The Secrets of the Vatican
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THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN
Q
o
CHAPELft
1 lir ( irntic Nimve of Si. 1 eter s, showing the Conu>sio of Mat ten I ollaiuolo mi the right an
t shining ln>m St. I eter s tomb upon the Sarcophagus "i Junius Hassus.
The Secrets of the Vatican
BY
DOUGLAS SLADEN
AUTHOR OF
In Sicily." "Sicily, the New Winter Resort," "Carthage and Tunis,"
and "Queer Things About Japan."
WITH SIXTY ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS
INCLUDING REPRODUCTIONS OF THE MOST INTERESTING ENGRAVINGS IN PISTOLESl S GREAT WORK ON THE VATICAN
LONDON
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
l82, HIGH HOLBORN
All rights reserved
THIS HOOK
IS DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO
CONTKSSA CIAUTIKR,
OK ROME, A VALUED FRIEND
AND AN ACKNOWLEDGED AUTHORITY ON THE VATICAN.
PREFACE.
THE revolt of the French Government with regard to thr constitution of the Church which has made the word Vatican a household word for months past can best be compared to the revolt of Henry VIII. of England in the sixteenth century.
But the Vatican, i.e., the Papal Government of to-day, is as different from the Vatican of that day as the ship of to-day is from the obsolete vessel of the sixteenth century with its clumsy castles at bow and stern, and primitive rigging. The Vatican Hierarchy, with its elaborate machinery of Pope and Cardinals ; Princes in attendance on the Throne ; its Privy and Honorary Chamberlains, lay and clerical, of a dozen different orders ; its Cancelleria, its Dataria, its Rota, its Sacred Congregations and Pontifical Commissions, its Cardinal Secretary of State. and its Maggiordomo, is a piece of machinery as elaborate as the great ocean-liner of to-day. The Propaganda Fide, the Holy Office (of the Inquisition), the Index Expurgatorius of Books, are by no means of the past.
Yet, as fortune would have it, this prolonged and strenuous crisis between the Vatican and France finds us without any recent English work explaining this half of the Secrets of the Vatican.
To meet this deficiency I have written chapters on the cere monies which accompany the Death and Election of a Pope, and the Creation of Cardinals ; the Duties of the Papal Secretary of State, and his predecessor, the Cardinal Nephew ; Audiences with the Pope, and his Secretary of State ; the everyday life led by the Pope ; the Papal Court and the High Officials of whom it is composed ; and the Sacred Congregations and Ponti fical Commissions, which are the everyday business of the Cardinals who live in Rome.
As the word Porte is used to imply the Sultan in his official relations, so the word Vatican is used to imply the Pope in
vi PREFACE.
his official relations, e.g., in the title I have given to the chapter from the pen of his Grace the Archbishop of Westminster on the Crisis between the Vatican and France which concludes Part I.
But the word Vatican is familiar to travellers in another signification : that of a place with museums of matchless sculpture ; and a gallery of paintings, and a chapel whose paintings are yet more famous. This does not help them to understand the first signification. The number of English people who have visited the Vatican Collections without giving any thought beyond them to the Vatican is very great. This is excusable because there is no guide-book in English, and no adequate guide-book in any language, to the Vatican as a Palace.
The reason is not hard to discover. In the days before the cataclysm of 1870. when Pius IX. was on the Papal Throne reigning like an Augustus, the insatiable curiosity which characterises readers pampered by the gossip-loving periodicals of the twentieth century had not demanded what we call books of travel, meaning books of sight-seeing, which are so popular now. And since 1870 the Vatican has been in mourning.
I have taken advantage of the title " The Secrets of the Vatican " to exclude those parts of the Palace with which every visitor is familiar, viz., the Sculpture Galleries, the Sistine Chapel, the Stan/e and Loggie oi Katfaelle, and the Pinacoteca. They are merely catalogued in the opening chapter in which I give the category of the various chapels, chambers, courtyards, and gardens which make up the Vatican. I take it for granted that everyone is familiar with them and devote my space to introducing the British and American publics to the neglected or usually closed parts of the Palace, with the necessary historical allusions.
I open with the story of the Vatican and the Ouinctian Meadows from the days when the curly-haired Cincinnati^ left his plough to head the armies of the Republic as Dictator. Then I tell the story of the building of the world s most famous palace from the time of Pope Saint Symmachus to the times of the three Popes of exile who bore the devoted name of Pius, Pius VI., Pius VII., and Pius IX. ; and give two chapters to the re-construction of Old St. Peter s, built by Constantine the Great, which Listed for more than a dozen centuries ; and three chapters
PREFACE. vii
to that wonderful charnel house of Gothic art in Rome, the Crypt of St. Peter s, whose pavement is the actual floor of the Church of Constantine, and whose vaults are strewn with the shattered tombs of eighty-six Mediaeval Popes.
It is into these chapters and the chapters on Nicholas V., the Father of the Vatican Library, the Maecenas of the Papacy, the Apostle of Learning, that history enters so much.
After these I deal with the Vatican Libraries old and new, the glowing hall and marvellous manuscripts and antiques of the Library of Sixtus V., and the Leonine Library below it by which Leo XIII. fulfilled Nicholas V. s ambition of making the Vatican enlighten the world. I give a glimpse of Montaigne in the Vatican Library. I say what I know about the Archives from the time of Pope Saint Damasus ; and dwell on the beauty and romance of the Vatican Gardens the Pope s kingdom of this world. That is followed by a number of shorter chapters on the byways of the Vatican trodden by few feet the Paoline and Leonine Chapels, the Treasury of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope s private tapestry rooms and personal apartments, the Sala Regia, the Sala Ducale, the Loggia of Giovanni da Udine, the Pope s Coach-house, the Gallery of Raffaelle s tapestries, the Gallery of the Candelabri, the Gallery of the Maps, the mysteries of the Sacristy and the Dome of St. Peter s ; and I wind up with the little-known Etruscan Museum and the Borgia Apartments. The few who have crossed the threshold of the Etruscan Museum may be glad to cross it again with one who has visited most of the Etruscan cities, half-buried in flowers and turf, on hills in hidden valleys, which are the delight and despair of the antiquarian. The Borgia Rooms, now so difficult to visit, are included, not to give a detailed criticism of their pictures, already so superbly treated by Ehrle and Stevenson, and Ricci, but partly to convey their effect as the most typically palatial part of the royal Palace of the Popes, and partly to give a number of interesting facts about them which have never before appeared in English.
From the above it will be seen that I have aimed at two things : to give the traveller who goes to Rome for sight-seeing, and the stay-at-home who has to do his sight-seeing in books of travel, some idea of the parts of the Vatican which are not generally seen ; either because the visitor does not know where
viii PREPACK.
to look lor them, or because they are only shown as a special favour ; and to give as good an account as I can of the personnel and administration of the Vatican.
I am mysell a Protestant, a member oi the Church oi England. My idea ot patriotism makes it impossible that I should ever leave the Church <>1 my Ion-lathers. But it is only upon the Rights and tin- Independence of the Church that I have strong feelings; the differences ot dogma which have grown up since it parted from the Church of Rome do not concern me. I feel towards the Church of Rome as an Anglophile American feels towards England : 1 teel that J sprang Irom it. 1 do not forget that I belonged to it. until the Middle Ag< i s, which are my special study and delight were ended. IN history and antiquities occupy a great part of mv thoughts, !<>r I spend half my life in Italy, and the days J have passed in Italy have mostly been devoted to Chinch antiquities. | regard the venerable Church, which has. been going like a clock since the days ot the Apostles, with the utmost affection and inti-ivst. Not having been brought up in the Church ot Rome, and having a feeling of repulsion to all dogma, 1 cannot hope to pen. -Irate deeper than the outer shell of that ancient and glorious institution. Hut I hope that those who are members ot the Church of Rome will recogni/e the pleasure and enthusiasm with \\liich I study then antiquities and monuments ; and accept my assurance that, il I have written anything which Inn ts their leelings, I have not written it with any out-spokcnncss or levity that I might not ha\ used in writing of England. And England i- my religion.
Before (losing this ton-\\ord I hive to make various acknow ledgments. The first is to his drace the Archbishop of West minster, who has permitted me to print in this volume the parts relating to the question ot the hour in the inaugural address on the- Crisis of the Church in Erance which he delivered at the Catholic Conference at Brighton a lew months ago. It was obviously impossible to bring out a book on the Vatican at the present moment without some allusion to this question, and with the purpose ol writing a chapter upon it I made a study of what Mr. Wilfred Ward, Mr. J. E. C. Bodley, M. Paul Sabatier, and others who have published important contributions on the subject, had to say. I found it almost impossible for me to express fairly and adequately the Vatican position, and feeling
PREFACE. ix
that my readers would prefer to have an authoritative statement from the Head of the Church in England, I applied to the Arch bishop for permission to give his account of it, which will be found in the last chapter of the first part. It should be com pared with the eloquent protest of the Pope :
" Although the Divine Founder of the Church was born poor in a manger, and died poor on the cross, although she herself has known poverty from her cradle, yet the property which she had in her hands was not, therefore, any less her own, and no one had the right to rob her of it. This property, unquestionable from every point of view, had further been officially sanctioned by the State ; consequently the State had no right to violate it. The law especially establishes uncertainty and arbitrariness uncertainty as to whether the churches will be placed, or not, at the disposition of the clergy and the faithful ; uncertainty as to whether they will be ensured to them or not, and for how long ; administrative arbitrariness regulating the conditions of enjoyment already eminently precarious. For the exercise of worship the law creates as many situations in France as there are consciences in each parish ; the priest is placed at the discretion of the municipal authority, and consequently the way has been opened to conflict from one end of the country to the other. On the other hand, there is an obligation to face all expenses, even the heaviest, and at the same time a draconian limitation so far as the resources for the purpose are concerned. Also this law, born yesterday, has already excited innumerable severe criticisms on the part of men of all political parties and of all religious opinions, and their criticisms alone would suffice to judge it. Our enemies wish to destroy the Church and to de-christianize France."
The hrst draft of the chapter on Old St. Peter s I wrote for Chambers^ Journal, and the first draft of the Crypt chapter for The Sunday at Home.
There are many books to which I have to acknowledge my indebtedness. First among these comes Gregorovius great " History of Rome in the Middle Ages," translated by Mrs. Gustavus W. Hamilton, and published by George Bell and Sons (8 vols. in 13, /3 3s. nett). This book is a fountain of in spiration to anyone who essays to write about Rome in the Middle Ages. Not only are its springs inexhaustible : the foun-
x PREPACK.
tain itself is so cK-ar and beautiful that to take draughts from it is a perpetual delight. The smaller volume of Gregorovius, from which I have made several quotations the " Tombs of the Popes," translated by Mr. R. \V. Seton Watson, and pub lished by Archibald Constable and Co. (with whose permission these quotations have been made) -I should not have used so much but for the admirable English <>f the translation. Other s of M.-ssrs. i;,H to which I have referred a few times, are MUs Marv Knight Potter s " The Art of the Vatican." and Rosroc s " Lite ( >| I.ei < \."
Mr. John Murray has published several books which 1 have constantly before me. Besides Murray s " Handbook to Rome," which has always been recognised as one of the best in any language-, there an- Sir A. H. Lavard s "Handbook to the Italian Scho^K ,,( Painting." ba-ed < -n KURT S handbook, sixth edition (2 vols., 24*. nett); Dem i- s "Cities and Ceme teries ot Ktriina " (2 vols., 365. nett); Nielsen s "History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century. 1907 " (2 vols., 2.}s. nett) ; and Mr. \V. (,. Water s " Translation of the Journal of Mon taigne s Travels," which contains some interesting passages about the Vatican Library. Dean Milman s " History of Latin Chri-fi mitv." published by the same firm. I have found ot very little use; it is too <, mrent rated.
M- -srs. Macnnllan and Co. have brought out valuable books on thf subject. Laneiani s lour earlier \-olumes. "Pagan and Christian Rome," " Ancient Rome." the " Destruction of Ancient Rome," and " Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome," all of them published by iliis linn, are m-ver off my writing-table. Macmill.in s " Handbook to Italy and Sicily " has a special value bec.ms" in it the towns are arranged alphabetically in ga/etteer fashion. Other books of this linn to uhich I have occasionally I arc Mr. Walter Lowrie s " Christian Art and Archa-olo^y/ Professor Brvre s phenomenal book. " The Holy Roman Lmpire/ and those d-lighttul book.. Mrs. Oliphant s "Makers of Modern Rome." and Mr. Marion Crawford s " Ave Roma Immortalis." The essay entitled " A Survey of the Thirteenth Century," in Mr. Frederic Harrison s volume of essays, " The Meaning of History," which I keep on a shelf beside my volumes of John Addington Symonds, I have found very suggestive.
There are few publishers to whom I am more indebted in
PREFACE. xi
the preparation of this work than Messrs. A. and C. Black, who publish the admirable " Handbook to Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome," by Misses Tuker and Malleson, which I have used throughout for checking the information given in French and Italian works. I have also referred a few times to the large book on Rome by the same ladies, which is one of the best illustrated volumes in Messrs. Black s colour series ; and Professor Middleton s classic, " Remains of Ancient Rome." Messrs. Black have also a two-and-sixpenny guide-book to Rome with coloured illustrations, written by Mr. E. A. Reynolds- Ball in 1906.
Mr. T. Fisher Unwin has four volumes in his " Story of the Nations " series (price 53. nett per vol.) : " Rome," by Mr. Arthur Oilman, M.A. (6th imp., 3rd ed.) ; " The Papal Mon archy," by Dr. William Barry ; " Mediaeval Rome," by Mr. William Miller ; and " Modern Rome," by Professor Pietro Orsi all of them useful for facts.
I have had constant occasion to refer to that valuable book, Hare s " Walks in Rome," brought right up to date like Hare s " Days round Rome," by Mr. St. Clair Baddeley, who has the responsible position of representing the English subscribers interested in the Excavation of the Forum. Both these books are published by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench and Co. One of the best books dealing incidentally with the Vatican is Klaczko s " Rome and the Renaissance," translated by Mr. John Dennie, very beautifully brought out by G. P. Putnam s Sons.
For one period of the Vatican Messrs. Duckworth and Co. s beautifully produced edition of Mrs. Ady s " Raffaelle " is useful.
There is a little about the Vatican Library in Helbig s " Guide to the Public Collections of Classical Antiquities in Rome," published by Baedeker. Baedeker s " Central Italy " is indis pensable : it is so extremely well arranged, so sure to mention salient facts, like dates and measurements which one has occa sion to check. Mr. Baedeker has reproduced the map of the Vatican Hill which appears in this volume for publication in my book.
For the purpose of this volume I have not had occasion to use much that very picturesque book, Father Chandlery s
xii PREFACE.
Pilgrim \\ alks in Rome," published by the Manresa Press, though I have found it most useful in the larger work I am preparing about Rome. I understand that much information about Old St. Peter s is scattered through Father Barnes s large work on " St. Peter in Rome," which I have not seen.
The best account of the Pope s apartments to be found any where is in Zola s " Rome." of \\hicli the English edition is pub lished by Messrs. Chatto and \Yindus, who are likewise the pub lishers oi the cheap editions of Charles Reade s "The Cloister and the Hearth," into which Nicholas V. comes; and \Vilkie Collins s " Antonina."
Far the most interesting volume of gossip about the Popes is Silvagni s " l.a Corte e la Societa Rom in i nei XVIII. e XIX. Secoli," ot which a most spirited translation has been published by Mrs. Frances Maclaughlm (Elliot Stock.)
A rather similar book is the late \V. \\ . Story s famous " Roba di Roma," sixth edition, published b\- Messrs. Chapman and Hall, who are also the publishers oi Mr. Fn-deric Harrison s novel. Theophano," which has a great deal about Rome and tin- Popes in the agr oi the Ottos. As interesting as "Roba di Roma," if not as Silvagni. but, of course, written from a very different standpoint, is Cardinal XViseman s " Recollections of the Last Four Popes and ot Koine in their Times," published Iifty years ago by Messrs. Hurst and Blackrtt.
Last in the list ot English books 1 may mention the transla tion of Dr. Ludwig Pastor s "History ot the Popes," published by Mr. John Hodges, in the Catholic Standard Library, a book as picturesque and packed with learning as (iregorovius s, if less succinct.
Finally. I may say that lor all recent special information on my subject I have had to go to French and Italian books.
First, I must naturally mention the superb works written by Messrs. Ehrle and Stevenson on the Borgia Rooms, and Corrado Ricci on Pinturicchio, in which much space is devoted to the Borgia Rooms. Both ot these noble works, which cost five or six guineas apiece, were written in Italian, but of the latter Mr. Heinemann has brought out a superbly illustrated translation with glorious coloured plates.
The House of Firmin-Didot et Cie. have brought out, at 3 francs 50 centimes each, two most valuable volumes contain-
PREFACE. xiii
ing contributions by M. Georges Goyau, M. Paul Fabre, M. Perate, and the Vicomte Melchior de Vogue, under the titles of il La Gouvernement de 1 Eglise" and "La Papaute et la Civilization." The former is indispensable to anyone who wishes to form a succinct idea of the personnel of the Vatican ; it is most lucidly and attractively written ; and it and the " Vie Intime de Pie X." by the Abbe Cigala, who is by birth a noble of Turin, are the two most interesting books on the Vatican which I have read.
The " Vie Intime " is even more up to date than the "Gouvernement de 1 Eglise" ; it is published by Lethielleux et Cie., who also are the publishers of M. Lector s " Le Conclave," which gives the information about the deaths, funerals, and elections of Popes in far greater detail than Goyau. M. Lector is also the author of two smaller books on the Papacy brought out by the same publishers, which I have been unable to procure in London. To understand M. Goyau s brilliant essays properly one has to have before one the " Gerarchia," or Court Guide to the Vatican, from which he draws the facts which he marshals so lucidly and interestingly in his account of the Vatican Hier archy ; and the valuable " Almanacco Italiano," a sort of Whitaker s Almanack, which has the most up-to-date information upon the Vatican Hierarchy, as it comes out a great deal earlier in the } ear than the "Gerarchia." From it, for example, one can learn the various Sacred Congregations which have been merged by the Motu Proprio of the Pope since M. Goyau wrote his book. M. Goyau is a delightful writer, his French is easy and limpid to English readers, he is very observant, has a keen eye for what is interesting, and an epigrammatic and cynical pen.
For the information about the Vatican and St. Peter s Crypt, which form a piece de r sistance in my book, I am most indebted to the " Elements d Archeologie Chrctienne " of Professor Marucchi, the Pope s archaeologist, the de Rossi of the day, and the "Cryptes Vaticanes." of Pere Dufresne, which was. until I brought out " Old St. Peter s and St. Peter s Crypt," the only book on the subject, and is a mine of information.
I have left to the end Pistolesi s magnificent work, " II Vaticano," published eighty years ago in eight huge folios at the expense, I believe, of a former Earl of Shrewsbury. Half
xiv PR K FACE.
my illustrations are reproductions of the hundreds of superb plans and plates in this book. Pistolesi is what Americans would call the bed-rock upon which many of the later books about the Vatican are founded, and its value is much enhanced by the fact that, unlike most large Italian works, it is well indexed.
I hoj>e that I have not omitted any of the works which have been valuable to me in the prolonged studies which preceded the writing of my book. If I have, I tender my most sincere apologies to their authors and publishers. I must conclude with a word of thanks to Miss Heath Wilson, of the English Library in the Piazza cli Spagna at Rome, a valued friend, who has given me much help by procuring for me various materials not procurable in England. Also to Miss Olave Potter, who extvutr! the severe task of compiling the very full index with which this volume conclu les.
DOUGLAS SLADKN.
Authors Club.
Whitehall Court. S.W.
LIST OF POPES.
Date, A.D.
Italian lvmr ! .
Usually known at Place of Origin.
Died 67.
- 3. Peter.f
Bethsaida.
67-76.
S. Lino.
S. Linus.
Volterra.
76-88.
- S. Cleto I.
S. Cletus I.
Home.
88-97.
- S. Clemente I.
S. Clement I.
Home.
97-105.
-
- S. Evaristo.
S. Evaristus.
Syria.
105-115.
- S. Alessandro I.
S. Alexander 1.
Rome.
115-125.
- S. Sisto 1.
S. Sixtus I.
Rome.
125-136.
-
- S. Telesforo.
P. I desphoru?.
Greece.
136-140.
- S. Iffino.
S. Ilvs4 Ilus -
Greece.
140-155.
S. Pio I.
S. Pius I.
Aquileia.
155-166.
- S. Aniceto.
S. Anicctus.
Syria.
166-175.
S. Sotero.
S. S ter.
Campania.
175-189.
- S. Kleuterio.
S. Bleutherius.
Epirus.
189-199.
S. Vittore I.
S. Victor I.
Africa,
199-217.
- S. Zelirino.
S. Zephyrinus.
Rome.
217-222.
- S. Calisto I.
S. Calixtua I.
Rome.
217-235.
Anti-Pope Ipnolito.
5. . ippulntus.
Home.
222-230.
- S. Urbano I.
S. Urban I.
Rome.
230-235.
- S. Ponziano.
S. Pontianus.
Romo.
2S5-236.
S. Antero.
S. Anteros.
Greece.
236-250.
- S. Fabiano.
S. Fabian.
Rome.
251-253.
3. Cornelio.
S. Cornelius.
Home.
261.
Anti-Pope Koran-
A oratiaii ( Anti-I vpe
iiano.
to Cornelio).
253-254.
S. Lucio I.
S. Lucius I.
Rome.
254-257.
S. Stefano I.
8. Stephen I.
Rome.
257-258.
P. Sisto II.
S. Sixtus II.
Athens.
259-268.
- S. Dionisio.
S. Dionysius.
Tyre.
269-274.
S. Felice I.
S. Felix I.
Rome.
275-283.
- S. Kutichiano.
S. Eutyehianus.
Lucca.
283-296.
- S. Caio.
S. Caius.
Dalmatian.
296-304.
- S. Marcellino.
S. Marcrllinus.
Rome.
308-309.
8. Marcello I.
S. Marcrllus I.
Rome.
309-311.
- S. Eusebio.
S. Eusebius.
Calabria.
311-314.
S. Melciade.
S. Melchiades.
Africa.
314-335.
S. Silvestro 1
S. Sylvester I.
Rome.
33G.
S. Marco.
B. Marcus.
Rome.
S37-352.
S. Giulio I.
. < . Julius I.
Rome.
352-366.
Liberio.
Liberius.
Rome.
355-365.
- Anti-Pope S. Felice
Felix II. Pope dlirimj
II.
th* fsil>: o/ Pope
].i/>rrius.
366-384.
S. Damaso I.
S. Damasus I.
Spain.
3HI5-3H7.
Anti-P- p Crxiito.
384-399.
S. Siricio.
S. Siricius.
Rome.
399-401.
S. Anastasio I.
S. Anastasius I.
Rome.
401-417.
S. Innoceuzo I.
S. Innocent I.
Albano.
417-418.
S. Zosimo.
S. X.osimus.
Greece.
418-422.
S. Bonifacio 1.
S. Boniface I.
Rome.
418-419.
Anti-Pope F.ulalio.
Eula/ius.
422-432.
S. Celestino I.
S. Celestine I.
Campania.
432-4-10.
P. Sisto III.
S. Si.xtus 111.
Rome.
440-401.
S. Leone I.
S. Leo the Great.
Tuscany.
4f. 1-468.
S. Il irio.
S. Hil.irius.
Sardinia.
468-483.
P. Simplicio.
S. Simplicius.
Tivoli.
483-492.
S. Fclicu III.
S. Felix III.
Rome.
492-496.
S. Gelasio I.
S. Gelasius I.
A frica.
ii ;iraily Name,
Of the Elvldian Geeis.
Oi the Domitlan Owns.
Of the Calpuruiao
Gens.
Of tlie Julian Geo
Saveili.
Massimi.
Of the Aniciau G-en*,
Martyr.
t In the resister of the patriarchal basilica of St. Paul s Without the Walls we find : " St. Peter of Bethsaida in Galilee, Chief of the Apostles , who received from Jesus Christ the Supreme Pontifical Power, to transmit it to his successors, resided lirst in Antioch, then at Borne, where he met with his martyrdom on the 29th of June, in the year 67 of our era."
LIST OF POPES.
Date. A.I,.
Italian N.iiiif
1 -mully known ;.-
I l.K c (,f Origin.
l- iunily Num.-.
MM uit.
Ctletitino II.
Celestii.f II.
(Itt.i di I :i_-tello.
((iiiido. )
11M 114. ..
Lurio 11.
I.iiriu, II.
Bokvna.
Ca-cian- mid dfl )r-o.
U4.V11.--.1.
H. Ku-,:,io 111.
I .. Kii-.-ni:i-i III.
M ntc M.uino (I i^.i).
PoKnanelli.
lir.3 li:, 1.
Anasta.~io l\ .
An.ist.i.-iu- IV.
Hom-.
della Suliurr.i.
11.-. i-ll. vj.
Adrian.. IV.
II.idri.ui IV.
Kn.rl.uid.
Breakspe.ire.
U.V.I-11S1.
Ale^s-in in. III.
Alfx.n. ! r III.
Si, -n.i.
Raiidinrlli.
11.-. . 110!.
Anti- ! /:
/T. I lV/ T / 1 .
11- I lit;.-..
.Ua-/ ", C / /</
i, ,:< / a,-/,.,/ in.
///.
lir,s-U7!.
Aiili-
I!. , r.,. ,,;,.. ///
1K .> use.
AlUl-l
. , ,-. .., Ill
III.
n si us;,.
III.
111.
NIK,.,.
AlhicitiL oli.
1 1 .S - 1 1 S 7 .
rrl-.ino III.
Milan.
Crivi Hi.
11S7 11.-.7.
ill.
1 ir- . ! . VIII.
henevento.
de MIMT.I.
11S7 ll Jl.
. , III.
! in in. III.
Home.
Soo!:iri.
i ini-i I .H.
, III.
- II.
Home.
llot.one.
ii jK-r.Mr,.
III.
. in III
An itrni.
dfi Conti di Si-mil.
121(1 -1227.
< rio III.
Hom-riii.-. 111.
Home.
S.iv.lli.
12L 7 1211.
.IX.
rv IX.
Ansmni.
,1, i Conti di S-v iii.
12 Jl I . ll.
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LIST OF POPES.
xix
Date, A.D.
Italian Name.
Usually known AH
Place of Origin.
Family Name.
1484-1492.
Innocenzo VIII.
Innocent VIII.
Genoa.
Oibd.
1492-1503.
Alessandro VI.
.Uexander VI.
Spain (Valencia).
RodrigoLenzoli Borgia.
1503-1503.
Pio III.
Pius III.
Siena.
Todeschini - Piccolo-
mini.
1503-1513.
Giulio 11.
Julius II.
Savona.
Giuliano dell a Rovere.
1613-1521.
Leone X.
Leo X.
Florence.
Giovanni de Medici.
1522-1523.
Adriano VI.
Hadrian VI.
Utrecht.
Adriaiicx Florent Dedel
1523-1534.
Clemente VII.
Clement VII.
Florence.
Giulio de Medici.
1534-1549.
Paolo III.
Paul III.
Rome.
Alessandro Farnese.
1550-1555.
Giulio III.
Julius III.
Rome.
Ciocchi del Monte.
1555-1555.
Marcello II.
Marcellus II.
Montepuleiano.
Marceilo Oervini.
1555-1559.
Paolo IV.
Paul IV.
Naples.
Giovanni PietroCarafta .
1559-1565.
Pio IV.
Pius IV.
Milan.
Giovanni Angelo tie
Medici.
1560-1572.
S. Pio V.
S. Pius V .
Bosco (in Piedmont).
Michelc Ghis lieri.
1572-1585.
"Gregorio XIII.
Gregory X11I.
Bologna.
Ugo Boncompagni.
1585-1590.
Sisto V.
Sixtus V.
Grottamarr (in the
Felice Peretti.
March of Anrona).
1590-1590.
Urbano VII.
Urban VII.
Home.
Giambattista Castagns.
1590-1591.
Gregorio XIV.
Gregory XIV.
Cremona.
Niccolo Sfondrati.
1591-1591.
Innocenzo IX.
Innocent IX.
Bologna.
Gianantonio Facchi-
netti.
1592-1605.
Clemente VIII.
Clement VIII.
Florence.
Ippolito Aldobrandini.
1605-1605.
Leone XI.
Leo XI.
Florence.
Alessandro de Medici.
1605-1621.
Paolo V.
Paul V.
Rome.
Camillo Borsrhese.
1621-1623.
Gregorio XV.
Gregory XV.
Bologna.
Alessandro Ludovisi.
1623-1644.
Urbano VIII.
Urban VIII.
Florence.
Mall eo Barberini.
1644-1655.
Innocenzo X.
Innocent X .
Rome.
Giambattista Pamfili.
1656-16H7.
Alessandro VII.
Alexander VIJ.
Siena.
Fabio Chigi.
1667-16<- 9.
Clemente IX.
Clement IX.
PLstoja.
Giulio Rospigliosi.
1670-1676.
Clemente X.
Clement X.
Rome.
Kinilio Altieri.
1676-1089.
Innocenzo XI.
Innocent XI.
Como.
Benedetto Odescalchi.
1689-1C91.
Alessandro VI] ! .
Alexander Mil.
Venice.
Pietro Ottoboni.
1691-1700.
Innocenzo XII.
Innocent XII.
Naples.
Antonio Pignatclli.
1700-1721.
Clemente XI.
Clement XI.
Urbino.
Giovanni Francesco
Albani.
1721-1724.
Innocenao XIII.
Innocent XIII.
Rome.
Michel Angelo Oouti.
1724-1730.
Benedetto XIII.
Benedict XIII.
Rome.
Vincenzo Maria Orsini.
1730-1710.
Clemente XII.
Clement XII.
Florence.
Lorenzo Corsini.
1740-1708.
Benedetto XIV.
Benedict XIV.
Bologna.
Prospero Lainbertini.
1758-1769.
Clemente XIII.
Clement XIII.
Venice.
Carlo Rezzoriico.
1769-1774.
Clemente XIV.
Clement XIV.
S. Angelo in Vado.
Lorenzo Francesco
Ganganelli.
1775-1799.
Pio. VI.
Pius VI.
Cesena.
Angelo Brawihi.
1800-1823.
Pio VII.
Pius VI] .
Cesena.
Chiaramonti.
1823-1829.
Leone XII.
Leo XII.
Spoleto.
della Genga.
1829-1830.
Pio VIII.
Pius VIII.
Cingoli.
Castiglione.
1831-1846.
Gregorio XVI.
Gregory XVI.
Belluno.
Capellari.
1846-1878.
Pio IX.
Pius IX.
Senigalilii.
Giovanni Masfcii-Fer-
retti.
1878-1903.
Leone XIII.
Leo XIII.
Carpiueto (near
Gioacchino Pecci.
Ana<, iri).
1903
Pio X.
Pius X.
Riese (near Anolo).
Giuseppe Sarto.
- Gave the world the Gregorian Calendar.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY MATTER.
DEDICATION . lv
PREFACE .... v
A LIST OF THE POPES, WITH THEIR DATES, PLACES OF BIRTH AND
FAMILY NAMES . XV
CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PART I.
ABOUT THE VATICAN IN GENERAL ; THE POPE : HIS CARDINALS, HIS OFFICIALS, AND HIS POLICY.
I. INTRODUCTION . 3
II. WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF r 3
HI. WHAT HAPPENS AT THE DEATH OF A POPE 37
IV. WHAT HAPPENS AT THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 4 8
V. ABOUT THE SACRED COLLEGE OF CARDINALS AND THEIR
ELECTION .... VI. ON THE DUTIES OF THE POPE S SECRETARY OF STATE
AND HIS PREDECESSOR, THE CARDINAL NEPHEW . .108 VII. A VISIT TO THE POPE S SECRETARY OF STATE, CARDINAL
MERRY DEL VAL, IN THE BORGIA APARTMENTS . 123
VIII. AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE . *3 T
IX. How THE POPE LIVES . X 37^
X. _ THE PAPAL COURT AND THE HIGH OFFICIALS OF WHICH
IT IS COMPOSED . . T 45
XI. THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS AND PONTIFICAL COM
MISSIONS ... *57
XII. ON THE CRISIS BETWEEN THE VATICAN AND FRANCE.
(Bv His GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER) . 175
xxii CONTENTS.
PART 11.
ABUIT Till- PARTS OF [ III: VATICAN NOT ( .KNEKAI.LY SHOWN TO THE PUBLIC.
HA! . I .MiK
I. THK Srukv OK IHK \ ATU:AN HIM FROM ANCIENT
ROMAN TIMI-> . . . . . .187
II. THK STORY OF rm DUILDINI; ob IHK VATICAN AI
VARIOUS Kroru- .... . . . 196
III. A DESCRIPI ION OK OLD St. PKIKR S . 219
IV ( ).v I HK REMAIN-; OK Ou> S c. PKIKK S srin. PRKSKRYKD
IN RoMF. . .242
\ . I HK CrkoiTK VAVUANK, OK ( R\I-I MI Si. I KTKR S.
dkorrE Nuovr,, NORTH SIDK . . 258
VI. THK CikoiTK VAIHA.NK, OK ( uvrr OF Si. PKTKR S.
(IkdnT. VKCCHIE ..... 273
\ II. THK (ikoriK \ ATICANK, OR ( K\IM of ST. PKTF.K S.
(iRorric NfOVK, SOTTH SIDK . . . 292
VIII. NICHOLAS V. ANI> THE VATICAN. THK ( ii\i ii. OF
NICHOLAS V. . 299
IX. THK VATICAN LIBRARY . . ,517
X. THK VISITS OK MONIAH.M \M> MISSON 10 niE
VATICAN LIHRARY ... . 340
XI. TUF. Xl.W I.IONINK I.IHRARY \\HI.R1 Hit- rRINI KI)
BOOKS ARK KL1T . . . 348
XII. I m VATICAN ARCHIYKS \NI> IHI \\ ORK OK CARDINAL
MAI . 358
XIII. THK PRIVATK GARDENS OK IHI POIK . . 367
XIV. THK POPE S CoACH-norsK. AN Accor.vi OF IHK OLD
CAVALCATA. THK VATR-AN \\ ORKSIIOP> OK MOSAICS
AND TAPESTRIES . . . 379
XV. RAFFAELLE S TAPESTRIES . 391 XVI. THK PAOLINE AND LEONIM-. (CHAPELS, AND IHK POPE S
PRIVATE TAPESTRY ROOMS . . 398
XVII. THE SLSTINE TREASURY. . 407
XVIII. THE SACRISTY OF ST. PETER S . -415
XIX. THE DOME OF ST. PETER S . .420
XX. THE BORGIA APARTMENTS . 426
XXI. - THE ETRUSCAN MUSEUM. . 451
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Tu hack on page 14
16
The Grotte Nuove of St. Peter s, showing the
Confessio of Matteo Poliaiuolo on the right and
the light shining from St. Peter s Tomb upon
the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus . . . Frontispiece
The Court of the Casino of Pius IV. in the
Vatican Gardens Facing page
o / o
The Dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Sacristy of
St. Peter s
Plan of the Vatican Precincts by Baedeker . .,
Ground plan of the Vatican. From Pistoles?*
" // Vaticano Descritto ed Illustrate " Charity. Carved by Mine- da Fiesole for Paul II. s
Mausoleum, now in the Grotte Nuove of St.
Peter s Crypt . . ....
Faith. By Mino da Fiesole, from Paul II. s
Mausoleum, in the Grotte Nuove of St. Peter s
Crypt . Giovanni da Udine s Loggia before it was glazed.
From Pi stoles fs " li Vaticano" The Fire in the Borgo, from the painting by
Raffaelle in his Stanze. Showing the exterior of
Old St. Peter s. From Pistolesfs " // Vaticano" ,.
The famous Aldobrandini Wedding in the Vatican
Library. The finest picture which has survived
from Classical times ...... ,,
St. Peter s and the Vatican. The top wing on the
right hand contains the apartments of the Pope
From Pistoles? s " // Vaticano " . . To back on
The Piazza of St. Peter s as it is to-day ; on the
right, above the Colonnade, is the Palace of the
Vatican, the right wing of which contains the
apartments of the Pope ..... ,, ,
9
T 2
Facing page 20
1. 1ST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Tombof Sixtus I\ . in the Chapel of the Holy
Sacrament. This is the chapel where the dead
Pope lies in state . . . t acing pa$t 44
The Sistine Chapel, where the election of the Pope
takes place when it is held in the Vatican . . .... 48
Giotto s (much restored) mosaic, called the
Navicella, in the Porch of St. Peter s. From
1 Y.i t< -.V.f ;">"// I atu-a //. ". ... ..54
The Paoline Chapel, used by the Cardinals when
they are in Conclave ..... 63
The Leonine Chapel, called also the Loggia of
Paul V. and Sala della Beatificazione, from
which the Pope goes into the gallery of St.
Peter s to bless the people after his election ;
used also for Canonizations .... ,, ,, 72
The Porch of St. Peter s. />-,</ Pistoles?* " /.
I a tiiiin^ "....... ,, -i 6
The Statue of St. Peter in St Peter s. It dates
from the 6th century .... ,. ,. 85
1 he Creation of \Voman. Carved by Mino d.i
Fiesole for Paul II. s Mausoleum, now m the
Grotte Nuove ot St. Peter s Crypt . . ,,90
Miniatures by Giotto in a manuscript in the library
of the Canons of St. Peter -. /><>;// I istincsi i
" // I ll ft t ll Mi> "...... ,. ,, ()4
The ceiling of the Sala Kcgia ,, IQO
The Pavilion of the Casino of Pius IV. in the
Vatican Gardens . . . ,, ,, 108
The Statue of St. Peter, fmrn the Old Basilica,
seated on the throne of Benedict XII. in the
Chapel of S. M. delln Bocciata in the Crypt of
St. Peter s ....... ,, ,, I i f>
havid standing on the head of Goliath. On the
ceiling of the Borgia rooms ,, ,, 124
The Courtyard of S. I amaso before the arcades
were glazed by Pius IX. Drawn and engraved
by G. Fontana. The apartments of the Pope- occupy the right wing. f- rom I^istolesi i " //
Vaticano" ....... To back on page 132
The Court of S. Damaso since Pius IX. glazed
its arcades. The Pope s apartments are to the
right, where the carriage is standing ... 133
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
XXV
The marble Shrine of the Virgin now in the Crypt of St. Peter s. From Pistoles fs "II Vaticano ".......
The interior of St. Peter s Showing Canova s monument to the last three Stuarts, erected by George IV. when Prince Regent
Filippo Bonanni s reconstruction of the Basilica of Constantine .......
A Bull of Pope Clement VIII., dated " Rome at St. Peter s in the year of the Incarnation of Our Lord one thousand and five hundred and ninety-two on the Kalends of January in the first year of our Pontificate " .
Panvinio s Plan showing the relation of Nero s Circus to St. Peter s, and Hadrian s Circus to his Tomb, now the Castle of Sant Angelo. From Pistoles fs " // Vaticano "...
The Circus of Nero, where St. Peter was executed, as reconstructed by G. Fontana. From Pistoles fs " II Vaticano "
The Crucifixion of St. Peter by Giotto now in the Sacristy of St. Peter s. The earliest known work of art in which the Tomb of Romulus and the Tomb of Caius Cestius are shown as the Duae Metae. From Pistolesfs " // Vaticano " .
Sarcophagus of Nicholas V. in the Grotte Vecchie of St. Peter s Crypt
Giampietro Chattard s Plan of St. Peter s and its
Portico. From Pistolesfs " // Vaticano " Exterior of Old St. Peter s, Rome. Reproduced by permission from the British Museum Guide to the Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities
The Grotte Vecchie of St. Peter s Crypt, showing the Sarcophagus of the old Pretender on the extreme right and the urn containing the praecordia of Pius IX. next to it
The Donation of Constantine, by Giulio Romano and other pupils of Raffaelle, in the Stanze. Showing the interior of Old St. Peter s. From Pistolesfs " II Vaticano " . .
Facing page 138
J 5
162
174
To back on page 188
189
Facing page 192
200
218
222
237
xxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Old St. Peter s, with the procession transporting
the body of St. Gregory the Great in the fore ground, and the dome of the present church
rising behind. Painted by P. Brill . . /- ucin^ pap 240
The bronze doors removed from Old St. Peter s to
the present Church. They were made by
Filarete and Ghini, and the bottom right panel
show.-, the Tomb of (Jains Cestius and Tomb of
Romulu-, at the Duae Metae. l- rom Pisti lesi s
" /. I dt: .//>/ " . . . . . . 244
The Execution of Si. Peter. Carved by Math- >
I ollaiuolo for the Confessio of Old St Peter s,
now in the Grotte Nuove of St. Peter s Crypt . 254
The Tabernacle of the Holy Lance in Old St.
Peter s. From the fresco in the Crypt . 2-6
The Tabernacle of the Volto Santo in Old St.
Trier s. From the fresco in the Crypt. From
/Y.>/V>.Vv/ v " /. l ut;\\it: ... ,, 256
of the Crypt of St. Peter s. From Pistslesi i
" /i I \iti i ii nil "..... () 258
The Temptation. Carved by M;no da Fii-sole for
Paul II. s Mausoleum, now in the Grotte Nuove
of St. Peter s Crypt ...... 2no
Chapel of the Tomb of St. Peter, in the Crypt.
The altar is almost over the Tomb ... ,. 204
The Sarcophagus of Junius P.assus in the Grotte
Nuove of St. Peter s Crypt .... ,, 266
The Mausoleum of Boniface VIII. in Old St.
IVt -r - ... ., 276
The Mausoleum of Paul II. in Old St. Peter s,
from which the Mino da Ftesole sculptures in
the Crypt were taken. /->vw / isfi Jgst s //
Vati;iini> ....... 276
The Tomb of Hadrian IV., the only English Pope,
behind; the Tomb of the Borgia P >pes,
Caiixtus III. and Alexander VI., in front. The
effigy is that of Caiixtus III M 285
Pope Benedict XII. and a fresco of Old St. Peter s
on a wall in St. Peter s Crypt .... ,, ., 296
Alfarano s plan, showing how Old St. Peter s and
the present Cathedral rest upon the Circus of
Nero. From Pistole si s " // Vatitano " . . ,,300
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xxvii
St. Lawrence. By Fra Angelico; in the Chapel of
Nicholas V. ....... Facing pagt 314
The Sala Sistina, or Grand Hall, of the Vatican
Library . . ,. 33;
The Pope s Classical Garden .... ,. ,. 368
Giardino della Pigna. Showing the Niccio of
Bramante and the Pigna (pine cone) and Pea cocks which came from the Atrium of Old
St. Peter s 378
The Scala Regia of the Vatican. Designed by
Bernini ........ ,. ^t)8
The Sala Ducale of Bernini in the Vatican.
Drawn by G. Fontana. From Pisto esTs " //
Vaticano "...... ,. ,. 402
St. Peter s. Plan showing how the Dome and the
Shrine Galleries of its piers are ascended.
From Pistoles i s " // Vaticano " . . . .. ,, 4 . 4
Ancient bronze chariot in the Etruscan Museum . ,, 45:
Etruscan Museum in the Vatican, showing the
armour worn by a Roman soldier, and Etruscan
shields, mirrors, and cauldrons . . .. 456
PART I.
ABOUT THE VATICAN IN GENERAL; THE POPE: HIS CARDINALS, HIS OFFICIALS AND HIS POLICY.
The Secrets of the Vatican*
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.
THE reader who is led by my title to expect scandal in this book will be disappointed. The present ad ministration of the Vatican, with its plain living and high thinking, leaves no room for scandal. Its dignity is courtly ; its approachability is saintly. The worst I have heard against the Vatican of to-day is that certain fortunate servants traffic in the tickets issued for admission to ceremonies, but venality is venial in Court servants.
I have in these pages told of the sad splendour of the death of a Pope ; of the religious exaltation and royal ceremonies of the Conclave which elects him : I have described the creation of Cardinals : and the functions of the Cardinals and the Sacred Congregations and the Pope s household touchingly called the Famiglia Pontificia: and I have given the daily round of the Pope s simple life.
I have traced the story of the Vatican Hill and the Vatican Palace from their earliest days. I have en deavoured to reconstruct Old St. Peter s out of the fragments that survive, and have lingered long in the Crypt of St. Peter s, which, with its memories and remains of the ancient basilica, is both as a monument
i*
4 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
and in history the most important part of the Vatican. My purpose in this volume has been to initiate the British and American public in the sights of the Vatican which visitors do not generallv see, and in the routine and institutions of the Papal Court.
Of all the secret places of the Vatican there is none which fires the imagination of the visitor more than the Garden of the Pope, so often called his Eden. The allusion is inevitable for at the very gates of the Vatican, on the pinnacle of the Castle of Sant Angelo, is the great Bronze Angel with the drawn sword, whom the Pope will not pass, because the tomb of the heathen Emperor below is filled with the soldiers of the re-born Rome, which dispossessed the Church of the kingdom of this world. Once past this cordon, he would be out of his dominions.
But the simile is incomplete, because the World with out, and not the (iarden within, is the Eden to which the Angel bars the way. Yet the garden must be a very Paradise to the Popes, because it is the only spot where they may listen, as Xuma Pompilius listened on this very hill, to the vaticinations of Nature, the wise coun sellor of the weary brain.
In these narrow limits are wood and vineyard a classic garden buried from the wind and open to the sun ; the voices of falling waters ; and the garden- pavilion of the fourth Pius, with its haunting beauty in the image of a Roman Emperor s pleasure house. It is full of memories of the saintly Carlo Borromeo but it is easier to credit it with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
How thankful must he be, whose feet never pass beyond his gates, that in Italy the flowers of the field
INTRODUCTION. 5
assert their right-of-way to every nook uncumbered with masonry. The shady groves, where he walks, when the heat of the summer day is a burden, have, in the bright leafless days of Spring, a joyous carpet of violets and anemones, squills as blue as Roman skies, and crimson cyclamens which embalm the breeze.
But more than all these must he prize, as he stands on the towered wall, built a thousand years ago by the fourth Leo to guard the Holy Hill from the heathen Saracen, the view of the open road, of the spacious Campagna, and the distant sea, which is to him the world the Vineyard where there is no cold shadow of Italian Monarchy falling, as the shadow of Elijah fell upon the sunshine of King Ahab.
Prosaic as may be the suggestions of the word coach house in unlovely London, romance yet lurks in the coach-house of the Popes, shaded by the stately stone- pines of his Garden. For here are stored the trappings with which the successor of St. Peter rode on his white mule down the Sacred Way, climbed by the Scipios and Caesars in their Triumphs, to take seisin of the Lateran, the chief Church of Christendom, the proto- palace of the Papacy. That great coach, all scarlet and gold, with the flying and trumpeting cherubs, carried Pius IX., the last of the Pope-Kings, in his royal processions, surrounded by all the Papal Court on foot, on the four great days of the year. Six huge white horses drew it, and one of their postilions lives to tell the tale among the relics of the former grandeur.
In these days, when the Pope never drives from the Vatican Gates, the coach-house has surrendered its unneeded chambers to the swelling Archives of the Vatican, many of which made the lorn pilgrimage to
6 THE SECRETS OK THE VATICAN.-
Avignon in the years of the First Captivity ; and have only come back in these latter days.
From the archive rooms you step into the noble Leonine Library, which the great Pope (gathered so recently to his Apostolic Fathers that his body still hangs between earth and heaven in St. Peter s awaiting the completion of its long home) established to receive all the printed books of the Biblioteca Yaticana.
There is a pat ho? haunting the Leonine Library like that which stalks in the deserted halls of Holyrood, for here the first of the Popes to wear no earthly crown, strove to carry on with unminished dignity the more than royal ambition of the immortal Nicholas V., to make the Vatican the light of the world, to maintain on its hill a city that could not be hid.
11 hud the foundation of not one new hall, he added few books that wen- not printed in his own Papal presses, but he turned th - famous and immemorial Library from a stagnant pool into a stream of living waters, which should ilow to the ends of the earth. For he made the >prings of learning the innumerable Archives
the priceless manu-cnpts, the half-million of printed book> gatli red in his own halls of study, mingle their current^ iW every scholar, of whatever country or creed, who thirsted for the river of learning, strewn with golden sands for discoverers.
The new halls in which Pope Leo stored the printed books are, in architecture, as they are in virtue, the foundations of the noble Sala Sistina, which is the out ward and visible glory of the Vatican Library.
This vast hall, over two hundred feet in length, frescoed with gay arabesques perpetuating the designs which Raffaelle and Giovanni da Udine copied from
INTRODUCTION. 7
- Nero 1 s Golden House, when it was first rescued from the
earth of jealous centuries, is at once the most brilliant and the most dignified, though not the best in art, of the imperial Chambers of Rome. In it, cased in glass, are the most famous manuscripts in the world. It is still the most princely of libraries as it was in the days before the Spanish Armada, when the superb Sixtus founded it. But when you are in it you have no heed for him ; your thoughts go back another four generations to the fairy changeling who was turned from a humble scholar- from a poor priest who tolled bells into the most brilliant monarch who ever sat on the throne of St. Peter. In that same year, 1447, when the little Ligurian of Sarzana was turned by chance into the head of Christendom, and burst upon an astonished world as a rose opens in the night, the great Ligurian city of Genoa gave birth to the greatest of all the sailors and citizens who sprang from the Republic of the Dorias.
Christopher Columbus was born just as Nicholas V. became Pontiff. Truly the world was promised, if not a Renaissance, a fresh dawn, in which the clouds of Papal Schisms and Italian Wars should lift for a day of match less brilliance, wherein the ships of Europe were to swim to Africa, India, and America, and the writers of Greece to come back across the Styx.
Few of the nine thousand manuscripts collected for the most magnificent and munificent of the patrons of learning by the great scholars of the Mid Quattrocento, like Poggio Bracciolini, the forerunner of Angelo Mai, but have gone the way of all the earth like the eight resplendent chests which contained his choicest treasures. Splendour was the language in which Nicholas would
- Called by scholars now, The Baths of Titus.
TI1K SECRETS OF THE VATICAN"
have the Vatican proclaim its message to the world. And even of the buildings with which he sought to make the Vatican Hill the rival of the Palatine, only one cell remains in the glory with which he clothed it the tiny chapel which glows with the masterpieces of Fra Angelico, though it was Nicholas who built the walls of the Appartameiiti which Pinturicchio frescoed for the Borgias, and of the Stanze which Raffaelle immortalized for Julius II.
Of the thousands of marvellous manuscripts, and the paintings of the Classic Age, gathered in the Library, of the Vatican Codex and the Xozze Aldobrandini, and the bits of Old Roman life from the Catacombs, I speak in their place.
The immortal grace of Rallaelle in the Stanze and l.oggie, the magnificence of Michel Angelo in the Si-tine Chapel, the masterpieces ol the Vatican Picture dallerv, even the visions nf Greece in her glory, which people the Sculpture Halls of the transformed Villa of Innocent VIII., I pass by in silent wonder, for they are not in the secret places of the Vatican.
Hut it is not everyone who can effect a visit to the Borgia Rooms which Leo XIII. rescued from the tall book-cases of the library, and n stored to apartments for Princes. Here to-day, like his forerunners when their high office was first created, dwells the Cardinal Secretary of State amid the almost matchless splendour of the halls which Alexander VI. caused to be frescoed by Pinturicchio. The Borgia Apartments are the most sparkling gem in the Vatican s golden crown of art.
