The Tombs of the Popes Landmarks in Papal - Forgotten Books

T H E TO M B S O F

T H E P O P E S

LANDMARKS IN PAPAL

HISTORY

BY FERDINAND GREGOROVIUSTRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND AND ENLARGED

GERMAN ED IT ION , W ITH A MEMO IROF THE AUTHOR, BY

R . W. SETON -WATSONAuthor of

MAXIM ILIAN I

F ructus mundi m ina .—Popz GREGORY I

WESTMINSTER

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE CO LTD2 WH ITEHALL GARDENS

1903

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rmo Worms,FROMt , AND LONDON .

M Y G RAN DF AT HER

GEORGE SETON

ON HIS

E I G H TY - F I RS T B I RT H DAY

THE TOMES OF THE POPES


idea upon which this outline of Papal history is based .

It is sufliciently orig'inal to be quoted here

To the lover of history nothing is more agreeableand stimulating than to give form and feature to the

past by the contemplation of her monuments . Inthis way History herself grows living as a portrait .In our own days she is slowly but surely rising in herstrength above the other Sciences, and at the sametime with transfigured countenance . Her documents,explored and examined more lovingly than ever before—.ln other words , the living representation of herscenes and her monuments— are laying the foundation of a new epoch in the cultivation of the Sciences.This is the sense in which the author would havehis present study on the Papal monuments re

Its plan was conceived some years ago in St.Peter’s, where one day the sight of Paul I II .

’

s statuefilled me with a sense of perplexity. As I gazed uponthese mysterious figures grouped around the Church ,and solemnly stretching forth their hands in blessing ,like a Senate of gods or of guardians of this mightytemple

,it struck me that it would surely be profitable

to search out the scattered tombs of the Popes, andby their aid to depict the histo ry of the Papacy, asthough in a sculptor’s relief.

Roman task, since in Rome more than in any othercity of the world, Research follows closely in the foot

prints of Death. And in no other spot upon this

globe is the human heart so frequently oppressed by'

the spirit of melancholy, as at the feet of RomaImmortalis, who still stands there amid the ruins of

x

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION

centuries, beautiful and sorrowing, the mangledNemesis of history, still holding in her hand the rollon which the fates of the nations are inscribed .

These hours of labour I do not feel that I have spentin vain ; and I have sought to free my spirit from theshadow of the dead,by laying this offering before theirshrine ." To me ,

" he tells us, The Tombs of thePopes ’ have served as a compass for my larger workand I regard the essay as in some sense a vestibule ,within which I have fitted up, for my own edification

and as a summary oi‘

historic eras, the busts, thesarcophagi , and the monuments of the Popes ."

sole apology for its failings lies in the style of theoriginal . Wholly suited to the subject with which itdeals, it seems hewn from the solid marble, andreminds one, in its rugged yet concise and vivid lines,of Michael Angelo , to whose Moses it devotes astriking paragraph .

In one instance only have I departed from thescheme of the original . Gregorovius relegated theLatin epitaphs to an Appendix , and placed in the bodyof the text his own translations in German hexameters . In spite of his genuine poetic talent, theselatter form the one weak point of the essay, and donot encourage me to venture upon a poetical version .

I have therefore placed the Latin in the text, givingthe translations in footnotes . More than one of theseepitaphs is obscure and barbarous, and in such cases(see pp . 30, 52 , 68) I have followed the reading givenby Gregorovius in his German translation .

In the choice of illustrations, I have endeavouredto steer a middle course betw een the purely historical

and the purely artistic points of view . Gregorovius

xi 6


naturally lays most stress on the former of thm . Agood example of this is to be found in his attitudetowards the exquisite tomb of Benedict XI . at Perugia,which he virtually ignores, because of that Pope ’scomparative insignificance . From the fact thatGregorovius gives the Cathedral as Benedict

’s placeof interment— instead of S . Domenico , as it shouldbe— one cannot but suspect that when this essay wasw ritten he was as yet unfamiliar with Perugia, andthat the error escaped his notice in a subsequent edition . This tomb, and that of Gregory X ., I havereproduced, on the ground of their architecturalbeauty . Objections may be raised to the omission ofthe tombs of Gregory VII . and Innocent III the two

mightiest of all the Popes— but, being limited to adefinite number, I decided to confine myself to con

temporary monuments . That in memory of GregoryVII . was only erected in 1573, and that of InnocentIII . in 1890, so that they cannot possibly be regardedas characteristic of their own epochs. One furtheromission

