Frederick Douglass visited in 1887 and described his sojourn in concluding section of his 1892 Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, an expanded version of his 1881 memoir of same name. Typically, nineteenth-century American travelers to were drawn to art and history of city, and even to aspects of Roman Catholicism, while at same time they recoiled from what they perceived to be decadence, agedness, and duplicity of Protestant culture's traditionally seductive anti-republican enemy. [1] Much of what Douglass has to say in Life and Times suggests his familiarity with other travel writings of period, and his desire to present himself, in part, as archetypal conflicted American traveler. Though he suffers an initial disappointment when arriving in newer areas of Rome, which remind him of Paris, London, or New York, by next day has become Rome: Eternal City, seated on its throne of seven hills, fully gave us all it had promised, banished every feeling of disappointment, and filled our minds with ever-increasing wonder and amazement (Life and Times 572). He praises Rome's art and architecture, which he says reveal an aesthetics and history lacking in United States, and he seems envious of ways in which rituals and practices of Roman Catholicism bring great comfort to these people (577). But even as he confesses his attraction to city's spiritual grandeur, he voices skepticism and concern possibly mendacious, despotic, and aristocratic character of Roman Catholic Church. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was also attracted to aspects of Roman Catholic art and religion, Douglass worries over sheer worldliness of Church as an economic and i mperial institution. Declaring that about every fifth man met with ... is at work in some way to maintain [the Church's] power, ascendency, and glory, he wryly notes that religion seems to be in chief business by which men live, and he condemns fanaticism ... encouraged by a church so worldly-wise as that of Rome (575). The doubleness of his response, critique and fascination, is nicely captured in his remarks on St Peter's. Commenting on the wealth and grandeur within, Douglass points out that the Church of today receives gifts from all Christian world, our own republican country included. Yet despite his portrayal of Church as a monetary power, Douglass finds himself succumbing to atmosphere of ethereal glory at Peter's, and he concludes his remarks on a note of begrudging admiration: St. Peter's, by its vastness, wealth, splendor, and architectural perfections, acts upon us like some great and overpowering natural wonder. It awes us into silent, speechless adm iration (576). is both unnatural and natural, subject to critique and yet somehow beyond critique. It offers a kind of solace ultimately unavailable in Protestant/republican America. Although Douglass's conflicted responses to can make him seem very much conventional nineteenth-century American traveler, I will be focusing here on some of less conventional aspects of his presentation of in Life and Times and other, more private writings of period: way in which he uses to address what he regards as conjoined issues of race and progress in United States, and way in which he conceives of in relation to Africa. But first it would be useful to provide some background on his travels. From October 1886 to May 1887 Douglass toured England, France, Italy, Egypt, and Greece with his second wife, nee Helen Pitts, a white woman whom he'd married two years earlier, in 1884, at age of 66, less than two years after death of his first wife, Anna. A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, Helen worked as Douglass's secretary when he was Recorder of Deeds in Washington in early 1880s, and their marriage was greeted with considerable controversy: Douglass was attacked by blacks and whites (including Helen's family) for marrying someone outside of his reace. …