Apart from the duty or the curiosity which takes you to attend a reception of the Cardinal Secretary here, or the Maggiordomo in his apartments, it is well to pay
- - I i>l\ . ll
I / I/ ///
INTRODUCTION. 9
the visit to appreciate the atmosphere of the Papal Court, its dignity, tempered with approachability ; its simplicity tempered by quiet richness ; its unmistakable air of a Royal presence.
Though it may be visited without leave, it is only on one day in the week, and therefore, where a hundred see the Apollo Belvedere, barely one sees the storied arras richly dight, which Raffaelle designed for Leo X. to hang under the frescoes of the Sistme Chapel. These tapestries, woven in the looms of Flanders four hundred years ago, suffered from fire and sword in the evil days of the Constable of Bourbon and his Protestant Lans- knechts, but they are still the world s premier tapestries : their colours still glow : their genius is such that we can only think of the Apostles in the forms in which Raffaelle created them : and the Gallery of the Candelabri, which you visit with them, is a gallery of masterpieces.
Nor are these the only tapestries in the Vatican, for there are two other rooms where the Pope and his Cardinals robe, and State banquets are held, and the officers of the Swiss Guard have their mess, which are hung with the noblest tapestries of the sixteenth century, some of them woven for the profuse Farnese Pope, some from the Gobelins looms, given by the Roi Soleil to commemorate his betrothal all reputed to be priceless. Priceless, too, are some of the Papal treasures in the sacristies of St. Peter s and the Sistme.
The chief treasures in the Tesoro of St. Peter s are the dalmatic worn by Charlemagne when he came to Rome a thousand years ago to be crowned ; and the candle sticks wrought by Benvenuto Cellini to grace the High Altar when the Pope is celebrating Mass. In the Sistine Treasury are preserved the lace robe worn by Boniface
10 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.-
VIII. at the first Jubilee, six centuries ago, and the first Golden Rose from which have sprung all the Golden Roses conferred by the Papacy on its benefactors. But here the special treasures are lost in the marvellous richness of the suites of robs worn by the Pope and the Cardinals in functions of special state, such as the black robes woven on i^old in which the officiating
o
Cardinals stand round the catafalque of the dead Pope, and the trailing robes, as rich and white as snow, in which the Pope is borne into St. Peter s like a saint in glory, on his Sedia Cn -tatoria.
Everv visitor inu-t needs enter the \ atican by one of three entrain vs : by whichever lie may enter he must be dead of soul whose imagination is not fired.
If it is the gate in the little pavilion, as graceful as a Classical temple, which admits to the Pope s Garden, the Vatican Library and ihe Mii-euin of Sculpture, he will be met by a procession of the gods of Greece, chiselled out < f lair white marble in the work-hops of two thousand years ago.
It he stops and enters at the Purtonc di l : crro the iron gate at the foot of the hill he is in the oldest part of the palace, whose dark and frowning towers, more in keeping with the fortress of Avignon, rose in the age of the Borgias and della Roven-s ; the tall, dour Swiss, who guard them, still wear the motley liveries, and, on occasion, the pikemen s armour of the Middle Ages. On either side, as he passes in, rise the Sistine Chapel and the Palace of the Borgias all of the fifteenth century ; and this is the wav by which, in the old days of the temporal power and pomp, the Papal cortege issued.
To the stranger in the gates the chief entrance of
INTRODUCTION. n
the Vatican must always be the great Portone di Bronzo the Bronze Gate, which opens on the stupendous Piazza of St. Peter s, and the temple-like colonnade of Bernini.
Here, too, are the picturesque Swiss, and a vista, more regal if not so ancient or historical. The stranger will not heed the closely-guarded staircase on his right until he knows that it is the Jacob s ladder to the apartments of the Pontiff himself. His eyes will be taken up with the Scala Regia (the giant staircase, royal in name as well as in magnificence), which leads up through a stately colonnade to the Sala Regia the Royal Hall where, surrounded by vast frescoed triumphs of the Catholic Faith, beneath a fretted ceiling as rich in gold as the waters of Pactolus, the Pope-King was wont to receive the Ambassadors of his brother Kings. The very passage which leads off it, is of such dimensions and ambitions that it is called the Ducal Hall.
The Vatican is full of chambers with lofty and romantic names such as the Hall of the Beatifications, where saints on earth are canonized ; the Gallery of Inscriptions ; the Christian and Profane Museums ; the Hall of the Popes ; the Hall of the Madonna ; the Hall of the Lives of the Saints ; the Hall of the Credo ; the Hall of the Sibyls (the last five in the Borgia Apart ments) not one of which but is worth seeing, not one of which but can be seen.
The Vatican, like Janus, the God of Rome, has two faces. Seen from the one side it is the Pope s kingdom ; seen from the other it is his home. On the first you may gaze on any week-day morning ; the second none mav behold but those who are bidden.
Who shall complain ? There is little to observe in
12 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN/
the Pope s apartments but his private life and that he who lives the life of the man with the iron mask, has a right to keep sealed from observation.
Apart from the aura of Sanctity, apart from venerable associations, this portion of the palace has nothing to show within which would compare with the work of the Borgias and della Roveres. It is only three hundred years old, and recent Popes have returned to Apostolic simplicity.
Hut it contains a few noble chambers, like the Hall of the Consistory, and is rendered impressive by the atmo sphere and the velvet-liveried retainers of a Court.
What the Vatican lacks is architectural nobility. When you gaze on the glowing vaults of Raffaelle s Loggie, the triple tier of arcades which surround the superb Court of Saint Damasus, even when you move in the gorgeous baroque immensity of chambers like the Sala Regiu, you feel their majesty. Hut the Vatican has neither the romantic splendour of Windsor, nor the grandeur of the Louvre. It looks more like a Parlia ment House than a Palace. Everyone, who lifts his eyes to it, must wish that Nicholas V. had lived to accomplish his gorgeous visions, and had crowned the royal and holy hill with ramparts and towers and soaring white palaces till it rivalled the Palatine groaning under the palaces of the Caesars.
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CHAPTER II. WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF.
[The numbers in brackets refer to Plan.] THE Vatican, says Hare, in his "Walks in Rome," is the largest palace in the world. He gives its measure ments as one thousand one hundred and fifty-one English feet long, and seven hundred and sixty-seven broad. These measurements are, with slight variations, repeated in other guide-books, with the exception that in Baedeker s " Central Italy " it is further stated that the total extent covered by the palace is thirteen and a half acres, while in Baedeker s " Paris " it is stated that the Louvre and the fragment of the Tuileries together cover forty-eight acres. And in any case you have to ask to what these measurements of length and breadth refer. From the left hand edge of the Sistine Chapel to the extreme point of the Sculpture Museum, built out of Innocent VIII. s Villa Belvedere, the length must be very much greater than eleven hundred and fifty-one feet. For the long Gallery of the Library alone measures a thousand and twenty feet. But if the width be taken to refer to the stretch from the back of the sacristies of the Sistine Chapel to the back of the Papal apartments, that may be approximately correct. It is to be noted also that whereas Hare and Murray each concede eleven thousand apartments,
14 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Baedeker says that the number of halls, chapels, saloons, and private apartments, is more likely to come to one thousand than to eleven thousand, while Misson, who visited the Vatican intelligently, in the reign of Queen Anne, says twelve thousand five hundred. Be this as it may, all of them concede twenty courts and eight grand staircases, and Murray puts down the minor staircases at about two hundred.
\Ve must now consider the principal buildings of which the Vatican Palace consists. The first of the twenty courtyards is the. Cortile di San Damaso (4^, standing at the head of tin- S ala Pia (i;, the Pope s staircase, which leads up on the right directly you enter the bronze gates. It is the grand courtvard of the Vatican, officially, for the apartments of the Pope, the apartments of the Cardinal Secretary of State, and the entrance to the library used bv members of the House hold open off it.
A second courtyard (e) is in the centre of the apart ments actually occupied by the Pope. A third, just to the south of" the Papal apartments, is called the Courtyard of the Grooms, Cortile dci Palafrenieri (c). The fourth is the Court of the Parrot (Cortile del Papa- <M/A>) (10). It is situated between the Sala Ducale (24, 25) and the Borgia Rooms ;A 37, 38, 39) in the oldest part of the Vatican Palace proper, built in the fifteenth century by Nicholas V ., Sixtus IV., and Alexander VI. It is connected by a narrow passage with the Court of the Iron Gate, the Corlile del Portone di Fcrro fn), which stands between the Sala Regia (26) and the ante-chapel of the Sistine Chapel (29) on one side and the Torre Borgia (40) on the other. This again opens out of the Cortile della Sentinella (12) the
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WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 15
Court of the Guard the place where you always see a little knot of the Swiss Guards in their picturesque uniforms as you begin to climb the hill to the Pavilion
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(100), which admits you to the Sculpture Galleries, the Library, and the Pope s Garden.
As far as the exterior is concerned, this is by far the most interesting part of the Vatican Palace. Its lofty gateway and towers, with their beetling machicoles, the heavy, overhanging balconies, reminding one with their forbidding strength of the rock-like Papal Palace of Avignon, are full of the atmosphere of the fifteenth century. There is a grimness in the very colour of the old brown walls. The whole aspect gives you an idea of the many-towered castle which bore the name of the Vatican in the days of the Old St. Peter s the one actual fragment of the gigantic enceinte with which Nicholas V. proposed to surround the Vatican Hill, filling its interior with the Holy and Royal city which was to exceed the Palatine of the Qesars in the vastness and splendour of its buildings, and to contain such a library as would make it the focus of light and learning for all Christendom, for all the civilized world. Thomas Parentucelli, the little man of Sarzana, did not live and work and dream in vain, though the Popes are no longer kings of the Earth, and of all his buildings on the Vatican Hill only one tiny chapel, made heavenly by the genius of Fra Angelico, remains perfect- though even of his books but a handful are left. For the Vatican Library is still the library of libraries, where the originals that have given us our copies of the classic writers of Greece and Rome almost all lie. That is the outward and visible sign, and added to that is the in ward and spiritual grace of learning and scholarship
16 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
which has rarely ceased to illuminate the Papal Court since Nicholas V. gave it birth. He might well have been figured as Moses drawing the waters of learning from the dry rock with a stroke of his rod the pastoral staff.
Only separated from this old brown bit of the Vatican bv the building of Nicholas which was converted into the Borgia Apartments, is the seventh courtyard (58), theCortile del Belvedere, which is divided from the ninth, the (liardino della Pigna .;<) , by the Vatican Library, and the Braccio Nuovo ;j of the Sculpture (ialleries and the little court ot the Vatican printing office (64), which must be counted the eighth.
The entire space occupied by the seventh, eighth, and ninth courtyard>, the Tortile del Belvedere, the (iiarclino della Pigna, and the diardino della Stampena, and the buildings which divide them, formed one superb court- vurd in the building designed by Bramante at the com mand of Pop* Julius II., to connect the Vatican Palace of his enemies the Bnrgius with the villa or garden palace of Pope Innocent VIII., which received its name of the Belvedere from its beautiful view. There is another little garden or court, the tenth, in the centre of the Villa of Innocent VIII., which now forms the principal Sculpture Museum. This also is called the Cortile del Belvedere. Of the remaining courtyards, those of the Maresciallo of the Conclave (14), and the Maggiordomo (15), abut on the Sala Ducale, and that of the Archivi is on the far side of the Pavilion by which you enter the Sculpture Museum. But neither these nor the Court of the Falegnami behind the Papal apart ments concern the general public nor do any other of the courts except the Cortile del Forno, which lies at the
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WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 17
back of St. Peter s where you turn up to the Sculpture Gallery.
The principal staircases of the Vatican are the Scala Pia (i), the Scala Regia, with the Scala Nobile, which leads up to the Hall of the Biga and the Etruscan Museum ; the staircase to the Museo Pio Clementino ; the great staircase on the north side of the Courtyard of San Damaso ; the staircase which leads from the Sistine Chapel down to St. Peter s, and the staircase leading to the Pope s apartments up from the Courtyard of San Damaso.
The great Scala Pia which sweeps up from the Bronze Doors to the Courtyard of S. Damaso (and consequently to the Pope s apartments), receives its name from Pius IX., who converted it from an open staircase at the same time as he enclosed the south side of the Courtyard of S. Damaso. Halfway up it is the office of the Pope s Maestro di Camera, and at the top are the apart ments of the Maggiordomo, consisting of a large cloak room fitted with tables on which visitors lay their coats and hats, leading into a luxurious apartment of the dimensions of a hall, where the visitors wait and the principal secretaries have their tables, and thence into the Maggiordomo s office itself.
The Scala Regia is a mountain of stone, claimed by ardent Roman Catholics to be the finest interior stair case in the world. It was designed, like the glorious colonnades of the Piazza of St. Peter s, by Bernini. It was ordered by the Barberini Pope (Urban VIII.), but not finished till the time of the Chigi Pope (Alexander VII.), whose arms it bears.
It furnishes a magnificent prospect as it mounts up from the Bronze Doors, the public entrance to the
2
iS THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Vatican, stretching away in a long vista, commencing with a superb Ionic colonnade ; and it must not be forgotten that Bernini also designed enormous gilt consoles for the further decoration, and for the illumina tion of his great staircase, which still exist but are kept stored away ; I allude to them elsewhere. The stucco ornamentations above the arches and on the ceilings which bear the arms of Alexander VII. are the work of the sculpt or Algardi and have considerable beauty and elegance, though they are not at all com parable to the work of the Sicilian Giacomo Serpotta, who lived a hundred years later, and, of course, may have been inspired by Algardi. Th- other staircases will be described as they come into the topographical plan.
At the top of the Scala Pia, as I have said, is the beautiful Cortile d; S. Damaso .j , the royal court of the Vatican, which, in it- conception, was one of the master- pieces of Bramante, though it has been altered so con siderably -particularly under Pius IX. -that much of its original grace is lost. Good old Pio Nono was, it must be confessed, on the horns of a dilemma : on the one hand he had Bramante s most elegant arcades 20j 21, 22 to consider, on the other hand there were the frescoes of Kalfaelle and Giovanni da I dine, which were feeling the effects of four centuries of semi-exposure to the weather. As in the case of St. Peter s and the Cortile del Belvedere, Bramante was sacrificed to later idea^ The airy and soaring effect of the triple arcades with which he had surrounded the Courtyard of S. Damaso was lost in the glass screens with which the arches were tilled. But the frescoes benefited by the conversion of the loggias into a sort of winter garden. The right hand, or east side, of this court is taken up
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 16
with the apartments, said to be only twenty-two in number, which Sixtus V. built round a minor court yard for the actual use of the Popes. Of these the Pope s library, study and bedroom, private reception room, and a sort of antechamber to it (i, i, i, i, i, i, i, h, g), look south across the Piazza of St. Peter s over Rome. The throne room, the private chapel and its anteroom, the anteroom which leads into them and the second public anteroom, occupy the east side of the quadrangle. The Hall of the Grooms and the first public anteroom occupy the north side, and most of the west side is taken up with the state entrance and the staircase and the fine Sala Clementina (f), in which one of the three pickets of Swiss Guards on duty at the Vatican is stationed.
Out of this opens the Hall of the Bussolanti. This is the name given to the lay attendants, dressed in crimson velvet, who mount guard over the Bussola the door for keeping out draughts which gives access to the Pope s private antechambers. There are thirty-six Bussolanti. In their hall, the laity who are admitted to an audience with the Pope leave their hats and coats and umbrellas. After passing the Bussola you thread a series of ante chambers, says Goyau. c< The first is guarded by gensdarmes, and the secretaries of Cardinals await here the return of their masters. The second is in charge of the Palatine Guards. Turning off to the right the visitor, by a third hall decorated with tapestries, reaches a fourth, in charge of the Noble Guards. To the right a door which can be opened wide gives access to the Chapel of the Holy Father. And it is in this hall that you are stationed when you are present at the Pope s Mass. A fifth room, called the Anticamera d Onore, is
2*
20 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
adorned with the Papal Throne. When you are granted a private audience you attend in this room. It is here that the Pope takes up his position to receive important bodies of visitors ; to receive, at the New Year, or on the anniversary of his coronation, the congratulations of the Prelate, and Cardinals ; and to hear during Lent and Advent the preachings intended for the Papal Court. Two Camerieri d Onore, one in a violet habit, the other with s^uiu c C\I/>/M, are on duty in this antechamber. Before a door at the bottom a Noble Guard is on duty. This door admits to the Anticamera Segreta, reserved tor prelate- who are at least Camerieri Segreti, and tor Cardinal-. From this point you have only a threshold to cross and you are at the feet of the
Pope."
This is the easternmost portion of the Vatican Palace, and under its shadow on the south side arc the Court of the (.room-, etc. The other two sides of the Court of S. Damaso, which is the next portion of the palace westwards, are taken up with the Loggie of Raifaelle (20, 21, 22 , completed by him as the architect from the design ol Bramante. Only a limited number of the panels, called Raifaelle s Bible, because they are taken from Bible history, are from kaflaelle s hand; but of great interest also are the stucchi and arabesques executed by Giovanni da Udine, who was the sole artist employed in the first iloor gallery on the west side. I have told in another chapter how he copied these arabesques from the newly-discovered baths of Titus ; they have the double merit of reproducing an ancient Roman monument and being extremely graceful and spirited. The Loggie of Raffaelle do not fall within the scope of this book, for they are one of the parts of
(iiovanni da U (line s I.o^ia before it was t^la/.ed. J- ro, " // 1 afifiino."
ng page 20.
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 21
the palace which everybody visits. It is through Giovanni da Udine s loggia that the students who have the privilege of reading in the Vatican Library, as well as the privileged inhabitants of the Vatican, enter the Library, passing along the Gallery of the Inscriptions (Galleria Lapidaria), which is nearly seven hundred feet in length and covered with five thousand fragments of pagan and early Christian inscriptions, sarcophagi and cippi, collected mainly by Pius VII. when Napoleon had carried off all the prizes of sculpture from the Vatican galleries, though a few of them were collected by Clement XIV. and Pius VI. Underneath this is the atelier in which the famous Vatican mosaics, upon which I have said a few words in another chapter, are made. The Gallery of Inscriptions (42) leads into the Chiara- monti Museum (77), which I shall leave until I am speaking of the Sculpture Galleries, to which it belongs. It also received its present designation and use from Pius VII. the Chiaramonti Pope and the two together fill one of the two great wings nearly four hundred yards long which Pope Julius II. commissioned Bramante to build to unite the palaces which stood in his day with the Villa of Pope Innocent VIII. on the northern edge of the Vatican Hill.
It is best to retrace our steps to the Loggia of Giovanni da Udine, at the back of which are four interesting rooms ; the first and largest of the Borgia Apartments, the smoking-room of the Cardinals, called also the Galleriola (35)> or the audience room ; the Spogliatoio, or Hall of the Pappagallo (35), and the Hall of the Paramenti (23) . I have mentioned these in order from north to south, but I will take the last, which is entered through the Sala Ducale (24, 25), first. It is singularly well named,
22 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
for the term Sala dei Paramenti mi-lit be applied with equal fidelity to its being the room where the Cardinals put on their sacerdotal robes for great functions, or it- bring the room with the tapestry hangings with the arms of the Farnese Tope, Paul III., I534- I 5^9. Nvhlch are said to be so priceless.
A door from the Sala dei Paramenti admits into the Sala del Pappa.uallo, or Hall of the Parrot, which con tains the nuptial tapestries of Louis XIV. and is the room set apart for the Pope to robe in before he goes to function- in St. Peter s. 1 1. -re the Cardinal Secretary of State gives his state dinners, and here, in ordinary life, the officers of the Swiss Guard dine. The long gallery opening out of the end of this room, \\ith reeliiiing benches along its side, after the manner of the guard- rooms of Tunis, is the Galleriola, now the smoking-room of the Cardinals.
The Horgia Apartments are approached by a separate staircase in the north-wot corner of the Courtyard oi S. D.unaso. Thev now, of course, form the official residence of the Pope s Prime Minister, the Cardinal Secretary of Mate, and are the subject of a separate chapter. The first of them -known as the Sala dei Pontiiici, or Hall of the Popes 36 -is much the largest. Leo X. had the ceiling decorated with mythological emblems by Giovanni da Udine and Pierino del Vaga, pupils of Raffaelle. It is impossible to believe that the lost Hours of Raffaelle lie, as some have said, under these frescoes, because Leo X. was far too great an admirer of the work of Raffaelle to have allowed a jot or tittle of it to be hidden.
This room is hung with magnificent French tapestries of the sixteenth century, mostly representing the story
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 23
of Cephalus and Procris. Here I must warn readers that all guide-books, except the latest, are incorrect in the information which they give about the Borgia Apart ments, as they have been subjected to so many changes. Even Hare s " Walks in Rome," brought up to date by a man who knows his Rome so well as Mr. St. Clair Baddeley, states that visitors are admitted by the same ticket required for the Sculpture Galleries, and that they have been opened as a kind of Mediaeval museum of the Papacy," Museo di Leone XIII . (Hare, 1905), while in Black s " Guide to Rome " (1906), it is repeated that they are the " Mediaeval museum of the Papacy," and that Room I. serves as the anteroom of the Swiss Guard, while another guide-book places the armoury in them. As a matter of fact they now serve no purpose except that of the Cardinal Secretary s official residence, and orders for admission, which are limited to five persons at a time for a short period in the afternoon, are issued by the Cardinal s secretary in the mornings. Until twenty years ago all the printed books of the Vatican Library were kept in them.
Coats and hats and umbrellas are left in the Sala dei Pontinci (36), which leads into the second of the Borgia Apartments where the celebrated frescoes by Pin- turicchio, which rival his frescoes in the Library of Siena, begin. This is called the Hall of the Mysteries, or the Hall of the Madonna (37). Here, except in the hours during which the public are admitted, one of the Cardinal s secretaries sits, who receives the cards of visitors admitted for an audience. The regular recep tion hours are after the Angelus. The exquisite Annunciation is in this room.
From the Camera della Vita della Madonna opens the
24 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Camera dell a Vita dci Santi (38), in which the frescoes are glorious. For here arc the story of Santa Rarbara ; the infinitely lovely picture of St. Catherine (Lucrezia Borgia) disputing with the philosophers before the Emperor ; the San Sebastian ; the Santa Susanna, and the Isis and Osiris ceiling, selected to give the legend of the bull Apis, the ox being the Borgia arms. This is the waiting room in which visitors remain after the secretary has pa-d them until the Cardinal sends for them, or more ordinarily, comes in person to call them ; for the courtesy and courtliness of the great Vatican officials is exquisite.
The fourth room opening out of these is called the Camera dclle Arti e Scienze 39 , where the Cardinal holds his audiences. This, again, has superb Pinturicchio frescoes, representing the Seven Liberal Arts.
From there a staircase of about a dozen steps leads uj) into the Torre ttor^ia (40), where there are two rooms, the first of which, with large oriel windows, is the Cardinal Secretary s study. Just below the ceiling runs a fresco of the Apostles, each holding his special portion of the Creed, whence its name, "The Hall of the Credo." The celebrated Xo//e Aldobrandmi, the iim-st antique fn-sco known before the grand discoveries at Pompeii, is no longer in this room, as stated in 11 are : " Walks in Rome," 1905. It is now in the Vatican Library, where anyone can see it, whereas these two rooms in the Torre Borgia are never shown to the public. The other room in the tower, known as the Sala delle Sibylle, has an elaborately frescoed ceiling, and I believe some fine tapestries, but I have not seen this room.
I am told that not even the Cardinal Secretary has
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 25
seen the bath-room in the suite of rooms higher up in this tower, once occupied by Cardinal Bibiena, the patron of Raffaelle, whose niece was betrothed to the painter, and lies buried by his side in the Pantheon ; this was painted by Raffaelle with mythological sub jects. Something in these beautiful frescoes offended the prudery of Gregory XIV. s advisers, and the bath was taken away ; and the pictures, which were spared as being some of Raffaelle s good work, were covered up with wooden panelling to turn the offending bath room into a chapel. It is said that the panelling has now been removed, but I have not heard of anyone having been allowed to see the pictures.
Over the Borgia Apartments are Raffaelle s Stanze. Admittance to them is by a staircase turning off the Scala Regia of Bernini. After passing through an anteroom and two small rooms hung with modern pictures of miracles and martyrdoms, you enter the Sala della Immacolata, adorned with huge pictures of the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX., which contains in the centre the superb gilt ark, presented to Pius IX. by the French clergy, one of the finest pieces of modern cabinet making.
From this you enter the Stanze, which represent the highest triumph of Raffaelle. For Sodoma, Perugino, Luca Signorelli, and other great fifteenth century masters had all but completed the frescoing of these rooms when Julius II. decided to have them re-frescoed by Raffaelle. You cannot help wondering what became of their feelings, if not of their work. The first Stanza contains the Fire in the Borgo, the Coronation of Charlemagne, the defeat of the Saracens at Ostia, and Leo III. justifying himself before Charlemagne,
26 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN
These are all by Raffaolle. Perugino s pictures remain on the ceiling and the mosaics on the iloor come from an ancient Roman villa. This is called Sitinzii del Inccmiio. In the second room, called the Stanza dclla
- .itura, the arabesques of the ceiling are by Raflaelle.
The walls are covered by some of Raffaelle s greatest frescoes: the School of Athrn-, the Pisputa, and the Parnassus are in this room. Tip thud room, the S/i/;/.:<f (/ I:licJ<-r<>, was except the ceiling, \\hich \\ as pro- bablv bv (iitilio Romano entirely by RalTaelle s own hand. Here are the Liberation of St. IVter, the Mass of Bolsena, the Fxpulsion of Heliodorus, and the !\ I ll-e of Attila. The fourth room, called the S^iLi di Costiintino, is by the pupils of Kailaelle, though prelimin.irv sketches had been made by Kaliaelle for the Battle between Con-tantine and Maxeiitius. The coiling is a great deal later ; it \sas completed under Sixtu- V. i ^^-iS in . A door at the end of this room lead- into the old hall of the Pope s groom- paldjrc- nicn , which according to Tuker and MalK >on \\-as entirely decorated in . :-hiurosmro by Kalfaelle, though the ])ainlings have been retou lied and -poilt by Carlo Maratta and Zuccli. ro. Poors at the end to the left and right lead into RaliaelleV l.. !< and the Chapel of Nicholas V., which is out 1 of the gems ol the Vatican, decorated with tin- masterpieces of l ; ra Angelico. They were his last and most matured work, executed 1450-1.155, and can only be compared to the brilliant Riccardi Chapel of IHIIO//O Gozzoli at Florence.
After seeing Raliaelle s Stanze and the Chapel of Nicholas V., it is usual to proceed to the second floor of the Loggie, which enclose the Cortile of S. Damaso, known as Raiiaelle s Loggie, alluded to above. After
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 27
leaving them, more stairs are ascended to the upper tier of the Loggie, which were decorated with maps under Clement VII. by Antonio da Varese. From this you enter the anteroom of the Pinacoteca.
As everyone who goes to Rome visits the Pinacoteca, it does not fall into the compass of a book on the secrets of the Vatican to describe the pictures. They are not very numerous, but include one or two of the most famous pictures in the world : such as Raffaelle s Trans figuration.
I will suppose you to have finished your first day s perambulation of the Vatican when you have descended from the picture gallery to the Bronze Doors, though, unless accompanied by a very high official of the Vatican Household, you would never have been allowed to have seen all these things one after another as con venience dictated.
On your way down you would have passed the en trance to the Sala Rcgia and the famous apartments which lead off it. It would have been better to have passed them in any case, even if you had had time to devote to them, for the right way by which to approach the Sala Regia is to enter the Bronze Gaie and mount Bernini s magnificent staircase, the Scala Regia, so that you may get a true impression of its magnificence.
The Sala Regia (26), called also the Aitla Magna, i.e., the Grand Hall, was built by Antonio Sangallo the younger, for that rather baroque Pope, Paul III., for the reception of the Ambassadors of foreign Sovereigns. It is very large and has a very ornate stucco ceiling by Pierino del Vaga, though the stucchi over the door are by Daniel e da Volterra. The frescoes of the Triumphs of the Popes are by Vasari, the Zuccheri, and others.
2 S THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
The room is over a hundred feet long, fifty feet wide, and seventy feet high. The door on the left admits to the Sistine Chapel (30), which I need not describe, as it is one of the parts of the Vatican usually visited by sightseers.
The door opposite admits to the Sala Ducale (24, 25), a very long, narrow low room, constructed by Bernini, known as the Auhi Minor ; it is divided into two parts by an arch in the most degraded style of art, composed of curtains and cupids, also by Bernini. Through it the Pope and his Cardinals go to functions at St. Peter s after robing in the Sala del Papagallo and the Sala del Paramenti. And visitors who are lucky enough to get permission to see these two rooms have to approach them through the Sala Ducale. Another door on the same side of the Sala Regia as the Sala Ducale, leads down to the court of the Maivsriallo of the Papal Conclave (14).
Opposite this is the door which admits to the Leonine Chapel in the (iallery, which runs over the porch of St. Peter s, built by Carlo Maderno, and hardly men tioned in any guide-book, although it is of very great importance, as it gives on to the gallery of St. Peter s, from which the newly-elected Pope blesses the people, and contains the window over the Piazza from which he used to bless the people before the loss of the tem poral power in 1870. It was converted into a chapel by
Leo XIII.
Between it and the Cappella Paolina (34), which is entered by a door at the south-west end of the Sala Regia, are a number of small chambers, in which are stored the gilt consoles, and other portable decora tions designed by Bernini for St. Peter s.
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 29
The Cappella Paolina (34) is chiefly famous for having two huge frescoes by Michel Angelo, much restored by his pupils. It was built by the same architect as the Sala Regia, and has some of the best late stucchi in the Vatican.
Though the Sistine Chapel does not fall within the compass of this work, it is necessary to traverse it, and pass through a little door under Michel Angelo s fresco of the Last Judgment, to enter the succession of small chambers (31) which form its treasury, where the Pope s vestments, the vestments for the Cardinals on special occasions, the Popes tiaras, the Golden Rose, and other objects of the highest interest are kept. At the back of the Sistine Chapel a staircase (32) leads down from the Vatican to St. Peter s.
To see the remaining parts of the Vatican, which include all the Museums and the Library, the ordinary visitor has to return to the Bronze Gate, go out into the piazza, and walk round three-quarters of St. Peter s, until he finds himself in the Cortile del Forno, a quad rangular court, with a fountain in the middle of it, which has St. Peter s on the one side and the Mint on the other. The Mint, standing on a kind of a terrace, is territorially not part of the Vatican : it is the one spot on the Vatican Hill of \\hich the Italian Government took possession. The road which passes between the two is the Via delle Fondamenta, along which Pope Leo XIII. took that memorable drive which was taken to mean coming out of his captivity, referred to in another chapter.
Before passing under the arch to go up the Vialone di Belvedere to the Sculpture Gallery, glance to your right, where a group of fifteenth century buildings, tower
3 o THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
and gateway and balcony, brown and feudal-looking, arrest your attention. At she entrance are r-entries in the h If-incdi. i val dress of the Swiss Guard. That em battled gateway admits to the Cortile della Sentincila u ; one of the three places in the Vatican which has a corps-dc-garde, the state entrance to the palace by which Kings and Cardinals and Ambassadors enter to visit the Pope. This court, as I have said, is bounded by the Sistine Chapel (30) on the south, and on the north by the Chapel of Pius V. (56), and the end of the Musco Crist iano. It opens into a second court, known as the Corlile del Portone di lYrro x ii ; bounded by the Sistine Ante-Chapel 29 and the Sala Regia [26] on the south, and the Torre Borgia 40) on the north. This is divided from the Cortile del Pappagallo (10) by a wing con taining two small halls the halls of the Xoble Guard.
v^
Th- ground floor rooms round these quadrangles are devntrd to various humble and prosaic uses. The chamber on the first floor at the angle of the Vialone and the Cortile della Sentinella is the Chapel of Pius V., with the Room of Small Cabinets beside it. Then follow various rooms of the Christian Museum of the Vatican Library; the Hall of the Christian Paintings (55), llu ^ 1Ia11 of thc Papiri (54), with the Hall of the Noz/e Aldobrandini (55) at right angles to them, spanning the road, which has the Room of the Terra cottas leading off it, the Christian Museum (53\ pro perly so-called, the Hall of Aristides (52), thc Hall of the Obelisk (51), the Hall of the Bonaventura (50), the Hall of the Vatican Manuscripts (61), the Libraries of the Alexandrine Collection (62), the Ottoboni Collec tion (65), the Capponi Collection (65), the Borghigiana Collection (66), the first two halls of the Library (66),
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 31
and the Museo Profano (67). The whole of these from the Chapel of Pius V. northwards, form the western long wing from the old parts of the Palace to Innocent VIII. s Villa, and they are confronted all the way along by the Pope s private garden, separated from them by the Vialone di Belvedere. In the whole of this portion of the Vatican Library, nearly four hundred yards long, you do not see a single book : they are all manuscripts, and put away in presses in the ancient Roman fashion ; but you see a good many museum objects. As far as it goes, the Vatican Library would be one of the most interesting museums in Rome if they only let you stop an instant to take anything in. The rooms underneath were constructed for coach-houses and stables. The coach-houses still contain a large number of the state coaches which are never used. Some of the stables have been turned into new chambers for the Archivio, or archive office.
I have spoken elsewhere of the enormous Cortile,* between three and four hundred yards long, which Bramante designed to fill the entire space between the two long wings from the old Palace to the Villa of Innocent VIII., of which I have been describing the westernmost. It was to have had a triple tier of the classic arcades in which Bramante delighted ; and would, without doubt, have been the finest Cortile in Europe. Tournaments and races were to have been held in it. One could see in it the pagan mind of Pope Julius II., purposing to match the Circus of Caligula and Nero, out of which, owing to the execution of St. Peter, the Vatican grew. At the Palace end there was what the ancient Romans called an esedra, a sort of open-air
- This is the large rectangle which fills up almost the entire plan from (60) to (8l).
32 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
apse (60), in which the Roman Emperors were wont to ensconce themselves like gods in niches. There is one in the Stadium of Domitian on the Palatine, and another in the Baths of Trajan on the Esqniline Bramante designed his escdni to be a sort of theatre. It is to be noted that bull-fights have been held here. Jousting went on in the Court of the Tournaments until the time of Sixtus V., as long, in fact, as it went on anywhere. The name applied to the arcades when they were first built was the Portions Julii. The northern half, now the (jiardino della Pigna, was always the height of a terrace- above the southern half. Sixtiir-, V. >poiled lor ever the conception of Bramante by building the Sala Si>tina . .j.S ; v his magnificent new hall which was to receive the Vatican Library) right across the middle of the va^t quadrangle ; it is the Sala Sistma, two hundred and twenty feet long, forty-eight feet wide, and twenty-nine feet high, gorgeously arabesqued, in which the visitor sees, in glass cases, the most precious niamiMTipts of the Vatican, and an alarming number of >evrrs vases, pre>ented to Pius IX. The rooms underneath the Sala Sistina have at various time> been given up to armouries and stables, but Leo XIII., who loved to ennoble his palace like the old Pope> before him, inaugurated the mo>t >\vecping and effective changes in the Vatican Library since the days of Sixtus himself. He was desirous of taking the books out of the Borgia Apartments, which, when he was elected to the Papacy, formed the library of printed books. But he was even more desirous to fulfil the aspi ration of Nicholas V., by making the splendid Library of the Vatican a light of the world, " a city set upon an hill." He gave the order for the rooms under the
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 33
Sala Sistina to be converted into a library to receive all the printed books. The change was effected with astonishing celerity, and when it was ready, the whole two hundred and fifty thousand books stored in the Borgia Apartments were transferred to it in fourteen days by fifteen workmen. You go down into the new library close to the entrance of the Sala Sistina from the Gallery of Inscriptions. I should have mentioned that before you enter the Sala Sistina you cross the first of a range of four small rooms. It is called the writer s room (44), but is chiefly used for sticks and umbrellas, which must be left there. Out of it open in succession the small Reading Room, the Room of the Papiri (46), and the Librarian s Room (47).
At the far end of the New Library, adjoining the Archives (the new rooms of which are on the ground floor facing the Vatican Gardens), is Cardinal Mai s Library ; and between the two are three reading rcoms facing the Cortile del Belvedere, and the Palatina, Aracceli, and Zelada Libraries, facing the Cortile of the Stamperia, or printing office of the Vatican, which divides it from the Braccio Nuovo ; a new Sculpture Gallery, which Pius VII. had built by Raffaelle Stern in 1821, and which contains some of the gems of the Vatican Collection. The Braccio Nuovo forms the south side of the Giardino della Pigna, the north side of which is the old Belvedere, the Villa of Innocent VIII., which has been converted into the Vatican Sculpture Museum. To many people this is their favourite spot in the whole Vatican, for it is here that the treasures are amassed for which it is hardest to find a parallel anywhere in the world the inimitable marble copies, executed in the first days of the Christian
3
34 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Era, of bronze masterpieces of the most glorious of the great sculptors, except Phidias. Praxiteles, Myron and Polycletus are all represented by superb copies.
You enter the Sculpture Galleries through the gate way of the gracious little pavilion, called il Padiglione ioi , and ascend the first tlight of the beautiful and well-named Scala Nobile, which takes you into the >ala a Croce Greca 100). As everyone visits the Sculpture Galleri.-s, I shall say little of the contents of its various chamber-. From this you pass through the Sala kotouda 99 into the Hall of the Muses (08), and thence into the Sala degli Animali, the Hall of the Animals 92 So far von have no choice, but hen 1 you can either walk straight into the court of the Belvedere, in \vhose portion are four little cabinets (p, q, r, and s , containing the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon, the so-called Antmous, and Canova s immeasurably inferior statues: or you can turn to your left into the Galleria delle Statue, Gallery of the Statue-, which contains, among its other priceless treasures, the Ariadne, the Torso of Hercules, the Apollo Sauroctonus, and the Geniu> of tlie Vatican ; and the Gabinetto delle Maschere, Cabinet of the Masks (97), which has a balcony to which the public are not admitted outside ; it opens off the Gallery of the Statues (93); the Sala dei Busti, the Hall of the Busts (95), is at the end. From thence you pass to three little chambers called the Vestibule of the Torso (87), the Vestibule of the Vase (88), and the Vestibule of the Meleager (89); and the Museo Chiaramonti, a hall of interminable length, stocked with the worst statues in the Vatican Museum those, in fact, with which poor Pius VII. had to console himself when Napoleon took
WHAT THE VATICAN CONSISTS OF. 35
all the best ones away. Near the entrance is the door which admits to the Giardino della Pigna (79), which is now entirely closed to the public ; but is interesting as containing the bronze fir-cone or Pigna, and the bronze peacocks which adorned the fountain of the atrium of Old St. Peter s. In the small rooms running along the north side of the Garden of the Pigna are the Egyptian Museum, formed almost entirely of Egyptian objects found in Rome.
When you regain the entrance to the Sculpture Gallery, or rather, when you come back to the landing of the Scala Nobile, you ascend higher. Eirst you will want to look into the delightful little Sala della Biga, which occupies the upper half of the pavilion through which you enter. It gets its name from the beautiful, though so much restored, marble chariot which stands in the centre. All round this room are exquisitely beautiful statues, several of them amongst the finest in the collection.
A side door admits to the Etruscan Museum, the celebrated Museo Gregoriano, founded by Gregory XVI., which contains the most precious collection of ancient Etruscan remains in the world. It is mainly over the Egyptian Museum; and its display of Greek vases, mostly from the tombs of the perished Etruscan city of Vulci, is unrivalled. It had the choice over other museums : in drinking bowls especially it is unapproach able.
Between the Hall of the Biga and the Etruscan Museum is the entrance to the Galleria dei Candelabri : a series of six halls, opening into the Galleria degli Arazzi, which terminates in the Galleria Geografica (the Gallery of the Maps), which is five hundred feet
,6 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
long. The Arazzi are, of course, the tapestries manu factured in Flanders from the designs of Raffaelle and his pupils, and the Gallcna Gcografica is part of the Pope s own apartments, to which it is very difficult to gain admission. It leads, in fact, into the Hall of Papal Audiences " ; anil these galleries between them constitute the upper storv which covers the whole length of the Long (iallcrv of the Vatican Library -the whole length from Innocent VIII. s \ illa to the Palace.
I have now mentioned all the most important chapels, courts, staircases, halls and chambers in the Vatican which the public ha- any reasonable hope of visiting, or anv object in vi-itnm. The rest of the rooms which go to make up the thousand rooms ot Baedeker, or the seven thousand of Taker and Malleson, or the eleven thousand of Murray and Hare, are occu pied bv the large population, e>timated at two thou sand and odd persons, inhabiting the Vatican, and having for a parish church th- Cappella Paolma. There still remain, however, a lew building- outside the actual gates of the palace, but within the Vatican precincts : such as the Palace of the Holy Office (the Inquisition), and the Armena, which, with Castel (iandolfo and a few palace- and churches in Rome, constitute the Pope s
kingdom.
The Mint, or /ecca, which, as I have said, was taken possession of by the Italian Government, is not difficult to see ; it i- open daily, but to see the workshops one must applv to the director for an order.
" tt-ifvT-ipS j
IJ . . I
CHAPTER III.
THE DEATH OF A POPE.
GOYAU, in his admirable " Gouvernement de I Eglise," gives a most impressive picture of the death of a Pope. The aged man, who has been next to God on earth, sees his end approaching and whispers to his confessor. The Sacrist brings the Viaticum and Extreme Unction. In his plain costume of black, with a green cord round his hat, he stands out against the violet robes of the prelates. The Cardinal Penitentiary pro nounces the Supreme Absolution : the Penitentiaries of St. Peter s chant in a low voice the penitential psalms : Cardinals and chamberlains throng into the chamber of death. The Pope gives them his blessing, and a few hours afterwards has ceased to breathe.
The Cardinal Secretary of State notifies his death to the members of the Diplomatic Corps, and, with that, his office expires. His appointment was only for the life-time of the Pope. We have seen the all-powerful Cardinal Rampolla, Leo XII I. s Secretary of State, relapse into a simple Arch-Priest of St. Peter s and Prefect of a Congregation. The Vicar-General gives orders, no longer as Vicar-General of the Pope, but as Vicar-General and fudge Ordinary of Rome : during the interregnum the affairs of the diocese of Rome are in his hands : he has the notification of the Pope s death posted on the church doors. The office of Grand
S THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Penitentiary does not lapse with the Pope s death. As the sardonic (joyau remarks, his office can never stop while there are sinners. The secretaries and employees of the Sacred Congregations continue to apply them selves to their business, though for the time being they do not take orders from their prefects, but from the Sacred College or from the Cardinal Camerlengo. But the office of the Cancelleria, the Dataria, and the Briefs, which last despatches the Pope s letters and favours, are dosed. The Administration for the time being- reverts to the Cardinals, but they do as little as possible : it is not etiquette for fresh business to be inaugurated during the interregnum. As a sign of the sovereign powers which they exercise, they discard the muntclldtu and mozzcttu, or fur-edged cape, with which their rochet is covered during the Pope s life-time. Another sign is that no one is allowed to sit beside them in their carriages : a sort of throne is fitted to the middle of tin- back seat of their carriages like that in the Pope s carriage : another sign is that the devout kneel before them as they would before the Pope.
Of course, it is out of the question that the whole M-venty members of the Sacred College should exer cise the Papal authority during the interregnum. So they depute their powers to a committee of four, three of whom are (-hanged every three days. The fourth, the Cardinal Camerlengo, acts with the committee during the whole time. The Deans of the three orders of Cardinal Bishops, Cardinal Priests, and Cardinal Deacons, form the temporary members of the com mittee for the first three days. They are succeeded by the next in seniority ; the Cardinal Camerlengo, on the other hand, retains his executive functions till the
THE DEATH OF A POPE. 39
election of the Pope. His power is of very ancient origin : from the eleventh century he was head of the Camera Apostolica, and presided over the manage ment of the property of the Holy See and the Papal State ; formerly he was also the Intendant of the Papal Household. But in the fourteenth century he was relieved of this last duty. His power was further reduced in the sixteenth century by the creation of a Papal Secretary of State, and was abolished in con sequence of the rivalries of the Cardinal Camerlengo and the Secretary of State by the reforms of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. His present duties while the Pope is alive are confined to receiving the oaths of a certain number of Papal functionaries. However, the eleva tion of a Cardinal Camerlengo remains a solemn affair, and the office is made illustrious from its tenure for a year by Leo XII I., then Cardinal Pecci, appointed just in time to show his majestic qualities in the interreg num. And his post was one of extreme difficulty to hold with distinction, for the Papacy had recently been shorn of its splendour by the loss of its temporal power, though, as Goyau points out, what the office lost in splendour it gained in responsibility, for the freedom of election of the new Pope had to be guarded with singular jealousy.*
It is not hard for those who have seen Leo XIII.
- But this had specially been provided for by the Legge delle Guarentigie of May 13111,
1871 : "When the Papal See is vacant the Cardinals may freely assemble; and the Government will take care that neither the Conclaves nor (Ecumenical Councils are in any way disturbed. No Italian officials may enter the Papal palaces during a Conclave or a Council, unless the Pope, the Conclave, or the Council has given permission, and it shall be forbidden to make domiciliary visits, or to confiscate papers, books or registers in the Papal offices and Congregations, which are exclusively engaged in spiritual work. The Pope shall have full liberty to exercise all the functions of his office, and to post notices belonging to his office on all the Roman church doors." Bishop Nielsen in his " History of the Papacy in the XlXth Century."
40 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
borne on his S edict Gestatoria to the Papal Altar of St. Peter s on occasions of high pomp, to picture the beau tiful dignity with which he carried out the time- honoured function of testing the death of his pre decessor in the Papacy lie wore his nwzzctta of violet and his mantclldta as if the Pope had still been alive, and, lifting the white veil which covered the face of Pius IX., who was born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Fcrrctti, he addressed him, not by the name lie had borne as Pope for thirty-two years, but by his own human name. " Giovanni, Giovanni, Giovanni," called the Camerlengo, and each time struck the dead man s forehead with a little silver hammer. There was no answer : the face remained rigid. The Pope is really dead," he said to his assistants, and the DC Projundis resounded through the chamber.
Then the Maestro della Camera drew the Fisherman s King from the dead Pontiffs linger and delivered it to the Cardinal Camerlengo. Then the Protonotario read the report of these ceremonies the authentication of the death and the delivery of the ring, and the Camer lengo quitted the chamber. The Cardinal no longer before (putting the chamber writes to inform the Roman Senate of the death of the Pope, and to order the great bell of the Capitol to toll. That Senate is not to be confused with the Scuato del Rcgno, tin- Italian Second Chamber. It has ceased to exist except in name. " \Yhcn the boom of this deep sound is heard in Rome," wrote Story, in his " Roba cli Roma," " the world knows that the Pope is no more ; and as it tells its sad news, the other bells in Rome take up the strain."
From this time forward the Cardinal Camerlengo was
THE DEATH OF A POPE. 41
escorted by the Swiss Guard. He laid aside his mantel- letta as soon as he had formally determined that the Pope was really dead. On the same evening the Deans of the three Orders joined him on the Committee and the Interregnum Government was established.
In the Anticamera Segreta, on a bed covered with scarlet silk, lay the dead Pope. It had been the custom since the time of Paul IV., the Inquisition Pope, to make an incision in the body of the Pope to take out the entrails, called in inscriptions, pycecordia. This was done, and the pr&cordia, embalmed separately, like the body, were placed in a marble urn and buried in the Crypt of Old St. Peter s near the tombs of the fallen Stuart Princes. The spot chosen had a deep signifi cance, for ever since the days of Sixtus V., who did so much in the way of formulating the constitution and etiquette of the Papacy, and was the first Pope to die in the Quirinal, on August 27th, 1590, the prcecordia of the Popes had been buried in the little church of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio, which faces the fountain of Trevi. The custom had arisen from this church being the parish church of the Apostolic Palace of the Quirinal, but the Quirinal was Apostolic no more, and the Crypt of St. Peter s was the proper place for the pracordia of the dead Pontiff. Story gives a highly- picturesque account of the way the disembowelling and embalming were done.
" The penitenzieri Vaticani now wash the body with warm perfumed water, and after twenty-four hours have passed the operation of embalming takes place. This is done under the superintendence of the surgeon of the Pope, and of one of the Apostolic chamber, in presence of a physician of the same chamber, of the
42 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
drchiatro, and of the spc~iale palatine. The prceconiia are separately embalmed, and placed in a sealed vase to be carried to the church of S. Ymcenzo and S. Anas- tasio, in case the Pope die at the Ouinnal, and to the Basilica of St. Peter s if he die at the Vatican. Sixtus V. was the first Pope who died at the Quiriiial, on the 2ji\\ of August, 1590, and his prctcordia were the first to be placed in the church of S. Anastasio.
Before the time of Julius II. the bodies of the dead Popes were not opened and embalmed, it was then the usage to first wash the body with water and sweet herbs, and to shave the beard and head ; then all the apertures were closed up with cotton-wool saturated with myrrh, incense and aloes. The body was then again washed in white wine, heated up with odorous herbs, the throat rilled with aromatic spices, and the nostrils with musk. Finally, the face and hands were rubbed and anointed with balsam.
The washing and embalming being over, the body is dressed in its usual robes of a white cassock, sash with golden tassels, surplice, bishop s gown, red papal cap and stole, and exposed to public view on a funeral couch, under a baldacchino covered with a red coverlet brocaded in gold, and stationed in one of the pontiiical ante-chambers, general!} in that where the Con sistory meet. Four wax candles are lighted round it, and there, guarded by the Swiss and the pcnitcnzicri Vaticani, it remains until the third day after the death, when it is carried to the Sistine Chapel."
In the old days, when the Pope happened to die in the Quirinal, the procession which took his body to the Vatican was a very imposing one. You can read in the pages of Story how it was headed by a picket of
THE DEATH OF A POPE. 43
cavalry, mace-bearers with torches, Battistrade and a company of dragoons with four trumpeters, followed by two trumpeters of the Noble Guard, an officer, and four mounted guards, and the Swiss Guard under their Captain with their colours furled. After these came the Masters of Ceremonies in front of a litter drawn by two white mules, surrounded by numerous grooms and bearers in their rich Papal liveries, bearing great lighted torches of white wax. On the litter was the corpse of the dead Pontiff, cap on head. Behind it came the Penitentiaries of St. Peter s, clothed all in white and bearing the same white wax torches. These men, who never ceased to murmur prayers, walked between two lines of the Noble Guard and two lines of the tall Swiss. Then came the Commandant of the Noble Guard, with an escort on horseback, and the chief lay officers of the Holy See, including especially the Cavallerizzo Maggiore, a great Roman noble. The rear was brought up by a train of artillery with their guns, and a company of Carabinieri with their trumpeters.
The dead Pontiff was carried on his litter up that most Royal of staircases, the Scala Regia. At the head the body was taken from the litter and placed on a rich bier to be carried into the Sistine Chapel. " Here it was undressed and invested with the full pontifical robes of red, with shoes, sandals, amitto, camise, cincture, girdle, cross, stole, fanone, under-tunic, dalmatica, gloves, cape, mantle, mitre of silver plates, and ring."
