Medici, second letter.”

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be in such a rush. I will give you all the explanations that I can, but I will require time. Also, I inform you that you will go three weeks without receiving anything from me. I am going to Cremona to escort my daughter there. I am a father. While it displeases me to leave you unemployed, what to do? I have the honour of letting you know that Monsieur Moldetti has sent the Aleatico wine of which I informed you for thirty-two French livres or thereabouts. Only 20 bottles exported from Florence. It is excellent. You have still said nothing to me about what I had written to you concerning the Medici. I am writing you on the eve of the post. My letters are not short; this is why I am getting an early start. If in the one [letter] that I will perhaps receive from you tomorrow, I learn that I have gone on for too long, I will restrain myself better. I recall that I had escorted you up to Cosimo 1st, whose story is rather distinctive.107 It was a mixture of good and evil; he had, in order to be what he was, a hard head. He was the son of Giovanni [dalle Bande Nere], dubbed the Valorous, and a Salviati woman. If you want the life of Giovanni the Valorous, I will give it to you. The branch of these latter Medici descends from a brother of Cosimo, “father of the nation,” whose name was Lorenzo, who had a son Pierfrancesco, who had as sons Giovanni and Lorenzo. These two gentlemen had: the former [a son] named Lodovico or otherwise Giovanni the Invincible [i.e., Giovanni dalle Bande Nere], who was father of Cosimo [I de’ Medici]. Lorenzo had Pierofrancesco from whom descended Lorenzino, the assassin of Alessandro in 1536. Cosimo lost his father when he was quite young. I believe that I mentioned that he died at about the age of 28 from a shot that wounded him above the knee, where he had previously been wounded, which was the reason that his leg had to be amputated: an operation from which he died, in Mantua. His courage was so great that he himself held the candle during the operation. He was greatly missed by his troops or soldiers. Cosimo came into this world in 1519, the eleventh of June. He was a natural son, subsequently legitimized by Pope Alexander VI. Leo X wanted him to be called Cosimo in order to perpetuate in his house this famous name, in memory of he who had been dubbed “father of the nation.” It was because of this Cosimo, having become grand duke, that Alessandro [de’ Medici, Duke of Florence] perished, because of the trial in which Alessandro ruled in his favour, to the detriment of Lorenzino, who never forgave him. Cosimo was raised in part in Rome, with Alessandro and Catherine de’ Medici [his cousins], starting from the first year of the papacy of Clement VII, who had them come there. After some time, his mother returned to Florence. During this time his father was in the army. As there was a falling out in Italy between France and the Empire, the Medici having taken too much of a role in the disputes of these two powers, she deemed it wise to withdraw with her son to Venice. She left without announcing her plan and took the route to Ravenna and embarked for Venice. In that boat were to be seen the future duke of Florence [i.e., Alessandro], his assassin [i.e., Lorenzino], and the duke of Florence’s successor [i.e., Cosimo I], which at this point was only written in his destiny. That is to say that Alessandro, Lorenzino, and he found themselves in a small vessel that was taking them,

107 In this and the following two letters, Mesny draws heavily from other sources, to all appearances translating in a rough and ready – often grammatically or semantically obscure – fashion. One of these sources appears to be an anonymously authored account of Cosimo’s life that existed in a bilingual (Italian and English) edition entitled L’historia secreta di Cosimo Segondo, primo Grando Duca di Fiorenza, viz. The Secret History of Cosimos II. First Great Duke of Florence. Translated out of an Italian Manuscript (Verona, n.d. [1750?]).

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in which they were in danger, but which does not make for a subject interesting enough to describe. His mother made him study with care. He lost his father at this time or just about. I will only speak of what will be of the greatest interest in the life of this prince, for it would require a small tome. When the cousins of Cosimo were expelled from Florence, the Florentines weighed whether they would seize the latter. His mother, a prudent woman, having been informed about most of the debates and having had positive information, withdrew with her son to Imola and from there he went on to Bologna, where he saw the coronation of the emperor by the pontiff. I have forgotten to mention above that Ippolito was also raised in Rome with Cosimo, Alessandro, and Catherine. Each of them had their own palace, adjacent to one another. Already the jealousies and claims between these wicked men and women could be seen. The bramble soon enough reveals its character. Pope Clement did not have as much affection for Cosimo as for the other Medici. Alessandro was more inclined to Lorenzino. Cosimo’s mother got the family’s affairs back in order. For a while, he [Cosimo] wished to ally himself with the partisans of France, where his father had been. Ultimately, he decided to serve Charles V and travelled with him. It was under these circumstances that the Medici returned to Florence. Cosimo would have quite wished to have a role in the war. He was opposed. Pope Clement VII wanted him to dress like a Florentine citizen; it was his ambition to be regarded as a knight, he was always in the company of distinguished persons who called him Signore Cosimo. He often took his pleasure at the hunt and went to his country villas of Castello and Trebbio, which means three ways or paths. When he was no longer expecting anything with regard to the great fortune that he had attained, a rumour spread that someone had been seen to pass by his country villa, which was not far distant from the post house, that Lorenzino had passed by, racing at full gallop, with his hand wrapped in a blood-stained cloth. Lorenzo was known to be bold. Cosimo had with him some soldiers and officers of the troops that his father had commanded. He resolved to go with them to Florence, for it was soon learned that the duke was dead. Cosimo was eighteen years old at the time. He had made himself loved. The name of this house was dear to the people. The conditions struck between the emperor and the Florentines, when Alessandro had been installed as Duke of the Republic, all these events, were still fresh. Cardinal Cibo, who was still in the Palace of the Republic, sent word to Cosimo, likewise his mother, too, who had sent the news to her son via a servant, but who could not leave the city. All these measures taken in the city become superfluous, as it were, because Cosimo had left at the first rumours with 25 men on horseback and was already at the gate of the city, when he encountered the emissaries that had been sent out to him. He entered his mansion; he stationed guards at the door and all around; his friends came to see him. They gave him hope that he would see himself at the head of the Republic. He responded modestly and said that he remembered how many misfortunes his family had been charged with. Ultimately, he let nothing show. His young friends spoke in his favour. Prince Alessandro’s guard was for him; nine hundred of the emperor’s soldiers were in the fortress. Cosimo, without showing himself too much, surreptitiously put every possible expedient in motion. As I am unable to detail the circumstances, I will write them down for you another time. I will leave in two days. You have your work cut out for you. I have the honour of being respectfully, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Doctor Mesny

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41  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade108 (Florence, 15 November 1776) Sir, Upon my return from Cremona, I set about first of all continuing the story of Cosimo 1st, as I had the honour of promising you, and here is the sequel starting from where I left off in my last [letter]. The next day, in the morning, Cardinal Cibo convoked one hundred and forty-eight citizens who assembled in the upper room of the Medici’s palace where he was residing in order to deliberate and take counsel about the future government. The cardinal suggested to Cosimo that he appear, which he did in all modesty. But a little later, the cardinal asked him to give them leave to speak freely and to please take a stroll on the neighbouring terrace, which he also did. After the cardinal had held forth on the death of Alessandro and ask the senators for their advice, Canigiani, one of them, proposed investing a natural son of Alessandro with the office. Guicciardini, Vettori, Acciaiuoli, and Strozzi rejected this as ridiculous. Nicolini, adding his sentiment to the others who were […]109 considered as commonsensical people, proposed Cosimo. Finally, after some bustle and by virtue of the privileges that Emperor Charles V had granted to the Senate, Cosimo was declared ruler of the Republic, after twelve senators had reported to him on what conditions. Cosimo entered into the council modestly, sat down, thanked the Senate, spoke wisely and promised to act in a manner in which they would be satisfied with him. It is said that he was invested with that office on the ninth [day]; some say a few days more, which doesn’t change anything fundamental about the story. The people, from excess of joy, pillaged many furnishings in the house of the new duke, in spite of the mother and soldiers making a stand against this. The duke’s first act, to conciliate the hearts and minds of the public, was to recall all those banished or outlawed, even those who had been by Alessandro. He declared Lorenzino a rebel and put a price on his head. He had his house razed and pillaged with the consent of the chief magistrate. Paolo III Farnese did not learn this news with pleasure, for he had no love for the Medici.110 He created a sort of league joining the pope, the king of France, and some cardinals, along with several Florentine malcontents, such that they came with troops towards the territory of Arezzo. The new duke sent the cavalry under the command of an officer named Baillioni. From another side, three other cardinals were marching, but Cosimo was not disconcerted and prepared to defend himself vigorously. His enemies, on seeing his mien, decided to negotiate, which the new duke did in good fashion. Cardinal Salviati, his uncle, spoke first and proposed to him, for his own good, that of his fatherland and its happiness, to renounce his office and it entitlements. Cosimo was quite surprised at this proposal, and staring proudly at the cardinal, told him that he did not attach so little importance to what the Senate and the Republic had done for him, that he was astonished with his proposal, that he was ready to defend himself and to die gloriously rather than to leave off what he had undertaken and obtained under the auspices of the emperor, for his honour and his fortune. He levelled some insulting reproaches at his uncle and advised him to return to

108 With the address: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, at the chateau of La Coste, close to Apt, in Provence.” Written at the top in Sade’s hand: “On the Medici, third letter, continuation of number 2.” 109 There is a hole in the manuscript at this point; a word is missing. 110 Alessandro Farnese (1468–1549), pope as Paul III from 1534 until his death.

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Rome to do his duties. His general made […]111 to these ambassadors that his soldiers saw with impatience what was happening, […] returned in the direction of Rome. Cosimo, Duke of Florence, married Eleanor of Toledo [Eleonora di Toledo], daughter of the viceroy of Naples (he was Spanish). She brought him twenty-five thousand golden crowns, which comes to about one sequin for one. From this marriage he had seven sons and three daughters. These ten children were neither their father’s consolation nor did they bring peace to the house, but rather they scandalized everyone. We will subsequently see historical episodes that will astonish people of good morals. Here are the names of Duke Cosimo’s children: Francesco-Maria, a daughter named Maria, another son named Giovanni, another son named Fagoro, another son named Gracias, a daughter named Lucrezia, another son named Ernanico, another son named Dom Patricio.112 All those who lived, male and female alike, were, like their father, so many villains and criminals. The women, or better put the daughters of this ruler, were whores as unbridled as camp followers. Thus, their husbands fully took their revenge, even right under the nose of the grand duke, as I will explain succinctly. Peace, it is said – and this is well confirmed – is rarely found between brothers. I cite no examples, but ever since Cain up to our time, we have seen many proofs (examples) of this: two of the sons of Duke Cosimo, one named Giovanni and the other Gracias, got into an argument about a hunting party and brought the dispute to the last extremity. Gracias, the younger one, drew his sword and ran it through the body of Don Giovanni, who was already a cardinal. It is said, however, that this was through the leg, yet he died in a few days. They tried to assuage the duke’s anger, and when he was thought to be calmed (this happened in Pisa), the court being minded to return to Florence, Duchess Eleanor, who tenderly loved Gracias, had done all she could to obtain his pardon. Finally, the young prince, before leaving for Florence, went and threw himself at the feet of his father, who instead of being moved, drew a stiletto and killed him instantly, at his feet. The duchess, learning right away of this misfortune, fainted. She was put in bed, and suffocating from sadness and chagrin, from then to little [sic] she died. The three cadavers were escorted one after another. When the people saw this spectacle, they muttered against such matchless tyranny and cruelty. I leave you to judge what we ought to think of the heart of this new ruler and what we might expect of it subsequently. But before, there are many other stories. Maria, the eldest daughter of Duke Cosimo, was beautiful and had her charms. There was, in the court of Tuscany, a page from an important family; he was the son of a Malatesta, lord of Rimini. This young man fell in love with Maria and she with him. The affair was discovered and reported to the duke by an old Spaniard who was often on duty at the door of the duchess’s ladies. In those days they were doubtless more jealous than today. Madiano was this old Spaniard; [he] saw the young princess, who had her arm resting on the page’s neck and he reciprocally on the princess’s neck.113 The duchess was informed of this, and the duchess reported it to the father. The duke initially determined to have his daughter poisoned, which was carried out, and as doubtless

111 Further holes in the manuscript. 112 There are several inaccuracies and oddities on Mesny’s list. Cosimo’s eldest son appears to have been accidently merged with the name of his daughter; it is simply Francesco and not Francesco-Maria. “Gracias” should be Garzia. No son by the name “Ernanico” existed; this would have to be Antonio. “Dom Patricio” is Don Pietro. 113 Or, more clearly: “It happen’d one Morning, that Madramo, an Old Spaniard that waited on the Dutchess’s Ladies, and being always at the Chamber Door, he espy’d that the Young Princess took the Page about the Neck and Kissed him, and that he did the same to her” (L’historia secreta di Cosimo Segondo, 12).

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this was a mild poison, she died in the course of a month. As for the page, he was secretly imprisoned, where he remained for twelve years. Giovanni Malatesta at last came to Florence to see his son and to try to obtain his release. The response that the duke gave was that he would give orders so that he could be with his son for ten or twelve days – he was in the Fort of Saint John the Baptist [Fortezza di Sant Giovanni Battista, also known as the Fortezza da Basso] – and that there he could with ease see him and examine him, and tell him if there was a reason why he was deserving of freedom or not. Finally, the father, seeing that there was hardly any hope for his son, went to see the duke and took his leave. In effect, he ensured that he would live in the fortress with greater freedom, for which the father thanked him. This episode enables us to see how consequential the House of Medici already was, since they had pages of this one’s standing. History does not say whether he had taken other liberties with Maria de’ Medici like those seen afterwards. The young Malatesta being thus detained in the fortress, made friends with an old corporal, and by this means escaped and decamped to Candia, where his father was a general for the Venetians. The duke, having learned of this occurrence, had the corporal hanged and had his head put in an iron cage in a visible spot and kept it there for quite a long time. The duke had the fugitive pursued all the way to Candia, where he was killed, and Giovanni Malatesta had his son’s assassin killed. Lucrezia, the second daughter of Duke Cosimo, was married to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. He promised her three hundred thousand ducats or gold scudi in dowry, of which a hundred thousand upon marrying her, and the remainder with the birth of her first child. This princess did not express all the affection owed to her husband the duke, and having perceived that she did not love him, he resolved that she should die; this happened, which greatly displeased Duke Cosimo, who had seemed very flattered by this alliance. Moreover, Duke Cosimo never wanted to pay the rest of the dowry. The trial was ordered to take place before the emperor, but it was never decided, out of respect for Cosimo, as you can easily discern.114 Grand Duke Cosimo married his third daughter, Isabella, to lord Paolo Giordano Orsini or Ursini, a Roman baron. This princess had been promised to lord Fabiano del Monte, nephew of Pope Julius III. But the latter died in the Wars of Hungary. This lady was beautiful and gifted with very considerable talents. She knew Spanish, Latin, and French, in addition to her native language, and she spoke all with verve. She had a thorough knowledge of music and wrote poetry with great ease. The author, who seems rather favourable to the Medici, says that her father loved her and was far too intimate with her.115 She was doubtless the one that Giorgio Vasari saw too close up with her father, when he was pretending to sleep. He was painting at that time the large salon of the Old Palace [Palazzo Vecchio] where the grand duke was having him depict his victory over Siena and some other memorable deeds in his life. These works are familiar to foreigners and described in Vasari’s biography. I will say no more on this topic in order to continue with the life of Cosimo and his daughters, without thinking of inserting here something about the political life of this ruler. What put Isabella in 114 On Lucrezia’s marriage, dowry, and death, presumably of tuberculosis, see Gabrielle Langdon, Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 137–45. 115 Or again, in the eighteenth-century translation of Mesny’s putative source: “This Lady was not only Beautiful, but was a great Virtuosa, speaking French, Spanish and Latin; she Learned to Sing, and to Play on all Instruments, and was so largely Enrich’d with Natural Endowments, that she made Verses Extempore; she was Beloved of the Duke her Father, something more than ordinarily, which gave occasion to many disadvantagious Reflections” (L’historia secreta di Cosimo Segondo, 16). For a recent retelling of Isabella’s fate, see Caroline P. Murphy, Isabella de’ Medici: The Glorious Life and Tragic End of a Renaissance Princess (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), esp. 319–22.

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the position to live a bit too licentiously was doubtless her husband’s absence. It is claimed nonetheless that she had several friends, one of whom was Troilo Orsini, cousin of her husband, from whom she had a son and a daughter who were sent to the foundlings’ hospital. The grand duke was informed of several of her gallant intrigues, he told her his feeling about them, she answered that she was not made of ice. He ordered a lord from the House of Gonzaga, named Pietro, to leave in three days from his states, which he did. Troilo Orsini, who knew that the princess had some intimacy with a page of the grand duke, named Lelio Torelli,116 from the town of Fermo, had him murdered out of jealousy. We assuredly see that this lady was not made of ice … The scandal she caused gave rise to the posting of several lampoons and pasquinades, both against her and against Eleanor of Toledo, wife of Pietro de’ Medici.117 All these rumours displeased Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici and Francesco, the eldest. They asked Paolo Orsini about everything that was happening, at least roughly speaking, and proposed that he get rid of her. The princess saw the storm brewing against her; she wrote to Catherine, Queen of France, to be granted asylum at her side. The queen granted what she asked for and had ordered her to be welcomed into Marseilles and escorted to Paris. But this plan was not carried out. Paolo Giordano of the Orsini went to Florence and, pulling an Italian trick, dissimulated his resentment towards his wife and feigned wanting to go out hunting; he suggested [this] to her, sent her dogs, the day was set. At last, they set off for Cerreto Guidi, a house fit for this diversion. It is a park about three and a half leagues around, enclosed within walls. This was the 11th of July 1576. There was a retinue of some ladies and women bound to that princess. She asked one of them who had her trust, upon their arrival at the meeting place, if she ought to go and sleep with her husband; the former answered: “Do what you please, but he is your husband.” She resolved to do so, in spite of her foreboding. He acted coquettishly in order to better cloak his perfidy. The hour to lay down having arrived, they got into bed. A little afterwards, he set to caressing her. He had brought a confidant to help him; he instantly put a cord around her neck, then, giving the signal, they strangled her – but with difficulty, for strength and youth allowed her to resist for a long time. She was given a funeral worthy of her rank. When she was brought to Florence, everyone muttered and accused the father, her brother Francesco, Cosimo’s eldest, and Cardinal Ferdinando, Duke Cosimo’s second son, of having, perhaps themselves, allowed disorder to such excess, for she also attended debauched carousings with her brothers, going about, running around at night, dressed as a man, and for having allowed her to live so long far from her husband. Such was the end of the daughters of this prince, who, like the bloodline, had been a series of scoundrels. You find, nevertheless, still today, Florentines who would like to hide from the world all the horrors of their scandalous life. They could be pardoned, if it were only a matter of the scant morals they had. But poison, parricide, murders, vile debauch, incest, and pederasty, in their eyes, are perhaps courtesies. This is a touchstone to compare their morality with their hearts. I have known Florentines who thought that Leo X had given an indult or bull to not consider the sin that Heaven punished with a rain of brimstone and bitumen, in such large quantities that it is still gathered to this day, as a reserved sin.118 Bayle, who has precisely enough written down the anecdotes of the life of this great man and bad pontiff, says 116 The name is given as Pietro Torello in L’historia secreta di Cosimo Segondo (18–19). 117 Not the wife of Cosimo de’ Medici, but rather Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo, wife of Pietro de’ Medici, one of the former’s sons (see below). 118 See dossier III (on Rome), pp. 528–9n101.

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nothing on this topic that I wanted to read in its entirety. Do a better job of setting down this particularity in the Memoirs that you are drafting. We still have much work and letters to do. I am going to fill this page with other particularities that you have already mentioned to me in your letters. I know that I have not yet provided you with the number of houses in Florence; it requires going to every parish in order to gather them, that is to say, to sixty-eight parishes. But I need some time. I have written to Doctor Iberti: I am truthful, and to prove this, I am going to send you the response from his father, who tells me he is sick. This will enlarge the parcel and the postage for the letter, which you must have noticed as readily as I. As for the project of doing the History of Florence, which, for having failed to answer on this score, you say, humiliated your vanity – if I had enough on this, I would have accepted the proposal. But to promise you, and not bring off what I had committed to: I would blush each time I thought about it. You are young and more courageous; I am old and have nothing but good will. But let us continue to think about it for a bit. The inscription is still on the door of the Old Palace or Signoria; it is behind the grand duke’s arms, at the entrance of the palace that you will doubtless remember, but perhaps you did not see it. Our sovereigns are just back from Vienna when, via your letter, you asked whether it is true that they are making this voyage. Cabinet secrets do not reach all the way to humble philosophers who keep obscurely to their chambers and whose entire curiosity is limited to objects that have some material verity or some shells, some minerals, some salutary discoveries, of which I am in pursuit of one, about which I am publishing the natural history and virtues. This is a wonderful source of acidulated water, like that of Pyrmont.119 I have, during my voyage to Cremona, gained some knowledge and acquired some medals: for me, this is a conquest, like a pretty woman for young men. I do not think that we will see the inheritance of the great Countess Matilda return to the present owner of the rest of her states. Do you know that Emperor Maximilian had contemplated, in his day, becoming pope? He wrote to Mary of Burgundy to whom he communicated his intentions. Monsieur and Madame Moldetti, here present, send their regards. Please address the bill of exchange to me. I have sent the notification letter and the bill of change from Captain Bourre to Messieurs Tétard and Guérin & Co. My wife has the honour of sending you her greetings. I remain respectfully, sir, you very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny

42  From Doctor Mesny to the Marquis de Sade120 (12 December 1776) Since you seem to me satisfied enough with my letters, of which you say in your last you have received all, I am going to continue the stories that I have begun, albeit a bit on the long side. I have drawn what I am writing down for you from various manuscripts and from conversations with old men knowledgeable about the country’s history. I had to go about this with dexterity, for they are a jealous lot and the majority of these people are still very 119 Bad Pyrmont in Lower Saxony, a well-known spa town. 120 With the address: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, at the chateau of La Coste etc., near Apt in Provence.” Written at the top in Sade’s hand: “Fourth letter on the Medici, continuation of number 3. Section on the Pitti Palace.”

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attached to the memory of the Medici. Do you know why, sir? Because they spent money. It is also thanks to a bias, as happens with many other peoples who love their sovereign without having seen him or gotten anything from him. Few are the philosophers who can value things correctly. Ordinarily, one dares to state only what is beautiful and good, and one doesn’t speak of their faults, for one would then think otherwise. It seems to me that men who are distant from courts are like those nabobs of India who, when someone speaks to them of the Dutch Company [i.e., the Dutch East India Company], stand up, bow deeply before this word, and believe it to be a single being, replete with moral and civil virtues. But this has been a rather long digression. I have not spoken to you of Cosimo’s political qualities. If I have done so only in passing, this is because this wasn’t my goal, but rather his private life. I know one episode that I will discuss after having discussed his private life. I will only say that if he were to have been a citizen, he would have been a monster. You had doubtless created a large discrepancy between him and the notion that you ought to have, as an upright man, as a man of healthy morals. Place him amid pagans, Latins, Greeks, the French, or even the Hebrews, who are so poorly spoken of: you will not see them venerate parricides, poisoners, committers of incest, perjurers, murderers, or, in sum, villains. This, sir, is in part Cosimo’s character, among such a welter of flaws. What has been said of his good qualities? Very little. He was bold, capable [of] undertaking anything: here he is as a man of the state. But what about the criminal? Will this little critique be to your taste? We are not at the end of the gallant affairs and moral disorders of this prince. He had major obligations to the House of Toledo, from whom he got his first wife; he gave signs of his attachment to Don Garcia, his brother-in-law. He also had at his court one of his nieces from the House of Toledo, also named Eleanor, who was very pretty and, says the author of my memoir, endowed di bellissimi costumi. I mention this expressly because of what comes next. This young demoiselle was loved by Cosimo, who enjoyed her to the point that she became pregnant. After he had noticed this, he summoned Paolo Giordano Orsini to his court, he told him of his lovely operation, they determined together that this should be hidden; they decided to marry her to Pietro de’ Medici, his son. This lady gave birth in due course to a beautiful boy to whom was given the name Cosimo. Already Grand Duke Cosimo had brought his eldest son, Duke Francesco, into the government. The latter complimented his brother on his marriage. Pietro responded: “Certain things that men do must be allowed to pass, if you want these things to turn out well.” It is noteworthy that Francesco has been with his wife for ten years without having had a male child (three daughters). Pietro Medici did not show signs of affection for his wife; his tastes were otherwise. Here you have the name of one of the buggers who amused themselves communally. The author says that if he named them all, it would get boring. After this admission, should we be astonished to find that this taste should have continued in Florence? If it were the same for virtues as for vices, we would still see great men of letters. But acquiring virtue and merit costs more than being a criminal and debauchee. In this country, they are not as scrupulous as in Holland, etc. Here you have the honourable pederasts who were allied, in spite of Nature, to the Medici, via Pietro. I do not know whether he was both agent and patient, as Pontas puts it in his Dictionnaire des cas de conscience (see further down).121 121 Mesny’s reference is to Jean Pontas (1638–1728), Dictionnaire de cas de conscience, ou Décisions des plus considérables difficultez touchant la Morale & la Discipline ecclésiastique, 2 vols. (Paris, 1715), an important manual of casuistry that was often reprinted, expanded, corrected, abridged, and cited in other

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Eleanor, who was beautiful, was quite put out with her husband’s indifference. She was not lacking for admirers, she pricked up her ears to proposals, she especially loved Bernardino Antinori. Everyone whispered about this. A certain Alessandro Gaci, threatened by the Medici if he continued to see Eleanor, took up the Capuchins’ garb, for fear of worse. He must have been quite afraid … What a decision! The friends of Don Pietro were a certain Giannoro da Cepperello, a certain Alessandro, son of a captain named Martelli, and another Alessandro Martelli and a young man, son of a certain Giovanni-Battista Martini, of whom there are still relatives in Florence, from noble houses. These are the ones that I had forgotten to specify; doubtless because the latter were worthiest of note. We return now to Eleanor, who was the cause of what comes next. A sporting match known as calcio was put on in the city. This game is described by others and will be found in the memoirs that we have discussed.122 Knight Bernardino Antinori – the Order of Saint Stephen had already been founded – faced off with a member of the Ginori family named Francesco; he received more punches in this game that he would have liked. Ginori hatched a plan to kill him, and in according with the lovely custom of the country, he lay in wait for his enemy, having hid under an arcade. When Antinori passed by, he brought down a blow on his head with an edged weapon; but as he hit him only with the flat side, he was only lightly wounded. Antinori, drawing his sword, ran him through twice thoroughly and lay him dead on the square. Antinori went straightaway to present himself at the Law Courts and provided a security such that he would defend himself when the law ordered him. In the meantime, his trial took place. The religion [i.e., Order] of Saint Stephen had sole jurisdiction over one of its knights. But during the time he was confined to his house, Eleanor often passed by in front of it, in an open coach, which displeased the entire town. Finally, he was relegated to the island of Elba, from where he wrote to Eleanor, and his brother Francesco was the bearer and received hers in return. One day, tired of lingering in the antechamber, he gave his letter to a certain Giulio, a Roman musician who was awaiting an audience. After the latter had the letter, he withdrew alone, opened the letter, and read what he suspected. Next, hoping to get some reward, he brought that letter to Duke Francesco, who, as such manuals. Although Pontas does discuss – in Latin, thanks to the content – sodomy in relation to “conjugal duties,” he does not appear to address a case of homosexual sodomy, pederasty, or the distinction between active or penetrating and passive or recipient roles in either the first or subsequent, expanded editions of this work. For the “conjugal duties” discussion, see case XLIII of the “Devoir Conjugal” entry of Dictionnaire de cas de conscience (1: n.p.). The distinction of agent and patient to which Mesny refers was nonetheless frequently made in casuistic manuals. Augustinus Ristl, e.g., in his Commentarius in Regulam Divi Aurelii Augustini, Episcopi Hipponensis, et Ecclesiæ Doctoris. Ad Usum Canonicorum, Aliorumque Religiosorum, in Dictam Regulam Juratorum (Vienna, 1750) states: “With respect to sodomy, it ought to be set forth whether one was active or passive,” “because the agent commits a different category of sin from the patient: indeed, the former is guilty of pollution, whereas the latter in truth merely of shameful contact [In sodomia debere exponi, an quis fuerit agens, vel patiens … quia agens committit peccatum diversæ speciei à peccato patientis: ille enim committit pollutionem, iste verò duntaxat tactum impudicum]” (556). The same distinction was also made in obscene libertine writing, often with tounge-in-cheek reference to casuistic niceties. See James A. Steintrager, The Autonomy of Pleasure: Libertines, License, and Sexual Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 136–46. 122 Calcio fiorentino was and is a sort of football game that originated in sixteenth-century Florence and is particularly associated with the Santa Croce Square. It was of sufficient interest that in the seventeenth century an anthology of diverse writings on the sport, with illustrations of play and positions, edited by Pietro di Lorenzo Bini appeared under the title Memorie del Calcio Fiorentino Tratte da diverse Scritture (Florence, 1688) and dedicated to the grand duke and his wife.