‘ may be noticed— the tomb of Leo X . ButI was unwilling to insult the memory of that Maecenasof the Papacy, by giving prominence to such anartistic monstrosity as his tomb, and have thereforesubstituted for it that ofAdrian VI the last foreignerwho has occupied the throne of St. Peter— the singular beauty of which offers a striking contrast to hiswell - known aversion to all forms of Art. The tombof Paul IV though utterly devoid of artistic merit,has been thought worthy of insertion in the series, onaccount of the remarkably vivid description withwhich it is honoured by Gregorovius . That of

Urban VIII . is given as a specimen of the workof Bernini. No lover of art will demand an apology

xu

TRANSLATOR’

S INTRODUCTION

for the inclusion of three monuments from the handof Canova ; while the figure of Pius IX . , the Priamof the Papacy,” is of such universal interest, that hismonument could not well be passed over.

R. W. S . W.

August 1 , 1903.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Tomb of Paul IV in S . Maria sopra Mlnerva, Rome

Gregory X.. in Arezzo Cathedral

III in 8 . M 00, Perugia

v in the Latex-an. Rame

IV., in St. Peter’s, Rome

Julius II in S. Pieu'o - in -Vlnculis, Rome

Adm VI ., in 8 . Maria dell’ An ima, Rome

Paul I II in St. Peter’s, Rome

St. Pius V., in 8 . Maria Maggiore, Rome

UM VI I I in St. Peter’s, Rome

in SS . Apostol i, Rome

in St . Peta “s, W e

Pius IX., in S . Lom zo, cutemo Rome

MEMOIR OF GREGOROVIUS .

Imagination is as much needed for the historian as the poet .

M z'

fln Coum l

To be a great historian , and no t a mere chronicler, he muat be an

FERDINAND GREGOROVIUS (whose essay on

the Papa tombs is now rendered into Englishfor the first time) was born at Neidenburg, in EastPrussia, close to the Polish frontier, on January 19,

182 1 . His father, whose ancestors for three generations had been Lutheran clergymen, held the post ofKmk and was a man of strict and earnestcharacter— a disciplinarian who lived only for hiswork. His mother, a woman of tall stature and no

mean beauty, succumbed to the curse of consumption , when Ferdinand was only ten years old.

The chief feature of the little town is an old

Castle of the Teutonic Knights ; and this owed itsrestoration mainly to the efl‘orts of Perdinand

'

s

father, who took his family to live within its walls .Thus Romance and History— those two elements

nor g .—My aim has been to prepare a short summary 01

Gregm'ovius

' life and ideas, for the benefit of those who have notleisure to read through his interesting but rather bulkyRbmische Tagebtlcher,

"or even his “Briefe an Hermann von

Thile." I have therefore quo ted his own words to a somewhatgreater degree than the proportions of the essay may seem to

justify.xvu


which he has blended with equal charm and skill inall his works— surrounded the future historian fromhis childhood ; and the impression was deepened bythe grim scenes which he witnessed as a boy duringthe Polish Insurrection of 1830 . At the gymnasiumin Gumbinnen he early displayed a love of historyand geography, and indulged these growing tastes byporing over books of travel . In 1833 his romantictendencies received a fresh stimulus from theexample of an elder brother, who took service underthe Bavarian Otto , when he accepted the throne ofGreece . In 1838 he went to the University of

Konigsberg, and, in accordance with his father’swish, applied himself to theology . But the studyproved uncongenial , and although he passed his firstpublic examination , and even preached on more thanone occasion , he soon abandoned all thoughts of

making the Church his profession . As the youngestof eight children, he could not rely upon muchsupport from his father, who was a man of smallmeans . Thrown largely upon his own resources, hesupported himself for several years by privateteaching, and graduated in the Philosophical faculty,with a dissertation on The Neo - Platonists and theirConception of the Beautiful . Between 1845 and 185 1he wrote many lyrics of his own , and plungedeagerly into Italian literature, studying the DivineComedy with more than ordinary enthusiasm. Histhoughts were turning more and more towardsRoman History ; but as yet his eyes rested on theRome of the Caesars, not the Rome of the Popes.In 1848 he completed a sketch of the EmperorHadrian ; but the events of that wild year of

revolution rendered publication impossible, and itxvm

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that Gregorovius’ dislike was largely justified by

subsequent events . His attitude throughout theItalian War of Liberation was that of Laocoon

Tt'

meo Danae: at dorm forester. In the spring of

1859 he records in his Roman Journal Napoleon isnow deified . If I hold up his past to Italians in theirenthusiasm , and draw my conclusions from hisposition and own necessities, they tell me, Shouldthe Devil himself offer us a league, we would acceptit, if he could but shake off the Austrian yoke .

’ Theclosing year verified his assertion that Napoleon didnot wish Italy to be free, but only to keep his holdupon the country. The

.

