The time spent in the Eternal City was unquestionably an important one in Liszt's life and worthy of the detailed attention given it. Rome in 1839 presented a contradictory picture. Contrasted to the pomp of the Vatican were the unprincipled conditions of the city itself. Bands of robbers infested it and the surroundings, making it as unsafe as an English highway during the glorious but rather frisky times of Jonathan Wild and his agile confrères. So, for instance, Massocia and his band kidnapped the pupils of the seminary in Albano, and when the demanded ransom was not forthcoming defiantly strung up these innocents on trees flanking the gateways of Rome. So, too, the political freedom of the city found a concession in the privilege of Cardinal Consalvi, who permitted foreign papers of every political party to be read openly; while the papal edict declared null and void all contracts closed between Christian and Hebrew.
In matters of art things were not much better. The censor swung his axe in a most irresponsible and, now to us, laughable manner. Overbeck's Holy Family was condemned because the feet of the Madonna in it were too bare; Thorwaldsen's Day and Night was offensive in its nudeness; Raphael's art was an eyesore, and the same discriminating mind, Padre Piazza, would have liked to consign to the flames all philosophical books.
The musical taste and standard was not elevating at this time. Piccini, Paisiello, Cimarosa, Sacchini, Anfossi, Sarti, Righini, Paer, and Rossini wrote purely for the sensual enjoyment of the people.
Even the behaviour of the masses in theatres was defined by an edict issued by Leo XII. Any poor devil caught wearing his hat in the theatre was shown the door; if an actor interpolated either gesture or word not provided for in the prompt-book he was sent to the galleys for five years; the carrying of weapons in places of amusement was punishable with life sentence in the galleys, and wounding another during a row earned a death verdict for the unfortunate one; applause and hisses were rewarded by a prison term from two months to half a year.
Liszt's first visit to Rome occurred in 1839, and in company with the Countess d'Agoult. A strange mating this had been. Her salon was the meeting-place where enthusiastic persons foregathered--æsthetes, artists, and politicians. Liszt became a member of this circle, and the impressionable young man of twenty-three was as so much wax in the hands of this sensation-mongering woman six years his senior. Against Liszt's wishes she had followed him to Berne, and there is plenty of evidence at hand that he assumed the inevitable responsibilities with good grace and treated her as his wife, but evidently not entirely to her satisfaction. She fancied herself the muse of the young genius; but the wings of the young eagle she had patronized soon out-stripped her.