Ave Roma Immortalis Volume Ii Part 9

During these ma.s.ses motetts are sung by the famous Sixtine choir, under the direction of the old Maestro Mustafa, once the greatest soprano of the century, but at the same time so accomplished a musician as to have earned the common name of 'Palestrina redivivus.' It is to be regretted that he has never allowed any of his beautiful compositions to be published. On such occasions as Christmas Day or the feast of Saint Joachim, by whose name the Pope was christened, he receives the College of Cardinals, the bishops present in Rome, many prelates, the heads of religious bodies, some officers of the old pontifical army and of the guards, and the dignitaries of the papal court, in his own private library, where he talks familiarly with each in turn, and quite without ceremony. Reigning sovereigns, princes and distinguished persons are received in the grand throne-room, where the throne is covered with red velvet, with coats of arms at the angles of the canopy. Upon a large pier-table, in the rococo style, between the windows and opposite the throne, stands a great crucifix of ivory and ebony, between two candlesticks. The carpet used at such times was presented by Spain.

Before the Emperor of Germany's visit the Pope himself gave particular directions for the dressing of the throne and the arrangement of the rooms.

When great personages are received their suites are also presented, after which the Pope retires with his guest to the small private throne-room.

Before coming to the Pope's presence it is necessary to pa.s.s through many anterooms, the Sala Clementina, the hall of the palfrenieri and sediarii,--that is, of the grooms and chair-porters,--the hall of the gendarmes, the antechamber of the Palatine Guard, that of the officers on duty, the hall of the Arras, that of the chamberlains and n.o.ble Guards and at last the antechamber of the Maestro di Camera--there are eight in all. Persons received in audience are accompanied by the 'camerieri segreti,' who do the honours in full dress, wearing their chains and carrying their staves.

The private library is a s.p.a.cious room lined with bookcases made of a yellow wood from Brazil, some of which are curtained. Busts of several former Popes stand upon marble columns.

To the Pope's bedroom, only his private valet and his secretaries have access. It is of small dimensions, and contains only a bed, in an alcove adorned with graceful marble columns, a writing-table, an arm-chair and kneeling stool, and one wardrobe.

Besides these, there is his private study, in which the table and chair stand upon a little carpeted platform, other tables being placed on each side upon the floor, together with an extremely uncomfortable but magnificent straight-backed arm-chair, which is one of the gifts offered on the occasion of the episcopal jubilee. There is, moreover, a little room containing only a lounge and an old-fas.h.i.+oned easy-chair with 'wings' and nothing else. It is here that the Holy Father retires to take his afternoon nap, and the robust nature of his nerves is proved by the fact that he lies down with his eyes facing the broad light of the window.

The private apartment occupies the second floor, according to Italian reckoning, though we Americans should call it the third; it is on a level with Raphael's loggie. The floor above it is inhabited by Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State.

The 'pontifical court,' as it is called, consists (1898) of Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State; Cardinal Mario Mocenni, the pro-prefect of the Holy Apostolic Palaces, a personage of the highest importance, who has sole control of everything connected with the Vatican palace and all the vast ma.s.s of adjoining buildings; the Maggiordomo, who, besides many other functions, is the manager of the museums, galleries and inhabited apartments; the Maestro di Camera, who nearly corresponds to a master of ceremonies, and superintends all audiences; the almoner and manager of the papal charities, a.s.sisted by a distinguished priest, who is also a lawyer, formerly secretary to the well-known Monsignor de Merode; a monk of the Dominican order, who supervises the issuing of books printed at the Vatican; a chief steward; four private secretaries, who take turns of service lasting a week for each, and are always with the Pope, and finally the chief of the Vatican police. Moreover, his Holiness has his private preacher, who delivers sermons before him in Advent and Lent, and his confessor, both of whom are always Capuchin monks, in accordance with a very ancient tradition.