Peace of Villafrancarevealed to Europe his double - faced and treacherousattitude . Gregorovius

’ commentary upon this eventis highly characteristic . That adventurer in themask ofWashington has conquered, and boldly buildsup the great cardhouse of his lies before the eyes ofEurope , without Truth finding breath enough to blowdown the hollow phantom .

" And again, Since theNice - Savoy bargain , in which both sides were equallyshameless, I do not parade my Italian sympathiesany longer. The complete perversion of all rightand all honour is too repellent. Now Mephistophelesrules in the world .

Nor was this the only occasion on whichGregorovius

’ historical judgment helped him to asound estimate of contemporary events . Evenbefore the war of 1859 he had called France " amere whited sepulchre and his letters and journalsmake it quite evident that he at least never reallyfeared the issue of a war between his own fatherlandand the

'

Empire of the third Napoleon . Everyhistorian has his national prejudices, like other men .

xx

MEMOIR OF GREGOROVIUS

But Gregorovius , unlike some of his compeers,realized his lack of sympathy with Gallic amand had the wisdom always to avoid France in hischoice of a subject .It was not until the year 1852 that his somewhatscanty means permitted him to cross the Alps, andto reach the Eternal City, the dream of all his earlylife . On his way a happy inspiration— the longing tosee an island for the first time—led him to

Corsica, whose beauties and romance he has celebrated in a delightful volume of travel pictures)Leaving home as he did under a cloud of personalsorrow and bereavement, he found his salvation here .Corsica, he says, “ tore me away from my griefs ;it purified and strengthened my nature it freed meby ofi

'

ering me work, whose material I had gleanedfrom nature and from life ; and it has set firm groundbeneath my feet.

" The volume on Corsica was soonfollowed by other travel - sketches h'

om various parts ofItaly— sketches which can only be rivalled by thosefrom the pen of John Addington Symonds, who is inmany respects the English counterpart ofGregorovius.

In Rome he took up his abode in a tiny roomon the

highest story of a house near the Pincian Hill, wherehis window commanded an inspiring view across theEternal City, and where he envied no Emperor hisPalace .

” Among the many wonders of Rome, thosewhich appealed most to his imagination were thePonte Molle, where the great Constantine beheld theheavenly vision of the Labarum— the Church of St .Lorenzo , where so many of the German Emperors

‘This was translated no fewer than three tlmes into Bngliah, andwas reviewed by Lord Ellesmere in the Quarterly Review 01

1854

xxi


were crowned—the House of Rienzi the Tribune,

and the vast tomb of Caecilia Metella on the Appian

Gibbon conceived the idea of w riting his immortal

Gregorovius took up the task which Gibbon had

Rome ; and he too could give “ a local habitationto his dream . In October 1854 he makes the followingentry in his Journal : “ I intend to write the historyof the City of Rome during the Middle Ages. For

this work, it seems to me, one really needs a mandatefrom Jupiter Capitolinus himself. The thought cameto me as I stood enraptured at the view of the City

,

as seen from the island bridge of St. Bartolomeo . Imust take in hand something great, which shallimpart meaning and substance to my life . For thenext few years he devoted himself heart and soul toamassing material for his great work.

“The historyof Rome,

" he wrote, stands above me in my nightslike a distant star. Yet should fate only permit meto complete it, no sofi

'

ering in all the world could beso great, that I would not bear it manfully. Romeis the daemon with whom I struggle . If I amvictorious in the strife— if I can shape this over

inquiry and artistic treatment, then I too shall be aTriumphator.” For many months after his arrivalhe lived a somewhat secluded life ; but as time wenton he entered more and more into the life of Rome,making acquaintances among the distinguished menof all nationalities, who found their w ay to theEternal City, and never allowing the historian todegenerate into the pedant. Among his intimate

xxi i

MEMO IR OF GREGOROVIUS

friends during the Roman period of his life , may bementioned Count Paolo Perez, whose brilliantintellect and literary know ledge were all too soonburied from the world in a convent of the RosminianOrder ; Clemens August Alerts , formerly physicianto Gregory XVI . , who for many years had beenbehind the scenes at the Vatican , and who generouslyplaced his splendid private library at Gregorovius

'

disposal , De’ Rossi , the great Roman archa eologist

Cornelius, the German painter Baron von Thile,with whom Gregorovius kept up a life - long correspondence ; Franco is Sabatier, who translated intoFrench his essay on the Papal Tombs the Duke ofSermoneta, head of the great Roman family of

Gaetani, whose steady friendship and influenceopened to him the doors of many of the Romanarchives ; Minghetti, the Italian statesman andauthor of a life of Raphae l ; Don Luigi Tosti, ofMonte Casino , the biographer of Boniface VIIIBaron von Hubner, the Austrian ambassador andbiographer of Sixtus V and the historiansGiesebrecht , Gervinus and Alfred von Remnant .Among our own countrymen he enjoyed the friendship of the late Lord Acton, with whom he frequentlydiscussed the Roman question ; while during his visitsto Florence he spent many a pleasant evening at thevilla of the Brownings .It was not till November 1856 that he committed topaper the first words of his history.