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I have mentioned, was positioned as successor to the throne. Having read the letter, the duke summoned him [i.e., Giulio] before him, and, having questioned him, sent him to prison. It was too late to apologize. The next day, without any other formalities, he was sent a confessor and was strangled in prison. The grand duke had Antinori brought from the island of Elba, had him imprisoned, and the captain, his brother, seeing what the end result of the affair might be, fled to France. But the grand duke had him killed there and the guilty party put to death. The scene does not close here. The princess’s punishment was something to consider. She had sensed everything that was being prepared against her; she had even written to her father, so that he might recall her, but it was too late. She was sent to Cafaggiolo; she took her leave of her son Cosimo after having given him a thousand signs of her affection. This is where her husband was residing at the time. Finally, having arrived, she was escorted to her bedroom where Pietro Medici killed her with several dagger thrusts, on the same day that Isabella was strangled, the 11th of July, in the year 1576.123 Grand Duke Cosimo I was still full of strength and vigour in the year 1568. He saw it in by taming a young demoiselle from the Albizzi family who was yet again named Eleanor. But as she was a bit too bold and played some tricks on him, he married her to a gentleman who had murdered or killed one of his domestic servants and who, on account of the wedding, allowed him to return to Florence, providing as dowry a sum of forty thousand Florentine scudi that Cosimo had confiscated from him, but that the other had loaned him when he was undertaking the war against Siena.124 The Medici carried out many of these confiscations. This prince had a son from this demoiselle that he named Giovanni. This woman fell in love with Don Pietro de’ Medici, who wanted to take her to Spain. This family, as I have said more than once, was made for villainy. This was not Cosimo’s final flash of vigour. While he was having that corridor that leads from the Old Palace to the Pitti Palace built, he had the opportunity to enter in various houses that connected with it. At the time, he saw the daughter of a poor gentleman who is not worth naming – for I do not write in order to immortalize the names of these creatures of so little importance – since one of the sisters of this young woman had been married to a master cobbler.125 This girl was quite pretty and had caught the eyes of the grand duke who, smitten, knew how to bend her to his will. This affair was kept secret, but the pontiff to whom the prince had confessed, when he crowned the grand duke of Tuscany, ordered him, as part of his penitence, to marry her, without however publishing the banns. These are, more or less, the amorous adventures of Cosimo. But as I am not a historian, I think that I’ve done enough to familiarize you with them. Nevertheless, this prince had some good qualities, if only that of loving worthy men. He was generous. He had many

123 The history of Eleanor or Leonora’s demise is given in some detail by Murphy, in her Isabella de’ Medici (see 314–18). There are several discrepancies between the version given here and the more recent one. Evidently, there is a speculative aspect to all retellings, but the major actors and events largely coincide. 124 The sentence is grammatically obscure, and Mesny’s apparent sources do not shed any light upon the matter of who was permitted what. Logically, it would have been Cosimo who permitted Eleonora degli Albizzi’s future husband – Carlo Bartholomeo di Panciatici, according to the L’historia secreta di Cosimo Segondo – to return to Florence after the latter had murdered his domestic, although the relative pronoun states the opposite. As for the tricks that Eleonora played on Cosimo, these are not quite what one might assume. The worst seems to be that “when the Great Duke was going to sit down, she snatch’d away the Chair, which caused him to fall backward, hitting his Head violently against the Ground” (24–6). 125 Against Mesny’s wishes, allow me to provide the names: the impecunious gentleman was Antonio Martelli, his daughter was Camilla, and the cobbler to whom he married his other daughter was a certain Ginucci.

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obstacles to overcome, various conspiracies to stifle, hidden enemies from whom he had to protect himself, but he also got rid of many of these in good Italian style. We have various letters that prove that he spared nothing, neither money nor promises, to get rid of those whom he suspected. He had built in Florence a fortress to hold the town in awe, and if he could not make himself loved, at least he made himself feared.126 He knew how to manage the friendship of great rulers; he obtained from King Philip II [of Spain], either by money or subservience, the freedom to conquer Siena. The Genoese handled him with care; he bought from them a large stretch of land in order to impose on Leghorn and its port, which is the most profitable part of Tuscany. The latter loaned him money without interest, which he thought to repay by purposefully minting coins of greater weight and lower value and in that wise compensate them. He bought the palace that is today the ducal palace of Lucca, or rather of Luca Pitti, which was already quite beautiful, but which was very considerably enlarged.127 He had Florence adorned with monuments both very rare and of a beauty and a perfection that will ever serve as a model for posterity. Nota. It is said that it was Eleanor of Toledo who bought it [the Palazzo Pitti]. This palace was executed by Brunelleschi. Its architecture is Tuscan with bossages or in the rustic style; it faces north; its position is elevated, situated on a rise, at the foot of a very beautiful garden adorned with statues. But let us return to the palace, the exterior façade [sic] of which has nothing marvellous about it other than its height and heft. As for the its interior courtyard, it is singularly elegant: the three porticoes are vast and quite high; the rusticated architecture is very lovely. The first level is in the Tuscan or Doric order, the second Ionic, and the third Corinthian. Running all the way around is a cornice, which is well proportioned and functions for passage to the exterior of the courtyard, where there is an iron balustrade that is most unusual. At the back of the courtyard, which is not a portico but that feigns one, you see a grotto that was formerly beautiful; there are statues under the feigned arches that are highly esteemed, and especially a Hercules that is claimed to be the handiwork of Myron, a Greek artist, or of Glycon. The metamorphoses of this statue are odd: it has been a statue of Commodus, the emperor, just like the one in Farnese house in Rome, and artists assert that one of the legs has been mutually substituted [sic]. Nota. When I said that the architecture of the Pitti was by Brunelleschi, only a portion had been built at the time, as I have said elsewhere. This palace was enlarged and quite redone by Cosimo and by Ferdinando I. Ammannati was the architect. The wing on the southern side was done under the Emperor François of Lorraine [Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor], commissioned in the same style as the architecture of the porticoes. I return to the back of the courtyard of the palace where there is, in the form of a terrace or platform that provides access to the Boboli Gardens [sic]; here, on this platform, you see a very beautiful marble fountain, the pleasing murmur and appearance of which are enjoyable. This spot is at the centre of the large palace door. From this spot, you see to the back of the garden, but not lengthwise. The grand ducal palace is very large and of peerless solidity; you would say that it must even be resistant to

126 Mesny alludes to Machiavelli, who advised rulers that, while it is good to be both loved and feared, “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 104. 127 The Ducal Palace of Lucca bears no relation geographically or otherwise to the palace that the prominent Florentine banker Luca Pitti had built for himself in the mid-fifteenth century, so Mesny’s apparent gloss is rather a correction. The Medici bought the Palazzo Pitti in 1549 and, indeed, added significantly to the original structure.

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cannon shots. It did not, however, have all the necessary amenities; and if Italian architects know quite well how to decorate, they formerly barely understood the economy or, put another way, arrangement of buildings. It is even astonishing how eight fully grown princes were able to fit there with ladies in waiting, princesses … I know that Versailles, at the outset, was not what it became. But in the Pitti, moreover, the only things occupying the second floor were the library and some spare rooms, whereas today this space is hardly sufficient to lodge the young archdukes. It is true that there are the lovely spare quarters that take up the entire half of the façade overlooking the palace square. This square is very large and makes an inclined plane from the palace to the road. From the windows of the palace, you have a very magnificent view that takes in twenty miles of country. You can see Prato, Pistoia, and all the flatlands until the horizon comes to an end with the mountains, which are, from this position, to the north. The interior of the court or of the ducal palace is an assortment of beauties and rarities both in terms of paintings and other ornaments – and especially at the present moment, for Grand Duke Peter Leopold has had, in the section he occupies, which is the other half of the façade overlooking the square, adorned the ceilings with stuccoes in flowers and gold. He has had the silk hangings specially made in a modern and magnificent taste, for all the covering was done in crimson damask and gold stripes. Of these former hangings, all that remain are in the other section that I mentioned, although it is not less stunning if you keep to admiring the beautiful ceilings of Pietro da Cortona, which are unique. The paintings are worthy of admiration, both on account of the skill and the beautiful compositions of the drawings, which are subjects taken from the Metamorphoses, which allude to the Medici’s history. It is in this section that you look with admiration on those magnificent paintings by Raphael, by Andrea del Sarto, by Perugino, by Rubens, by del Frate [i.e., Fra Bartolommeo], teacher of secondary importance of Raphael, of Titian, and so many other celebrated artists. You see in these apartments tables, immense but proportioned to vast stone rooms of black jasper, granite, porphyry, and other precious materials, cast-iron fixtures, etc.128 Nevertheless, once upon a time someone had the temerity to say that Grand Duke Francis, deceased emperor, had had a portion of this paraphernalia transferred to Vienna. No, he was too just and too great. There are also on the ground floor objects such as paintings, furniture, rare items that are very interesting; there is an antique glass tank that is at least six feet long and about four high. This piece is almost incomparable. I have not mentioned two other statues that are in the back of the courtyard and are much contemplated: one is Pasquino supporting the wounded Alexander;129 the other is a Hercules suffocating Antaeus. I think that I have passably filled this letter. If some information is missing, I will provide it for you. Your wine is in Marseilles. The captain was poorly informed: it is in the hands of Monsieur Sauveur Richard, merchant warehouseman at the port, the corner of Reboul. The expenses will be remitted to him on your part. I have the honour of being, sir, your very humble and very obedient servant. Dr Mesny

128 The syntax is odd in the original. It suggests that the walls are inlaid with rare hardstones and the like, which would be true enough. On the other hand, that the Holy Roman Emperor might transfer these objects (see infra) makes the tables seem more probable – and they, too, would have been inlaid. Finally, Mesny may also be simply referring to various precious objects such as vases in these rooms. 129 Similar to the dying Ajax group at the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, also referred to as the Pasquino group (see p. 143 and pp. 468–71, as well as p. 620 and p. 620n78, in this volume), this was another restored ancient statue. See Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (295–6).

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P.S. My daughter is in Cremona. Her husband, amiable boy, is named Monsieur Piva; his father is a merchant and resides with the father [sic]. Accept our humble compliments from the entire family and wishes for the New Year. I will make the payment when I have received the bill of exchange. I shall thank you, sir.

43  From Doctor Iberti to the Marquis de Sade130 (Rome, 23 December 1776) My very dear sir, At this moment, I am leaving the terrible tribunal of the Roman Inquisition, where, to top off my misfortunes, I have spent four months.131 I am now at the final degree of wretchedness. You cannot imagine how much trouble your person has given me. I was working on your anecdotes when the order from the very Holy Father got me caught by his gendarmes. I was fearful that I would surely remain there, condemned for ten years. But they transformed my penitence otherwise, and as a final mercy, I am out. My relatives had [made an] oath not to be able to talk about this affair [sic], which provided an opportunity to fool you by saying that I was sick. But here I am, completely ready to do your bidding. I am wretched. I have certainly lost in this time two hundred scudi in money. Oh, I know not how to pursue my affairs! Patience. Suffering is inevitable. After my horrible misery, I went back to the duchess, who has transformed her utter amity into cold pity.132 Monsieur the ambassador of Venice constitutes my hope. Madam received your letter and has given it to me. As for the description of the Vatican, after having provided a localized description of all that there is, in summary fashion, I will send you my critical assessment of each section. But beforehand, is needed the plan on which the entire potential book will contain [sic]. I will prepare your description exactly as you want it. Be certain that I take all possible care with it: you are too worthy and I promise you all my attention. But as for details of gallant intrigues, you must excuse me; I am surrounded by spies. My letters – I fear that they might be unsealed at the post. Take care not to answer me in any way except with these words: that you have heard about my terrible misfortunes. My God, in what abyss of misery was I enclosed! Your letters – the more circumspect they shall be, the better. I have a terrible oath authorized by the bull of Pius V that condemns immediately to death he who dares speak of what has happened to him. I thank you for looking after my tobacco. I have also suffered some displeasure on your account from abbé Grazzini. I am the object of all possible resentments. You wrote to me that women were keeping me busy. Oh, my God, I was busied but with the utmost degree of misery! I cannot comprehend how you did not receive 130 The address is: “To Monsieur, Monsieur the Count of Mazan, in Apt, by Aix. In Provence.” The grammar of this letter, obviously not written in the correspondent’s native tongue, is frequently vexing; this is reflected in the translation. 131 Giuseppe Iberti was transferred to the prisons of the Holy Office on 7 September 1776, as he was leaving the home of the Duke and Duchess de Grillo. He spent a little less than four months there. 132 The icy duchess in question will appear in Sade’s Juliette as Honorine de Grillo, a “charming woman, absurdly sacrificed to the most sullen spouse,” with whom the heroine is instantly smitten; she is seduced, yet fails to convert to libertinism, and is betrayed in typically odious fashion. Sade, Œuvres, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 3:769; see also 3:806–30 for the main episode. Years earlier, Sade would mention the duchess in a letter to his wife from prison, describing her as having “a quite pleasant character,” “a very noble physiognomy,” and “the mien of Minerva.” Sade, Œuvres complètes du Marquis de Sade, ed. Gilbert Lely (Paris: Cercle du Livre précieux, 1967), 12:195.

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this news via the published pages that spoke of me.133 Write me also if you have immediate need of a priest. All that I had prepared for you has been stolen from me because of the search conducted by the Holy Office. As for the search that you had done for me [i.e., that you had me undertake] for Monsieur the knight of Malta, I answer you that I must beforehand know the denomination of the priory, the establishments and obligations, to be able to give a precise account in the datary.134 I must also know the diocese in order to be able to direct the bull [i.e., send the note]. I have this letter passed on to you by Monsieur Mesny, who has written to me. Madam the duchess sends her greetings and she is sick. At this instant, I am leaving my dungeon and I will write you better afterwards. You already know that in this prison it is impossible to see anyone, even relatives. Therefore, excuse my necessary idleness and pity my misfortune. I have lost everything in Rome, my mail, my addresses, all that remains to me is a bit of support. Give me your orders, I begin to work for you. Pardon me and […].135 Giuseppe Iberti

44  From Doctor Iberti to the Marquis de Sade136 (Late 1776) Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was built by Tarquin the Elder in the valley called Marcia or Murcia, on account of the myrtles planted on this spot, dedicated to Venus. Dionysius of Halicarnassus provides a precise description of its architecture, and claims that it could hold 150 thousand people.137 260 thousand according to Pliny;138 and 300,000 according to Victor.139 Julius Caesar enlarged this circus and joined to it a large canal. It suffered major damages in Nero’s fire, but was restored and embellished by Domitian, then by Trajan, and subsequently by Constantine. Augustus had erected there the obelisk that today is on the Piazza del Popolo, and Constantius [II] the one that is located on the square of Saint John Lateran. Aulus Gellius recounts that it was in the circus that a lion recognized the soldier Androcles, whose wound he had cured in Africa.

133 Although it does not appear that Iberti’s plight was widely reported, we do find in the Journal de Politique et de Littérature, contenant les principaux Evènements de toutes les Cours; les Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, les Causes célèbres, la notice des Arrêts, Édits, &c. &c. no. 25 (5 Sept. 1776) the following brief notice: “Mr Joseph Iberti, medical docter, has been arrested recently and conducted to the prisons of the H. Office; he was leaving, at that moment, the house of the duke de Grillo” (275). This journal was based in Brussells but had a dedicated contact address for subscribers in Paris and could be subscribed to outside of the capital at post offices and booksellers. 134 The Dataria was an office of the Roman Curia. It was charged with, among other duties, determining whether candidates for consistorial benefices were fit. 135 The final words are illegible. 136 In Italian in the original. 137 See Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, trans. Earnest Cary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 2[bk.3.69]:240–3. 138 In recent editions of Pliny the Elder’s writings, 250 thousand; however, 260 thousand is reported in earlier editions. For Pliny’s description, see his Natural History, Volume X: Books 36–37, trans. D.E. Eichholz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 80–1 [bk.36]. 139 “Publius Victor” in his Descriptio Urbis Romae, anthologized in Itinerarium provinciarum Antoni Augusti, etc. (Lyon, n.d. [c. 1545]), put the capacity at 385 thousand (159). The author was a medieval invention. See Leonard Barkan, Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 39.

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Thermae of Antoninus [or Baths of Caracalla]. The thermae of Antoninus, so called because they were built by Antoninus Caracalla, were the largest and best planned of all, according to Serlio, who has provided the layout, asserting that they could hold 2,300 persons.140 Olympiodorus and Spartianus state that they had 1,600 seats for bathing.141 You see in the rooms certain arches made of lime and pumice stone to make them lighter. Heliogabalus linked to these thermae porticoes that were completed by Severus Alexander. The Farnese Hercules, the Bull group [i.e., the Farnese Bull], Flora, the Gladiator, and author statues, busts, and bas-reliefs that are in the Farnese Palace were found in these thermae by Pope Paul III and the cardinal, his nephew. The granite column that Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had erected in front of the Church of the Holy Trinity [Santa Trinità] in Florence was likewise taken from these thermae. Temple of Vesta. The Temple of Vesta, which still stands on the banks of the Tiber, was built by Numa and Vespasian and restored, or rather rebuilt, by Domitian, his son, since this will be seen engraved on their medals. Gardens of Sallust. The Gardens of Sallust, rather vast and quite famous, were built by him with money that he amassed when he was prefect in Africa. It is thought that he had his circus on the spot in the valley that crosses the Villa Mandosi, close to the Porta Salaria, still called Apollinara, because of the games in honour of Apollo held here when the waters of the Tiber prevented access to the Circus Flaminius.142 The so-called Circus of Sallust was probably reduced to a naumachia, for there were found in this century, 20 palms under the earth, tiling of giallo antico that could not have served for horse races. The walls, partially destroyed in the upper reaches of the valley, are perhaps ruins of porticoes that formed a ring around, and some think that the neighbouring temple is dedicated to Venus because of an inscription found close by. But this is not certain. What is certain is that here was the Campus Sceleratus, the very one where Vestals were buried alive when they had brought shame on themselves. Pliny, discussing one of these who was buried alive, writes thus: “Eo anno Mutia Vestalis, facto judico, viva sub terra ad portam Collinam dextera via defossa in Scelerato Campo. Ab incestu id eo loco nomen factum.”143 140 Although Serlio does praise the beauty and layout of these baths, he does not assert a particular capacity. See Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture, trans. Vaughn Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 1:178–81. 141 Olympiodorus of Thebes was a fifth-century historian, whose writings, although lost, were epitomized by Photius in his Bibliotheca (number 80); he does state 1,600 seats for the baths in question. See The Library of Photius, trans. J.H. Freese (New York: Macmillan, 1920), 1:146. Aelius Spartianus was one of the six purported authors responsible for the Historia Augusta; the text notes the baths in its history of Antoninus Caracalla but provides no capacity. See Historia Augusta, trans. David Magie (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921–1932), 2:24–5. 142 As reported in Livy as a portent during the consulate of Tiberius Claudius in 202 BCE, the Tiber had “so far overflowed that, as the Circus was flooded, preparations for the Games of Apollo were made outside the Porta Collina, near the Temple of Venus of Eryx.” Livy, History of Rome, trans. Frank Gardner Moore (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), 8[bk.30, s.38]:512–13. 143 The reference is to neither Pliny the Elder nor the Younger but rather to Livy, quoted here in full rather than in Iberti’s abridged citation: “In that year the Vestal Minucia, suspected in first instance because of her dress, which was more ornate than became her station, was subsequently accused before the pontiffs on the testimony of a slave, and having been by their decree commanded to keep aloof from the sacred rites and to retain her slaves in her own power, was convicted and buried alive near the Colline Gate, to the right of the paved road in the Polluted Field – so called, I believe, on account of her un-chastity.” See Livy, History of Rome, trans. B.O. Foster (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 4[bk.8, s.15]:62–3. Although Iberti’s source is uncertain, an Italian work that he may have consulted contains the

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[In Sade’s hand:] The painting of Saint Denis, in the sacristy of Saint Louis of the French, is by Monsieur Beauvieux, a Frenchman, or Monsier Miel, Flemish.144

45  From Doctor Iberti to the Marquis de Sade (Late 1776) The Vatican Obelisk. Noncoreo, King of Egypt,145 had this obelisk erected in the city of Heliopolis. Pliny reports that Gaius Caligula had it transported to Rome in the third year of his reign and placed in his Vatican circus, afterwards known as Nero’s Circus, because of the gardens that this ruler had nearby. Constantine had this circus destroyed to make room for the construction of the Vatican basilica, but the obelisk remained standing on the same spot. It is a block of red granite, without ciphers [i.e., hieroglyphs] and the only one to remain standing in spite of the power of time and the barbarians’ fury. Sixtus V had it transported to the spot where it is today, in the middle of a large square with architecture by Domenico Fontana. The fountain that is to the right of this obelisk was made by Paul V, and the one to the left by Clement X. The magnificent porticoes that surround the grand square were made by Alexander VII with architecture by Cav. Bernini. They are in the shape of an amphitheatre in the Doric order, with 320 large columns of travertine and on top of the balustrade 136 statues of various saints. The square is the ancient triumphal field where the Romans prepared the victory procession. The Corridor that leads from the Vatican Palace to the Castel S. Angelo was made by Alexander VI, and Urban VIII covered it with a rook and demolished the houses that were in the vicinity, for better security. The Palace of the Vatican is built on a portion of the Gardens of Nero, and the founder was Constantine the Great. Some think that originally this was the very palace belonging to Nero, and it was Constantine that gave it to Pope St Sylvester, as Panciròli asserts.146 The same citation and spelling of the Vestal’s name in Latin: “Narro Livio, esser questo succeduto in persona di una Vestale, chiamata Muzia, con queste parole: Eo anno Mutia Vestalis facto inditio, viva sub terra ad portam Collinam, dextera via defossa in scelerato Campo: ab incestu id ei loco nomen factum.” See Niccola Roisecco, ed., Roma Antica, e Moderna o sia Nuova Descrizione di tutti gl’Edifici Antichi, e Moderni, tanto Sagri, quanto Profani della Città di Roma (Rome, 1750), 2:306. This citation will be found in other works on historical Rome in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 144 Certainly Reynaud Levieux (1613–1699); see also dossier I (on General Material, p. 393 and p. 394n27). 145 In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder explains: “The third obelisk in Rome stands in the Vatican Circus that was built by the emperors Gaius and Nero. It was only one of the three that was broken during its removal. It was made by Nencoreus, the son of Sesosis” (X[bk.36, s.15]:58–9). Elsewhere he remarks on the obelisk brought from Egypt and “erected in the Vatican Circus” on the order of Gaius Caligula; see his Natural History, Volume IV: Books 12–16, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945), 518–19 [bk.16, s.76]. Following Pliny, Iberti’s spelling of the name for the legendary pharaoh and founder of Memphis as “Noncoreo” will be found in both Italian and French (and found in English as “Nunchoreus”). Sade himself elsewhere follows Diodorus Siculus’s rendering of the name as Uchoreus; see dossier III (on Rome), p. 500n35). 146 Guido Panciròli (1523–1599) was a jurist and author of several works on jurisprudence and legal history. His assertion, in an eighteenth-century English translation, The History of Many memorable Things lost, Which were in Use among the Ancients: And An Account of many excellent Things found, now in Use among the Moderns, both Natural and Artificial (London, 1712), is as follows: “St Peter’s Church, and which is call’d the Vatican, is seen not without the greatest Wonder and Amazement imaginable […] At first it stood on the left Side of the Vatican, in Nero’s Cirque; but Pope Sixtus V. commanded it to be remov’d into a more eminent Place in the Middle of the Street, in the Year 1586” (2:98).

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most stately royal staircase [Scala Regia] was the architectural conception of Cav. Bernini and leads to the great hall, also called “royal,” that was adorned with frescoes commissioned by Paul III by various excellent painters. You see depicted several historical episodes relating to the Holy See, among which: Liutprand confirming the donation that Aripert made to the Roman Church painted by Orazio Samacchini;147 Pepin, King of the Franks, handing over Ravenna to the same Church of Rome after his victory over Astolf, King of the Lombards, by Girolamo [Sicoliante] da Sermoneta. The large painting that depicts the Holy League against the Turks and the preparations of the maritime fleet to do combat with them, as this took place on the Ionian Sea in 1571, was painted by Giorgio Vasari, who likewise made the painting opposite, in which you see the naval combat of the two aforementioned armies. This same Vasari depicted the return of Gregory XI from Avignon to Rome. The assault on Tunis, under the pontificate of Paul III, was painted by Federico Zuccari. In another part of this same hall, the aforementioned Giorgio Vasari has depicted the story of Coligny, the Grand Admiral of France, put to death as leader of the rebels and the Huguenots, and he also painted the other canvas illustrating the massacre of the rebels and the Huguenots in Paris. The students of the said Vasari depicted, on the other side of this same hall, the king of France Charles IX approving the killing of Coligny. From this hall, you enter into the Sistine Chapel, so called because it was made by Sixtus IV in 1473. On the immense front wall, Michelangelo Buonarroti painted his sublime Last Judgment; he also covered the totality of the vault. It is in this chapel that the election of the pope takes place. From that same hall, you pass into the other chapel, called the Pauline Chapel, because it was commissioned by Paul III, in which you will admire two large frescoes on the sides that depict: one, the Crucifixion of Saint Peter; the other, the Conversion of Saint Paul. Both are masterpieces of the aforementioned Buonarroti, although they are quite blackened by the smoke of the thousands of candles lit in front of the Holy Sacrament, displayed here twice annually, such that this chapel, which is also most elegantly adorned with highly decorated wooden arches, conjures a theatre most pleasing to view. Passing next from this hall to the loggias on the second floor, in the first wing of this these will be seen vaults admirably painted by Raphael, depicting unusual events from the Old Testament, and in the other wing various others from the New Testament. From this loggia, you enter four chambers or rooms called Raphael’s, because they were painted by him and by his students, based on his designs. In the first, the great history of Constantine’s Battle was painted by Giulio Romano. Opposite is the Donation of Constantine to the Church by [Giovan] Francesco Penni, who also depicted the Baptism of Constantine on another wall, and Giulio Romano represented, on the fourth, Constantine addressing his soldiers before going to battle against Maxentius. In this room, all there is to be seen by Raphael’s hand are two Virtues, these being Justice and Mansuetude. The second room is entirely by Raphael’s hand, as are the third and fourth as well, but only from the skirting up. You will see, in one of these, admirably represented in various poses, the major sages of profane Antiquity; this is why this piece is called the School of Athens. Likewise admirable are Saint Peter awakened in prison

147 Liutprand, born around the end of the seventh century, was king of the Lombards from 712 until his death in 744. During the iconoclastic controversy between Pope Gregory II and the Byzantine emperor Leo III, the Isaurian, Liutprand’s forces occupied the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. Aripert II, King of the Lombards from 702 to 712, gave large amounts of territory to the Holy See.