As violet is the colour for mourning in the Roman Church, it is curious that the Pope should be laid out in red, though this is the colour of mourning in the Greek Church certainly. Moroni suggests that it is in honour of the many Popes who suffered martyrdom.
44 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Pius IX. did not, like- his predecessors, pass the night lying in state in the robes he had worn while alive, in the Sistine Chapel, under the immortal frescoes of Michel Angelo. The Cardinal Camerlengo had fears of the crowd breaking in, and the Italian police taking advantage to force their way in on the plea of sup pressing the disorder.
In the chapel where he lay, Pius IX. was re-decorated with the Papal insignia. A cortege was formed, the Swiss Guards with their halberds, headed by their Captain-Commandant, the Cardinals two and two, and other ecclesiastics with their torches, marched before the Sediarii, who, in their rich scarlet liveries, bore the- bier of the dead Pope as they had borne him on his Scititi (,cstatona while he was alive. The Court and the Famiglia Pontiticia followed. The procession wound along the Loggie of Raffaelle, the Sala Ducale, the Sala Regia, and into St. Peter s by the private entrance near the Sistine Chapel, which opens into the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Cathedral, where its founder, the great Pope Julius II., lies under a plain stone behind the llambovant bron/e tomb of his uncle, Sixtus IV. The iron gates of the chapel were locked, and outside them was a vast throng, for the crowd had been admitted to the Church, kept in order, as it always is now on great occasions in St. Peter s, by the police of the Italian Government. Inside was the whole Chapter of St. Peter s. The Pope was laid out on a little catafalque, with his feet through the railings that the crowd might kiss them. It was then live o clock in the evening, and the body remained there till one the next morning.
Nine days is the period fixed for the funeral ot a Pope,
THE DEATH OF A POPE. 45
for this, Goyau points out, was the period which the Christians of the Orient observed in the burial of their Patriarchs. The daily feature of the novemdiali is the High Mass in St. Peter s. For six days the celebration is conducted by one Cardinal in the chapel of the Canons : during the last three days it is celebrated before a state catafalque erected in the nave, at which four Cardinals in black copes give absolution. A thousand pounds weight of wax has to be consumed daily in tapers round the catafalque. But the service was not fully carried out at the funeral of Pius IX.
Pius IX. was buried an hour after midnight on the fourtn day of his funeral. The crowd had bidden their final good-bye to their beloved Pope. The gates of St. Peter s were closed ; the Cardinals were drawn up in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, and the gleam of their torches fell on the dead Pope. The Canons raised the bier on their shoulders, and behind their sad burden the procession formed.
And here I may mention the ceremonies that are laid down for the actual interment of a Pope. The body has to be carried from the chapel of the Holy Sacrament, which opens off the right aisle of St. Peter s to a sort of catacomb niche, in the pier between the Choir Chapel and the Chapel of the Presentation, in the left aisle, in which the body is laid to rest, and where it has to remain for at least twelve months after his death. To lay him in his place of rest the funeral procession has to wind round the cathedral, skirting the statue of St. Peter enthroned on the right hand side of the nave, and the Confession, with its vast bronze baldachin soaring all but a hundred feet into the air, and its nigh a hundred ever-burning golden lamps, to the vast Choir
46 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
Chapel. There the three coffins are laid out. The first is of cypress wood, and amid funeral chants the chap lains and Noble Guards lay their precious burden in it. The Maggiordomo lays three purses in the coffin, containing the medals in gold, silver, and bronze, which have been struck annually during the Pope s reign, and bear his effigv. And then the oldest Cardinal created by the Pope lays at his feet a metal cylinder containing a parchment which gives the history of his pontificate. A white taffeta veil is thrown over his head, another over his hands, a purple one over his breast ; and a shroud of red brocade lined with ermine and fringed with gold is spread over all. The Notary of the Chapter then reads the proems verbal, and the lid is screwed down. From this moment the body is no longer in charge of the Sacred College ; it is transferred to that of the Canons of St. Peter s. Then the two other coffins are called into requisition. One is made of lead and the other of oak. The cypres coffin is deposited in the lead coffin ; the Cardinal Camerleugo, the Maggiordomo, the Arch-Priest of St. Peter s, and the Chapter, all seal it with their arms. An inscription is engraved on the lid of the coffin. That of Pius IX. was very simple. The body of Pius IX., Supreme Pontiff, who lived eighty-five years ; who governed the Universal Church thirty-two years, seven months, and twenty-two davs. He died on the yi\\ of February, 1878."
A cross and the dec-eased Pontiff s arms are always engraved above the epitaph. The lead coffin is then screwed down in the oak coffin. To the left of the Choir Chapel, over a door half-way up a pier, there is a horizontal niche. This is where the Popes are deposited till their own tombs are ready for them, or
THE DEATH OF A POPE. 47
another Pope dies. The Canons are bound upon solemn oaths to produce the body so buried whenever duly called upon to do so.
There is a practical side to this custom : to prepare a worthy monument for a man who has occupied the most venerable position on the earth takes a very long time : in some cases it has taken years ; and it is neces sary that the body shall be treated in the most dignified way, which is happily effected by this regulation.
The necessary machinery for hoisting the coffin into its place is ready, and the moment that it is on its place a mason closes the orifice with a slab of marble, on which simply the Pontiff s name is engraved. Pius IX. lay here three years. Leo XIII., at the end of three years, was still there.
The remainder of the funeral service is conducted, not by the tomb, but by the catafalque in the nave. In fact, at Pius IX. s funeral the last three days of it were celebrated in the Sistine Chapel, and not near the body at all.
The last ceremony of all is when the Segretario dette Lettere Latine pronounces the funeral encomium.
The whole expense of Pius IX. s funeral was under eight hundred pounds. In his will was found a bequest of four hundred crowns for erecting a monument to himself in the exquisite church of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, of which he had been Cardinal before his eleva tion. But the simplicity of his wishes, though respected, was not carried into execution. Many thousands of francs were expended on his tomb, and the chapel in which it is contained. It is decorated with the most costly modern mosaics in existence.
CHAl TFR IV. THK KLKCTION OF A POPE.
THE I ope- art- now <!(< ted by tin- Sa< r< d College sitting in what is called a Conclave, derived from the Latin word conclave y whi< h means a room or caL;e that ran be locked uj). Lower down I shall show how rigidly the Cardinal-- are locked up during the election. The Popes have been elected by Cardinals in one way or another for more than eight centuries. For it was just before our Norman Conquest that Nicholas IF, without ex- chiding the participation of the Lower clergy and the
Roman peojile, elltlU-ted the election of the Polltitt to
the Cardinal I .i-ho])^.
Los than a quarter of a century afterwards the whole power pa^-rd to the >acred College. I>ut the i^ie.it I ope All xander III., who died in nM, ordained that the Cardinal I riests and ( ardmal Peatons >hould share with the Cardinal Bishops in the election of hi> su< essor. It was he, aNo, who ordained that no election should be valid \vhii h was not ratified by two-thirds of the votes ; this wa> to do away with the curse of anti-popes, which was so destructive to the power of the Church. With a single exception, at the election of Martin V., the Colonna Pope, these two ordinances of Alexander III. have always been observed. But thirty prelates who were not members of the Sacred College took part, as dele-
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 49
gates of the six nations represented at the Council of Constance, with the Sacred College in his election. Every Cardinal, even if excommunicated or under censure, is entitled to vote, unless he has been deposed or formally deprived of his vote by the late Pope, or has resigned his Cardinalate.
The institution of the Conclave dates from the latter part of the thirteenth century. The circumstances are so picturesque that they will always be remembered. An interregnum of two years and nine months had fol lowed upon the death of Clement IV., in 1269. The seventeen Cardinals who were voting might have pro longed it indefinitely if the population of Viterbo had not grown impatient and shut them up in the Papal Palace with nothing to eat and drink but bread and water. The austerity of their confinement was trium phant over their intrigues, says the sardonic Goyau, but he does not mention that the populace were sup ported by Charles of Anjou, who seconded their efforts by taking off part of the roof when this gaol-diet failed to bring the Cardinals to their senses. They resisted for a while, and to show their defiance, dated their letters from the Roofless Palace. Six months after that un conscionable brother of the most saintly king who ever sat on a throne, St. Louis of France, had taken them in hand, the Sacred College gave in and elected Gregory X. The caprice of the populace of Viterbo, says Goyau, became part of the Pontifical Law. By an ordinance of 1274, made by this very Pope Gregory, whose elec tion had been so protracted, the electing Cardinals were subjected to a rigorous seclusion. The hermit s fare was also included in these primitive rules. Gregory X. restricted the Cardinals to a single dish at the end of
4
50 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the third day. If they did not conic to an agreement at the end of eight clays they were further restricted to bread and water and a little wine. Time and a Hull of Clement VI. i ;, [2-1352) tempered these last severities, Pius IV., in 1502, Gregory XV., in 1621, and Clement XII., in 1732, codified and defined the existing legislation on the subject. They are quoted, but the real authors of the regulation were Alexander III. and Gregory X. Julius II., when he came to the throne in 1503, made a law annulling an election brought about by bribery. Though Pins III. had reigned for twenty-six days in between, he had the example of Pius s unscrupulous predecessor, the Borgia Pope Alexander VI., before him. Alexander hesitated at nothing ; and only the strong walls of the ("astir of Ostia had saved Julius himself, while Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, from meeting his end at the hands of the Horgias. His law also excom municated and deprived of their dignities any Cardinals who sold their votes. Paul IV., in I55S, decreed the Greater Excommunication, eternal malediction, and for feiture against any personage, even if he were a king, who began to intrigue, unknown to the existing Pope, with his successor. Hut, on the other hand, nothing prevents a Pope from indicating his wishes as to his successor to the Sacred College. Indeed, this was done after the death of Gregory VII., by several of the Popes in the twelfth century, bv Clement VII. in the sixteenth century, and by Innocent X. and Innocent XI. in the seventeenth. But their recommendations had no legal force, says Goyau, nor did the attempt made by Boni face II. in the sixth century, to appoint a coadjutor who should succeed him, meet with success, though his predecessor, Felix IV., had done it. There has been no
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 51
attempt of the kind since the time of Boniface II., who died in A.D. 532.
The facts about the Papal election upon which Tuker and Malleson, Goyau, Lector, Cigala, and the other authorities are substantially agreed are as follows :
According to the strict letter of the law, any Roman Catholic male is eligible for the Papacy ; John XIX., elected Pope in 1024, and perhaps Hadrian V., elected Pope in 1276, were actually laymen. The Anti-Pope, Felix V., who reigned from 1439-1449, was certainly a layman, for he was Duke of Savoy. In the first eleven centuries of the Papacy deacons and priests were habitually elected Popes ; in fact, up to the end of the ninth century only one bishop was elected Pope, Formosus (891-896).
Gregory VII., the famous Hildebrand, the Pope- maker, the Warwick of the Papacy, the greatest, possibly, of all the Popes, was only a deacon at his election, and an episcopal consecration went with the election.
But since the time of Nicholas II., the last Pope but one before Gregory VII. , there have only been nine Popes who were not already Cardinals.
Since Urban VI., in 1378, only one Pope has been elected who was not a Cardinal, but, on the other hand, there have been a number who had not been consecrated bishops. Pius III., who reigned for less than a month in 1503, and the magnificent Leo X. himself, were only deacons ; while Martin V., the Colonna Pope (1417-1431), Sixtus IV., the vigorous della Rovere Pope (1471-1484), Clement VIII. (1592-1605), the Pope who was sum moned to see St. Peter s tomb when the roof of the vault fell in, Clement XI. (1700-1721), Clement XIV. (1769-
4*
52 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
1774;, Pius VI. (1775-1799). thc P P C who dicd a wandering exile in France, and Gregory XVI. (1831- 1846), who made the new waterfall at Tivoli and was tin- founder of Etruscan studies, were only Cardinal Priests. For the last two or three hundred years, the Popes have generally been of noble birth, but the pn sent Pope is a man of quite humble origin, and Sixtus V., for all his magnificence, was the son of a peasant.
Since the Great Schism, which lasted from 1378 to 1400, all the Popes, except three, Calixtus III., Alex ander VI., and Hadrian VI., have been Italian. The two first, the Horgia Popes, who were Spaniards, were the only exceptions which counted for much, because Hadrian VI., who was a Dutchman of Utrecht, was elected under the influence of Charles V., who was then in the height of his power, and whose tutor he had been, and he only survived his elevation by a year.
Before the Great Schism, numerous foreigners were elected to the Papacy. In Roman and Byzantine times there were twenty-two Oriental Popes, and at one time and another there have been seventeen French men, seven of whom belonged to the period when the Papacy was at Avignon, several Spaniards, several Germans, one Englishman, and one Dutchman. 1 he Canonical law does not stipulate that the Pope should be Italian. In the Middle Ages the elections were often made at the Lateran, and a few times before its destruc tion by Sixtus V., in the sixteenth century, at thc Septizonium the Palace of Septimius Sevcrus on the Palatine which the Popes sometimes used as a summer residence. Occasionally, also, the election would take place at one of the other towns in Italy, like Viterbo, in which the Popes fixed their residence. At one time
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 53
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it became the recognized law that the election should take place where the Pope died. But this was traversed by an earlier law, that in case of danger or difficulties the Cardinals might select their own place for the Conclave ; and now, though the election has for such a long and unbroken period been at Rome, it is recognized that as the Pope need not by law be an Italian, so the election need not by law be at Rome. Under Pius VI., the captive of France, a two-thirds majority of the Sacred College was authorized to make almost any modifica tions which might be necessary in the procedure for electing the new Pope, not excluding the ten Con- gregazioni, which should occupy the ten days before the election can begin. Pius VII., under similar cir cumstances, renewed them ; and Pius IX. entertained an even more active fear of interference, at the hands of the new Italian Government. But even had the Italian Government contemplated any such move, they would have been held in check by Bismarck s menacing announcement, that though Germany would not trouble herself about the election, she would reserve to her self the right of deciding if there had been any undue interference. After two previous Bulls, Pius IX., acting, it is thought, very much on the advice of Cardinal Pecci, the future Leo XIII., who had become Cardinal Camerlengo about three weeks before, issued, on October loth, 1877, his famous Consulturi Bull, which relieved the Cardinals from following the regulations about the time, the place, the isolation, and the various ceremonies arising out of the Conclave ; but, on the other hand, kept them bound by the obligation of observing secrecy,
54 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
In this Bull, Pius IX. considers both contingencies, that of the Pope dying away from Rome, and Pope dying at Rome. In the former ease the Dean o the Sacred College, taking the advice of the De an o the other Orders of the Sacred College, and of the Card: Camcrlengo, was to fix the locality of the Cone In the second case the civil magistrates formerly func- Honaries of the Papacv, were to be depri ved of the v.ce they had hitherto had in the matter, and the Cardinals present in Rome were to decide by an absolute majority if the Conclave should be held outside Rome or outside Italv The proceedings were to open as soon as and one more of the Sacred College were present ; if the Conclave was subjected to any violence, , to be dissolved and transferred to some place outside Italv In fact, Pius himself cherished the hope tha it would be held ont.de Italy, but his wishes were no ollowed . a was determined to hold the Conclave he Vatican ; an elaborate set of rules were drawn up clueflv with a view to checking interference f,o tin Government. Briefly, if there was any at cmp at a coup-de-main, the Conclave by the ver> ac intrusion was to be suspended.
According to the constitution of Clement XII, plenary Conxion, have to be held between the t nsfer of the late Pope s body to St. Peter s and
ening of the Conclave, The Dean of the Sacred College presides ; Us secretary acts as registrar, officers It the gate await the orders of the assembly. TheTdeal with such -natters as " the place where the Conclave is to be held," the regulations under which shall be held, the breaking of the Fisherman s Ring taken rom the finger of the dead Pope ; the architect s plans
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 55
for the construction of the " Conclave " i.e., the temporary wooden building in which the Cardinals are hermetically shut up from the outer world while the election is going on; diplomatic messages to the Powers ; the applications to the late Pope, which were under consideration at his death ; the appointment of the doctors, the surgeons, the chemist, the confessor, and the six masters of ceremonies for the Conclave ; the examination by a committee of the secretary and valet chosen by each Cardinal to enter the Conclave with him, so that no improper person might force his way in under this disguise ; the preparation of a diplo matic note ; the reception of ambassadors, and the choice of apartments in the Conclave.
" With the exception," say Tuker and Malleson, " of the Cardinal Chamberlain, the Cardinal Penitentiary, and the ordinary Chaplains and Masters of Ceremonies, all purely Papal offices cease with the death of a Pope, and provisional appointments have therefore to be made to last until the election of a successor. On the day after the death, therefore, the College of Cardinals, or such as are at the time in Rome, assemble in the Hall of the Paramenti, and after reading Gregory X. s rules of Conclave, they proceed with true Italian deliberation to the election of the necessary officers, a task which occupies them for nine days. On the first day they elect two prelates to deliver the funeral oration and the address of congratulation to the future Pope ; and in the old days they likewise appointed the Governor of Rome. On the second day they used to elect all the officers for the city of Rome. On the third, they elect a confessor to attend the Conclave ; on the fourth, two doctors and a surgeon ; on the fifth, a chemist, two
56 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN."
barbers and their assistants ; on the sixth, they draw lots for their cells during the Conclave, and appoint the six Masters of Ceremonies to be admitted ; on the seventh, the thirty-five servants and servers allowed for manual service ; on the eighth, two Cardinals to receive the names and appoint those admitted ; on the ninth, they elect three Cardinals to superintend the Conclave, and to be responsible for the order, cleanlines and perfect decorum of all thn-e admitted to it. During the whole interval between the death of one Pope and the election of another, the Cardinals wear purple, and during Conclave, a purple soutane and uncovered rochet. Those created by the late Pope wear the rochet without lace. With the exception of the auditors of the Rota, and the Consistorial advocates, all prelates wear black, and rochets without lace, during this interval.
" During the vacancy of the Holy See the Sacred College rules the Church, and possesses jurisdiction wherever, either directly or indirectlv, the Pontiff possessed it. The College mav appoint legates, and mav coin money, bearing the seal of Sede Vacante. I he Swiss C.uard places itself at their disposal, and a detach ment accompanies the Cardinal Camerlmgo to his house, and remains on guard in his anterooms. Kadi Cardinal is provided with a throne, which he occupies
during Conclave."
When the Congregations arc all over, the Cardinals seat themselves round three sides of a square in the Stiln del Consistorio, to receive the Ambassadors. As each Ambassador enters, says Govau, he kneels if he represents a Roman Catholic Court, and makes a deep bow if he represents a Protestant Court. The Cardinals rise and remove their bcrrcttc ; the Ambassador delivers
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 57
the condolences of his Government. Directly he begins to speak, the Dean of the Sacred College invites him to put on his hat, which he does ; as soon as his discourse is ended, he once more removes his hat, and the Car dinals simultaneously raise their berrette. The Dean, in the name of his colleagues, then thanks the visitor and the Government which he represents. After these official speeches the Ambassador converses in a friendly manner with one of the Cardinals, generally a personal friend, and, after a time, takes his leave with the same formalities.
While the ten Congregazioni are going on, the building is being got ready for the Conclave. After the three years interregnum in the election at Viterbo, which resulted in the elevation of Gregory X., in 1271, to the Papal throne, the rules became very strict. The Car dinals had to occupy one huge dormitory without dividing w r alls or curtains, lighted by only a single window. Clement VI., in 1351, allowed them the privacy of curtains. Urban V., who was a Pope at Avignon, substituted for the single dormitory five large chambers, each of which was to accommodate ten Cardinals. As they all opened on the same passage, the corridor of the Conclave, it was sufficient to block up the two ends for the Cardinals to be duly shut up.
In the fifteenth century, the curtains were replaced by movable partitions. " On several occasions," says Goyau, " the elections were held in monasteries ; for these two reasons the Conclave in cells gradually super seded the dormitory Conclaves. Then movable cells were made with numbered pieces, which, when taken down, were kept in the store-rooms of the Vatican ready for emergencies. There were small cells for the secre-
Till-: SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
tarics and valets, while the Cardinals had the luxury of apartments as much as fourteen feet long and ten feet wide. They slept, ate, and saw their visitors in the same room. It was not very convenient or clean, how ever much it may have been in accordance with Apostolic simplicity. The Ouirinal, in which Leo XII., Pius VII., Gregory XVI., and Pius IX. were elected, is far more convenient than the Vatican for this purpose, for it is full of long straight gall* Tie-.
When Pius IX. di.-d live hundred carpenters worked day and night to get the Conclave n-ady. Partitions like those in hoys bedrooms at public schools, which only reach half way up to the ceiling, took the place of cells. Hut it cost the Papal purse fifty-seven thousand francs.
"On the last oi the ten days of the Congrcgazioni, when it is presumed that all the Cardinals who are able to attend will have arrived, tin- Mass of the Holy Spirit, which opens th<- Conclave, should be held in St. Peter s ; and the ( ardinals then listen to a discourse in Latin, as laid down by Gregory XV., from a prelate or other learned ecclesiastic on the situation in the Church, which exhorts the Cardinals to lay aside all their pre-ocrupa- tion and particular preferences in order to have nothing before their eyes but God alone. They are exhorted to give the Church with as little delav as possible a capable Pa-tor, who may be equal to the needs of the tune, chosen according to the Apostolic Constitutions and tin- Decrees of the Councils.
"After this a procession is formed, preceded by the Swiss Guard and an acolyte bearing the Papal cross, and while the great bell of the Basilica tolls three times, the Cardinals pass solemnly into Conclave. At the.
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 59
entrance to the Paolina the soldiers and ecclesiastics turn back, and the door is shut to behind them.
"On each day of the Conclave, the Cardinals say Mass in the Paolina, six additional altars being erected for the purpose."
Goyau gives us a brilliant picture of the election of Leo XIII.
" At 4.30 the Cardinals, after being installed in their cells, returned to the Cappella Paolina to chaunt the Veni Creator. Then they went in procession to the Sistine Chapel. Prince Chigi was introduced, dressed in a close-fitting tunic, with a high Henri IV. collar ; he swore to guard the safety of their Eminences. From the fourteenth century till 1712, the Savelli, and, after them, the Chigi in their turn, from father to son, have been Marshals of the Roman Church and hereditary Wardens of the Conclave. The four officers of the Marshal, the officers of the Swiss and Palatine Guards, and the Papal Gensdarmes took the oath in turn. Then the Camer- lengo took up his position near the Maggiordomo, who was unwell, and took the oath on his behalf. Then the Cardinals, each preceded by a Noble Guard, returned to their cells, but the Camerlengo and the Sub-Dean remained in the Sistine Chapel to receive the oaths of the ecclesiastics who acted as secretaries to the Car dinals, and then went into the Loggie of Raffaelle, in search of the laymen, officers, or domestics, who had been allowed to remain in the Conclave, to swear them in. All, ecclesiastics and laymen alike, pledged them selves not to reveal anything they saw or knew, and not to do anything which would impede the election.
"At 7 p.m. all the entrances except one were walled up. This gave egress to the curious who had not the
6o THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
privilege of being captives. A bell was sounded thrice, and then the Marshal going outside the enclosure closed the two outside locks, and the Camcrlengo closed the two inside locks, and, on both sides of the door, proccs- rcrbaux declared that it was properly closed.
Then the Deans of the Orders and the Camerlengo, accompanied by the Master of the Ceremonies, proceeded by torchlight to every corner of the Conclave, to ascertain that no interloper was concealed in any of them. This was an ordinance of (iregorv XV. Cardinal Peed made this round. lie found no intruder. At all points the Conclave was duly closed. Only sovereign princes visiting the electors have the privilege of entering it. Thus Joseph II. and Leopold of Tuscany entered the Conclave of Clement XIV., and the Elector Palatine entered the Conclave of Pius VI."
Silvagni, in the vivid translation of Mrs. Maclaughlin, gives a characteristically picturesque account of the visit in which Joseph II. asserted his right to enter the Conclave :
Every entrance to the Vatican was closed and care fully kept by the Swiss Guards, and the halberdiers, and carabineers, who were so called from the weapons they carried. Hut, of course, when the Emperor visited the Conclave on the 2ist of March, all the doors flew open before him, and as soon as he had passed the great bronze gates, he was received at the foot of the Scala Regia by Prince Sigismund Chigi, Chief Marshal of the Conclave, and conducted by him into the Sala Regia, where the Cardinals, who were heads of Orders, awaited him. The Emperor, unacquainted with the usual etiquette on such occasions, was walking straight into the apartment, when Cardinal Alessandro Albani
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 6r
remarked with a smile that the Emperor aveva rotto di clausura.
11 Joseph instantly apologized and turned to with draw, but was at once prayed to enter.
" I will, at all events, leave my sword/ said the Emperor.
" Rather, Sire, keep it in our defence, promptly replied Cardinal Serbelloni.
" When the Emperor did at last gain admittance to the Conclave, he visited all the cells, the Sistine Chapel, where the scrutiny was taken, and the Paoline Chapel, where six altars had been erected for the Cardinals to celebrate Mass. He also requested an introduction to Cardinal York, the last of the Stuarts, and spoke to him with much sympathy and respect ; and he especially noticed Cardinal Ganganelli in his simple monk s dress, little suspecting that the plain attire was worn by the future Pope of Rome. As he took leave, he expressed his hope that the sitting of the Conclave, however long it might have to be continued, would result in a suitable election, adding, Choose us another Lambertini ; he was a good man and everyone s friend. Then he with drew, after all the Cardinals, with one voice, had im plored his protection for themselves and for the Church.
What Joseph really thought of their parting words may be gathered from a letter he wrote to Vienna after this visit, in which he said :
" These Cardinals swarmed round me with as much impertinent curiosity as any vulgar crowd ever displayed at the sight of an elephant or rhinoceros.
To return to the election of Leo XIII.
" A great part of the Vatican was converted into a regular prison ; for the Cardinals, who were the electors,
THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the imprisonment was to last till they had chosen the Pope. The Cardinal Camerlengo was their gaoler. For this same Camerlengo, when he had become Pope, the imprisonment was to last as long as he lived.
Under lock and key were about two hundred and fifty persons. The Sacred College at the death of Pius IX. embraced sixty- four Cardinals. Sixty of them were present. Four of these, created by Gregory XVI., had their apartments decorated in green ; the others, as being created by the dead Pope, had theirs decorated in violet. Fach Cardinal kept a secretary and a valet, and for the general accommodation there were four barbers, a carpenter, a locksmith, a mason, each with an assistant, a glazier, a plumber, two head cooks, four cooks and seven kitchen boys, and twenty-four menservants to perform various duties.
The Sacrist, assisted by three Augustinians and two lay brothers, had the post of Confessor. The Sub- Sacrist performed the duties of cure for the lower orders of the Conclave. There was also a voluntary service. Six Masters of Ceremonies looked after the whole assem blage under the supreme command of the Prefect of the Ceremonies, responsible after the Camerlengo.
The outskirts of the Conclave were under the guard of two personages, the Governor and the Marshal. The Maggiordomo of Pius IX., under the title of Governor of the Conclave, was in charge of the provisioning. In the enclosures he had contrived four towers/ by which the victuals and the official correspondence were intro duced. Prelates and Swiss Guards had the custody of it. The letters intended for the various Cardinals were sent open. The prelates ascertained that they had nothing to do with the election. For the Cardinals
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 63
shut up in the Conclave are forbidden to receive echoes of it from the outside. Papers, however, were freely admitted. For victuals these wickets opened a little, kitchens having been installed inside. In 1878, one did not see the picturesque procession of seneschals and menservants carrying dishes, nor the indiscreet precau tions to which the prelates subjected these dishes to ascertain that no message was concealed in them. As for the Marshal, he was in command of the armed forces of the Vatican ; he carried in a purse of crimson velvet the keys of the outside locks. When the Patriarch of Lisbon presented himself, Prince Chigi, from without, apprised Cardinal Pecci. The Marshal opened the two outside locks ; the Cardinal Cameiiengo opened the two inside locks ; the Patriarch entered and all was closed behind him.
" In the part of the Vatican not included in the Conclave, the Maggiordomo and the Marshal were in authority ; and strangers who wished to go there had either to show a staff with the arms of a Cardinal, or a badge with the effigy of the Camerlengo or the Marshal on it."
I shall tell the rest in my own words. On the morning of the igth. the bell of the Prefect of the Ceremonies sounded three times to call the Cardinals to the Cappella Paolina. They went there wrapped in the great sheets of violet wool, hooked across the breast and terminating in a long train, which form the prescribed vestment for a Conclave. The Sub-Dean administered the com munion to them.
At 9.30, they repaired to the Sistine Chapel to deliver their first vote. The Chapel had been converted into a balloting hall. Above the stalls sixty-four
64 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN
baldachins had been erected, and sixty-four little tables covered with green or violet stood in front of the seats. In the middle of the square space six other tables had been arranged, upon which the electors were to write their votes. Before the Altar of the Last Judgment a large table was reserved for the examination of the ballots. Quite close there was the open grate in which the ballots were to be burnt, and in a vestry, near the entrance, were kept three white soutanes ready for attiring the new Pope.
Accompanied by their secretaries, the Cardinals seated themselves. They prayed in accordance with the ordinance. Then the Master of the Ceremonies called out, " Extra omncs / " (" All out ! ") He himself had to leave with the secretaries. Then one of the Cardinals bolted the doors, and under the eyes of the Sibyls and the Prophets, the thundering Christ and the gently supplicating Virgin, the electors were left alone .... the free spirit and naked conscience prescribed by (in-gory XV. The election was to take place by in spiration, without previous intent. The Cardinals might elect one of their number by acclaim, " Ego eligo." 1 I nominate such-and-such a Pope."
Several Popes were elected in this way in the six teenth century, but the extra precautions insisted upon by Gregory XV. make this mode of election impracticable. The arrangement by which the Cardinals unanimously came to an agreement to choose a committee from among themselves to select the Pope and determine the conditions for the election is fallen into disuse. The regular method of election is now by ballot, and Gregory XV. ordained that two ballots should be held every day. But before proceeding to describe a ballot
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 65
I must allude to the frequently exercised right of veto enjoyed by the three great Catholic Powers, France, Austria, and Spain unless the events of the present century should have deprived France of the right. The most interesting authority on this subject is the celebrated Cardinal Wiseman in his book, " The Four Last Popes."
The Conclave after the death of Pius commenced in the middle of December, with the observance of the usual forms. At one time it seemed likely to close by the election of Cardinal Giustiniani, when the Court of Spain interposed and prevented it. Allusion has been made to the existence of this privilege, vested more by usage than by any formal act of recognition, at least in three great Catholic Powers. Should two- thirds of the votes centre in any person, he is at once Pope, beyond the reach of any prohibitory declaration. It is, there fore, when the votes seem to be converging towards some one obnoxious, no matter why, to one of those Sovereigns, that his ambassador to the Conclave, him self a Cardinal, by a circular admonishes his colleagues of this feeling in the Court which he represents. This suffices to make them turn in another direction. (See below.)
"Thus in the Conclave preceding the one now before us (i.e., that at which Pius VIII. was elected), Cardinal Severoli was nearly elected, when Cardinal Albani, on behalf of Austria, to which Severoli had been formerly Nuncio, inhibited his election by a note considered far from courteous. And, in like manner, in this Conclave, on the 7th of January, Cardinal Giustiniani received twenty-one votes, the number sufficient for election being twenty-nine, when Cardinal Marco, the Spanish Envoy,
5
o6 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
delicately intimated, first to Giustiniani s nephew, Odes- calchi, then to the Dean, Pacca, that Spain objected to that nomination. Everyone was amazed. Giustiniani had been Nuncio in Spain, and the ground of his exclusion was supposed to be his participation in Leo XII. s appointment of bishops in South America. If so, the object in view was signallv defeated. For the power possessed by the Crown of any country expires by its exercise ; the sting remains behind in the wound. Cardinal Capelkiri had been instrumental, far more than (iiustiniani, in promoting these episcopal nomina tions, and lie united the requisite number of votes, and was Pope.
" Everyone in that Conclave, however, bore witness to the admirable conduct of that excellent and noble Prince on that occasion. 1 have heard Cardinal Weld, and his secretary in Conclave, Bishop Riddell, describe how wretched and pining he looked while the prospect of the Papacy hung before him, for he was scrupulous and tender of conscience to excess ; and how he brightened up and looked like himself again the moment the vision had passed away. Indeed, no sooner had the note of the Spanish lay ambassador, Labrador, been read in his presence by the Dean, than Cardinal diustiniani rose, and, standing in the middle of the chapel, addressed his colleagues. He was tall ; his scanty hair was white with age, his countenance peculiarly mild. His mother was an English lady, and his family are now claiming the Newburgh peerage in Scotland from the Crown. With an unfaltering voice and a natural tone, unaffected by his trying position, the Cardinal said : If I did not know Courts by experience, I should certainly have cause to be surprised at the " exclusion " published by
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 67
the most eminent Dean ; since, far from being able to reproach myself with having given cause of complaint against me to His Catholic Majesty during my nun ciature, I dare congratulate myself with having rendered His Majesty signal service in the difficult circumstances wherein he was placed. He then referred to some proofs of acknowledgment of this fidelity from the Spanish Crown, and continued : I will always cherish the memory of these kindnesses shown me by His Catholic Majesty, and will entertain towards him the most pro found respect ; and, in addition, a most lively interest for all that can regard his welfare, and that of his august family. I will further add, that, of all the benefits con ferred on me by His Majesty, I consider the greatest and most acceptable to me (at least in its effects) to be his having this day closed for me the access to the most sublime dignity of the Pontificate. Knowing, as I do, my great weaknesses, I could not bring myself to foresee that I should ever have to take on myself so heavy a burden, yet these few days back, on seeing that I was thought of for this purpose, my mind has been filled with the bitterest sorrow. To-day I find myself free from my anxiety, I am restored to tranquillity, and I retain only the gratification of knowing that some of my most worthy colleagues have deigned to cast a look on me, and have honoured me with their votes, for which I beg to offer them my eternal and sincerest gratitude.
It may be added that the contingency alluded to by Cardinal Wiseman actually happened at the election of the very next Pontiff, Pius IX., who by the sarcasm of events, after being ineffectually vetoed, reigned longer than any other of the two hundred and sixty-four Popes. Austria put in its veto after he had already obtained the
5*
68 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
requisite two-thirds majority. This was in 1846 ; half a century later Austria was more vigilant and inter posed its veto in time to prevent the election of Cardinal Kampolla, one of the greatest ecclesiastics since the los- of the world-power wielded by the Popes in the Middle Ages.
According to Lector, Goyaii and Cigala, the ballots prepared by the officers of the election are folded in three, and on the top part of the form are printed tin- words /:; r c Cardinalis, and here the Cardinal who is voting writes his name; on the middle is printed: " Elio in summitm I ontificcm I\m. Dm. mcum D.(\int." ( " I elect Cardinal So-and-So to be sovereign Pop< There- the elector writes the name of the candidate for whom he wishes to vote. The bottom part is left empty ; there lie inscribes a device and a number. The top and bottom parts are then folded together, the bottom being over the top, and are fastened with a fancy seal which does not betray the identity of the voter. On the reverse two designs are engraved. In the to]) one is enclosed the word nomcn. meaning that under it on the obverse side will be found the name of the voter ; in the lower is enclosed the word si^)iti y signifying that on the obverse will be found the device of the voter. However transparent the paper may be, these 4 designs prevent it being read through, and preserve the secret of the ballot. The Cardinals deposit their ballots in a gold chalice on the large table before the altar. The electors choose by lot three scrutineers and then three overseers of the sick, who are to go to the cells of any Cardinals who are too ill to leave them, and collect their votes.
The Dean of the Sacred College advances first towards
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 69
the altar ; he elevates his ballot above the chalice and says, " I call to witness our Lord Christ, who will be my judge, that I give my voice to him whom, after God, I judge worthy to be elected, and that I will do the same at the vote of accession."* The ballot then drops into the chalice. Then the overseers of the sick and then the other Cardinals, in order of their election, advance to the altar, kneel down, take the oath and vote. When the overseers have collected the votes of the sick, the scrutineers set the chalice on the large table and examine it. They can read nothing but the middle part of the ballot ; the seals cover the rest. It is seldom that the first vote gives the necessary two- thirds majority. Unless it does, the second commences immediately. This is in order to transfer the votes of those who have voted for someone who proves to have no chance to one of the Cardinals who have the largest number of votes at the first ballot. Each of the electors at the new ballot has to mark his vote with the same device and number as before ; it is only the middle part of the voting paper which is altered to " Accedo Reverendis, D. meo D. Card. . . . ." which signifies, " I transfer my vote to Cardinal
So-and-So " If any elector wishes to adhere
to his first vote he writes Nemini after this, signifying " I do not wish to transfer my vote to anyone." And this is what the electors do who have voted for a candidate who has received enough votes at the first ballot to give him a chance of being elected. If the votes of accession, combined with those of the first ballot, give any Cardinal his two-thirds majority, a minute verification com mences. The scrutineers, who have preserved the
- At the election of Pius X. the members of the Sacred College unanimously decided
not to employ the vote of accession, because it did not give them sufficient time to reflect.
/o THE SECRETS OK THE VATICAN.
ballots of the first vote, by breaking the seals of the lower parts and comparing the devices, establish the faet that the electors \vho by transferring their voles have conferred the election on one of their number, have not already voted for the same name in the first ballot. For a Cardinal is not allowed to vote for the same name both in the first ballot and the \ <>tc t>/ tu ccssicn , since the votes of accession are transferred in order to accumu late the requisite two-thirds majority. The secret ol the ballot remains inviolate. The upper part of the voting paper which contain-, the name of the elector is unsealed in two cases only.
It mav happen that the seals and devices adopted by several Cardinal are so alike that they can hardly be distinguished, and the doubts which then arise as to the correctness ol the transfer of votes cannot be cleared up without opening the top part of the voting paper. In the second place, if the Cardinal who appears to be elected has received exactly two-thirds of the votes and not one more, he i> asked to reveal his number and device, which has to be verified by opening the top part of his paper in order to prove that he has not voted for himself, which would invalidate his majority.*
Three revisers, drawn by lot from the Cardinal Deacons, manage 1 the examination of the ballots, which are then burnt in the grate. Jf the vote is not decisive, a little damj) straw is thrown on the ilames, which causes a thick column of smoke to arise from the chimney, and allows the crowd in the Piaz/a of St. Peter s to know that the Papacy is still vacant. This is the famous sfumata.
- Cicala says that a Cardinal voting for himself rendeis the 1 allot null, whether his
vote lie the casting vute or not.
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 71
If a Pope is elected, they burn the ballots out the straw, and then the crowd outside may linger on without arriving at any conclusion, or come to a wrong conclusion.
On the igth of February, 1878, at the morning sitting, the first ballot, which gave nineteen votes to Cardinal Pecci, was invalidated by certain irregularities : so that it was impossible to apply the necessary vote to it. At the later sitting, the first ballot gave twenty-six votes to Cardinal Pecci ; at the accessory ballot eight votes were added. At the morning sitting of the 20th, in the first ballot he received fifty-four votes. The requisite two-thirds majority in his favour had been exceeded.
The baldachins of the Cardinals are fitted with an ingenious hinge-arrangement, which enables them to be folded up in an instant. Those of all the other Cardinals at once disappeared, as a token that the interregnum had elapsed from that moment. In this manner Leo XIII. became Pope.
With the two other heads of Orders, the Sub-Dean approached him, and inquired : " Dost thou accept thy election to the Sovereign Pontificate, made in accordance with the canonical rules ? : To which the Cardinal Camerlengo replied : " Since God wishes that I should assume the Pontificate, I am unable to say nay."
Then he was asked what name he wished to take. For since the year 955 A.D., when the young Octavian, Patrician of Rome, assumed with the Pontificate the name of John XII., it has been the custom of all Popes, except Hadrian VI. and Marcellus II., to change their Christian name on their accession.
The Cardinal Camerlengo replied : "I assume the
72 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
name of Leo on account of the respect and gratitude which I have always held for Leo XII., and the devotion which I have had from my youth for St. Leo the Great."
Upon this the new Pope was conducted first to the altar, and then to the vestry, where he was given the Pontifical vestments, and one of the three white soutanes of different sizes, which are prepared in advance, so as to fit any Pope approximately while his own is being made. When he re-entered the chapel his throne was ready for him before the altar on the Gospel side. Ik- seated himself on it, and the Cardinals throwing them selves on their knees, kissed his hand and received his embrace.
This was the first obedience. Then the Dean of the Order of Cardinal Deacons proceeded to the balcony of St. Peter s, and, addressing the crowd, said : " I have to announce to yon a great joy. We have for Pope the most eminent Cardinal Joachim Pecci, who has assumed the name of Leo XIII."
Immediately the bells of Rome sounded, but there was one ominous change the cannon of the Castle of Sant Angelo no longer thundered the salute to the election of a Pope as they did in the old days before 1870.
At four o clock the gates of St. Peter s were opened, and Leo XIII., appearing in the Loggia of Paul V., had the inside window which gives on the basilica opened. He bestowed his blessing upon the city and the world, urbi d orbi. Every preceding Pope, for many a year, had shown himself on the outside balcony of the loggia from which his eyes commanded and swept the Eternal City. Leo XIII., says Goyau, with one of his happy epigrams, desired his eyes as well as his person to be captive. Up to 1870, four times a year the Pope used
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THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 73
to bless the city and the universe : twice, on Holy Thurs day and Easter Day, at St. Peter s ; once, on Ascension Day, at the Lateran ; and once, on the Day of the Assump tion, at S. Maria Maggiore. These traditions, in the language of the Papal diplomacy, are suspended, with out being forgotten, for the present. Leo XIII., on regaining the Sistine Chapel, re-assumed his episcopal insignia, and seated himself upon his throne by the altar, whereupon for the second time the stately train of Cardinals knelt before him.
This was the second obedience.
Until the Italians conquered Rome, as the Romans had conquered Italy more than two thousand years before, the new Pope used to proceed to St. Peter s and seat himself at the Altar of the Confessio and receive for a third time the homage of the Sacred College.
But it was in the Sistine, on the morning of the 2ist, that the old order changed, giving place to new, and the third obedience was paid to Leo XIII.
If Leo XIII., like Gregory XVI., who was a Camal- dolese monk, had never received his consecration as a bishop, it would have been conferred upon him by the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, but Leo did not require it, for he had already been a bishop for thirty-four years- The famous Cardinal Wiseman has left us a description of the Ordination of Gregory XVI. after he had been elected Pope : " The ceremony of his coronation, which took place on the 6th, was enhanced by his consecration as Bishop, at the High Altar of St. Peter s. This func tion served clearly to exhibit the concurrence in his person of two different orders of ecclesiastical power. From the moment of his acceptance of the Papal
74 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
dignity, ho was Supreme Head of the Church, could decree, rule, name, or depose bishops, and exercise every duty of Pontifical jurisdiction. But he could not ordain, nor consecrate, till lie had himself received the imposition of hands from other bishops, inferior to himself, and holding under and from him their sees and jurisdiction.
"On a previous occasion, when Clement XIV. was named Pope, he received episcopal consecration sepa- ratelv from hi> coronation, (iregory united the two functions, but, following a still older precedent, departed from ordinary forms.
" In the Roman Pontifical, the rite prescribed for episcopal consecration is interwoven with the Mass, during which the new Bishop occupies a very subor dinate place till the end, when he is enthroned, and pronounces his first episcopal benediction. Here the entire rite preceded the Mass, which was sung in the usual form by the new Pope. Like- every other Bishop, he recited, kneeling before the altar, and in presence of his clergy, the Profession of Faith, the bond which here united the Head with the Body, instead of being, as ordinarily, the link which binds a member to the Head."
On account of the exceptional conditions of the Church at the moment, the (\i\\ilciita, or procession in state to take possession of the Lateran, which used to conclude the Accession of the Popes, was omitted. Tuker and Malleson give an excellent account of it.
" Until the eighteenth century the Popes, on their election, went in state from the Vatican to take possession of the Lateran, riding on a white mule. This imposing ceremony was called the Cavalcata, and
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 75
was one of the greatest ever seen in the city. The whole College of Cardinals awaited the Pope in the portico of the Lateran, vested in white. The Piazza was lined with the civic guard, and the Pope was received by the chief Senator of Rome. Detachments of all the Papal regiments formed part of the procession, which started from the Vatican (or from the Quirinal), cannon being fired as the Pope left the Palace. All the camerieri segreti, ecclesiastics and laymen, attended, and the Governor of Rome (always a prelate) rode on horseback attired in lace and purple. The Pope s crocifero bore the Papal Crozier ; the great officers of State followed the Pope, attended by servants on foot in gala liveries. A brigade of the Palatine Guard and a body of dragoons closed the gorgeous procession. Money was scattered among the poor, and pensions bestowed on poor students of painting, sculpture and architecture. The last Pope to ride to the Lateran was Clement XIV. Pius VIII. drove in a coach drawn by six horses, his white mule being led."
Of all the solemnities which completed the election only one was retained, the coronation.
It is from the day on which they assume the tiara, and not from the day on which they are elected, that the Popes, since the eleventh century, have dated their Pontificates. As a token they generally issued their proclamations in the form of Briefs, not Bulls, until this ceremony was performed. In theory, however, their authority received no increase from their corona tion, which conferred only its insignia, the tiara dis tinguished by three crowns and worn by the Popes since the thirteenth century. It was on the 3rd of March, 1878, that Leo XIII. assumed his tiara. The
76 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
ceremony had not taken place, as formerly, in the Loggia of St. Peter s, but in the Vatican Palace.
In the Sala Ducale the Cardinals for the fourth time paid their obedience.
When these ceremonies used to be performed in St. Peter s, the throne on which the Pope received their homage was erected under the portico just in front of the Porta Santa, which is only opened in the Jubilee years. Then the cortege repaired to the Sistine Chapel, and before Leo XIII., borne on the .SV</M iy.s7<//c>; M, an official thrice over burnt wisp> of tow on the end oi a staff. " Holy Father," said he, " thus passes the glory of the world." The old ritual demanded that at the moment of conferring on the Pope the insignia of supreme greatness he should be reminded of the vanitv ol glory . In the Sistine Chapel, Leo XIII. celebrated the Mass with a complex and intensely symbolical service. Alter the Confitcor he re-ascended the Sctiiti, and the Dean of the Order of Cardinal I)eacon> handed him the little scarf of wool, which is called the Pallium, saying, " Receive thou the Sacred Pallium, the fullm >> t the Pontifical Office, for the honour of Almighty (iod, and the most glorious Virgin Mary, His Mother, and the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and the Floly Roman Church."
On the 24th of January every year at the Church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura there is a blessing of two white lambs, without spot or blemish, presented by the Canons of the Lateran, the premier church of Chris tendom, which is one of the most picturesque functions in Rome. Their wool is shorn for weaving into pallia. These are deposited in the Golden Casket made by Benvenuto Cellini, which is kept in the Confessio of St. Peter s above the Apostle s Tomb, and are used
The Porch ol St. Peter s. J- r
| Facing page 76
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 77
for sending by the Pope to Patriarchs, Archbishops, and even Bishops.
" The pallium/ say Tuker and Malleson, " is a long strip of lamb s wool, worn round the neck, and signifies the fullness of episcopal office. As signifying the plenitude of jurisdiction, the pallium is sent by the Pope to Archbishops and Metropolitans, who must, however, first demand it. Vigilius sent it to Auxanius of Aries as to one acting in our stead. Pelagius to another Bishop of Aries as Vicarius noster. Gregory the Great sent it to many Bishops, including Augustin of Canterbury.
" Pallia are kept in the Benvenuto Cellini gold coffer at the Confession of S. Peter in the Vatican basilica. They are always called Pallia de cor pore sancti Petri, because they come from his tomb, just as the branded, or cloths lowered to touch Peter s sarcophagus and kept as relics, were called de corpore, from the body of Peter. The pallium is blest on the Altar of the Con fession, and then remains there, as we see ; but the old usage was to leave the pallium there on the night after the blessing, and then it was kept on Peter s chair until this latter was enclosed. The pallium is always blest on the day of St. Peter s death June 29th.
" For it has been assumed that the pallium represents the archaic custom of handing down the upper garment, the mantle, of the teacher to his disciples and successors, as Elisha received that of Elijah, and as the Patriarch of Constantinople when fully vested wore the venerable cloak of St. James, the brother of the Lord. But the most striking instance is that of the Patriarch of Alexandria, who, having buried his predecessor with his own hands, used to take the pallium or mantle of
7 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
5. Mark, and place it on his own shoulders, which act constituted legitimate occupation of his office, a custom found in Alexandria from the sixth century."
Only the Pope can assume the pallium as his right.
Fnveloped in the pallium, Leo XIII. mounted to the Pontifical throne, and the Cardinals passed before him, paying the fifth and last obedience.
This was followed by the chanting of the 1 Litanies,
Hear us, () Christ," intoned by the Cardinal Deacon.
The other Cardinals replied, " Long life to our Lord Leo,
established by (iod as Sovereign Pontiff and Lniversal
Pope."
Following the antique formulary the Cardinal Deacon invoked in succession the Saviour of the World thrice, Mary twice, and, after them, several Saints, the choir each time responding, Help thou him." The Lpistle and (iospel were chanted first in Latin by the Deacons of the Occident, and then in (ireek by the Deacon-- of the Orient, enveloped in their dalmatics. The words of Christ are given in the language of the two Churches at the Coronation Mass to typify the way in which the chair of the Apostle in the tribune of St. Peter s is supported by the Fathers of the two Churches. After the Agnus Dei, Leo XIII. mounted his throne, the Sub- Deacon presented to him the Host, the Deacon pre sented to him the chalice, and the Pope detached two morsels from the Body of Christ and administered the Communion to his two assistants and then Com municated himself. At the end of this Mass, the Pope seated himself, and was crowned with the tiara by the Dean of the Cardinal Deacons. " Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns, and know that thou art the Father of Princes and Kings, the Rector of the
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 79
Universe, the Vicar of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who possesses honour and glory from century to century. Amen."
The benediction, pronounced by Leo XIII., terminated the solemnity.
I have given the account of the election of Leo XIII., as described by Lector, Goyau, and other authorities, at considerable length because it was conducted on the strict lines of Conclave etiquette as laid down by Gregory XV. Radical changes were made at the Con clave that resulted in the election of Pius X., which has been admirably described by the Abbe Cigala. The chief difference was that the Vote of Accession was abolished.
At the first vote, taken on the ist of August, thirteen Cardinals received votes. It was noticed that the whole College seemed nervous and highly strung, which is not extraordinary, for of the Cardinals who had voted at the previous Conclave, all were dead except the Cardinal Camerlengo, Cardinal Oreglia. At the first ballot Cardinal Rampolla, the dead Pope s Secretary of State, easily headed the poll with twenty-four votes, Cardinal Gotti being second with seventeen votes, and Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice, third, with five votes, only one ahead of Cardinal Serafino Vannutelli, who had four votes. Cardinal Oreglia had two ; the Cardinal Librarian had two ; the Cardinal Pro-Datario had two, and six other Cardinals had one each.
As no candidate had received the requisite two- thirds majority, the Cardinal Camerlengo declared the ballot void. The scrutineers made a packet of the votes, and, tying them with red silk twist, handed them to the junior Cardinal Deacon, who, assisted by the
80 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Secretary of the Sacred College, Monsignor Merry del \"al, threw them into the little stove placed at the entrance of the Sistine Chapel, and added some damp straw and burnt them in the traditional way. A thick smoke the Sfumata rose above the Vatican, informing
o
the Romans that the Pope was not vet made.