“ Aftet ad

put down my pen that afternoon, I went to theForum . It was raining , but soon cleared . Then inthe Colosseum I saw the most noble sunset cloudefi

'

ects ; a fiood of purple shed itself over the ruins of

the Palatine, the Amphitheatre stood out in magicxxi i i


confiagration . I enjoyed a consecrated hour, andreturned home bright and happy .

All through the stirring events of 1859- 60Gregorovius

worked steadily at his history, the first three volumesofwhich had ere then issued from Baron Cotta ’spress at Stuttgart . In the latter year, through theinfluence of his friend Von Thile, and Baron Bunsen ,he received an annual grant of zoo thalers for two

years from the Prussian Government, to enable himto pursue his studies in the mediaeval history of theCity. This was several times renewed at a later date,and relieved him from much of the anxiety arisingfrom his slight means and unremunerative occupation .

Meanwhile his Journal afi'

ords ample proof of hiskeen interest in every detail of the Italian Revolution .

Its pages sparkle with succinct and brilliant summariesof questions of the day, which in a few words bringthem into line with incidents of the historic past.Here in Rome, in the Eternal City, he became imbuedwith a sense of the passing nature of all humanthings, and it is this feeling which explains more thanone passage in his essay on the Papal Tombs . As helooked on at the Feast of Corpus Christi in theLateran, with all its gorgeous ritual, he thought ofthe long centuries whose powers had combined to

produce all this, which now stands there as a symbolof mankind. They too will pass away : other templeswill arise, and ivy will cling around the ruins of St .John ’s and St. Peter's, just as now around those of

Ninfa . In October 1860 he writes, The manner inwhich Piedmont possessed herself of the PapalStates, and forced her way into Naples, certainly

See pp . 3-7 , 154-6.

xxiv


recalls the days of Louis XIV. If the Italian Revolution has a great national result, then and only thenw ill it be possible to overlook the means employed .

”

And in November, Pius IX . finds himself in alabyrinth , whose exit he does not see, and does noteven seem to look for . His pod tion , under the

one w ith pity . But this soft - hearted romanticistsighs prayers to the Madonna, and in his efl’eminate

features there is no trace of deep feeling, only of

lassitude . While the pictures of Mazzini , Cavour,Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi were in everybody’shands, Gregorovius recorded in his Journal a briefsentence, which becomes infinitely suggestive whenapplied to the events pa sing before his eyes Ifind that in the history of Italy three types continuallyrecur— Machiavelli , Caesar Borgia, and the Con

I have no opinion , he writes to his friend VonThile , “ as to the result of this strange revolution ,but I have always preferred an eager flowing stream ,

whose direction I do not know, to a sluggish, stagnant swamp ; and to this Italy has gradually sunk .

The Papacy, whose great civilizing (kulturgu dn’

dzt

tibia) task I marvel at, but must consider almost atan end , seems to me to - day an image of theColosseum— a great moral ruin, propped up by newbut faulty walls . It may still endure for centuries,but its great epoch lies behind it, and the beginningof its ruin dates from our Reformation . The Statesof the Church may have been a political necessity inthe Middle Ages, but nowadays this is no longer thecase , when Rome and the Papal throne have ceased

xxv

THE TOMBS OF THE POPES

to be the apple of discord for kings and nations .

Yet though I sympathize with the Italian movement,Rome under a Monarchy would be unendurable tome , and I do not believe in its realization .

” Herefor once Gregorovius was at fault . His pregnantsentence , “ The history of the City of Rome is thedrama , often renewed, of the protest of the Individual against the System ,

"did not enable him to

forecast the City ’s future . The glamour of Romehad wrapped him round, and his love for her, despiteall her mediaeval anachronisms, blinded him to thepossibility of a new birth .

In 1862 , during a visit to Munich, Maximilian II .made an effort to retain him in the Bavarian Athens,as one of the brilliant literary coterie which he wasthen gathering around him . But Gregorovius gratefully yet firmly declined.

“ I have never been inany man'a service . My nature would rebel againstit. All I am I owe to myself, and ish to remain

free ; this independence is my only good.

have drunk too long at the breasts of the Romanshe -wolf, who is also the goddess of Stoic Independence .