It must not be supposed by the uninitiated that these few persons in any way represent the central directive administration of the Catholic Church. On the contrary, the only one of them who is occupied in that larger field is Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State. The others are, strictly speaking, the chief personages of the pontifical household, as we should say. But their offices are not sinecures. The Pope's restless energy extracts work from the men about him as one squeezes water from a sponge. In the days of Pius the Ninth, after the fall of the temporal power, the Vatican was overrun and overcrowded with useless but well-paid officials, officers and functionaries great and small, who took refuge there against the advancing wave of change. When Leo the Thirteenth had been on the throne only a few weeks, there was sold everywhere a comic print representing the Pope, with a huge broom, sweeping all the useless people pell-mell down the steps of the Vatican into the Piazza of Saint Peter's. As often happens, the caricaturist saw the truth. In a reign that has lasted twenty years, Leo the Thirteenth has done away with much that was useless, worthless and old-fas.h.i.+oned, and much that c.u.mbered the narrow patch of earth on which so important a part of the world's business is transacted. He is a great simplifier of details, and a strong leveller of obstructions, so that his successor in the pontificate will find it a comparatively easy thing to keep the mechanism in order in its present state.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VATICAN FROM THE PIAZZA OF SAINT PETER'S]

The strictest economy, even to the minutest details, is practised in the Vatican. It appears certain that the accounts of the vast household have often been inspected by the Pope, whose prime object is to prevent any waste of money where so much is needed for the maintenance of church inst.i.tutions in all parts of the world. In the midst of outward magnificence the papal establishment is essentially frugal, for the splendid objects in the Pope's apartments, even to many of the articles of furniture, are gifts received from the faithful of all nations. But the money which pours into the Vatican from the contributions of Catholics all over Christendom is only held in trust, to be expended in support of missions, of poor bishoprics, and of such devout and charitable organizations as need help, wherever they may be. That nothing may be lost which can possibly be applied to a good purpose is one of Leo the Thirteenth's most constant occupations. He has that marvellous memory for little things which many great leaders and sovereigns have had; he remembers not only faces and names, but figures and facts, with surprising and sometimes discomfiting accuracy.

In his private life, as distinguished from his public and political career, what is most striking is the combination of shrewdness and simplicity in the best sense of both words. Like Pius the Ninth, he has most firmly set his face against doing anything which could be construed as financially advantageous to his family, who are good gentlefolk, and well to do in the world, but no more. All that he has as Pope he holds in trust for the Church in the most literal acceptation of the term. The contributions of Catholics, on being received, are immediately invested in securities bearing interest, which securities are again sold as may be necessary for current needs, and expended for the welfare of Catholic Christianity. Every penny is most carefully accounted for. These moneys are generally invested in Italian national bonds--a curious fact, and indicative of considerable confidence in the existing state of things, as well as a significant guarantee of the Vatican's good faith towards the monarchy. It is commonly said in Rome among bankers that the Vatican makes the market price of Italian bonds. Whether this be true or not, it is an undeniable fact that the finances of the Vatican are under the direct and exceedingly thrifty control of the Pope himself. To some extent we may be surprised to find so much plain common sense surviving in the character of one who has so long followed a spiritual career. We should not have looked for such practical wisdom in Pius the Ninth. But the times are changed since then, and are most changed in most recent times. The head of the Catholic Church today must be a modern man, a statesman, and an administrator; he must be able to cope with difficulties as well as heresies; he must lead his men as well as guide his flock; he must be the Church's steward as well as her consecrated arch-head; he must be the reformer of manners as well as the preserver of faith; he must be the understander of men's venial mistakes as well as the censor of their mortal sins.

Battles for belief are no longer fought only with books and dogmas, opinions and theories. Everything may serve nowadays, from money, which is the fuel of nations, to wit, which is the weapon of the individual; and the man who would lose no possible vantage must have both a heavy hand and a light touch.

By his character and natural gifts, Leo the Thirteenth is essentially active rather than contemplative, and it is not surprising that the chief acts of his pontificate should have dealt rather with political matters than with questions of dogma and ecclesiastical authority. It has certainly been the object of the present Pope to impress upon the world the necessity of Christianity in general, and of the Roman Catholic Church in particular, as a means of social redemption and a factor in political stability. This seems to be his inmost conviction, as shown in all his actions and encyclical letters. One is impressed, at every turn, by the strength of his belief in religion and in his own mission to spread it abroad. In regard to forms of faith, the opinions of mankind differ very widely, but the majority of intelligent men now living seem to hold a more or less distinct faith of one sort or another, and to require faith of some sort in their fellow-men. Common atheism has had its little day, and is out of fas.h.i.+on. It is certainly not possible to define that which has taken the place of the pseudo-scientific materialism which plagued society twenty or thirty years ago, and it is certainly beyond the province of this book to examine into the current convictions with which we are to begin the twentieth century.

