Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, August 16, 1859

  • Posted on: 10 November 2021
  • By: admin
xml: 
Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, August 16, 1859
x

transcriber

Transcriber:spp:vxa

student editor

Transcriber:spp:les

Distributor:Seward Family Digital Archive

Institution:University of Rochester

Repository:Rare Books and Special Collections

Date:1859-08-16

In the context of this project, private URIs with the prefix "psn" point to person elements in the project's persons.xml authority file. In the context of this project, private URIs with the prefix "pla" point to place elements in the project's places.xml authority file. In the context of this project, private URIs with the prefix "psn" point to person elements in the project's staff.xml authority file. In the context of this project, private URIs with the prefix "psn" point to person elements in the project's bibl.xml authority file. verical-align: super; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: underline; text-decoration: line-through; color: red;

Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, August 16, 1859

action: sent

sender: William Seward
Birth: 1801-05-16  Death: 1872-10-10

location: Rome, Italy

receiver: Frances Seward
Birth: 1805-09-24  Death: 1865-06-21

location: Auburn, NY

transcription: vxa 

revision: jxw 2021-02-02

<>
Page 1

x

Editorial Note

William Henry Seward’s series of travel letters in 1859 are organized and listed by the date of each entry.
1 Rome Tuesday Evening August 17
x

Editorial Note

August 16th, 1859 was a Tuesday, and William Henry Seward’s letter dated August 10th identified that as his first day in Rome, meaning August 16th would be the sixth day as mentioned in this letter. Thus, we believe he misdated the letter to be on the 17th and it is actually the 16th.
,
Sevenixth day in Rome
My dearest Frances, I have just finished reading your letter
of the 25th, and a dozen American newspapers, the only
information of the outer world that has reached me in my landing
place here. This afternoon I stopped to buy some
thing at a shop in the Corso, and as soon as I entered
a blind man
Unknown
with his son
Unknown
16 years old bold and
impertinent assailed me. I was ten minutes in ma-
king my purchases. When I came out I gave up all
the change I had to the beggar but before I reached my
carriage I was beset with double impetuity by anoth-
er blind man
Unknown
and his boy
Unknown
and a consumptive man
Unknown
and
his daughter
Unknown
. The Gentleman
Unknown
who was with me
ineffectually labored to drive them off, and the Coachman
Unknown

was on the point of applying his whip when the
boy of the first blind man pitched into them and
rescued me. Going home to night I stopped for
an ice at a Cafe – a poor woman
Unknown
with a baby
Unknown

was at my door and took all my change not
excepting an old Imperial copper coin having bearing
a head of Augustus which I had paid a quar-
ter of a dollar for in the morning. These are
the experiences of a traveler in here.
The Americans are likely I think to take
the lead in sculpture in this city. What a sagacious
thing it was in the Catholic Church to repeal the law
which forbids the making and worship of images? The Church
may refrain as much as it pleases, but the arts of
Page 2

2
sculpture and painting owe their highest development
in all ages to the devotional passions of mankind.
The American sculptors and painters profit by the
breaches of a law they condemn if they are Protestants.
The Church of St Peter in Martino stands on a
high eminence. East of the Vatican and commands a
magnificent view of Rome. On its summit is a monastery
of Franciscan friars, and with their cloisters
a perfect bijou of a temple erected by in honor
of St Peter over the hole in the ground in which made
by the post of the cross on which he was executed.
It is of marble exquisitely wrought into most elaborate
embellishments, and was the gift of the pious Isabella
of Spain and her bigoted successor Philip
 Death: 1598-09-13
. If you
find it to understand how St Peter was
crucified here, and also in the center
of the Circus of Nero in front of St Peters in
the Vatican as I have told you before that he was
I shall not undertake to reprove you for it. Either
Isabella was misled as to the spot or I have
been. It is fortunate for art, though perhaps not for
the Christian Faith that the mistake was not discovered
until each of the two places was marked by
a monument of rare excellence and beauty