” Much as he admired the kindly King of

Bavaria, he could not reconcile himself to being one

of the show - plants in his literary hot- house ’

; and,

more than all, his work demanded his presence inRome . On very much the same grounds, whenAmari, the distinguished historian , then ItalianMinister of Instruction , sent him the Order of

SS . Maurizio and Lazaro, he declined it, because hewished to remain free . “ I am writing the Historyof Rome for no other party than that of Truth. Ibelieve, too , that among my many faults and weaknesses vanity does not occupy the first place .” In

xxvi


having written anti - Papal articles in the AugsburgerAllgemeine Zeitung, the paper to which he had contributed so many of his Ita lian sketches . As amatter of fact, Gregorovius steadily refused to writeupon the subject of the Vatican Council , and politelydeclined to furnish Douinger w ith private contributions as to the march of events in Rome . Indeedhis intercourse w ith the latter did not blind him to

the fact that Dollinger was unfitted to be the leaderof any religious movement ; and in 1872 he wrote asfollows : Without the fire of Faith streaming fromthe heart, one cannot conceive of a Reformer.Doninger possesses no single qualification , and theOld Catholic movement is only a trifling upheaval ,whose force w ill expend itself in the lecture - room .

”

His opinion on the celebrated w ork of “ Janusdeserves to be recorded . This book, he says, isone of the most violent Reformation tracts ’ whichhas ever appeared against the Papacy since thedays of Occam and Marsiglio of Padua . Luther hasscarcely said more than stands written in its pages .Its author distinctly severs himself from the RomanChurch .

"

With each sitting of the Council, feeling in Romegrew more embittered ; the extremists of the Vaticanw ere making their supreme efl

'

ort. Even the nobleMontalembert, ever one of the champions of theCatholic faith , was made the victim of their spitefuland ungenerous attacks . A climax was reached

,

when Strossmayer made a gallant stand against thescurrilous abuse of Protestants, in which certainmembers of the Council indulged ; he was hoo teddown amid a scene of tumult worthy . of the Frenchrevolutionary Committees . On March 28, 1870,


Gregorovius was denied access to certain manuscriptsin the Vatican Library. In his Diary he has re~

corded the smile of malice upon the face of theJesuit father who imparted this unwelcome news .But he felt that he too could wear a smiling face.

His great work was now approaching completionthe Jesuits had delayed their blow too long . Not

many weeks after, Theiner ,1 the librarian of theSecret Archives , was abruptly dismissed from hispost . Wishing one morning to consult some documents , he found to his surprise that his private keysno longer fitted, and that the old locks had beenremoved . Such w as his first intimation of the Papaldispleasure— a typically Roman method of procedure .

Pius IX . summoned Theiner to his presence , and

indulged in a long tirade against him for his disloyalty in supplying Bishop S trossmayer w ith documents about the Tridentine Council , and in permitting Lord Acton to gain access to the SecretArchives .Under the strain of these days of party feeling andmutual suspicion , Gregorovius expressed himself inhis Roman Journal " in a manner more than usually

The fanaticism is boundless . We have lost thefeeling of security, and after eighteen years ofmy lifein Rome, I feel more of a stranger than on the firstday . The air is morally tainted ; I loathe the verysight of these old and new idols , and this eternalcondition of lies, hypocrisy, and crass superstition .

I could almost despair of humanity, not on account

Editor of the Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S .

Sedis and of “Vetera Monuments Hibernorum atque Scotorumhistoriam illustrantla .

"

xxix


of the priests—who , after all , must carry on theirhandiwork— but on account of those who are theirslaves." (June 19,On July 4 Gregorovius left Rome for Munich ,

filled with the presentiment of mighty eventsin the near future . By the end of the month thethunder - clouds gathering on the far horizon had burstover Europe, and the w orld stood watching withbated breath , as the great whirlpool of war sweptinto its vortex the petty schemes and passions of theindividual . Historical w ork was thrown aside, and afeverish expectancy seized upon Gregorovius, as uponso many of his countrymen . Yet his pen was by no

means idle . In swift succession he put forth a seriesof articles bearing on events of the day Europe andthe Declaration ofWar Nemesis ” ; Italy and theGerman Nation France ’s Guilt and Punishment“Alsace and Lorraine once more Pavia and SedanParis and Rome .

" His poetic Muse , so long idle,waskindled by the dreadful siege of Strassburg . He paida visit to the town , when still half in ruins afler thebombardment, and composed an open letter to theGerman people , commending her citizens to theirgenerous care . On October 7 , he was a witness of

the mighty struggle outside Metz, in which hisbrother took an honourable part as colonel of artillery

(winning the Iron Cross for his brave conduct) . It isonly at the end of this month , when he had returnedonce more to his old quarters in Rome, that we findin his diary the first reference to the entrance of theItalian troops and the fall of the Temporal Dominion .