Unprejudiced persons will not, however, withhold their admiration in reviewing the life of a man who has devoted his energies, his intelligence and his strength, not to mention the enormous power wielded by him as the head of the Church, to the furtherance and accomplishment of ends which so many of us believe to be good. For the pontificate of Leo the Thirteenth has differed from that of his predecessor in that it has been active rather than pa.s.sive. While Pius the Ninth was the head of the Church suffering, Leo the Thirteenth is the leader of the Church militant. This seems to be the reason why he has more than once been accused of inconsistency in his actions, notably in his instructions to French Catholics, as compared with the position he has maintained towards the Italian government. People seem to forget that, whereas the question of temporal power is deeply involved in the latter case, it has nothing whatever to do with the former, and as this question is the one most often brought up against the papacy and discussed in connection with it by people who seem to have very little idea of its real meaning, it may be as well to state here at once the Pope's own view of it.

'The temporary sovereignty is not absolutely requisite for the existence of the papacy, since the Popes were deprived of it during several centuries, but it is required in order that the pontiff's independence may display itself freely, without obstacles, and be evident and apparent in the eyes of the world. It is the social form, so to say, of his guardians.h.i.+p, and of his manifestation. It is necessary--not to existence, but to a right existence. The Pope who is not a sovereign is necessarily a subject, because (in the social existence of a monarchy) there is no mean term between subject and sovereign. A Pope who is a subject of a given government is continually exposed to its influence and pressure, or at least to influences connected with political aims and interests.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAPHAEL'S "TRANSFIGURATION"]

The writer from whom these lines are quoted comes to the natural and logical conclusion that this is not the normal position which should be occupied by the head of the Church. I may remark here that the same view is held in other countries besides Italy. The Emperor of Russia is the undisputed head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Queen Victoria occupies, by the British Const.i.tution, almost exactly the same position towards the Anglican Church. In practice, though certainly not in theory, it is the evident purpose of the young German Emperor, const.i.tutionally or unconst.i.tutionally, to create for himself the same dominant pontifical position in regard to the Churches of the German Empire. It seems somewhat unjust, therefore, that the Popes, whose right to the sovereignty of Rome was for ages as undisputed as that of any King or Emperor in Europe, though secondary in itself to their ecclesiastical supremacy, should be blamed for protesting against what was undoubtedly a usurpation so far as they were concerned, although others may look upon it as a mere incident in the unification of a free people.

Moreover, since the unification was accomplished, the vanquished Popes have acted with a fairness and openness which might well be imitated in other countries. The Italians, as a nation, possess remarkable talent and skill in conspiracy, and there is no organization in the world better fitted than that of the Roman Catholic Church for secretly organizing and carrying out a great political conspiracy, if any such thing were ever attempted. The action of the Popes, on the contrary, has been fair and above board.

Both Pius the Ninth and Leo the Thirteenth have stated their grievances in the most public manner, and so far have they been from attempting to exercise their vast influence in directing the politics of Italy that they have enjoined upon Italian Catholics to abstain from political contests altogether. Whether in so doing they have pursued a wise course or not, history will decide, probably according to the taste of the historian; but the fact itself sufficiently proves that they have given their enemies more than a fair chance. This seems to have been the form taken by their protests; and this is a fair answer to the princ.i.p.al accusation brought by non-Catholics against the Pope, namely, that he is ready to sacrifice everything in an unscrupulous attempt to regain possession of temporal power. In other matters Leo the Thirteenth has always shown himself to be a statesman, while Pius the Ninth was the victim of his own meek and long-suffering character. To enter into the consideration of the political action of the Pope during the last fifteen years, would be to review the history of the world during that time. To give an idea of the man's character, it would be sufficient to recall three or four of the princ.i.p.al situations in which he has been placed. A volume might be written, for instance, on his action in regard to the German Army Bill, his position towards Ireland, his arbitration in the question of the Caroline Islands, and his instructions to French Catholics.