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by the Angel, the fire of Borgo, and the miracle of Bolsena. All the paintings in these rooms are frescoes. Passing from these rooms into the contiguous apartment known as that of Saint Pius V, you seen in the chapel the marvellously painted fresco by Pietro da Cortona, depicting Jesus Christ’s Descent from the Cross. In the second room, on the ceiling, the Twelve Apostles, a beautiful work by [Ventura di Archangelo] Salimbeni; in the other side chapel, Giorgio Vasari painted the altarpiece that depicts the Assumption; and the cupola, adorned with the seven deadly sins conquered by as many angels, is the work of Federico Zuccari. On the ceiling of another side room, Lodovico Cigoli painted a Nativity of Mary; and on the ceiling on the next, Guido Reni has handled three subjects: the Ascension of Jesus Christ to Heaven, his Transfiguration, and the Apparition of the Holy Ghost at the Cenacle. The next gallery is surprising, as much for its vault, adorned with white and gilded stuccoes, embellished by works by various masters, as for its considerable length. The walls are all painted with geographical maps executed with much precision. Continuing your route, you arrive at the pavilion called the Tower of the Winds [Torre dei Venti or Gregorian Tower], where Pope Benedict XIII usually resided and where you see, stuck to the walls, various fragments of mosaics and antique paintings; and furthermore, the maquette of the Vatican basilica, done in wood by the architect Bramante, large enough to contain several people. This pavilion also contains other wooden maquettes of the Palace of the Vatican, of the Quirinal, and various Roman churches, prospects, and fountains. Passing next to the apartment of Clement VIII, where the reigning pontiff resides, you will see the room entirely covered with paintings, on the vault and on the walls, by skilful artists. The other rooms in this suite are full of famous paintings, some of which belonged to the suppressed Jesuits.148 Neither the armoury nor the museum of Clement XIV, assembled during his brief pontificate, will be discussed, for this has already been done at another time in the description of these in particular. There is also a small gallery known as Matilda’s, because here are depicted the most memorable deeds of that princess, via beautiful frescoes, executed by [Giovanni Francesco] Romanelli. [In Sade’s hand:] Plus the arsenal made by Urban VIII and filled with arms for eighteen thousand men, and other armours, more for show than utility.

148 The reference is to Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus with his brief Dominus ac Redemptor (promulgated on 21 July 1773). See also p. 384n8.

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Thomassen, Bjørn. Liminality and the Modern: Living through the In-Between. Burlington: Ashgate, 2014. Todd, Janet. Sensibility: An Introduction. London: Methuen, 1986. Tomasi, Michele. “Lo stil novo del Gotico italiano.” Medioevo 12 (Feb. 2007): 32–46. Treggiari, Susan. “Divorce Roman Style: How Easy and How Frequent Was It?” In Beryl Rawson, ed., Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, 31–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. van Sant, Ann Jessie. Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Vila, Anne. Enlightenment and Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature and Medicine of EighteenthCentury France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. Vogel, Lise. The Column of Antoninus Pius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973. Wallace, Rex E. An Introduction to Wall Inscriptions from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2005. Warman, Caroline. Sade: From Materialism to Pornography. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002. Warwick, Genevieve. “Making Statues Speak: Bernini and Pasquino.” In Aura Satz and Jonathan Wood, eds., Articulate Objects: Voice, Sculpture and Performance, 29–46. Bern: Peter Lang, 2009. Wheeler, Kathleen, ed. German Literary and Aesthetic Criticism: The Romantic Ironists and Goethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Wheeler, Roxann. The Complexion of Race: Categories of Difference in Eighteenth-Century British Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Williams, Alan. The Police of Paris, 1718–1789. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Wilton-Ely, John. The Mind and Art of Giovionni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1988. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. Wyngaard, Amy S. Bad Books: Rétif de la Bretonne, Sexuality, and Pornography. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2013. Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Harems of the Mind: Passages of Western Art and Literature. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Zelle, Carsten. “Angenehmes Grauen”: Literaturhistorische Beiträge zur Ästhetik des Schrecklichen im achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1987.

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Name Index

Although aiming at thoroughness, this index is not exhaustive. Minor historical players, at least minor from our perspective, have been excluded. Similarly and with apologies to various saints, martyrs, heroes, and divinities, not every artistic subject who is named in the text could be usefully listed. As for important and frequently recurring historical and mythological figures such as Jesus, Mary, Hercules, and Venus, only references to relatively significant occurrences are provided. Abbatini, Guido Ubaldi (mosaicist, painter), 525–6 Adrian I, Pope (name unknown), 510 Adrian IV or Hadrian IV, Pope (Nicholas Breakspear), 522 Adrian VI, Pope (Adriaan Florensz Boeyens), 496, 608 “Aelius Spartianus” (one purported author of the Historia Augusta), 646, 646n141 Agnes (Saint): representations, 56, 130, 157; purported miracle, lxxviii, 130–1. See also Christianity, criticisms of Agresti, Livio (painter), 356nn86–7 Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius (architect, consul, general; son-in-law of the emperor Augustus), 116n131, 417, 420; statues, 416, 532; works, 96–8, 116, 124, 170, 178, 273–4 Agrippina, Julia, also known as Agrippina the Younger (empress; wife of Claudius, mother of Nero, sister of Caligula), 118, 277n38, 427; death, 275, 399–400, 425; genealogy, 420; infamies, 275–6, 276n36; statue, 291

Agrippina, Vipsania, also known as Agrippina the Elder (mother of Julia Agrippina and Caligula), 275, 420 Agrippina (undifferentiated): statues, presumably of the Younger, 87, 110, 118, 121, 154, 257 Albani or Albano, Francesco (painter), 517n77; works, 146, 156, 158–9, 161–3, 240, 243 Alberici, Giacomo (Augustinian hermit, scholar), 58n23 Alberti, Cherubino (engraver, painter), 124n150 Alberti, Giovanni (painter), 124n150 Alcubierre, Roque Joaquín de (military engineer): excavations in Campania, lxii Alexander, Severus (Roman emperor), 135n176, 277n39, 400, 532; works, 132, 177, 646 Alexander VI, Pope (Rodrigo de Borja), 172, 172n24, 522, 632; dissoluteness, lxxv– lxxvi, 520–2n82, 647; patronage, 495n22, 647; representations, 520; and Savonarola, 443–4n35

676

Name Index

Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi), 56, 499, 499n33, 525n95; patronage, 55, 96, 122, 130, 168, 170, 498–9, 503, 507, 647 Alexander the Great, 388, 468n99, 470n100, 643; attributed statues, 121, 291, 294; statues, 174, 294, 480n117 Alexius or Alexis (Saint): legend, 100, 100n99 Alfonso I, King of Naples (also Alfonso V of Aragon), 252; depicted, 247, 250 Alfonso II, King of Naples, also known as Alfonso of Aragon: commissions, 214, 214n45 Alfonso of Aragon (husband of Lucrezia Borgia): murder, 521n82, 636n113 Algardi, Alessandro (sculptor), l; works, 66, 130–1, 133, 135, 146 Ammannati, Bartolomeo (architect, sculptor): life, 451n55; works, 18n36, 58n24, 65, 451–2, 452n57, 458, 476, 478, 613–14, 642 Ammianus, Marcellinus (historian, soldier), 82n62 Anacletus, Pope (also given as Cletus): chronology, 516–17n73; fraudulence, 492–4, 493n18, 516 Ancus Marcius (4th king of Rome), 70, 70n41, 99, 101, 352, 550–1 Andrew, Duke of Calabria (husband of Joanna I of Naples): assassination, lxxxi, 230, 230–1n89; tomb, 230 Annius of Viterbo (born Giovanni Nanni; antiquarian, historian, theologian): fraudulence, 624, 624n86 Antinoüs (Hadrian’s beloved), 73, 532; representations, lix, 109, 121, 154, 160, 165, 393, 532, 534; temple, 228 Antonini, Giuseppe (antiquarian, historian), lxi, 312n105. See also Paestum, rediscovery of Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, known as Caracalla (Roman emperor): baths, 102–3, 103n106, 125n151, 455, 614, 646, 646n141; circus, 103, 132; representations, 107, 154 Antoninus Pius (Roman emperor), 88, 88n73, 137; representations, 87–8, 109, 121, 532; works, 403 Apelles (ancient painter), 388, 631n103 Apollodorus of Athens (grammarian, historian), 30; on the Minotaur, 296, 296n74

Apollonius of Tyana (neo-Pythagorean sage), 397, 397n35, 486 Appius Claudius (consul, patrician leader), 555–9, 561–2 Aretino, Pietro (dramatist, satirist), xxxv, 429; works: Sonetti lussuriosi, xxxiv, lxix, 95–6, 96n87; Ragionamenti, xxxiv, lxviii, 96n87 Aripert II, King of the Lombards, 648, 648n147 Aristophanes (comic playwright), 532 Aristotle: Poetics, xlix, l Arnolfo di Cambio, also known as Arnolfi di Lapo (architect, sculptor), 19, 19n38 Arouet, François-Marie. See Voltaire Augustus, born Gaius Octavius (Roman emperor), 66, 83, 98, 104, 116, 142, 170–1, 271, 275, 314, 346–7, 355, 355n85, 358, 390, 401n43, 406, 420–2, 427, 500, 500n39, 537; age of, lii, 96, 260, 397, 487, 487n6, 552, 587; life, 129, 185, 185n45, 269, 285, 285n53, 318–19, 321, 321n121, 353, 353n76, 414–15, 417–19; representations of, 97, 109, 531–2; works, 56, 59, 59n25, 69, 93n81, 127, 134, 415–17, 550n40, 645 Aurelian (Roman emperor), 179n32, 407; Walls of, 55, 58, 60, 65, 73, 85, 108, 112 Aurelius, Marcus (Roman emperor): representations, 31, 68, 87, 110, 121, 154–8, 257; virtuousness, lxxiv, lxxxv; wife’s passion for gladiators, 109, 109n117 Austen, Jane (novelist), lxxxiv Baccio da Montelupo (sculptor), 479 Baculard d’Arnaud, François-Thomas-Marie de (novelist, playwright): “dark” writing, lxxxiii Baldi, Lazzaro (painter), 84, 174 Balducci, Giovanni (painter), 98n94 Balestra, Antonio (painter), 116 Bandinelli, Bartolommeo (sculptor): appreciation, l; life, 463n85, 479n114; works, 25, 65, 94, 396n33, 467, 479–80, 619, 629 Barbarossa, folk name of Oruç Reis (corsair, sultan of Algiers), 309, 309n97, 321 Barberini (family), 532; archives, 370; chapel, 93; destruction of antiquities, 97, 97n89, 116n132, 177n28, 586; devices, 149–50, 565

Name Index Barocci, Federico, known as Il Baroccio (painter): works, 136, 143, 146, 151, 240, 366–7, 369 Bartholomew, Saint (apostle, martyr): depicted, lxxiii, 123, 168n10, 237; relics, 128 Bassano, Francesco, the Younger (painter): attribution problem, 244n117; works, 115 Bassano, Jacopo (painter): attribution problem, 244n117; likely works, 244–5; works, 27, 147, 156, 240 Bassus, Junius (Roman senator): tomb, 523 Batoni, Pompeo Girolamo (painter), 71n45, 116, 161, 288 Batteux, Charles (aesthetic theorist), xlvi Baudoin, Jean (translator), lviii, 316, 316n114, 414n86, 417n103 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb (aesthetic theorist, philosopher), xlvi Bayle, Pierre (Calvinist, philosopher): scepticism, xxiv; source, xxxvi, 392n21, 529n101, 637–8 Beccaria, Cesare (jurist, philosopher): views on punishment, xxviii Bélidor, Bernard Forest de (engineer, mathematician), 631, 631n102 Bellarmine, Robert (Jesuit, theologian), 521–2n82 Belle-Isle, Chevalier de. See Fouquet, Louis Charles Armand Bellicard, Jérôme Charles (antiquarian, architect), lxii, 262 (figure) Bellini, Giovanni (painter), 146, 155 Bembo, Pietro (cardinal, poet, scholar), 97, 212, 212nn38–9 Benedict VIII, Pope (Theophylactus), 328 Benedict IX, Pope (Theophylactus of Tusculum), 507 Benedict XII, Pope (Jacques Fournier), 537; life, 138, 138n183, 598n78; Sade’s view of, xxxvii, 518n78; statue, 518 Benedict XIII, Antipope (Pedro Martínez de Luna y Pérez de Gotor), 123, 123n145 Benedict XIII, Pope (Pietro Francesco Orsini), 649; mausoleum, 94; works, 124, 498, 514n65 Benedict XIV, Pope (Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini): works and commissions, 59,

677

74, 168, 177; representations, 76, 241, 241n110 Berchem, Nicolaes (painter), 161 Berengar II, King of Italy, 336, 336n31 Bergondi, Andrea (sculptor), 100n98 Bernini, Gian Lorenzo (architect, painter, sculptor), 91n77, 216, 216n49, 339, 498n29, 527n99, 537; architecture and design, 55, 64, 105, 122, 148, 153, 170, 170n18, 490, 497–8, 513, 515–16, 526, 647, 649; life, 497–8n26; mannerism, l, 63, 114, 155, 174, 230, 497n26, 503; painting, 527; sculpture, l, liv, lxxiii, 54, 57, 57n21, 62–3, 62n28, 72, 84, 91, 96, 96n88, 109–10, 112, 114, 132–3, 155, 499, 503, 510, 523, 526, 527 Bernini, Luigi (sculptor), 526 Bernini, Paolo Valentino (sculptor), 91, 91n77 Bernini, Pietro (sculptor), 216, 216n49 Bernis, François-Joachim de Pierre de (cardinal, ambassador to Rome), 186n48, 592, 592n17 Berthold of Constance or of Reichenau (Bertholdus Constantiensis; chronicler, monk), 541, 541n137 Bertini, Giovanni and Pacio (sculptors), 223n71 Bianchini, Francesco (astronomer, historian): meridian line, 63, 63n30 Bicci, Lorenzo di (painter), 461n81, 617 Blondel, Jacques-François (architect, architectural theorist), 12n17 Blumenberg, Hans (intellectual historian): on curiosity, xxxix Boissard, Jean-Jaques (antiquary, poet), 502, 502nn46 and 51 Bolgi, Andrea (sculptor), 523, 526 Bonarelli, Matteo, 526 Boniface IV, Pope (name unknown): transformation of Pantheon, 97 Boniface VIII, Pope (Benedetto Caetani), 25, 252n136, 370–1, 537; anecdote about corpse of, 519–20n80; character, 510n58; representations, 519; tomb, 522; works and deeds, 172, 508n56, 509–10 Bonito, Giuseppe (painter), 256–7, 288 Bordone, Paris (painter), 162

678

Name Index

Borghese (family), 126, 568, 577; device, 145; members, 83n65, 146–7, 165, 393, 497, 567–8; properties, 143–7, 165, 393, 485 Borgia, Cesare (condottiero, politician): exemplarity, lxxiv, lxxv–lxxvi; deeds and misdeeds, 520–1n82 Borgia, Lucrezia (Italian noblewoman): life and misdeeds, 520–1n82 Borgognone, Il. See Courtois, Jacques, and Courtois, Guillaume Borromini, Francesco (architect), 246, 256, 537; life, 526–7n99; works, 105, 130 130n165, 132–3, 182, 526 Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne (theologian), 179n32 Bottiglieri, Matteo (painter, sculptor), 339, 346 Bourdieu, Pierre (anthropologist, sociologist), xxviii–xxix Bourguignon, Le. See Courtois, Jacques, and Courtois, Guillaume Boyer, Jean-Baptiste de, Marquis d’Argens (novelist, philosophe): on Constantine, 507n55, 534–6nn111–16, 536; on the Jubilee, 509n56; libertine writing, xxvii, xxxvii; on Pope Alexander VI, 522n82; on Pope Urban VI, 519n79; works: Histoire universelle de l’esprit humain, 522n82; Lettres juives, xxvii, 509n56; Mémoires secrets, lxxvi, 507n55, 534–6nn111–16; Ocellus Lucanus, 519n79; Thérèse philosophe, xxvii, xxxvii Bramante, Donato, born Donato di Pascuccio d’Antonio, also known as Bramante Lazzari (architect, painter), 537; life, 495n22; works, 65, 365, 365n109, 489, 495–6, 649 Brandi, Giacinto (painter), 155 Bresciani, Antonio (painter), 13n22 Breteuil, Louis Charles Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de (diplomat, politician), 406, 588, 588n12 Brissault, Mme (procuress), xxxii Bronzino, byname of Agnolo di Cosimo (painter), 145, 147 Bronzuoli, Gaetano (architect), 241 Brueghel, Pieter, the Elder (painter), 152–3 Brunelleschi, Filippo (architect): anecdote about, 461n81, 617; works, 19, 480, 617, 625n88, 630, 642

Buonvicino, Ambrogio (sculptor), 503, 516 Burchard, Johann (papal Master of Ceremonies, chronicler), lxxvi, 521–2n82 Burke, Edmund (philosopher, politician): aesthetics of, xlv, xlvi Caccianiga, Francesco (painter), 136 Caesar, Julius (Roman author, general, politician), lix, 141, 266, 273, 273n35, 277n39, 279, 284–5, 284n50, 399, 409, 422, 500; bisexuality, 286, 286n54; life and deeds, 66n34, 69, 71, 93, 93n81, 142, 341n52, 414–16, 645; representations, 97, 109–10, 143, 146, 158, 162, 532 Cagnacci, Guido (painter), 163 Calandra, Giovanni Battista (mosaicist, painter), 530 Caligula (Gaius Iulius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; Roman emperor), 490, 521n82; bridge, 269n20, 270, 270n23, 277n39, 295, 400, 421; exemplarity, lxxv, lxxix, 519n79, 571; life and works, 420–1, 500–1, 500nn38–9, 647, 647n145; representations, 31, 421 Calixtus III, Pope (Alfonso de Borgia), 520n82 Callimachus (sculptor), lx, 311–12, 311–12n104 Calmet, Antoine Augustin (Benedictine monk, scholar), 399, 399n39 Calvin, John (theologian), 163, 504n55, 519n79 Camassei, Andrea (painter), 151, 154 Campi, Pietro Paolo (sculptor), 130n165 Canaletto, byname of Giovanni Antonio Canal (painter), 242 Canart, Joseph (sculptor): keeper of Pan and goat statue, lxiii, 298 Canini, Giovanni Angelo (painter), 175 Capaccio, Guilio Cesare (scholar): on baths in Campania, 283, 284nn47–8 Capponi, Niccolò (gonfaloniere), xxxiv, 433, 435–7, 439–40, 442 Capponi (family), 22, 45, 451, 474, 611 Caracalla. See Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius Caracciolo, Battistello (painter), 217n50 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da (painter): works, xlix, 105, 133, 144–7, 151, 152n203,

Name Index 153, 157–9, 161–3, 174–5, 208–9, 222, 237, 244, 485 Carracci, Agostino (painter), 143, 147 Carracci, Annibale (painter), 525n96; tomb, 97; works, 57, 113–14, 116–17, 151, 153, 156–8, 160–1, 240, 241n112, 242, 353 Carracci, Ludovico (painter), 242 Carracci (undifferentiated or school of), 78, 88, 208, 217, 217n50, 245 Carriera, Rosalba, (painter), 136 Casanova, Giacomo Girolamo (adventurer, autobiographer, polymath), xix, 38–9n79, 199n19, 589n16 Cassius Dio (historian): source, xxxv, lviii, lxviii, lxxv, 532, 532n106 Castiglione, Giovanni Benedetto (painter, printmaker), 156, 237 Catherine of Siena, Saint (Caterina di Giacomo di Benincasa): house, 95, 95n83; depicted, 99 Catherine II of Russia (the Great): enlightened views, xxviii, 383n5 Catullus, Gaius Valerius (poet), lxvi Cavallini, Pietro (painter, sculptor), 537; life, 524n90; works, 524, 524n91 Cecilia, Saint (martyr): life, 112; representations, lv, 112–14, 146, 162, 176, 242, 244, colour plate 5; in Sade’s later writing, lxxiii Celestine V, Pope (Pietro Angelerio), 251, 251–2n136, 370 Cellini, Benvenuto (autobiographer, goldsmith, sculptor, soldier): life, 25n53, 459n78; works, 459, 478 Cencius, Stephani (conspirator, reformer), 539, 539n130 Cesari, Giuseppe, known as Cavaliere d’Arpino (painter): works, 81, 112, 130, 133, 144, 146, 151, 166–7, 174, 209, 515 Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor (also King of the Franks and King of the Lombards), 336, 383, 510, 610–11; deeds, 15, 431, 473; statue, 54, 486, 503–7, 513 Charles I of Anjou (Roman senator; also King of Sicily): life and deeds, 218n53, 219, 235, 250, 250n; statue, 70; tomb, 229 Charles II, Archduke of Austria, 430 Charles II of Naples, 210

679

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (military commander): life and deeds, 433–5, 441, 441n31; mummy, 348, 348n71 Charles III, King of France, known as Charles the Simple, 326, 326n9 Charles III, King of Spain (previously Charles VII of Naples and Charles V of Sicily), 171, 171n20, 189n4, 193n8, 234n94, 241n109, 246n125, 247n128, 248, 248n131, 253, 337, 337n36, 352, 352n74, 353n77, 398, 398n37; commissions and works, lxii–lxiii, 240, 240n107, 267, 400–1; life, 11, 11–12n16, 414; representations, 241, 241n110, 254, 254n142 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, 110, 157, 157n207, 171, 171n20, 172n24, 261, 348n71, 432, 436n16, 451, 496, 626, 633–4; deeds, 441–6; on Titian, 388, 388n11 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 449, 477, 613 Charles VIII, King of France, xli, 612, 627 Charles IX, King of France, 648 Charles XII, King of Sweden, 413 Charvin, Louis (postmaster, Sade’s travelling companion), xvii, 372, 376, 376n127 Chaupy, Bernard Capmartin de (antiquarian, polemicist, source frequently used by Sade): xxii, xxiii, lvii, lviii, 26n55, 168n12, 169nn14 and 16, 170n17, 177n29, 179, 179nn31–3, 182n35, 183, 183nn39–40, 185–6, 186n47, 269n20, 277n39, 341nn52– 3, 342n57, 343nn59–60, 399, 402–4, 425, 427, 427n151 Chiari, Giuseppe Bartolomeo (painter), 127, 136, 151, 161–2, 485 Chorier, Nicolas (lawyer, historian, libertine writer): Aloisiae Sigaeae, xvii–xviii, lxviii Christina, Queen of Sweden, 55–6, 56n17, 412, 497n26, 525n94, 537; described, 413; tomb, 522, 525 Ciampelli, Agostino (painter), 149n150 Ciccione, Andrea (architect, sculptor), 224n75, 225, 225n76 Cicero (orator, philosopher, politician), lviii, 18, 168n12, 170, 275n34, 280, 414, 574, 591; correspondence, 284n50, 341, 341n52;

680

Name Index

country villa, 167, 167n9, 277n38, 283, 298; statues, 66, 298, 532; purported tomb, 349 Cignani, Carlo (painter), 136, 155, 485 Cigoli, byname of Lodovico Cardi (architect, painter), 156, 649 Cimabue, byname of Cenni di Pepo (painter), 19; restorer of arts, lii, 94, 94n82, 480; works, 20 Circignani, Niccolò (painter): martyrdom depicted, 119n142, 120 (figure) Claudius (Roman emperor), lxxix, 118, 132n68, 276n36, 420, 427; life and deeds, 129, 421–3, 423n121 Clément, Jacques (regicide), 461n83 Clement, Saint (pope, martyr), 517; depicted, 124, 127 Clement IV, Pope (Gui Foucois): politics, 219 Clement V, Pope (Raymond Bertrand de Got): transfer of papacy to Avignon, 138, 138n182 Clement VI, Pope (Pierre Roger), 508n56 Clement VII, Pope (Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici), 45, 145n195, 348, 431, 496, 519, 608; commissions and works, 18n36, 19n37, 64n33; life and deeds, lxix, 171–2, 172n24, 432–3, 433n8, 435, 436n16, 439–47, 459n78, 626, 632–3; mausoleum, 94 Clement VIII, Pope (Ippolito Aldobrandini), 83n65, 649; commissions and works, 107, 123, 355, 355n85, 497, 516–17, 608; mausoleum, 83 Clement IX, Pope (Giulio Rospigliosi), 498 Clement X, Pope (Emilio Bonaventura Altieri), 499, 507, 526, 647 Clement XI, Pope (Giovanni Francesco Albani), 176; works, 63–4, 63n30, 98, 123, 127, 499 Clement XII, Pope (Lorenzo Corsini): mausoleum, 123–4; works, 122–4, 122nn143–5, 124n146, 127 Clement XIII, Pope (Carlo della Torre di Rezzonico), 100, 384n8 Clement XIV, Pope (Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli), 84, 392, 392n20, 531n105, 532, 649; suppression of Jesuits, 170n19, 384n8, 649n148; works, 168, 531 Cleopatra (Egyptian queen): death, 86, 86n70, 109; decadence, 206, 485; obelisk, 409–10;

representations, 21, 31, 86, 109, 155, 160, 293, 533 Clodius (Publius Clodius Pulcher; patrician, politician): death, 142; libertine transgression, 66, 66n31 Clovio, Giorgio Giulio (miniaturist, painter), 241n111, 245, 245n123 Clovis I, King of the Franks, 536, 536n119 Clüver, Philipp (geographer, historian), lix Cochin, Charles-Nicolas (art critic and historian, engraver): grand tour, xlvii; on Herculaneum, lxii–lxiii; source on Italy and Italian art, xlviii, 31n65, 262 (figure), 339–40, 339–340n43, 457, 457n72, 463–4, 468–71, 470n100 Cocles, Horatius (Roman hero), 101, 101n101, 114, 114n124 Cola di Rienzo, byname of Nicola Gabrini (populist politician), 106, 106n112 Coligny, Gaspard II de (Huguenot leader): representation, 648 Colonna (family), 163, 167, 169, 441, 577 Collini, Cosimo Alessandro (historian, mineralogist, polymath, Voltaire’s secretary), 603, 603n40, 607, 607n52 Commodus (Roman emperor): statues, 532–4, 642 Comnenus, Alexius I (Alexios I Komnenos; Byzantine emperor), 535 Conca, Sebastiano (painter), 113, 136, 159, 161, 222, 257, 347, 361, 365 Conrad II, King of Sicily, known as Conradin: brief life and execution, 217–19, 217– 18n53, 219nn56–8, 413 Constans (Roman emperor), 127 Constantine (Roman emperor), lii, 69, 74n51, 76nn53–4, 107n114, 125, 173, 231, 236, 354n80, 397, 399, 406, 412n76, 487, 495, 497, 516, 537, 608n53; monument, liii, 79–80, 108, 123, 449, 477, 613; politics and criticism, xxv, 75, 493n18, 494, 494n19, 504n54, 504–7n55, 534–6; representations, 54, 122, 126, 147, 151, 486, 503–7, 513, 648; works of, 60–2, 127, 174, 178, 394, 494, 501, 517, 524, 645, 647 Constantius Chlorus, also Constantius I (Roman emperor): father of Constantine, 494n19, 504n55