So absorbed had he been in the fortunes of his ownfatherland .

His attitude towards the great change can best bexxx


realized by some additional extracts from his RomanJournal z

Among the Italians I see only the courage of

violent deeds, nowhere the courage of Faith in a greatmoral ideal . They can demolish ; but reconstructionis inconceivable , so long as the nation is lacking inmoral strength .

“ If self- criticism is a symptom of a new birth at

the national sentiment, the Italians are to d ay on agood path . They carry this to the length of cynicism ;

they lay bare the weak points of their nation in themost unsparing fashion . They are unanimous inagreeing that the moral condition of the people offersa contrast to its po litical achievements . They haveacquired a national form , as though over- night, andthis form is without substance . They assert thiseven to the lengths of self- despair. It is a

unless a moral revolution goes hand in hand w ith it .For this, the Italians are wanting in conscience andmoral energy .

The old Rome is perishing . In twenty years '

timc ; there will be a new world here . NewRome belongs to the new race : I belong to the old

Rome, in whose enchanted stillness my History of

the City came into being. Only in it could I

Now they are scraping off the rust of centuries, andone realizes for the first time how hideous Rome is ,from an architectural po int of view . This conversionof the Holy City into a temporal capital forms thereverse of that time when Pagan Rome was con

verted w ith equal seal into a home of the Chriatian

xxxi


bureaus : barred - up convent w indow s are opened, or

new ones are let into the wall . After centuries, sunand air on ce more find their way into these haunts ofmonks and nuns. The Middle Ages are blownaway, as though by a Tramontana, w ith all the historic spirit of the past. Yes, this Rome is disenchanted indeed .

I do not consider the Italians capable of reforming Catholicism , and of freeing themselves, by aspiritual effort, from the idolatrous cult of their Saintsand dogmas. But it may well happen that the old

Church should die out here in Indifl'

erentism.

The Papacy is a Latin form , and will cease onlywith the Latin race itself. If Gervinus had seen themanythousandswho streamed to Rome forthis festival,he would have altered his view s about the enduranceof the Papacy. The judgments of Protestants in thisdirection all err through a false conception of the Latinworld, which they do not know, and whose spiritualimpulses they estimate by a Teutonic measure . Butthe Papacy and Catholicism are forms firmlyimprinted on the Latin nationality, and in them its lifew ill long continue to express itself.”

When Gervinus laid stress on Garibaldi ’s open hostility to Catholicism , Gregorovius told him that thiswas nothing new— that the Pope and the priesthoodhad in all ages been the objects of satire in Italy, andhad yet ruled Italy in spite of this. He remindedhim of Boccaccio ’s anecdote of the converted Jew,

and told him that the Romans, if they drove out thePope by one gate, would infallibly call him in atanother.In July 1872 Gregorovius received the flattering

xxxii


offer, on behalf of the Roman Municipality, to bearthe entire cost of the Italian translation of hisHistory of Rome . He was, moreover, the first nonCatholic to be raised to the dignity of CivisRomanus -a title on which he set a higher valuethan on any other honour. And in February, 1874,he received the further distinction of being placedupon the Index . Had this step been taken after theappearance of his first two volumes, his design w ouldhave been nipped in the bud ; for every library inRome would have closed its doors upon him . But onJanuary 19, 187 1— his fiftieth birthday— he had pennedthe concluding words of the History of the City of

Rome , and could aflord to snap his fingers at thetardy, though venomous, onslaught of his enemies.Besides, as he had the penetration to discern, thisdart is launched not so much against me , as againstPrussia, where Bismarck, as the priests cry, is like anew Diocletian persecuting Christianity— and perhapstoo against the Municipality of Rome , at whose costmy book is being printed at Venice. My work iscompleted, and is spreading in the world ; the Pope isnow advertising it for me .

”

As a kind of afterthought to his History of Rome ,he completed in May 1874 a study of LucreziaBorgia — based mainly on the unpublished lettersand documents which he had unearthed in theArchives of Rome and Mantua . Objections havebeen raised to this volume, as being too full of mereconjecture ; but this w as perhaps inevitable in thecase of a subject that is so shrouded in mystery asthe history of the Borgia . Certainly none can represent it as lacking in descriptive power or vivid


On July 14, 1874, after a long tour with his brotherin Apulia, Gregorovius bade adieu to his lodgings on

the Pincian , thus severing a connexion with theEternal City which had lasted for twenty - two years .His reason for this all - important step may be given inhis own wordsMy decision is final , to rejoin my family in

Germany. My mission in Rome is ended . I washere an ambassador, in the most modest form , and yetperhaps in a higher sense than diplomatic ministers .I , too , can say what Flavius Blondus said of himself — ‘ I created what was not yet there, Icleared up eleven dark centuries of the City, andgave 10 the Romans the history of their Middle Age .