It is extremely hard to form a fair judgment from doc.u.ments alone, and especially from those doc.u.ments which most generally come before the public, namely, articles in such reviews as the _Contemporary Review_, on the one hand, and the _Civilta Cattolica_ on the other. Indeed, the statements on either side, if accepted without hesitation, would render all criticisms futile. Devout Roman Catholics would answer that matters of faith are beyond criticism altogether; but the writers in the _Contemporary_, for instance, will, with equal a.s.surance, declare themselves right because they believe that they cannot be wrong. It would be better to consult events themselves rather than the current opinions of opposite parties concerning them, to set aside the consideration of the aims rightly or wrongly attributed to Leo the Thirteenth, and to look only on the results brought about by his policy in our time. In cases where actions have a merely negative result, it is just to consider the motive alone, if any criticism is necessary, and here there seems to be no particular reason for doubting the Pope's statement of his own case. For instance, in connection with Ireland, the Pope said, in the doc.u.ment known as 'The Circular Letter of the Propaganda': 'It is just that the Irish should seek to alleviate their afflicted condition; it is just that they should fight for their rights, nor is it denied them to collect money to alleviate the condition of the Irish.' In regard to the same matter, the 'Decree of the Holy Office'

reads as follows: 'The Holy See has frequently given opportune advice and counsel to the Irish people (upon whom it has always bestowed especial affection), whenever its affairs seem to require it, by which counsel and advice they might be enabled to defend and vindicate their rights without prejudice to justice, and without disturbing the public peace.' A fairer statement of the rights of men, and a more express injunction against public disturbance of any kind, could hardly be expressed in two short sentences.

Outside of Italy the position of Leo the Thirteenth in Rome is not generally understood. Most people suppose that the expression 'the prisoner in the Vatican,' which he applies to himself, and which is very generally applied to him by the more ardent of Italian Catholics, is a mere empty phrase, and that his confinement within his small dominion is purely a matter of choice. This is not the case. So far as the political theory of the question is concerned, it is probable that the Pope would not in any case be inclined to appear openly on Italian territory unless he showed himself as the official guest of King Humbert, who would naturally be expected to return the visit. To make such an official visit and such an appearance would be in fact to accept the Italian domination in Rome, a course which, as has already been noticed, would be contrary to the accepted Catholic idea of the social basis necessary for the papacy. It would not necessarily be an uncatholic act, however, but it would certainly be an unpapal one. No one would expect the ex-Empress of the French, for instance, to live openly in Paris, as though the Parisians had never been her subjects, and as though she accepted the Republic in a friendly and forgiving spirit. And the case is to all intents and purposes exactly identical.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOGGIE OF RAPHAEL IN THE VATICAN]

But this is not all. It is unfortunately true that there is another and much better reason why Leo the Thirteenth cannot show himself in the streets of Rome. It is quite certain that his life would not be safe.

The enthusiastic friends of Italy who read glowing accounts of the development of the new kingdom and write eloquent articles in the same strain will be utterly horrified at this statement, and will, moreover, laugh to scorn the idea that the modern civilized Italian could conspire to take the life of a harmless and unoffending old man. They will be quite right. The modern civilized Italians would treat the Pope with the greatest respect and consideration if he appeared amongst them. Most of them would take off their hats and stand aside while he drove by, and a great many of them would probably go down upon their knees in the streets to receive his blessing. The King, who is a gentleman, and tolerant of religious practices, would treat the head of the Church with respect. The Queen, who is not only religious, but devout, would hail the reappearance of the pontiff with enthusiasm. But unfortunately for the realization of any such thing, Rome is not peopled only by modern civilized Italians, nor Italy either. There is in the city a very large body of social democrats, anarchists and the like, not to mention the small nondescript rabble which everywhere does its best to bring discredit upon socialistic principles--a mere handful, perhaps, but largely composed of fanatics and madmen, people half hysterical from failure, poverty, vice and an indigestion of so-called 'free thought.'

There have not been many sovereigns nowadays whose lives have not been attempted by such men at one time or another. Within our own memory an Emperor of Russia, a President of the French Republic and two Presidents of the United States have been actually murdered by just such men. The King of Italy, and the Emperor William the First, Napoleon the Third, Queen Victoria and Alexander the Third have all been a.s.sailed by such fanatics within our own recollection, and some of them have narrowly escaped death. Not one of them, with the exception of Alexander the Third, has been so hated by a small and desperate body of men as Leo the Thirteenth is hated by the little band which undoubtedly exists in Italy today. I will venture to say that it is a matter of continual satisfaction to the royal family of Italy, and to the Italian government, that the Pope should really continue to consider himself a prisoner within the precincts of the Vatican, since it is quite certain that if he were to appear openly in Rome the Italian authorities would not, in the long run, be able to protect his life.

