The mosaic which the workman was making in the shop where Rollo and Charles went in, was a small one, intended to form part of a bracelet. There were, however, some in the same shop that were quite large. They were framed like pictures, and were hanging up against the wall. Indeed, there was nothing but the circumstance that they were in a mosaic shop, to denote that they were not pictures, beautifully painted in oil. One was a landscape; another was a portrait of a beautiful girl; another was a basket of fruit and flowers.
In some of the churches of Rome, there are mosaics of very large size, which are exact and beautiful copies of some of the most celebrated paintings in the world. Strangers coming into the churches and looking at these pictures, never imagine them to be mosaics, and when they are told that they are so, they can scarcely believe the story. But on examining them very near, or in looking at them through an opera glass,-for sometimes you cannot get very near them,-you can easily see the demarcations between the little stones.
It is a very curious circumstance that the most ancient pictures in the churches of Rome and Italy are mosaics, and not paintings. Mosaics seem to have come first in the history of art, and paintings followed, in imitation of them. Indeed, the arranging of different colored stones in a pavement, or in a floor, so as to represent some ornamental design, would naturally be the first attempt at decoration made in the construction of buildings. Then would follow casing the walls with different colored marbles, arranged in pretty ways, and finally the representation of men and animals would be attempted. This we find, from an examination of ancient monuments, was the actual course of things, and painting in oil came in at the end as an imitation of pictures in stone.
Rollo and Charles were induced to go into the mosaic shop by the invitation of the workman, whose table, as it happened, stood near the door. He saw the two boys looking in somewhat wistfully, as they went by, and he invited them to walk in. He saw at once from their appearance that they were visitors that had just arrived in town, and though he did not expect that they would buy any of his mosaics themselves, he thought that there might be ladies in their party who would come and buy, if he treated the boys politely. It was on that account that he invited them to come in. And when they had looked about the establishment as much as they wished, and were ready to go away, he gave them each one of his cards, and asked them to give the cards to the ladies of their party.
"But there are no ladies of my party," said Rollo.
"Who is of your party?" asked the workman.
"Only a young gentleman," said Rollo.
"O, very well," rejoined the man, "that will do just as well. He will certainly wish to buy mosaics, while he is in Rome, for some of the young ladies of his acquaintance."
"I think that is very doubtful," said Rollo; "but nevertheless I will give him the card."
So Rollo and Charles bade the mosaic man good by, and went away.
They had been so much interested in what they had seen in the mosaic shop, and their attention, now that they had left it, was so much occupied with looking at the display of mosaics and cameos which they saw in the little show cases along the street, that Rollo forgot entirely his resolve to take an observation, so as not to lose his way. The boys walked on together until they came to a long and straight, though not very wide street, which was so full of animation and bustle, and was bordered, moreover, on each side by so many gay looking shops, that Rollo said he was satisfied it must be one of the principal streets of the town.
It was, in fact, the principal street in the town. The street is called the Corso. It runs in a straight line from the Porto del Popolo, which I have already described, into the very heart of the city. It is near the inner end of this street that the great region of ancient ruins begins.
Rollo and Charles began to walk along the Corso, looking at the shops as they went on. They were obliged, however, to walk in the middle of the street, for the sidewalks, where there were any, were so narrow and irregular as to be of very little service. Indeed, almost all the pedestrians walked in the middle of the street. Now and then a carriage came along, it is true, but the people in that case opened to the right and left, and let it go by.
After going on for some distance, Charles began to look about him somewhat uneasily.
"Rollo," said he, "are you sure that we can find our way home again?"
"O! I forgot about the way home," said Rollo; "but never mind; I can find it easily enough. I can inquire. What is the name of the hotel?"
"I don't know," said Charles.
"Don't know?" repeated Rollo, in a tone of surprise. "Don't know the name of the hotel where you are lodging?"
"No," said Charles, "we only came last night, and I don't know the name of the hotel at all."
"Nor of the street that it is in?" asked Rollo.
"No," said Charles.
"Then," said Rollo, in rather a desponding tone, "I don't know what we shall do."
Just then a carriage was seen coming along; and Rollo and Charles, who had stopped suddenly in the middle of the street, in their surprise and alarm, were obliged to run quick to get out of the way. The carriage was a very elegant one in red and gold, and there were two elegantly dressed footmen standing behind.
"That must be a cardinal's carriage," said Rollo, when the carriage had gone by.
"How do you know?" asked Charles.
"Uncle George told me about them," said Rollo. "You see Rome and all the country about here is under the government of the pope, and the chief officers of his government are the cardinals; and uncle George told me that they ride about in elegant carriages, in red and gold, very splendid and gay. We saw one of them, too, when we were coming into town."
Charles watched the carriage a minute or two, until it had gone some distance away, and then turning to Rollo again, he said,-
"And how about finding our way home again, Rollo?"
"Ah!" said Rollo, "in regard to that I don't know. We shall have to take a carriage when we want to go home, so we may as well go on and have our walk out. We are lost now, and we can't be any more lost go where we will."
So the boys walked on. Presently they came to a large square, with an immense column standing in the centre of it. This column was so similar to the little model which Rollo had seen at the hotel, that he exclaimed at once that it was the same. It had a spiral line of sculptures winding round and round it, from the base to the summit. The figures, however, were very much corroded and worn away, as were indeed all the angles and edges of the base, and of the capital of the column, by the tooth of time. The column had been standing there for eighteen or twenty centuries.
"I saw a model of that very column," said Rollo, "in a little room at the hotel. It is the column of Trajan. I'll prove it to you."
So Rollo asked a gentleman, who was standing on the sidewalk with a Murray's Guide Book in his hand, and who Rollo knew, by that circumstance, was an English or American visitor, if that was not the column of Trajan.
"No," said the gentleman; "it is the column of Antonine."
Rollo looked somewhat abashed at receiving this answer, which turned his attempt to show off his learning to Charles into a ridiculous failure.
"I thought it was called the column of Trajan," said he.
The gentleman, who, as it happened, was an Englishman, made no reply to this observation, but quietly took out an opera glass from a case, which was strapped over his shoulder, and began studying the sculptures on the column.
So Rollo and Charles walked away.
"I believe the name of it is the column of Trajan," said Rollo, "for I saw the name of it on the model at the hotel. That man has just come, and he don't know."