That is my monument here . Now I may depart inpeace . Yet it is a tremendous thought that allthis inmost and most intimste part of my old selfwill soon belong to the past. In these days I haveoften started out of my sleep at night, wakened andtortured by the terrifying thought that my days inRome are numbered When I gazed out of mywindow here in the Gregoriana, which almost bearsmy name, across the eternal Rome , I saw stretchedout before me St. Peter ’s, the Vatican , Sant

’ Angelo ,

the Capitol, so many other monuments . Their shapesimprinted themselves upon the page before me, as Iwrote at this table the History ofRome ; they inspiredand illustrated my w ork as it grew before me , andbreathed into it some of their local colouring and

historic personality . And now all this fades phantomlike away, as the day- dreams of Prospero in Shakespeare ’s ‘Tempest . ’ Roma vale ! Haeret vox et

singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis.

With these pathetic w ords Gregorovius’ Roman

xxxiv


outside the main currents of universal history, andthe Imperial idea rested in oblivion . The Queen of

Italy besought him to undertake a history of Savoy ;but he declined the difficult task, wishing rather todevote his rema ining energies to some strictly Germanfield of inquiry. For some time he amassed materialfor a history of the Thirty Years' War ; but itsamount appal led even him, while his artistic feelingwas outraged by the barbarism of German literarystyle in the seventeenth century. The only fruit ofthese labours was his essays on “ Urban VIII . andhis Quarrel with Venice,” and on Russdorf, thediplomatist and friend of Oxenstierna . A visit toAthens in 1880 diverted his attention to other fields ofhistoric research, and he spent the next eight years indoing for Athens what he had already achieved forRome . As a precursor to his more important work,he published in 1882 a fascinating study of Athenais,that daughter ofLeontina the pagan Greek philosopher,who left her home in Alexandria to embraceChristianity and mount the Imperial throne as thewife of Theodosius II . His growing popularity as awriter may be estimated from the fact that a firstedition of copies was exhausted within two daysof publication . About the same time he described ina delightful prose idyll his visit to the island of Corfu

Bin Bild zum Bild, ein Traum zum Traum gereihtdas ist unser,

Wanderleben . In the Spring of 1882 hecarried out a long w ished - for tour toJerusalem, Cairo ,

Beirut, and Constantinople. His History of Athensduring the Middle Ages was published in 1889 ; andthe following extract from his Introduction gives us aclear insight into the originality of his standpoint. " Ihave ever had a strong inclination to make great

xxxvi

MEMO IR OF GREGOROVIUS

historic cities the framework for any examinationof the fates of states and nations . In them thesefates become plastic and monumental . If citiesare the artistic products of the nations, they areat the same time the life - like portraits of the geniusof those nations which have produced them . Im

portant cities outlive nations and empires . Many,indeed, w hich were once renowned, have vanishedcompletely from the earth , but on others at theirvery foundation daemonic Nature has placed thestamp of eternal duration . The plan of some of

them strikes one as a brilliant invention of the humanspirit, such as can never more be lost. It is hard toimagine that cities like Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Damascus could ever be deserted . Otherpeoples will inhabit them in remote ages, and strangew orld - fates w ill be fulfilled within their walls ; butthey themselves, changing and renewing their forms,shall endure so long as the w orld endureth . Quandocadet Roma, cadet et Mundus . That Athens, too ,belongs to the chosen Immortals, she seems alreadyto have proved , when she arose from the ashes oxcenturies to new historic life .The History of Athens ” is open to more than one

objection . His idea— based on a chronicle discoveredby Pallmerayer

— that Athens was deserted for

centuries during the Slavonic inroads, and that herinhabitants found a refuge on the island of Salamis, hasnow been exploded ; while his vindication of Alaricfrom the charge of destructiveness is carried to

uncritical lengths . Yet once more his literary charmand attractive method of treatment, the brilliantcharacter - sketches and moralizing summaries, atonefor its occasional blemishes ; while, in view of the


scanty material available for the history of mediaevalGreece. his work is based on far too thorough a studyof original documents, to be easily superseded .