After all that has been said and preached upon the subject by the friends of Italy, it would be a serious matter indeed if the Pope, taking a practical advantage of his theoretic liberty, should be done to death in the streets of Rome by a self-styled Italian patriot. No one who thoroughly understands Rome at the present day is ignorant that such danger really exists, though it will no doubt be promptly denied by Italian ministers, newspaper correspondents or other intelligent but enthusiastic persons. The hysterical anarchist is unfortunately to be met with all over the world at the present day, side by side with the scientific social democrat, and too often under his immediate protection. Indeed, a great number of the acts of Leo the Thirteenth, if not all of them, have been directed against the ma.s.s of social democracy in all its forms, good, bad and indifferent; and to the zeal of his partisans in endeavouring to carry out his suggestions must be attributed some of the strong utterances of the Church's adherents upon matters political.

The question of 'a.s.sent and obedience' to the Holy See in matters not relating to dogma and faith is, perhaps, the most important of all those in which the papacy is now involved. There appears to be a decided tendency to believe that Catholics ascribe to the Holy See a certain degree of infallibility in regard to national policy and local elections. The Pope's own words do not inculcate a blind obedience as necessary to the salvation of the voter, though it is expressly declared a grave offence to favour the election of persons opposed to the Roman Catholic Church and whose opinions may tend to endanger its position.

The idea that the Pope's political utterances can ever be considered as ex cathedra is too illogical to be presented seriously to the world by thinking men. Leo the Thirteenth is undoubtedly a first-rate statesman, and it might be to the advantage not only of all good Catholics but of all humanity, and of the cause of peace itself, to follow his advice in national and party politics whenever practicable. To bind oneself to follow the political dictation of Leo the Thirteenth, and to consider such obedience to the Pope as indispensable to salvation, would be to create a precedent. Pius the Ninth was no statesman at all, and there are plenty of instances in history of Popes whose political advice would have been ruinous, if followed, though it was often formulated more authoritatively and more dictatorially than the injunctions from time to time imparted to Catholics by Leo the Thirteenth. An Alexander the Sixth would be an impossibility in our day; but in theory, if another Rodrigo Borgia should be elected to the Holy See, one should be as much bound to obey his orders in voting for the election of the President of the United States as one can possibly be to obey those of Leo the Thirteenth, seeing that the divine right to direct the political consciences of Catholics, if it existed at all, would be inherent in the papacy as an inst.i.tution, and not merely attributed by mistaken people to the wise, learned and conscientious man who is now the head of the Catholic Church. But the Pope's utterances have lately been interpreted by his too zealous adherents to mean that every Catholic subject or citizen throughout the world, who has the right to vote in his own country, must give that vote in accordance with the dictates of the Church as a whole, and of his bishop in particular, under pain of committing a very grave offence against Catholic principles. A state in which every action of man, public or private, should be guided solely and entirely by his own religious convictions would no doubt be an ideal one, and would approach the social perfection of a millennium. But in the mean time a condition of society in which society itself should be guided by such political opinions as any one man, human and limited, can derive from his own conscience, pure and upright though it be, would be neither logical nor desirable. There are points in the universal struggle for life which do not turn upon questions of moral right and wrong, and which every individual has a preeminent and inherent right to decide for himself.

Anyone who undertakes to speak briefly of such a personage as Leo the Thirteenth, and of such a question as the 'a.s.sent and obedience' of Catholics in matters not connected with morals or belief, lays himself open to the accusation of superficiality. We are all, however, obliged to deal quickly and decisively, in these days, with practical matters of which the discussion at length would fill many volumes. Most of us cannot do more than form an opinion based upon the little knowledge we have, express it as best we may, and pa.s.s on. The man who spends a lifetime in the study of one point, the specialist in fact, is often too ignorant of all other matters to form any general opinion worth expressing. Humanity is too broad to be put under a microscope, too strong to be treated like a little child. No one man, today, in this day of many Caesars, can say surely and exactly what should be rendered to each of them.