Name Index Constantius II (Roman emperor), 107n114; works, 500n39, 645 Constanzi, Placido (painter), 116 Contelori, Felice or Felix Contelorius (historian, librarian): on Matilda of Tuscany, 539, 539n132, 541, 544, 544n147 Coppi, Jacopo (painter), 78 Cordemoy, Jean-Louis de (architectural theorist, historian), li, liii Cordier, Nicolas, also known as Niccolò Cordieri (painter, sculptor), 126, 126n153 Corenzio, Belisario (painter), 221, 237, 247 Corilla Olimpica, pseudonym of Maria Maddalena Morelli (improviser), 628, 628n97, 630 Coriolanus, Gaius Marcus (Roman general), 561–4 Cornacchini, Agostino (painter, sculptor), 504, 514 Corrado, Giaquinto (painter), 129, 230, 288 Correggio, Antonio da (painter), 85, 146, 154, 161, 241, 243, 244 Cortona, Pietro da, byname of Pietro Berrettini (painter), 135n176, 429; life, 525n95; mausoleum, 135; paintings in Palazzo Barberini, 148–50, 148n200, 564–6; works, 90, 106, 121, 129–30, 133, 135, 137, 146, 152–3, 155, 161, 165, 174–5, 215, 242, 485, 524–6, 529, 537, 643, 649 Corvi, Domenico (painter), 136 Cosmas of Prague (historian), 540, 540–1n136 Courtois, Guillaume, also known as Le Bourgignon and Il Borgognone (Italianized as Guglielmo Cortese), 168, 168n11 Courtois, Jacques, known as Le Bourgignon and Il Borgognone (Italianized as Giacomo Cortese): works, 170, 170n18, 175, 241 Courtois, Jacques or Guillaume, 137, 137n180, 145, 154, 156, 161–2, 168, 168n11 Cozza, Francesco (painter): appellation, 93n79; works, 93, 150, 156, 237 Crevier, Jean-Baptiste-Louis (historian): criticism of, 500; source, lviii, 142–3n191, 314n111, 399, 399n40, 420, 494n19, 500n38, 504–7n55 Cristofari, Fabio (mosaicist, painter), 524 Cristofari, Pietro Paolo (mosaicist), 525, 530 Crocchiante, Giovanni (historian), 182, 182n36

681

dalle Bande Nere, Giovanni. See Medici, Ludovico de’ Damasus I, Pope (name unknown): succession crisis, 82, 82n62. See also Ursicinus Damiens, Robert-François (attempted regicide), 461n83 Danei, Paolo Francesco, also known as Saint Paul of the Cross (mystic), 118, 118n139 Daniele da Volterra. See Ricciarelli, Daniele Dante Alighieri (poet, politician), xv, 23, 95, 252n136, 464n90, 481n117; epitaph, 440n30 Danti, Vincenzo (sculptor): life, 464n90; works, 464 da Pistoia, Leonardo (painter): Devil of Mergellina, 213, 213n41 d’Arpino, Cavaliere. See Cesari, Giuseppe Daumas, Georges (editor), xiii, cv David, François-Anne (engraver), lxiii, lxv (figure) da Vinci, Leonardo (painter, polymath), 388, 388n11; works: 146, 154, 156, 241 de Brosses, Charles (historian, magistrate, scholar), lx–lxiii Decius (Roman emperor), 495 de la Mare, Nicolas (author, police commissioner), xxx–xxxi d’Elbeuf, Emmanuel Maurice de LorraineGuise, duc (military leader, noble): discovery of Herculaneum, lxii del Conte, Jacopino (painter), 98n94 Della Casa, Giovanni (diplomat, etiquette expert, poet), 93, 93n90 della Porta, Giacomo (architect, sculptor), 496–7, 513, 516, 530 Della Torre, Giovanni Maria (naturalist, volcanologist): on Vesuvius, xliv, 428, 428n156 della Valle, Filippo (sculptor), 89, 526 del Pò, Giacomo (painter), 206 del Sarto, Andrea (painter), 463n87; works, 144–7, 153, 155, 158–9, 162, 174–5, 244–5, 485, 643 del Tasso, Giovanni Battista (architect, sculptor), 465, 477, 614n65 Demosthenes (orator), 587; busts, 66, 294; speech training, 66, 66n35 de Prades, Jean-Martin (ecclesiastical historian), 392n22, 507n55, 509n57

682

Name Index

Deslisle de Sales, Jean-Baptiste-Claude (historian, philosopher, translator), lvii Desnoues, Guillaume (professor of anatomy and surgery), 28n60. See also Zummo or Zumbo, Gaetano Giulio d’Este, Ippolito I (cardinal): works, 177–8, 183 d’Este, Ippolito II (cardinal), 413, 413n81 d’Hancarville, Pierre-François Hughes, (socalled) Baron (antiquarian, opportunist, pornographer), xix, xl (figure), lxiv, 617, 623–4, 623–4n84, 629 d’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron (philosophe): source, lxix; views, xxvii; works: Système de la nature, xxvii; Théologie portative, xxvii, 508–9n56 Diderot, Denis (art critic, novelist, philosophe): materialism, xxvii, lxxxii; travels, xxviii; views on art, liv–lv, lvi, lxxiv; works: Essais sur la peinture, liv; Jacques le fataliste et son maître, lxxxii; La Religieuse, xxxvii; Le Rêve de d’Alembert, xxvii Digny, Louis Guillaume de Cambray de (engineer, royal accounts manager), 628, 631, 631n102 Diocletian (Roman emperor), 407, 504n55; baths, 63, 91, 103n106; cruelty, 229n82, 386 Diodorus Siculus, also Diodorus of Sicily (historian): source, 272n28, 409n70, 459n77, 500n35, 622, 647n145 Diogenes (cynic philosopher), 481n117, 630 Dionysius of Halicarnassus (historian): source, lviii, 77n56, 101n101, 142n188, 165, 165n5, 548n154, 551, 555, 560n178, 621–2, 645 Dolci, Carlo (painter), 168 Domenichino, byname of Domenico Zampieri (architect, painter), 537; architecture, 108, 108n116; life, 525–6n96; paintings, 77, 93, 110, 115, 115n128, 117, 133, 145–6, 158–9, 162, 166–7, 210, 232, 234, 486, 525, 530 Dominic, Saint (Domingo de Guzmán): and the Inquisition, 99, 99n97 Dominici, Antonio (painter), 247n127 Domitian (Roman emperor): life and death, 406, 406–7n60, 428; statue, 142; works,

104n108, 140, 140n187, 142, 168, 168n12, 169n14, 406, 645–6 Domnizo or Donizo of Canossa (monk, poet): on Matilda of Tuscany, 542–3, 542n142 Donatello, byname of Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (sculptor): life, 460–1n81, 617; works, 26, 239n106, 460–1, 478–9, 480 Don Carlos. See Charles III of Spain Doria, Andrea (Genoese admiral and hero), 157, 157n207, 445–6, 445–6n40 Drengot, Osmond (Norman adventurer), 328–9 Drengot, Rainulf (Norman adventurer, count of Aversa), 329–30 du Bellay, Joachim (poet): on papal scurrility, 392n21 Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste (art theorist, historian, politician): on art, xlvi, xlix d’Ugolino da Pontedera, Andrea, byname of Andrea Pisano (goldsmith, sculptor), 480 Dujardin, Karel (painter), 244 Dulaurens, Henri-Joseph (novelist, satirist, defrocked monk), xxvii, 392n21 Dumont, Gabriel Pierre Martin (architect, author): on Paestum, lix–lx, lxi (figure) Duquesnoy, François, known as Le Flamand and Il Fiammingo (sculptor), xxxvi, 514n68, 537; works, 129, 129n61, 156, 226, 514, 523 Duquesnoy, Jerôme (sculptor): pederasty and execution, xxxvi, xxxviii, xlix, 514–15n68 Dürer, Albrecht (painter, printmaker), 146, 240 Dusaulx, Joseph (translator), 132n168, 293n68, 344n64, 403n52 Eleanor of Toledo. See Medici, Eleonora de’ (Eleonora di Toledo) or Medici, Eleonora de’ (Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo) Ennius, Quintus (Roman poet), lxvi, 344n62 Erasmo of Narni, known as Gattamelata (condottiero), 357, 357n88 Erasmus, Desiderius (humanist philosopher), 143n191, 493n18 Este (family), xxxiv, 183, 183n42, 521, 530n104 Estienne, Henri (classical scholar, printer), 404n57

Name Index Eugene III, Pope (Bernardo Pignatelli), 522 Eugene IV, Pope (Gabriele Condulmer), 19, 95; deeds and misdeeds, 26n56, 509, 509n57 Euripides (tragedian): on the Minotaur, 296, 296n74; statue, 298 Eusebius Pamphili (historian, theologian), 494n19, 535 Eutropius, Flavius (historian), 504–7n55, 535 Evelyn, John (diarist): on the Villa Ludovisi mummy, 111n121 Fancelli, Cosimo (sculptor), 130n163, 135 Fanzago, Cosimo (architect, sculptor), 231 Farnese, Alessandro, Duke of Parma (1545– 1592): statue, 11 Farnese, Alessandro (cardinal, diplomat, patron of the arts; 1520–1589), 177n28 Farnese, Alessandro (cardinal, patron of the arts, eventually pope; 1468–1549), 634n110; commissions and works, 177n28; politics, 446; representations, 11, 241–2. See also Paul III, Pope Farnese, Ranuccio (cardinal): works, 177, 177n28 Farnese, Ranuccio I, Duke of Parma: statue, 11 Farnese, Ranuccio II, Duke of Parma: struggle with Pope Innocent X, 413n81 Farnese (family), 11, 12n19, 53n11, 116–17, 240–3, 413, 413n81 Faustina Minor, Annia Galeria (Roman empress): passion for gladiators, 109, 109n117 Ferdinand I, King of Naples: anecdote about his statue, 239, 239n106 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor: anecdote about, 525n95 Ferdinand IV, King of Naples (also Ferdinand III of Sicily; eventually Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies), 528n101, 605n46; lack of learning and curiosity, xxviii, lxii–lxiii, 193n9, 300; regency and succession, 12n16, 193n8, 196n12, 240n107, 241n109, 398n31; relaxations, 258–9, 284, 288–9, 308; ruling style, 190–3, 195–6, 253 Ferrata, Ercole (sculptor), 96, 96n88, 105, 130n165

683

Ferri, Ciro (painter, sculptor), 146, 525 Ferrini, Giuseppe (model maker): anatomical figures, xxxix, lxx, 24n52 Ferrucci, Francesco, known as Del Tadda (sculptor), 465n92 Ferrucci, Simone (sculptor), 479 Fetti, Domenico (painter), 151, 156, 237 Ficino, Marsilio (humanist, philosopher), 444n35, 626 Fielding, Henry (magistrate, novelist), lxxix Filarete, byname of Antonio di Pietro Averlino (architect, architectural theorist, sculptor), 54, 54n15, 509 Finelli, Giuliano (sculptor), 231 Fiorentini, Francesco Maria (biographer of Matilda of Tuscany, physician), 539, 539nn130–1, 544 Fischetti, Fedele (painter), 237 Fleury, Claude (ecclesiastical historian), 504n55, 506–7n55, 518n78 Fontana, Domenico (architect, engineer), 63, 63n29, 122n143, 127, 246, 246n125, 496–8, 497n25, 498n28, 500–2, 502n47, 647 Fontana, Giovanni (architect, engineer), 63, 63n29, 65, 166n8 Fontana, Lavinia (painter), 99, 99n95, 147, 147n198 Fouquet, Louis Charles Armand, known as Chevalier de Belle-Isle (diplomat, general), 8–9, 8n9, 407, 407n63 Fra Angelico, byname of Guido di Pietro (Dominican friar, painter), 94, 94n82 Fra Bartolommeo, also known as Baccio della Porta (Dominican friar, painter), 643 Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (also François III, Duke of Lorraine; Grand Duke of Tuscany; and other titles), 197n17, 449, 613, 613n62, 629, 642, 643 Francis I, King of France, 123, 157n207, 171, 388, 388n11, 442–7, 496n24 Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, 522 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 337 Frederick II, King of Prussia, known as “the Great,” xxvii–xxviii, 382n5, 587, 603n40 Frézier, Amédée-François (architectural theorist, engineer, explorer), li

684

Name Index

Frontinus, Sextus Iulius (author, consul, engineer), 333, 333n24 Fuga, Ferdinando (architect), 82, 82n63, 88n73 Galba (Roman emperor), 426 Galileo Galilei (astronomer, engineer, polymath): burial and tomb, 466, 466n96, 619, 630, 630n99 Galletti, Giuseppe (surgeon): anatomical models, xxxix, lxx, 24, 24n52 Galli-Bibiena, Ferdinando (architect, painter), 256 Gallucio de l’Hospital or Hôpital (ambassador to Naples), 234, 234n94 Garofalo, Il. See Benvenuto Tisi Garzi, Luigi (painter), 247 Gattamelata. See Erasmo of Narni Gaufridy, Gaspard-François-Xavier (Sade’s solicitor), 376n127, 377 Gaulli, Giovanni Battista, also known as Baciccia or Baciccio (painter), 87, 130, 156 Gellé, Claude, known as Le Lorrain or simply Claude (painter), 152, 161, 163 Gellius, Aulus (compiler, grammarian): source, 109n118, 492, 492n17, 645 Gemignani or Gimignani, Giacinto (painter), 136–7 Generelli or Gennaroli, Andrea (painter), 129, 129n160 Gennadius Scholarius (theologian), 394, 394n28 Genseric or Gaiseric, King of the Vandals and Alani, 98, 98n91 Gervaise de la Touche, Jean-Charles (author, lawyer), lxxvi Gherardo delle Notti. See Gerrit van Honthorst Ghiberti, Lorenzo (goldsmith, sculptor, writer), 479–80 Ghirlandaio, Domenico (painter), 462n84 Giambologna, byname of Jean or Jehan Boulogne (sculptor), l, 22n47, 34n69, 470n100; life, 457n71; works, 22, 26, 28, 86–8, 457–8, 464–5, 471–2, 478–80, 620, 629 Giannone, Pietro (historian): source, lxxxi, 202n22, 230–1n89, 251n135, 254, 254n140,

326n11, 329, 329–30nn13–15, 335, 335nn29–30, 336n35 Gibbon, Edward (historian), 82n62 Gilles de Rais, also given as Gilles de Retz (marshal of France, serial killer), lxxiv, 296, 296–7n75 Giocondo da Verona, Giovanni (architect, friar, humanist scholar), 495 Giordana, Luca (painter), 22, 208–10, 214, 216, 229, 230n84, 231, 233–4, 249 Giorgione, byname of Giorgio da Castelfranco (painter), 156 Giotto di Bondone (architect, painter), 128, 480n116, 524n90; architecture, 19, 95, 479– 80; paintings, 19, 391, 507, 518; restoration of the arts, lii, 401, 507 Giovanni da San Giovanni (painter), 240 Giovio, Paolo (historian, physician), 626 Girardon, François (sculptor), 498n26 Godfrey IV, known as the Hunchback: marriage to Matilda of Tuscany, 538–9; unfortunate incident, xxxiii–xxxiv, lxxxi, 539, 539n128 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (novelist, poet, polymath): on the museum at Portici, 289n60 Gori, Antonio Francesco (antiquarian), 619, 619n76 Gotthard, Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Pius, Grand Duke of Tuscany (and subsequently Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor), 15n30, 16n31, 34, 39, 46, 51, 398, 478, 481–2, 613, 629, 631n102, 643; character, 15–16; enlightened views, xxviii, xxxix, 47, 447, 614; natural history collection, 24, 24n52, 28, 28n60 Goudar, Pierre Ange (author, opportunist), 35n72, 202n22, 589, 600, 606–7; acquaintance in Florence, xix, 38; Casanova’s account of, 38–9n79; correspondence with Sade, 587–8, 592–3, 602–5; views and works on Naples, xix, xxxiii, 602, 604n43, 605, 605n45, 607, 612, 612n60 Goudar, Sarah or Sara (adventurer), 589, 600, 605, 605n46; acquaintance in Florence, xix, 38–9; beauty of, 38–9; Casanova’s account

Name Index of, 38–9n79; possible depiction in Sade’s later works, lxxxiv; putative works, 35n72, 592, 592–3n19, 601–2, 601nn32–4, 602n37, 604, 604n42, 606–7, 607n51 Grassi, Orazio (architect, astronomer, mathematician, Jesuit priest), 88 Grazzini, abbé (cleric, Sade’s correspondent in Rome), 391–2, 391n19, 531, 644 Gregory, Saint, also Pope Gregory I (name unknown; missionary, theologian), 56n18, 172, 531; house, 116–17; representations, 117, 175; treatment of pagan antiquities, 586; views, 117, 117n136 Gregory of Nyssa (bishop, theologian), 570 Gregory II, Pope (name unknown), 648n147; donation, 510 Gregory III, Pope (name unknown): preserved bull of, 518 Gregory VII, Pope (Hildebrand of Sovana), 113, 383; deeds and misdeeds, 491, 539–42, 539n130, 544; painting, 71 Gregory XI, Pope (Pierre Roger de Beaufort), 648; deeds, 138; representations, 649; tomb, 138 Gregory XII, Pope (Angelo Correr): tomb, 366 Gregory XIII, Pope (Ugo Boncompagni), 496, 537; life, 530n102; mausoleum, 530; works, 64, 70, 107, 530n104 Gregory XIV, Pope (Niccolò Sfondrato), 497, 537; life, 530n103; mausoleum, 530 Gregory XV, Pope (Alessandro Ludovisi), 391, 497n26; mausoleum, 89; petrified man, 110–111n121; works and deeds, 89n74 Greuze, Jean-Baptiste (painter), liv, lxxiv Grillo, Duchess of: depicted in Juliette, 644n132; Sade’s acquaintance in Rome, 147; and Iberti affair, 644n131 Grillo, Duke of: and Iberti affair, 644n131, 645n133 Grillo, Marquis of: Neapolitan anecdote, 567 Grosley, Pierre-Jean (historian, travel writer), 465n92; criticism, 338, 465; Italian guide of, xxi; on Paestum, lix; source, 52n9, 250n133, 312n105, 338, 338n38, 465–6n93, 466n96, 609n55

685

Gryphius, Andreas (poet): on the petrified man, 111n121 Guaimar III (Lombard prince), 327–9 Guarnacci, Mario (antiquarian, historian), 622, 622–3n83 Guercino, byname of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (painter), 85, 207, 237; works, 77–8, 88, 105, 110, 110n120, 112, 133, 136, 144–7, 151–7, 160–3, 167–8, 175–6, 240, 242, 245, 485 Guérin, François (humanist, translator), lvii, 403n52 Guettard, Jean-Étienne (mineralogist), 454–5n64 Guglielmelli, Arcangelo (architect, painter), 241 Guicciardini, Francesco (historian, statesman), 443 Guidi, Carlo Alessandro (poet): tomb, 116 Guidi, Domenico (sculptor), 63, 105, 130, 130n163 Guido. See Reni, Guido Guiscard, Robert (Norman adventurer and ruler): conquest of Naples, 325–6, 325–6n8, 330–1, 606, 606n44 Hadrian (Roman emperor), 251, 413; love for Antinoüs, lix, 73, 160, 228, 532; Mausoleum of, xx, 60, 171–2, 179–82, 586; sculptures, 108–10, 121, 151, 532; villa, lvii, 103; works, 342–3, 343n58, 421n113 Hamilton, William (antiquarian, diplomat, volcanologist): collection of, xix, xxxix, xxxix (figure), 623–4n84; on phallic cults, lxvi; on Vesuvius, xliv–xlv Hannibal (Carthaginian general), 257, 257n145, 346; crossing of Alps, 6, 6–7n7; military campaign against Romans, 266, 325, 328n12, 331–4, 340–3, 361, 361n97, 566; representations, 150, 566 Helena, Flavia Iulia (Roman empress, mother of Constantine, saint), 494, 537; life and legends, 74–6, 494n19, 505n55, 523n89; 412n76; relic related to, 125; representations, 74–6, 523

686

Name Index

Heliogabalus (Roman emperor), 76n53, 277n39, 400, 505n55, 646; character, xxxv, lxxiv, 495, 532, 532n106; statue, 532 Hénault, Charles-Jean-François (historian, playwright), 539–1, 540n134 Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, 328–9 Henry II, King of France, 47n89, 431 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor, 538 Henry IV, King of France, 117n137, 431, 530n103, 539, 539n129, 541; representations, 126–7, 457n71, 526 Henry VII of Luxembourg: suspicious death, 50, 50–1n6 Henry VIII, King of England, 442 Hercules: Farnese sculpture, l, 20, 87, 396, 396n34, 486, 642, 646; mythological episodes concerning, 101, 108, 397n35, 463n86, 471–2n101; notable representations, 149, 184, 462–3, 471–2, 479, 565, 620, 629, 642–3; temples, 99–100, 104n108, 185–6, 274, 277n39, 296, 300, 400, 416–17 Herodotus (historian): on hieroglyphs, 407 Homer, lviii, 275n34, 414, 606n49; sculptures, 27, 66, 159 Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus; poet): manuscript, 19; satires, lxviii, 343–5, 355n83, 404, 404n57, 468n99; source, lviii, 182, 182n36, 276, 293, 293n68, 333n22, 341, 341n50, 343–5, 354n80; villa, xxii, lvii, 16n31, 333n22, 404, 404n57, 468n99 Hormisdas, Pope (name unknown), 338n39 Hutcheson, Francis (philosopher): aesthetics of, xlv Hyginus, Gaius Julius (compiler, scholar): on the Minotaur, 296, 296n74 Iberti, Giuseppe (physician), 593–5, 600, 618, 638; correspondence with, cviii, 389n12, 608–9, 644–9; depicted in Sade’s later writing, lxxi; imprisonment, xx, 644–5, 644n131, 645n133; Sade’s contact in Rome, xx, 584, 586; source, xx, lxxvi, 103n107, 148n200, 394n27, 564n184, 569n190, 586n8 Ignatius of Loyola (Saint, founder of the Society of Jesus): 89n74, 391, 391n15. See also in subject index Jesuits

Imperiali, Giuseppe Renato (cardinal): mausoleum, 105 Imperiali, Lorenzo (cardinal): mausoleum, 105 Innocent III, Pope (Lotario dei Conti di Segni), 522 Innocent IV, Pope (Sinibaldo Fieschi), 173, 337 Innocent VIII, Pope (Giovanni Battista Cybo), 499, 499n33, 520, 521n83, 537; politics, 251n135 Innocent IX, Pope (Giovanni Antonio Facchinetti), 497 Innocent X, Pope (Giovanni Battista Pamphili), 413n81, 499n34; works and commissions, 123, 132, 498, 524; tomb, 130 Innocent XII, Pope (Antonio Pignatelli), 525; statue, 88; tomb, 230, 526; works, 122 Innocent XIII (Michelangelo dei Conti): tomb, 525 Jacquier, François (mathematician, physicist): on Saint Peter’s Basilica, 490, 490n9, 511–12, 512n62, 537 Jadot de Ville-Issey, Jean-Nicolas (architect), 449, 613 Januarius, Saint, 229, 261, 266n12; life, 229n82, 232, 269; miraculous blood of, xxvi, 233, 233n93, 389–90, 390n14; representations, 230, 232, 234, 234n95, 286; tomb, 234–5 Jean de Bruges, also Jan Bondol and other appellations (painter), 252 Jean or Jehan Boulogne or de Boulogne. See Giambologna Jesus Christ: miracles associated with, 50, 74– 6, 114–15, 114n126, 125–6, 347, 397n33, 412–13n76; notable representations, 64, 85, 92, 94, 159, 167–8, 174–6, 208–10, 216, 339, 462n84, 524, 649; relics, 75–6, 81, 411, 523n89; sceptical remarks related to, 63, 71, 75–6, 81, 83, 85, 92, 114, 125–6, 146, 157–9, 237, 347, 411, 492n18, 493n18, 509, 523, 529n101, 533, 535–536n115, 536–7n120 Joan, Pope (Ioannes Anglicus; putative female pope), 125n151

Name Index Joanna I, Queen of Naples, 223, 250; country house, 253–4, 254n140; cruelty, lxxxi, 224, 230, 230–1n89, 254n140; statue, 251 Joanna II, Queen of Naples: misdeeds, 224 John XIII, Pope (name unknown): deeds, 336, 336n32 John XXII, Pope (Jacques Duèze): deeds, 518n78 Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor, lxii Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 15n30, 252, 252n137; enlightened views, xxviii, 383n5 Julian, also known as Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Iulianus; Roman emperor, writer): criticism of Constantine, 535, 535–6n115 Julius II, Pope (Giuliano della Rovere), 62, 77–8, 462n84, 501, 527, 527n101, 533; painting, 146; works and deeds, xxxvii, 61, 495, 495n22, 520n80 Julius III, Pope (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte), 65, 496, 527n101, 534, 636; sodomy, xxvii, 392, 392nn21–2; works, 58, 58n24, 71–2, 93n81, 107–8, 178, 392 Junius, Hadrianus, or Adriaen de Jonghe (poet, scholar, polymath), 95, 95n85 Justinian I (Byzantine emperor): manuscript of Pandects, 26 Juvenal, Saint (patron saint of Narni), 356, 356n87 Juvenal (satirist): on Messalina, lxxix, 131–2, 131–2n168, 393, 393n23; source, lviii, lxviii, lxxix, 168n12, 344n62, 344n64, 391, 402 Kant, Immanuel: aesthetic philosophy, xlvi, xlix; on enlightenment, xxvi Keller, Rose: Sade’s treatment of, xv–xvi, lxxii Keyssler, Johann Georg (travel writer): on Alessandria della Paglia (town), 10n15; on the mummy of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, 348n71; source, 68n38, 73n48, 191n65, 203n25, 212n37, 254n140, 274n33 Kircher, Athanasius (Jesuit polymath): fields, 60n27; on floating islands, 178n30; on hieroglyphs, 59n26