\o one experts the first ballot to be successful, for, as the Cardinals are all under oath to go into the Con clave without any preconceived opinion, and are especially precluded from making any arrangements for a Pope s successor during his life-time, it takes them some little time to see who ought to be elected. Until the last Conclave it was customary, if the first ballot proved unsuccessful, to use the \ otc of Accession in all the succeeding ballots in the manner described above. But now the electors unanimously resolved to abolish the Vote of Accession in order to give them selves longer time for reflection.
At the second vote on the ist of August, the votes were still scattered, but less widely. Cardinal Rampolla had now increased his vote to twenty-nine ; Cardinal (iotti had lost one vote; Cardinal Vannutelli had lost three of his four votes ; but Cardinal Sarto had doubled his from five to ten. It was characteristic of him that he went out, praying the electors not to think of him any more, to pass the whole night in prayer.
The morning vote of the 2nd of August was still un certain. Cardinal Rampolla retained his twenty-nine votes, but Cardinal Sarto had again doubled his, and more ; he now had twenty-one votes, while Cardinal Gotti had dropped from sixteen to nine. At this moment came a most dramatic change. Cardinal Puzyna Kniaz de Kozielsko, the Austrian Archbishop of Cracow, who
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 81
brought a mandate from the Emperor of Austria, con sidered that the time had come for him to declare his Note, " that a Candidate with political habits so pro nounced would be ill-received in the Austro-Hungarian Empire." The Cardinal, addressing the Sacred College in Latin, did not mention any name, and did not deliver any veto, but the allusion was too evident.*
" Cardinal Rampolla gravely rose without losing for an instant his usual calm, and, in Latin, as incisive as the blows of a hammer, replied : Vehementer doleo de gravi vulnere illato Ecclesiae libertati ; quod autem ad me attinet, nihil gratius, nihil jucundius accidere poterat. ( I am terribly grieved at the severe wound dealt to the liberty of the Church, but as regards myself nothing more welcome, or agreeable could happen ). The whole Sacred College approved of the masterly declaration of the Cardinal Secretary. Accordingly, at the evening ballot Cardinal Rampolla s vote rose from twenty-nine to thirty, but at the same time Cardinal Sarto s rose from twenty-one to twenty-four. When he left the Sistine Chapel, the Patriarch, terrified by the responsibilities which threatened to be his, went to the Pauline Chapel, and, before the Altar of the Holy Sacra ment, passed several hours in weeping.
" When he got back to his cell he found it full of his colleagues, who came to beg him not to refuse the burden, the consensus of votes obtained without pre- arrangement, was it not a sign in itself from Provi dence ? Cardinal Satolli, the eminent theologian, with the ascendency which his knowledge gave him, repeated to him the words used by Our Lord to St. Peter when He was walking on the waters : Ego sum, nolite timer e !
- The present Pope has abolished the right of veto. Any Cardinal bringing a
mandate from without is to be excommunicated.
S2 THK SKCRHTS OF THE VATICAN.
It is I, be not afraid ! ;. Then the Cardinal added, smiling, God ( who lias helped you to direct the goii lola of St. Mark so well, will help you to command tin- ship of St. Peter. On August }rd, at the morning ballot, Cardinal Sarto headed the list for the first time, witli twenty-seven votes ; Cardinal Rampolla had now only twenty-four, and Cardinal Ciotti, whose vote had fallen to three at the last ballot, found himself with nine. At the evening ballot Sarto had thirty-live votes ; Rampolla sixteen ; and (iotti seven. On the fourth dav Cardinal Sarto s vote rose to fiftv, eight
^>
over the necessary two-thirds. Cardinal Rampolla s votes had fallen to ten, and (iotti s to two."
When Cardinal Ma>tai-Fenvt 1 1 Pins IX. was elected he threw himseli on hi-- knee> before the Sacred College 1 , and begged hi- colleagues with all his soul to spare his feebleness ; he pleaded with tears hi> inexperience of affair-, his dread of iv-pon^ibilitv, hi> age, his health ; and such was his emotion that he fainted. Cardinal Sarto Pius X., also swooned when he learnt of his election. Cardinal Pecci v l.eo XIII. , on the other hand, at the Conclave of iSjS, had listened without emotion to the repetition of his name. Three ballots were sufficient for his election, whereas it took seven to elect Pius X.
One formality remained, to examine the ballot papers to see that he had not voted for himself, since that render- a ballot null. When the ballot was opened it bore witness to his chivalry : he had voted for his most formidable competitor, Cardinal Rampolla.
Then Cardinal Oreglia, Dean of the Sacred College, supported by the Chiefs of the Order of Cardinal Priests and the Order of Cardinal Deacons, approached the
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 83
throne of the Pontiff-elect and asked him in the words of the ritual : " Accept asnc eledionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem ? " ("Dost thou accept the election canonically made of thyself to be Supreme Pontiff ? ") Sarto bowed his head and answered : " Accepto in crucem" ("I accept it as a cross"), and added, addressing the Cardinals, " I trust that you will assist me to bear it."
Then the Cardinal Dean put the next question to him : " Quo nomine vis in posterum vocari ? " (" Under what name wilt thou be addressed for the future ? ") The new Pope, moved to tears, reflected an instant, then, proudly raising his head, replied, Pius Decimus >: (" Pius X.").
He had his own chamberlain to robe him, and the latter was so upset that he could hardly put on his master the Pope s white garments. When the Pope was putting on the little white calotta, or skull cap, which is the badge of the Pontificate, he handed his Cardinal s red calotta to Monsignor Merry del Val.
Cardinal Oreglia then handed the Pope his Fisher man s Ring the symbol that the office of Pope had been revived, that the Church had ceased to be a widow, and announced that the temporary sovereignty of the Sacred College had ended, and his own office lapsed.
The first duty of the new Pope is usually to appoint a new Cardinal Camerlengo. Pius X. at once re- appointed Cardinal Oreglia.
I need not describe again the " obediences " performed by the Cardinals. Suddenly there was a cry of joy ; the Romans had correctly interpreted the clear and quickly-rising smoke. Abbe Cigala gives a brilliant word picture of the Piazza at this moment, afire with
6*
84 THE SECRKTS OF THE VATICAN.
excitement, a blaze of colour with its masses of soldiers in plumes shoulder knots, and scarves en grand c tennc, and Ecclesiastics of various Orders, and women in their summer glory for an August morning.
Then lie describes how the great window over the portico of St. Peter s was Hung open, and servants in crimson liveries hung out a great spread of white satin edged with red velvet and decorated with the lions of Pius IX. It was still a quarter of an hour short of noon, and the people gazed and gazed for the Pope to appear. Meanwhile, the architect of the Conclave was breaking down the walling-up of the door between the Sala kegia and the Leonine Chapel, from which tins window opens, since the Conclave was at an end. Just at noon the Colonel down in the Piazza below thundered out the " j. resent arms," and there appeared, not the Pope, but the Dean of the Order of Cardinal Deacons, who cried in a sonorous voice in Latin: Aimuntio vobis gauclium magnum: habemus Papam Kniinenti^imum ac Reverendissimum Cardinalem Josephum Sarto : qui sibi nomen imposuit Pium Decimum "I give you tidings of great joy; we have a Pope the most eminent and reverend Cardinal Joseph Sarto who has taken upon himself the name <>l Pius X.) It was characteristic of the Pope that when the time came for him to bless the city and the world from the Gallery in St. Peter s, he was as impatient as the crowd so as not to keep them waiting. He wished to go straight to them instead of receiving the high dignitaries and ambassadors who were awaiting him at the door. The procession was headed by the crux hastata, the spear-headed Papal Cross. It is said that there were a hundred thousand people in the vast
THE ELECTION OF A POPE. 85
Cathedral ; and most of them felt that they were seeing something more than human when the San Pietrini drew aside the rich damask hangings of the balcony to give them as clear a view as possible of the venerable figure with its snow-white hair and snow-white garments, not only venerable as Pope, but with a name lovely and of good report throughout the length and breadth of Italy. The Pope first took a long look at the statue of St. Peter ; then he slowly lifted his hand, and with a voice as clear as a trumpet, began to intone, " Blessed be the Name of the Lord," to which a hundred thousand voices replied, " from now and henceforth for ever more." Still louder grew the voice of the Pope, " Our help is in the Name of the Lord," and the voices of the people rolled back, " who made heaven and earth." Then the Pope raised the hand with the Fisherman s Ring, and three times made the sign of the Cross, turning to the four corners of the earth, to the words, " God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless you." And when the crowd had given its deep and heart felt " Amen," the first benediction urbi ct orbi was complete.
I need not describe how the Pope received the homage of the various dignitaries. The Conclave soon emptied itself with the exception of one Cardinal, the octogenarian Spanish Bishop of Valencia, who lay dying. The Pope, as soon as he had made his adieux to the others, went to administer the Last Consolation to him. The wave of exaltation that swept over the aged man at being the first to receive this office from the new Pope, restored his vitality, and three days afterwards he was sufficiently cured to leave the Conclave. It is easy to picture the joy of the faithful, who saw in this a miracle and an omen.
86
CHAPTER V.
I I IV. COLLKGK OF CARDINALS.
WHAT is a Cardinal ? asks the " Koine " of Misses Tuker and Malleson, the l)est English writers on the subject ; who are also the authors of the admirable Handbook to Christian and luvloiastical Rome," publir-hed in three volumes bv Messrs. A. and C. Black. And the reply is that " Cardinals therefore are the honorary parish clergy of Rome, nominally holding the place of the presbyters of the Roman titles and of the deacons of the Roman regions ; and though a foreign Cardinal cannot, of course, be also a local parish priest in Rome, he is bound to appoint a Vicar 1 to represent him. The six Suburban Sees arc- always held by MX of the senior Cardinals di Cut-id that is, the Cardinals iv-idt nt in Rome, among whom is always the Pope s Cardinal Vicar- and they are called the Cardinal Bishops. Cardinal Priests are usually in priest s orders."
There is a saying that the Pope creates the Cardinals and the Cardinals create the Pope. The latter part of the epigram alludes, of course, to the fact that the Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals, and Leo XIII. reigned so long (about a quarter of a century), that he was almost able to repeat the Biblical epigram of one of his predecessors, who said, with an allusion to St. John
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 87
xv., 16,* " You have not elected me, but I have elected you." At the time of Leo XIII. s death, as Tuker and Malleson point out, the only surviving Cardinal of Pius IX. s creation was the Cardinal Camerlengo, Cardinal Oreglia.
The epigram points also to the fact that the sole power of creating Cardinals rests in the Pope. The Secret Consistory, which he convenes for their nomina tion, never vetoes a nomination, and is not supposed even to suggest one. The Pope has even the power of creating Cardinals at these Consistories whose names he does not disclose until some future occasion. These prelates draw their Cardinal s salary from the moment of their secret creation ; but if the Pope should die without confirming their title to the Consistory, they cannot take part in the election of the new Pope, nor can they claim confirmation from his successor. They are called Cardinals in petto, i.e., created in pectore in the breast of the Pope.
The Cardinals are said to create the Pope because when a Pope dies his successor is elected by the Sacred College. The number of Cardinals was fixed at seventy by Sixtus V., who drew up their present constitution. But the titles conferring Cardinalates are seventy-five in number. Only once has a Pope, Innocent X., left the College full at his death. There are nominally six Cardinal Bishops, fifty Cardinal Priests, and fourteen Cardinal Deacons. Tuker and Malleson inform us that the Pope s College of Cardinals, which comprise his curia or council, are the modern representatives of the ancient parish priests of Rome : that at first the archi-diaconus,
- "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should
go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain : that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."
88 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
or chief deacon, was called the diaconus cardinalistha.t is, the deacon upon whom everything hinged ; and that later, when two deacons were appointed to each region of the city, the senior of each region was called Car- dinalis ; and that similarly the head Presbyter of each of the ancient titles or parishes of Rome was called the Prcslivter Cardinnlis.
The Cardinal Bishops are the bishops of the six- Suburban Sets round Rome. The Bishop of Ostia has always had precedence ; and it is he who has always had the privilege of ordaining as bishops the Popes who did not already enjoy that rank at the time of their election. The six Cardinal Bishops are :
1. The Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, Dean of the Sacred College "Cardinal Oreglia\ Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, Abate Commendatario of SS. Yincenzo ed Anastasio alle tre Fontane, Arch- Chancellor of the Roman University, Prefect of the S. Congregazione Cerimonialc ; b. 1828 ; cr. 1873.
2. The Bishop of Porto and S. Rufma - Cardinal Seraiino Yannutelli), Sub-Dean of the Sacred College, Secretary of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisi tion, and Grand Penitentiary ; b. 1834 ; cr. 1887.
3. Bishop of Albano (Cardinal Agliardi), Viee- Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church, and Com mendatario of S. Lorenzo in Damaso ; b. 1832 ; cr. 1896.
4. Bishop of Palestrina (Vincenzo Vannutelli), Com mendatario di S. Silvestro in Capite ; Arch-Priest of the Basilica Patriarchale Liberiana (S. Maria Maggiore), Prefect of the S. Congregazione del Concilio, brother of the above ; b. 1836 ; cr. (1889 in petto) 1890.
5. Bishop of Frascati (Cardinal Francesco Satolli), Arch-Priest of the Patriarchal Basilica of the Lateran,
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 89
Prefect of the S. Congregazione degli Studi ; b. 1839 ; cr. 1895.
6. Bishop of Sabina (Cardinal Cassetta), Commenda- tario dei SS. Vito, Modesto e Crescenzia; b. 1841 ; cr. 1899.
THE ORDER OF CARDINAL PRIESTS.
1. Cardinal Neto (Portuguese), Patriarch of Lisbon ; b. 1841 ; cr. 1884. Title, SS. XII. Apostoli.
2. Cardinal Capecelatro (Italian), Archbishop of Capua; b. 1824; cr. 1885. Title, S. Maria del Popolo. Librarian of the Vatican Library.
3. Cardinal Moran (Irish), Archbishop of Sydney ; b. 1830 ; cr. 1885. Title, S. Susanna.
4. Cardinal Gibbons (American), Archbishop of Balti more ; b. 1834 ; cr. 1886 Title, S. Maria in Trastevere.
5. Cardinal Rampolla (del Tindaro) (Sicilian), Arch- Priest of the Patriarchal Basilica Vaticana (St. Peter s), Prefect of the S. Congregazione of the R. Fabbrica di S. Pietro, Grand Prior in Rome of the Sacred and Sovereign Order of the Knights of Jerusalem ; b. 1843 ; cr. 1887. Title S. Cecilia.
6. Cardinal Richard (French), Archbishop of Paris ; b. 1819 ; cr. 1889. Title, S. Maria in Via.
7. Cardinal Gruscha (Austrian), Archbishop of Vienna ; b. 1820 ; cr. 1891. Title S. Maria degli Angeli.
8. Cardinal di Pietro (Italian), Cardinal Pro-Datario ; b. 1828 ; cr. 1893. Title, S. Lorenzo in Lucina.
9. Cardinal Logue (Irish), Archbishop of Armagh ; b. 1840 ; cr. 1893. Title, S. Maria della Pace.
10. Cardinal Vaszary (Hungarian) (Benedictine), Archbishop of Strigonia ; b. 1832 ; cr. 1893. Title, SS. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti.
THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
11. Cardinal Kopp (German), Bishop of Breslau ; b. 1837 ; cr. 1893. Title, S. Agnese fuori le Mnra.
12. Cardinal Leeot (French), Archbishop of Bordeaux ; b. 1831 ; cr. 1893. Title, S. Pudenziana.
i,;. Cardinal Sancha y Hervas (Spanish), Archbishop of Toledo and Patriarch of the \Yest Indies ; b. 1833 ; cr. 1894. Title S. Pictro in Montorio.
14. Cardinal Svampa Italian , Archbishop of Bologna ; b. 1851 ; cr. 1894. Title, S. Onofrio.
15. Cardinal Ferrari Italian , Archbishop of Milan; b. 1850 ; <T. 180,4. Title, S. Anastasia.
if). Cardinal Gotti Italian) (Carmelite Order), Pre fect-General of the S. Congregazione de Propaganda Fide ; b. 1834 ; cr. 1895. Title, S. Maria della Scala.
17. Cardinal Casanas y Page s Spanish), Bishop of Bar celona ; b. 1834 ; cr. 1895. Title, SS. Oniriro e C.iulitta.
iN. Cardinal I-Yrrata (Italian), Prefect of the S. Congregazione de Vescovi e Rrgolari and that of the Disciplina Regolare ; b. 1847; cr. 1896. Title, S. Prisca.
19. Cardinal Cretoni (Italian), Prefect of the S. Con gregazione dei Sacri Riti ; b. 1833 ; cr. 1896. Title, S.M. Sopra Minerva.
jo. Cardinal Frisco (Italian), Archbishop of Naples ; b. i8jh ; cr. 1896. Title, S. Sisto (formerly Cardinal Deacon of S. Caesareo.)
21. Cardinal Martin de Herrera y de la Iglesia (Spanish), Archbishop of Compostella ; b. 1835 ; cr. 1897 . Title, S. Maria Transpontina.
22. Cardinal Coullie (French), Archbishop of Lyons b. 1829 ; cr. 1897. Title, SS. Trinita al Monte Pincio.
23. Cardinal del Drago (Italian) ; b. 1838 ; cr. 1899. Title, S. Maria della Vittoria.
The Creation of Woman. Carved by Mino da Fiesole for I aul II. "s Mausoleum, now in the (irotte \uuve of St. Peter s Crvpt.
\_Facing page 90.
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 91
24. Cardinal Sanminiatelli (Italian) ; b. 1840 ; cr. 1899. Title, SS. Marcellino e Pietro.
25. Cardinal Portanova (Italian), Archbishop of Reggio di Calabria ; b. 1845 ; cr. 1899. Title, S. Clemente.
26. Cardinal Nava (Sicilian), Archbishop of Catania ; b. 1839 ; cr. 1899. Title, SS. Giovanni e Paolo.
27. Cardinal Mathieu (French) ; b. 1839 ; cr. 1899. Title, S. Sabina.
28. Cardinal Respighi (Italian), Vicar-General of the Pope, President of the S. Congregazione Visita Apostolica, Prefect of the Congregazione della Residenza dei Vescovi ; b. 1843 ; cr. 1899. Title, SS. Quattro Coronati.
29. Cardinal Richelmy (Italian), Archbishop of Turin ; b. 1850 ; cr. 1899. Title, S. Eusebio.
30. Cardinal Martinelli (Italian) ; b. 1848 ; cr. 1901. Title, S. Agostino.
31. Cardinal Gennari (Italian) ; b. 1839 ; cr. 1901. Title, S. Marcello.
32. Cardinal Skrbensky (Bohemian), Archbishop of Prague ; b. 1863 ; cr. 1901. Title, S. Stefano al Monte Celio.
33. Cardinal Boschi (Italian), Archbishop of Ferrara ; b. 1838 ; cr. 1901. Title, S. Lorenzo in Panisperna.
34. Cardinal Puzyna de Kozielsko (Pole), Arch bishop of Cracow ; b. 1842 ; cr. 1901. Title, SS. Vitale Gervasio e Protasio.
35. Cardinal Bacilieri (Italian), Bishop of Verona ; b. 1842 ; cr. 1901. Title, S. Bartolomeo all Isola.
36. Cardinal Nocella (Italian) ; b. 1826 ; cr. 1903. Title, S. Calisto.
37. Cardinal Cavicchioni (Italian) ; b. 1836 ; cr. 1903. Title, S. Maria in Aracceli,
9~ THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
38. Cardinal Taliani (Italian) ; b. 1838 ; or. 1903. Title, S. Bernardo alle Terme.
39. Cardinal Katschthaler German), Archbishop of Salzburg; b. 1832; cr. 10,03. Title, S. Tomaso in Parione.
40. Cardinal I : ischer < ierman\ Archbishop of Cologne ; b. 1840 ; cr. 1903. Title, SS. Xereo < Achilleo.
41. Cardinal Merry del Yal ^born in London), the Pope s Secretary of State, Prefect of the Congregazione Lauretana, Prefect of the S. S. P. P. A. A. ; b. 1865 ; cr. [903. Title, S. Prassede.
42. Cardinal Arcaverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti (Brazilian), Archbishop of S. Sebastiano ; b. 1850 ; cr. 1905. Title, SS. Bonifacio ed Alessio.
43. Cardinal Sainassa (Hungarian), Archbishop of Agria ; b. 1828 ; cr. 1905.
THK ORDKK OF CARDINAL DEACONS.
Cardinal Macchi, Secretary of the Briefs of the Pope, (irand Chancellor of the Pontifical Orders of Knight hood, Administrator Apostolic of the Abbey of Subiaco ; b. 1832 ; cr. iSSq. Deacon of S. M. in Via Lata.
Cardinal Steinhuber (German) (Jesuit), Prefect of the S. Congregazione of the Index ; b. 1825 ; cr. 1893. Deacon of S. Agata alia Suburra.
Cardinal Segna (Italian), Prefect of the Vatican Archives ; b. 1836 ; cr. 1894. Deacon of S. Maria in Portico.
Cardinal Delia Volpe (Italian), Prefect of the Economia of the S. Congregazione de Propaganda Fide, President of the Azienda Generale delle Reverenda Camera degli Spogli ; b. 1844 ; cr. in petto 1899, proclaimed 1901. Deacon of S. Maria in Aquiro.
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 93
Cardinal Vives y Tuto (Spanish) (Capuchin) ; b. 1854 ; cr. 1899. Deacon of S. Adriano.
Cardinal Tripepi (Italian), Prefect of the S. Congrega- zione delle Indulgenze e Sacre Reliquie, Pro-Prefect of the Congregazione dei Sacri Riti ; b. 1836 ; cr. 1901. Deacon of S. Maria in Domnica.
Cardinal Cavagnio (Italian); b. 1841; cr. 1901. Deacon of S. Maria ad Marty res (The Pantheon).
Cardinal de Cagiano de Azevedo (Italian) ; b. 1845 ; cr. 1905. Deacon of SS. Cosmo e Damiano.
The following titles of Cardinal Priests are at present vacant.
S. Balbina, SS. Andrea e Gregorio al Monte Celio, S. Marco, S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, S. Crisogono, S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni, S. Maria Nuova e S. Francesca al Foro Romano, S. Pancrazio, S. Croce in Gerusalemme, S. Pietro in Vincoli.
The vacant Deaconries are :
S. Nicola in Carcere, S. Giorgio in Velabro, S. Angelo in Pescheria, S. Caesareo in Palatio, S. Eustachio, S. Maria in Cosmedin.
There are therefore thirteen vacant hats. The office of Secretary to the Sacred College is at present vacant ; there are also a secretary-substitute, a secretary-sub- stitute-minutante, an accountant, an archivist, and an historian.
Up to the reign of Sixtus V., there were seven Cardinal Bishops, sixteen Cardinal Deacons, but only twenty- eight Cardinal Priests.
Every detail about the Sacred College has an historical foundation, and is full of significance. We may take this for granted, though it is not easy to define or under stand. The two distant Cardinals whose archbishoprics
94 TIIK SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
are in Australia and America are represented in their " titles/ i.e., their titular churches, by their portraits since thev can seldom be in Rome.
Cardinal Bishops are first mentioned at the Council of Rome held bv Stephen III. in 769 ; there were seven of them then. The privilege of consecrating to the episcopacy any Pope who was not already a bishop has always belonged to the Bishop of Ostia, who ranks first since the time of S. Augustine. The order of Cardinal Bishops goes ba^k at any rate as far as Con stant ine s Decree on the peace of the Church, and probably earlier. The acts of the Council of Pope Symachus, A.D. .}<)0, and that of Gregory the Great, A.I). 5<)5, both enumerate the titles then twenty-five in number. Th>- e iiUa! features of these titles or parities was that they were situated away from the pa<_ r au Mtes and monuments so as not to cause ill- feeling ; with the single exception of that of S. Anas- tasia, situated at the foot of the Palatine. But when the Cardinal Deafoiiri-s were established, in the seventh century or earlier, the Church changed its policy and established them at the chief pagan sites. A chapel was attached to each deaconrv.
The deacon who presided over the beueiice was called the Cardinal Deacon. A Cardinal Deacon sometimes becomes a Cardinal Priest ; and a Cardinal Priest be comes a Cardinal Bishop. Cardinal Frisco, Archbishop of Naples, who is now Cardinal Priest of S. Sisto, was formerly Cardinal Deacon of S. Caesareo. The Cardinal Priests also sometimes change their titles. Cardinal Capecelatro, the Librarian of the Vatican, changed from the title of SS. Nereo e Achilleo to the title of S. Maria del Popolo ; and Cardinal di Pietro, Pro-Datario,
Miniatures by Giotto in a manuscript in the library of the Canons ol St. Peter s. l- ro
[Facing page 94.
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 95
changed from the title of SS. Bonifacio ed Alessio to the title of S. Lorenzo in Lucina.
In the Middle Ages the appointment to a " title " or a deaconry carried the Cardinalate along with it ; but nowadays a Cardinal has to be especially created by the Pope ; and his name has to be submitted to the Secret Consistory, though the ratification is, as I have said, never refused.
There is one office which carries with it the ex-oificio right of being created a Cardinal that of the Patriarch of Lisbon, in virtue of a grant of Clement XII. And there are several offices whose holders are customarily created Cardinals when they have completed their term, such as those of the Assessor of the Holy Office, the Secretary of the Sacred College, the Secretary of the Congregation of the Council, the Secretary of the Con gregation of Bishops and Regulars, the Maggiordomo, the Vice-Camerlengo, the Uditore, and the treasurer of the Camera Apostolica, with the Nuncios to Paris, Vienna, Madrid, and Lisbon.
Since the College of Cardinals represents the Universal Church, it is bound to contain many foreign prelates ; and their number is on the increase. In Gregory XIV. s time there were only eight ; but more than fifty of the hundred and three Cardinals created by Pius IX. were foreigners. When he died, twenty-five of the Sacred College who elected Leo XIII. were foreigners, and the number has since increased.
In the Middle Ages the term Cardinal was not con fined to the dignitaries of the Church at Rome ; there were certain benefices in distant cities, even London, which carried with them Cardinalates.
About twenty-five of the seventy Cardinals, says
96 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the Tuker and Malleson " Rome," reside in Rome,
and form the Papal Curia, or administrative Council of
the Church, with the entree at all times to the Vatican.
I hev are the chief members of the Roman Conereira-
o o
lions, the Congregation of Rites, of the Inquisition, the Index, the Bishops and Regulars, etc., through which all ecclesiastical affairs are administered. Cardinals di curia receive a sum of twenty-four thousand francs a year, or lc- than one thousand pounds. A special stipend is also added for Ihe work done as members of the various Congregations."
Their position before 1870 was, however," as Tuker and Malleson point out, " a very different one. Then they enjoyed large incomes, and their comings and goings were attended with a certain measure of regal state ; and in the preceding centuries, when the Hat was often conferred, like any other secular dis tinction, on mere youths and on laymen, their wealth, and the luxury and magnificence of their style of living, was unsurpassed in Rome, while the power and position of some Cardinal nephew or relative of the Pope was second only to his own."
It may be noted that the generation which has witnessed the loss of income of the Cardinals, has also witnessed the loss of property, chiefly through a mania for building speculation of a large number of the princely families founded by former Popes, so that the old splendour of Roman life, with its state carriages and great retinues of gorgeous servants, has passed away.
Sixtus V. based the number of Cardinals on the seventy elders who formed the council of Moses. The number of hats which are conferred depends entirely on the will of the Pope. Leo X. once made thirty-
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 97
one at the same time. And there have been Consistories where only one was created.
In theory there is no limit to age. Leo X., then Giovanni de Medici, became a Cardinal at seven years old. But these very youthful Cardinals are, as a matter of practice, confined to Royal houses, and the Council of Trent enjoined that they should be created with extreme rarity. At present there are none. The youngest member of the Sacred College is Cardinal Merry del Val, the Cardinal Secretary of State, who is forty-one.
The ceremony of nominating a Cardinal, as given by Goyau, is a picturesque one. There is a Secret Con sistory which consists of the Sacred College presided over by the Pope. No one else may be present unless he be a Sovereign. On the eve of the day fixed by the Pope, the Head of the Cur sores Apostolici, as the special messengers of the Vatican are designated, kneels at the feet of the Pope and says : " Health, and long life, O Holy Father. Will there be a Con sistory to-morrow ? " The Pope answers that there will be ; and appoints an hour. Then the Cur sores go to the various Cardinals to deliver the news. At the hour appointed the Cardinals assemble in a hall in the Vatican. On a dais is the throne of crimson damask reserved for the Pope. He enters with the prelates of his suite. Then the Keeper of the Con sistory cries : "All leave." When the Pope and the Cardinals are left alone the former delivers an address. Sometimes he enjoins secrecy upon his illus trious audience, but generally the result is communicated to the Press. At the close of the address he names the persons whom he wishes to elevate to the Purple, and,
7
98 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
as a survival of the time when the Cardinals had a voice in the election, he demands, " Quid vobis videtnr ? " What is your decision ? " Silently they lay down their red silk caps, rise-, and bow. This is the form for expressing their consent. " By the authority of God Almighty," resumes the Pope, " and that of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, and our own, we create the following Cardinals." And sometimes lie adds, " We create also so many Cardjnals, whose names we retain in pectore, to be proclaimed at our own discretion." These, as I have explained above, are the Cardinals /// petto.
There is another kind of Secret Consistory for the Preconization i.e., proclamation,, of bishops. But that dots not concern us here.
After their election the new Cardinals residing at Rome receive three visits. One is from the office of Secretary of State, bringing the notice of their election ; the second is from the Cancelleria, bringing a decree of the Consistory ; and a third is from a master of cere monies, announcing the day and hour at which the Pope will bestow the berretta a kind of cap. The foreign Cardinals receive in general, on the actual day of the Consistory, a Noble duard, who brings them the red calotta (another kind of cap) ; and a prelate, called the Ablcgutc, who brings the red berretta. The Pope presents the new Italian Cardinals with the red berretta, and the rochet,* and puts the violet mozzetta (a short
- The rochet i.-> a short while surplice with tight sleeves, adorned \\iih lace, and is the
proper vestment of l>ishops, prelates, and canons. It is imposed by the Tope on new Cardinals, patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops, alter the Secret Consistory. Il is not a sacred vestment. Cardinals, bUhops, and other prelates wear ii under the manteUctta, or under the cappa nia^na (Tuker and Malleson s " Handbook to Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome "). The same authors in their large book on " Rome," which -Messrs. A. and C. Black have published with Alberto Pisa s beautiful pictures, give an excellent word- picture of the Cardinal as he appears to-day. "It is fondly believed by the tourist,
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 99
cape edged with fur) on them in the Sala del Trono, surrounded by his Cardinals.
When the new Cardinals are living away from Rome but belong to Catholic States having relation with the Vatican, the head of their State hands the berrctta to them. The ceremony is the occasion of an exchange of compliments between the Monarch or President on the one side, and the Ablegate and the Cardinals on the other. Generally when a Catholic nation has relations with the Vatican, its Government negotiates for the advancement of a particular prelate to the Cardinalate.
The new Cardinals, after being decorated with the calotta and the berretta, have to receive the hat, which is bestowed upon them in a public Consistory. On penalty of their election lapsing, the Cardinals at a distance from Rome have to present themselves within a year to receive their hat. It is in the Sala Regia of the Vatican that the ceremony takes place. Formerly
who will go any distance as a rule, and push through any crowd for a. sight of the scarlet clothes, that a Cardinal habitually lives in robes of red silk, with a white fur tippet round his shoulders. As a matter of fact his red robes are for state occasions only either for attendance at the Papal Court or for great Church functions. He wears a plain black cassock in ordinary life with a red sash and red buttons and silk pipings, and thus cannot be easily distinguished from other prelates whose silk trimmings vary with every shade from crimson to purple. The state robes of scarlet are very splendid indeed. The soutane of light scarlet cloth has a train ; over this is worn the white rochet trimmed with deep lace, and over this again the cappa i/iagna, a voluminous cloak of red watered silk, with a single opening for the head. It is gathered up to the elbows in front, and floats behind into an ample train, which is carried by pages or acolytes. The stockings, gloves, skull cap, and berretta are of scarlet. The cappa magna has a hood pointed behind and forming a sort of shoulder cape in front, which in the winter months is covered with white ermine.
" At social receptions the Cardinal wears his black soutane and red sash, and over it a flowing scarlet silk cloak from the shoulder. If the occasion is an important one he is received at the palace gates by two servants with lighted torches, and these accompany him up the stairs to the door of the salon and there await his departure, when they escort him to his carriage again. When in this gala attire, a cardinal wears as an out door wrap a gorgeous cloth cloak with many capes of purple and deep red, and a red priest s hat, around which is twisted a red and gold cord finished with minute tassels, the requisite fifteen in number."
7*
ioo THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the new Porporati, as they are called, from the purple which is no longer their real colour, used to ride through the streets on gaily caparisoned palfreys in their scarlet robes and hats. They were escorted by bands of ecclesiastics and grooms, mounted and unmounted ; and as they passed guns were fired and bells were rung, as they still arc in Sicily when a great saint s procession, like that of S. Agata at Catania, is in progress. The Ambassador- to the Holv See, the Roman aristocracy, and a certain number of spectators are admitted. At the end of the room a throne is erected for the Pope, with a canopy of violet silk worked with gold wire. He is surrounded with a superb tapestry, upon which Religion, standing between Justice and Charity, sets her feet on the world ; and two lions unfold the Standard of the Church, with the tiara and the cross-keys on a red ground. Right and left of the Pope two benches extend, upon which the old C;mlin;ds take their places, in very un equal numbers, because both the Cardinal Bishops and Cardinal Priests li fly-six in number go on the right, while the Cardinal Deacons, who go on the left, are only fourteen in number. At the opening of the Consistory they approach the throne and kiss the Pope s hand. Accedant," cries the Master of Ceremonies. (" Let them advance." This is addressed to the advocates of the Consistory and the Secretary of the Congregazionc dci Riti. They advance, and one of the advocates reads a petition in Latin about some canonization or beatifi cation which is desired ; a relic of the times when all the business of the Church was managed in Consistory. The gaps in the ceremony are filled up with more state ments about canonizations and beatifications. After a few minutes the Master of the Ceremonies, at a sign
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 101
from the Pope, interrupts the reading, and dismisses the advocates. Immediately a space is cleared before the throne, and the most recently created Cardinals rise and go to the Sistine Chapel for their new colleagues. While they are away the advocate s reading is resumed. In the Sistine Chapel, a little before the opening of the Consistory, the new Cardinals are met by the deans of the three Orders of Cardinal Bishops, Cardinal Priests, and Cardinal Deacons, with the Cardinal Camerlengo, and in their presence take various oaths, laid down by Julius II., S. Pius V., Sixtus V., and Gregory XV., that they will be faithful to the Pope ; that they will help to defend, preserve, or reconquer from all men the Roman See, and the property of St. Peter ; that they will not permit nor desire the infringement or alienation of towns and territories of the Papal States. The four old Cardinals then quit the Sistine Chapel, leaving the new Cardinals " in the presence of God and their oaths/ says Goyau, who draws attention to the fact that the Papal States no longer exist, but that the retention of the form is due to deliberate policy. The Cardinals are then conducted by the older Cardinals, who come to introduce them, to the Sala Regia. Each advances to\vards the Pope between two older Cardinals. The advocate and his assistants, who have been reading aloud the approaching canonizations, are at once dismissed. Each new Cardinal makes three reverences and kisses first the foot and then the hand of the Pope ; and then receives a double embrace. He then makes a circuit all round the benches upon which the existing members of the Sacred College are seated. He exchanges a double embrace with every one of the Cardinals as he passes them. The new members then take their places on the
>02 THK SKCRKTS OF THE VATICAN.
( animals benches. Tlic advocates are summoned for a third tinir to read tlie proccs about canonizations ; and the Pope refers them to the Congrcgazionc dci Sacri Riti, alter which the consistorial advocates retire for good.
1 h 1 two senior Cardinal Deacons then take up their positions at the- Pontifical Throne, and their new col leagues advance, and the Pope says : " For the glory of Almighty (iod, and the adornment of the Apostolic See, receive thou the red hat, the principal insignia of the dignity of Cardinal. It is a sign that even to the shedding of thine own blood for the exaltation of the Holy Faith, and the peace and quiet of the Christian World, and the increase and preservation of the Roman Church, thou must show thyself without fear." When he has said this the hood of his (<//>/></ miigiKi is drawn over the head of the new Cardinal by the two Masters ot Ceremonies ; and the Pope places on it a head-dress, .Inch is handed to him by the Ma.ugiordoiiio, and which is the sign of his office. It consists of a scarlet cloth, folded in scarlet silk, with scarlet tassels (iiocchi), which should be fifteen in number, and cords. The words of the Pope explain what the colour symbolises. 1 he brims are large, the shape is circular; it has a ilat effect, and hardly any crown, but it used to have a conical crown and was habitually worn with the scarlet robes, over the drawn-up hoods of the cappa. Later, in certain solemn processions, the Cardinals wore it slung on the hood of their cape. The Pontifical hat rests on the Cardinal s head for a few seconds after the Consistory ; it will rest on his feet on the bed of state on which his body will be laid ; it will adorn his bier, and, suspended from the roof of the church, will rest above his sepulchre.
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 103
"It is only at his death/ says Goyau, grimly, " that a Cardinal begins to get any use out of his hat."
When the newly-elected Cardinals have been invested with their hats the public Consistory work is finished. The Pope rises and gives his blessing to the Sacred College, and departs to his apartments with his cross of state, his Cardinals, and his Bishops.
When they arrive there it is usual for the new Cardinals to make brief speeches of thanks, and then the whole Sacred College returns to the Sistine Chapel, where the new Cardinals prostrate themselves before the Altar, and there is a short service, with an oration by the Dean of the Sacred College. There is another Secret Con sistory which generally begins at once in another chamber. It is here that the Pope, addressing the new wearers of the purple in the presence of the rest of the Sacred College, says : " Your mouths are closed so that neither in Consistory nor at any other function may you offer advice." Immediately after he reopens their mouths and places a ring on the finger of each, for which pay ment has to be made to the Propaganda. He then assigns each a title or a deaconry, and the ceremony of installation is at an end. The word purple, Goyau explains, is an archaism ; the Cardinals have not worn purple for many centuries. Their vestments are scarlet. In costume, as well as in origin and functions, the Cardinal Bishops, Cardinal Priests, and Cardinal Deacons of the Middle Ages differed from those of the present day. The scarlet hat dates from the time of Innocent IV., in 1245. The scarlet calotta and berretta date from the time of Paul II. (1464-1471).
" One of the first duties of a Cardinal," say Tuker and Malleson in their " Rome," "is to take
J0 4 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
possession of his titular church, and in old days this was another occasion for pomp and display, and the Pope s (aiards attended in full dress uniform. Now the Cardinal drives quietly in his sombre closed carriage. At the church door he is divested of his cloth cloak and hat, and in Mowing scarlet silk he walks up the nave be stowing benedictions on all sides. He seats himself on his throne in the chancel, and the vicar of the parish reads to him an address in Latin, to which he replies ; he is then saluted by all the clcrgv of the parish in t Ill- order of their precedence, ending with the acolytes, and the taking possession is over, lie must, houever, present the church with his portrait painted in oils, which is hung with that of the reigning Pope in the nave ; and with a large escutcheon of his heraldic coat, em blazoned in colour and Mirmounted by the red hat and tassels, which is placed over the main entrance to the building, and which, side by M(le with the Papal arms, is the outward and visible sign of a titular church." Cardinals who live at a distance from Rome have to appoint a vicar to take their place at the Title-Church.
Before the Italians occupied Rome, and still more in the eighteenth century, the Cardinals lived in princely style and splendour. In their servants antechamber the Papal Gensdarmes stood on guard. Above an altar, covered with scarlet cloth, under a canopy, were dis played the Cardinal s arms in scarlet, and a violet cushion and two state umbrellas. The cushions were carried by the suite of the Cardinal when he took part in a ceremony ; the umbrellas were held over the carriage and protected his Eminence when he descended from his carriage, or went on foot to follow the Viaticum. The second antechamber was reserved for his secre-
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS 105
tary ; in the third, called the anti-camera Nobile, his berretta was laid on a credence at the foot of a crucifix. Then came the throne room, draped in scarlet, where, under a baldachin of scarlet silk, were to be found a portrait of the reigning Pope, and the throne, which was an arm-chair covered with scarlet silk, turned to the wall. It was there that the Cardinal received the visits of the Pope. When the Pope died the throne was turned round, and the Cardinal had a right to use it himself till a new Pope was elected the theory being that during the interregnum the whole College of Cardinals reigned. There was a time when there were sixteen offices in a Cardinal s household, which in the old, old days sometimes numbered several hundred persons,* though this was very much curtailed long before the fatal year 1870. The most picturesque personage in his household was the Gentiluomo, who attended him in his carriage when he drove out, and paid and received visits for him. He wore, on state occasions, the Elizabethan costume, the black velvet tunic and breeches, the ruff and ruffles, the rapier, and the silk stockings which one still sees in St. Peter s when the Pope goes to a great function like a Jubilee or a canonization. To-day, says Goyau, with his grim humour, the Cardinals antechambers are more in conformity with their original conception. The Pope no longer visits the throne room ; there are no Papal Gensdarmes in the ante-
- In 1527, according to Lanciani, " The Golden Days of the Renaissance in Rome,"
Cardinal Farnese had 306 bocche or mouths feeding at his expense ; Cardinal Cesarini, 275; Cardinal Orsini, 200; Cardinal del Monte, 200; Cardinal Cybo, 192; Cardinal Pucci, 190; Cardinal Ridolfi, 180 ; Cardinal Piccolomini, 180; Cardinal de Cupis, 150; Cardinal Rangoni 150; Cardinal Campeggi, 130; Cardinal della Valle, 130; Cardinal Pisani, 130; Cardinal Armellini, 130; Cardinal Scaramuccia Trivulzio, 103; Cardinal Accolti, 100 ; Cardinal Erkenfort, 100 ; Cardinal Jacobacci, 80 ; Cardinal Cesi, 80; Cardinal Numalio, 60 ; and Cardinal de Vio, 45. Clement VII. was feeding 700 mouths.
ictf TIIK SKCRKTS OK TIIK VATICAN.
chamber, for, outride the Vatican precincts, to wear the uniform of a Papal (ieii-darme is an offence punishable with imprisonment. Tin- scarlet silk umbrella is no lon- T held over the pompous equipages of a Cardinal and hi- >uite ; the equipages have ceased to be pompous, kxcept on the occasion of SCUM great Church ceremonv which is not complete without the presence of a Cardinal, whose very presence creates a " function," one hardlv e\ er sec S a ( ardinal in Rome, lint on the roads out side Rome as twilight approaches, one often meets a strange procession an ecclesiastic dressed in black, wearing unostentatiously on his hat a twisted braid of red and iM ld. A leu pacts behind him is a servant ; a fi-w pace> further hack a closed carriage drawn at a slow pace bv two black horses. 1 his i> the way that the (ardinal of to-dav is compelled to take his walk, lie mav not set foot on the Around inside Rome, and enters his jealouslv closed carriage before he passes into the city. The political circumstances, and the loss of in come ot the >acred College, have sinmilarlv simplified the existence of the Princes of the Church. It is not possible to live like a Cardinal of the old regime on twenty-four thousand francs a year. P>ut th -v remain Princes," and " Most Kmineiit." I rban \T 1 1 . con ferred this title upon them in io>o. They have an escutcheon adorned with the- arms of their family, or their order if they have one , or a conventional device if they have neither.
Once they treated Kings as equals, and called them, " my dear cousin " ; and they still take precedence of Bishops and Archbishops, and even of Patriarchs a privilege conferred upon them at the Council of Lyons in 12.45.
THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. 107
Tn France the famous decree of Messidor conferred upon them the right of taking their place in public ceremonies immediately after the French Princes and chief dignitaries, and before the ministers and chief officers of the Empire. Nous avons change tout cela." The Princes have been wanting in France for many a year, and what of the Cardinals in this year of grace !
CHAPTER VI.
ON Till-: DITIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY OF
STATE AND HIS PREDECESSOR. THE
CARDINAL NLPII1AY.
THK office of Papal Secretary uf Matt dates iroin the fifteenth centurv. Popes in the Middle Ages had no need of one ; they did not discuss or negotiate : they made proclamations and issued commands. Hut from the fifteenth or, at any rate, the sixteenth century, they have had to struggle for existence among the other Italian potentates, instead of for the supremacy of the world.
When it became necessary to introduce diplomacy into the affairs of the Church, there was need of a new oitieial to cnndurt it. Hut for the first century and a half of the new period the>e duties were generally per formed by a Cardinal Nephew, (loyau, with sardonic wit, remarks that, as certain Popes of the preceding age made their nephews rich, Pius IV., (Gregory XIII., and Sixtus V., made their nephews work. This second variety of nepotism is unjustly assailed : these Popes did not exploit the Church for the benefit of their families, but exploited their families for the benefit of the Church ; S. Carlo Horromeo, the nephew of Pius IV., was an ascetic and a saint.
Everyone who visits the exquisite Pavilion of Pius IV. in the Vatican Gardens, is told anecdotes about Pius IV. being compelled by S. Carlo Borromeo to give up his
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 109
delightful parties of learned and brilliant people, for which he built this pleasure house, to hold committees with his Cardinals. Perhaps it would be truer to say that his Cardinal Nephew made him work, than vice versa ; saints in families are not always comfortable things.
There was some reason for the Cardinal Nephew also being called the Cardinale padrone.
Silvagni, in his brilliant " La Corte e la Societa Romana nei secoli XVIII. e XIX.," admirably translated by Mrs. Frances Maclaughlin, says : " One social abuse there was which had gradually grown up within the Church until, at the beginning of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it assumed gigantic proportions. This was personified in the Cardinal Nephew, as he was called, who was, in fact, frequently a, son of the Pope, and, after him, the most important personage about the Vatican. This Cardinal Nephew bore the title of Cardinale padrone ; he had many secretaries under him ; he wrote confidential communications to Princes and Nuncios in the name of His Holiness ; he signed all appointments of Governors, Podestas, Bargelli, and other state officials ; he issued special Bulls and Briefs, and acted, in fact, very much as the Prime Minister of the Vatican.
No one appeared at all surprised at this arrange ment. It had continued so long that it had come to be taken as quite a matter of course, and was so thoroughly recognized by the people, that, when a Pope at last arose who brought forward no Cardinal Nephew upon whom honours might be showered, he was looked down upon and despised, as a stupid man, to neglect such a golden opportunity of providing for his house.
i io THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
The Cardinal Secretary of State came next in rank, but he was usually little more than a well-paid mentor of the Cardinal padrone"
In 1602 there were printed at Vicen/a what purported to be the instructions of Sixtus V. to his nephew, Cardinal Mmitaltn. It is not certain if they are genuine, but whether they are genuine or not, (iovau considers that they represent the situation exactly. They laid down that Cardinals allied by ties of blood to the Pop- 1 naturallv occupied a greater position in the community than others. rhey were a priori the persons whom tin 1 Pope would tru>t, and therefore they were the obvious channels for any important affairs which had to be submitted to the Holy See. The Envoys of Princes, whether accredited as permanent representatives in Rome, or sent there on speeial missions, naturally went t<> them. In brief, it was through them that the Pope K arnt the de>ins and needs of all Christendom.
It was to them that the Nuncios at foreign courts and other officers of the Holy See reported; they managed its uliairs ; through them posts and benefices were geiierallv conferred. And, what was of much more importance, through them the Cardinals were appointed. The cynical dovau says that it was through them that the Pope made known his thoughts and distributed his favours, and that their assistance, more than any thing else, gave him the strength to bear the heavy burden of the pontificate.
From his Cardinal Nephew, Sixtus V., according to the instructions, required a good deal. ". . . Absolute devotion to the objects proposed by the Pope ; sufficient means to live with splendour and dignity ; a marked discretion in choice of friends, clients, and employees ;
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY, in
uncompromising defiance of those who were indiscreet or treacherous who are, as the Pope observed, a pestilen tial class of servants ; a blending of gravity and suavity of manner ; much care in the selection of expressions ; perfect knowledge of the workings of the Holy See, of the Roman nobility and of all parties in history ; an intimate familiarity with foreign affairs drawn from reading, conversations, even from theatrical representa tions in which foreign manners are put upon the stage ; benevolent approachability, especially to the poor, the weaker sex, the religious, and the unfortunate ; a great respect for justice, which ought to be superior to in fluence ; an elevation of view which takes in the whole state of the entire body of the Christian Common wealth ; a certain tact in preparing for the conversations which he has to hold with the Pope. . . . managing to be brief, to commence the interview with ease and agreeable topics ; a certain boldness in reply if the Pope inclines to an unjust decision ; sufficient persuasive ness to work in objections and contrive to adjourn the decree, if the Pope inclines towards a vexatious decision ; and, lastly, a pious assiduity in invoking the Holy Spirit."
From being the Pope s confidential assistant, the Cardinal Nephew, by force of circumstances, rapidly developed into a high official in the Papal administra tion. As early as 1621,* Cavaliere Lunadoro, who was a member of the household of Cardinal Cinzio Aido- brandini, Cardinal Nephew of Clement VIII., in his book on the Court of Rome, laid down that the Pope s secretary is always the Cardinal Nephew, who has many secretaries under him. The highest, the Secretaries
- According to Silvagni this was published at Venice in 1664,
ii2 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
of State, divide between them the Nunciatures and the Provinces ; and among them is one Cypher-Secretary. During all that time the title of Secretary of State was reserved for subordinates. The Cardinal Minister was called Secretary of the Pope and Superintendent-General of the Kcdesiastical State. Later on he was called the Secretary of State, and the title of Cardinal Nephew passed out of use definitely.
From the time that Innocent XII., in 160,2, abolished the custom of associating the Pope s nephew in the power of his uncle, up to the nineteenth century, the Cardinal Camerlengo had extensive political powers even during the life-time of the Pope. But between him and the Secretary of State there were disastrous rivalries ; and he was, in addition, the Pope s man, personally chosen. HI- was a sort of agent of the Sovereign, and, at that time, instead of his powers commencing when the Pope died, he lost them at the death of the Pontiff, and went back to the position of simple Cardinal. The Secretary of State, on the other hand, was regarded as the representative of the Sacn-d College, over which he had the right to preside from the moment of the Pope s decease. In the time of Pius VII. the rivalries between the Cardinal Camerlengo and the Secretary ol State became so aggravated that Gregory XVI. deprived the office of Camerlengo of its political prerogatives, and created a second Secretary of State, for Home affairs. Now that the Home affairs of tin- Papacy are confined to the administration of the Vatican there is once more only one Secretary of State.
The first duty of the Pope s Secretary of State is to take charge of the relations between the Holy See and foreign countries, but he also takes part in all the
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 113
important acts of the Papal Curia. He exercises an office, says Goyau, in his epigrammatic way, which imposes certain duties upon him, and he occupies a post of which the requirements are less definite. His office makes him the wielder of the Pope s diplomacy ; his post makes him the alter ego of the Pope, and he is constantly associated with him in all kinds of affairs which are not strictly diplomatic. There are, as is generally known, a good many Ambassadors and Envoys at Rome, accredited to the Holy See by foreign countries, in addition to those who represent their countries at the Court of Italy.
