The Imperial Ships
Guglielmi, Beatrice
THE Emperor Caius Caesar, called Caligula on account of the military boots which he used to wear, gave the order to build the ships that are now going to be refloated from the bottom of the...
...He placed some empty caskets on the lake which acted like bridges, supporting machines from which hung strong ropes...
...But he understood the fruitlessness of further efforts, and, sorry for the ship which had been maimed through his own fault, he tried no more...
...It was indeed a providential failure...
...Great was the disappointment of Leon Battista Alberti...
...She was picked up by the shallops of Titus, who was enjoying with friends a moonlight night on the sea, and who conveyed her to the landing-place of her villa near the Lucrino lake...
...He longed to escape from Rome and the revelry of the court, to dwell in a secluded spot...
...Did the wonderful imperial barge last for a long time after Caligula's assassination...
...It was a kind of box reaching to the waist, but on account of the pressure of the water, the diver could not work with his implements when he had reached the ship...
...Especially famous was the one that Nero lent to his mother, Agrippina, when he tried to kill her at Bauli...
...Trees were cut into the shapes of animals, as was the fashion at that time...
...The bedrooms were numerous, and even sacelli—cells —were provided, for the cult of the gods...
...They had caused enough damage with their unsuitable hooks I Three centuries lapsed, and the world seemed to have forgotten the existence of the buried ships...
...Then in 1827, Annesio FusconI was at them again, using the same destructive method...
...A century passed, and the hope of reconquering the lost galleys dawned upon the mind of Francesco De Marchi, military architect and engineer...
...It was at the beginning of the fifteenth century when he gave the order to Leon Battlsta Alberti to do the work...
...Clever sailors, sent from Genoa, dived and hooked the ships, but when the ropes were pulled, the frame of the imperial galley split, and only a few fragments were detached...
...Therefore the only way Is to divert the drift of the current Into the lake of Albano, by means of a canal, and then extract the ships from their muddy holes...
...At any rate, his idea was not new...
...The sum of $8,000,000 is required for the digging, thd drying of the lake, and the construction of a museum to shelter the ships...
...Farrar describes it thus in his historic tale...
...That gorgeous abode which was erected to give calm to a restless emperor has been lying for centuries upon the muddy bottom of the lake, perfectly quiet except when humanity disturbed its sleep...
...The Italian government, trusting to his skill, granted the permission, and divers went down, carrying to the surface rare marbles, precious metals, and the most elaborate figures in bronzes...
...This famous architect, the precursor of Leonardo da Vinci, gladly accepted the difficult task...
...This wonderful ship was seventy-one metres long and twenty-four and one-half metres wide...
...Since 1895 the government has forbidden private researches, and has also been inclined to declare the lake a state property...
...It seems out of the question that the ships can be extricated from the bottom of the lake, which in the centre is twenty-two metres deep...
...He was the first to use the scafandro, invented by Guglielmo di Lorena, who himself dived in...
...The account reads: We collected so much wood that it was a heavy load for two mules, and we extracted also a big square of red enameled pavement...
...Irony of fate...
...During the renaissance the beauty of the lost masterpieces gripped the minds of the lovers of archaeology, and Cardinal Prospero Colonna conceived the idea of refloating them...
...Little by little it must have lost its splendor...
...Marbles were sent from Greece, carpets from Persia, purple and embroidered stuff from the East...
...They are to stay in the same locality where the Romans of yore dragged them in triumph many centuries ago...
...another subsidiary ship, sixty-four metres by twenty, for the imperial household, flanked it...
...History does not inform us if Morpheus gave to the Emperor the long-desired rest, or if he passed his vigil on the luxurious deck, looking at the stars silently floating in the azure sky...
...He hoped to enjoy there quiet slumbers which would bring oblivion to his agitated mind...
...These discoveries are now at the Museo delle Terme in Rome...
...Like Alberti, De Marchi also used in his search the system of floating caskets placed one near the other, forming a bridge, and fixed on it a powerful windlass, which pulled the rope tied to a boat near the shore...