687

Knight, Richard Payne (archeologist, classicist): on phallic cults, lxiv–lxvi, 242n113 Kostka, Stanislaus (Saint), 64, 64n32 la Condamine, Charles Marie de (encyclopedist, geographer, mathematician): on the miraculous blood of Saint Januarius, 390n14 Ladislaus, King of Naples: life, 225n76; tomb, 225 Lagrenée, Louis-Jean-François (director of the French Academy in Rome, painter), liv La Harpe, Jean-François de (critic, playwright, translator), lvii, 388n11 La Jeunesse, byname of Carteron (Sade’s valet), xvii, cv, 3, 187n1, 345n69, 372, 374n126, 406 Lalande, Joseph Jérôme Le François de (astronomer, travel writer, one of Sade’s major sources), 465n92, 498n29; and the coming comet, 457, 457n73; criticism, li, 23n49, 26n54, 96, 181, 181n34, 185, 218, 325, 330, 331n16, 334, 337, 337n37, 338– 40, 342n56, 403nn51–2, 404n56, 440n30, 449, 450n52, 452n57, 453–7, 463–6, 468–71, 470n100, 475, 478, 480n117, 481– 2n117, 482n120, 495n22, 496n23, 497, 499, 499n32, 503, 507, 512n63, 513, 513n64, 515, 515n70, 516–17n73, 520n80, 523–6, 530n102, 616; Italian guide, xxi, xliii, cvi; on sodomy in Florence, xxxiv, 440n30; source, 22n48, 31n65, 34n69, 35n71, 40n82, 218n54, 250n133, 312n105, 325n4, 326n8, 464, 470n100, 628, 628n96, 630 La Mettrie, Julien Offray de (materialist philosopher, physician), xxvi–xxvii, lxix Lami, Giovanni (antiquarian, jurist, historian, theologian), 628, 628n95, 630 Landini, Taddeo (architect, sculptor), 126n153 Landulf I, Count of Capua, 335 Landulf VIII, Prince of Capua, 336 Lanfranco, Giovanni (painter), 92–3, 133, 137, 145, 151–4, 156, 159, 208, 226, 232, 242, 253, 353, 524 Lapiccola, Niccolò (painter), 84n67

688

Name Index

Lapis, Gaetano (painter), 136, 168 Latour (Sade’s valet), 482; participation in the Marseilles affair, xvi–xvii Laugier, Marc-Antoine (architectural theorist, Jesuit priest), li, lx, 116n133 Launay, Anne-Prospère de (Sade’s sister-inlaw), xvii Laura de Noves or Laure de Sade (wife of Hugues de Sade), xv, 18–10, 518n78, 537. See also Petrarch Lautrec, Odet de Foix, Viscount of (French commander), 442–3, 445 Le Blanc, Jean-Bernard abbé (art critic), xlvii Le Brun, Charles (art theorist, painter, pedagogue), liv, xlviii, 248 Le Febvre de Saint-Marc, Charles-Hughes (commentator, editor, playwright): on Matilda of Tuscany, 538–44; source, xxxiv Legros, Pierre, known as “the Younger” (sculptor), 64, 89, 363, 363n104 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (mathematician, philosopher, polymath), lxxxiv Lely, Gilbert (biographer, editor, poet), cv, 244n119 Le Nain (brothers Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu; painters), 244 Lenglet Du Fresnoy, Nicolas (geographer, historian, theologian), 622, 622n81 Le Noble, Eustache (playwright, poet): on the Pazzi conspiracy, 625, 625–6n90 Le Nôtre, André (landscape architect), 9, 9n11, 21 Leo I, Pope, also known as Saint Leo the Great, 60, 106, 520 Leo IV, Pope (name unknown), 520 Leo IX, Pope (Bruno of Egisheim-Dagsburg), 520; deeds, 538 Leo X, Pope (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici), 467, 619, 626, 626n91, 632, 637; character, 627; commissions, 368, 495–6, 538; mausoleum, 94; statue, 442 Leo XI, Pope (Alessandro Ottaviano de’ Medici), 431, 497; bust, 86 Leone, Andrea di (painter), 230 Leo Ostiensis (chronicler, historian), 327, 327n11, 336n35

Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. See Gotthard, Peter Leopold Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (art theorist, philosopher, playwright), 534n109 Leti, Gregorio (historian, satirist): biography of Sixtus V, 501n44 Lettice, John (divine, essayist, poet, translator), lxiii Leunclavius, Johannes (also given as Löwenklau; historian, jurist, translator), 534, 534n111 Lever, Maurice (biographer, editor, historian), cv, 24n51, 137n181, 148n200, 313n107 Levieux, Reynaud (painter), 394n27, 647n144 Lewis, Matthew (playwright, novelist): Gothic fiction, lxxxiii Liani, Francesco (painter), 254n142 Liberius, Pope (name unknown), 82, 82n62 Licinius I (Roman emperor): rivalry with Constantine, 504–7n55 Ligorio, Pirro (antiquarian, architect, painter), 184n44, 496 Lippi, Filippo (painter), 360, 360n95 Liutprand (Lombard king), 648, 648n147 Livy (Titus Livius; historian): source, lvii, lxviii, lxxxi, cvi, 30n63, 68, 70n41, 77n56, 102n105, 106, 114n124, 128, 128n158, 134, 142n188–9, 165, 165n5, 266–7, 325, 325nn6– 7, 331–2, 331n18, 334, 334n25, 340n49, 341n52, 342nn54 and 56, 343, 354n78, 357, 357n90, 403nn52–3, 415, 431, 550, 555, 621, 646–7nn142–3; translations, lvii Locatelli, Andrea (painter), 136, 152, 160–1 Locatelli, Giampietro, also as Giovanni Pietro Lucatelli (travel writer): on Rome, xxi–xxii, 67 (figure), 70–1n43 Locke, John (philosopher): on Masaniello, 210n34 Lotti, Lorenzo, also known as Lorenzetto (sculptor), 57 Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (general): gift to Loreto, 368, 368n113 Louis XI, King of France, 521 Louis XII, King of France: papal annulment of marriage, 521 Louis XIII, King of France, 369

Name Index Louis XIV, King of France, xxx, xlvii, 129, 248n129, 251, 368n113; commissions, 9n11, 28n60, 497–8n26; representations, 369, 498n26 Louis XV, King of France, xlvii, 10n12, 87, 87n71, 414, 480n117, 496n24 Louis XVI, King of France, 10, 87n71 Luca, Giordano (painter), 207 Lucchesi, Gherardo, known as I Lucchesini (painter), 162 Luchino, Benedetto (chronicler), 538n125 Luciani, Sebastiano. See Sebastiano del Piombo Lucian of Samosata (satirist): on Christians, xxv, lxxv, 493n18; influence, lxviii; on the Venus of Cnidus, 29, 29n62 Lucilius Gaius (satirist), 343–4n62 Lucretia (Roman noblewoman): model of virtue, lxxvii, lxxix; rape, 128, 553–4; representations, 155, 242, 485 Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus; Epicurean poet), lxvi, lxxi, lxxviii Ludovisi, Ludovico (cardinal): works, 89n74, 108n116 Luther, Martin (theologian), 504n55, 519n79 Luti, Benedetto (painter), 84, 163 Machiavelli, Niccolò (diplomat, historian, philosopher), 23, 145, 443, 521n82, 642n126 Maddaloni, Carlo Carafa, Duke of (Neapolitan aristocrat): impotence of, 199n19 Maddaloni, Marzo Domenico V, Duke of (Neapolitan aristocrat): marriage troubles, 198–9n19; stupidity, 198–9 Maderno, Carlo (architect), 526n99, 537; life, 497n25; works, 92, 166n8, 497, 511, 511n63, 517 Maderno, Stefano (sculptor): Saint Cecilia, lv, 112–14, colour plate 5; works, 502 Maecenas, Gaius Cilnius (literary patron), lvii, 183, 183n40, 185, 185n45, 345n66, 419, 425, 594 Maini, Giovanni Battista (sculptor), 124n146, 363n104

689

Mallonia (Roman noblewoman): victim of Tiberius’s odious attention, lxxviii, 318, 318n117 Mancini, Francesco (painter), 163, 175–6 Manglard, Adrien (painter), 137 Mantuanus, Baptista Spagnuoli (humanist, poet, reformer): on Pope Sixtus IV, 529n101 Marais, Louis (police inspector): relation to Sade, xv, xx, xxxi–xxxii Maratta, Carlo (painter), 76, 164n2, 168, 395; works, 56, 56n18, 70, 90, 97, 130, 136–7, 151, 153, 155, 162, 174–5, 229, 485 Marcellus II, Pope (Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi), 496 Marchionni, Carlo (architect, sculptor), 94 Maréchal, Pierre Sylvain (philosopher, poet, atheist), lxiii, lxv (figure) Maria Carolina of Austria, Queen of Naples (wife of Ferdinand IV), 193n110; character, xix, 193–4, 241n109; relations, 193n111, 196n12 Maria Christina, Duchess of Teschen (wife of Prince Albert of Saxony), 193, 193n11, 197, 197n16, 248, 602, 604 Maria Clementina. See Sobieska, Maria Clementina Marie Antoinette (Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; queen consort of France, wife of Louis XVI), 193n11 Marigny, Abel-François Poisson de Vendières, Marquis de (general director of the king’s buildings), xlvii–xlviii, lix Marini, Pasquale (painter), 84 Marino, Giambattista, also given as Giovanni Battista Marini (poet), 227, 227n79 Marolles, Michel de (abbot, collector, translator), lxvi, lxviii; translation of Martial, lxvi–lxvii, 357n90 Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis; epigrammist), 168n12; 276; source, lvii, lxviii, lxxvii, 345, 345nn66–7, 357, 357n90, 393, 393n24, 404, 404n55, 416, 491, 491nn13–15; translation, lxvi–lxvii Martin brothers (veneer experts), 287, 287n57

690

Name Index

Martin V, Pope (Otto Colonna): perfidy, 123, 123n145; representation, 163, 163n212 Martyn, Thomas (botanist, translator), lxiii Mary (mother of Jesus): miracles related to, xxvi, 58n23, 63, 131, 370–1, 518; notable representations, l, 20–1, 56, 63, 71, 85, 90–1, 99, 116, 217, 231, 241, 252, 360, 564; sexualized, liv, 71, 153, 245, 450n49; sceptical remarks concerning, l, 63, 73, 90–1, 106, 124, 131, 174, 217, 251–2, 368, 450n49, 452–3, 453n60, 479, 518, 528 Mary Magdalene: representations, liv–lv, lxx, 64, 124, 136–7, 147, 152, 154–6, 158–9, 161–3, 207, 209, 240, 242, 361, 485; sexualized suffering, liv–lv, lxx, 152, 157, 207, colour plate 4 Marzio, Galeotto (humanist, poet, philosopher, polymath), 357n89; painting, 357 Masaccio, byname of Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone (painter), 128, 128n155 Masaniello, byname of Tommaso Aniello (populist leader): revolt and death of, 210, 210n34, 218, 218n54 Masolini da Panicale, byname of Tommaso di Cristoforo Fini (painter), 128n155 Matilda of Tuscany or Matilde of Canossa, Margravine of Tuscany, 383, 522, 537, 638; donation, 520, 526, 538n126, 539, 541–4; life and deeds, xxxiii–xxxiv, lxxix, lxxxi, 538–44; representation, 649; tomb, 526, 544 Matteis, Paolo de (painter), 208 Maundrell, Henry (scholar, travel writer), 411–12, 411nn73–4, 411–12n76 Maurice, Saint: altar to, 527; seditiousness, 527n100 Maxentius (Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius; Roman emperor): rivalry with Constantine, liii, 75, 79, 399, 504–7nn54–5; representations, 151, 648 Maximian (Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus Herculius; Roman emperor), 504n55, 527n100 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, 638 Mazzola, Girolamo Francesco Maria. See Parmigianino Mazzoni, Guido (sculptor), 214n45

Mazzucchelli, Pier Francesco (painter), 162 Mazzuoli, Giuseppe (sculptor), 155 Medici, Alessandro de’, Duke of Florence, 443n34; life and deeds, 45–6, 45n86, 431–2, 432n7, 435, 447, 632–5; works, 430, 474 Medici, Catherine de’ (queen consort of France, wife of Henri II), 431, 632–3, 637 Medici, Cosimo di Giovanni de’, known as Il Vecchio and Father of the Nation (Florentine politician), 26, 401, 431–2, 432n7, 433, 462, 625n88, 626n91, 627, 631; leadership, 46, 625; patronage, 461n81, 617, 625 Medici, Cosimo I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 45n86, 465n92, 466n94, 467, 616, 629; inscriptions, 457, 457n74; life, 632–42; representations, 22, 25–6, 456, 459, 461, 464, 478–9, 533; works and deeds, xxxvi, 18n36, 21n46, 25n53, 27, 27n58, 44, 430, 452–7, 452n57, 458, 462–3, 463n88, 474, 476–8, 613–14, 617, 617n67, 646; ruling style, 46 Medici, Cosimo II de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 33n66; connoisseurship of, 472, 620 Medici, Cosimo III de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany: book of his travels, 33; patronage, 28n60; works and deeds, 33, 46, 629 Medici, Eleonora de’ (Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo; wife of Pietro de’ Medici): life and adventures, 637, 637n117, 639–41, 641n123 Medici, Eleonora de’ (Eleonora di Toledo; wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici), 635, 642 Medici, Fernando I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany (cardinal), 451n55, 629, 637; purchase of obelisk, 86; representations, 465, 480; works, 18, 456–7, 457n74, 478, 642 Medici, Fernando II de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 465, 481; commissions and dedications, 25–6, 471, 620, 620n78 Medici, Filippo de’ of Fioriano, 431 Medici, Francesco I de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany: family management, 637, 639–41; poisoning, 629

Name Index Medici, Gian Gastone de’, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 46; scandalous comportment, xxxv–xxxvi, 15, 15n29 Medici, Giovanni di Bicci de’ (banker, gonfaloniere), 431, 625n88 Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’. See Leo X, Pope Medici, Giuliano de’ (son of Piero de’ Medici and brother of Lorenzo): death in Pazzi conspiracy, 527n101, 625–6 Medici, Giuliano di Lorenzo de’, Duke of Nemours: tomb, 18 Medici, Giulio di Giuliano de’. See Clement VII, Pope Medici, Ippolito de’ (natural son of Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici), 633; rule of Florence, 432, 435, 447 Medici, Isabella de’ (daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici), 641; life, deeds, murder, 636–7, 636n115 Medici, Leopoldo de’ (cardinal, patron, scholar), 33; academy, 33n66, 481n117; likely bust, 86 Medici, Lorenzino de’, known as Lorenzaccio (assassin, author): murder of Alessandro de’ Medici, 45, 45n86, 432, 632–4 Medici, Lorenzo de’, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (patron, politician), 20n41; life, 625–7; Pazzi conspiracy, 527–8n101, 625–6; support for young artists, 461–2n84 Medici, Lorenzo di Piero de’, Duke of Urbino: tomb, 18 Medici, Lucrezia de’ (daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici; wife of Alfonso II d’Este), 635; murder by husband, 636, 636n114 Medici, Ludovico de’, known as Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (condottiero, father of Cosimo I de’ Medici), 441, 632; life and death, 432–3, 433n8; representations, 467, 619 Medici, Maria de’ (eldest daughter of Cosimo I de’ Medici): life and death, 635–6 Medici, Marie de’ (queen consort of France, wife of Henri IV, regent of Louis XIII), 431 Medici, Pierfrancesco di Lorenzo de’, known as “the Younger” (gonfaloniere), 432, 632

691

Medici, Piero de’, dubbed “the Unfortunate” (son of Lorenzo de’ Medici), 626, 626n91; character and life, 627 Medici, Piero di Cosimo de’, dubbed “the Gouty” (son of Cosimo de’ Medici; gonfaloniere), 432, 625, 626n91 Medici, Pietro de’ (son of Cosimo I de’ Medici): character and murder of wife, 639–41 Medici (family), 25, 33, 44, 55, 64, 448, 454, 463n87, 478, 482n117, 497, 611, 613–14; chapel (Florence), 18, 71, 619; history and exploits, 15, 45–7, 431–47, 473, 624–7, 631–43 Medrano, Giovanni Antonio (architect), 241n108 Mehmed II (Ottoman sultan): conquest of Constantinople, lii, 394, 397, 401, 487, 617n71 Melus of Bari (Lombard leader), 328, 328n12 Menghini, Niccolò (sculptor), 135 Mengs, Anton Raphael (painter), 71n44, 287n56; works, 71, 257, 287 Meslier, Jean (atheist, author, Catholic priest), 106n111 Mesny, Barthélemy (naturalist, physician), 480n117, 604n44; Sade’s contact in Florence, xix, xx, 35, 197n17, 264n8, 482; cabinet of curiosities of, xxxix, xl (figure), 35, 35n71; correspondence, cviii, 26n57, 448n46, 467n97, 583–9, 591–7, 599–644; Sade’s notes from, 472–80 Messalina, Valeria (Roman empress, wife of Claudius): infamous comportment of, lxxix, lxxx (figure), 131–2, 131–2n168, 393; libertine model, lxxix, lxxx (figure) Mezentius (legendary Etruscan king): cruelty, 546 Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; architect, painter, sculptor), liii, cvi, 23n49, 58n24, 97, 105nn109–10, 221, 457n71, 463n85, 463n87, 479n114, 503, 617; architecture, 18, 18n34, 28n16, 61, 63, 68, 92, 105, 463, 479, 495, 495n22, 496–7, 497n25, 512n63; house, 22–3; life, 23, 461–2n84, 495n22;

692

Name Index

paintings, xxxv, lxx–lxxii, 65, 124, 145, 153–4, 156, 158, 244–5, 648; Pietà group of, l, 129, 524, 524n90; sculptures, l, 18, 18n34, 25, 30, 30n64, 55, 77–8, 86, 94, 117, 391, 461–3, 479–80, 533; purported treatment of models, lxx–lxxii, 209–10, 462n84; tomb, 481n117, 630, 630n99 Miel, Jan (painter), 394n27, 647; works, 85, 394 Milizia, Francesco (art historian, critic), lii Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti de (libertine writer, orator, politician), lxxii Mirabeau, Victor Riqueti de (economist), xxx, lxxii Misson, François Maximilien (travel writer): criticism, xxii, xxiii, xxviii, xxix, 125, 282, 282n44, 340, 358–9, 455, 502; source, xxi–xxii, cvii, 29n61, 52n9, 55 (figure), 125, 125n151, 282n44, 340n47, 351–2, 351n73, 362–3, 362n101, 363n102, 402–4, 455–6, 455n68, 456n69, 502n51, 506–7n55 Mochi, Francesco (sculptor), 55, 523 Mola, Pier Francesco (painter), 136–7, 144, 156, 175 Moldetti, Chiara (daughter of Dr Barthélemy Mesny), 24n51, 587, 589, 594–5, 595n21, 596, 602, 606–8, 631, 638; Sade’s acquaintance with, xix, 467n98, 482, 585n7; correspondence, 582–5, 589–1, 597–8, 600 Monaldi, Carlo (sculptor), 124n147 Monanni, Monanno (painter), 99 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de (novelist, philosopher), 595; critique of Catholicism, xxx; on mores, xxviii; works: De l’esprit des lois, xxviii; Lettres persanes, xxx Montfort, Amaury VI de (crusader), 537; epitaph, 520; life, 520n81 Montfort, Simon IV de (crusader, nobleman): cruelty, 520n81 Monti, Francesco, known as Il Brescianino (painter), 241 Montorsoli, Giovanni Angelo (sculptor), 213 Montreuil, Marie-Madeleine Masson de Plissay, Dame Cordier de Launay de, known as La présidente de Montreuil (Sade’s mother-in-law), xiv, xvii, lxxviii, lxxxii

Montreuil, Renée-Pélagie Cordier de Launay de (Sade’s wife), xvii, cv, 406 Morandi, Giovanni Maria (painter), 56, 56n19, 99, 99n96 Moses: marvellous birth, 533, 545; paintings, 151–2, 161, 208; statues, 63, 77–8, 77n57, 367 Mucius Scaevola (Gaius Mucius Cordus; Roman hero), 113, 114n124, 150, 566 Mura, Francesco de (painter): works, 208, 221, 228–9, 231, 243, 246–8, 288 Muratori, Domenico (painter), 84, 136 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio (historian): source, xxxiv, 538–9, 538n123, 539nn128 and 131, 544 Muy, Louis Nicolas Victor de Félix, comte de (French ambassador to Naples, minister), 588, 588n11 Muziano, Girolamo (painter), 537; life, 530–1n104; works, 144, 165, 175, 184, 530 Naldini, Giovanni Battista (painter): Sade on painting of Christ, l, 92, 94; attributed work, 98, 98n92 Nanni di Baccio Bigio, byname of Giovanni Lippi (architect), 129 Nanni di Banco, byname of Giovanni di Antonio di Banco (sculptor), 479 Napoleon (French military leader, statesman): art theft, 363n103; Rosetta Stone, 59n26; Sade’s imprisonment by, xvii Napolitano, Carlo (painter), 151 Natoire, Charles-Joseph (director of the French Academy in Rome, painter), xlvii, xlix–l, 85, 85n68 Nerciat André-Robert Andréa (libertine writer, spy), lxxii Nero (Roman emperor), xxiv, xxv, lxviii, lxxiv, 30, 104n108, 122, 251, 273, 276, 276n36, 277nn38–9, 415, 420, 519n79, 532, 645, 647, 647nn145–6; deeds and misdeeds, lxxv, 228, 275, 275n34, 399–400, 399n440, 423– 6, 490–1, 491n12, 505n55, 537; depicted in Sade’s later writing, lxxiii, lxxv; palace, 138, 170, 493n18; representations, 31, 108, 143, 155, 291, 395, 397, 399, 427, 520; purported tomb, 57–8, 58n23

Name Index Nerva (Roman emperor), 142, 357, 406; bust, 110 Newton, Isaac (astronomer, mathematician, natural philosopher), 63n30, 512n62 Nicholas III, Pope (Giovanni Gaetano Orsini): commission, 172n24 Nicholas V, Pope (Tommaso Parentucelli), 519n80, 537; commissions, 141, 494–5, 608; life, 495n20 Nollet, Jean-Antoine (experimentalist, natural philosopher), xlii–xliii Nonni, Ottaviano, known as Il Mascarino (architect, painter, sculptor), 136, 136n178 Norden, Frederic Louis (author, explorer, naval officer): source, 408–9n67, 409, 409n68, 411n72 Numa Pompilius (2nd king of Rome), 550; political use of religion, xxv, 548–9, 569; works, 104, 104n108, 148, 646 Nuvolone, Carlo Francesco (painter), 242 Octavian. See Augustus (Roman emperor) Odazzi, Giovanni (painter), 99 Olivieri, Pietro Paolo (architect, sculptor), 138 Olympiodorus of Thebes (historian), 646, 646n141 Orcagna, byname of Andrea di Cione di Arcangelo (architect, painter, sculptor), 458, 458n76 Orrizonte. See Jan Frans van Bloemen Orsini (family), 134, 576; various members, 393, 521n82, 627, 627n92, 636–7, 639 Otho (Roman emperor), 426 Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, 336, 336n31 Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso; poet): hometown, 402n47; writings as lewd, lxvi, lxvii; works: Ars amatoria, lxvi, lxix; Metamorphoses, lxxiii, 272n28, 296, 296n74, 389n13, 458–9n77, 459–60n79, 460n80, 468–70n99, 471–2n101, 485, 643 Paine, Thomas (political philosopher): on Masaniello, 210n34 Palaiologos, Constantine XI Dragases (Byzantine emperor), 394, 401 Palaiologos, John VIII (Byzantine emperor), 26, 26n56, 617

693

Palladio, Andrea (architect, architectural theorist), li, 104n108, 114n126 Palma Vecchio, byname of Jacopo Palma (painter), 217, 239 Panciròli, Guido (antiquarian, jurist, legal historian), 647, 647n146 Pandulf I Ironhead, Prince of Capua, 336, 336n32 Pandulf IV, Prince of Capua, 328–30, 329–30n14 Pandulf V, Count of Teano and Prince of Capua, 329, 336 Panini, Giovanni Paolo (painter), lvi, 137, 167, 241 Parmenides (philosopher), lix, 312 Parmigianino, byname of Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola (painter), 241n112: works, 152–4, 158, 161n210, 162, 241–2, 369 Paschal II, Pope (Raniero di Bieda), 542; uprooting of possessed tree, 57, 58n23; politics, 544 Passignano, Domenico (né Domenico Cresti or Crespi; painter), 156 Paul, Saint, 165, 524n90, 575; life and legends, 69–70, 402n49; representations, 55, 65, 90, 123, 147, 227–8, 231, 515–16, 520, 522 Paul II, Pope (Pietro Barbo), 508n56, 527– 8n101, 608; character, 520; works, 495 Paul III, Pope (Alessandro Farnese), 446, 501, 608, 634, 634n110, 646; destruction of antiquities, 177, 177n28, 392; representations, 242, 244; works, 68–70, 177n28, 496 Paul IV, Pope (Gian Pietro Carafa), 496, 496n24, 501; mausoleum, 94; viciousness, 94 Paul V, Pope (Camillo Borghese), 83n65, 95, 497n26; chapel (Rome), 83; fountain (Rome), 65; representations, 146, 165, 517; works, lii, 138, 144, 165, 168, 174, 393, 497, 497n25, 499, 503, 517, 524, 529, 647 Paulinus of Nola, Saint, 350, 350n72 Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga, Marquis of Villafranca (Viceroy of Naples): at the Grotta del Cane, xli; works, 235, 246, 246n125, 261, 276n37, 279 Penna, Agostino (sculptor), 57, 57n20

694

Name Index

Penni, Giovan Francesco, known as Il Fattore (painter), 92, 648 Pepin, King of the Franks, known as “the Short”: extension of papal power, 383, 648 Perino del Vaga, byname of Piero Buonaccorsi (painter): tomb, 97; works, 143, 147, 486 Perrault, Claude (architect), 498n26 Perrot d’Ablancourt, Nicolas (translator), 275n34, 314, 491n12 Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus; satirist), lxviii, 344n64 Perugino, Pietro (né Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci; painter), 522; works, 75, 146, 154, 161, 174, 231, 365, 486, 643 Peruzzi, Baldassare (architect, painter), 496 Pesci, Girolamo (painter), 115n128 Peter, Saint, 60, 183n42, 431, 504, 539, 543, 567; life and legends, 65, 69–70, 70n41, 78, 125, 138, 170, 411, 411n74, 492, 492–3n18, 495, 517n73; representations of, 55, 77–8, 123, 144, 153, 158–9, 161, 165, 175–6, 209–10, 231, 240, 242–3, 251, 356, 395, 503, 507, 516, 519, 520, 522, 648–9; sceptical remarks about, xxiv, xxv, 78, 395, 492–3n18, 514 Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany. See Gotthard, Peter Leopold Petrarch, Francesco (properly Petrarca; humanist, poet), 23, 24n51, 106, 106n112, 223n70, 224, 252n136; abbé de Sade’s biography of, xv, cvi, 223n69, 518n78; early printed work, 95; manuscripts, 18–19; on the papacy, 138, 138n183, 252; on Virgil as magician, 260, 260n2 Petronius (Gaius Petronius Arbiter; courtier and likely author): Satyricon, lxviii, 325n4. See also satire Phidias (ancient Greek sculptor), 174, 398, 462n84, 482 Philip I, King of the Franks, 542 Philip II of Spain, also King of Naples and Sicily (Habsburg ruler), 46, 464n90, 530n103, 642 Philip IV, King of France, known as “the Fair,” 509 Philip IV of Spain, also Philip III of Sicily (Habsburg ruler): statue, 83