Leo the Thirteenth is the leader of a great organization of Christian men and women spreading all over the world; the leader of a vast body of human thought; the leader of a conservative army which will play a large part in any coming struggle between anarchy and order. He may not be here to direct when the battle begins, but he will leave a strong position for his successor to defend, and great weapons for him to wield, since he has done more to simplify and strengthen the Church's organization than a dozen Popes have done in the last two centuries. Men of such character fight the campaigns of the future many times over in their thoughts while all the world is at peace around them, and when the time comes at last, though they themselves be gone, the spirit they called up still lives to lead, the sword they forged lies ready for other hands, the roads they built are broad and straight for the march of other feet, and they themselves, in their graves, have their share in the victories that save mankind from social ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE VATICAN

The Mons Vatica.n.u.s is sometimes said to have received its name from 'vaticinium,' an oracle or prophecy; for tradition says that Numa chose the Vatican hill as a sacred place from which to declare to the people the messages he received from the G.o.ds. It is not, however, one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built, but forms a part of a ridge beginning with the Janiculum and ending with Monte Mario, all of which was outside the ancient limits of the city. In our day the name is applied only to the immense pontifical palace adjacent to, and connected with, the basilica of Saint Peter's.

The present existence of this palace is princ.i.p.ally due to Nicholas the Fifth, the builder pope, whose gigantic scheme would startle a modern architect. His plan was to build the Church of Saint Peter's as a starting point, and then to construct one vast central 'habitat' for the papal administration, covering the whole of what is called the Borgo, from the Castle of Sant' Angelo to the cathedral. In ancient times a portico, or covered way supported on columns, led from the bridge to the church, and it was probably from this real structure that Nicholas began his imaginary one, only a small part of which was ever completed. That small portion alone comprises the basilica and the Vatican Palace, which together form by far the greatest continuous ma.s.s of buildings in the world. The Colosseum is 195 yards long by 156 broad, including the thickness of the walls. Saint Peter's Church alone is 205 yards long and 156 broad, so that the whole Colosseum would easily stand upon the ground-plan of the church, while the Vatican Palace is more than half as long again.

Nicholas the Fifth died in 1455, and the oldest parts of the present Vatican Palace are not older than his reign. They are generally known as Torre Borgia, from having been inhabited by Alexander the Sixth, who died of poison in the third of the rooms now occupied by the library, counting from the library side. The windows of these rooms look upon the large square court of the Belvedere, and that part of the palace is not visible from without.

Portions of the substructure of the earlier building were no doubt utilized by Nicholas, and the secret gallery which connects the Vatican with the mausoleum of Hadrian is generally attributed to Pope John the Twenty-third, who died in 1417; but on the whole it may be said that the Vatican Palace is originally a building of the period of the Renascence, to which all successive popes have made additions.

The ordinary tourist first sees the Vatican from the square as he approaches from the bridge of Sant' Angelo. But his attention is from the first drawn to the front of the church, and he but vaguely realizes that a lofty, unsymmetrical building rises on his right. He pauses, perhaps, and looks in that direction as he ascends the long, low steps of the basilica, and wonders in what part of the palace the Pope's apartments may be, while the itinerant vender of photographs shakes yards of poor little views out of their gaudy red bindings, very much as Leporello unrolls the list of Don Giovanni's conquests. If the picture peddler sees that the stranger glances at the Vatican, he forthwith points out the corner windows of the second story and informs his victim that 'Sua Sant.i.ta' inhabits those rooms, and promptly offers photographs of any other interior part of the Vatican but that. The tourist looks up curiously, and finally gets rid of the fellow by buying what he does not want, with the charitable intention of giving it to some dear but tiresome relative at home. And ever afterward, perhaps, he a.s.sociates with his first impression of the Vatican the eager, cunning, scapegrace features of the man who sold him the photographs.

To fix a general scheme of the buildings in the mind one must climb to the top of the dome of the church and look down from the balcony which surrounds the lantern. The height is so great that even the great dimensions of the biggest palace in the world are dwarfed in the deep perspective, and the wide gardens look small and almost insignificant.

But the relative proportions of the buildings and grounds appear correctly, and measure each other, as it were. Moreover, it is now so hard to obtain access to the gardens at all that the usual way of seeing them is from the top of Saint Peter's, from an elevation of four hundred feet.