In fact, until quite recently, Great Britain and the United States were the only important exceptions, but now France must be added to the number. To most of these countries the Pope sent a Nuncio in return, but the one case is not dependent upon the other, for Holland, which sends no Envoy to the Holy See, receives a Nuncio ; and Russia and Prussia and the Principality of Monaco receive no Nuncio, though they send an Envoy themselves. But since a minor German State, which sends an Envoy of its own, receives a Nuncio, there must obviously be some political reason which prevents the Pope sending a Nuncio to Berlin and St. Petersburg.
Pius VI. had occasion to define the status of the Nuncio, because certain German Prelates, such as the Archbishop of Cologne, who have always shown con siderable independence of the Holy See, were giving trouble; and Leo XIII., on several occasions, drew attention to the respect due to Nuncios and the right they have to the attention of publicists and men of affairs in Roman Catholic countries.
8
u 4 I HK Sl X KKTS OF THE VATICAN.
Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, the Pope s Secretary of Mate receives the Ambassadors to the Holy See, one after another; and the Ambassadors of the great countries having almost always some business to transact, arc constant attendants at these functions. These receptions rank first among the duties of the Secretary of State. Next to them comes his corre spondence with the Nuncios. He receives their reports and communicates his instructions to them. The reports which have recently appeared in the Knglish news papers ot the stream of important correspondence which passed between the Secretary of state and the Monsignore who remained to represent the Xuncio at Paris when that functionary had to leave France, are illustrative of the importance of this second duty of the Cardinal Secretary, lor every point that turned up was referred from Paris to him for his personal consideration, and, of course, referred by him to the Pope.
His third duty is to preside at the diplomatic ban quets at the Vatican, for etiquette prevents the Pope from being present. Luckily for the Cardinal Secretary, there are very few, except on the occasion of the holding of Consistories.
- P>y a curious exception in Papal etiquette, the Pope
may receive guests at dinner when he is away from Rome ; this does not matter much now, unles the present Pope should determine to use the summer palace at Castel Gandolfo, which was secured to tho Papacy by treaty. Pius IX. often entertained his friends there before the fatal year 1870.
Every morning the Pope receives the Cardinal Secre tary, and they discuss the condition of the Church.
- Pius X. does entertain prelates at dinner.
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 115
When they have finished their consultation, the Secre tary attends to the correspondence. He may write the replies himself, or may leave it to the prelates attached to his office, and instruct them to look into delicate questions upon which the decision has been postponed. He has, of course, to carry out the instructions he receives at the audience, and to prepare the business he is going to submit to the Pope at the next audience. It might be thought that this was too much to be crowded into the life of any man. But, in addition to this, it is the custom of the Cardinal Secretary to receive non-official visitors every evening for an hour after the Angelus. He is consulted upon all sorts of questions at these receptions ; he is the Pope s Prime Minister ; he has to be as familiar as the Pope himself with every question which touches the Church. He is the regular representative of the Holy See. Every piece of informa tion, and every application intended for the Pope, has to be transmitted through him.
The Cardinal Secretary needs encyclopaedic knowledge and almost superhuman intuition and tact ; gifts with which Cardinal Merry del Val is richly blessed. He has to pass from subject to subject without losing the threads ; to know what people are talking about ; and to divine their real aims ; and to send them away satisfied that everything of which justice admits will be done.
One visitor may have important information or suggestions to make about the embroglio with France ; the next may be breathing, undiplomatically disguised, bribes or threats to push the candidature of an American Archbishop, who thinks he ought to be made a Cardinal ; and the next may wish to get the Pope to take his side in a petty squabble.
8*
n6 11IK SKCKKTS OF TIIK VATICAN.
No I ri;,.- Mini>ter in Kurope is so accessible, and, since everything that concerns religion i> considered to conic under the Pope s authority, ^hc poor Cardinal Secn-tary i- robbed ol the >tate-inan < favourite refuse, (jo ne\t door/ which is nowhere- plaved with such exa-p -ratn ilarity a- in the varion- Departments
1 the Italian < io\ rninent.
I he ( ardinal Secretary i-. allowed the widest di-- cretion, because one of his mo-t important functions i- to save th i from unii i ce^> l ir\ bu>ine^s.
I here are teW people who kllo\V SO Illlicll of tile
i ehi;ion- atlair> ol all countri -.^ as Cardinal Merrv del \ al ; he i> >nnpl\ obliged to keep hiin-ell ju ccHrjut, and beiiiL; halt an I ; .nuli>hinan Jie \\a^ born in London , with Knjji-h a- much hi- native tongue a> Italian, he ha- a ura-p o! th.- atlair- ol the vanou- 1 iote-tant se< t- and ol I.niji-di and American opinion which no pievioii- Papal Secretary oi ^tate ha- evi-r had. More than that, his intuition into Knu h-h and Ameri can character, which i- wonderful, rests on the linn ba-i- of having himself the sterling Anglo-Saxon (jualities.
ill- tune lor book reading i- : irily limited, but
the wa\ he ke.-p> up with new-paper- i- extraordinary, and there may !>< a 14 real d-al in the \\itican tradition that much is learnt by patiently listening to the vi>itors \ ho conu- to reception-. He has, of course, in addi tion, an army ol correspondents and confidential a- ents ; and he has need of them all. for as Goyau
O * * / /
ob-erves, hi> position exposes him peculiarly to am- bu-hes. He is obliged to make personal enemies by his decisions, and, in addition, all the enemies of the Church are his enemies. The mo>t trilling demand
The stiitue <>t" St. IVtc-r, from the Old B;isilir;i, seated on the throne of Benedict \1I V in the Chapel of S. M. delki Bocouila in the Crypt of St. I eter s.
l \i ing page I iO
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 117
may mask important moves ; the acts of the Holy See, at the present day, when it is no longer only a fierce light which beats upon the throne, but a search-light levelled by the Press of the world, are commented on with peculiar assiduity ; a secret significance, a possible import is imputed to the most simple of them. Before he allows himself to issue one word in the name of the Pope, the Cardinal Secretary has to divine what de ductions will be made from it by commentators in good or bad faith ; and, in order to write what he wishes to say with safety, he has to think, not only what his words do mean, but what they can be made to mean. Since 1870, says Goyau, the Papal Palaces being the only place where the Pope reigns, the Secretary of State, the former coadjutor in his royalty, is Prefect of the Apostolical Palaces and President of their house holds.
Though there is only one Secretary of State nowa days, he has two bureaus under his orders that of the Secretariate-of-State and that of Ecclesiastical Affairs Extraordinary. In the former, one of his most im portant colleagues is the Prelate Substitute of the Secre tariat and Secretary of Cypher, whose special function is, of course, to put into cypher the Pope s despatches to his Nuncios, and to decipher the despatches received from them. On Tuesdays and on Fridays, the days upon which the Cardinal Secretary receives the Ambas sadors, he takes his place at the audience with the Pope. He is at the head of the staff of the Secretariate-of- State, which consists of six writers, ecclesiastics and laymen, and two archivists.
Goyau instances, in giving the scope of the Bureau of Ecclesiastical Affairs Extraordinary, the condition of
i iS TIIK SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
affairs when it was first created by Pius VII., in [814.
There were several States in which were either new creations or had new constitutions, and relations had to be established with them. (iovau states the dilemma in which the Pope found himself, with his usual epigram matic neatness. It onlv politicians were consulted there was a risk of the inviolable character of certain principles being forgotten ; if onlv canonists were consulted there was a risk of their being blind to the necessities of the times. The first, being too optimistic, would have been too inclined to make concessions ; the second, being too unaccommodating, would have been too liable to obstinacv. Acting together in the (^on^rc^.ilnm of Ecclesiastical Affairs Extraordinary, thev might be ex pected to enlighten and moderate each other respectively.
The Pro-Secretarv, the Sub-Secretarv, and their four assistants, are engaged in incessant observation of the ecclesiastical happenings in various countries, as also is the Bureau of the Secretariate-of-State. When a grave question, wliich affects the position of the Church in a foreign country, demands from Rome a prompt and careful solution, then the Cardinals of the Congrega tion are summoned.* According to the Gcrarchia, they are thirteen in number. The Secretary of State is cx- of/icio one of them, and consultors are associated. It is at their meetings that the most delicate political decisions of the Holy See are drawn up and matured.
- l- nr the present crisis with France the Tope has appointed a special Pontifical
CommisMon. The Cardinals belonging to it have to make their investigations inde pendently, and vote upon every decision. The I ope presides over it, at a round table, in \\hii h the Cardinals of the Commission sit in order of seniority from his right hand to hi* left. Cardinal Meiry del Val, as the youngest, sits on the Tope s left hand, and gives his opinion and vote first,
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 119
The Bureaus of the Secretariate-of-State and the Ecclesiastical Affairs Extraordinary form a sort of Diplomatic College. The prelates do a term there to qualify themselves for Nunciatures. A post in these offices is the first step in the political career of the Roman prelate. The Nunciatures are the second step. Those of Paris (up till now), Vienna, Madrid, and Lisbon rank first. After passing through one of these the Nuncio is usually made a Cardinal. Nunciatures which are second class, are a stage towards the Nunciatures of the first class.
One more side of the Cardinal Secretary s duties re mains to be noted. The correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, in Rome, wrote in the issue of January 4, 1907 : " Europe has been talking much of late about the policy of Cardinal Merry del Val, his statesmanship or lack of it, and the result of his counselling Pius X. ; but only the dwellers in Rome are aware of what a Cardinal Secretary of State can do for the poor of a teeming people. The Roman poor are not, civilly, the Pope s subjects, but the King s ; yet, if they were still under the temporal power, they could have no better friend than this reactionary Cardinal. The new and miserable quarter of Rome that has risen near the hill made by the broken earthenware of ancient Rome is the principal scene of his untiring labours."
What the life of the Cardinal Nephews, who came before the Cardinal-Secretaries of State, was like, one can gather from the glowing pages of Silvagni, drawing upon Lunadoro, translated by Mrs. Maclaughlin. He is describing the Court of that same Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement VIII.
" When Cardinal Cinzio, who was the Cardinal
i jo Till-: SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
Nephew, sat down to dinner, a most elaborate ceremony was gone through. The table was always decorated with a profusion of the rarest flowers and fruits, the plates were of silver, and the china from Urbino and l : aen/a. At one end of the dining-hall stood a splendid buffet covered with enormous silver salvers and vessels cf < <] niid -diver. There were hundreds of silver dishe- al-o pili d upon it for the u-< 1 of the quests, and vases b\ the famous < iion. ione da (iubbio, and majolica of the finest manufacture.
" Amidst all this splendour the Cardinal j)laeed him self at table. His cup-bearer brought a silver basin and poured water over \\ \< tinkers, and his steward otlered him a napkin to dry them with, removing it alter use in another silver dish. Then the carver took up his position behind his master s chair, the steward lifted the cover from the dish, and the cup-bearer tied a napkin under the great man s chin, just as nowadays children are put into their bibs.
"The assistant gentlemen-in-waiting offered water to any prelates or gentlemen who were dining with His Eminence, and the napkins for wiping their hands wen 1 presented by the pages and valets, \\hosr duty it was to serve the gue>ts -the pages having the privilege oi putting on their caps after the meal had begun, while, the other attendants continued uncovered.
" When the Cardinal wished to drink, the gentleman- in-waiting who held the cup, took off its cover, and the steward offered a napkin for his master to dry his lips upon. Whenever the Cardinal drank the same cere mony was repeated the napkin, however, being changed every time, while the one already used was passed to an attendant. If other Cardinals were at table they were
THE DUTIES OF THE PAPAL SECRETARY. 121
served in a similar manner. The meat was ushered into the room with great ceremony, for the dishes were not put upon the table, but handed to the guests as they were ready to partake of them. First came a groom of the chambers, with his sword by his side, but without cap or mantle ; then the house steward, with a napkin over his shoulder ; then the under-steward, with a tureen of soup ; then two assistants, carrying two other dishes, to give the Cardinal a choice of viands. These latter officials wore their swords, and had on caps and cloaks. The gentiluomini di toga did not serve at table, and only assisted at dinner-time if they belonged to the Cardinal s court. The major-domo, house steward, groom of the chambers, secretaries, and other officials, were in the dining-hall, but took no part in the service. The house steward s duty was to stand behind his master s chair, and see that everything was conducted properly. The chaplain asked a blessing, and returned thanks. The train-bearer read aloud a spiritual book- that is to sav, he went through the form of doing so, for as soon as the Cardinal asked for wine, the book was always closed, and conversation beguiled the rest of the repast.
" The Cardinal s chair was distinguished from those of his less honoured guests by being higher, and being covered with velvet or brocade ; and he never gave up his place except to some brother Cardinal, the Arch dukes of Austria themselves having to allow him prece dence. If the Ave Maria, or mezzodi, sounded while a meal was in progress, the cup-bearer suddenly lifted His Eminence s berretta, and all the guests were required to do the same ; and while the chaplain repeated the office, the steward made a deep reverence, which he
2? THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
repeated when the party rose from table, to signify that the meal was at an end.
Snpprr was served in a very similar fashion, excepting that tlu- officials were preceded into the room by pages bearing lighted torches. The ceremonial was, however, so rigorous and complicated, that Monsignor Bonifazio Vannazzi tilled two large volumes with instructions for the servants and gentlemen-in-waiting, besides a special chapter fur the guests in case they were doubtful ho\v to conduct themselves."
123
CHAPTER VII.
A VISIT TO CARDINAL MERRY DEL VAL IN THE BORGIA ROOMS OF THE VATICAN.
As is well known to all who visit Rome, the celebrated Borgia Apartments, which, after the Library of the Cathedral of Siena, have the most splendid series of frescoes in existence from the brush of Pinturicchio, can seldom be visited, because they form the official residence of Cardinal Merry del Val, the Pope s Secretary of State, corresponding to our Prime Minister. Miss Grace Christmas, sister of one of the Camerieri Segreti, kindly offered to introduce me to the Cardinal. On the drive there she told me that he had been her confessor for ten years, so there was no awkwardness. The Cardinal receives at 6.30 p.m., when he leaves the Pope. In the earlier part of the afternoon he is never in the Borgia Apartments, and allows tourists, in parties of five, to inspect them. But for permission it is necessary to apply to his secretary many days before, as it is given in order of application and only a very few parties are allowed in each day. The Cardinal complains that so many tourists cast their eyes up for a few seconds and say, " Is this all ? " So he sometimes doubts as to whether it is worth while giving leave except in special cases.
It was rather ghostly, entering the Vatican at 6.30 ; the sentry seemed inclined to dispute our way, but
(24 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the card of Cardinal Merry del Val had a magical eflect. We were handed on with ever-increasing unction. At the door of the apartments themselves, after all those stairs, no one was on guard. We walked through the tapestry room and into the first Pin- turicchio room, and had deposited our coats and umbrellas before anyone met us. But in the third room were two secretary priests, and to them we gave our cards. We were then shown into the exquisite room, called bv Hare the " Camera dclla Vita del/a Madonna," and by Baedeker, " The Room of the Church I e-^tivaK" Here and in the next room are the world s most beautiful ceilings, exquisite miniatures of Pin- turicchio in his most gracious mood, paint-jewels, set round the ribs of a late Gothic ceiling in a riot of deep moulded gilt and colour embossing, like the Buddhist Temples built in the Golden Age of Japanese Art. What the great pictures in the lunettes lose in their < clouring they gain in distinctness as the full power of the electric light is turned upon them ; and until you have visited them by night you cannot be said to have seen those glittering, gnu-starred ceilings.
T wondered if the Cardinal had time to appreciate the privilege of living in these rooms, more richly frescoed as a suite than any in the world; one of the sacred spots of art for more than four hundred years ; no longer a dead city, no longer only a classical thing, but the appropriate surroundings of the most powerful Cardinal in Christendom, the representative of the power of the Papacy. To go over a royal building being put to a royal use, with the owner himself there to welcome you and talk freely of his own, was rather like being shown over Alnwick Castle by the Duke of Northum-
Duvid standing un the head of (lolialh. On the ceiling of the liorgia roc ms.
[Facing page 124.
A VISIT TO CARDINAL MERRY DEL VAL. 125
berland. We were there before the Cardinal. He came through with a little train on his way back from the Pope. We were not kept waiting long ; there were only a father, mother, and a child before us, a merely formal presentation which occupied a few minutes. Then we were conducted into the Camera delle Vite dei Santi the chamber of the Lives of the Saints, which lights up even better, because its lunettes are larger and its colours brighter and simpler. Then almost immediately we were ushered into the third room, and received at the door by the Cardinal. Miss Christmas stooped and kissed his ring ; I tried to do the same, but the Cardinal was resolute. He kept hold of my hand, and forced his own hand down to give it a hearty English shake ; he then led us to the corner of the room arranged Sicilian fashion, a sofa horse-shoed between three chairs on either side. He sat on the sofa ; we sat on the two chairs nearest his right hand. He wore his little pinky Cardinal s skull cap, a black soutane, and a large incised gold cross four or live inches long. At first he made a few inquiries about Miss Christmas s family, and confined himself to the usual conventional conversation with me. But I had a message to give him from Commendatore Orazio Marucchi, author of the well-known " Elements d Archeologie Chretienne," the principal ecclesiastical antiquary of Rome, and this at once brought conver sation into an easy channel.
I told him that on the Thursday previous Professor Marucchi had been good enough to take me over the catacombs of Santa Priscilla (at the mention of the name the Cardinal at once became interested), and knowing that I had written much about Sicilian
126 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
mosaics, which, being executed by the hermits of Mount Athos, preserve ancient traditions, had taken me to look at a little fresco of an old man seated with two other figures In-side him ; and that lie had asked, " \Yho is that ? " That 1 had said at once : " It is the St. Peter of the mosaics." And that he had said : " Please tell Cardinal Merry del Yal this when you see him. He has subscribed to the excavation work and has shown much interest in it." The Cardinal became very interest ing as well as interested. " This, of course," he said, is Professor Marucchi s hobby. He is always anxious to receive independent testimony on the matter. The evidence seems to show that there is more in favour of his theory of the catacomb of S. Priscilla being the catacomb where St. Peter baptized than there is in favour of any other ; but we have not got conclusive proofs vet ; at anv rate, not sufficient to declare it to be a fact."
I then asked His Eminence if I might mention a thing that had struck me when I was going over the crypt oi St. Peter s. He nodded, and I said that 1 thought it would be such an appropriate thing if the city of Venice would show its pride in the Holy Father being a Vene tian by paying for the erection in St. Peter s of the pieces of the tomb of that other Venetian Pope, Paul II., of which so many splendid fragments by Mino da Fiesole are preserved in the crypt of St. Peter s. " It would be superb to see it standing up in some chapel of St. Peter s, where it could be shown off to perfection. I suppose there is a drawing of the original tomb some where ? " I said.
There is sure to be," he replied. We have quan tities of drawings and plans on every conceivable subject
A VISIT TO CARDINAL MERRY DEL VAL. 127
connected with St. Peter s. There is a complete model of the old church somewhere."
The Cardinal seemed to think my idea striking and a ppropriate, and passed on to tell me that it had been in his mind for some time to inaugurate a museum of St. Peter s like the Opera del Duomo at Florence, and transfer to it the museum objects from the crypt of St. Peter s. By this he meant, I suppose, the numbers of objects erected against the walls, etc., of the Grotte Nuove, as distinct from the tombs which fill the Grotte Vecchie like the crypt of the Cathedral of Palermo. The Car dinal informed me that there were a great many other things belonging to St. Peter s in the sacristies and in various parts of the Vatican, which might go properly into such a museum, especially sketches of Old St. Peter s and plans for the building of New St. Peter s, and the model above mentioned. A charge of fifty centimes, he suggested, could be made, which would help to extinguish the annual deficit in the fund for keeping St. Peter s in repair. Funds of this kind at the Vatican are falling off very much.
I asked him about the crypt ; why it was made so difficult to get into it. " It is not difficult any longer now," he said. " You have, it is true, to ask for leave from Monsignor Bisleti, countersigned by another Mon- signore who lives in the Via d Aracceli, but these are formalities. A few years ago it was really difficult, and the police warned the Pope that he should take care that no dynamiters got into the crypt of St. Peter s."
I interrupted him.
- " But surely you have no fears for St. Peter s like
- This was before the dastardly attempt made with a bomb upon the venerable Pope
in 1906 while he was celebrating Mass at St. Peter s.
128 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
there are for Royal Palaces ? It must be protected by its sanctity."
- < Xo," said the Cardinal. " There are a number of
fanatics and of people who want to do something start ling to make themselves known, to whom nothing is sacred. The late Pope was seriously alarmed about it, and at one time would allow no one to give visitors leave to see the crypt except himsell personally. Now it is different."
Something brought it into my mind at that moment that it was the late Pope who gave the Cardinal Ins sobriquet of " the angel of the Vatican."
The Cardinal is a tall man with a very graeeful iigure. He has regular and singularly refined features. Ik- strikes one as a perfect and well-bred gentleman, and as a genuinely good man rather than a militant ecclesiastic. His baldness gives him a studious appearance, and he is rather English-looking.
I asked the Cardinal if he had been at school in England, apologizing for my ignorance in not knowing. He said, " But why should you ? Yes. 1 was at school in England till 1 was thirteen, and afterwards 1 was at a Roman Catholic college in the north of England near Durham, till I came to study for my priesthood in Rome. I regarded England as my home for many years. I was born in London, and my nearest relations were in London. Until 1903 I always spent my holidays with them, and in 1903 1 had my portmanteau ready to start when the old Pope sickened in his last illness. But in 1902, when I was saying good-bye to England, I had a strong presentiment that I should never go back to it, or, at least, not for many years."
A VISIT TO CARDINAL MERRY DEL VAL. 129
I ventured to ask if it would be etiquette for him to leave Italy now, supposing that he could.
" I believe not," he said. " But the question could never arise. I never get any holidays at all, except when I run up to Castel Gandolfo for a few days at a time in the summer, and even then my letters go with me. I don t know when I shall get a holiday again. It wouldn t be a holiday if I did go, for there would always be clergy wishing to see me whom I could not refuse."
I took him to imply that it was easier to deny himself to people in Rome. He did not look in the least tired with it all. I thought he looked remarkably fresh and full of energy, though I found him rather silent until he became interested in the message from Professor Marucchi. I asked him if he had made a study of Pin- turicchio since he became possessor of the finest frescoed residence in the world.
" Alas ! I never have any time to look up," he said. " I have always to look down. I can only feel that they are there."
He was amused when I told him that behind the bricked-up door in his reception-room, which has the old Spanish tiles on it, the custode locates the room where Cesare Borgia strangled someone or other. It is very likely," he said. " There are some small rooms there, used for nothing in particular, which belong to and gave access to the Borgia rooms." He pointed out the Borgia bull and crown on the tiles on this door, and said that they were repeated in the old tiles in his study, which is the celebrated tower room. I asked if I might be permitted to enter it.
" Certainly," he said. " Come up and have a look at it." He had opened the door to go up and write his
9
130 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
name in a book for Mis? Christmas. I had looked through after him, and seen a largo tiled room at the top of a flight of steps about ten feet high. It is much longer than the other Borgia rooms, except the first, \vhere the arrases are. lnder tin* ceiling it has the painted frieze which gives this room its name of the Hall "i the Credo, in which the twelve Apostles are depicted by some painter of Pmturrichio s school, each holdm- a s, T (ll inscribed with the portion of the Apostles ( reed which he is supposed to have written. It has a painted ceiling, and some of the tiles on the floor are original. The room contains hardly any furniture, except a plain writing-table by the oriel window. This is the room most directly associated with Alexander VI. -the execrated Borgia Pope s ghost, for it is in the tower of refuge which he built, the Torre Borgia ; but the ( animal, who is often in his study till quite late, has never seen or heard anything of it. The Hall of the Credo is not such a lofty room as those below. The ( ardmal did not otter to show me the remaining room- the Hall of the Sibyls which opens oft this ! He pointed out the original arabesque paintings <, n the walls of one of the other chambers.
These," he said, have been left wherever they were not utterly destroyed, to show what the rooms were like originally, and where they have been re-painted the original ideas were carried out as far as possible." Having been in the Vatican for twenty years, he could remember the rooms when bookcases went right up to the bottom of the pictures. He came into them when the bookcases were first cleared out, and thought how enviable the rooms were ; and the remembrance came back to him when it fell to his lot to occupy them.
CHAPTER VIII. AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE.
IN theory, to obtain an audience with the Pope you require an introduction to his Maggiordomo from a person of sufficient standing ; any Monsignore will do, or your banker. But in practice, a decent-looking person, who cannot manage such an introduction, can obtain from one of the hangers-on at the Vatican an invitation to an audience, which has been issued to some other person who does not require it.
Gentlemen are expected to wear evening dress, but are generally admitted in any kind of black clothes. Ladies must wear black dresses and cover their heads with black lace scarves or mantillas.
Introductions are presented to the Maggiordomo about 6 p.m. His secretary is then instructed to take a note of your name and address, and to let you know when the Pope can receive you. It is rather a thrilling moment when the hotel porter comes to you full of importance to announce a messenger from the Vatican. A letter of half a dozen lines, printed except for the names of the persons to whom the audience is granted, announces that His Holiness will receive you at such a time on such an afternoon, and the messenger has no delicacy about accepting a tip, for which there is almost a recognized tariff.
If it is fine you may have to drive round St. Peter s
9*
132 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
to the Court of S. Damaso ; if it is wet you may be per mitted to enter by the Bronze Door, and, climbing the stairs which lead to the Maggiordomo s apartment and to the Borgia. Apartments, enter the door on the right, and proceed up many stairs to reach the stately Sala Clementina, which leads to the various rooms where the Pope give- audiences larger, for public audiences; smaller, lor special audiences all so arranged that he may go through the formality, which must be tiresome to him, as cxpeditiously as may be compatible with dignity and graciousness.
From the moment that you enter the Bron/e Door you feel that something is in the air. The Swiss Guard who is standing sentry, has taken off his overcoat and put on his pikeman s steel morion (a sort of fireman s helmet as the finishing touch to his uniform of motley, with its striped stockings and enormous breeches. He may even be wearing body armour. Your invitation is inspected bv a policeman, Papal guards, and Papal beadles, and when you reach the anteroom, by the Bussolanti splendid people in tabards of crimson brocade, with hose to match and Shakespearian shoes. If you have brought a wrap or an umbrella, you deposit it on the seats of the anteroom, which look rather like pews, with "Pins X. Ponti/cx Mtiximus" painted on them. Kveryone is his own cloak-room attendant, and hopes that no pickpockets are going to receive the blessing of the Holy Father. Then you move forward through a safer-looking cloak-room to the chamber where His Holiness is to receive you.
\Ye were received in the Sala del Consistorio. The ceiling, of the coffered and richly-gilt fashion that obtained in the sixteenth century, sags like an awning.
-
vV \-*F~ ^SV* ^
U
fs
&
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE. 133
Its rich gilt and blue are the top notes in a strong scheme of colour, for the walls are hung with crimson, and the floor carpeted with bright grass-green, separated by a ring of black figures, seated as close as a line of infantry. In these public audiences the numbers are regulated to a fraction by the seating accommodation which the wall space allows. An official of higher rank, in evening dress relieved by a gold jewel, hung with many chains, marshals the beatificiaries to their places not a very easy task, for the bulk of them may be Protestants new to the Vatican and politely eager to secure the best places. His Holiness welcomes the Protestants who desire his blessing, and Roman Catholics naturally prefer private audiences and use all the influence they can bring to bear to secure them.
We were told to be there the best part of an hour too soon, and a whole hour before almost every seat had been taken. We grew very tired of watching the men struggling with the impossibility of reconciling dress clothes and daylight, and the women thinking how they looked in black lace mantillas. Only an Italian or a Spaniard or a Portuguese could wear a black mantilla un-self consciously. Of the others, it was difficult to say which did it the worst, those who thought they looked fascinating in them, or those who thought they looked frights, for a mantilla is a very difficult thing to wear effectively with a high black dress. All the women were laden with objects for His Holiness to bless. The wife of an English clergyman had a Madonna on her knee, but the other women were content to load their wrists with rosaries and bring armfuls of reliquaries and crucifixes. In the half-hour while they were waiting, a party, not very near us, were discussing in
134 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
voices we could hear plainly, the prices they had paid for these objects of art which were going to be objects of blessing, naively explaining that the good ones were for themselves, and the cheap ones to give away. The former were some of them little less than exquisite, the latter mostly more than execrable. The men kept the keepsakes which they had brought in their dress- coat tail-pockets, reasoning that the virtue emanating from His Holiness must reach all that entered the chamber ot blessing.
I tried not to look at the black figures engrossed with such irreverent thoughts ; but to fix my eye on the gilt angel gazing up at the- crucifix at the end of the room opposite the Papal Throne. A place had been assigned to me near the Throne. The upper part of the walls were taken up with frescoes ; those round me told the story ot S. (iian (iualberto and the great Abbey of Yallombiosa. It was best to raise one s eyes to the old bowed golden ceiling, reminiscent of great old days.
At length the period of expectancy was brought to an end. The head official entered, clapped his hands and made a swift upward wave of them. The audience rose like one- figure, but His Holiness did not appear for some minutes, and at the last moment the same official waved the audience down to their knees. And then the Pope passed in, attended by a Cardinal and his Maggior- domo and six other high officials, three lay, three clerical. The laymen were in evening dress and wore rich orders.
The present Pope would lend solemnity to any scene a short, strongly-built old man, with the head of an Irish peasant ; strong in simplicity, illuminated by goodness, full of sincerity and sound judgment. As he walked
AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE. 135
round the room, holding to each his hand to be taken and kissed on the ring, he began with looking straight down into the upturned faces, till his kindliness was checked by the headstrong attitude of those who had seen no harm in scheming for an audience at which they intended to make a protest of their ill-bred consciences. It is not easy to describe the innate condescension which has given Pius X. a majesty of his own. He is the very personification of the meek inheriting the earth. His complete gentleness impressed me more than Leo XIII. s strong dramatic sense of fitness. As I saw the white-capped, white-robed figure of the Head of Roman Christendom pass, unhurrying, undelaying, with an air of blessing, round the kneeling ring, I knew that I was in the presence of true greatness. Each person, after he had kissed the great ruby on the Papal finger and paused a few minutes to meditate or pray, rose.* When the Pope had completed the circuit all knelt again while he gave his prayer and benediction in a voice free from all academic artifice.
During the whole audience the tall Cardinal and the purple-clad bearer of the rich scarlet Papal hat, as glittering as a crown, and the scarlet cloak, stood by the door.
As suddenly as he had entered, His Holiness was gone, and the doors were closed to prevent the hurry of passing feet and the scramble for cloaks breaking on the dignity of the scene. For autograph-hunters have no respect for persons, a fact which is especially recognized in the letter which confers the invitation to an audience. It bears a printed notice forbidding anyone to bring
- The etiquette is said to be that no one should rise from his knees till the Pope has
passed the thirtieth person after him.
136 THE SKCRKTS OF THK VATICAN.
photographs to ask the Pope to autograph them. 1, for one, \vas grateful that the doors were closed, so as to ensure the sacred circle not being broken and every thing ending drirntly and in order, to use the words of our own prayer-book.
137
CHAPTER IX. HOW THE POPE LIVES.
ALL accounts of Pius X. are agreed in one respect- that the Head of the Roman Catholic world is rich in the force of simplicity. He weighs everything in the balance of sincerity, and having decided on its absolute merits, subjects it to the touchstone of his duty to the Church.
The simplicity and sincerity of his opinions are the reflection of his life : he is the enemy of all affectations : he is unaffectedly human as regards himself and un affectedly hostile to pretensions in others. As he feels that his position will prevent him ever visiting his beloved Venice, he has a trunk-line telephone of his own to the Bride of the Adriatic. Nor is this the high- water mark of modernity in the Vatican, for the Pope has the first wireless telephone ever erected for practical use.
The Papal Masters of Ceremonies are sometimes in despair : they are naturally conservative in their tradi tions, and, if the Pope disagrees with them, it is almost impossible to move him from the position he has adopted. They are naturally not willing to give in stances of this, but they are quite willing to tell little stories, some of them very amusing, of the Pope s strong- mindedness.
When the Pope s sisters first took up their residence
i3 THK SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
in Rome, the leaders of the Blacks that is, the section of the Roman Nobility who attach themselves to the Court of the Pope, while the Whites attach themselves to the Court of the King were much disturbed in their minds. The Pope s sifters are not aristocratic ; they are as simple as their brother about keeping in sight the humbleness of their origin. The Patri/iato, or their womenkind, thought the Pope - sisters would be easier to handle in Society if the Pope made them Coulisse. The Pope was hardly able to conceal his amusement. I have made them sisters of the Pope," he said. If they are not satisfied with being sisters of the Pope, they are not going to get any more from me."
The city of Lucca is a very dignified and conserva tive place. In the days when it was an independent Principality, it was a very prosperous, well-managed and loyal little State, and it looks upon itself as a (irand Duchy still. When the Archbishopric of Lucca fell vaeant the Pope appointed a man whom he knew personally to be eminently fitted for the post. But the new Prelate was not a person of any birth, and the proud Lucchesi asked the Pope to cancel the appoint ment and give them an Archbishop connected with their own aristocrat \\ Then I am to understand," replied Pius X., " that a few months ago you would certainly have rejected me if I had been appointed Archbishop of Lucca instead of Pope."
A similar objection was made when, as Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice, he wished to appoint a poor but zealous and hard-working parish priest to a vacancy in the Chapter of St. Mark s. The suggestion was objected to and Cardinal Sarto gave way. But soon
The marble Shrine of the Virgin now in the Crypt of St. Peter s. From / is/o/c si s " // I a/ica/io."
[Facing page 138
HOW THE POPE LIVES. 139
after he became Pope, the humble parish priest was summoned to Rome, consecrated Bishop, sent to Venice to administer that diocese in the Pope s name, and later on was appointed Patriarch with full jurisdiction. The man who was deemed unfit to become a member of the Chapter now rules over them as Patriarch.
The Pope is undoubtedly fond of FZngland. Numbers of our countrymen Protestant as well as Catholic- could bear witness to that. His partiality for English people was always noticeable in Venice, and many are the instances that could be given of his attentions to visitors from this country. If anything, that partiality has become more pronounced since he assumed the Papal tiara. Last year and the year before he graciously condescended to be photographed in the Sala Ducale, surrounded by a considerable number of English pil grims who had gone to Rome under the auspices of the useful organization known as the Catholic Association. He takes a keen interest in the new Cathedral at West minster and is always pleased to receive news about its progress, remembering how Cardinal Vaughan visited him in Venice to study the mosaics of St. Mark s and to consult him as to the possibility of introducing something similar into the huge and noble Byzantine pile at West minster. The church music, as rendered there, has his whole-hearted approval, as is evident from the observa tions he recently made to one not wholly unconcerned upon the pleasure he derived from reports and hear say about that subject. " So you English people have taken my Venetian basilica to London," was the remark he made not long ago to another traveller from these parts, and those few words speak volumes.
He has a keen sense of humour, and in spite of the
I 4 o THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
serious expression of his photographs, he is always ready for a joke. There is a story current at Rome that at the suggestion of some zealous Dumc Romanic his sisters appeared before him one day wearing ambitious Parisian hats instead of the time-honoured Venetian shawls, which had been deposed as out of keeping with their new position. Pius X. burst out laughing the moment he caught sight of them, and then ex claimed : " Oitinito sictc brutte, figlic mic / " (" How very ugly you look, my dears ! "). The story, .sr non c vero, , (>cu tn>\\it<> t and is quite characteristic. In 1005, when lie was going to be photographed in a group <>f English pilgrims with Archbishoj) Bourne, of Westminster, Bishop \Yhiteside, oi Liverpool, and Bishop Casartelli, of Salford, beside him, the photographer suddenly rolled out a few carefully-prepared Ciceronian phra>es which were dfvisrd to convey his instructions with due reverence and decorum, but only the funny side of it seemed to strike the Pope : his lace became so wreathed in genial smiles that it was quite evident that he could hardly refrain from laughing. Of course it was con tagious. Monsignor Bisleti followed the Pope s example, and an ill-repressed titter went all round.
Another of his characteristics is a great and tender love for children. He is evidently delighted when they are presented to him, descends to their level with the greatest of ease, soon makes them feel quite at home, instils into their little hearts such instruction as is suit able to their age, and is quite loth to let them go.
A short time ago an English lady and gentleman were granted the privilege of a private audience ; they took two of their little children with them, but the third had to remain at home as she was ill in bed with
HOW THE POPE LIVES. 141
influenza. Before leaving the Pope s presence she re quested a special blessing for her little one at home. His Holiness immediately asked for full particulars, gave the desired blessing, and then, with a genial " aspetta " (" wait "), retired for a moment to his study. He soon returned with some medals in his hand, and, presenting one to the mother, " Take this home," he enjoined, " to your little girl with my blessing, and, as soon as she is better, bring her round to see me." He gave orders to his chaplain to take note of this promised audience and left the parents with an earnest " don t forget."
The Pope s life in the Vatican is simplicity itself, but this does not prevent him from performing all the social duties of a Pope of the new n gime and performing them with a fine natural dignity. Though he never leaves the Vatican precincts, he is the reverse of a re cluse, as is shown by the Abbe Cigala in the excellent account of the daily life of the Pope which he gives in "La Vie Intime de Pie X."
"The Pope is a very early riser. He is one of those who see the day dawn in summer and dress by candle light in winter because they cannot wait for the dawn. He always shaves himself and dresses without a valet, As soon as he is up, while his secretaries are still asleep, he goes to his private chapel and kneels down on a modest prie-dieu covered with red cloth before the Tabernacle and remains an hour in meditation. Then he recites the Prime out of an immense breviary bound in stamped leather, placed on this prie-dieu, which is the Pope s most valued possession. He often finds in it the text of his meditations, in the homilies of the festival or in the lessons of the day. After his meditations the Pope
142 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
celebrates Mass, generally about six o clock. Strangers are sometimes allowed to be present, but, of course, only in the ante-chapel, and then the Mass takes place a little later. The Pope is always delighted when he can administer Communion with his own hands to those who beg the favour of attending his Mass. Like Leo XIII., he considers that it assists him in fulfilling his mission.
" Following the advice of S. Alfonso, the Pope is generally brief in the celebration of Mass ; he rarely takes more than twenty-live minutes over it, and afterwards lie assists kneeling at a second Mass celebrated by one of his Chaplains. He says a few words to every one who is presented and has for all of them a message of consolation or encouragement ; he is the Good Shepherd who knows all his sheep and whom all his sheep know.
"IK- then takes a little black coffee in his bedroom and at eight o clock receives his private secretaries. The Pope s chief confidant is the faithful Monsignor P.ressan, who followed him from Venice as his Privy Chaplain and Caudatario. The other Camerieri Segreti Partccipanti, Monsignur Sardi, secretary of the Latin Letters, MonsignorGalli, secretary of the Hrevi ai Principi, and Monsignor Hisleti, the Maggiordomo and acting- Maestro di Camera, come at this moment to take the orders of the day. The work is given out and then the Pope remains alone until nine a.m. At nine he receives the Cardinal Secretary of State, and discusses important questions with him. Kvery day the Secretary of State gives the Pope an account of political events and reports which have reached the Vatican. This consultation sometimes lasts several hours. The Pope then receives from ten to twelve, according to the
HOW THE POPE LIVES. 143
day, the various Cardinals who are Prefects of the Congregations, foreign Ambassadors, Bishops, and the Generals of Religious Orders. At noon the Pope recites the Angelus with the members of the Famiglia and then goes off to his dining-room. It is the tradition that the Pope should dine always alone at a little table under a baldachin. The present Pope sometimes breaks the tradition and invites prominent prelates to his table. Those who are invited sit on his right or his left, but never facing him, out of respect for him who has no equal on the earth. The meal is very simple, monastic for a Pope even when he is alone. It is said that he only allows his food to cost him five francs a day, but that Leo XIII. allowed eight. After dinner he goes into the Gardens of the Vatican and takes a long promenade, generally on foot, accompanied by some prelate these are the best hours for audiences if you can get the favour of being invited. When the Pope is alone he talks with the Noble Guard in attendance on him, or the gardeners at their work, and chats with them quite paternally. About two the Pope returns to his apartments and remains alone till five o clock, which is the hour of prayer and contemplation. The Pope enjoys reading his breviary simultaneously with the churches and monasteries of Rome which chant their Vespers before the setting of the sun.
(( At five that is post- time, as it is called in official language the Pope receives his secretaries again to transact current business. He then receives official personages as in the morning ; it is rare not to find some bishops or prelates waiting in the little aula after having got through the various antechambers sentinelled by the Swiss Guard, the Palatine Guard, the Noble
i 4 4 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
Guards, and the Chamberlains. All have to take their turn except Cardinals, who are shown in immediately."
A friend of mine who has seen a good deal of the Pope told me that he had never noticed so many changes in anv person s face as those which chase across the Pope s lace when he speaks or listens at an interview or addresses an audience. The expression of his features is con- tinuallv changing.
" At eight o clock the Pope takes a light supper while his secretarv reads from some religious work. It is generally a chapter of that little hook which he loves ahove all others, and which he ti-ed to give away as a souvenir when he was Patriarch the Imitatio Christi of Thomas a Kempis. At nine, once more, following the custom of Roman Society, he receives persons ol di^tinc- tion, or intimate friends with whom he discusses busi- n- s^ good works, or plans. It is otteii eleven o clock, <ometimes midnight, when he be-nis to think of taking a little rest. All his attendants are already in bed. The Pope, to make waiting on him easier, has chosen for his bedroom a little room over his study in a sort of low entresol which comii.unicates hv a winding stair case with his apartment^. It is a regular monk s cell. In it, as at Venice, he has nothing but a simple iron camp bedstead. It is there that the Supreme Head of the Church spends his few hours of rest. All tin- Vatican has retired to rest long before Pius X. thinks of sleep."
CHAPTER X. THE PAPAL COURT.
THE ultimate authority for all accounts of the Papal Court is, of course, La Gerarchia Catholica, the official peerage of the Papal hierarchy, which is published in the Vatican itself. The most eminent members of the Papal Court can be distinguished by comparing the Gerarchia with the Almanacco Italiano, which, like our " Whi taker s Almanack," gives tables of the leading public men. And a Frenchman, M. Georges Goyau, has shown much skill in presenting these materials with the lucidity and point for which his nation are famous. In the following sketch I am largely indebted to his scheme of arrangement ; though, for my facts, I have gone direct to the official Italian sources.
M. Goyau divides the prelates of the Vatican into two classes : the first and less numerous being those who perform actual duties in attendance at the court ; the second, whose limits are rather elastic, comprising a certain number of prelates who happen to live at Rome, and a great many who live elsewhere. Their offices, which are purely honorary, allow them to wear the purple and be addressed as Monsignore. There is no pay attached to their titles ; they receive nothing but prestige from them. At the head of the Famiglia Pontificia come the three Palatine Cardinals (Cardinali
10
i 4 6 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
di S. R. C. Palatini] : the Cardinal Pro-Datario (Cardinal Angelo di Pietro), the Cardinal Secretary of State (Cardinal Kaiiaele Merry del Val), and the Cardinal Sc^rtlario dei Bred v Cardinal Luigi MacchiX
Chief among the prelates on the active list, after the three Palatine Cardinals, e<>me the prelates of the Palace : the most important of whom, the Maggiordomo, Mon- signor (iaetano Bisleti, is the head of the Pope s house hold. \\ itli certain reservations the internal arrange ments of the Vatican arc- in his charge.
lie appoints its officers, and distributes the cards ol invitation for the public ceremonies at which the Pope appears. \\\> superintendence is limited naturally by the powers of the Cardinal Secretary of State, who is Prefect of the ApoMolic Palaces. In theory the Maestro di Camera, whose office is at present vacant, distributes audiences : his introduction is indispensable for ap proaching the Pope. The Secretaries of the Congrega tions have to be received at regular intervals by him to submit their decisions. It is the Maestro di Camera who arranges each half year the roster of the regular audiences. Roman Catholics who desire an audience with the Pope have recourse to the Maestro di Camera. He eiiMiro invitations to them if there is room. At the present time the duties of the Maestro di Camera are being performed by the Maggiordomo.
The Uditorc Generate, della Rcvercnda Camera Apostolica, whose office is at present vacant, prepares the work of the Consistories. The Maestro del Saero Palazzo Aposto- lico (Monsignor Alberto Lepidi, a friar preacher) is the keeper of the " Roman Library." Formerly all the writings published at Rome required his imprimatur. The Saenst (Monsignor Guglielmo Pifferi, an Augus-
THE PAPAL COURT. 147
tinian) has charge of the Sacristy of the Pope : he takes care of the relics which are kept there, and he is Cure of the people who live in the Vatican. The Segretario delle S. C. Cerimoniale (Monsignor Ludovico Grabinski) is the authority on procedure ; the Prefect of Pontifical Ceremonies sees that it is observed.
Under the common title of Camerieri Segreti Parte- cipanti, the Gerarchia includes the Elemosiniere Segreto (Monsignor Giuseppe Maria Costantini) ; the Segretario dei Brevi ai Principi (Monsignor Vincenzo Sardi) ; the Sostituto delta Segretaria di Stato e Segretario delta Cifra (Monsignor Giacomo della Chiesa) ; the Sottodatario (Monsignor Francesco Spolverini) ; the Segretario delle Letter e Latine (Monsignor Aurelio Galli) ; and four others who really perform the duties of Camerieri Segreti Partecipanti, viz., the Coppiere, or cup-bearer (Mon signor Riccardo Sanz de Samper), who was formerly in attendance upon the table of the Pope when he received a duty of which he has been relieved since 1870 ; the Segretario d Ambasciata (Secretary of Em bassy), Monsignor Raffaele Scapinelli di Leguigno, whose duty it was to conduct the Princes visiting Rome to the presence of the Pope ; the Guardaroba (Monsignor Camillo Caccia Dominion!), who has charge of the Pope s ward robe ; and a fourth chamberlain (Monsignor Adamo Sapieha), to whom the Gerarchia does not assign any special duties. The fourth of these officers is not with out duties, and the three first are not occupied only with the special duties which give their offices their names. The four of them form the constant attendants of the Pope and really perform the duties about his person.
The Collegio dei Prelati Protonotari Apostolici the College of the Apostolical Protonotary Prelates was
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148 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
formerly of great importance. Its working members are nominally seven in number : (Mons. Vincenzo Xnssi, Mons. Francesco Spolverini, Mons. Ascenzo Dandini, Mons. Giacomo Poletto, Mons. Benedetto Melata, Mons. Giuseppe \Yilpert, Mons. Pietro Piacenza). But at present they have an eighth Emeritus member (Mons. Diomede Panici, Archbishop of Laodicea). There are also a great number of ineffective members of the College forty-eight Protonotari Af>ostolici Sopran- numcrdri, and live hundred and twenty-six Protonotari Afiostolici ad Instar Partecipantium.
The Protonotari Partedpanti have still a place and lunction in the Consistories. They arrange the pro- < I dings at certain solemn moments of funerals and the Conclave ; and, finally, the attachment of a Pro- tonoturio to the Congregazioni of the Sacri Riti and the Propaganda, shows that the office of Notary Apostolical has not yet become a complete sinecure.
The name Prclati di Collegia is, according to Go van, given to the members of the undermentioned four Colleges of prelates :
1. Sacra Rota Romana.
2. Reverenda Camera Apostolica. j. Segnatura Papale di Giustizia.
4. Collegio de Prelati Abbreviated del Parco Maggiore.
Goyau explains the Tribunale delta Rota as a sort of Court of Appeal, which has nothing to do now, though its vacancies continue to be filled up ; it consists of nine Uditori Monsignori (Giovanni de Montel, Carlo Mourey, Giovanni Befani, Alessandro Carcani, Gustavo Persiani, Riccardi Costantino Contini, Giuseppe Magno, Guglielmo Sebastianelli, Basilio Pompili).
THE PAPAL COURT. 149
Monsignor de Montel is Dean of the College ; he is an Austrian, and Monsignor Mourey is a Frenchman.
They assist in the work of the " Riti," and occupy the posts of Sub-Deacons attached to the Pope. And in diplomatic negotiations between the Vatican and foreign countries, if there happen to be any Uditori of the Rota belonging to these countries, they may take part in the discussions. " The character of their title, the nature of their duties, suits them to serve two masters the Pope and their country. They escape the proverbial danger by working for an entente between both masters, and their discreet and assiduous efforts form a material assistance to national diplomacies."
The second College is that of the Reverenda Camera Apostolica, which consists of eight Prelati Chierici di Camera (Monsignori Giuseppe Giustiniani, Salvatore Talamo, Giacomo Poletto, Pacifico Pierantonelli, Giovanni Maria Zonghi, Giuseppe de Bisogno, Vincenzo Maria Umgherini, Pietro Angelini). They are under the direction of the Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church (Cardinal Luigi Oreglia) and the Vice- Camerlengo (Monsignor Lorenzo Passerini, Patriarch of Antioch). There is also an Auditor-General, and a Treasurer-General (offices at present vacant), a Secretary, a Warden, and a Chancellor-Notary. Almost the only duty of this College is to take control of the Apostolical Palaces during the interregnum when a Pope dies.
The third College, that of the Segnatura Papale di Giustizia, was, in the days of the Papal States, the Court of Cassation ; which reviewed such matters as violations of forms of procedure and the rulings of judges. Its vacancies are always filled up. It consists of six Prelati
150 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Votanti (voting prelates), and forty-five Prelati Referen- dari Secondo 1 Epoca del Giuramcnto (Referendaries). Their offices are sinecures. At the present moment the office of the Cardinal Prefect, who directs their proceedings, of the Auditor-Secretary, of the Auditor of the Prefecture, and the Notary-Chancellor, are all vacant. The voting prelates are : Monsignor Rocco Micura, Moiis. Ferdinando Prur.i vini di Montescaglioso, .Mons. Tonunaso Terrinoni, Mons. Filippo de Nicola, Mons. Rinaldo Deggiovanni, and Mons. Luigi Martini.
The fourth Collfgc is that of the Abbrcviatori del Parco Mni^ioyc, who do the signing of the Bulls in the Cancellcria ^oi Papal Chancrrv, from which emanate all the public acts of the Pope, and which is concerned with his relation to foreign states, and has to authenticate all Papal acts and documents.
Tuker and Malleson, page 559, give their definition of the curious term Parco Ma^iorc. " These prelates were called Abbreviators, brrausr they originally tran scribed and made a resume of Papal Bulls : now they only sign them. The signing takes place in the hall of the Cancellcria Palace the hall of the 100 days. A portion of this, which they alone might enter, is called the Par co Maggiore, or greater corner, and is set apart for the Abbreviators, who sit round an immense table and sign in turn until the circle is completed."
The Cancellcria Apostolica is under the direction of Cardinal Antonio Agliardi, the Vice-Chancellor and Sommista ; and Monsignor Cesare Spezza, Regent and Sotto-Sommista. There is practically no Chancellor, because the office is permanently attached to the arch bishopric of Cologne. There are two Prelati A bbreviatori (Monsignor Giulio Campori and Monsignor Raffaele
THE PAPAL COURT. 151
Virili, Titular Bishop of Troy). They are called Abbre- viatori Titolari. There are twelve supernumerary Abbreviatori, two of whom are Emeriti, with a Secretary. There are five Sostituti (substitutes) for the above prelates ; three Sostituti Minutanti ; nine supernumerary Sostituti Minutanti, some of whom hold positions, like the cashier, and the imposer of the lead seal, and the accountant ; and finally, there are nine Scrittori and four Emeriti officials. The number is not excessive considering that every Bull requires thirty signatures for its authenti- fication.