Philip V of Spain (Bourbon king), 414; works, 210–11 Philodemus of Gadara (Epicurean philosopher): writings found in Herculaneum, 292, 292–3n64 Photius or Photios I of Constantinople (compiler, Patriarch): source, 534, 534n111, 646n141 Piaggio, Antonio (inventor, Piarist monk), 293, 293n65 Piastrini, Giovanni Domenico (painter), 118n140 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni (philosopher), 444n35, 619, 619n75 Pilati, Carlo Antonio (jurist, philosopher): reform of Italy, xxxiii, 384n6 Pimentel de Herrera, Juan Alonso (Viceroy of Naples): excavation of Cumae, 271, 271n26 Pindar (lyric poet), 459n77 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista or Giambattista (architect, architectural theorist, engraver), 140n187; critique of Chaupy, xxii, xxiii (figure); engravings, lvi, lx, 74n50, 183n41, 185n46; renovation of Santa Maria del Priorato, lvi, 100, 100n100 Piron, Alexis (dramatist), 453n62 Pius II, Pope (Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini), 537; commissions, 503; tomb, 94, 522 Pius III, Pope (Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini): tomb, 94, 522 Pius IV, Pope (Giovanni Angelo Medici), 55, 94, 165, 496; works and deeds, 61, 392nn21–2, 466n94, 477, 614 Pius V, Pope (Antonio Ghislieri), 83n65, 94, 392n21, 458, 530n102, 649; destruction of antiquity, 392; and harshness of the Holy Office, 644; mausoleum, 83; works, 454, 496, 545 Pius VI, Pope (Giovanni Angelo Braschi), 383n5, 508n56, 587n10, 595; character of, 572; installation as pope, lxxvi, 587, 593; in Sade’s later writing, lxxvi, lxxix Plato: bust, 291, 532 Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus; Roman comic playwright), lxvi Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus; natural historian), 646, 646n143; death

Name Index and eruption of Vesuvius, xliv, xlv, 274, 322, 322n122; on floating islands, 179n30; source, xli, xlviii, 29n62, 30, 59, 59n25, 94, 101n101, 103, 103n107, 264n9, 265, 265–6n11, 349, 363n102, 409n70, 492, 492n16, 501, 631n103, 645, 645n138, 647, 647n145 Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus; author, magistrate), 646, 646n143; on death of uncle, xliv, 322n122; on floating islands, 179n30; source, lviii, 110n119, 363, 363n102 Plutarch (biographer), 275n34; source, lviii, 66nn34–5, 68n37, 104n108, 114n124, 142n188, 296n74, 409n70 Pococke, Edward (biblical scholar, Orientalist), 408, 408n64 Pollaiuolo, Antonio del (painter, sculptor), 527 Polygnotus (ancient Greek painter), 388 Pompadour, Madame de (Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour; official mistress of Louis XV), xlvii, lix, 87n71 Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus; Roman general and politician), 94, 344n62, 419, 421; civil war, 341, 341n52, 415; country villa, lix, 168, 279; Curia of (Rome), 93, 93n81; statue, 416; tomb, 169–70 Pontano, Giovanni (humanist, poet), 214n45, 228, 228n81 Pontas, Jean (casuist), 639, 639–40n121 Pope, Alexander (English poet), 97n90 Pordenone Il, byname of Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis; painter: works, 175 Porsena, Lars (Etruscan king), 101, 113–14, 114n124, 150, 164–5, 165nn4–5, 429, 431, 553, 566, 622 Posi, Paolo (architect), 57n20 Poussin, Gaspar Dughet (painter), 80, 80n6o Poussin, Nicolas (painter), 80n60, 151; works, 135, 146, 155–7, 159, 163, 175 Pozzi, Andrea (more often Pozzo; decorator and designer, Jesuit, painter), 88–9 Pozzi, Stefano (painter), 157, 176, 230, 288 Praxiteles (ancient Greek sculptor), 29n62, 30, 174, 462n84 Preti, Mattia (painter), 93n79 Prévost, Antoine François (novelist, translator): translations of Samuel Richardson, liv

695

Price, Uvedale (aesthetic theorist): on the picturesque, lv–lvi Prideaux, Humphrey (historian of religion, Orientalist): source, 182, 182n38 Primaticcio, Francesco (architect, painter, sculptor), 496n24 Probus, Sextus Claudius Petronius (member of the Anicius family; consul), 524, 524n92, 537 Procopius (Byzantine historian): source, 271n25 Protogenes (ancient Greek painter), 388 Provenzale, Marcello (painter), 146, 515, 530 Pucciardi, Pietro Andrea Barbieri (painter), 118n40 Puisieux, Philippe-Florent de (anthologist, lawyer, translator): translated travel guide of, xxi, 357–8n91, 359n93, 408–9n67, 411n73, 412n79 Quesnay, François (economist), xxx Rabelais, François (humanist, physician, satirist), 172 Radcliffe, Ann (novelist), 243n116; Gothic style, lxxxiii Raggi, Antonio (sculptor), 92 Raimondi, Marcantonio (engraver): posture prints, lxix, 96n87. See also Aretino, Pietro; Romano, Giulio Rainaldi, Carlo (architect), 92, 133, 133n172 Rameau, Jean-Philippe (composer), 37n75 Rancoureuil, Abbé: excavations in Rome, 140–1, 140n187 Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino; painter), 113, 154, 231, 462n84, 485–6, 495, 587, 643; censorship, liii; representations, 137, 153; school, 67, 92, 119, 121, 126, 143, 157–9, 170, 174, 176, 184, 215, 242, 368–9; tomb, 97, 97n90, 136; works, 21, 57, 64, 64–5n33, 67, 105, 105n109, 130, 135–6, 143, 145–7, 156, 158–9, 174–5, 244–5, 363, 363n103, 369, 648 Ravaillac, François (regicide), 461n83 Rembrandt (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; painter), 237

696

Name Index

Renard, Jean-Augustin (architect), 352, 352–3n75 Reni, Guido (painter), 113, 117n135, 146, 148n24, 151, 154; Magdalenes, lv, lxx, 136, 152, 155, 161, 163, 207, colour plate 4; mannerism, 174; works, 21, 27, 88–9, 89n75, 117, 124n148, 133, 135–7, 152–3, 155, 157–9, 161–2, 167, 174–5, 208, 216–17, 240, 242, 369, 485, 649 Requier, Jean-Baptiste (translator): Varchi’s history of Florence, xxxiv, 429n1, 437n17, 438n23, 445n38 Rétif de la Bretonne, Nicolas-Edme, also given as Restif (autobiographer, novelist, printer, social theorist): characterization of Sade, lxxi; on prostitution, xxxii–xxxiii Reynie, Nicolas de la (lieutenant general of the Paris police), xxx Riario, Girolamo (Lord of Imola): assassination, 626 Riario, Pietro (archbishop, bishop, cardinal, diplomat): decadence, 527–9n101 Riario, Raffaele Sansoni Galeoti (cardinal, patron of the arts): role in Pazzi conspiracy, 626 Ribera, Jusepe de, known as Lo Spagnoletto (painter), 216, 253; works, 151, 155–7, 159, 161, 208–9, 243, 485 Ricci, Lorenzo (superior general of Society of Jesus): imprisonment and death, 170n19, 602n38. See also in subject index Jesuits Ricciarelli, Daniele, known as Daniele da Volterra (painter, sculptor), 486 Richard, Jérôme (travel writer, major source for Sade), xlix, cvii, 403n54, 465n92, 466n94; criticism, xxii–xxiii, li, 13–14, 19–21, 20n39, 49–51, 51n8, 53, 59–60, 62, 72, 82–3, 83n64, 85–6, 89, 96, 99, 101–2, 119, 121, 165, 167, 169, 173, 176, 184, 186, 205–6, 208–9, 211, 213, 215–16, 218–27, 219n58, 231, 237–9, 241, 245, 249–51, 253, 261, 261n5, 268, 271–2, 272n28, 273n29, 279–82, 288–9, 293–4, 296, 325, 330–1, 335, 335n27, 337n37, 338–40, 354–5, 358–60, 364, 366–9, 402–4, 403n52, 414, 432, 452n57, 453, 461n81, 461, 466,

473, 477, 479, 493, 496n23, 499n34, 501, 502n46, 513, 519–20n80; source, xxi, cvi, 10n15, 12n17, 19–20, 20n39, 26n55, 27, 34n69, 51, 51nn6 and 8, 53nn11–12, 54, 72–3n48, 76, 85, 86n70, 88n73, 89n75, 90, 102n103, 109n117, 110, 110–11n121, 162–3, 162n211, 164n3, 165n5, 212n37, 215n47, 218n54, 219n57, 220n63, 230nn84–5, 233, 233n93, 234n95, 238n103, 239nn105–6, 254n141, 268n17, 275, 279n41, 289n59, 294n69, 300nn81–2, 325n8, 331nn16–17, 340n44, 346–9, 348n70, 351–3, 354n80, 355nn83 and 85, 359n93, 360–2, 360n94, 361n97, 362nn98–9, 363nn103–4, 364n106, 369n115, 370, 394, 404n57, 492n17; views, xxii–xxiii, xxxviii–xxxix, l, liii, lvi, lxxiii, 189, 282n44, 499 Richard de Saint-Non, Jean-Claude (connoisseur, engraver), lvi, 352–3n75; illustrated volume on Naples and vicinity, xx, xlvii, 191 (figure), 192 (figure) Richard I of Capua (Richard Drengot; Count of Aversa), 336–7 Richardson, Samuel (novelist, printer): influence of sentimental fiction, liv, lxxii, lxxix Robert, Hubert (painter): depiction of ruins, lvi Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, 222n68; tomb, 222–4, 223nn70–1; on Virgil as magician, 260 Rogissart, Alexandre de (travel writer), xli, xlii (figure) Rollin, Charles (historian): source, 388, 388nn10–11 Rollo (Norman ruler), 326, 326n9 Romanelli, Giovanni Francesco (painter), 105, 151–3, 155, 649 Romano, Giulio (painter), 67; posture paintings, lxix, 96n87; works, 81, 92, 121, 129, 145, 147, 159, 174, 244, 648. See also Pietro Aretino; Raimondi, Marcantonio Romulus (founder and 1st king of Rome), 104; life and legends, 108, 142, 142n189, 545–8, 548n154; religion and, xxv, 396, 533, 546–7, 549; temples, 67–8, 137, 141, 173, 397

Name Index Roncalli, Cristoforo, known as Pomarancio (painter), 98n93, 117–18, 216, 369 Rosa, Salvator (painter), 136, 156, 160–3, 243 Rosati, Rosato (architect), 133n172 Rossellino, Bernardo, byname of Bernardo di Matteo Gamberelli (architect, sculptor), 119n141, 495 Rossetti, Cesare (painter), 71, 71n45 Rossi, Francesco de’, also known as Francesco Salviati (painter), 161n210, 162, 213, 213n40 Rossi, Vincenzo de’ (sculptor), 25 Rossini, Pietro (antiquarian), 111n121 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (autobiographer, novelist, political philosopher), lxvi; on historical progress, lii, lxvi, 139n184; on sexual drive, xxxvi Rubens, Peter Paul (painter), 175, 226; works, 76, 146, 156, 243, 643 Rudolf I of Germany, also known as Rudolf of Habsburg: history of Florence, 430 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor: natural history cabinet, xxxix, 430 Rusconi, Camillo (sculptor), 530 Russo, Nicola (painter), 213n40 Ryer, Pierre du (historiographer, playwright, translator): translation of Livy, lvii, 325n7, 403n52 Sacchi, Andrea (painter), 537; life, 517–18n77; works, 84, 91, 116, 126, 133, 150–4, 159, 161, 162, 175, 517, 566 Sade, Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de: life, xxii–xxx, xxxi–xxxiii, lxxi–lxxii, lxxxiv–lxxxvi; on travel writing, xxii–xxiii; works: Les 120 journées de Sodome, xiii–xiv, lxviii, lxxii, lxxvii–lxxviii, lxxxii, lxxxvi; Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribund, 397n35; L’Histoire de Juliette, xiv, xxxviii, lxviii, lxxi, lxxii, lxxiv–lxxvi, lxxix, lxxxii, lxxxiv–lxxxvi, lxxxv (figure), 28n60, 106n111, 644n132; Les Infortunes de la vertu, xiv; Justine, xiv, lxx, lxxiv, lxxviii, lxxxii; La Nouvelle Justine, xiv, lxx, lxxiii, lxxxi, lxxxii, lxxxiv; Oxtiern (drama), xiii; La Philosophie dans le boudoir, lxviii, lxix,

697

lxx, lxxix; Voyage d’Italie, xiii, xxvii, xxviii, xxx–xxxiii, xlvi, lxxiv–lxxv, lxxviii, lxxxii– lxxxvi, cv–cviii Sade, Hugues II, Count de (Provençal nobleman; Sade’s ancestor), 518n78. See also Laura de Noves Sade, Jacques-François-Paul-Aldonce de (abbot; Sade’s uncle), cvi; biography of Petrarch, xv, 138n183, 223n69 Sade, Renée Pélagie de. See Montreuil, Renée-Pélagie Saint-Germain, Claude-Louis, Count de (general, minister), 588n11, 592, 592n18 Saint-Non, abbé de. See Richard de Saint-Non, Jean-Claude Saint-Odile, Mathieu-Dominique Charles, Poirot de la Blandier, Baron de (ambassador to Rome): excavation of Horace’s villa, 16n31 Salimbeni, Ventura di Archangelo (painter), 649 Saltarello, Luca (painter), 159 Salvetti, Ludovico (sculptor), 471, 620, 620n78 Salviati, Francesco (archbishop of Pisa), 527, 626 Salviati, Francesco (painter). See Rossi, Francesco de’ Salviati, Giovanni (cardinal), 634 Salviati (family), 451, 474, 576, 611, 626, 632; chapel, 117; status in Florence, 44–5 Samacchini, Orazio (painter), 648 Sangallo, Francesco da (sculptor), 481n117 Sangallo, Giuliano da (architect, sculptor), 495–6 Sangro, Raimondi di, Prince of Sansevero (experimentalist, inventor), 238, 238n103, 294 Sanmartino, Giuseppe (sculptor), 238n102 Sannazaro, Jacopo (humanist, poet), 214n45; tomb, 212–13, 212nn38–9 Sansovino, Andrea (sculptor), 58 Sansovino, Jacopo (sculptor), 105 Santafede, Fabrizio (painter), 216, 230n84, 240 Sardi, Gasparo or Guasparo (historian): on Matilda of Tuscany, 542, 542n141 Sarnelli, Pompeo (guidebook writer): on Naples and vicinity: xxii, 230n85, 239n104,

698

Name Index

283n48, 284n51, 398n36; on the Grotta del Cane, xlii (figure) Sartine, Antoine de (lieutenant general of the Paris police), xv, xxxi, 205n29 Sassenage, Marie-Françoise-Camille, Marquise de (Dauphiné nobility), 4, 4n3 Sassoferrato, Giovanni Battista Salvi da (painter), 99n96, 157 Savonarola, Girolamo (Dominican preacher, prophet, reformer), xxxvi, 443, 443–4n35 Schedoni, Bartolomeo (painter), 243, 243n116, 244 Scipio Africanus (Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus; consul, general), 6n7, 587; representations, 150, 158, 291, 566; tomb, 395, 492; works, 107 Sebastiano del Piombo, byname of Sebastiano Luciani (painter), 57, 65, 145, 145n195, 241 Seiter, Daniel (painter), 56n19, 485n4 Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca; playwright, Stoic philosopher): painting, 159; source, lviii, 80, 80n59, 261, 261n4, 274, 274n31, 409n70, 571; statues, 66, 143, 244, 291, 486, 532 Septimius Severus (Roman emperor), 69, 107–8; arch (Rome), 69, 141; statue, 121, 151, 153; works, 76n53 Serlio, Sebastiano (architect; architectural theorist), li, 103, 103n106, 139, 139n185, 646, 646n140 Servius Tullius (6th king of Rome), 106, 552n168; assassination, lxxxi, 77, 551–2; rule, 551–2, 553, 562. See also Tullia Minor; Tarquin the Proud Severus, Alexander (Roman emperor), 135n176, 177, 277, 532; works, 132, 646 Sicoliante da Sermoneta, Girolamo (painter), 648 Signonio, Carlo, also given as Carolus Signonius (antiquarian, historian, rhetorician): source, 542n141 Simon Magus (biblical and legendary figure): confrontation with Saint Peter, xxv, 138, 170, 493n18; representation, 227 Simplicius, Pope (name unknown): works, 118 Sirani, Giovanni Andrea (painter), 151

Sixtus IV, Pope (Francesco della Rovere), 537, 626; life and misdeeds, xxxvi, 527–9n101; tomb, 527; works, 68, 648 Sixtus V, Pope, also given as Sixtus Quintus (Felice Piergentile or Peretti): chapel (Rome), 83, 83n65, 94, 367, 502n50, 531n104, 537; criticism, xxv–xxvi, 577; statue, 368; treasures, 172, 172n25, 392, 530n103; witticism, 501n44; works, xxiv, 56, 63, 63n29, 73, 83, 91, 122, 122n143, 126–7, 355, 355n85, 545n64, 496–7, 501, 516, 647, 647n146 Smollett, Tobias (journalist, novelist, surgeon, travel writer), lxxxi, lxxxii, 58n23 Sobieska, Maria Clementina (wife of James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite claimant to British throne): tomb, 522 Socrates: representations, 66, 159, 294 Soderini, Piero di Tommaso (Florentine politician), 436, 442 Solario, Antonio, known as Lo Zingaro (painter), 347 Solimena, Francesco (painter), 161, 161n210, 222, 346; praise, 339; works, 71, 208, 210, 214, 216–17, 226–8, 232, 234, 243, 248, 339n41, 365n108 Sophocles (tragedian): on Ajax, 468n99 Soria, Giovanni Battista (architect), 133n172 Soufflot, Jacques-Germain (architect): grand tour, xlvii–xlviii, lix; views, liii, 12n17; works, xlviii, 54n16 Spagnoletto, Lo. See Ribera, Jusepe de Speranza, Stefano (sculptor), 526 Stanzione or Stanzioni, Massimo (painter), 208–9, 232, 234 Statius (Publius Papinius Statius; epic poet), lxvi; source, lviii, 168n12, 276, 363n102 Stella, François (painter), 65 Stern, Ignazio (painter), 84n67 Stern, Ludovico (painter), 84n67, 144 Strabo (geographer, historian): source, lviii, 265, 265–6nn10–11, 271, 341, 341n53, 343, 343n60, 345n67, 349, 409–10n70 Strozzi, Filippo (banker, power broker): struggles with Medici, 433, 435–6, 634 Strozzi (family), 25, 45, 92, 391, 451, 474, 577, 611, 625

Name Index Stuart, Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier (cardinal, Jacobite pretender), 165, 165n6 Subleyras, Pierre (painter), 135 Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus; historian): on Caligula, 270, 270n23, 420–1; on Nero, 57–8, 58n23, 422–6, 423n121, 423n125, 424nn129 and 131, 425n134; notes from, 414–28; source, lvii–lviii, lxviii, lxxv, lxxviii, cvi, 57, 58n23, 185n45, 275–6, 276n36, 286n54, 406, 406–7n62; on Tiberius, lxxvii, 314, 316–18, 316–17n116, 318n117, 419–20, 420nn107 and 109; translations of, lvii–lviii, 318n117, 417, 417–18n103 Sulla, also found as Sylla (Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix; consul, general), 121, 276; era of, 74, 389; founding of Florence, 15, 431, 447, 473; works and deeds, 69, 71; statues, 87, 91, 151, 167 Susini, Clemente (sculptor): anatomical models, xxxix, lxx, 24n52, colour plate 2 Swift, Jonathan (cleric, poet, satirist), xliii Sylvester I, Pope (name unknown), 406, 505n55; life and works, 80, 122, 354, 354n80, 647; painting, 517 Tacca, Pietro (sculptor): confusion concerning, 465n92; works, 465–6, 477, 480, 615, 620n78 Tacitus (Publius Cornelius Tacitus; historian): early edition, 19; on Nero, lxxv, 275–6, 275nn34–5, 491, 491n12; source, lviii, lxviii, 30n63, 267, 276n36, 279, 320, 321–2n121, 481n117, 621; on Tiberius, lxxvii, 314, 314n11, 316, 447n45 Taitbout de Marigny, Alexis-Jean-Eustache (French consul in Naples): at the Grotta del Cane, xli–xlii Tancred, King of Sicily, 218 Tancred of Hautville (Norman lord), 326, 329, 337 Tanucci, Bernardo (minister), lxii, lxiv, 43, 189n4, 193n8, 241, 241n109, 299, 398, 398n37, 604n43, 605n45 Targe, Jean-Baptiste (historian), 453, 453n63

699

Tarquin the Elder (Lucius Tarquinius Priscus; 5th king of Rome), 552; anecdote about, 30, 30n63; life and works, 103, 550–1 Tarquin the Proud (Lucius Tarquinius Superbus; 7th and last king of Rome): perfidy, lxxxi, 128; political machinations and related, 113, 128, 164–5, 431, 473, 552–8; works, 108, 553, 645 Tasso, Bernardo (poet), 614n65 Tasso, Torquato (poet), 321; Gerusalemme liberata, 242; tomb, 115–16 Tempesta, Antonio (painter): martyrdom depicted, 119, 119n142 Teniers, David, the Younger (painter), 153, 153n204, 157 Terence (Publius Terentius Afer; comic playwright), lxvi; manuscript, 531 Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; polemicist, theologian), 570 Testa, Pietro (painter, printmaker), 237, 485 Testard, Jeanne (fan maker, prostitute): scandal, xv, xviii, xxxi–xxxii, xxxviii, 205n29 Théodon, Jean-Baptiste (sculptor), 525 Theodora (Byzantine empress, wife of Justinian I): scandalous origins, lxxix Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths: castle of, 361, 361n96, 362n99, 403n51 Thucydides (general, historian), 275n34 Tibaldi, Pellegrino (architect, painter, sculptor), 145 Tiberius (Roman emperor), lxxiv–lxxvi, cvi, 228, 269, 270n23, 322n121, 397n35, 398, 417, 421, 423, 491n12, 500, 519, 521n82; on Capri, xx, lxxvii–lxxviii, 314–18, 314n111, 316–18n116, 320–1, 427, 606; cruelty, 274–5, 318n117, 505n55; life, 419–20, 447n45; statues, 154, 291 Tierce, Jean-Baptiste (painter): Sade’s contact and guide in Naples, xx, cv, 197n17, 264n8, 482, 589, 589n14–15, 594–7, 599, 602, 608; Sade’s praise of, 264; ruins of Paestum, colour plate 6 Tintoretto, byname of Jacopo Comin or Robusti (painter), 154, 226, 369

700

Name Index

Tisi, Benvenuto, known as Il Garofalo (painter), 145, 153, 156–7, 369 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio; painter), 157, 174, 226, 530–1n104, 643; praise, 388, 388n11; Venuses, lxxi, 27, 31, 66, 146, 154, 174; works, 27, 135–6, 143–7, 153, 155–9, 161–3, 174–5, 242, 485 Titus (Roman emperor), 139n186, 151, 269n18, 428n156, 532; Arch of, 139; baths, 77–80, 86, 393, 428, 534; bust, 291; life and deeds, 77, 139, 396, 396–7n34, 428 Totila, King of the Ostrogoths, 15, 271, 271n25, 413, 431, 473, 610 Trajan (Roman emperor), liii, 80, 533; baths, 77, 80; column, xxiv, xxvi, 395; statues, 31, 143, 251, 531; works, 104, 645 Trevisani, Francesco (painter), 115n128, 161–2, 176, 485 Tribolo, Niccolò (architect), 18n36 Triga, Giacomo (painter), 118n140 Tullia Minor (daughter of Servius Tullius, wife of Tarquin the Proud): perfidy, lxxxi, 77, 393, 552, 552n168 Tullius Hostilius (3rd king of Rome): courts named for, 118; life of, 549–50; prison named for, 70, 70n41 Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques (administrator, economist), xxx Turini da Brescia, Baldasarre (papal datary): unflattering depiction of, 467, 467n97, 619, 619n77 Turner, J.M.W. (painter), 185n46 Uchoreus (pharaoh), 499–500, 500n35, 647, 647n135 Urban I, Pope (name unknown), 113 Urban II, Pope (Eudes de Châtillon), 519n79 Urban VI, Pope (Bartolomeo Prignano), 508n56, 537; cruelty, lxxv, lxxxiv, 519, 519n79 Urban VII, Pope (Giovanni Battista Castagna), 497; monument, 94 Urban VIII, Pope (Maffeo Barberini), 148–9, 498, 564–5, 649; commissions, 64, 93, 168, 515–16, 526, 527n99, 647;

deeds and misdeeds, 97, 97n89, 544; statues, 153, 187 Ursicinus, also given as Ursinus (pope and antipope): succession crisis, 82, 82n62. See also Damasus I Vacca, Flaminio (sculptor), 86 Vaccaro, Andrea (painter), 207 Vaccaro, Domenico Antonio (architect, painter, sculptor), 253n159 Valadier, Luigi Maria (silversmith and goldsmith), 126, 126n152 Valentin de Boulogne (painter), 150, 153, 156, 175, 237 Valerius Maximus (compiler, historian, moralist), 431 Valmont de Bomare, Jacques-Christophe (naturalist), 454–5n64, 456n70, 610n56 van Bloemen, Jan Frans, byname Orrizonte (painter), 135–6, 135n177 van Bloemen, Pieter, known as Stendardo or Monsù Stendardo (painter), 161 van Dyck, Anthony (painter), 253; works, 153, 156, 161, 240 van Honthorst, Gerrit or Gerard, known as Gherardo delle Notti (painter), 145, 145n94, 152, 157–60, 370 van Leyden, Lucas (painter, printmaker), 485 Vanni, Francesco (painter), 113, 133, 176, 529 Vanni, Raffaello (painter), 130n164 Vanvitelli, Carlo (architect): restoration of Santissima Annunziata Maggiore, 221n64; work at royal palace at Caserta, 255, 255n144, 258 Vanvitelli, Luigi (architect), 241; restoration of Santissima Annunziata Maggiore, 221n64; work at royal palace at Caserta, 255–6, 255n144, 259, 389 Varchi, Benedetto (historian, poet), 45n85; extracts on Florence, 429–47; sodomy and, xxxv; source, xxxiv Varillas, Antoine (historian), 625, 626n90 Varotari, Alessandro, called “Il Padovanino” (painter), 153, 157 Vasari, Giorgio (architect, biographer, painter), 98n93; architecture, 18n36, 27n58, 58n24,