...We know how the unfortunate Empress, wounded in the shoulder, threw herself into the water...
...Projects for refloating, some possible, some impossible, have been submitted from many parts of the civilized world...
...He had the bad luck to encounter a terrible storm which raged most wildly on the placid lake of Nemi...
...We were seventeen men to work at the windlass, but the cords gave way, and thus we had to stop...
...The last attempt was made In 1895 by Eliseo Borghi...
...Anicetus, the admiral of the fleet, was compelled to be the instrument of the murder by pretending to wreck the ship...
...Others before him had spent months, even years, on gilded barges...
...The remembrance of the sunken galleys was transmitted from generation to generation among both the learned class and the poor folk...
...Even during the renaissance certain Italian dukes passed a part of each year on the rivers—for instance, Borso d'Este on the Po, Ludovico Gonzaga on the Mincio, and the Venetian Doges on the Grand Canal...
...Fishermen now and then searched, and extracted fragments of the two ships...
...And after Caligula's time, other instances are found...
...He made a contract with the Prince OrsinI, owner of that part of the lake where the ships lie...
...Untold wonders are related concerning the imperial barges...
...Since that time many efforts have been made to refloat it, but all were in vain, and, I daresay, did actual harm...
...Down it rushed upon the heads of the unsuspecting victims...
...Only a few of the sailors shared the hideous secret with Anicetus, and as the machinery had failed to act—for the loosing of the canopy ought to have been accompanied by the dissolution of the vessel—they rushed to the larboard in order to upset the boat by their weight...
...They are in perfect condition, and of course this would not have been possible if the galley had been exposed for centuries to the inclemency of the seasons...
...Perhaps mingled with the monotonous singsong of the water they heard the hidden voice of, the mourning Egeria, whose fountain stands in the groves by the lake...
...Therefore he gave the order to construct a marvelous state barge which would stand in the centre of the lake like an enchanted palace...
...Scores of slaves worked night and day on its construction, and when it was ready the royal owner trod the mosaic pavement smiling and satisfied...
...Amongst them were a magnificent lion's head, which evidently had adorned a column for the moorings, some wolves' heads, an enormous Medusa's face, the expression of which is strikingly similar to the models...
...Work had to be stopped immediately, and when on the following morning they went back to the spot where the wood had been collected, they found that it had disappeared...
...The Emperor suffered from terrible insomnia that filled his long nights with the ghosts of his unbalanced mind...
...We know that Ptolemy Philopator, king of Egypt, Hieron II of Syracuse, and Cleopatra, had their luxurious galleys and lived in these floating palaces...
...The work will begin Immediately, and he hopes that in a year and a half it will be completed...
...The rich triclinium of Caligula's barge was surrounded by terraces, on which a winter garden of rare flowers had been reared...
...Darkness and Dawn: The gay canopy over the Empress had been weighted with lead and so contrived that by the pulling of a rope it could be freed from its supports...
...Premier Mussolini recently announced his intention of refloating the imperial ships...
...Fountains spouted in high jets which fell into basins of porphyry, cleverly disposed around the deep couches set on board for the pleasure of the Emperor and his guests...
...Perhaps he had a premonition of his tragic end, when the clear moon shining through the brocaded curtains of his gilded bed pictured horrors which really happened...
...At the end of these, iron hooks were attached...
...Historians do not say, but the bronzes which were extracted in 1895 seem to show that it was not so...
...The peace of the lake of Nemi, its sylvan shadows among the rustling reeds, the gentle ripple of the water, attracted him...
...THE Emperor Caius Caesar, called Caligula on account of the military boots which he used to wear, gave the order to build the ships that are now going to be refloated from the bottom of the lake of Nemi...
...Covered with water and tossed by the storm, one day a part of it must have given way, and when they tried to drag it to the shore, it swayed, tottered like an old thing, and went to the bottom...
Vol. 6 • July 1927 • No. 9