Certain Camerieri Segreti of rank less exalted than the Camerieri Partecipanti, says Goyau, take a considerable part in the functions of the Pontifical Court. They form the Colleges of the Masters of Ceremonies. There are eleven of them, six of whom are supernumeraries. The Congregazione dei Cerimoniali has them for advisers. Finally, there are the Cappellani Segreti, who officiate in the Papal chapel. There are six of them ; Leo XIII. s private secretary, Monsignor Angeli, was one.
These prelates, with the Cardinals, of course, form the real Court of the Vatican. Besides them there are a number of honorary prelates. These comprise, first of all, the College of Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops attached to the Pontifical Throne which includes, at this moment, one hundred and thirty-six Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops. These Prelati Assistenti, wlun they are at Rome, form the Pontifical Cortege at great ceremonies. (2) Then come the five hundred and twenty- six Protonotari Apostolici ad Instar Partecipantium. (3) Then over eight hundred Prelati delta Casa della Sua Santita. (4) Over six hundred supernumerary Camerieri Segreti (privy chamberlains). (5) Three hundred and
152 TUP: SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
forty-two Camcricri d Onore in abito Paonazzo, i.e., entitled to wear violet. (6) Eighty Camcricri d Onore extra urlcm, i.e., non-resident. (7) About eighty Cap- pellani Sc^rcti d Onore, i.e., Honorary Privy Chaplains. ^ About forty C appellant Scgrcti d Onore extra urbcm non-re<ident Honorary Privy Chaplains". The number of prelates is unlimited. The Pope raises to one of these dignities am ecclesiastic whom he wishes to recompense. The honour routers the right to use the title of Mon- signor and to wear the violet stork whirh is the emblem of the entire Prelacy. According to their rank, their violet costume bears more or less resemblance to the episcopal dress. Tho^e who are only Honorary Chamber lains and Chaplains extra urhem cannot use the title or the dress m Rome. But if the Pope leaves Rome they can be in attendance on him.
The^, different classes of prelates, says Goyau, are under no obligation ; only the supernumerary (\inierieri Scared and Camcricri </ Onore in a^i/o Paonazzo, if they reside in Rome or are making a sufficient stay, can, if thev aspire to it, be in attendance at the Court for one week in the year, the first in the Antieamcra Scgreta, the second in the Anhcamcra d Onore. There are parallel ranks of lay chamberlains to these ecclesiastical chamberlains : first the six " di numero " and the three hundred and twenty supernumerary Camcricri Scgreti di Spada c Cuppa ; then the hundred and fifty Camcricri d Onore di Spada c Cappa,oi whom all but six are super numerary. Right at the head of these minor digni taries are the Camcricri Scgreti di Spada e Cap pa Partecipanti Prince Ruspoli, Maestro del Sacro Ospizio (a sort of Master of Ceremonies); D. Alessandro Ruspoli, Prince of Cerveteri, Coadjutore al predetto con successione
THE PAPAL COURT. 153
(his associate, with rights of succession) ; the Marchese Urbano Sacchetti, Foriere Maggiore dei Sacri Palazzi Apostolici ; Giulio dei Marches! Sacchetti (his associate, with rights of succession) ; the Marchese Luigi Serlupi Crescenzi, Cavallerizzo Maggiore di S. S. (Grand Master of the Horse to His Holiness); Prince Massimo, the S. G. P. ; and Conte Edoardo Soderini, Latore della Rosa d Oro (Bearer of the Golden Rose) ; seven high persons of the Roman aristocracy. Higher still are the Principi Assistenti al Soglio (the Princes in attendance on the Throne) Prince Colonna and Don Filippo Orsini, Duca di Gravina, and the Maresciallo Perpetuo cli S. R. C. e Custode del Conclave (Hereditary Marshal of the Holy Roman Church and Warden of the Conclave), Prince Chigi-Albani. One of the two Principi Assistenti al Soglio is always a Colonna and one an Orsini.
Goyau reminds us that all these splendid functionaries are not for the gratification of the Pope s vanity, but for the gratification of the vanity of the people who receive the appointments. The vast majority of the prelates and lay functionaries who fill the Gerarchia have no duties to perform. The Chamberlains who come to Rome to do their week s attendance in the Pope s antechambers receive as their only reward the medal which every year commemorates some important act of the Pontificate. " Many of the institutions of the Famiglia Pontificia," he says, " serve less to exalt the Papal Court than to enhance the positions of a number of high Roman Catholic personages in their private circles."
The Noble Guards, the Palatine Guards, the Papal Gensdarmes, and the Swiss Guard, are all that remain of the military forces of the Popes. The Noble Guards,
154 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
a ereation of Pius VII., are recruited from that portion ot the Roman nohilitv which has not deserted the Papal Court for the Court ot the King. This corps con sists of a Captain-Commandant Lieut-General Prince l\ospiglio>i ; an hereditary Standard-Bearer of the Santa Komana Oiiesa Lieut. -General tin- Murchese Filippo Naro Patrizi Montoro ; two lieutenants, who are also Brigadier-Generals ; a supernumerary Lieutenant the l- it Pope r nephew, Brigadier-General Count Camillo )( ( ( i <li Carpineto ; an honorary Sub-Lieutenant, who i^ also a Brigadier-General; nine Lsenti, with the rank of Colonel ; and forty-eight Xoble Guards. They were the original bodvgnard of the pope ; they rode beside his carriage, accompanied him on his journeys, and attended state functions.
I he unilorin of the Noble Guard in which they are always seen now, i- really their undress uniform: a blaek coat with gold epaulette-, dark blue trousers, and steel helmets with a !4"ld crest. They wear a gold cross- belt, with an ornament, bearing tin- letters (,. X. p. Gnanlia Nobile i apale They have not worn their full- dress uniform since iX;o. It was rather like our Life Guard uniform without the cuirass, with its scarlet coat braided with gold , white breeches, and tall riding- boots. The Palatine Guard, which is really a sort of Papal Militia, ha- been reernited from the petty bourgeoisie and tradesmen ever since Pius IX. s time. There are said to be four hundred of them, under the command of a Commandant (Brigadier-General Count Camillo Pecci, mentioned above), a Major and a Brevet- Major. Their uniform consists of a black tunic with crimson facings ; a black capote with crimson tufts, and the inevitable blue trousers. Like the Xoble Guards, the
THE PAPAL COURT. 155
Palatine Guards are for court rather than military duties. They are never used en masse except for great ceremonies, but both of them furnish every day a picket for the ante chamber of the Pope. No drill is demanded of them : they have only to know how to present and order arms.
For the maintenance of order and other police duties there are the Papal Carabinieri, called Gendarmeria Pontificia, consisting of a Captain-Commandant (Count Paolo Ceccopieri), and one hundred and twenty gens- darmes. They have to guard the staircases, the Cortile di S. Damaso, the corridors and the gardens. A stranger walking about the Vatican is constantly being challenged by them ; he meets them at every corner. The Gen darmeria are the police of the Vatican.
For more than four hundred years the Swiss Guard have been the chief military force of the Popes. They are commanded by a Captain-Commandant (Colonel the Barone Leopold Meyer de Schauensee) ; a Lieutenant, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel ; and a Sub- Lieutenant, with the rank of Major ; and they are a hundred and twenty in number. They always mount guard in three places the Portone di Bronzo, at the Bronze Doors, where the Vatican is entered from the Piazza of St. Peter s ; at the Cortile della Sentinella, which you see on your right as you turn out of the Cortile del Forno to ascend the hill which leads to the entrance of the Sculpture Gallery ; and in the grand ante chamber of the apartments of the Pope. At the Bronze Door you will see a sentry on guard, and a dozen others hanging about, unless the approach of a high ecclesiastical dignitary or an Ambassador to the Papal See is signalled, when they fall in and salute.
isfi THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
The Barrack of the Swiss Guard is in the back part of the Vatican, behind St. Peter s, in the courtyard entered between the Sistine Chapel and the Borgia Rooms. Close by this in a very narrow space the dual monarchy which exists at Rome is strikingly en evidence. There is a sort of square, with a fountain in the middle, at the back of St. Peter s, which is called the Cortile del Forno, at the end of which is the Courtyard of the Vatican, known as the Cortile della Sentinella, with a gate guarded bv the Swiss, the only point at which von can drive into the Vatican. On the other side of the road, which leads up to the Sculpture Gallery and Gardens, on a little hill, is the Zecca, the ancient Mint of the Popes. Thi> is the only pure of Italian territory within the Vatican precincts. On its terrace are the superb Carabinieri of the King ; the ivsolute and active men, lions of strength and bravery, who show us the fibre of which the Romans, who conquered the world, were made. Tl!> soldit-rs of the Pope and the soldiers of the King have been facing each other here, almost at bayonet s length, for many years. " Hut there has only once been an incident," says (ioyau, " when, on the fifteenth of July, ifyo, the carriage of the Pope, passing out of the Vatican and up to the Sculpture Galleries, crossed the Cortile del Forno. The Press of the Ouirinal party concluded that the Pope was emerging from his retirement : the Press of the Vatican replied that the Cortile was Papal territory, and that the Pope, in showing himself there, wished to do an act of proprietorship. This is the only time the Pope has driven out of the Vatican gates since 1870 ; but he was still technically in the Vatican."
157
CHAPTER XI.
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS AND PONTIFICAL COMMISSIONS.
I HAVE now to deal with the " Congregations/ Pon tifical Commissions, and a few things of that kind. The idle reader had better skip this chapter, for it deals with dry facts which it is not easy to convert into good reading, but they are too important as reference matter to be omitted. When you are dealing with Ecclesiastical Rome, the word " Congregation " is constantly before you, for the Congregations provide the day s work for the Cardinals.
For a long time Consistories, in which the Sacred College met under the presidency of the Pope, were the only machinery in the Government of the Church, says Goyau. They met nearly every day ; they were the regular council and ordinary tribunal of the Pope. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries special tribunals were established, and in the sixteenth a new form of Council was inaugurated. The Consistories became mere formal meetings where the Cardinals had no voice ; hardly anything was done at the Consistories except the Pope s nomination of new Cardinals and proclama tion of new Bishops, unless there was a Canonization. The Consistory of June 3oth, 1889, at which Leo XIII. delivered a discourse on the celebrations in honour of Giordano Bruno, was quite exceptional.
153 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
I he sixteenth century saw the principle of the divi sion of labour introduced into the Church ; in addition to the Consistory, a number of administrative sec tions were formed to push matters through their ele mentary stages. These are the famous Congregations. One after another were created the Congregation of the Holy Office, the Congregation of the Index, and >o on.
Sixtus V., who was the founder of so much of the Vatican which we have to-day, in institutions as well as in buildings, by his Hull " Immensa Acterni Dei," effected a revolution. He established fifteen Congre gations, of which nine concerned the administration of the Church, and the others the administration of the Papal States. In the course of three centuries, not only the arrangements, but tin- very names of the Con gregations have been varied ; some of them have dis appeared as having no longer any )\ns<>n d etre ; such as those which were concerned with the administration of the Papal States. The name of one of the>e, the Sagra Consults, a sort of Council of State and Cassation, has a picturesque interest, because its name still adheres to the Palace of the Concilia, opposite to the Ouirinal, which is now occupied by the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Others have become merged, either for want of business, as in the case of the Congregazione dell Immmiitii, which has been united with the Cungregazione del Concilia, or to prevent clashing, as in the case of the Congregazione dei Vescoi-i e Regolari, which happened as far back as the reign of Sixtus V. There have also been temporary Congregations for special purposes,* but
- A temporary Pontifical Commission has been formed to deal with the crisis between
the Vatican and France. Sec page nS.
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 159
the principle of government inaugurated by Sixtus V. more than three hundred years ago has been maintained without interruption. Leo XIII. , however, added a new machinery to several of the Congregations : to those, for instance, of the Propaganda, of the Vescovi e Regolari, of the Concilia, and of the Sacred Rites, he added a consultative body of prelates who were deprived of their occupation by the loss of the Papal States. The Pope assigns to each new Cardinal the duty of serving in four Congregations. If they do not reside in Rome they are excused from attendance ; their nomination merely gives them the power of taking part in the Congregations of which they are members, when they enter the precincts of the Holy City. On the other hand, the Cardinals who reside in Rome devote all their time to Congregations ; they are, therefore, both members ad pompam, and working members in the Congrega tions. The first, in various parts of the world, are busy with their dioceses ; the second would have nothing to do if it were not for the Congregations, and they cannot leave Rome without the Pope s permission. Three Cardinals form a quorum for a Congregation ; the most important Congregations have over thirty Cardinals serving in them, of whom ten or fifteen may live in Rome. Since the seventeenth century the Congregations have had Prefects. The Pope nominates them, taking into consideration their ability, their know ledge, and their temperament. For some Congregations, for example, a knowledge of law is more necessary, and for others, theological learning. Before the institution of Prefects the senior Cardinal present used to preside. If the matter is merely formal the Prefect and Secre tary of the Congregation practically settle it. There are
160 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
other cases in which their decision, though they are quilt competent to give it, has to have the sanction of the Pope.
The procedure in important and contentious questions is very different. Certain details the Secretary sub mits himself to the Congregation ; but very momentous matters he puts into what we should call a brief, and places it in the hands of a Cardinal, who is called a Puncnt, the day before the Congregation. If it is one of the Congregations which has a consultative body of prelates attached to it their opinion is taken before the Congregation meets. If there is a dispute between two parties, the pitas of both are lodged by their advocates with the Cardinals, for in the Roman Con gregations the pleading is all done in writing. At the meeting, the Poncnt lays the business before them and i;ivfs his volt. The decision is by numbers ; there is no debating ; the Cardinals say Yes or No ; sometimes they say Nihil, which means that they have nothing to say, and sometimes Dilutathat is, adjourned.
When the meeting is over the Monsignor Secretary recapitulates the arguments ; mentions which Cardinals voted for and which against, and records the decisions. The Cardinal Ponent guarantees its correctness, and writes below the minute Ita est This is so. Once a week Ihe Secretary has an audience with the Pope, and submits the various decisions. The Pope either ap proves them or summons the Cardinals to a further examination. After this, when Ihe decision has been sealed by the Prefect and the Secretary, it acquires the force of law.
The frequency with which the Sacred Congregations sit is according to the business they have to transact.
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 161
Those of the Holy Office, the Bishops and Regulars, the Sacred Rites, and the Concilia } are very much occupied ; the others have more leisure. They have their archives, which contain innumerable precedents, and their etiquette. Formerly certain matters of an undeter mined nature could be referred to more than one Con gregation, but the application can now only be made to one Congregation. If the Pope permits an appeal, it is laid before the same Congregation again. If a deci sion were obtained in any other Congregation it would not be valid.
I must now give a brief sketch of the Sacred Con gregations and Commissions. The first of the Con gregations is the S. Romana ed Universale Inquisizione (the Inquisition), which has the Pope himself for its Prefect, and includes Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli for its Secretary, and ten other Cardinals. Its business is the examination of heresies and doctrines. Called technically La Congregazione della Inquisizione, it is spoken of generally as The Holy Office.
In 1542, Paul III. made six Cardinals " Commis sioners on the affairs of the Faith, Inquisitors-General and Generalissimi." Paul IV., the persecuting Caraffa Pope, gave the Congregation its present form in 1558, except that it is deprived of the support of the Temporal Power, and can only rely on the activities of the Pro paganda. Doctrines suspected of heresy are examined by it, but the examination of books belongs to the Congregation of the Index. It is more devoted to pre serving the Purity of the Faith. The question of miracles comes before it. The Visionaries of Loigny were condemned by it. Discipline as well as Orthodoxy is in its charge ; it has to grant the dispensations from
ii
162 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
fasting, permissions for mixed marriages, and so on. It meets three times a week in its Palace at the back of St. Peter s. The assessor is the most active member of this Congregation ; it is his duty to keep the Pope en rapport.
The second is the Congregazione Consistoriale (Consis- torial Congregation), which again has the Pope for its Prefect, and sixteen Cardinals, but at present has no secretary. Its work is to consider and investigate all matters relating to the nomination of Cardinals. The office is in the Cancelleria,
The third, until the recent Motu Proprio of the Pope, was the Congregazione sopra lo Stato dei Regolari (Con gregation on the state of the Monastic Orders). It had its offices in the Cancelleria , and existed for enforcing and considering the rules of the regular clergy. It has ju->t been merged in the Congregazione Vescovi e Regolari. The fourth is the Congregazione S. Visita Apostolica, which has the Pope for its Prefect, the Cardinal Vicar, Cardinal Respighi, for its President, and three other Cardinals. This Congregation is for visiting and report ing upon the Churches of Rome, and regulating the celebration of Masses which have been founded. It has its office in the Cancelleria.
The fifth is the Commissione Pontificia per la Reunione delle Chicsc Dissidenti (the Pontifical Commission for the Reunion of the " dissenting " Churches). It has the Pope for its Prefect, and seven Cardinals among its members. It was created by Leo XIII. to facilitate the accomplishment of the union between the Eastern and Western Churches, and the absorption of other churches of Christendom by the Roman Church. Its offices are in the Vatican.
Filippo Bonanni s reconstruction of the Basilica of Constantine. A. Exterior. H. Interior.
164 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
of the Council of Trent formulated a catechism and a code, the aboutissement of the Catholic Faith. Pius IV., in 1564, charged eight Cardinals to see that its decrees were observed. They had merely to keep a watch when any point arose on the sense or bearing of a decree, for only the Pope might settle it. The Pope remained the sole legitimate interpreter of the Council of Trent. But Sixtus V., in 1587, assigned to the Congregation the duties of interpreting its disciplinary decrees, only reserving to himself dogmatic questions. This made this Congregation the authority on ecclesiastical dis cipline. For nearly two hundred years there have been annual volumes of its judgments, which Goyau calls, " the arsenal of the canonists." Difficulties of the con science, and demands for the nullification of marriage come before it. It revises the acts of Provincial Councils and Diocesan Synods, and decides in cases of disciplinary divergence between priests and their bishops.
The ninth is the Congregazione Specials per la Revisione de Concili Provincial^ Presa dalla Stessa S. Congrega zione del Concilia, which has also Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli for its Prefect, and six other Cardinals. Its offices are in the Cancelleria. It has the same Prefect and Secretary as the Congregation of the Concilio. In this Congregation is included a Commission for the examination of the relations of the Apostolic Visitors for the Dioceses of Italy. Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli is also Prefect of this, and it includes five other Cardinals.
The tenth is the Congregazione Immunita Ecclesiastica (the Congregation upon the immunity of the Clergy). This is, for the present, provisionally attached to the Congregazione del Concilio, with Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli for its Prefect. It was established by
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 165
Urban VIII. in 1622. Goyau dismisses it briefly and pithily : " The privileges of clerks, the questions con cerning the competence of Ecclesiastical Tribunals, the conflicts between Imperial and Spiritual jurisdic tions, were in its care." In Catholic countries these immunities are in general abolished or reduced by Concordats. In other countries they are not recognized at all, which explains the decadence of the Congregation of Immunities. The very well-informed Almanacco Italiano says : * This Congregation used to occupy itself with the ecclesiastical privileges of the clergy of the whole world ; but after the universally accepted theory of the rights of man, started by the French Revolution in 1789, the Ecclesiastical Court was abolished everywhere, and this Congregation was reduced to preserving the memory of its antique privileges."
The eleventh is the Congregazione Residenza dei Vescovi (Residence of Bishops). The Cardinal Vicar, Cardinal Respighi, is its Prefect. Its offices are in the Can celler ia. Its function is to study the applications of Bishops who desire with good reason to change or retire from their dioceses.
The twelfth is the Congregazione de Propaganda Fide. Cardinal Gotti is its Prefetto-Generale, Cardinal della Volpe is its Prefetto dell Economia, and it includes twenty-one other Cardinals. Its special objects are the propagation of the Faith and the government of the Church in other countries. The Palace of the Propaganda in the Piazza di Spagna is one of the landmarks of Rome. A prominent feature of the establishment is the polyglot printing of religious works. This is the most important of all the Roman Congregations, so important that its Cardinal Prefect is called the Red Pope, as the head of
1 66 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the Jesuits is called the Black Pope. It occupies itself with everything that has to do with missions in all countries, and under it are the Bishops, Delegates, Vicars, and Prefects who propagate the Faith in heathen countries. It confers the title of Missionary Apostolici. No Minister of Foreign Affairs is so well-informed upon African affairs and the affairs of the Far East, and the remote islands of the South Pacific, as the Prefect- General of the Propaganda. In connection with the " Propaganda " are a Commission for Examining the Constitution of New Religious Institutes, with Cardinal Satolli as its President, and two other commissions.
The thirteenth is the Congregazione de Propaganda Fide per gli A flan del Rito Orientate, with Cardinal Gotti for its Prefetto-Generale and Cardinal della Volpe for its Prefetto dell Economia. This also has a commission for the revision and correction of the books of the Oriental Church, under the direction of two Cardinals, with offices in the Palace of the Propaganda in the Piazza di Spagna.
The fourteenth is the Congregazione Azienda Generate della Rev. Camera degli Spogli, with Cardinal della Volpe as President. Its offices are in the Palace of the Propaganda. Its duties are " administering the affairs and recuperating the receipts of vacant benefices " (Tuker and Malleson).
The fifteenth is the Congregazione del Indice (the famous Congregation of the Index), which has Cardinal Steinhuber as Prefect. It includes twenty-four other Cardinals and has Monsignor Lepidi, the Maestro del Sacro Palazzo Apostolico, for its Assistente-Perpetuo. Its offices are in the Cancelleria. This Congregation was the outcome of the Reformation. Paul IV., with the
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 167
assistance of the Holy Office, prepared the first Index Expurgatorius of books which the faithful were forbidden to read. Pius IV. published a second in 1564. It was S. Pius V., in 1571, who created the Congregation of the Index. According to Goyau, the procedure is as follows : The denounced book is given to one of the twenty-nine consulting Prelates by the Friar-Preacher, who acts as Secretary, to read. He prepares a report, which is printed. Under the chairmanship of the Secretary, a preparatory meeting composed of six of the Con- sultori, and the Maestro del Sacro Palazzo, who is also a Predicante, and used to have the licensing of all the books printed in Rome, is held, and prepares an avis. Then the Cardinals of the Congregation of the Index meet. They deliberate in the first place if the book is worthy of condemnation ; in the second place, if its condemnation is opportune, since in these insidious days books are sometimes written with the express purpose of getting placed on the Index Expurgatorius as an advertisement. If they are not clear as to the course to be pursued, they postpone the case for further examination. When their decision is matured, they acquit the book, or condemn it, either outright or subject to correction. But every condemnation is submitted by the Secretary to the Pope for his assent."
The sixteenth Congregazione is the Sacri Riti, Indul- genze e Sacre Reliquie (Sacred Rites, Indulgences, and Sacred Relics), which until the recent Motu Proprio of the Pope was the Congregazione dei Sacri Riti, which has Cardinal Cretoni for its Prefect, Cardinal Tripepi for its Pro-Prefect, and has among its numbers thirty-one other Cardinals, including all the most important. Its offices are in the Cancelleria, and various commissions
1 68 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
arc affiliated to it, such as the Commissione Liturgica, the Commissione Storico-liturgica, and the Commission for the Vatican s publication of the Libri Liturgici Grcgoriani, and the Commissione per la Musica e il Canto Sacro. "The official Prelates" attached to this Congregation are equally important : Monsignor Pifferi, the Pope s Sacrist, Mons. Piacenza, the Protonotary Apostolic, the Dean, and two of the Auditors of the Rota the Maestro del S. Palazzo Apostolico (Mons. Lepidi), the Promotore dell a I<cde (Promoter of the Faith), and his assessor ; and the Masters of the Pontifical Cere monies (Maestri dcllc Ccrimonie Pontificic), and the othiT members of the Rota can be called to its delibera tions. In addition to which there are eighteen Con- sultori, a hymnographer, a scrittorc, an archivist, and so on. This is because the prayers and hymns of the Church are revised by this Congregation. The intro- durtion of images and statues into churches comes before it, and the celebration of Mass at unprescribed times. Canonizations, upon which Urban VIII. and Benedict XII. were the principal legislators, come before this Congregation.
The seventeenth, until the recent Motu Proprio of the Pope, was the Congregazione delle Indulgenze e Sacre Reliquic (the Congregation of Indulgences and Sacred Relics), which had Cardinal Tripepi for its Prefect, and thirty -six other Cardinals, among its numbers including all the most important. Its offices were in the Cancetteria. It dealt with all questions relative to indulgences, and the authenticity of " relics " ; but it has just been merged in the Congregation of Sacred Rites, which is now called the Congregazione Sacri Riti, Indulgenze, e Sacre Reliquie.
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 169
The eighteenth is the Congregazione Cerimoniale, which has Cardinal Oreglia (Dean of the Sacred College) for its Prefect, and thirteen other Cardinals. In this Congregation the Maestri delle Cerimonie Pontificie are consulted. Its work is to consider all questions of cere mony which are not strictly liturgical, such as recep tions, court etiquette, and so on. Its office is at the residence of its Secretary, the Pope s Director of Cere monies, at the Palazzo of S. Maria Maggiore.
The nineteenth is the Congregazione Esame dei Vescovi in Teologia. No Cardinals are attached to this at present ; in fact, its only official is the Maestro del S. Palazzo Apostolico. Its duty used to be the examina tion of the bishops-elect in theology and canon law. But now that they are exempted from this formality it exists only in name.
The twentieth is the Congregazione Reverenda Fabbrica di S. Pietro, which has the Arch-Priest of St. Peter s, Cardinal Rampolla, for its Prefect, and five other Cardinals, and has its administrative, legal, and technical sections, as well as its architects and its Studio del Mosaico, with Professor Nobili at the head of its atelier. The Secretariat of the Reverenda Fabbrica is at No. 2, Via D Aracceli, where orders to go over the Crypt of St. Peter s have to be countersigned. The sole duties of this Congregation are the maintenance and repair of St. Peter s, the administration of its property, and the dispensing of pious legacies and such matters.
The Studio del Mosaico (Mosaic Factory of the Vatican), which copies in mosaics famous pictures for various churches, is under its control.
The twenty-first Congregazione is the Lauretana, which was established by Innocent XII. to control the
i/o THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
pilgrimage church of Loreto on the Adriatic coast, where the Sacred House or Home of the Virgin Mary was trans ported by angels from Nazareth to a grove of laurels (laureto). Cardinal Merry del Val, the Pope s Secre tary of State, is its Prefect, and it includes thirteen other Cardinals. Its office is in the Palace of the Dataria Apostolica, near the Quirinal. There is an unfinished Palazzo Apostolico at Loreto, and in the old days the Congregation dealt with the whole town, which was very important on account of its immense number of pilgrims. Hut since the occupation of the town by the Italian troops its jurisdiction only extends to the Sacred House itself, and a strip of ground two yards wide all round it. The n-st of the Church, like the rest of the diocese, is under the Bishop of Loreto.
The twenty-second Congregazione is that of Affari Ecclesiastici Extraordinary, which includes sixteen most important Cardinals, and has its offices at the Vatican. Its duties are to examine politico-religious affairs in the relations between the Holy See and all foreign Govern ments. The duties of this Congregation are treated more fully in the chapter on the Duties of the Secretary of State.
The twenty-third Congregazione is that of the Studi, which has Cardinal Satolli for its Prefect, and thirty- one other Cardinals. Its offices are in the Cancelleria. It was created by Leo XII. , in 1824, chiefly for the instruction of the people in the Papal States, who are no longer the Pope s subjects. It confers the power of giving degrees on certain ecclesiastical colleges in Rome, and has under its patronage the Roman Catholic Uni versities founded abroad. It deals with education in general and the erection of Catholic L^niversities, and
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 171
confers Academic degrees which are recognized in all countries. To these must be added the Pontificia Com- missione per gli Studi Biblici (Commission for Biblical Studies), which is under the direction of Cardinals Rampolla, Satolli, Merry del Val, Segna, and Vives y Tuto, and has established a special room well furnished with Protestant, as well as Catholic, books of reference in the New Leonine Library.
The Commissione Cardinalizia per gli Studi Storici (Cardinals Commission for Historical Studies) is under Cardinals Capecelatro and Segna, and has its offices in the Vatican. It was founded by Leo XIII. in 1883. This was one of that Pope s measures for making the Vatican a great scientific centre.
The Commissione Cardinalizia per I Opera " Prae- servationis Fidei " (the Cardinals Commission for the Work of the Preservation of the Faith), which includes six Cardinals.
The Commissione Cardinalizia Amministratrice dei Beni della Santa Sede (the Cardinals Commission for the Administration of the Property of the Holy See), which has Cardinal Merry del Val for its President, and nine other Cardinals.
The Penitenzieria Apostolica, which has Cardinal Serafino Vannutelli for its Grand Penitentiary and Monsignor Carcani, an auditor of the Sacra Rota, for its Regent. Its offices are in the Cancelleria, and its " duty is to consider difficult and referred cases of conscience, the ultimate referee being the Pope him self " (Tuker and Malleson).
The Cancelleria Apostolica, referred to above, has Cardinal Agliardi for its Vice-Chancellor and Sommista, and Mons. Cesare Spezza for its Regent and Sotto-
i;2 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Sommista. Its offices are naturally in the Cancelleria, the superb palace erected by Bramante near the Campo dei Fiori, upon the site of the library of Pope S. Damasus. Its principal duty is the despatch and registration of Papal Bulls.
The Dataria Apostolica has Cardinal di Pietro for its Cardinal Pro-Datario, and Monsignor Francesco Spol- verini for its Sotto-Datario. It has various departments : that of the Appointments to Benefices (Sczione dclle Collazioni Beneficiali\ with Monsignor Guerri as its Prefect ; that of the Matrimonial Dispensations (Sczione dclle Dispense Matrimoniali), with Monsignor Jorio as its Prefect ; its Accountant s office (Computistcria\ its Cashier s office (Cassa\ and its Of/icio dclle Spcdizioni per la Via dcnominata de Curia, presided over by the Cardinal Pro-Datario himself, which has twenty-six Spedizionieri Apostolici. Its offices are, of course, in the Dataria Palace.
In the three centuries and a half between Martin V. and Pius VII. the archives of the Dataria amounted to 6,690 volumes ; they record all the petitions granted by the Pope in that time. When the Pope grants a petition, the Dataria stamps the date upon it : this is its function and gives it its name. The Datario, since the office is held by a Cardinal, is called the Pro-Datario, just as a Cardinal is never a Nuncio, but a Pro-Nuncio. The Cardinal Pro-Datario is called oculus papae (the eye of the Pope). Goyau says, " If the machinery which it controls were to stop, the life of the Church would be paralyzed."
Twice a week the Cardinal Pro-Datario has an audience with the Pope : he is accompanied by the Monsignor Sotto-Datario, who carries in a purse, red or
THE SACRED CONGREGATIONS. 173
violet, according to the season of the Liturgical Year, the petitions for the Pope s approval, which the Pope signifies with the words " Fiat ut petitur " (" Let it be done as it is desired "). Then the Sotto-Datario retires with his purse and his petitions, while the Cardinal consults the Pope about vacant benefices.
The Officio del Sostituto del S. Concistoro has no Cardinal.
Lastly, there is the Elemosineria Apostolica ed Officio dei Sussidi Pontifici, of which Monsignor Costantini is Almoner, which has its offices in the Vatican.
I must confine myself to the history, personnel, and less known buildings of the Vatican ; the institutions, as well as the better-known museums, must be excluded, or the book would exceed all reasonable limits. For this reason I can only advert to the famous Papal Bulls and Briefs. The Bull is, of course, so called from the Bulla or lead seal appended to it. This name is applied to the Papal Edicts.
A Papal Bull, centuries old, with its yellow parch ment and faded ink and clean-cut leaden seal, bearing the images of the Apostles Peter and Paul, suspended from a hempen cord, is not only highly picturesque, but has the very odour of sanctity. For it opens amid the bold flourishes of the old engrossers, with the words (in the case of the Bull of Clement VIII. in my posses sion), " Clemens episcopus, servus servorum Dei," and is dated always from the year of the Incarnation of the Lord, as well as the Pope s own Pontificate. "Anno Incarnationis Dei millesimo quingentesimo nonagesimo secondo, anno pontificatus nostn primo," is the register of all existing Bulls. Tuker and Malleson define a Brief as a letter addressed to a Sovereign, society
174 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
or individual, beginning with the words which form the heading of a Bull, but with the text immediately following them on the same line. They are dated Anno Nativitatis Domini. Besides these, there are the Brcvi ai Principi, which are letters written on parchment to princes and bishops, and persons whom the Pope especially desires to honour ; and the Encyclicals, circular letters in which the Pope communicates some idea of his to the Bishops, begin ning Venerabiles Fratres. They were instituted by Innocent XII. at the end of the sixteenth century. Lastly, there are the Latin Letters, written on paper and sealed with the Pope s Privy Seal instead of the Fisherman s Ring. Goyau, with a touch of sarcasm, says that they are used to write to less important persons, such as Catholic authors who desire to shelter their works under a Papal recommendation.
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This is a Hull of I o
In it, a widow and her son having complained that some inhuman sons of iniquity were detaining part o f the property of then- husband and father to the value of fifty ducats, the Pope commands the Bishops of the Strict to order that_ within a fixed time the detainers of such properly should appear before them ; and failin- such appearance to give sentence against the unlawful detainers and concealers.
174.
175
CHAPTER XII.
THE VATICAN AND FRANCE.*
(By His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster.)
THERE is conflict at this moment between the Church in France and the Ministry in power in that country. Were we to believe the accounts circulated by one section of the Press, and generally received in England, we should be led to imagine that the whole blame is with the Church, and especially with the Holy See ; that the one desire of the French Government is to give a due measure of liberty and independence to the Church ; and that all would be well were it not for the intolerance of the " clericals," as they term them, who have no claim to represent sound Catholic feeling. They tell us that these clericals are the sworn enemies of the Republican system of government; that they would destroy it if they could ; and that, therefore, in very self-defence they must be crushed, and that Christianity, and even the Catholic Church, will be the gainers thereby.
Let us look at facts. It is no doubt perfectly true that many Frenchmen, especially in the early days of the Republic, hoped for a restoration of one or other of the previous forms of government. This they did, not because they were Catholics, but because by
- Printed here by special permission. It formed part of the inaugural address
delivered by His Grace at the Catholic Conference at Brighton in the autumn of 1906.
, 7 6 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
tradition, by family reasons, and by historical preference they were convinced that such Governments, identified as they were with glorious epochs of the past, would make for the honour and well-being of their country. Hopes of such restoration have become very faint, and cer tainly have for a long time past constituted no danger to the present order of things. But at no time have the authorities of the Church, whatever the preferences of individuals may have been, departed from the loyalty which duty dictates to a constituted authority. If there is a conflict now, if there has been almost constant difficulty in the past, the fault is not with the Church or with the authorities that rule her.
The third Republic has been in existence thirty-five years. During at least twenty-five years of that time the successive Ministries which have governed it have been imbued with the anti-Christian spirit, and with the desire to banish the name of God and the guidance of Christianity from the public life of the country. It is no longer matter for conjecture that Ministers have over and over again derived their inspiration from the Masonic sects, which in France do not conceal their hatred of Christ and of His teaching. It is because the Catholic Church in France represents the historic Christianity of that country that she is attacked. Could she only be overthrown, there would be no Christianity surviving for any length of time in that country. There is no hostility on the part of the Church to the Republican form of government. When legitimately constituted it claims and receives full allegiance. That allegiance in all essential things has been given even to the Third Republic of France, and if her rulers had but been animated by a different spirit, long ago the
THE VATICAN AND FRANCE. 177
Republic might have gained not only loyal service, but the whole-hearted affection of all its citizens without exception. Sympathy has been alienated, conflict has been aroused by ruthless trampling upon the cherished convictions of millions of the most devoted sons of France.
I allude, in the first place, to the treatment of the religious orders and congregations. These institutes of various kinds are an integral, though not essential, part of the organization of the Catholic Church. With out them a great part of her work can hardly be accom plished. They exist for every kind of beneficent and educational work, in which, by their devotedness, they surpass, while in efficiency they fairly compare with, the efforts of those around them. On these institutes the wrath of various French Ministries has descended, not because they were inefficient, nor because they could be taxed with crime, but simply and solely because they were a great power in the Catholic Church, and thereby in the defence of Christianity. Twice have they been scattered : once, twenty-five years ago, when churches were closed, monasteries disbanded, and worshippers scattered by the armed forces of the State, without trial, without opportunity of defence, for no reason save that, in exercise of their inherent rights, men had chosen to live together and to unite all their powers and energies in the service of the Church. During the last few years the same violation of personal liberty has been accomplished with greater completeness and with greater outrages against the feelings of every civilized man. In every way save by the shedding of blood the religious of France, both men and women, have been treated in a manner that is simply inhuman. Their
12
i;8 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
houses have been taken from them ; they have been deprived of their property wherever the Government could lay hands upon it ; they have been obliged to leave their country or to abandon the community to which they had devoted themselves for life. I often wonder whether folk in England understand all that has taken place ; that hundreds of houses which were private property have been seized ; that their inmates have been expelled ; and that the property has been put up for public auction ; that thousands of men and women have been driven out of their own country as the sole means of continuing the life they had chosen ; that thousands, especially of the women, have been unable to find a new home for themselves, and are con demned to penury and to want of the necessities of life, because their dwellings and their means of subsistence had been arbitrarily and brutally taken from them. Many have been forced to seek a livelihood in domestic service, others have had no resource but to tend cattle in the fields, while large numbers have failed to find any means of existence. And these things have been done in many cases after the religious had been assured that they and their belongings would be respected, if only they would seek authorization from the State and make known what they possessed for the informa tion of the Government. Truly they were deceived and cajoled in order that they might be more effectually despoiled. Who will be bold enough to assert that the existence of these religious women was a menace to the safety of the State, or that the treatment that they have received can be characterized as other than a cruel, unmerited, and incredibly harsh spoliation ?
The action of the recent French Ministries towards
THE VATICAN AND FRANCE. 179
the Holy See has been marked by the same disregard of elemental rights. I will pass as briefly as I can over the various points in which, in the judgment of every Catholic, the Supreme Authority of the Church has been set aside.
(i) By the first article of the Concordat of 1801, the free exercise of the Catholic religion was formally recog nized. The Holy See conceded to the French Govern ment the right of nomination to episcopal sees, reserv ing to itself the granting of canonical institution. It is absolutely impossible for the Sovereign Pontiff to pledge himself to grant such institution unless he is satisfied as to the canonical fitness of the nominee. Hence occasions may arise in which the Pope, for con scientious motives, is bound to refuse canonical institu tion to a person named to a bishopric by the Govern ment. Every Catholic knows that this is the case, every Minister in France is perfectly aware of it. Happily such occasions have been very rare. But M. Combes, in search of a quarrel in which he might make the Holy See appear in the wrong, took care that such occasions should arise. He made choice of men to whom the Holy Father could not, without violation of his duty as Supreme Pastor on earth of the flock of Jesus Christ, grant canonical institution. In every point in which he could yield he gave way ; in proof of this witness the controversy on the clause, " Nobis nominavit." M. Combes insisted. See after see became vacant, and remained vacant to the detriment of reli gion. The Holy Father expressed his willingness to accept some of the candidates put forward by M. Combes, but he declared that in conscience he could not accept them all. Then M. Combes invented a
12*
i So THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
ne\v and previously unheard-of theory, namely, that sees must be filled in the order in which they became vacant, and that the Holy See must accept all the can didate s whom he had chosen, or that all the widowed dioceses must remain without Bishops. He then pro- <vr< led to the unspeakable impertinence, contrary to all agreement and precedent, of publishing the names of his choice, leaving the bearers of them to arrange matters as best they could with the authorities in Rome. This state of things continued until the violent breaking of the Concordat, and at that moment at least fourteen sees were without Bishops.
2 The same indifference to Catholic right and sen timent was evinced in connection with President I.oubet s visit to Rome in 1904. To understand the attitude of the Holy See on this point, we must briefly n-call the events of 1870. It is of sovereign import ance to Catholics all over the world that the Supreme PaMur of the Church should be absolutely independent in the exercise of the authority Divinely entrusted to him. To this end he must not be the subject of any Temporal Ruler, lest the temporal interests of that Ruler should be made to interfere with his spiritual authority, and thus lessen his influence and independence in dealing with the world-wide religious interests which are committed to him. This Pontifical Independence, as it is termed, is essential to the free, full, and un lettered exercise of the authority of the Sovereign Pontificate. Whenever it is lessened or impaired, the Catholic world protests, and rightly complains that an essential right of the Church is being violated. For a thousand years it was felt that this Pontifical Indepen dence could not exist without a Temporal Sovereignty,
THE VATICAN AND FRANCE. 181
and the Temporal Power was conceived as a necessary correlative of Spiritual Independence.
By force, by deceit, by the mockery of a Plebiscite, that Temporal Sovereignty was set aside thirty-six years ago, by men who believed or feigned to believe that their cherished dream of a United Italy rendered this outrage of International Law, and this spoliation of a weaker neighbour, an action of which men might approve. The order of things which had guaranteed the independence of the Holy See for many centuries was swept away. What was offered in its place ? The so-called Law of Guarantees. I need not discuss the provisions of that law. Were it all that its framers and admirers pretend that it is, did it satisfy every wish and desire of the Holy See, still it would be utterly worthless and valueless in the eyes of Catholics as the safeguard of that which they hold most sacred, on account of the radical and fundamental flaw in the ground upon which it rests. It is the creation of that most unstable thing, a fluctuating Parliamentary majority. The power that made it can unmake it to-morrow, and this is all that is offered to the Holy See and to the Catholics of Christendom in place of the Temporal Power which was the safeguard of the Ponti fical Independence amid all the changes which have transformed the face of Europe. Can we wonder, therefore, that Pius IX. and Leo XIII. and Pius X. have never ceased to declare that the present position of the Papacy is unsatisfactory and abnormal, and most detrimental to the sacred cause of which it is the highest embodiment ? And on this account the Holy Father has never consented to receive at the Vatican the Chief of any Catholic State, who by an official visit to the
1^2 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
King of Italy at the Quirinal has seemed to accept as normal and satisfactory the existing condition which the Government of Italy has forced upon the Holy See. A visit to the King of Italy in such circumstances could not be regarded as other than an intentional affront to the Sovereign Pontiff. These things were perfectly wc-11 known to the President of the French Republic, and in 1902 the then Minister of Foreign Affairs officially denied the disquieting rumours that M. Loubet in tended to pay a visit of this character. But in 1904 such a visit was actually paid, and the hope was ill- concealed that the Holy Father would feel himself so affronted as to break off all diplomatic relations with France, and thus enable the French Ministry to avoid the odium of that rupture of the Concordat to which they were so rapidly hastening.
(3) I need not refer at length to the sad incident of the resignation of the Bishops of Laval and Dijon. Any unprejudiced man who will read the actual documents as they are set down in the Vatican White Book, that can be so easily procured, must admit that the action of the Holy See was characterized by the greatest pru dence, gentleness, and patience, while the French Ministry could not conceal their anxiety to find fresh grounds of difficulty and to hasten to the end of the fatal dispute which culminated in the abrupt breaking off of diplomatic relations on July 3oth, 1904. Through out the whole of this excessively painful controversy the Holy Father could not have acted otherwise than he did without failing in the duty of his office.
(4) The events which led up to and immediately fol lowed the breaking of the Concordat of 1801 are very recent history. Be it remembered that the Concordat
THE VATICAN AND FRANCE. 183
was a bilateral contract, entered into by the Holy See on the one hand and by France on the other. In spite of this, it has been set aside without any communica tion with the Holy See, without any attempt at arriving at a mutual agreement as to modification or abroga tion. The anti-Christian faction was determined to bring about a rupture ; they endeavoured and failed to throw the blame thereof on the Holy See, and at last they broke the agreement which had lasted more than a hundred years.
The Concordat made some slight provision for the needs of the Church to replace the endowments which had accumulated during many centuries, and which had been confiscated in the Great Revolution. These subsidies, in defiance of all justice, are now denied to the Church.
Ecclesiastical buildings may still be held for eccle siastical purposes, but in such a way and under such conditions that the constitutive rights of the Church are ignored. The associations cultuelles, which under the new law are to be the holders and administrators of ecclesiastical property, have been condemned by the French Episcopate, and that condemnation has been solemnly confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiff.
The bishops and clergy of France are thus deprived of all legal right to the endowments which were un doubtedly given for ecclesiastical use, and to the build ings which had no purpose but an ecclesiastical one in the minds of those who founded them ; and they are told that, if they wish to continue to enjoy the use of these buildings, they must conform to regulations which are at variance with the constitution of the Church. It is the old attempt in a disguised form to set up a
1*4 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
Civil Constitution of the clergy, without regard to the law of the Church herself.
\\V have been told often already, and we shall hear the same thing again, no doubt, that the only object vhich the framers of these laws had in view is to deliver tlio Church from the bugbear of Clericalism, and to make it truly free and independent. These things are said more frequently here in England ; they would cause a smile in most quarters of France. No one who knows the facts will be misled for a moment by these pretty statements. If there is a fierce conflict to-day between -hurch and State, it is because men are in power who hate Jesus Christ and who hate the Christian faith, and they know full well that the one real opponent with whom they have to count is the Catholic Church. To destroy her, if they can ; to weaken her by internal dissensions or by schism, if they cannot destroy this is their aim. In moments of candour they do not deny it, though for the most part their object is disguised.
PART II.
PARTS OF THE VATICAN NOT GENERALLY SHOWN TO THE PUBLIC.
CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF THE VATICAN.
THE Vatican is not one oi the seven hills of Rome, and, as Mr. Dyer points out in the " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography/ it was even less a part of the city than the Janiculum ; it was not included in the walls of Aurelian. The origin of the name itself is uncertain. One theory is that it was derived from Vates, a seer or prophet, because the Romans gained possession of it from the Etruscans through an oracular response Vatum responso expulsis Etruscis ; another from Vati- cinia, which means prophecies or oracles. Mr. Dyer, a very great authority, has even less confidence in Niebuhr s assumption that there was an ancient Etruscan city there called Vatica or Vaticum. The flat ground round it was called the Campus Vaticanus ; and it was here that the great dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus had his farm of four acres, the Prata Quinctia, which have impressed their name on that portion of the city.
As it is the first legend connected with this famous site, I will quote the passage from Livy which tells how the envoys found Cincinnatus when they went to tell him that he had been chosen Dictator in the crisis of the war with the Sabines. " They sent for the consul Nautius, yet not supposing him capable of affording
1 88 THE SEC! RETS OF THE VATICAN.
them sufficient protection, resolved that a Dictator should be chosen to extricate them from this distress, and Lucius Ouintius Cincinnatus was accordingly appointed with unanimous approbation. Here they may receive instruction who despise every quality that men can boast, in comparison with riches ; and who think that those who possess them can alone have merit, and to such alone honours and distinctions belong. Lucius Ouintius, the now sole hope of the people, and of the Empire of Rome, cultivated a farm of four acres on the other side of the Tiber, at this time called the Quintian meadows, opposite to the very spot where the duck-pond stands. There he was found by the deputies, cither leaning on a stake, in a ditch which he was making, or ploughing ; in some work of husbandry he was cer tainly employed. After mutual salutations, and wishes on the part of the commissioners that it might be happy both to him and the commonwealth/ he was requested to put on his gown, and hear a message from the senate. Surprised, and asking if all was well ? he bade his wife, Racilia, bring out his gown quickly from the cottage. When he had put it on, after wiping the sweat and dust from his brow, he came forward, when the deputies congratulated him, and saluted him Dictator ; requested his presence in the city, and informed him of the alarming situation of the army. A vessel had been prepared for Quintius by order of government, and on his landing on the other side, he was received by his three sons, who came out to meet him ; then by his other relations and friends, and afterwards by the greater part of the patricians. Surrounded by this numerous attendance, and the lictors marching before him, he was conducted
V
THE ORIGIN OF THE VATICAN. 189
to his residence." After he conquered the .Equians, and on the sixteenth day, Cincinnatus resigned the Dictatorship, which he had received for the term of six months.
Dyer points out that there were no buildings in this quarter before the time of the Emperors ; and that almost the only one of any note in all antiquity was a sepulchre the tomb of Hadrian.
The second important mention we get of the hill is that of Caligula building a Circus here for racing in the gardens of his mother Agrippina. The Circus in which St. Peter was crucified should be called the Circus of Caligula, and not that of Nero, who merely adopted it ; though its ruins in the Middle Ages were called the Palace of Nero.
Tacitus tells us in his history that the district was noted for its unhealthy air ; while Cicero says that its soil was unfruitful ; and Martial execrated its wine in an epigram : " Vaticana bibis, bibis venenum " (" If you drink Vatican wine you drink poison").
At this point we must go to Lanciani, who informs us that two roads issued from the bridge called in differently Vaticanus, Neronianus, or Triumphalis, which spanned the river between S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini and the hospital of Santo Spirito. The Via Triumphalis, which corresponds to the modern Strada di Monte Mario, and the Via Cornelia, led to the wood lands west of the city between the Via Aurelia Nova and the Via Triumphalis.
When the Apostles came to Rome, in the reign of Nero, the topography of the Vatican district, which was crossed by the Via Cornelia, was, says Lanciani, as follows :
" On the left of the road was a circus, begun by
IQO THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Caligula, and finished by Nero ; on the right, a line of tombs built against the clay cliffs of the Vatican. The Circus was the scene of the first sufferings of the Christians, described by Tacitus in the well-known passage of the Annals/ xv., 45. Some of the Christians were covered with the skins of wild beasts, so that savage dogs might tear them to pieces ; others were besmeared with tar and tallow, and burnt at the stake ; others were cruci fied (crucibus adfixi), while Nero, in the attire of a vulgar Auriga, ran his races round the goals. This took place A.D. 65. Two years later the leader of the Christians shared the same fate in the same place. He was affixed to a cross like the others, and we know exactly where. A tradition current in Rome from time immemorial says that St. Peter was executed inter duas metas (between the two metae)."
Inter duas mctas is considered by scientific historians to signify the spot marked by a square stone just out side the Sacristy of St. Peter s. It was formerly marked by the obelisk,* which now stands in the Piazza of St. Peter s, and was removed to its present position for Sixtus V. by the architect Fontana in 1586.
This obelisk, says Lanciani, is the only relic left of the famous Gardens of Agrippina, the mother of Caligula. It is a monolith of red granite, brought over from Heliopolis, and is the only one which has not been thrown down since the fall of the Empire. It is first called the guglia, or needle, in a Bull of Leo IX., 1053, wno a ^ so calls it the tomb of Julius Caesar, thinking that the bronze globe at the top held his ashes.
Leo XIII. allowed a tablet to be put up on the wall close by, declaring this to be the scene of the execu-
- See illustration on page 218.