Name Index 463; life, 463n87; lives of painters, 19n38, 124n49, 128n155, 388, 388n11, 461n81, 467n97, 617, 617n72, 619n77, 636; paintings, 65, 98, 156, 215, 231, 631n103, 648–9; restoration of the arts, lii; spurious anecdote, 25n53 Venus: Callipygian statue (Rome), 121; of Cnidus, lxxxi, 29–30, 29n62; exemplifying Lust in Pietro da Cortona’s fresco in the Palazzo Barberini (Rome), 149, 565; Mary as, liv, 71; Medici statue (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), l, 29–30, 29n61, 533; Venus Pudica statue (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), 30; temple of (Baiae), 276–8, 277n 39, 400; temple of (Rome), 76, 182, 646; Titian’s Venus of Urbino (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence), lxxi, 27; Titian’s Venus and Cupid (Uffizi, Forence), 31 Venusti, Marcello (painter), 124n149 Venuti, Ridolfino (antiquarian, archeologist, historian), 102, 102n104 Vernet, Claude Joseph (painter), 137; work, 136 Veronese, Paolo (painter), 209–10; works, 27, 144, 146–7, 155, 158–9, 162, 208, 229, 240, 242, 244, 347, 485 Vertot, René Aubert de (historian): on political use of religion in ancient Rome, xxv; source, lviii, 545n149, 548, 548nn153–5, 560n178 Verus, Lucius (co-emperor of Rome): bust, 532 Vespasian (Roman emperor), 139n186; bust, 143; Colosseum of, 79, 135, 176–7; life, 135, 396, 396–7n34, 426–8; ruins of palace, 78–9; works, 69, 79, 104n108, 138, 427–8, 646 Vien, Joseph-Marie (painter, director of French academy in Rome), xlvii Vignola, Giacomo Barozzi da (architect), 537; life, 496n24; works, 12, 12n17, 58n24, 166, 177n28, 496 Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro; poet), 266, 276, 285, 344–5, 345n66, 459n77, 594; as magician, 238, 260, 260n2, 401; manuscript, 19; tomb, xx, lviii, 211–12, 211n36, 212nn37 and 39; tourism and, xx, lviii, 205; works: Aeneid, lviii, 101, 257n145, 271, 271n24, 272n28, 274n30, 333, 333nn20–1, 342n46, 351n51, 402n50, 426, 463nn86–7,

701

545, 545n150; Eclogues, lviii, 324n2, 401, 401n43, 588n13; Georgics, lviii, 362, 362n100, 363n102 Vitellius (Roman emperor): life, 426–7; statues, 31, 160 Vito D’Anna, Guido (painter), 136 Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollo; architect, architectural theorist, engineer), li, 260n3; on the architectural orders, lx, 312n104, 396n32, 400 Viviani, Antonio (painter), 209, 227 Volaire, Pierre-Jacques (painter): views of Vesuvius, xlv, colour plate 3 Volpi, Giuseppe Rocco (historian): on floating islands, 178, 178n30; on Lake Albano, 169, 169n15 Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet (author, philosophe), 106n11, 603n40; dramas, 36n73, 37n75; on Lalande’s comet, 457n73; relationship with Frederick the Great, xxvii–xxviii, 603; source, xxiv–xxv, lxix, 56n17; works: Candide, xxviii, lxxxiv; Dictionnaire philosophique, 493n18; L’Examen important de milord Bolingbroke, 494n19, 507n55; La Henriade, 117n137, 490, 490n11; Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède, 413, 413n82; La Pucelle d’Orléans, xxv, 77, 77–8n57 Volterra, Daniele da (Daniele Ricciarelli; painter, sculptor), 92, 391, 486 Volterra, Pietro da (painter), 146 Vouet, Simon, 155, 240, 366 Warburton, William (literary critic, theologian): on hieroglyphs, 59n26 Welf V (2nd husband of Matilda of Tuscany): humiliation of, lxxix, 539–41 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim (archeologist, art historian), lxiv, 533–4n108 Wittgenstein, Ludwig (philosopher), lv Wren, Christopher (architect, astronomer, polymath), lii Wright of Derby, Joseph (painter), xlv Young, Edward (poet, theologian), lxxxiii

702

Name Index

Zenobia (Palmyrene queen), 157, 179, 179n32, 407 Zenobius, Saint (bishop of Florence), 456, 456n69, 477, 615 Zampieri, Domenico (painter). See Domenichino Zeno of Elea (philosopher), lix, 312, 532 Zosimus (historian): on Constantine, 494n19, 504–7n55, 534–6

Zuccari, Federico (painter), 81, 91, 145, 160, 486, 648–9 Zuccari, Taddeo (painter), 58–9, 91, 99 Zuccari brothers (Federico and Taddeo; painters), 184, 184n43 Zucchi, Jacopo (painter), 98nn92–3 Zummo or Zumbo, Gaetano Giulio (waxwork sculptor), 28, 28n60, colour plate 8

Subject Index

Certain place names such as Rome come up so frequently throughout the text that listing each instance would be confounding rather than useful. Providing an entry for each particular site within a city or its environs would overtax with specificity. Entries for the three main cities described are therefore subdivided into useful categories (history, mores, palazzi, and suchlike). Sites that receive the author’s sustained attention or that are otherwise remarkable have separate entries. Note that particular churches in the chief cities visited will be found bundled by name below the entries for these places. As for the topics chosen, they merely indicate some possible and hopefully interesting routes through a rich and varied territory. Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experimentation, Florence), 33n66, 481n117 Accademia di San Luca (Academy of Saint Luke, Rome), 125n152, 530n104; collections, 135–7 accuracy (Fr. correction; principle of taste), xlix, liv, lvi; good examples, l, 30, 81, 98, 114, 116, 129, 133, 158, 175, 216, 242, 264, 296, 298, 348n70, 471–2, 531n104, 591; poor examples, lxiii, 99, 208, 228 Adriana, Villa (Hadrian’s Villa, near Tivoli), 103, 130; described, 179–82 Agnano, Lake, xli, xlii (figure), 260, 261–6. See also Grotta del Cane air: effeminizing, 276, 415; pernicious, 34, 44, 53, 61, 129, 168, 188, 261, 276, 286, 333, 333n22, 349, 351–2, 481n117, 446; salubrious, 49, 85, 165, 167, 240–1, 278, 280, 356, 362, 450 Albani, Villa (Rome), 87, 356, 393 Albano, formerly Alba Longa (town), 168–9

Aldobrandini, Villa (called Belvedere, Frascati), 166 Aldobrandini, Villa (Rome), 143–4 Alessandria della Paglia (town), 10–11, 10n15 Amalfi (town), 313 anatomy: models, xxxix, lxx, 24, 24n52, 28n60, colour plate 2; relation to art, xlviii, l; scientific study of, lxx Annunziata (hospital, Naples), 220–1, 220n61, 265 Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, Le (book on excavations in Campania), lxii–lxiii, 289, 289n61 Antro della Sibilla (Cave of the Sibyl, Campania), 206, 206n32, 271; described, 281–2, 281n43, 282n44; history, 277n38, 400, 424–5; Virgil on, 271n24, 281 Apollo (deity): Belvedere statue of, 533, 533–4n108; games, 646, 646n142; other statues, 29–30, 86–7, 108–9, 121, 140, 154, 160, 212–13; paintings, 110, 121, 152, 166, 256;

704

Subject Index

temples to, lix, 180, 230, 234–5, 271, 277, 282, 349–50, 400, 403, 415, 417, 490 Appian Way (ancient Roman road), 171n21, 179n31, 270n23, 353–4, 398n36, 404n57, 420; construction and route, 69, 169, 266, 304, 333–4, 333n24, 343, 343n59, 349, 351, 402, 402n49; ruins along, lvii, 169–70, 266, 271, 282, 304, 340, 351, 402–3 Arrezo (town), 40, 44–5, 227, 429, 433, 449, 463n87, 475, 613, 618, 634 Ariccia (town), 169–70 Asti (town), 10 Atella (ancient town): licentiousness of, 325, 325n4; ruins, 325, 325n8. See also Atellanae Atellanae or Atellan farces, lxviii, lxxvii, 318n117, 325, 325n4. See also satire atheism, xviii, xxiv, xxvi–xxvii, lvii, lxiii, lxix, 397n35, 454n64 Averno or Avernus, Lake, 206, 270, 400, 425; described, 280–2; formerly toxic air, 280; putative temple of Pluto at, lix, 282. See also Antro della Sibilla Aversa (city), 336; history, 325–31, 325–6n8, 329–30n14. See also Normans Baiae, modern Baia (ancient town), xxii, lxxvii, 203, 261n4, 270, 270n23, 272, 275, 276–7n38, 277n39, 281, 295, 399, 421n113; described, 276–9, 400; reputation for decadence, lxxvii, 276, 278; Suetonius on, 415, 419–21, 424–5 Barberini, Palazzo (Rome), lv, 124, 136, 148, 159, 168, 168n12, 169n13, 396, 497n25; description of Pietro da Cortona’s fresco in, 148–56, 564–6 baths: at Baie: so-called of Nero or Tritoli, 276, 277nn38–9, 279–80, 400, 428; implements for: 290; on Ischia: 283–4, 283nn47–8; mineral and healing: 178, 279–80, 283–4, 343, 364, 638; at Pompeii: 304–7, 307n95; in or near Rome: of Agrippa, lvii, 69, 106, 116, 122, 124–5, 154, 254, 278, 322, 393, 403, 532; of Caracalla, 102–3, 103nn106–7, 125n151, 455, 477, 614, 646, 646nn140–1; of Diocletian, 63–4, 91, 103n106; nymphaeum at Villa Giulia, 58–9; of Titus, 77–80, 86, 393, 428, 534; of Trajan, 77, 80; various ancient ruins of: 76, 140, 173–4, 180, 269,

274, 280–1, 285, 312, 315, 343, 424, 473, 610 Bauli, modern Bacoli (ancient Roman port town), 277n39, 399–400; remnants of, 272–5 beautiful (aesthetic category), xlv–xlvii, liii, lv–lvi. See also picturesque; sublime beautiful nature (Fr. la belle nature): aesthetic concept, xlvi–xlvii, xlix; exemplary instances, 29n61, 30, 462n84, 514n68 Bologna (city), 324, 370, 398–9, 412, 418, 442, 443, 449, 450n49, 475, 609, 613, 633; described, 13–14 Bona Dea (goddess), 66, 66n34, 100, 100n99, 391. See also Vestal Virgins Borghese, Palazzo (Rome): described and artwork in, 144–7, 144n193 Briançon (town), 4–5, 6n4, 7, 407 cabinets of curiosities (or natural history cabinets), xli, 13, 13n25, 24, 28, 178, 210, 588, 597, 599–600, 603n40; Barthélemy Mesny’s, xxxix, xl (figure), 35, 35n71; Rudolf II’s (Holy Roman Emperor), xxxix, 430 capital punishment: views on, xxviii, lxxxi, 47, 112, 450–1, 462n84 Capitoline Hill (Campidoglio, area of Rome), lvii, 71–2, 94, 117n137, 151, 182, 238, 426, 490, 535, 580, 586; described, 66–70, 67 (figure); construction history, 421, 427, 550–3; guide to, xxi–xxii, 70n43; Jupiter temple and statue on, 86, 163, 394, 406, 415–16, 421, 514 Capodimonte, Palace of (or Reggia di Capodimonte, Naples), 247; described, 240–6 Capri, Island of (Campania): Augustus on, 203, 390, 418, 420; described, 313–21; fossils on, 417, 417–18n103; mores and policing of, 319–21; Tiberius on, xx, lxxvii–lxxviii, 314–18, 423n121, 427, 606 Capuano, Castel (or Vicaria, Naples): court and prison, 235–6, 236n99 Capua Nova, formerly Casilinum, xx, 188, 202n23, 282, 314, 324–5, 333, 342, 346, 446; described, 337–9, 337n37; distinct from Capua Vetere, 331; history, 331, 326n8, 328–9, 335–7

Subject Index Capua Vetere (or Old), xx, 254, 257, 266, 269n18, 337, 342n54, 402; distinct from Capua Nova, 331; history, 331–4, 414; reputation for luxury, 332, 334; in the medieval period, 335; ruins of, lvi, lvii, 188, 325n6, 333–4, 339–40, 345–6 Carafa, Palazzo (Naples): described, 238–9 Carnival, 198n18, 353, 365, 508, 567, 598, 628n96; lewd remark about, 440n30; in Florence, 464, 467, 480n117, 592, 601–2, 604, 607; in Naples, 189–94, 189n5, 197. See also cockaigne Caserta (town), 188, 336, 340; royal palace at, 241, 254–9, 268, 321, 389 Castel dell’Ovo (Naples), 203, 218n53 Castel Gandolfo, 353; country estate of the popes, 168 Castel Nuovo (Naples), 204, 211, 235, 246, 254–5, 443; described, 250–1; Sade’s tendency to write “Old Castle,” 203, 203–4n26, 250, 253 Castel Sant’Angelo (Mausoleum of Hadrian; papal residence, fortress, and prison), lxxiv, 17, 60, 97, 392, 433, 435, 439, 441, 459n78, 530n102, 544, 586, 626, 647; described, 170–2, 171n22; as prison, xx, 170n19, 336n32 Castel Sant’Elmo (Naples), 204, 253; described, 210 castrati, 35–7, 202, 628n96 catacombs and other subterranean chambers, chapels, and passages: of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome, 516–18; of San Gennaro, Naples, 205–7; of San Lorenzo, Rome, lxxvii, 173; of San Sebastiano, Rome, 112, 173; steam baths, near Naples, 279, 279n41; various others, 64, 68, 73–4, 80, 113, 140, 211, 227, 234–35, 339, 346–7, 356 Certosa di San Martino (Carthusian monastery, Naples), 221, 288; crucifixion painting at, lxx, 209–10, 462n84; described, 207–10 chastity belts, lxxix, 33 Christianity, criticism of, xxiv–xxvii, xxx– xxxi, xxxvii–xxxviii, l, liv, lxx, lxxiii, lxxvi, 72, 74–6, 78, 80–1, 90–1, 90n76, 100, 100n99, 104, 106, 115–16, 122–3, 125–6, 130–1, 172, 200, 209, 228, 233, 235–6, 266,

705

320, 347, 382–8, 395–7, 453n60, 490–1, 491n12, 492–3n18, 504–7, 507–8n56, 515, 517, 522n84, 523, 523–4n89, 536, 536– 7n120, 569–74, 576, 597. See also philosophes and philosophy cicisbeismo (sanctioned gallantry), xxix–xxx, 23–4, 24n51, 39, 41–2, 201, 464–5. See also Florence, mores of Circus Maximus (Rome), lvii, 393, 406, 424, 550; history, 56, 59n25, 103–4, 127, 140–1, 416, 422, 551, 645; remnants, 140 climate: concept of, xxix; effeminizing, 276; impact in Florence, xxxv, 34–5, 40, 440n30; impact in Naples, xxxii, 189, 201, 204; other cases, 333, 418, 558, 624. See also mores cockaigne (It. cuccagna): festive popular event, xxx, xlix, 189–2, 191–2 (figures) Colonna, Palazzo (Rome): artworks in, 160–3 Colosseum (Rome), 79, 108, 139, 180, 188, 269n18, 339n43, 340, 345, 393, 427–8; description and history, 176–7; despoilment of, lvii, 177, 177n28, 586; spectacles at, lxiii–lxxiv, 79, 135, 177 colouration (Fr. coloris and It. colore; principle of painting): concept, xlviii, xlix; notable instances, 121, 145, 175, 184, 209, 232, 237, 240, 242, 369, 463n85, 479, 531n104. See also disposition; drawing; invention Constantinople (city), 26n56, 224, 291n63, 394n28, 454n64, 505n55, 534n111, 535, 535n115; fall of, xiv–xv, lii, 394, 397, 401, 487, 617, 617n71 Crypta Neapolitana (or Grotta di Posillipo, Campania), xx, lvii, 211, 238, 240, 277n39, 281, 282n44, 400–1; described, 260–1, 260n3, 262 (figure) Cumae (ancient city), lix, 203, 267, 274, 277nn38–9, 342n54, 395, 399–400, 492; ruins, 270–2 Cyprus (island): minerals of, 413n83, 454n64 Dauphiné (region), 4–5, 4n3, 6n6, 405, 610, 610n56 Decor puellarum (early printed book), 95, 95n84, 391 disposition (principle of painting), xlviii. See also colouration; drawing; invention

706

Subject Index

Doria, Palazzo: artworks in, 156–7 drawing (Fr. dessin and Ital. disegno; principle of painting), xlviii–l; notable examples, 50, 56, 76, 81, 85, 90, 94, 98, 121, 232, 241–4, 296, 298, 320, 363, 366, 369, 463n85, 591, 617. See also colouration; disposition; invention Duomo, Il, or Cathedral of Florence (officially Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore), 95, 456, 464–5, 477, 615–17; described, 19, 479–80 École des filles, L’ (anon.): libertine novel, lxviii Egypt: conquest of, 179–80; granite and marble from, 60–2, 67, 83, 94, 100, 108, 121, 186, 454n64, 456n70; monuments and art, lvii, 59, 86, 105, 121, 127, 154, 182, 244, 407–11, 422, 499–500, 500nn36 and 39, 532–3, 537, 623, 647, 647n145; religion, lxiv, 86, 121, 154–5, 180–1, 244, 407, 430, 532–3, 624; translation of empire, lii–liii, 587; travel to, 111, 408, 408nn64 and 67, 409–11. See also hieroglyphs; obelisks English, the: common sensibleness of, 450n51; regard for religion, 72, 200; splenetic, 601, 601n33; taste in gardens, 22; taste for horror, lxxxiii, 90; as tourists, 211, 592–3 entertainments (balls, dancing, gambling, races): in Florence, 39, 42, 467, 481n117, 589, 592n19; in Naples, 194–200, 202 Este, Villa d’ or Villa Estense (Tivoli), 183–5, 183n41, 184n44 Etruscans: art, xl (figure), 81, 241–2, 244, 532, 591–2, 599, 619, 623–4; history and origins, 15, 52, 101, 114n124, 164–5, 313, 355, 429–31, 461n84, 473, 546, 550, 552, 610, 613, 621–4; language and letters, 492, 492n16, 622, 624n86 experiments and experimentation, xli–xliii, xlii (figures), lxx–lxxi, 14, 34, 178, 233, 263–5, 263n7, 279, 279n41, 462n84, 465n92 expression: aesthetic value, xlix, l, liv; notable instances, lxiii, 65, 78, 81, 89–90, 109, 114, 143, 166, 241, 458, 478, 485, 524. See also interest; sentiment

Farnese, House of, 11, 11n16, 12n19, 47, 53n12, 177n28, 240–3, 413, 413n81 Farnese, Palazzo (Rome): building of, 73, 177, 177n28, 184, 241n112, 394, 396, 486, 642, 646 Farnese, Teatro (Parma), 12, 12n20 Farnese, Villa (Caprarola), 12n17, 496n24 Farnese Gardens (Rome): ancient ruins and sculptures, lvi, 139–40, 257 Fescennine Verses, lxviii, 335, 335n83. See also satire Fiesole (town), 15, 413, 449, 475, 613, 618, 622, 625; Etruscan origins, 473, 610; history, 15, 431, 611 Filomarino, Palazzo (Naples): paintings in, 239–40 flagellation: erotic, xvii–xviii, lxxii–lxxiii; religious, xxvi, 200, 227; school punishment, 297 Florence: currency, 482–3; entertainments, 39, 42, 467, 481n117, 589, 592n19; fountains, 25, 458, 466, 470n100, 477–8, 615, 642; gardens (Boboli, etc.), 20–2, 22nn47–8, 34, 475, 613, 642; geographical situation and layout, 16–18, 17 (figure), 34, 430, 437–9, 447–56, 474–6; history, 15, 429–47, 473, 610–15, 618–21, 624–7; military forces in, 42–4; mores, xxix–xxx, xxxiv–xxxvi, 23–4, 34–5, 39–42, 430, 620–1; name of, 15, 447–8, 472, 611; noble families, 44–6, 92–3; notes on, 398, 401, 472–83, 615–18, 627–31; palaces and other secular architecture, 20–34, 46, 474; piazze, 456–72, 477–80; Sade’s itinerary and stay, xix–xx; theatre and opera, 35–8. See also Florence, churches and basilicas, and names of particular sites Florence, churches and basilicas, 17–20, 480; Annunziata, Basilica della Santissima (church and piazza), 20, 422, 465, 480, 617, 619; San Giovanni, 437, 451; San Lorenzo, Basilica di, 18–19, 619, 625, 625n88; San Marco, 20, 34, 34n69, 440, 619, 625, 628, 630; Santa Croce, Basilica di, 20, 437, 451, 467, 481n117, 619–20, 628n95, 630, 630n99; Santa Maddalena dei Pazzi, 20; Santa Maria Novella, 20, 437, 451, 467,

Subject Index 481n117, 617, 619–20, 628, 630; Santa Trinità, 455n66, 615, 646; Santo Spirito, Basilica di, 20. See also Duomo, Il, or Cathedral of Florence Foligno (town), 363–4 fountains: ancient, 80, 80n59, 290, 422; of Loreto, 368; mechanical, 166, 166n8, 176, 184, 184n49; miraculous, 70, 115; of Narni, 357; of Naples, 253; of Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, 166; of Villa Conti, Frascati, 166–7; of Villa d’Este, Tivoli, 184, 184n49. See also Florence, fountains; Rome, fountains Frangipani family, 107n115; political conflicts of, 107, 107n114, 371, 391; ruined castle of, 352 Frascati (town), 146, 426; described, 164–7, 164n3; villas, 165–7 Gaeta (town), 336, 416 described, 188, 346–9; mummy of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, 348, 348n71 gardens: ancient, lxxv, 108, 108n116, 127, 155, 203, 283, 395, 419, 490–1, 491n12, 537, 646, 647; of Frascati and vicinity, 165–7; of Naples and vicinity, 248, 257, 258–9, 288–9, 315; Sade’s views on, 257; of the Villa d’Este (Tivoli), 184, 184n49. See also Florence, gardens; Rome, gardens Genoa (city), xvii, 11, 201, 442; restoration of the Republic, 445–6, 445–6n40 geology and geological phenomena: collection of curiosities, xx, xxxix, 35, 178, 599–600, 610; growth of field, xli–xliii; interesting examples, xli–xliii, 177–8, 178–9n30, 261–4, 308–9, 313, 359, 428; minerology, 413, 413n83, 454–5n64, 455nn67 and 70; volcanoes and volcanology, xli, xliii–xlv, 14–15, 211, 211n35, 264–8, 280, 280n42, 285, 323, 412, 412n79, 596–7, 599–601. See also cabinets of curiosities; Vesuvius Ghibellines (political faction), 51n6, 371, 413; conflict with Guelphs, 430–1, 445, 474, 611, 625 Giulia, Villa (Rome), 58–9, 58n24 Giustiniani, Palazzo (Rome), xxxv, 370; artworks in, 157–60 Gobelins, Manufacture des (tapestry workshop, Paris), 248, 248n129

707

Gothic art and architecture: church architecture, 100, 113–15, 125, 127, 229–34, 495; distaste for, liii, 16, 19, 79–80, 102, 119, 129, 207, 215, 223–5, 321, 475; praise of, 251, 488–9, 612; various examples, 11, 16, 61, 86, 119, 123, 173, 222–3, 225, 351, 361, 363–4, 366, 451, 458, 478 Gothic fiction, 243n116; influence on Sade, lxxxiii–lxxxiv grand tour, xiv–xv, xx, xli, xlvii–xlviii, lviii, lx, lxxxii Grotta del Cane (“Grotto of the Dog,” Campania), lxxii, lxxxiv, 599; experiments at, xli–xliii, xlii (figures), 263n7; Sade’s visit to, xliii, 263–4 Grotta di Posillipo. See Crypta Neapolitana Guelphs (political faction), 413; conflict with Ghibellines, 430–1, 445, 474, 611, 625 Hadrian, Mausoleum of. See Castel Sant’Angelo Hadrian’s Villa or Villa Adriana (Tivoli): described, 179–82, 179n33 Herculaneum, xxxv, xliv, 204n28, 306, 401, 596; artefacts in royal palace at Portici, 286–8; museum, 290–9; rediscovery and excavation, xx, lx–lxiv, lxix, 140, 299–300, 402, 599 Hermaphrodite sculptures: in Florence, 31, 32 (figure), 421; in Rome, 66, 143, 160 hieroglyphs, 96, 127, 409, 410n71, 500, 500n36, 647; study of and interest in, 59, 59n26, 407–8, 410, 623. See also Egypt; obelisks Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier de Chartreux (anon.): libertine novel, lxxvi interest (fr. intérêt; aesthetic value), liv–lv, lxxviii, lxxxi, 112–13, 131, 175. See also expression; sentiment Invalides, Les (veterans hospital and home, Paris), 488 invention (principle of painting), xlviii. See also colouration; disposition; drawing Ischia (island), xli, 203, 271, 399, 402, 426; described, 283–4

708

Subject Index

Jerusalem, 217n53, 291, 370; artistic representations, 176, 222; pilgrimages to, 327; relics and other objects from, 74–6, 123, 138, 370n117, 411, 411–12n76, 586; siege of, 77, 138–9, 396, 396–7n34, 586; tomb of Jesus in, 106; translation of Santa Casa of Loreto from, xxvi, 367, 412; traveller’s account of, 411–12, 411nn74 and 76 Jesuits (Society of Jesus): churches and commissions of, 50, 64, 88–9, 119n142, 229, 391; criticism, xiii, xxiv, 88, 461, 630; founding, 89, 89n74, 544; intellectual output and scholarship, xxiv, li, 36n73, 60, 412, 522n82; suppression, 170, 170n19, 384, 384n8, 602n38, 649 Jews, 26, 75, 276, 291n63, 411, 411n73, 461n83, 536, 623; in Livorno, 44, 631; in ancient Rome, 129, 176–7, 430, 549; Catholic restrictions on, 440, 573; Jubilee, 139; representations, l, 92, 159 Jubilee, xxvi, 54, 82, 508–9, 508–9n56, 513, 519n79, 528n101, 530n102, 537; Jewish, 139 La Coste (Sade’s chateau in Provence), xx, 372, 377, 398–9, 601, 624, 631, 634, 638; holdings of library, xlv, 219n56, 443n34, 612n60; refuge, xvi, xvii, lxxviii Laocöon (sculptural group, Rome), l, 534, 534n109 Lateran Palace (Rome), 122, 122n143, 126–7, 391 Leghorn (Livorno), 27, 43, 43n84, 46, 429, 436, 447n45, 448–9, 474–5, 483, 610, 613, 631n104, 627, 642; described, 44, 631 libertinism: ancients and, lxiii–lxix, lxxvii–lxxviii, 278, 316–18n116, 531, 620; interesting examples, 66, 193, 317–18, 569; lifestyle and philosophy, xvii–xviii; literature of, xxvii, xvii, liv, lxviii–lxix, lxxii–lxxiii, lxxvi, 77–8n57, 96n87; as sexual commerce, xxvi, xxxi–xxxiii, 201–2, 508–9n56 libraries, 21n46, 33n67, 79, 215, 215n48, 412, 415, 622n83; Casanatense, 95–6; Magliabechiana, 33n68, 464, 464n89; Marucelliana, 33, 33n68; Medicea Laurenziana or