To the average stranger 'the Vatican' suggests only the museum of sculpture, the picture-galleries and the Loggie. He remembers, besides the works of art which he has seen, the fact of having walked a great distance through straight corridors, up and down short flights of marble steps, and through irregularly shaped and unsymmetrically disposed halls. If he had any idea of the points of the compa.s.s when he entered, he is completely confused in five minutes, and comes out at last with the sensation of having been walking in a labyrinth. He will find it hard to give anyone an impression of the sort of building in which he has been, and certainly he cannot have any knowledge of the topographical relations of its parts. Yet in his pa.s.sage through the museums and galleries he has seen but a very small part of the whole, and, excepting when in the Loggie, he probably could not once have stood still and pointed in the direction of the main part of the palace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BELVEDERE COURT OF THE VATICAN GALLERY

From a print of the last century]

In order to speak even superficially of it all, it is indispensable to cla.s.sify its parts in some way. Vast and irregular it is at its two ends, toward the colonnade and toward the bastions of the city, but the intervening length consists of two perfectly parallel buildings, each over three hundred and fifty yards long, about eighty yards apart, and yoked in the middle by the Braccio Nuovo of the Museum and a part of the library, so as to enclose two vast courts, the one known as Belvedere,--not to be confused with the Belvedere in the Museum,--and the other called the Garden of the Pigna, from the pine-cone which stands at one end of it.

Across the ends of these parallel buildings, and toward the city, a huge pile is erected, about two hundred yards long, very irregular, and containing the papal residence and the apartments of several cardinals, the Sixtine Chapel, the Pauline Chapel, the Borgia Tower, the Stanze and Loggie of Raphael, and the Court of Saint Damasus. At the other end of the parallelogram are grouped the equally irregular but more beautiful buildings of the old Museum, of which the windows look out over the walls of the city, and which originally bore the name of Belvedere, on account of the lovely view. This is said to have been a sort of summer-house of the Borgia, not then connected with the palace by the long galleries.

It would be a hopeless and a weary task to attempt to trace the history of the buildings. Some account of the Pope's private apartments has already been given in these pages. They occupy the eastern wing of the part built round the Court of Damasus; that is to say, they are at the extreme end of the Vatican, nearest the city, and over the colonnade, and the windows of the Pope's rooms are visible from the square. The vast ma.s.s which rises above the columns to the right of Saint Peter's is only a small part of the whole palace, but is not the most modern, by any means. It contains, for instance, the Sixtine Chapel, which is considerably older than the present church, having been built by Sixtus the Fourth, whose beautiful bronze monument is in the Chapel of the Sacrament, in Saint Peter's. It contains, too, Raphael's Stanze, or halls, and Bramante's famous Loggie, the beautiful architecture of which is a frame for some of Raphael's best work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MICHELANGELO'S "LAST JUDGMENT"]

But any good guide book will furnish all such information, which it would be fruitless to give in such a work as this. In the pages of Murray the traveller will find, set down in order and accurately, the ages, the dimensions, and the exact positions of all the parts of the building, with the names of the famous artists who decorated each. He will not find set down there, however, what one may call the atmosphere of the place, which is something as peculiar and unforgettable, though in a different way, as that of Saint Peter's. It is quite unlike anything else, for it is part of the development of churchmen's administration to an ultimate limit in the high centre of churchmanism.

No doubt there was much of that sort of thing in various parts of Europe long ago, and in England before Henry the Eighth, and it is to be found in a small degree in Vienna to this day, where the traditions of the departed Holy Roman Empire are not quite dead. It is hard to define it, but it is in everything; in the uniforms of the attendants, in their old-fas.h.i.+oned faces, in the spotless cleanliness of all the Vatican--though no one is ever to be seen handling a broom--in the noiselessly methodical manner of doing everything that is to be done, in the scholarly rather than scientific arrangement of the objects in the museum and galleries--above all, in the visitor's own sensations. No one talks loudly among the statues of the Vatican, and there is a feeling of being in church, so that one is disagreeably shocked when a guide, conducting a party of tourists, occasionally raises his voice in order to be heard. It is all very hard to define, while it is quite impossible to escape feeling it, and it must ultimately be due to the dominating influence of the churchmen, who arrange the whole place as though it were a church. An American lady, on hearing that the Vatican is said to contain eleven thousand rooms, threw up her hands and laughingly exclaimed, 'Think of the housemaids!' But there are no housemaids in the Vatican, and perhaps the total absence of even the humblest feminine influence has something to do with the austere impression which everything produces.

On the whole, the Vatican may be divided into seven portions. These are the pontifical residence, the Sixtine and Pauline chapels, the picture galleries, the library, the museums of sculpture and archaeology, the outbuildings, including the barracks of the Swiss Guards, and, lastly, the gardens with the Pope's Casino. Of these the Sixtine Chapel, the galleries and museums, and the library, are incomparably the most important.