THE ORIGIN OF THE VATICAN. 191
tion ; but he had not reckoned on the clamour that would be provoked. There was a tradition a few centuries old that it had taken place on the spot marked by the Tempietto of Bramante, in the cloister of the church of S. Pietro in Montorio on the hill called the Janiculum in the time of Lars Porsena of Clusium, and now called the Passeggiata Margherita, and by other names. The monks of S. Pietro in Montorio make a respectable income out of selling dust from the sacred spot, and did not relish the idea of losing it. S. Pietro in Montorio is under the protection of Spain ; and the Spanish Ambas sador to the Vatican was instructed to demand the removal of the obnoxious tablet. The Pope yielded, but scientific opinion has been too strong, and the Vatican is soon to make a pronouncement on the subject. The whole controversy hangs upon the words, " Inter duas metas." St. Peter is recorded to have been buried inter duas metas : common sense would apply the words to the two goals of Nero s Circus in which he was executed ; but the contention of the monks of S. Pietro in Montorio can best be understood from Professor Marucchi s lucid summarization, which I here translate. :< According to the Apocryphal acts of St. Peter, which may date as far back as the third or fourth century, St. Peter was crucified near the Palace of Nero near the Obelisk of Nero, and tradition adds, Inter duas metas Now there was no obelisk on the Janiculum, but there was a celebrated obelisk in the Gardens of Nero, not far from the Temple of Apollo, and exactly between the two metae of the Circus. Later on it was pretended that the two metae must be looked for in the two pyra mids called the tombs of Romulus and Remus ; one was by the Porta S. Paolo (this was what we now call the
192 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
pyramid of Caius Cestius), the other, which was destroyed in the time of Alexander VI., stood near S. Maria Traspontina.
" According to the Liber Pontificalis, St. Peter was buried in the place of his martyrdom, that is to say at the Vatican. It was there, as we know from other authorities, that the first victims of Nero were buried in the year 64 A.D. Monsignor Lugari pretends that the Janiculum was the place especially sot apart for crucifixion."
It is in vain that the partisans of the Janiculum seek a proof in the direction nc.ir the Xaumachia ; for, though it is true that there was a Naumachia at the foot of the Janiculum, there was another actually in the Gardens of Nero. Marucchi says that the tradition in favour of S. Pietro in Montorio was due to scholars who misinterpreted documents, and that up to the fourteenth century there was no important tradition of St. Peter here.*
He has the great authority of Lanciani to support him, who tells us that for many years after the peace of Constantine, the exact spot of St. Peter s execution was marked by a chapel, called the Chapel of the Crucifixion ; that the meaning of the name and its origin, as well as the topographical details connected with the event, were lost in the darkness of the Middle Ages ; that the memorial chapel lost its identity, and was believed to belong to Him who \vas crucified that is, to Christ Himself ; and that it disappeared seven or eight centuries ago, about the time when the
- In the last year of the thirteenth century, Giotto painted for Cardinal Stefaneschi a
panel of the Crucifixion of St. Peter, which is now preserved in the Sacristy of St. Peter s, and reproduced in this book on the opposite page. On it the Apostle is represented as being crucified midway between the Meta Romuli and the tomb of Caius Cestius (Meta Remi).
The Crucifixion of St. 1 eler by Giotto now in ihe Sacristy of St. Peter s. The earliest known work of art in which the Tomb of Romulus and the Tomb of Caius Cestius are shown as the DuaeMetae. I- roin Pistoles? s " // [ (t/ff ano."
THE ORIGIN OF THE VATICAN. 193
words inter duas metas, by which the spot was so exactly located, lost their proper interpretation and began to be applied to the tomb of pyramidal shape for which the Latin word also is meta the meta of Remus being that which we now call the Pyramid of Caius Cestius, and the meta of Romulus, a pyramidal tower which once stood near the Church of S. Maria Traspontina. There is a curious monumental evidence of this on the stone screens (preserved in the crypt) of the Confessio of Old St. Peter s, which Matteo Pollaiuolo executed for Pope Sixtus IV. in the middle of the fifteenth century. Pere Dufresne, in his " Les Cryptes Vaticanes," says, "The Apostle was put to death, according to ancient documents, inter duas metas. Abandoning the natural interpreta tion, one would see in these metae, namely, that they are those of the Circus of Nero ; it was believed at the end of the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance that they were the Pyramid of Caius Cestius and a sort of tower constructed near S. Maria Traspontina. These two monuments are represented in the panel of the martyrdom of St. Peter on each side of the cross. The relatively modern tradition to which they refer has no lack of partisans, but it is otherwise difficult to sustain." Dufresne adds that there is the same confusion on the old Bronze Doors of St. Peter s with regard to St. Peter s martyrdom. These were made in 1445, by Filarete and Simone Ghini, for Eugenius IV., whose reign was about forty years earlier than that of Sixtus IV.
Lanciani goes on to show how the line of the Via Cor nelia can be traced by the classical tombs discovered at various times along its borders ; and gives a very clear plan showing how the Via Cornelia, in passing along the north edge of the Circus of Nero and Caligula,
13
194 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
cut right through Old St. Peter s east and west, inter secting the Confessio just at the south of St. Peter s tomb. It must, in fact, have intersected the site occupied by the chapel of St. Peter s tomb in the crypt to-day. The old tombs destroyed by the Emperor Elagabalus, in fact, were on the site of the nave of Old St. Peter s, and were re-discovered in the time of Paul V. scattered all round the tomb of St. Peter. We need not here enter into the disputed question whether Linus, the second of the Popes, was buried near St. Peter, though Lanciani accepts the evidence. " It seems hardly- possible for anyone to doubt that St. Peter was buried here by Linus and Anacletus, successively second and third Popes." Even Mr. Bernard W. Henderson, in his great " Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero," pub lished by Methuen & Co., allows that he was executed on this spot ; for he says that " the Church of S. Pietro crowns the site of his martyrdom, as, in Catholic belief, it enshrines, not the memory alone, but also his holy relics. Tradition and in this respect it is absolutely worthy of all credence never varies in choosing Rome as the city where he ended his life by his triumphant death. Thither he had come but a few months perhaps before his end. Thence he had written his great Catholic Epistle, bearing undismayed witness to the peril which threatened all the Christians." Mr. Henderson s opinion is of great value, because he can be most iconoclastic. A few pages earlier he is ruthless in disposing of the idea that St. Peter went to Rome in 42 A.D. " Saint Peter, who vanishes from the Scripture records between the years A.D. 42 and 51, going, says St. Luke simply, f to another place, is held to have proceeded from Jerusalem to Rome, there to have preached the Gospel
THE ORIGIN OF THE VATICAN. 19;
and founded the Roman Church some fifteen years before his greater colleague St. Paul addressed his epistle to that Church. None of these traditions can be accepted as even probabilities."
One thing must be remembered: that there is no inherent improbability in the tomb having survived. The Romans spared the tombs even of Carthage, and, as Lanciani says, the privileges which the Roman law allowed to sepulchres, even of criminals, made it pos sible for the Christians to keep these graves in good order with impunity. Of the successive buildings which grew up round the tomb of the Apostle I shall speak in another chapter.
13*
( HAPTHR II. THK STORY OF Till BUILPiNd OF T1IK VATICAN.
s
THI-: beginnings of the Vatican Palace arc almost lost in antiquity. But they may be traced back historically to the Kpiscopia which Pope Symmaclms (.498-514) erected. The buildings were much enlarged In- Innocent III. 1198-1216 . and, of course, by Nichola HI [277-1280), who, (iregorovius says, may be regarded as " the earliest founder of the Vatican residence in its historic form. As early as the begin ning of the sixth century the Vatican basilica was surrounded by a mass of buildings, chiefly chapels and mausoleums, but including one or two monasteries. In the time of Stephen II. 752 these were largely increased, and mingled with houses for pilgrims and a multitude of people who made a living by ministering to their wants. As early as the days of S. (ire-gory III. (73*- 741) there were three monasteries; and Stephen II., in 752, added a fourth, and built the bell-tower of the atrium oi the basilica, which he overlaid with gold and silver. Gregorovius considers that the belfry towers which form such a feature of the basilicas of Rome, began in the eighth century. Stephen also restored the ruined tomb of the wives of the Emperor Honorius, which stood outside St. Peter s by the present Sacristy, into a chapel which he dedicated to S. Petronilla, who is supposed to have been the daughter of St. Peter. He left at any
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 197
rate one of the graves undisturbed, of which the con tents were discovered and ruthlessly destroyed under Paul III., as related elsewhere. Innocent III., one of the greatest men who ever sat on the throne of St. Peter, and who reigned from 1198-1216, con tinued the buildings at the Vatican begun by his predecessor, Celestine III. He not only enlarged it, but surrounded it with walls and gate towers.
The Vatican, standing on a hill beside the Tiber, and within strong walls erected by S. Leo IV. (a magnificent fragment of which still remains in the Vatican Gardens), was a much safer residence for the Popes, when rioting was going on, than the Lateran. So the Popes, from this time onwards, made the Vatican their principal residence. Innocent IV. (1243-1254), the arch-enemy of the Emperor Frederick II., also enlarged the Vatican. But the conception of the Vatican, as we have it, must be attributed to Nicholas III., Gian Gaetani Orsini (1277- 1280), and Nicholas V., Thomas of Sarzana (1447-1455). The Orsini s architects were two Florentines named Fra Sisto and Fra Ristori. Gregorovius tells us how he made the approach to the Vatican free, and planned the gardens, surrounding them with walls and towers. His foundation was called the Viridarium Novum, from which the gate beside St. Peter s received the name of the Port a Viridaria. The feeling for nature thus again woke, and for the first time for centuries the Romans saw a park laid out."
Soon after the removal of the Popes to Avignon in 1308, the Lateran, which has always been considered the Mother Church of the Papacy, was destroyed by fire. Consequently, when the Popes returned from their seventy years exile at Avignon they took up their
lyK THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
residence at the Vatican, which has been their principal residence ever since. Gregory XII. (1406-1409), who had fortified himself in the Vatican against Louis of Anjou and John XXIII., united the Vatican with SanC Angelo by a walled-in passage. In the same year live large wolves were killed in the Vatican Gardens.
Nicholas V., the simple scholar of humble birth, who founded the Vatican Library and was the first of all the Popes to appreciate and try and preserve the glorious buildings which they had inherited from ancient Rome, also conceived the magnificent idea of making the Vatican Hill rival the Palatine- with its Imperial Palaces and gardens. The ruinous Borgo," says Gregorovius, " was to become a gigantic Papal city. From a piazza in front of SanC Angelo, three streets forming the l /cw.s (^urialis, were to lead to the Piazza of St. Peter s, with six great porticoo, covered markets, workshops for artists, and banks of exchange. He contemplated the Pope and the entire Curia dwelling in the most mag nificent of palaces, a combination of sumptuous build ings and parks. The palace was not to have its equal on the earth. He would even construct a theatre for the Imperial coronations, a hall of Conclave, and a theatre for spectacles. The Papal fortress was to be entered through a splendid triumphal gate. A new cathedral with a lofty cupola, in the form of a Latin cross, with two towers in front of the vestibule and spacious buildings at each side for the clergy, was to be erected in the place of the ancient basilica."
It is difficult to gather from the documents hitherto available how much Nicholas actually built. None of his buildings remain except the exquisite little chapel frescoed by Fra Angelico with the story of S. Lorenzo,
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 199
and part of the wing which, now bears the name of the Borgias.
The buildings of Paul II. (1464-1471), the magnificent Venetian Pope who erected the Palazzo di Venezia, have entirely disappeared. But Sixtus IV. (1471-1484), the first of the two della Rovere Popes, whose conceptions were smaller, immortalized himself by his contributions to the Vatican, for he built the Sistine Cnjpel, whose walls he had frescoed by the greatest masters of his day, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Ghirlandajo, Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, and Luca Signorelli.
It must be borne in mind that the end wall over the High Altar now occupied by Michel Angelo s " Last Judgment," was originally filled with three frescoes by Perugino. The " Last Judgment " was not painted till more than half a century after Pope Sixtus s death, and Michel Angelo did not begin the ceiling to which the chapel owes its fame until twenty-four years after that Pope s death. But the exquisite screen by Bregna, in the manner of Mino da Fiesole, was executed for him. Gregorovius is right in saying that t\is chapel, built in 1473, is " more a hall than a chapel; simple to barrenness, it seems nothing more than the beautifully decorated scene for Papal functions. It breathes no air of reli gious feeling. And only to its purpose, and to Michael Angelo s paintings, does the Sistina owe the fact that it has become the most celebrated chapel in the world." Raffaelle designed the tapestries, which bear his name, to fill the bare spaces on the walls below the Fifteenth- Century frescoes. When these, the most impressive of all tapestries, were in their places, the tout ensemble must have been almost beyond rivalry. Sixtus IV. also built under his chapel a library which was afterwards
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converted into a store-house, though it was considered, when he built it, the most sumptuous in the world. Innocent VIII. (1484-1492) had a beautiful villa con structed for his use in the Vatican Gardens, as Pius IV. and Leo XIII. did after him. Their casinos are still used for their original purpose : this, which was called the Villa Belvedere, was constructed for him by Antonio Pollaiuolo about 1490, and decorated with frescoes by Mantegna, which have perished. It was about a quarter of a mile from the Vatican Palace until Julius II. con nected them, (iregorovius calls it Innocent s finest work, and Innocent was a man of taste, and built a good deal. His successor, the execrated Borgia Pope, Alexander VI. (1492-1503), in the midst of all his am bitions and excesses, found the time and money to embellish the Vatican with one of its greatest glories, the Appartamenti Borgia, the suite of rooms embellished by Pinturicchio with frescoes, which, as chamber decora tions, have no superiors, except the same artist s glorious frescoes illustrating the career of Pius II. in the library of the Cathedral of Siena. His successor, Pius III., survived his elevation for less than a month, and then came the magnificent megalomaniac, Julius II. (1503 1513), who packed all the gigantic works of his Pon tificate into a brief ten years.
In the period from the accession of Nicholas V., to the death of Leo X. (1447-1521), a space of seventy-four years, there were ten Popes, and all except three of them had generous ambitions for the extension and embellishment of the Vatican. Pius III., Francesco Piccolomini, who was only Pope for twenty-six days, cannot be counted. Calixtus III., the first Borgia Pope, and Pius II., ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, had an honourable reason for
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suspending their building operations, for the capture of Constantinople by the Turk under Mahomet II. a few years before filled them with apprehensions for the fate of Christendom, unless fresh crusades could be organized by leaguing all the Christian Princes. But the spectre soon diminished when the Papacy entered into a not very honourable treaty with the Sultan Bajazet II. for detaining his brother and rival for the throne, Prince Djem, as a sort of state captive in the Vatican, in con sideration of a huge annual sum. Djem, when he was defeated by Bajazet, fled to the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, who had distinguished themselves by defying the assaults of his brother. The crafty Knights would not surrender him, but undertook to keep him a prisoner if the Sultan paid thirty-five thousand ducats a year and promised to maintain a lasting peace with Christen dom. For greater safety the Knights sent him to France, where he remained imprisoned for nearly seven years, when Innocent VIII. secured the custody of his person and the money paid by his brother, in return for facilitating the marriage of the King of France with the heiress of Brittany, which did not up till then belong to the French Crown, and by making the Grand Master of the Knights a Cardinal. The Sultan also presented to the Pope the Lance (head) which claimed to be the actual weapon with which the Side of Our Lord was pierced, and was con sidered to be the genuine relic rather than those previously shown at Paris and Nuremberg.
For the moment I am not speaking of St. Peter s, but of the Vatican Palace ; but Julius II., Giuliano della Rovere, was responsible for the gigantic features of both. It was he who joined Innocent VIII. s Villa
202 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Belvedere to the Vatican by the Cortile of the Belve dere, which, before it was intersected by the Library and the Braccio Xuovo, was twelve hundred feet long. Bramante \vas the architect : he designed the upper part for a garden terrace, the lower for a tournament ground. One cannot help being reminded of the neighbouring Circus of Caligula and Xero, out of which, as the place ol St. Pcter ^ execution, the whole Vatican group of buildings grew. The Piaz/a," says Gregorovius, was to be surrounded with a beautiful portico with three- rows of pilasters, one above the other, and to end in huge niches, an upper one for the Belvedere, and a lower one with rows of seats for the spectators of the games. Xicholas V. had already entertained the idea of a secular theatre in the Vatican, and would have had classic comedies represented there. Julius II. would probably instead have given the Romans combats with animals and tournaments. Even later Popes had games ol chivalry celebrated in the courtyard of the Belvedere, although not in the theatre, as Julius II. had intended."
Julius was so impatient to see this magnificent con ception carried out that he ordered the work to be con tinued day and night, but he died when only one portico was finished. And the masonry had been so badly exe cuted that in less than thirty years the walls required a support, and, half a century after that, the completion of Bramante s idea was rendered impossible by Sixtus V. building the great hall of his library right across the quadrangle.
But Julius also commissioned, and Bramante built, the Cortile of S. Damaso, one of the most wonderful in the world, for it is of vast size and is surrounded on
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THF VATICAN. 203
three sides by the triple arcades of the Loggie, which Gregorovius calls the " most successful imitation of
the antique an unequalled example of vigour,
lightness, and grace. Some of them were frescoed by Raffaelle, and he was the architect, who completed them after Bramante s death. Julius II. is hailed as the founder of the Vatican Museum ; for not only did he commence the collection in the Belvedere, the converted Villa of Innocent VIII., but he enriched it with his own statue of Apollo, named after the Belvedere, with the Laocoon, with the Torso of Hercules, and with the Ariadne. It was for Julius that Michel Angelo executed his immortal paintings on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, which made it the most celebrated chapel in the world. This was a task of almost filial piety, for it put a finishing touch on the chapel of the uncle, born Francesco della Rovere, to whom Julius owed his elevation.
Leo X., Giovanni de Medici, had the same magnificent and Maecenatic tastes ; it was he who completed the Loggie of S. Damaso under the direction of Raffaelle. It was he who had ten of the designs intended for these Loggie not executed in the Loggie, but in the Vatican tapestries woven at Arras in 1514. They were to hang on the walls of the Sistine Chapel below the frescoes : they are now kept in the Galleria degli Arazzi. Of them Gregorovius wrote : " In these Raffaelle ascends from the idyl to the drama in its loftiest and most exalted conception. In artistic unity of treatment and vigour of action, these designs surpass any of his works in the Stanze, and are his most consummate and grandest creations." Raffaelle s Stanze were originally commissioned by Julius II., and completed under Leo X. Raffaelle himself did not live to complete his task.
204 THK SKCRKTS OF THE VATICAN.
Leo X. appointed Raffaelle architect of St. Peter s, and custodian of all the antiquities of Rome and the city territory. It was in these capacities that Raffaelle, who had a passion for the monuments of antiquity, conceived the famous scheme for making an illustrated plan of the city, in which he was engaged at the time of his death. He sets it forth in the letter long attributed to that Conte Haldassare Castiglione whose portrait painted by him is one of the chefs (Cifurrc of the Louvre. There are many persons," says he, Holy Father, who, estimating great things by their own narrow judg ment, esteem t he military exploits of the ancient Romans, and the skill which thev have displayed in their build ings, so spacious, and so richly ornamented, as rather fabulous than true. With me, however, it is widely different ; for when I perceive, in what yet remains ot Rome, the divinity of mind which the ancients possessed, it seems to me not unreasonable to conclude that many things were to them easy which to us appear impossible. Having, therefore, under this conviction, always been studious of the remains of antiquity, and having with no small labour investigated and accurately measured such as have occurred to me, and compared them with the writings of the best authors on this subject, I con ceive that I have obtained some acquaintance with the architecture of the ancients. This acquisition, whilst it gives me great pleasure, has also affected me with no small concern, in observing the inanimate remains, as it were, of this once noble city, the queen of the universe, thus lacerated and dispersed. As there is a duty from every child towards his parents and his country, so I find myself called upon to exert what little ability I possess, in perpetuating somewhat of the image, or rather
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the shadow, of that which is in fact the universal country of all Christians, and at one time was so elevated and so powerful, that mankind began to believe that she was raised beyond the efforts of fortune and destined to perpetual duration. Hence it would seem that time, envious of the glory of mortals, but not fully confiding in his own strength, had combined with fortune, and with the profane and unsparing barbarians, that to his corroding file and consuming tooth they might add their destructive fury ; and by fire, by sword, and every other mode of devastation, might complete the ruin of Rome. Thus those famous works, which might otherwise have remained to the present day in full splendour and beauty, were, by the rage and ferocity of these merciless men, or rather wild beasts, overthrown and destroyed ; yet not so entirety as not to leave a sort of mechanism of the whole, without ornament indeed ; or, so to express it, the skeleton of the body without the flesh. But why should we complain of the Goths, the Vandals, or other per fidious enemies, whilst they who ought, like fathers and guardians, to have protected the defenceless remains of Rome, have themselves contributed towards their destruction. How many have there been, who having enjoyed the same office as your Holiness, but not the same knowledge, nor the same greatness of mind, nor that clemency in which you resemble the Deity ; how many have there been who have employed themselves in the demolition of ancient temples, statues, arches, and other glorious works ! How many who have allowed these edifices to be undermined, for the sole purpose of obtaining the pozzolana from their founda tions ; in consequence of which they have fallen in ruins ! What materials for building have been formed
.^ THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
from statues and other antique sculptures ! Insomuch, that I mii^ht venture to assert that the ne\v Rome which we now see, as lar^e as it may appear, so beautiful and so ornamented with palaces, churches, and other buildings, is- wholly composed of the remains of ancient marble. Nor can I reflect without sorrow, that even since I have been in Rome, which is not yet eleven years, so inanv beautiful monuments have been destroyed ; as the obelisk which stood in the Alexandrian road, the unfortunate arch, and so many columns and temples, hiefiy demolished bv M. Rartolommeo della Roveiv. It ought not, therefore, H<>1\ Father, to be the last object <>! your attenti(>n, to take care that the little which now remains of this the ancient mother of Italian glory and magnificence, be not, by mean- of the i jiorant and malicious, wholly extirpated and destroyed ; but may be preserved a< a testimony of the worth and excellence of those divine minds, by whose example we of the present day are incited to great and laudable undertakings. Your object, however, is rather to Fave the examples of the ancients to speak for themselves, and to equal or surpass them by the erection of splendid edifices, by the encouragement and remunera tion of talents and of genius, and bv dispensing amoni; the Princes of Christendom the hle^ed seeds of peace. For as the ruin of all discipline and of all arts is the consequence of the calamities of war, so from peace and public tranquillity is derived that desirable leisure, which carries them to the highest pitch of excellence." After this introduction, the author proceeds: " Having, then, been commanded by your Holiness to make a design of ancient Rome, as far as it can be discovered from what now remains, with all the edifices of which
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such ruins yet appear as may enable us infallibly to ascertain what they originally were, and to supply such parts as are wholly destroyed by making them correspond with those that yet exist, I have used every possible, exertion, that I might give you full satisfaction, and convey a perfect idea of the subject."
Hadrian VI. (1522-1523), who succeeded Leo X., was not an Italian at all ; but he only lived a year, and was succeeded by another Medici, Clement VII. (1523-1534). It was in his reign that the devastating sack of Rome under the command of the Due du Bourbon took place, which did more damage to the precious monuments of art and antiquity than any other catastrophe which ever befell the city. For the invading army included many Protestants. " The Protestant Germans, under Friindesberg, considered the smashing of images, the ransacking of churches, the tearing of priestly vest ments, and the razing of convent and monastery as part of their religious duty. They felt to the elaborate paraphernalia of the Roman Church much as the Early Christians did to the stone and marble gods and temples of the heathen. In each case the loss to art has been the same."
When the Imperial army withdrew, Clement VII. came out of the Castle of Sant Angelo, behind whose im pregnable walls he had taken refuge, and had Raffaelle s Stanze finished by his pupils. Clement VII. was succeeded by Paul III., Alessandro Farnese (1534- 1549), wno commissioned Michel Angelo to paint the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, for which three famous frescoes by Perugino were destroyed. This was unveiled in 1541. For the same Pontiff Michel Angelo also painted the two great frescoes in the Paoline
2oS THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
Chapel, which, like that noble but baroquely painted chamber, the Sala Regia, was built for Paul by Antonio da Sangallo. Julius III. (1550-1555) had a stately flight of steps made for the Belvedere by Michel Angelo. Marcellus IT. was elected and died in that same year, 1555. Paul IV. 1555-1550 , (iian Pietro Caraffa, notorious as the Pope who took the most active part in the cruelties of the Inquisition, is also notorious for having had clot lies painted round the figures of Michel Angelo s Last Judgment during Michel Angelo s life time. In delightful contrast to him was his successor, Pius IV., (iiovanni Angelo de Medici 1^^^-1565) ; he ordered the great Court of the Belvedere to be finished after the plans of Bramante by Michel Angelo, who loathed the very name of Bramante ; for him was built the exquisite garden-house of the Vatican, Pirro Ligorio s masterpiece, the Villa Pia, the nearest to a classical building of any work of the Renaissance. Pius V. was the last Pope canonized as a saint ; he was too much taken up with the Turks to build much. It was in his reign that the great Battle of Lepanto was fought, which so pervades the Gargantuan frescoes of Sixteenth- Century Rome. In it the Venetian and Spanish fleet, commanded by Don John of Austria, and the Papal fleet, commanded by Mark Antonio Colonna, sank ninety Turkish galleys and captured one hundred and eighty, killed thirty thousand Turks, and took ten thousand prisoners, and freed fifteen thousand Christian slaves, with the loss of only fifteen galleys and eight thousand men. Gregory XIII., the Buoncompagni Pope, (1572-1585), was more than a maker of Calendars, though it is for the Gregorian Calendar, which we still use, more than three centuries later, that his name is a household
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word. He built the Loggie which connect the Loggie of Raffaelle with the apartments occupied by the Pope, and was a great patron of painters Federigo Zucchero, whom he employed on the Paoline Chapel ; Vasari, whom he employed on the Sala Regia, and others. But his fame as an embellisher of the Vatican is utterly eclipsed by that of his successor, the famous Sixtus V., Felice Peretti (1585-1590), the building Pope, with whom, in his brief reign of five years, the Romans thought that the Renaissance was beginning again. Nothing pleased Sixtus V. ; he wished to move the obelisk near the Sacristy of St. Peter s which marked the site where St. Peter was crucified into the centre of the Piazza in front of St. Peter s. It weighed nearly a million Roman pounds, but Fontana, the architect, was given carte blanche, and set about his task with eight hundred men, one hundred and fifty horses, and forty- six cranes. The story of its removal is one of the most famous passages in Hare : " The obelisk was first exor cised as a pagan idol, and then dedicated to the Cross. Its removal was preceded by High Mass in St. Peter s, after which Pope Sixtus bestowed a solemn benediction upon Fontana and his workmen, and ordered that none should speak, on pain of death, during the raising of the obelisk. The immense mass was slowly rising upon its base, when suddenly it ceased to move, and it became suspected that the ropes were giving way. An awful moment of suspense ensued, when the breathless silence was broken by a cry of Acqua alle funi ! ( Wet the ropes ! ), and the workmen, acting upon the advice so unexpectedly received, again saw the monster move, and gradually settle on to its base. The man who saved the obelisk was Bresca, a sailor of Bordighera, a village
4
210 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
of the Riviera di Ponente, and Sixtus V., in his gratitude, promised him that his native village should ever hence forth have the privilege of furnishing the Easter palms to St. Peter s. A vessel laden with palm-branches, which abound in Bordighera, is annually sent to the Tiber in the week before Palm Sunday, and the palms, after being prepared and plaited by the nuns of S. Antonio Abbate, are used in the ceremonial in St. Peter s. The obelisk was formerly called St. Peter s Needle Aguglij di S. Pidru ;. In the Middle Ages it was believed that the bronze globe on the summit contained the ashes of Julius Cesar."
It was Sixtus who built the wing of the Courtyard of S. Damaso, which has been the residence of the Popes ever since. It was Sixtus who built the great hall of tin- Vatican Library, two hundred and twenty feet long, which, with its brilliant decorations in Pompeian style, is one of the finest chambers in Rome. But it destroyed the tmest cortile in the world, the Courtyard of the Belve dere built by Bramante to connect the Villa Belvedere with the Vatican, which it cut clean in half. It is the actual palace of the Popes, built by bixtus, though finally completed by Clement VIII., Ippolito Aldobran- dmi ,[1592-1005, who condemned poor Beatrice Cenci to death;, and succeeded him after the brief reigns of Urban VII. [1590,, Gregory XIV. [1590-1591,, and Innocent IX. ^1591, that palace which dominates the attention of the spectator as he lifts up his eyes to the hill of the Vatican from the Piazza of St. Peter s. Clement VIII. was also the Pontiff whose chance it was to gaze upon the tomb of the Apostle when its vaulting fell in while they were building the New St. Peter s. It was lie who built the chapel in the crypt in front of the
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 211
tomb in the form of an inverted cross, and erected the altar in that most sacred place. He was succeeded for a few months by another Medici, Leo XI. - 1605, 3 and then by Paul V., Carniilo Borghese 1605-162 i y , who built the two great fountains in the Vatican Gardens and cared for the fortunes of his family in a more than usually open way. His successor, Gregory XV. , Alessandro Ludovisi - 1621-1623,, did nothing for the Vatican ; he- devoted his energies to promoting the Order of Jesus. He canonized St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, and founded the Propaganda, which Gregorovius, in his " Tombs of the Popes/ calls the largest institution in the world. His name has been given to the mush room quarter of Rome in which new hotels and boarding- houses spring up every day. But it was called, not after him, but his nephew, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi. It was he who founded the Ludovisi collection, including the famous Juno, which has found its way to the National Museum in the Baths of Diocletian. Nor did he, as might have been imagined, found the Universita Gregoriana in the Collegio Romano. That was rounded by Gregory XIII. in 1582. The next two Popes, Urban VIII. and Innocent X., distanced all their pre decessors in their zeal for the endowment of their families. Urban VIII., Maffeo Barberini 1623-1644,, was not onlv a nepotist ; he was such a vandal in tear ing down ancient buildings to use their materials in his own constructions, that Roman wit coined the proverb, " Quod non jecerunt Barbzri, fecerunt Barberini," which may roughly be translated, What the bar barians would not do, the Barberini did." But Lrban VIII. may be forgiven something for the magnificence of his ideas. For he built the Barberini Palace, the
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212 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
greatest ornament to Rome of all the vast buildings erected by Popes or Cardinals, except St. Peter s itself. And he repaired the walls of Rome, especially that part which surrounds the Vatican Hill, with tremendous bastions, more like the rocks of nature than the works of man. And it was he who gave the original commission for that hill of stone, the Scala Regia, the enormous State staircase designed by Bernini for the Vatican. Also the Barberini Library, collected prin cipally by his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, purchased by Leo XIII. for the Vatican Library, is worthy of mention among the greatest collections which have gone to form the Vatican Library. It was Urban VIII., too, not Clement VIII., according to some, who put the finishing touches on the apartments founded by Sixtus V., which are the residence of the Popes. At all events, he added to Sixtus V. s great work, the Vatican Library, in order to house the Biblioteca Palatina, which had lately been bequeathed to it. And it was he who established the armoury in the rooms above the library to keep his army properly fitted out, just as he restored the walls of his capital against invaders.
His successor, Innocent X., Giambattista Pamfili (1644-1655), did little for the Vatican; his designing sister-in-law, Olimpia Maldaichini, who founded the gigantic wealth of the Pamfili family, saw to that. His successor, Alexander VII., the Chigi Pope (1655- 1667), was public-spirited enough. He will always be remembered as the patron for whom Bernini erected the glorious colonnade of the Piazza of St. Peter s, one of the very few works with which the megalomaniac Popes succeeded in rivalling the megalomaniac Emperors of
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Giampietro Chattard s I lan ol St. Peter s and its 1 ortico. From Pistoles? s // I aticano.
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 213
Rome. It was he, too, who completed the superb Scala Regia, where he re-erected the famous bronze doors of Innocent VIII. , which had already been adapted by Paul V. Another commission which he gave to Bernini, the Sala Ducale, cannot be accorded equal commendation it is vulgar even for its age. Clement IX., Giulio Ros- pigliosi, reigned from 1667-1669; Clement X., Emilio Altieri (1670-1676), Innocent XL, Benedetto Odescalchi, (1676-1689), Alexander VIIL, Pietro Ottoboni (1689- 1691), Innocent XII., Antonio Pignatelli (1691-1700), Clement XL, Giovanni Francesco Albani (1700-1721), Innocent XIIL, Michel Angelo de Conti (1721-1724), Benedict XIIL, Vincenzo Maria Orsini (1724-1730), Clement XIL, Lorenzo Corsini (1730-1740), Benedict XIV., Prospero Lambertini (1740-1758), Clement XIIL, Carlo Rezzonico (1758-1769) ; though these and others of the Popes added to the Vatican collections, none of them made any substantial additions to the buildings till Clement XIV., Lorenzo Francesco Ganganelli (1769-1774), who with his successor, Pius VI., Angelo Braschi (1775-1799), converted the gardens of Inno cent VIII. s Belvedere Villa into the Museo Pio- Clementino.
Pius VI. built from their foundations the Sala degli Animali, the Galleria delle Muse, the Rotonda, the Sala a Croce Greca, the Sala della Biga, and the superb staircase that leads up to it. Gregorovius, in his " Tombs of the Popes," draws dramatic attention to the tragic ends of these two Popes : "In the year 1773 he (Clement XIV.) annulled the Order of Jesus. As men hinted, this was as good as if he had taken poison. Soon afterwards his appearance altered, he complained of pains in his vitals, he wasted away like a
214 THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
shadow. I am passing into eternity/ he said, and T know the reason why. 1 On September 22, 1774, he died at the age of sixty-nine. His body became black immediately, and decayed so rapidly that it was im possible to lay out the body for the ceremony of kissing his feet. And yet he had possessed an iron constitution, such as seemed capable of lasting till a hundred.
"But still more unfortunate than Clement XIV. was his successor, Pius VI., Braschi. In his reign occurred the dreadful catastrophe of the French Revolution.
" Pius VI. reigned twenty-four years, from 1775 to 1799, seeing many changes and enduring much. He has no tomb in St. Peter s. His body rests in the Grotte Vaticane, his heart at Valence, where Napoleon raised a monument to his memory. Only his statue by Canova kneels upon the floor of the Confession. and will kneel there so long as St. Peter s dome endures above it. Gazing into its sombre depths beyond the circle of ever-burning lamps, one beholds in vague outline the figure of this luckless old man. Who does not know how Pius VI., in the days ol the Franco-Roman Republic, was carried off forcibly from the Vatican, how place after place received the friendless exile, and how at length h? died in a foreign land ? And of the many who wander to-day through the gorgeous halls of the Museum Pio-Clementinum how few remember, amid the endless profusion of ancient masterpieces, the tragic fate of the two Popes who reared it there as an eternal delight for mankind !
" Thus the eighteenth century closed upon the Papacy in exile and despair."
It is for poetical outbursts like this, as well as for
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 215
his vast erudition, that one haunts the beloved pages of Gregorovius.
A much later writer, Mr. J. E. C. Bodley, in his able little book on the great Vatican question of our own day, " The Church in France," talking of this Pope, says : " The constitution was never accepted by the Holy See. It was repudiated by Pius VI., who was destined to die on French soil, the victim of the Revolution. At Valence, a picturesque city on the Rhone, which thou sands of English people rush past every winter without stopping, the register of his death may still be seen in the municipal archives, where it is inscribed, after the manner of the time, as of one, Jean Braschi, who followed the profession of Pontiff.
Pius VI. not only established new ideals with these beautiful halls of the Vatican Sculpture Gallery, which were designed by Sermonetti ; he enriched them with two thousand fine specimens. Hardly, Miss Mary Knight Potter reminds us, had Pius got his collection into his museum before the Treaty of Tolentino, 1797, gave Napoleon the right of carrying them off to France, where they were deposited in the Louvre. And just a year later, on his refusal to renounce his temporal authority, when General Berthier entered Rome, he was taken prisoner and carried to Siena, Florence, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, Grenoble, and Valence, where he died a year and a half after his deposition. Pius VII., the Chiaramonti Pope (1800-1823), was also one of the great embellishers of the Vatican. He founded the vast Museo Chiaramonti, in one of the two great galleries which connect the transformed Villa Belvedere with the original Vatican Palace.
Here we have a vista, seemingly unending, of
2if, THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
statuary ; the statues arc not equal to those of the Museo Pio-Clementino, but they are a monument of his courage and love of art, for they are what he collected to replace the depredations of Napoleon. His also is the Gallery of Inscriptions and the Egyptian Museum. It was he who gave ten thousand scudi for the famous antique fresco called the Noz/e Aldobrandini, now shown in the Vatican Library. And it was for him that Raffael Stern built, in 1817, the Braccio Nuovo, the plain gallery, more than two hundred feet long, so admirably designed for its purpose, which houses some of the best statuary in the Vatican.
Like his predecessor, Pius VII. was carried off a prisoner to France : he had asserted the independence and neutrality of his dominions, when ordered to expel the enemies of I ; rance from his territory and their ships from his ports. He refused to resign, and excommuni cated the invaders sent to compel him. He was taken prisoner on July 5th, i8oq, and kept in France till the 2nd of January, 1*14. He had already, in 1804, visited France, under strong pressure, to crown Napoleon. After the French armies had been driven from Germany, Napoleon endeavoured to purchase a new Concordat, offering the Pope the Papal possessions south of the Apennines, but Pius refused to treat with him except from Rome, which he entered on the 24th of May, 1814. It must have been with peculiar satisfaction that, owing to the firmness of the English, he saw all the magnificent statuary taken from the Vatican to the Louvre by Napoleon restored with the exception of a few minor statues. Their value was more than compensated by the magnificent pictures which were sent back from Paris to him, though they had been taken not from him,
STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE VATICAN. 217
but from various Italian churches. With them he founded the famous Vatican Gallery.
Pius VII. was succeeded by Leo XII., Annibale della Genga (1823-1829), and Pius VIII., Francesco Saverio Castiglione (1829-1831). Gregory XVI., Mauro Capellari (1831-1846), distinguished his reign by two great works. He saved the ancient town and monuments of Tivoli by creating a tunnel and the most majestic of artificial waterfalls to divert the waters of the Anio, which threatened the Tibur of Horace with destruction, and, by his patronage of the brothers Campanari, and his establishment of the Museo Etrusco in the Vatican, he did much for preserving the memory of one of the most extraordinary peoples who have perished off the face of the earth the Etruscans. Gregory was suc ceeded by Pius IX., Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, who reigned longer than any other Pope, and was the first " to pass the years of St. Peter."
No Pope has impressed himself more on the imagina tion of the Romans, for he loved the splendid pageants which passed away with the temporal power nearly forty years ago. And he loved his capital, and did much for its monuments, though he restored sometimes not wisely but too well. His principal addition to the Vatican was the completion of the Cortile of S. Damaso, and the magnificent Scala Pia, which leads up to the actual palace of the Pope.
Leo XIII., Gioacchino Pecci (1878-1903), made one supreme contribution to the glories of the Vatican by restoring the Borgia Apartments, whose frescoes are, after those of the Cathedral Library at Siena, the master pieces of Pinturicchio. These had for many years been almost invisible owing to the tall book-cases in which
MS THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the whole of the printed books of the Vatican Library were crowded. Leo XIII. , as related in the chapter on
the subject, cleared out and entirely reconstituted the apartments under the threat hall of the Vatican Library and various adjoining rooms to form the new Leonine Library, which now contains all the printed books. In conjunction with this work he had the Borgia Apart ments restored bv the art director of the Vatican, Com- mendatnre Lndovico Seit/, who must be allowed to have carried out the work with singular success, lie showed sueh good taste, such a laudable dcsin- to alter as little as po^ible, so much knowledge and drlicacv in removing whitewash and re-backing the frescoes. Pope Leo also converted the Hall of Canonizations into a chapel, and spent a threat deal of money on beautifying the iloors and ceilings of the Gallcrid dcgli . Ir,/.::/ and the Gallcrid dci ( dudehihri. The present Pope succeeded too re cently for his work to show much, but his broad- minded and enlightened regime is certain to result in important and permanent improvements, among which he is contemplating a museum of Old St. PeterV
Kxtenor of < Id Si. 1 eter s, Rome. Reproduced by permission from the British Museum Guide to tin- Karly Christian and Byzantine Antiquities,.
219
CHAPTER III. OLD ST. PETER S.
" FROM the .^lian bridge over the Tiber they traversed the long colonnade which led to the atrium of St. Peter s, with its fountain and its tombs of the Popes. There they witnessed the Pope, John XIII., and his Cardinals receive the Imperial party on the thirty-five steps of the entrance. With martial surroundings and sacerdotal pomp, the mighty Otto, his wife, and son, were con ducted into the basilica of Constantine, which had then been the venerated temple of Rome for six centuries and a half.
" The Vatican Basilica of the tenth century was, of course, wholly unlike the St. Peter s we see to-day. It was quite similar to the restored Church of St. Paul s fuori le Murd, as we now see it, but it was some twenty feet longer and a little wider, and had five naves divided off by four rows of vast monolith columns. There were ninety-six in all, of various marbles, different in style and even in size, for they had been the first hasty spoils of antique palaces and temples. The walls, above the order of columns, were decorated with mosaics, such as no Roman hand could then produce or ever restore. A grand arch, such as we see at the older basilicas to-day, enriched with silver plates and adorned with mosaic, separated the nave from the chancel, below which was the tribune, an inheritance from the praetor s court of old. It now contained the high altar and the sedile of the Vicar of Christ. Before the high altar stood the Confessio, the vault wherein lay the bones of St. Peter, with a screen of silver such as the Greeks called icono- stasis, crowded with silver images of saints and virgins.
THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
And the whole was illuminated by a gigantic candelabra holding more than a thousand lighted" tapers.
1 he Byzantine visitors were amazed to find the Cathedral of Old Rome so utterly different from their own Hagia Sophia at home. It was nearly one hundred feet longer and not much less in width. Its mosaics its monoliths, and its tribune resembled those of the great temple of Justinian ; but its (lat roof, long aisles, rude workmanship, and want of symmetry roused contempt and pity from the cultivated taste of the Greek artist. The basilica of St. Peter s was, indeed, but a crude adaptation <>f the la\v courts of the C;esars whilst the Church of the Holy Wisdom was one of the most original creations in the whole record of human art. l ; rederic Harrison, in " Thcophano : The Crusade of the Tenth Century: a Romantic Monograph."
I HAVE it on the authority of the most influential of the Cardinals that the Pope is thinking of establishing a St. Peter s .Museum, like the Opera del Duomo at Florence and Siena. As this Museum must consist chiefly of the remains of Old St. Peter s, I shall endea vour to recall all that is known of Old St. Peter s, and to give the best list I can of the remains of it which are to be found in the crypt of the present church and elsewhere. The most important paintings of it are preserved in a little German capital, where a Royal Abbess, who was too infirm to make the pilgrimage to Rome, was accorded the privilege of substituting visits to the church or convent embellished with these paint ings. Various pictures of it, of course, exist in Rome ; and there is a contemporary model of it preserved in the Vatican. But the chief recruiting ground we have for
OLD ST. PETER S. 221
ideas for a Museum of Old St. Peter s is the crypt of the present church.
Until the present Pope s reign the crypt of St. Peter s was to the ordinary traveller terra incognita. It was as difficult to see as the museum of the Torlonias, who, unlike the old Roman nobility, rigidly exclude the public from studying their art treasures. Leo XIII. for a long time would allow no one to visit it without his personal permission. He believed that dynamiters wished to blow up St. Peter s, though it is difficult to think that so holy a place would not be sacred even to a criminal in search of advertisement. And a criminal, though regardless of sacrilege, might be deterred by the superstition, universally accredited, that some stupendous misfortune would happen to him who disturbed the grave of St. Peter.*
So firm is the belief, that no attempt has ever been made to restore to public view the glorious cross, weigh ing one hundred and fifty pounds, and of the height of a man, made of pure gold, which the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, erected at the head of the tomb, and which Clement VIII. (d. 1605) saw lying there, when a portion of the vault fell in. Accom panied by Cardinals Bellarmin and Antoniano, he examined it. He found that it bore the inscription : " Constantinus Aug. et Helena Aug. hanc domum regalem (auro decorant quam) simili fulgore coruscans aula cir- cumdat." He entertained at first the idea of clearing away the ruins and exposing the tomb, but was deterred, possibly by the superstition which is now so universal
- Since writing these words the impossible has happened an anarchist, for
no imaginable reason, threw a bomb at the venerable and godly Pope who now occupies St. Peter s Throne, while he was celebrating at the Papal Altar.
222 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
at Rome, that even if the Pope were to order the Cross to be removed into the projected Museum, no Roman would take part in the work. Clement had the opening hurriedly closed and covered with a thick layer of masonry. This cross is the most valuable example of its kind known to survive.
In Leo XlII. s day the crypt could only be seen by torchlight, and it would have been easy for a miscreant to have concealed himself in its dark recesses ; but the Vatican authorities have now very wisely had it illu minated with electric light, like the ancient Roman house of S. Cecilia, preserved under her church, and one, at least, of the catacombs. Only, though proper persons are allowed to visit it, the regulations are so puzzling that few people ever achieve admission except under the wing of a high ecclesiastic or Mrs. Pearde Beaufort, a pcrsotui grata at the Vatican, who lectures on the crypt.*
The crypt ol St. Peter s (known to Italians as the Grvttc Vatican?) is amazingly interesting, for the Grotte Vecchie (old crypt), which extends below St. Peter s from the tomb to the entrance, are actually part of the original basilica of Constantino. You stand on the very pavement trodden by the feet of Popes and Kings, and millions of the faithful, for a thousand years. In it are preserved the. grand old Gothic tombs of some of the greatest of the Popes, and in it, fragrant with white roses laid on them by the adherents of the lost cause, arc the tombs of the last three Stuart Kings James III., better known as the Old Pretender ; Charles III., better known as the Young Pretender, or Bonnie Prince
- Information about these lectures can be obtained at Miss Wilson s English
Library, 22, Piazza di Spagiia, Rome.
OLD ST. PETER S. 223
Charlie ; and Henry IX., better known as the Cardinal of York unwieldy sarcophagi of painted plaster. These unhappy and with the exception of the Cardinal of York unworthy princes rest here, and not beneath the elegant monument by Canova of an angel with tired wings, which George IV. had the good grace to erect to their memory on the first pier of the nave of St. Peter s. When I say unworthy, I must record this in James III. s favour, that had he seen fit to change his religion for the Crown of England, he would have reigned longer than any of our Sovereigns, not excepting Queen Victoria, for he survived his father by more than sixty-four years. Not many in the history of the world have given up so much for their faith.
The Grotte Vecchie, which fill the space between the floor of Old St. Peter s and the present church, will hardly allow a tall man to stand upright. Here are buried the brilliant young Emperor Otto II., and such famous Popes as Boniface VIII. (died 1303), Hadrian IV. (died 1159), Nicholas V. (died 1455), and Paul II. (died 1471). The fine sarcophagi of Pius II. (/Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini), the most courtly of the Popes (died 1464), and of Alexander VI., the fierce Borgia Pope (died 1503), do not hold their bones ; the latter never did. Hadrian IV. (died 1159), the only Englishman who ever grasped the keys of St. Peter, lies in a mighty sarcophagus of Oriental granite. Paul II., who had the finest tomb of all the Middle Ages fragments of which, carved with incomparable grace by Mino da Fiesole, fill up half the Grotte Nuove (new crypt), lies in a plain sarcophagus, with its front quite overwhelmed by the recumbent effigy on its lid, and covered by an inscription as close as a column of a newspaper. A very simple grave holds the
224 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
greatest of the patrons of literature, Nicholas V. The Emperor Otto II. lies in a plaster leviathan. Christina of Sweden, who gave up her crown to be converted, and Charlotte of Cyprus, who had been spoiled by the H-yptiuns and an unnatural natural brother, and naively asked the Pope to make them disgorge her kingdom, lie under plain incised slabs. Only one woman not a queen rests in Old St. Peter s, Madame Agnes, the Colonna who married a Caetani.
The Grottc Nuove form the sub-structures of the dome, and are more in the nature of a museum than a ceme tery. Most important in them are the frescoes of the old basilica, and some of its glories, like the shrine of the Holy Lance. But there is a statue of St. Peter, older and more beautiful than the statue worshipped above. Its body was a Roman Consul, and its head was changed in the early days of Christianity. Near by are a beau tiful inscription of Pope Saint Damasus about the drainage of the Vatican Hill ; * and the exquisite bas- reliefs from Nero s Garden, winch may have been the inspiration of Mino da Fiesole, whose glorious sculptures, executed for the vast mausoleum of Paul II., fill, with the screen made by Matteo Pollaiuolo for the Old Con- fessio, half these Grottc Nuove. Mino never excelled his figure of Faith, holding a chalice on Paul II. s tomb. Matteo, in his inspired moments, approached Mino ; in his uninspired moments he was no better than his baroque successors. Beautiful, too, are the mosaics on Otto s tomb, and the noble throne on which St. Peter sits in the chapel of S. Maria della Bocciata.
What you can see of the tomb of St. Peter in the
- This is still in working order under the Court of the Vatican, which bears
his name. The Pope-Saint used it to supply his Baptistery.
OLD ST. PETER S. 225
crypt requires scant mention. You look upon nothing ancient, hardly anything mediaeval, or worth remem bering. It was inevitable that all its ancient features should be sacrificed to wealth and piety. Pope Clement VIII., to whom it had been vouchsafed to see the Apostolic tomb, lavished both upon the chapel which he built over it in his gratitude.
I must say no more, till a later chapter, about this rich museum of Old St. Peter s ; I must now try and draw a picture of the basilica itself.
Like the Lateran, St. Paul s Without the Walls, S. Lorenzo Without the Walls, S. Agnese Without the Walls, and SS. Pietro e Marcellino, it was one of the six basilicas attributed to Constantine the Great. No one of them has been suffered to continue in anything like its original state, and Gregorovius will not admit that the evidence in favour of any of them except the Lateran is more than presumptive. He says, in vol. i., pp. 92-93 (Hamilton s Translation) : " It is entirely unknown under what Pope and Emperor the Church of St. Peter was founded ; but besides the unanimous voice of tradi tion, all that can be gathered on the subject from the Acts of the Church, added to the testimony of the oldest chroniclers, lead us to the conclusion that it dates from the time of Constantine. The Liber Pontificalis states that at the request of Bishop Sylvester the Emperor erected a basilica to St. Peter in the Temple of Apollo, and enclosed the body of the Apostle in an irremovable coffin of bronze of Cyprus. The Temple of Apollo in Vatican Territory is certainly only known to legend ; but later excavations have shown that the Church of St. Peter was founded near a sanctuary dedicated to Cybele, whose rites were long celebrated in Rome, and
15
226 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
survived even after the time when Theodosius knelt at the grave of the Apostle. Legend relates that Con- stantine himself inaugurated the foundation by turning the first spadeful of soil, of which, moreover, he carried tii drc biiskct/itls, in honour of the twelve Apostles. Whether the Circus of Caligula was already destroyed, or whether this occurred during the construction, we do not know ; it is, at least, certain that the basilica was built on one side of the Circus and out of its materials. This site was especially chosen for the Church of the Prince of the Apostles as having, according to tradition, been the scene of his crucifixion, and the spot being further sanctified to Christianity by the martyrdoms which it had witnessed under Nero."