Laurentian Library, Florence, 18–19, 33, 629; Palatina Lorense, 33, 33n68, 629; underuse of, 23, 49–50, 193n9, 401; various others, 22, 24–5, 50, 76, 167, 185, 210, 245; Vatican, xx, 389n12, 394, 573 Livorno. See Leghorn Loreto (town), xx, 359, 453n60; Basilica della Santa Casa and its treasury, 366–70, 441; described, 366, 368–9; fountain, 368; Santa Casa or Holy House, xxvi, 116, 116n129, 366–71, 399, 399n39, 412, 609 Lucca (city and republic of), 429–30, 436, 448–9, 474–5, 538, 613, 642 Ludovisi, Villa (Rome), lxxiii, 127; described, 108–11, 108n116; gardens, 110, 395; mummy of, 110, 110–11n121 mannerism: poetic, 227n79; in the visual arts, xlix–l, 62–3, 92, 114, 155, 206, 230, 486, 497n26 Mantua (city), 433, 538, 538n125, 543, 632; birthplace of Virgil, 212n37 Marino (town), 167–8 marriage customs in Florence, 23–4, 40–2, 40n82 Marseilles (city), 610, 614, 637, 643; clerical misbehaviour in, xxxvii, 61; scandalous affair in, xvi–xvii, xviii, xxxvii, lxxxvi, 482n119 martyrs and martyrdom, 12, 61, 91, 97, 118, 137, 150, 517, 572; meaning of term, 64, 64n31; relics, 72, 113, 118, 173, 349–50, 350n72, 517; representations, xlix, lv, lxxiii, 56, 72, 80–1, 84, 98, 112–13, 117–19, 119n142, 120 (figure), 124, 128, 153, 162, 167–8, 176, 223, 226, 232, 237, 395; tales of, 12n18, 72, 80–1, 84, 93, 112, 135, 135n176, 301n87, 350n72 Mattei, Villa (Rome): described, 119–21 Medici, Villa (Rome), 20n40, 394, 398, 482; described, 85–8 Medici Gallery. See Uffizi Milan (city), lii, 26, 237, 297, 436 Miseno, Cape, 270, 275nn34–5, 277nn38–9, 284, 347, 399–400, 417, 420, 424–5; headland, 272–3, 283; ruins of ancient Misenum, 273–4

Subject Index Modena (city), xix, xxxix, 183–4, 412, 441; described, 13 Montecitorio, Palazzo (Palace of Justice, Rome), 88 Montepulciano (town, Tuscany), 51, 429 Montesfiascone (town; Lazio): described, 52; renowned wine of, 51–2n9 mores (Fr. mœurs), xxxii–xxxiii, lii, 3–4, 10, 276, 320, 345n69, 382–3, 398–9, 403, 405, 466–7, 484; ancient, lxxiii–lxxiv, 177, 318–19, 624; concept, xxviii–xxx, xxxii– xxxiii, cvii–cviii; Italian, xxix–xxx, 385; Florentine, xxxiv–xxxv, 23–4, 34–5, 39–42, 430, 440n30, 474, 620–1; modern, lxxiv, 79; Neapolitan, xxxii, 189–202, 217, 286, 308; Roman, 411 Naples (city): ancient sites, 211, 228; churches, 205–210, 212–35; described, 187–254; fountains, 253; layout, 202–5; military structures and fortifications, 210–11, 218, 250–3; mores, xxxii, 189–202, 217, 286, 308; notes on, 389–90, 398, 401–2; palaces and villas, 236–50. See also Naples, churches and basilicas. and names of particular sites Naples, churches and basilicas: Ascensione, 214; San Domenico Maggiore, 210; San Filippo Neri, known as Chiesa dei Girolamini, 215–17; San Gennaro, Cathedral of, or Duomo di Napoli, 205–6, 229–35, 389–90, 596–7; San Giovanni a Carbonara, 224–6; San Giovanni Maggiore, 228; San Paolo Maggiore, Basilica di, 227–8; Santa Chiara, 222–4; Santa Maria del Carmine, 217–19; Santa Maria del Parto a Merginella, 212; Santa Maria della Sanità, Basilica di, 207; Santa Maria Donnaregina, 229; Santa Maria Donnaromita, 228; Sant’Anna dei Lombardi, also known as Santa Maria di Monteoliveto, 214–15, 214n44; Santa Teresa, 206–7; Santi Apostoli, 226–7; Santissima Annunziata Maggiore, 220–1 Narni (town), 359; described, 356–8; fountain, 357 natural history cabinets. See cabinets of curiosities Negroni, Villa (Rome): described, 91

709

Nisida, Isle of (Campania), 266, 274, 284n50, 389, 401; described, 284–5, 285n52 Normans (in southern Italy), 210, 250, 325n8, 326–31, 336–7, 606, 606n49 obelisks, lvii, 408–11, 454n64; Obelisco Mediceo, now Boboli: 86; in Rome: Piazza della Minerva, 96; Piazza Montecitorio, 59, 59n25; Piazza del Popolo, 56, 104, 127, 406, 645; Piazza della Rotonda, 98; Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, 104, 127, 500nn39 and 43, 645; Piazza San Pietro, 422, 487, 497–502, 537, 609, 647, 647n145; various others elsewhere: 83, 119, 127, 132. See also Egypt; hieroglyphs Padua, ancient Patavium (city), 357, 357n88, 460n81; foundation, 545, 545n150 Paestum or Poseidonia (ancient Greek city in Campania), 306–7; described, 308–12; rediscovery, xx, lix–lx, lxi (figure), 312, 312n105, colour plate 6 Palazzo Pontifico sul Quirinale (Palace of the Pope on Monte Cavallo, Rome): described, 173–6, 173n27 Palazzo Reale di Napoli (Royal Palace of Naples), 398; described, 246–50 Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), 21n46, 27, 45, 396, 396n33, 434n14, 456, 463–4, 467, 476, 617, 636, 638, 641; described, 25–6 Pamphili, Villa (Rome): described, 65–6 Pantheon (Rome), lix, 73, 124, 137–8, 172, 181, 185, 268, 455n68, 516; described, 96–8; despoilment of, 97, 97n89, 514, 586; status of (church or temple), 484 Paris (city), xlviii, cvii, 4n3, 20, 37n75, 54n16, 196n14, 248n129, 363n102, 457n73, 498n26, 614n64, 637, 645n133, 648; point of comparison, 21, 49, 167, 200, 203–5, 236, 290, 452, 467, 476, 481n117, 482–3, 509, 595, 512n63, 614; policing of, xxx–xxxii, 205, 205n29; Sade’s exploits and misadventures in, xv– xvi, xx, xiv, xxxi–xxxii Parma (city and duchy), xix, 136, 241, 414, 441; city described, 12–13; duchy, 11–12 Pazzi conspiracy, 527–8n101, 625–6, 625n90

710

Subject Index

phallic cults and objects, lxiv–lxvi, lxv (figure), 31–3, 223, 242, 242n113, 290, 624 philosophes and philosophy: party and views, xxiv–xxxi, xxxvi–xxxviii, lvi–lvii, lxxiii– lxxiv; relation to libertinism, lxix–lxxii; Sade’s invocations and evocations of, 116, 141, 200, 209–210, 235, 243, 249, 282, 382–8, 395, 397n35, 405, 444, 454n64, 462n84, 504n55, 514n68, 525–6n95, 545–9; various other invocations of, 593, 599, 639. See also Christianity, criticisms of Piacenza (town), xix, 241, 413–14, 441–2, 447; described, 11–12 picaresque (literary genre), xiv, lxxxii–lxxxiii picturesque (aesthetic category): development of, xlv, xlvii, lv–lvi; invocations of, 6, 8, 14, 22, 112, 183–4, 188, 256, 264, 313, 355, 358, 360, 531n104. See also beautiful; sublime Pietramala (village): volcano at, xli, 14–15, 412 Pisa (city), 43n84, 44, 123, 123n145, 429–30, 433, 436, 447n45, 448, 456, 458n76, 474, 480, 527n101, 533, 626–7, 629, 635 Pistoia (city), 40n82, 44, 353, 429–0, 436, 448–9, 474–5, 613, 643 Pitti, Palazzo (Florence), 25, 33n68, 34, 86, 396n33, 448, 456, 463, 467, 474, 476, 616, 619, 629, 638n120, 642n127; described, 20–2, 398, 482, 641–3 police and policing, 405; development of, xv, xvii, xxx–xxxiii, 205n29; in Florence, 16, 40, 43, 48; historically, 416, 433, 438, 550–1, 559–60, 610, 622; in Naples, 190–1, 202, 204; in Paris, xxx–xxxii, 205, 205n29; various observations on, 4, 117, 205, 308, 312–13, 319–20, 449, 465–6n93, 595 Pompeii (ancient Roman city), xliv, lvi, 214, 240, 260, 268, 289n60, 297n77, 308, 322, 322n122, 349, 422; discovery and excavation of, xx, lx–lxiii, lxix, 140; objects found in, 291, 293, 295, 297–8; site described, 300–7. See also Portici, museum; Vesuvius population: depopulation, xxxi, 11, 356, 382, 385, 387, 609; concern for and management of, xxviii, xxx–xxxiii, lxx, lxxvi, 201, 506n55, 581

Portici (town), lx, 198, 203, 220, 242, 258, 260, 286, 300; museum, lxii–lxiv, lxix, 277n39, 289–99, 400, 599; palace, lxii, lxii– lxiv, 286–9, 599 Posillipo (locale), 203, 253, 285–6. See also Crypta Neapolitana postures, sexual: ancient, described, lxix, 295–6, 316, 316–318n116, 317 (figure), 606; modern, described, lxix, 96n87, 296 Pozzuoli (town), xli, 203, 211n35, 232, 260–1, 264, 277, 279, 280n42, 282–3, 295, 347, 401, 416, 416n94, 418, 420–2, 427; ancient city of Puteoli and its ruins, 211, 256, 265nn10–11, 266–70, 298; notes on, 277n38, 398–401 Priapus and priapic worship. See phallic cults and objects Procida, Island of (Campania), 203, 274, 283, 399, 401 prostitution and prostitutes: ancient, lxxix, 79, 130–2, 134, 297, 297n77, 304, 424; in Florence, xxxiii, xxxiv, 40, 467; in Naples, xxxii, 201; regulation of, xxx–xxxiii, xxxvi, lxx, 528n101, 573; remarkable anecdotes about, 250, 250n133, 521–2n82; violence against, xv–xvi, xviii, 40 Puttana errante, La (anon.): libertine novel, 96n87 Radicofani (village, fortress of), 52 Riccardi, Palazzo (Florence), 432n5, 434n14, 627; described, 22 Rome (city): ancient sites, 134–5, 137–43; described, 53–163, 484–581; fountains, 65, 68, 73, 73n48, 80, 91, 98, 112, 115, 133, 139, 176, 393, 422, 499, 499n33, 534, 647; gardens (modern Rome and vicinity), Villas Giulia, Ludovisi, Negroni, Pamphili, etc.), lvi, 58–9, 65–6, 76, 91, 100, 110–11, 119, 138–40, 144, 163, 168–9, 174, 176, 389n12, 393, 395, 419, 490, 534; history (from Vertot), 545–64; mores, 411; notes on, 389–98, 484, 486–7, 569–81, 645–9; palaces and villas, 85–8, 108–11, 119–21, 143–63, 484–6, 564–6; Sade’s visit, xx, lvii. See also Rome, basilicas and churches, and names of particular sites

Subject Index Rome, basilicas and churches, 56–85, 88–102, 105–8, 112–19, 121–3, 135, 137–8; Gesù (Chiesa del Santissimo Nome di Gesù all’Argentina), 488; San Bartolomeo all’Isola, 128; San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 527n99; San Carlo ai Catinari, 133; San Clemente al Laterano, 127–8, 173; San Crisogno, 112, 115; San Francisco a Ripa, 114; San Giorgio in Velabro, 107–8; San Giovanni Calibita, 129; San Giovanni Decollato, 98–9; San Giovanni in Laterano, Basilica di, 121–7, 137, 164, 176, 411, 490, 500n39, 508n56; San Girolamo della Carità, 530; San Gregorio, 116–17; San Lorenzo, lxxvii, 173, 206; San Lorenzo in Miranda, lxxvii, 137; San Luigi dei Francesi, xlix, 85, 394, 647; San Nicola dei Lorenesi, 129; San Paolo fuori le Mura, 60–1, 172, 508n56; San Pietro in Vincoli, 77–8; San Romualdo, 84, 394; San Sebastiano, 173, 206; Santa Bibiena, 72; Santa Cecilia, 112–13; Santa Constanza, 125; Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Basilica di, li, 74–6, 82, 82n63; Sant’Adriano, 137; Santa Francesca Romana, 138–9; Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, 61, 531; Sant’Agnese in Piazza Navona, 130–2, 182, 486; Sant’Agostino, 105; Sant’Alessio, 99–100; Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, Basilica di (including charterhouse), 63–4, 73, 91; Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, lxxxiii, 89–90; Santa Maria della Consolazione, 142; Santa Maria dell’Anima, 129; Santa Maria della Pace, 129–30; Santa Maria della Vittoria, l, 62–3; Santa Maria dell’Orto, 113; Santa Maria del Popolo, 56–8; Santa Maria del Priorato, lvi, 100; Santa Maria Egiziaca, 106–7; Santa Maria in Aracoeli, 94; Santa Maria in Cosmedin, 102; Santa Maria in Trastevere, 114–15; Santa Maria in Vallicella, 133; Santa Maria Liberatrice, 141–2; Santa Maria Maggiore, Basilica di, 81–3, 86, 138, 143, 214, 480n117, 508n56; Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 94–5, 391; Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, 64; Sant’Andrea delle Frate, 84, 93; Sant’Andrea delle Valle, 92–4, 391; Santa Prassede all’Esquillino,

711

Basilica di, 80–1, 393; Santa Sabina, 99, 484; San Teodoro, 141; Sant’Eusebio all’Esquillino, liv, 69, 71; Santi Cosmi e Damiano, 137–8; Santi Dodici Apostoli, 84; Santi Giovanni e Paolo, 118; Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, 88–9, 89n74; Santi Luca e Martina, 135–6; Sant’Isidoro, 90–1; Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, 105n110; Sant’Onofrio, 115–16; Santo Stefano al Monte Celio, xlix, 118–19; Trinità dei Monti, l, 92, 94, 391, 537. See also Saint Peter’ Basilica Ronciglione (town): described, 53 ruins: aesthetic and philosophical contemplation of, xv, lv–lvii, lxxiii, lxxvii, lxxxiii, 69, 77, 79, 92, 100, 140–1, 168, 228, 276, 279, 281, 283, 307, 312, 339, 353, 586 sacrifices and sacrificial implements (pagan), 295–8, 317n116, 414, 485, 552, 623; depicted, lxiv, 107–8, 143–4, 155, 155n206, 173, 281, 547; implements, 27, 140–1, 181–2, 239, 267–8, 290, 302, 303; origins, 622 Saint Paul’s Cathedral (London): point of comparison, lii, 591 Saint Peter’s Basilica (Rome), l, lxxv, cvii, 53, 64–5, 92, 94, 97, 121, 163, 174, 176, 178, 187, 241, 241n10, 350n72, 363, 365n109, 389n12, 405, 408, 486, 537, 544, 586–7, 591, 608–9, 647, 647n146; described, 54, 487–90, 498–531; history, 490–8; illustration, 55 (figure); impact, li–lii, 487–90, 497n25, 503, 510–11, 515 Salerno (city), 280; described, 307–8 San Severino or Sanseverino, Palazzo (also Palazzo Filomarino, Naples), 237–8, 294 sentiment and sentimentality: aesthetic and social value, liii–lvii, lxxiv, lxxxiii; Sade’s invocations of, xxxiii, xliii, lxxii, lxxix, lxxxi. See also expression; interest Sessa Aurunca (town), 188; ruins of Suessa, 342–5 Siena (city), xx, 45–6, 53n13, 297, 454, 458, 615n67, 636, 641–2; described, 49–50; purity of language, 49, 481 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits

712

Subject Index

sodomy and sodomites, xxxv–xxxvi, lxxiv, 15n29, 514n68, 639; antiquity and, xxxv, lxiii, lxvii–lxviii, 532; casuistic distinction concerning, 639, 639–40n121; as clerical penchant, xxxiv, xxxvi–xxxviii, 386–8, 518n78; as Florentine proclivity, xxxiv, lxxvii, 25n53, 39–40, 439–40, 440n30, 637, 639; Italian reputation for, xxxiii–xxviii, 528n101; and libertinism, xviii, lxxii; and the papacy, xxvii, lxxvi, lxxix, 392, 392n21, 520–1n82, 528–9n101; philosophical attitudes to, xxxvii–xxxviii, xxxix, lxx, 387, 514n68; Sade’s biography, xv, xvi–xvii, xxxvii–xxxviii; and sexual commerce, xxxii, 201 Solfatara (volcano), xli, 211, 260; described, 264–6; impact, 267–8, 283 Spada, Palazzo (Rome), 93, 93n81, 416; artworks in, 484–6 spectacles of ancient Rome: chariot races, lvii, 103–4, 140–1, 416, 422; gladiatorial, xlix, lxxiii–lxxiv, lxxxi, 109, 169, 176–7, 269, 355, 355n83, 416–17, 420, 422, 423n121, 462n84; naumachiae, 12, 50, 79, 180, 182, 188, 340, 406, 416, 424, 646 Spoleto (town), 426–7, 441; described, 360–2, 364 Stabiae (ancient Roman town), xliv, 300; destruction, 322, 322n122; excavations, lx, lxii–lxiii, 322, 322n123 Strozzi (Florentine family), 45, 451, 577, 611, 625, 634; chapel of, 92, 391; palazzo of, 22, 474 sublime (aesthetic category): development of, xlv–xlvi, xlix, lv; informative instances and invocations of, 27, 29, 31, 54, 62, 64, 81, 89, 112, 121, 134, 159, 190, 209, 279, 315, 334, 458, 503, 515; violence and sublimity, lxxiv–lxxv. See also beautiful; picturesque Suda (lexicon and encyclopedia formerly attributed to “Suidas”), 535 surgery: study of, xxxix, lxx–lxxi, 24, 462; surgeon’s house, 304. See also anatomy taste (aesthetic concept), xlvi–xlvii, liv Terni (town), 374, 427; described, 360; waterfalls at, xx, 358–60, 359n93, 428

Terracina (town), 352, 374, 426; cathedral of, 349–51, 350n17; described, 187–8, 351 theatre (opera buffa, opera seria, etc.), 11; in Florence, 35–8; in Naples, 196–7 Tivoli (town), xxii, xli, 103, 130, 145, 177, 412, 417, 417n102; described, 182–6; floating islands near, 178, 178–9n30; origin, 182, 182nn35–6; waterfalls at, xx, 182–3, 393 travel writing: as a genre, lxxxii–lxxxiii; excerpts and notes from, 406–12; Italian guide books, xxi–xxiii; Sade on, lviii, lix, cvii, 9, 21–2, 59–60, 205, 281, 309, 320, 324, 336, 338, 345n69, 399, 405, 464n91, 471–2, 481n117 Turin (city), xvii, xx, xxxviii, 7–8, 372, 375; characterization of, xviii–xix; described, 9–10, 10nn12–13 Uffizi, Galeria degli (Florence), 25, 421, 480–1n117, 629; described, 27–33, 463–5, 479; fire, 466, 466n94, 477, 615 Vasari Corridor (It. Corridoio Vasariano, Florence), 21n46, 25, 463, 463n88, 476 Vatican (Rome), xxviii, l, lxxix, 54, 65, 171–2, 245, 383n5, 389n12, 394, 405, 454, 486, 496, 498, 501, 529; archives, lxxvi, 521n82, 528n101; described, 644, 647–9; history, 490–4; museum, 316, 531–4; notes on, 531–7. See also Saint Peter’s Basilica Velletri (town), 187, 402, 557, 572; described, 352–3; Suetonius on, 414, 418 Venafro, ancient Venafrum (town), lviii, 336n33, 345 venereal disease, 527n101; Naples and, 201, 201n21 Venice (city and republic), xvii, xix, xxiii, xlviii, 49n2, 51n7, 62, 95, 384, 387, 434–5, 436n16, 462n84, 463, 480n117, 508n56, 529n101, 530n104 Vénus dans le cloître (anon.): libertine novel, xviii, lxviii, lxxvi verisimilitude (Fr. vraisemblance; truthfulness, probability): application to visual arts, l, 87, 89, 92, 121, 136, 137, 532; dramatic principle, l, lviii; principle of historical

Subject Index explanation, including notable instances, lviii–lix, lxxix, 59, 73, 101–2, 260, 272, 281–2, 292, 315, 394n28, 493n18, 506n55, 519–20n80, 523–4n89, 529n101, 539, 545 Versailles, Palace of, 9; artwork in, 462n84, 498n26, 646; point of comparison, 256, 643 Vestal Virgins, 100n99, 392; history, 391n17, 417, 549, 551; punishment of, xxx, 111–12, 111n122, 143, 395, 549n157, 646, 646– 7n143; mother of Romulus and Remus and, 546; representations, 143, 160, 183, 288, 295 Vesuvius (volcano, Naples), 203, 254, 260, 300, 314, 321, 322n125, 340, 389, 596, 600–2, 601n31; accounts of, xliv–xlv, 322–3; eruptions of and damage caused by, lx, 15, 204, 204n28, 274, 286–7, 295, 428, 428n156, 601; literary evocations, lxxxiii–lxxxiv, lxxxvi (figure); sublimity of, xliv–xlvi, 207, colour plate 3; tourist attraction, xx, xliii–xliv. See

713

also geology and geological phenomena, volcanoes and volcanology Vicaria. See Castel Capuano Volterra (town), 44, 618, 622, 622n83; alabaster from, 109, 429, 455n67 Voyage en France et aux Îles de l’Archipel (anon.): travel guide, xxi, 357–60, 357– 8n91, 366, 452, 452n58 women: ancient Roman customs and, 396, 417, 547–8; beautiful, 38–9, 321; Florentine, 23–4, 40–3, 464–5; gallant Cypriot, 413n83; model types in Sade’s writings, lxxviii–lxxxii; modern Roman, 423, 578–9; Neapolitan, 195, 199–202; peasant, 53; wicked, lxxix–lxxxi. See also particular archetypes and exemplars in the name index, e.g., Agrippina, Julia and Vipsania; Joanna I of Naples; Medici, Maria de’; Matilda of Tuscany, Messalina

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THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY General Editors: Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella Pellegrino Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (2003). Translated by Murtha Baca and Stephen Sartarelli. Introduction by Luigi Ballerini. Foreword by Michele Scicolone. Lauro Martines, An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context (2004). Translated by Murtha Baca. Aretino’s Dialogues (2005). Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Introduction by Margaret Rosenthal. Aldo Palazzeschi, A Tournament of Misfits: Tall Tales and Short (2005). Translated by Nicolas J. Perella. Carlo Cattaneo, Civilization and Democracy: The Salvemini Anthology of Cattaneo’s Writings (2006). Edited and introduced by Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti. ­Translated by David Gibbons. Benedetto Croce, Breviary of Aesthetics: Four Lectures (2007). Translated by Hiroko Fudemoto. Introduction by Remo Bodei. Antonio Pigafetta, The First Voyage around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan’s Expedition (2007). Edited and introduced by Theodore J. Cachey Jr. Raffaello Borghini, Il Riposo (2008). Edited and translated by Lloyd H. Ellis Jr. Paolo Mantegazza, The Physiology of Love and Other Writings (2008). Edited with an introduction and notes by Nicoletta Pireddu. Translated by David Jacobson. Renaissance Comedy: The Italian Masters, Volume 2 (2008). Edited with an introduction by Donald Beecher. Renaissance Comedy: The Italian Masters, Volume 1 (2008). Edited with an introduction by Donald Beecher. Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings (2008). Edited by Aaron Thomas. Translated by Aaron Thomas and Jeremy Parzen. Foreword by Bryan Stevenson. Introduction by Alberto Burgio. Leone Ebreo, Dialogues of Love (2009). Edited by Rossella Pescatori. Translated by Cosmos Damian Bacich and Rossella Pescatori. Boccaccio’s Expositions on Dante’s Comedy (2009). Translated by Michael Papio. My Muse Will Have a Story to Paint: Selected Prose of Ludovico Ariosto (2010). ­Translated with an introduction by Dennis Looney. The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570): L’arte et prudenza d’un maestro cuoco (The Art and Craft of a Master Cook) (2011). Translated with commentary by Terence Scully. Pirandello’s Theatre of Living Masks: New Translations of Six Major Plays (2011). Translated by Umberto Mariani and Alice Gladstone Mariani. From Kant to Croce: Modern Philosophy in Italy, 1800–1950 (2012). Edited and translated with an introduction by Brian Copenhaver and Rebecca Copenhaver. Giovan Francesco Straparola, The Pleasant Nights, Volume 2 (2012). Edited with an introduction by Donald Beecher. Giovan Francesco Straparola, The Pleasant Nights, Volume 1 (2012). Edited with an introduction by Donald Beecher. Giovanni Botero, On the Causes of the Greatness and Magnificence of Cities (2012). Translated with an introduction by Geoffrey Symcox.

John Florio, A Worlde of Wordes (2013). A critical edition with an introduction by ­Hermann W. Haller. Giordano Bruno, On the Heroic Frenzies (2013). A translation of De gli eroici furori by Ingrid D. Rowland. Edited by Eugenio Canone. Alvise Cornaro, Writings on the Sober Life: The Art and Grace of Living Long (2014). Translated by Hiroko Fudemoto. Introduction by Marisa Milani. Foreword by Greg Critser. Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the Vita Nuova (1283–1292) (2014). Edited with a general introduction and introductory essays by ­Teodolinda Barolini. With new verse translations by Richard Lansing. Commentary translated into English by Andrew Frisardi. Vincenzo Cuoco, Historical Essay on the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799 (2014). Edited and introduced by Bruce Haddock and Filippo Sabetti. Translated by David Gibbons. Vittore Branca, Merchant Writers: Florentine Memoirs from the Middle Ages and ­Renaissance (2015). Translated by Murtha Baca. Carlo Goldoni, Five Comedies (2016). Edited by Gianluca Rizzo and Michael Hackett, with Brittany Asaro. With an introduction by Michael Hackett and an essay by Cesare de Michelis. Those Who from Afar Look like Flies: An Anthology of Italian Poetry from Pasolini to the Present (2016). Edited by Luigi Ballerini and Beppe Cavatorta. Foreword by Marjorie Perloff. Guittone d’Arezzo, Selected Poems and Prose (2017). Selected and translated with an introduction by Antonello Borra. Giordano Bruno, The Ash Wednesday Supper (2018). A new translation of La cena de le ceneri with the Italian text annotated and introduced by Hilary Gatti. Giacomo da Lentini, The Complete Poetry (2018). Translated and annotated by Richard Lansing. Introduction by Akash Kumar. Remo Bodei, Geometry of the Passions: Fear, Hope, Happiness: Philosophy and ­Political Use (2018). Translated by Gianpiero W. Doebler. Scipio Sighele, The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society (2018). Edited with an introduction and notes by Nicoletta Pireddu. Translated by Nicoletta Pireddu and Andrew Robbins. With a foreword by Tom Huhn. Gasparo Contarini, The Republic of Venice: De magistratibus et republica Venetorum (2020). Edited and introduced by Filippo Sabetti. Translated by Giuseppe Pezzini with Amanda Murphy. Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, Journey to Italy (2020). Translated, ­introduced, and annotated by James A. Steintrager.