Constantine, in 324 A.D., made Christianity the official religion of the world, and his basilica lasted with ever- increasing splendour till after the Reformation. Eighty- six of the two hundred and fifty-eight Popes were buried in it, and one of them, Paul II., had the most glorious tomb in all Italy. I can hardlv conceive a supreme artist like Bramante destroying it, but destroy it he did. He deserves his nickname of " the miner " (il Rovinante).
The church at Rome which gives us the best idea of Old St. Peter s would be San Clemente, if the Irish College kept the atrium open ; but San Clemente, for all its beauty and immense antiquity, is a small affair. We can understand Old St. Peter s better by com paring it to the basilica of S. Ambrogio at Milan. Gregorovius has told us of the broad flight of marble steps leading up to the atrium, upon which was the platform where St. Peter s successor received the successors of Constantine, when the latter came to pray
OLD ST. PETER S. 227
at the grave of the Apostle, or at the later date to receive the Imperial Crown at the hands of the Pope." These admitted to a superb atrium or fore-court, one hundred and seventy feet long, and almost as wide, which was encircled by a colonnade and opened into a huge basilica over three hundred and thirty feet long, consisting of a lofty nave terminating in an apse, four aisles, and a transept, which projected slightly beyond the aisles and divided the nave from its apse. This transept was probably raised above the level of the nave like the transept of the great friar s church of Santa Croce at Florence, and made the church a " T shape, instead of cruciform, like our cathedrals. The nave was enormously high, one hundred and twenty- five feet, and lighted with a clerestory above the archi trave, which rested on nearly a hundred monolith columns of the most precious marbles taken from heathen temples. A double aisle on each side was divided by a row of columns : the roofs were of wood.
Of the original Constantinian Church Gregorovius gives as unflattering a picture as Mr. Frederic Harrison in his " Theophano," quoted above : " The great church was erected in haste. The execution and the work manship were bad, and the style from the first barbarous ; the apse and outer walls were built from materials col lected at random ; the architrave, which rested upon tha, columns within, was pieced out of antique fragments, and even the ancient pillars of marble or granite, ninety- six in number, did not correspond in either capitals or bases. Slabs of marble from the Circus, on which the original inscriptions or Pagan sculptures still remained, served for the threshold. We are surprised to find in the earliest basilica of St. Peter the charac-
15*
22h THE SECRETS OE THE VATICAN.
teristic peculiar to so many of the present churches in Rome, namely, the presence of Pagan relics in the shape of fragments, and patchwork of ancient marbles. The interior, which was entered by live doors opening into live nave>, was large and of imposing dimensions. The light descended into the lofty central nave through small arched windows disclosing the rough rafters of the roof, and flickered, now on a pavement formed of a patchwork <t ancient marbles, now on high walls as yet unrelieved bv mosaics."
Hut in process of time the interior became a glorv of mosaics and marbles, and in the preciousness of its materials, the flash of gold and mellowness of colour, must have rivalled the two gems of Christendom St. Mark s and the Royal Chapel at Palermo. Its facade was decorated with a mosaic representing the Lamb of (iod, between animals symbolizing the Evangelists, and at each end of its gable was a huge bronze peacock, the emblem of immortalitv. According to Klaczko, the atrium was filled with a profusion of tlowers and trees palms, cypresses, olives, and ro>e-trees and orna mented on all sides with a handsome Corinthian portico. At the right of the church door rose a slender and lofty bell-tower, of the age of Charlemagne, with a queer little pointed steeple. But the great feature of the atrium was the famous Cantharus, or fountain of lustration, in the centre. It was a magnificent fountain, sur rounded by eight porphyry columns, and protected by a gilded roof, with a great display of dolphins, peacocks, and dragons on it. A colossal pine-cone in bronze, reputed to have been brought from Hadrian s mauso leum, formed the core of the fountain
Dante, to give a measure of the formidable Nimrod, the
OLD ST. PETER S, 229
founder of Babylon, whom he encounters in the lowest circle of the Inferno, says that the giant s head appeared to him long and large as the pine-cone of St. Peter s in Rome, and the rest of him to correspond. This pine- cone and the peacocks are still preserved in the Garden of the Pigna, which is surrounded by the Sculpture Galleries of the Vatican. It was of this fountain that S. Paulinus of Nola, quoted by Gregorovius (Hamilton s Translation), wrote: "Where the atrium expands into an entrance hall, adorned by the fountain which, refreshing our hands and lips with its welcome flow, gurgles under the shadow of the massive bronze cupola with its four pillars, forming a mystic circle round the gushing waters. Could there be any ornament more befitting the entrance to the church, preparing, as it does, all who come in for the sacred mysteries that await them ? "
Pope Saint Damasus added a Baptistery to the atrium in 366 ; we know from a poem of Prudentius that it had very fine mosaics. In it was placed the famous chair of St. Peter, which has, since the time of Alexander VII. (1655-1667), been preserved in the Tribune of St. Peter s.
Another building outside the main basilica was the famous Templum Probi, which occupied approximately the site of the present sacristy, and was the mortuary chapel of the Anicii, " the celebrated senatorial family which had embraced Christianity earlier than any other in Rome," and which numbered among its heads Gregory the Great himself. Anicius Probus, four times Prefect of Rome, who shared the Consulship with the Emperor Gratian, the last great Maecenas of Rome, was buried in it in the beautiful sarcophagus which is
230 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
now preserved in the Cappella della Pieta of St. Peter s, junius Bassus, whose glorious sarcophagus is in the crypt of the great basilica beside the tomb of the Apostle, was also a member of the family. Near this was the imperial mausoleum built by the Emperor Honorius for hi> wives Maria and Thermantia, the daughters of Stilicho, which was turned by Pope Stephen II. into a circular chapel in honour of S. Pctronilla. 1 have referred to it in the chapter on the Sistine Treasure. " In the time ol Honoriu- the ancient basilica of St. Peter was a large and elongated brick building, the gable of which, snnnountt d by a cross, rose over the pillared, cloister-like vestibule (Gregorovius . It was Honoriu^ who persuadi-d the Kmperor Heraclius to bestow upon St. Peter s the famous gilt bronze tiles of the finest temple Rome ever had that Temple of Venus and Rome, of which the remains at the end of the Forum still fill us with astonishment, and which even the Vandal- had spared. This was the death warrant of the Temple. " Its tiles were removed to cover the roof of St. Peter s, and scarcely a Roman but rejoiced, scarcely one who bewailed the ruin of one of the finest monuments of antiquity " (Gregorovius).
Another great building Pope was Hadrian I. (772- 795), the friend whose name is inseparably linked with that of the mighty Charlemagne, by the famous epitaph preserved in the porch of the present St. Peter s : the Emperor aided him generously in his benefactions. But he was a restorer and embellisher rather than an originator. His principal work was the restoration of what must have been one of the finest architectural orna ments of Rome the great portico which led from the bridge remains of which are still embodied in
OLD ST. PETER S. 231
the Bridge of Sant Angelo up to Old St. Peter s. It was he who restored the mosaics of Old St. Peter s, and covered the floor of the shrine with heavy tiles of silver and the walls of the inner shrine with plates of gold embossed with scenes from the Bible ; overlaid the altar with wrought gold ; and erected statues in massive gold of Our Saviour and the Virgin, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Andrew. Everything else," says Gregorovius, was done with the same lavish splendour. Tapestries of purple and gold were hung between the columns of the nave at festivals. At Christmas and Easter, on the feast of each of the two Apostles, and on that of the Pope, the huge lamp, known as the great Pharos, or lighthouse, was lit. This lamp, which hung suspended from the silver cross-beams of the Arch of Triumph above the shrine, was also the gift of Hadrian, and with its one thousand three hundred and seventy lights well deserved the name bestowed upon it."
The place of Pope Hadrian s great Portico as an archi tectural link between the Tiber and St. Peter s is taken by the noble fifteenth century Archi-Ospedale di Santo Spirito, erected for Sixtus IV. by Caprina mellow old brickwork filling the site of the inn for pilgrims which the King of the West Saxons had erected for pil grims from England in 717, and which was burnt twice, first by the Saracens, and afterwards by Frederick Barbarossa. Vast numbers of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims came to Rome : at least three Saxon Kings died there.
The heroic but barbarous Cadwalla, King of the West Saxons, in 689, after covering himself with glory in war, determined to go to Rome and be baptized by the Pope ; he was baptized under the name of Peter on Easter Eve, clad in white and with a lighted taper in his hand, and
232 THK SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
was buried in the atrium of St. Peter s. His epitaph is still in existence, and does not at all tally with Professor Freeman s judgment of him. The example was con tagions : only twenty years later two other English Kings, Coenred of Mercia and Offa, King of the East Saxon-, went to Rome, not only to be baptized, but to give up their crowns and possession^ and become monks. Their long waving hair was cut olf and dedicated to St. PettT ; their royal youth was buried in the white frock of monasticism, and the princes from Arthur s heroic island deemed themselves fortunate in being permitted to disappear from sight, amid a swarm of obscure monks, in one of the convents near St. Peter s, with the pros pect of a grave in the atrium of the basilica, and a place among the blessed in Heaven ((iregorovius .
J>ut these monarchs are of small importance compared with the great Alfred and the mighty Canute, the most famous respectively of our Saxon and of our Danish Kings, both of whom visited Rome. Indeed, Alfred was there twice. When he was four years old, his father, Fthelwulf, sent him, it is thought in charge of St. Swithin, the masterful Bishop and rainy Saint of Win chester, to the Warrior Pope, S. Leo IV., who built the vast walls round the Vatican, which still tower above the gardens of the Popes. Leo not onlv took him for Pi>hop s son" or godchild, but hallowed him as a King (which, as Freeman says, was a curious proceeding, considering that England had nothing to do with Rome, and that Alfred was the youngest son ; nor did it prevent three of his brothers occupying the throne before him). Alfred returned to England, but two years later, when Ethelwulf, having made his country secure against the Danes and given a tenth of his goods to the Church,
OLD ST. PETER S. 233
himself made a pilgrimage to Rome, he took Alfred with him.
Ethelwulf allowed the Pope to crown him, and deter mined, " for the welfare of his soul, to send yearly to Rome, out of his private income, the sum of three hundred marks, one hundred of which were destined to fill the lamps of St. Peter s with oil on Easter Eve and the morning of Easter Day, one hundred for the same service at St. Paul s, and one hundred were a present to the Holy Father himself. From this annual donation proceeded the so-called Peter s penny, or Romescot " * (Pauli).
He also rebuilt the " Saxon Schools," which had, as mentioned, twice been destroyed by fire, and gave enormous gifts to St. Peter s. Both on his way there and his way back he stopped at the Court of Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne, whose beautiful young daughter Judith he married on the second occasion. Who knows what seeds of greatness may not have been planted in the mind of the child Alfred by that double visit to Rome and that double visit to the Imperial Court ? In Rome he stayed for more than a year.
Rome seems at any rate to have had a profound influence on Canute, who, as ruler of England and the Scandinavian kingdoms, was a more powerful monarch than either Pope or Emperor. This was in the year 1027, when the Emperor Conrad was crowned at St. Peter s at Easter, and walked from the church to his
- In the time of Pope .Man n us 11., 942-946, a treasure oi Peter s Pence
830 silver Anglo-Saxon pennies of Alfred, lid ward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmund Ironsides, etc. was buried in the Atrium Vestaj, doubtless then a portion of the Palatine, which was occupied occasionally by the Popes for another six hundred years after that time. This treasure was dug up in 1883, and some of the actual coins are still to be purchased at Rome.
234 E SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
palace between two Kings, Canute and Rudolph of Burgundy, who were present at the coronation. Canute, who was liberal in his gifts, showed his influence bv inducing the Pope to free the Fnglish School at Rome from all taxes. But the most remarkable feature about his visit to Rome was the fatn us letter to the Hnglish from ROIIH-. which is one of the greatest letters in all literature, and can onlv be compared to the last testa ment of .st. Loins, as he lay dying of the plague at Carthage. From it we know tli.it Canute visited the tomb ol St. IVtrr, and was moved to the vow of repent ance which ehangfd him to Midi a just King in the latter part ol his reign.
The cotlers ol the Pope were- oversowing with the offerings of the pilgrims. The Saxons had a church, Santa Maria, on the site of S. Spirito, and the church of >. Michele in Sassia, though entirely re-built, is the church of the Frisians.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries St. Peter s, like the Pantheon, was often used as a fortress. Hi 1 great Pope Alexander III. stood a siege of eight days in it from Frederick Barbarossa. Tin- atrium and the tower of Santa Maria in Turn at the head of the staircase were fortified. At the close of eight days the fortifications were so battered down by Frederick and his allies from Viterbo, that the garrison laid down its arms to save St. Peter s from destruction. Then Frederick installed his Anti-Pope, Paschal III.
The atrium and narthex were used for those who were not full members of the Church catechumens, penitents, and others ; the fountain was for ablutions, like the fountains in the courtyards of Turkish mosques and Japanese temples. The nave and aisles were occu-
OLD ST. PETER S. 235
pied at services by the laity who were full members of the Church ; the raised transept by the clergy and persons of distinction ; the presbyters of the Church sat on a circular bench running round the wall of the apse ; half to the right and half to the left of the Bishop s throne, which occupied the exact centre, as it still does in more than one of the Roman basilicas.
The Confessio, containing the tomb of the martyr, generally sunk several feet below the level of the floor, here as in S. Giorgio in Velabro, and other primitive basilicas, stood just in front of the apse. This is im portant, because the tomb of St. Peter is, with the excep tion of the floor of the basilica of Constantine, the only part of Old St. Peter s which exists undisturbed.
One must not imagine that the gold lamps (nearly a hundred in number) which burn in front of the burial place of Peter, the rock upon whom the Church is founded, or the glittering oriental alabaster to be seen to-day, go back to the times of the old basilica, much less of Constantine, but the grille in front of the tomb, though not Ancient Roman, is of respectable antiquity, for it was put up by the last great Pope but one, Inno cent III. (died 1216), who imposed his tyrannical will, not only on our weak King John, but on the mighty Philip Augustus of France, whom he separated from his lovely and beloved Agnes of Meran : so was the Fenestella Confessionis. Of the actual tomb of St. Peter one can see nothing. It is more than ever concealed since Clement VIII. had it walled over. It occupies approximately the spot beneath the Papal altar. Constantine had the remains enclosed in a great coffin of gold-plated bronze, and placed in a vault lined with gold, beneath lamps which, like the
236 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
lamps hung round the Confessio of the present church, were never extinguished. There was an altar above the shrine, and over it rose a little temple on six porphyry columns. This kind of temple over the altar is a feature of most of the <> Id basilicas which have survived.
The \\ord basilica is only properly applied to the ancient Roman churches whose distinguishing mark is the altar in the centre of the church, at which the cele brant stands faring the people, like the Papal altar in St. Peter s. As a consequence, basilicas have their High Altar at the west end. In the Middle Ages, Klac/ko tells us, people were never wearv of endowing this tomb and altar with every imaginable splendour ot gold and gems ; the numerous spoliation-; they suffered trom >aracen, and even Christian, invaders, could not disconrag - the generous piety of the faithful.
After the Saracen sack of the ninth century S. Leo IV. covered the high altar with plates of gold set with precious stom > and enamelled portraits like the paliotto oi S. Ambrose at Milan, gave golden tables, one of which alone weighed two hundredweight, a silver crucifix set with diamonds and amethysts, weighing seventy pounds, a silver ciborium, with columns weighing three quarters of a ton, and a crossof gold encrusted with pearls, emeralds and opals, which weighed half a ton : not to mention vases, censers, lamps of gold and silver, jewelled chalices, lecterns of wrought silver, silver doors, rare tapestries and hangings, robes and altar-cloths of silk and velvet set with pearls and precious stones and covered with golden embroideries. It was nothing particular to have a golden ciborium set with the most precious stones. We know that Ethelwulf, the father of King Alfred, bestowed gifts, consisting of a gold crown of four pounds
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OLD ST. PETER S. 237
weight, two dishes of the purest gold, a sword richly set in gold, two gold images, silver-gilt Saxon urns, stoles bordered with gold and purple stripes, white silken gar ments for celebrating the Mass, decorated with figures, and other costly articles of clothing required for the services of the Church.
Narratives of the period never cease dilating upon the immense treasures gathered there tabernacles, ciboria, crosses, vases, candelabra, cherubs, and statues. There was a porphyry balustrade, surmounted by alabaster columns with an architrave of silver, decorated with chalices, fteur-de-lys, and translucent vases ; in the centre there was an arcade surmounted by a golden Christ, attended by tall silver angels. The alabaster columns were spiral, and were surrounded by carved vine sprays ; according to tradition tney came from the Temple of Solomon. It was these, says Klaczko, which gave Bernini the idea of his frightful baldacchino (three of them are preserved in the present basilica). He believes that Giulio Romano s fresco in the Vatican Stanze, known as the Donation of Constantine, is a representation of the Old St. Peter s. " The scene takes place in the old basilica. In the background, in front of the High Altar, there are visible the twisted columns standing upon a stylobate, and supporting an architrave from which are suspended lamps. Is the production exact at every point ? This I should not dare to affirm ; but it is the work of Giulio Romano and his companions ; it dates from a time when the chancel was yet standing." Raffaelle evidently had this balustrade in his mind in his tapestry of the beautiful Gate of the Temple of Jerusalem.
Old St. Peter s consisted then of a great court, with
238 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
a splendid fountain in its centre, surrounded by a rich mass of vegetation, as sad as cypresses and as gay as roses, in its cloister garth; and with the cloister itself, like the narthcx, filled with the tombs of early Popes and Kings. More than fourscore Popes were buried in Sylvester s basilica, and it was only after the lapse of centuries that they were allowed to crowd into the church. The early Christians considered it irreverent to erect tombs in the churches themselves : the ancient Romans did not allow burials in the city bounds at all. St. Peter himself was buried in the ancient Roman fashion, alongside of one of the great roads leading out of Rome, the Via Cornelia, selected as the scene of his martyrdom.
The facades of both atrium and church glittered with mosaics like the facade of Santa Maria in Trastevere to-day. Against the exterior there was an agglomera tion of convents, minor churches, hospitals and houses, clinging to it like barnacles to a rock which is sub merged at high tide. As this hive of buildings stood on its lofty terrace, approached by marble steps and backed by the towered and battlemented castle of the Popes, in the fifteenth century, it was an Italian Nuremberg.
Inside the church the number of mosaics is incon ceivable to those who have not seen St. Mark s or the Royal Chapel at Palermo, especially noteworthy, as we know from the paintings preserved of it in the crypt of St. Peter s, being those of the Holy Lance. The mosaics of the great Triumphal Arch went back to Constantine, who placed upon it the inscription which recited the supremacy of St. Peter. Five gates gave access to the nave and the four aisles ;
OLD ST. PETER S. 239
the outside gate on the left was called the Port a or Janua Judicii, by which the dead were carried into the church. The massive gate in the centre was called the Porta Argentea, which was covered with silver plates. Next to it on the right was the Porta Roman a, which was reserved for the Roman people ; and on the left the Porta Ravignana, or Ravennata, because it was reserved for the inhabitants of Trastevere descended from the garrison sent from Ravenna by one of the Exarchs. The outside gate on the right, the Porta Guidonea, was used by the pilgrims.*
Old St. Peter s, with its atrium, was as long as the great church of to-day, and its width was not greatly less. It was venerable beyond all other churches in the world, not only for its hoary architecture, rich with the velvet touch of a thousand years, and its avenues of tombs of the great of the earth in mosaics and marbles ; it was rich beyond all other churches in relics of martyrs and apostles, yes, even of the Saviour Himself ; and the gold and silver offerings of the loyal and devout, which had accumulated in the centuries since the last sack of Rome. It was richest in sentiment and association, for it had been Christianity s Holy of Holies, where the successors of St. Peter had been enthroned, and had issued their messages to the world from the time almost the hour that Constantine made Christianity the reli-
- " Honorius covered the middle door of entrance with plates of silver, 975
pounds in weight. This door was called the Janua regia major or mediana, and from henceforward, also, on account of its adornment, argentea. An ancient inscription in verse, stating that Honorius had put an end to the Istrian schism, was fastened to it, whence it follows that the work would not have been exe cuted until after the year 630. The inscription simply speaks of the Pope as Duke of the people, Dux Plebis. The silver covering of the door may probably have been adorned with chased workmanship, since we can hardly suppose it to have been a plating of simple metal." Gregorovius.
240 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
gion of the Empire over which he ruled. In it Gregory the Great (d. 604) was borne to the tomb inscribed with the Conversion of England. In it Boniface VIII. (d. 1303), who died with unbeaten pride, was laid in the incomparable sarcophagus by Arnolfo di Lapo, which is still the glory of the crypt, though the actual sarco phagus is all that remains of his magnificent mortuary chapel : and in it Innocent III. (d. 1216), while smiting Europe with a rod of iron, found time to leave noble monuments in bronze and mosaic.
Old St. IVter s was the outward and visible sign of the Apostolic Succession. Here people could tread the stones trodden by the Christians in the day of Constan tino, who exulted in the fulfilment of the prophecy that the earth should be the Lord s.
It looked as if it had not been built by the hands of men, but moulded by time. The holiness which had accumulated in this building exceeded even the holiness of the Temple of Jerusalem. So many years, so many sacrifices, so many memories, so many remains of what was most sacred or most famous had been garnered into it. It is hard to believe that any Christian man would have dared to lay his hand on the church where nearly a hundred of the successors of St. Peter had been laid in the expectation that there they would rest till the Last Trump. But in the fifteenth century, the melting- pot of the Middle Ages, it began to be whispered that the old church was worn out and must come down. The best that can be said for those who repeated it is that Nicholas V. (d. 1455), the founder of archaeology, the first of all the Popes to love and try and save the treasures of antiquity, of which they were the heedless heirs, was convinced by the arguments of the Florentine
OLD ST. PETER S. 241
architect Albert!,* and began to build a new church round the old. He broke off his work, Was it because his heart failed him ?
Julius II. (died 1513) took up the work. To him nothing was sacred but the prestige of the Popes. He was, like Nero, consumed with a desire to rebuild Rome on an unprecedented scale, and. by a curious coincidence St. Peter s stands on the site of the Gardens and Circus of Nero. Nero was accused of burning Rome to secure a site for his building operations. Julius II. did not go so far ; he only broke up the church, which had been the cradle of Christendom for nearly twelve hundred years, in such indecent haste that the tombs of eighty- six of his predecessors were reduced to rubbish heaps. He could not even spare the masterpiece of Mino da Fiesole, the mausoleum of Paul II.
With the destruction of Old St. Peter s the mis fortunes predicted by the ancient superstition for any one who disturbed the tomb of St. Peter seem to have overtaken the Papacy. Old St. Peter s was the taber nacle of all Christendom, the present church is hardly more than the tabernacle of Southern Christendom.
- It is difficult not to execrate the memory of Alberti. In technical know
ledge of his profession he was a great architect : he showed both restraint and originality in the style which he evolved from a study of classical monuments, but like too many other Italians, he was ready to sacrifice the most precious monuments of antiquity to provide a platform upon which he could strut. He wanted Old St. Peter s to be destroyed, so that he might have the building of the New St. Peter s. " Here in 1457," says Gregorovius, " Alberti showed him his book on architecture, the first of the kind since Vitruvius, and his views on art, hostile as they were to Gothic architecture and Mediae valism, inaugurated a new age in architecture, which began with Nicholas V."
16
242
CHAPTER IV.
KKMAINS OF OLD ST. I KTKR S STILL SURVIVING
IN RO
MOST of the remains of Old St. Peter s are to be found in the crypt of the present church, the greater part of which, called by the Romans the (irotte Vecchie, pre serves the actual iloor of the old church intact. Another pi cce _a mosaic -belonging to the cha})el which John VII. (705-707) built in his short reign to receive the Volto Santo one of the major relics of the present church -is in the sacristy of S. Maria in Cosmedin. Coarse as it may seem in its present position, it never theless represents the most considerable artistic achieve ment of the age.
The remaining fragments are mostly in the present basilica. Important among them is a part of tin- mosaic called the Xavicella, designed by Giotto in 1298, but restored out of all recognition. It represented St. Peter walking on the waters ; and stood over the eastern entrance of the atrium in front of the old basilica. There are also three inscriptions which stood in front of the old basilica one of which is a grant of indulgences by the strenuous old Pope, Boniface VIII., on the occasion of the first jubilee, 1300; another, six hundred years earlier, records the grant of certain olive gardens for supplying the oil of the cathedral lamps by Gregory II. ; and the third far the most interesting of the three is that erected by Charlemagne over the tomb of Hadrian I., 77 2 ~795> which is thus
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 243
Englished by Mr. R. W. Seton Watson in his translation of Gregorovius s " Tombs of the Popes," published by Archibald Constable and Co., with whose permission I reproduce it.
" Here has Pope Adrian found his rest the Father of the Church,
The ornament of Rome, the immortal writer. For him, to live was God ; Piety was his law, his glory, Christ ;
He was an apostolic shepherd, ready for every good deed. He was noble by birth, and sprung from an ancient race ;
Yet nobler far by reason of his holy merits. The devout soul of this good Shepherd burned ever and in all places
To adorn the temples dedicated to God.
He heaped gifts upon the churches, and embued the people with the sacred dogmas ;
To all he opened the narrow way to Heaven.
Generous to the poor, unequalled in piety, and instant in devout prayers for all men,
He was the glory of the City and the World ; By his doctrines, by his treasures, by the walls he built,
He raised thy citadels to honour, O noble Rome !
Death has not harmed him, since Death was conquered by the Saviour s death- Nay rather, Death has become the gate of a better life. I, Charles, have writ these lines, in tears over my father.
O my father, my sweet love, for thee I mourn. O forget me not ! My thoughts are ever with thee.
Mayst thou abide with Christ in the blissful realms of Heaven ! Clergy and People alike loved thee with ardent love ;
Thou alone wert loved of all, O best of Pontiffs. Most illustrious of men, I link thy name and titles with my own
I, Charles the King, thou, Adrian the Pope. Ye who may chance to read these lines, say, with devout and suppliant heart,
Have pity upon them both, most merciful God ! May this thy body rest in peace, beloved Father,
And may thy gentle soul joy with the saints of God- Yea, till the last trump shall sound in thine ears.
Then rise with Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to behold thy God. Thou wilt hear, I know, thy Judge s clement voice,
Enter thou upon the great joys of thy Lord ! Then, most loving Father, be mindful, I beseech thee, of thy son !
And say, Let this my son gain entrance with his father ! O blessed Father, seek Christ s heavenly Kingdom,
And thence aid with thy prayers thine earthly flock ! While yet the ruddy sun shines forth from his flaming chariot,
Thy praise, Holy Father, shall never cease on earth.
Pope Adrian, of blessed memory, reigned twenty-three years ten months seventeen days, and died on the seventh of the Kalends of January."
16*
244 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
It is needless to say that Charlemagne did not write it himself, because he could not write. It is generally assigned to the famous English scholar, Alcuin, the most distinguished scholar of the eighth century, who, from being master of the cloister school at York, became the friend of Charlemagne, and made his court a school of culture for the hitherto barbarous Prankish Empire.
The great bronze doors of the central entrance of St. Peter s, which are only open for grand ceremonies, also belong to the old basilica. They were completed by Antonio Filarete and Simone (ihini in 1445 ; and, of course, refer to the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul. They are chiefly interesting as pourtraying several classical buildings which were then perfect, but have since been destroyed, including the so-called tomb of Romulus Meta Romuli , one of the landmarks on which the erroneous location of St. Peter s martyrdom was founded. From this, called also, in the Middle Ages, the tomb of Scipio perhaps in order to connect the great hero of Republican Rome with the chief of the Apostles -were taken the vast blocks of white marble with which Pope Donus paved the atrium of St. Peter s.
Inside the Cathedral the bronze statue of St. Peter, whose foot is kissed by the faithful, is of high antiquity. By its style it cannot have been the actual statue, as has been so often asserted, of Jupiter Capitolinus ; though it may have been cast from it, as another legend asserts, by S. Leo the Great, 440-461, since it is possibly of the fifth century, as Platner and Bunsen are ready to admit, though it is more like work of the sixth century. Marucchi thinks that Leo may have had the statue made out of gratitude for his repulse of Attila. The statue stood formerly in the oratory of St. Martin,
Ihc hron/e doors roinovod from Old St. I etor s to the present Church. They were made by Filarote and Ghini, and the bottom right panel shows the Tomb of Cains Cestius and Tomb of Romulus at the Duae Metae. - From, rhfo/. si s "II J a/ii a/io."
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 245
afterwards in the Chapel of SS. Processus and Martinian. Paul V. erected it in its present position. It is supposed to be the statue about which Pope Gregory II. wrote to Leo the Isaurian, who had threatened to destroy it, That the people would know how to defend it, and that he would not be answerable for the blood that might be shed."
The bronze grille of the Confessio was given by the great Pope Innocent III., who also ordered the mosaics lining the little chamber behind, which is right over the tomb of St. Peter, and contains the golden casket made by Benvenuto Cellini, used for the consecration of the pallium.
The great relics of the church, such as the Volto Santo, or S. Veronica s Handkerchief ; the Lance of S. Longinus, which pierced Our Saviour s side; the piece of the True Cross; and the Head of St. Andrew, not to mention the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul, were, of course, transferred from the old basilica.
The story of S. Veronica s Handkerchief is best told by Gregorovius (Hamilton s Translation), vol. ii., p. 198.
Tiberius, afflicted with incurable leprosy, one day informed the senators that, being beyond the aid of man, he must have recourse to heaven. He had been told that a divine magician, named Jesus, dwelt in Jerusalem, and he ordered the patrician Volusianus immediately to repair thither and implore the renowned physician to accompany him back to the Imperial court. Storms delayed the arrival of the messenger for a whole year ; and on reaching Jerusalem, Volusian was met by Pilate with regrets that the Emperor had not sooner made known his desires, as the magician
246 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
had already been crucified by the Jews. Volusian, unable to execute his commission, thought himself fortunate in obtaining a portrait of Jesus. Veronica, a pious matron, had wiped the face of the Saviour as lie passed, overpowered by the weight of the cross, and the Saviour, in return, had allowed the cloth to retain the impress of His features. Volusian conducted Veronica, and with her the portrait, back to Rome, bringing Pilate in chains on board the same vessel. When they arrived in the presence of the Emperor, Tiberius sentenced the ex-governor to life-long exile in the town of Ameria. The handkerchief he ordered to be brought before him, and hardly had he set eyes on it when he burst into tears, fell on his knees in adora tion, and immediately recovered of his leprosy. He heaped wealth upon Veronica, and had the handkerchief set in gold and precious stones, and preserved in his palace. He survived his recovery only nine months ; an interval which he spent in constant prayer to the Saviour and in adoration of His portrait."
Gregorovius adds in a foot-note, that the Jesuit Landsberg assures us that the portrait is true to life, and even discovers the print of the blow inflicted by an impious soldier on the face of Christ. He says that the legend is one of a number which bring the Pagan Emperors into Christianity, and attributes to the twelfth century the legend which relates that Tiberius, in conse quence of his miraculous cure, ordered Christ to be enrolled among the Gods, but admits that Bishop Orosius, who lived seven centuries earlier and who knew nothing of the Handkerchief, informs us that Tiberius, on the refusal of the Senate to enrol Christ among the
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 247
Gods, became suddenly transformed from an amiable prince into a cruel tyrant.
Roman Catholic hagiologists recognize that Veronica is a corruption of Vera Icon (the True Likeness), and do not claim that the devout woman was called Veronica. She is said to have lived to be a hundred, and bequeathed the Handkerchief at her death to Pope Clement, the fourth Pope, who was elected A.D. 91. The Popes kept it in their treasury till the time of Boniface IV., at the beginning of the seventh century. He gave it a shrine in the Pantheon, where a chest is still shown with a Latin inscription to this effect : In this chest the Cloth of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ was brought from Jerusalem to the Emperor Tiberius/ though it obviously has no pretensions to the necessary antiquity. John VII., about a century later, built the chapel for it at St. Peter s mentioned above. The S. Veronica of the Hagiology is a fifteenth century saint.
At the west end of the right aisle, in the chapel of the Pieta, are several most ancient objects. The first is the white marble column called the Colonna Santa, one of the twelve which ornamented the Confessio of the old basilica. It is said, writes the Rev. H. W. Pullen, to have been brought from the Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem ; and to be the one against which the Saviour leaned when he disputed with the Doctors. It is highly ornamented with wreaths and spiral flutings, and is enclosed in a pyramidal cage of iron- work. The marble well-mouth which surrounds the base was added by Cardinal Orsini in 1438.
On the opposite side of the chapel is a sarcophagus of the same century as the famous sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, which is one of the chief glories of the crypt.
24* THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
It belonged to Anicius Probus, who was also Prefect of Rome, and was a member of the Anicii, the greatest family in Rome at that period. This sarcophagus was formerly used as a pedestal for the baptismal font, and came from the mortuary chapel called the Templum Pi obi, which stood on the site of the present Sacristy.
The monument of tin.- Countess Matilda of Tuscany, who was the chief founder of the temporal power of the Popes, is on the pier just by the next chapel that of S. Sebastian. It belongs, however, not to the date of her death in 1115, but to that of the removal of her remains from Mantua to St. Peter s in i(J5 by I rban VIII. It is the work of Hernini. In the next chapel, that of the Holy Sacrament, through which the Pope enters St. Peter s from the Vatican, is the- gorgeous medi;eval tomb of Sixtus IV., executed by Antonio Pollaiuolo in 14 ).], which, in spite of its rather decadent and quite irreverent character, is one ot the finest bronze monuments in Italy. A little plain slab beside it marks the tomb of the ambitious Julius II., the real founder of the New St. Peter s. The tomb of Sixtus, who built the Sistine Chapel, though rich and beautiful, is neither elegant nor good art. The two spiral columns of Tyrian marble in this chapel are like that in the chapel of the Pieta, from the Confessio of Old St. Peter s. In the next chapel, the Cappella Gregoriana, is an ancient image of the Madonna di Soccorso, dating from 1118, which was in Old St. Peter s. Opposite the left aisle of the tribune is the Madonna della Colonna, consisting of a picture of the Madonna and Child, painted on a column of Porta Santa marble. I leave for fuller treatment below one of the earliest and most precious monu-
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 249
ments preserved in the Cathedral, the ancient Chair of St. Peter, which is kept either in the costly but hope lessly baroque monument, erected to receive it by Alex ander VII., or else, as some say, in a safe in the wall behind. In any case it occupies the centre of the tribune wall. The Cappella Clementina, near the entrance to the Sacristy, contains whatever remains there are, after so many removals, of the body of St. Gregory the Great. On a pier opposite the place where the body of the late Pope is always laid, until its new monument is ready, between the Chapel of the Presentation and the Choir of the Canons, is the tomb of Innocent VIII., erected in 1492, which is really the finest mediaeval monument in St. Peter s. Like that of Sixtus IV., it is by Antonio Pollaiuolo. But his brother, Pietro, collaborated in this monument, which is in far better taste. It was Innocent VIII. \vho built the villa in the Vatican gardens which is now the Sculpture Museum. Gregoro- vius, translated by Mr. Seton Watson, is perhaps a little too hard on this sculpture. " Like the Tomb of Sixtus^ it is paltry and full of affectation. The Pope lies upon a bronze sarcophagus, resting on the pier. Above the tomb he is represented once more, as in life, enthroned and raising his right hand in blessing, while he holds in his left the Holy Lance which came as a present from the Sultan Bajazet. On either side the niches of the pillars are filled with theological and moral virtues- Faith, Love and Hope, Justice, Courage, Moderation, and Wisdom. The inscription acclaims Innocent as the unwearied preserver of peace in Italy, and as the glory of the new world which was discovered in his reign."
In the Baptistery close by is the font, a magnificent
250 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
piece of porphyry which is wrongly claimed to have been the cover of the sarcophagus of the Emperor Otto II., who died in 983. It is also claimed to have been the lid of the sarcophagus in which Hadrian was buried in tlic Castle of Sant Angelo ; but it is now considered to have formed part of the sarcophagus of a much greater man the famous, or infamous, Crescentius, who was put to death by Otto III. in 996. Crescentius, calling hiinsi-lf Consul or Senator of Rome, on the plea of freeing the Roman- from the usurpations of Pope and Emperor, and giving them local self-government, seized the power himself. Otto, who was sixteen, had him executed in the Castle of S:mt Angelo and subjected his dead body to all manner of ignominy and contempt. Hut the Bonder of the icorld, as his own generation calls him, says Hryre in his " Holy Roman Empire," died child less on the threshold of manhood ; the victim, if we may trust the story of the times, of the revenge of Stephania, the widow of Crescentius, who ensnared him by her beauty, and killed him with lingering poison. Otto III. was not, as one guide-book states, buried in the crypt of St. Peter s ; he is buried in the choir of the Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, where Charlemagne lies.
The Sacristy contains some remains of Old St. Peter s, such as the three panels from the Con/essio of Old St. Peter s which were painted by (iiotto on both sides for Cardinal Stefaneschi. The frescoes, by Melozzo da Forli, are not, of course, from Old St. Peter s, but from the church of SS. Apostoli. In the Treasury of the Sacristy is the celebrated Vatican Cross which bears the name of the Emperor Justin II., 565-578, for whom it was made ; the wooden panelling, representing Our
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 251
Lord sitting between St. Peter and St. Paul, cannot, as Marucchi, the de Rossi of the day, points out, have been presented by Constantine the Great, as the legend on it claims, for it is clearly a work of the ninth century ; and the Slavonic inscription upon it has now been deciphered, and declares it to have been presented to the tomb of St. Peter s by S. Cyril and S. Methodius : Cyril was the church name adopted by a noble Roman of Thessalonica, named Constantine.
Of the famous relic of the Volto Santo, Marucchi says that, although it is certainly very ancient, there is no mention of it before Bernard of Soracte in the eleventh century. He adds that the reproductions of it are all imaginary ; on the original you can only see a few faint traces.
I suppose that the most of the general public imagine that the chair of St. Peter is the chair in which his statue sits in the nave of his cathedral for the faithful to kiss his foot, as the faithful have kissed the foot of this venerable image for twelve hundred years. This is not the chair of St. Peter. Only once in a hundred years do human eyes behold the chair which tradition claims to have been used by the Apostle in the meetings of the Earliest Church. Popular tradition believes it to be enclosed in the bronze chair, weighing, with its accessories, a hundred and nine tons, constructed at a cost of 24,000 by Bernini, for the rich Chigi Pope, Alexander VII. (1655-1667), a miracle of bad taste, one of the most vulgar monuments in the cathedral, which stands in the centre of the tribunal at the east end. It is not there, but in a cupboard behind, high up in the wall, locked with three separate keys, each kept by a different functionary. I append the description given of it by
252 T1IK SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
the chief ecclesiastical antiquary of Rome, Professor Marucchi, Ei mcnts d* Arch- ologic Chr- ticnnc." Professor Marueelii had the information from Signor de Rossi, one of the most famous of all Italian antiquaries, who was permitted by Pius IX. to examine the precious relic.
The chair <>t St. Peter is the most important relic of thr Apostle after his tomb. Several ancient testi- monii-s make allusion to tliis monument. Thus we have the words of St. Optatus of Milevum, \~itnnjuid fictcst diccrc in (\ithatrii I\ln ? quam ncscio si re I i>eutis nor it, et ad CHJUS tncmoriam non ueeedit </inisi schis)n(^t^c^ts. And for the seventh century at least we have the directions ot the I tint rant s. There also near the same road the Cornelian is the seat of the Apostles. YVe do not know where this chair was originally. I have shewn in a recent study entitled Sates itbi firms sat it S. I\ tn<s that we have ivasnns to place it in the cata comb of S. Priscilla, from whitdi it mi^ht ha\ - e been transported to the X atiean in the se\ eiuh century. It ha-, been >upposed that it is the same seat which served St. Peter in the Hou^e of Pudens, the magisterial chair of Pudens ; it is an idea inven for the first time in the .seventeenth century by Febeo. Altogether imaginary things have also been said on the other side. It has been pretended, lor example, that this chair was pagan. Lady Morgan has even affirmed that the inscription carved on it is Arabic, and contains a profession of the Mahometan faith. Signor de Rossi was able to study it at his leisure in 1867, when Pius IX. had it taken out of the monument constructed to receive it by Alex ander VII. and had it exhibited in the chapel of the Holy Sacrament. It is agreed that the actual chair is not
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 253
in the form of the ancient curule chairs ; it is Byzantine, and seems to have been made towards the end of the sixth century. Four or five little pieces much eaten away are let into it doubtless all that remains of the primitive chair. The decorations are of ivory and classic in character. They represent the Labours of Hercules. They would not have been allowed if the chair had been original, or even if it had dated back to the third or fourth century A.D. In the sixth they could no longer have had any pagan significance. I have discovered no trace elsewhere of the Arabic inscription."
Gregorovius, vol. i., p. 98 (Hamilton s Translation), says :
" Bishop Damasus placed in the Baptistery the chair which tradition, from the second century onwards, had alleged to have been the actual chair and seat of Peter. This remarkable seat, the most ancient throne in the world, first occupied by simple, unpretending bishops, then by ambitious Popes ruling nations and peoples, still survives. ... It is in reality an ancient sedan chair (Sedia Gestatoria) , to the now worm-eaten oak of which additions have from time to time been made in acacia wood."
After taking the same view of the ornamentation as Marucchi, he adds :
" Beyond doubt this celebrated chair, if not belong ing to Apostolic times, is of very great antiquity, though the suggestion that it may be the Sedia Curulis of the Senator Pudens is altogether untrustworthy."
The most important remains of Old St. Peter s are to be seen in the crypt, most of which, as I have said, formed part of the old basilica. The most remarkable exception is the so-called tomb of the Apostle to which I
254 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
have devoted much space in Chapter V. You can see nothing of the tomb ; all you see is the decadent altar which Clement VI II., \\ho did see the tomb (the only person, except two of his Cardinals and a few of his workmen, who had seen it for nearly eight hundred v<-ar> .erected between it and the eyes of future genera tion^ There is nothing in the Chapel of the Tomb to detain you one moment, except the infinite sanctity of the
- pot vhicli \\as the second cradle of Christianity. But
the crypts abound in fragments of the grand old basilica, which was lor more than a thousand years to Christen dom what the Temple of Jerusalem was to the Jews. Right at the threshold of the Chapel of the Tomb is the sarcophagus of Junius liassus, the young prefect of Rome who embraced Christianity, and died in his year ot grace, litteeii hundred and fifty years ago, the one Christian sarcophagus in St. Peter s, if not in Rome, which still hold> the bones that were laid in it by the mourners.
And all round this >ide of the tomb, occupying perhaps almost the identical spot they occupied in Old St. Peter s, are the panels made to ornament th- Confessio by Matteo Pollaiuolo for Pupe Sixtus IV. These tell the story of the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul; for the old basilica was dedicated to both saints.
On the opposite side of the semicircular passage which constitutes this side of the new crypt, are precious fragments of the High Altar which Sixtus IV. erected over the Confessio , twelve quaintly-carved Apostles from the atelier of Giovanni Dalmata, carved with the mediaeval suggestiveness the Japanese use in pourtraying their sages.
Between the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus and the
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 255
entrance to the old crypt are the gems of Old St. Peter s, the masterpieces of Mino da Fiesole carved to decorate the magnificent tomb of the superb Venetian Pope, Paul II., including the exquisite representations of Faith, Charity, and the Original Sin.
Beyond that in the old crypt lie the tombs of the Colonna-Caetani Princess and all the Popes who were buried in Old St. Peter s except Gregory V., and one of the Borgias (seemingly Calixtus III. rather than the terrible Alexander VI.), whose uses we are beginnii g to discover. Young Otto s tomb close by, though ic may hold the bones of one who was the first figure in the world nearly a thousand years ago, has no value for us ; it is as clumsy as a plaster whale. The mosaics of the old church, saved in the old crypt, are mostly of the coarsest kind ; but there is the stone, if its identity can be established, on which the bodies of the martyrs St. Peter and St. Paul were divided ; and the tombstone of Charlotte of Cyprus, who succeeded to the kingdom of the Lusignans in 1458, just too late to be associated with the immortal discovery of printing in the Thirty-One- Line and Thirty-Line Indulgences of Pope Nicholas V. Here, too, is the epitaph of Amory de Montfort, the weakling son of Simon de Montfort, who was once dictator of England. He gave up the heritage of the Counts of Toulouse to France ; he was taken prisoner by the Saracens in the Holy Land ; but he warred mightily against the Albigenses, the defenceless heretics on his own lands, making us feel how good was that day at Evesham when the tall young Prince of England, who was to be the conqueror of Scotland and Wales, and to establish the manner of laws under which all the civilized world was to come in the fulness of time,
256 THE SECRETS OF THE VATICAN.
struck down his father s haughty and rebellious subjects, the party of Montfort. The next inscription is almost the most interesting heirloom we have in the crypt of the Old St. Peter s, the celebrated copy, carved in marble, of the donation of the Countess Matilda.
f ; ew women have ever played so great a part in the world a^ the Countess of Tuscany, who founded the temporal power of the Popes by supporting them with all her lorces during her life, and bequeathing her dominions to the Holy See when she died. If she had held her hand, even Gregory VII., the mighty Pontiff who had been Hildebrand, must have gone down before the violence of the Emperor Henry IV., who did penance to him at Canossa. But for her, the Popes would have been no more than patriarchs, with no force but those of sanctity and righteousness moral powers, awed by violence, maintained by a willingness for martyrdom.
In the south arm of the new crypt, close by other precious memorials of the old church, fragments, for example, of the ciborium in which Innocent VIII. enclosed the pri/e of his life, the Holy Lance sent to him by the Turkish Sultan, are the mosaics from young Otto s tomb, bas-reliefs of exquisite beauty from the gardens of Nero, in whose Circus St. Peter was martyred; and sketches of the old church itself and of its various shrines, by those who had seen them iu their glory. The finest of the inscriptions here tells us that Pope Saint Damasus drained the Vatican Hill to provide the water for his Baptistery; his drain is still perfect under the courtyard of the palace which bears his name beneath the windows of the Pope. Here, too, are the inscriptions of the first four Leos, all saints, and a portrait in mosaic of John VII., executed in his life-
Crypt, rrom Fisfo/esrs " // Vaticano?
\Facing page 256.
REMAINS OF OLD ST. PETER S. 257
time, and another panel of the mosaics which made his chapel of the Volto Santo the most famous building of his time. Here, above all, is the beautiful throne of the Avignon Pope, Benedict XII., who adopted the triple crown to show the three-fold nature of the sovereignty of the Popes. His image is there, strong, phlegmatic, almost Egyptian in its massive strength. There is no throne in all Rome as beautiful and majestic as his. On it is seated an old, old statue of St. Peter, a Roman Consul presented with the Apostle s head and hands. Here is even the great stone cross which stood upon the fa$ade of the elder church ; and the exquisite bust of the eighth Boniface, by Arnolfo himself. The statues of the Apostles come from the tomb of Nicholas V., the founder of the greatness of the Vatican.
And they all, as it were, lead up to that most holy image of the Virgin, who stood in the portico of the old church, and when she was struck on the cheek with a stone, bled like a human being. The stones where the blood fell are here too, protected by iron bars, for the lips and fingers of the faithful, if not the blood- drops themselves, had worn the spots into holes which threatened to consume the entire stones.
Truly Old St. Peter s is in the crypt. When we have permission to wander there we are surrounded by the faith, as well as the monuments, of the Middle Ages.
CHAPTER V. THE CRYPT OF ST. PETER S.
I Hl I.IMIXARV NOTE UPON HOW TO OBTAIN ADMISSION.
IN theory, anyone can obtain permission to visit the crypt of St. Peter s nowadays. Still, to get the permission involves a good deal of delay and difficulty. For first you must catch Monsignor Bisleti, the Pope s Maggior- domo at the Vatican, and obtain his permission, and then you have to get the further permission of another Monsignor at the Segretariat of the Reverenda Fabbrica cli S. Pietro, in the Via di Aracceli, more than a mile off ; and they are both at home only at rather inconvenient hours. If you are short of time it is an economy to take a three-franc ticket at the English Library for Mrs. Pearde Beaufort s lecture on the Crypt of St. Peter s. She is allowed to stay longer in the crypt than a person with an ordinary permcsso ; when you are with her you do not waste time in hunting out the principal objects yourself ; you are taken straight to them : and there is so much to see that there is not a minute to spare. The heads of various colleges for priests also give lectures, but not often in English, and admission to them is a favour. Unless you are a privileged person you are only allowed to remain in the crypt for half an hour.
There are several entrances to the crypt ; that by which the public are now admitted is at the foot of the
Plan of the Crypt of St. Peter s. From rislolcsis " // Vaticano."
A. Piloiie (Pier) and <~apt elln ( Chapel) of S. Veronica;
it is here that visitors descend into tlie i rypt.
B. Southern Corriilor of the Grotte Nuove leading to
the Cappella (li -. Maria della Bocciata.
C. Cappella del alvatorino.
/>. Capoella rti S. Maria della Bocciata.
E. South Corridor leading into the Confessio.
F. Cappella di S. Maria detta delle Partorienti.
G. Southern Corridor leading to the Grotte Vecchie. //. Pilone e Cappella di S. Andrea (Pier and Chapel
of St. Andrew).
J. The Colonna-Caetani Chapel. /., A ., L. The three Naves of the Grotte Vecchie. M. The Pier and Chapel of S. Longinus. A r . The North Corridor of the Grotte Nuove, leading
to the Grotte Vecchie.
0. The North Corridor of the Grotte Xuove, leading
to the Confessio of St. Peter s. P. The portion of the North Corridor of the Grotte
Nuove which contains the masterpieces of Mino
da l-Mesole.
Q. Pier and Chapel of St. Helena. I!. Portion of the North Corridor, the Grotte Nuove,
wlrch contains the northern portion of the
Confessio of Matteo Pollaiuolo. S. The Chapel of the Tomb of St. Peter, with the
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus opposite its
entrance. T. The portion of the South Corridor of the Grotte
Nuove which contains the southern part of the
Confessio of Matteo Pollaiuolo.
CRYPT: GROTTE NUOVE (NORTH). 259
pier in which the "precious relic of S. Veronica s hand kerchief is kept. In the time of Misson, who visited St. Peter s in the reign of Queen Anne, the public were admitted through the Confessio itself. He says, " Under this altar (i.e., the High Altar) there is a pair of stairs which leads to the chapel where St. Peter s body is pretended to be kept, and to the other Holy Places in the vaults of this church."
" At the entry to these grottos I observed a Bull en graved with marble (hue mulieribus ingredi non licet, nisi unico die Lunae post Pentecosteri), by which women are forbidden to enter the place, save only on Whit Monday, on which day it is declared unlawful for any man to come there ; and whosoever shall act contrary to either of these prohibitions is anathema. These places are dark, and the sexton told us that the order was occasioned by a certain amorous adventure. There is an Indulgence of seven years for every step of the stairs that lead to St. Peter s Chapel, granted to such as descend them with due devotion."
NOTE. It was inevitable that, in the writing of this chapter, I should constantly have to refer to Gregorovius s "Tombs of the Popes " and "History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages." In the former I have always used the translation by R. W. Seton Watson, of Ayton, published by Archibald Constable and Co., and in the latter the translation by Annie H