Meanwhile , “ l’

inveterato amor di Roma drewhim yearly back to his old haunts beside the PincianHill .

o

But every visit increased his dissatisfaction andsense of loss . He could not endure to see the violentmetamorphosis of the Rome which he had known andloved, and he used all the influence in his power torescue historic sites from the senseless mania fordestruction . In 1886 he published an open letter inthe “Allgemeine Zeitung against the speculators andjerry- builders of Rome , thus draw ing down upon hishead a show er of abusive epithets . During the nextfew years he received numerous letters frommembersof the Clerical party, begging him to renew histhrenody over vanishing Rome ; but his interferencehad scarcely met with the success which it deserved,and for the future he remained silent. He paid hislast visit to the Eternal City in the winter of 1889 - 90,

and was more than ever disgusted by the buildingepidemic from which the new capital w as sufferingAbove all else, his indignation was roused by thedestruction of the Villa Ludovisi, with its noblegardens and cypress - groves .His last efiort was a short but brilliant essay on

“The Great Monarchies , or the World - Empires of

History.

” During the Spring of 189 1 ,he was engagedon an episode from the history of the Crusades,when his last illness came upon him . On May 1 ,

1891 , Gregorovius died at Munich from inflammationof the brain— not many months after reaching his

Among the great historians of Germany, Gregorxxxviii


ovins must be awarded a prominent place . He is wellworthy to stand by the side of Ranke and Mommsen ,of Hammer and Curtius, of Raumer and Giesebrecht,of Hefele and Neander. But his personality isunique . Unlike his famous contemporaries , heremained, on principle, a literary freelance ; and thelasting and honourable recognition which he w on,wasw on in spite of this unassured position . A romanti

cist and idealist among historians, he offers a strikingcontrast to the historian of ancient Rome , so terriblein his unsparing realism . Indeed,hismethods are farmore akin to those of the Catholic historians Janssenand Pastor, who disguise a profusion of facts beneathan appeal to the reader's imagination . His temperament was as much that of the artist and thepoet as of the historian ; and those who support theparadox that history is one of the least of a historian ’srequirements , w ould regard him w ith greater favourthan many of his countrymen . His Ital ian sketches ,the idyll of Euphorion ,” the posthumous volume of

his poetry, and, not least ofall his essay on the PapalTombs, prove how liberally the elements were mixed

Gregorovius is the natural enemy of those sternpedants who frown upon an attractive style , and who ,thanks to their foo lish renunciation , have bequeathedso manymusty volumes to the top shelves ofposterity.

He recognized as fully as Macaulay or Froude, thathistory, if it is to appeal to the masses,must throw off

the dull garb and mannerisms of the study, that thehistorian must also be a man of the world, not

making accuracy his solitary aim . History must notbe more dates of battles and articles of treaties . Herloom must weave the threads of life in all its gorgeous


variety, and not rest content with the endlessdrudgery of facts . Gregorovius had little sympathywith the anatomical school of history, where thecorpse of unhappy Clio is dissected by callous and

unflinching hands . He w ould have agreed with our

own Savage Landor, that history, when she has losther muse , will lose her dignity, her occupation , hercharacter,her name . This attitude naturally resultedin a somewhat tardy and grudging recognition amongthe professional historians of Germany. The Professors,

”as he said , w ill not take me into account,

because I create in free activity, accept no offi cialpost, and kom

'

biledicta possess some measure of poetictalent . My eye for beauty of form is to them amortal offence and the History of the City of Romehas been greeted by the pedants of Germany withsilence and a shrug of the shoulders .” But hismerits as a historian and a writer were far too

conspicuous to be affected by academic jealousies ;and even before his death his reputation had overcome the assaults of his critics .In a most unique manner Gregorovious realized theideal of the Wandering Humanist of the Renaissance .

He is the literary descendant ofsuch men as Erasmusand Pirkheimer and Celtes . Above all else, he wascosmopolitan by nature . Yielding to none in hisaffection for his own country, he had identified himselfwith the fortunes of Italy and of Rome, until intercourse with the Latin nationalities became a necessityfor him . He frankly recognized the curse ofMilitarism ,

and deeplymourned the tragic death of Frederick IIIwhom he had regarded as a possible champion of

disarmament. The distant ideal of Universal Peacestood above him in his dreams, even before the vivid

xl


scenes of the great war had burned themselves intohis soul . He firmly believed that a time would come,when Europe w ould no longer decide her quarrels bythe sword , and when all the nations would unite in agreat and peaceful Federation .

If it be true that the visitor to Rome only findsthere what he has brought with him, then assuredlyno wiser advice can be given him than to make theacquaintance of Gregorovius. His great work on

Rome opens up to its reader a whole world of un

imagined and never- failing pleasure and instruction .

The dead past and its heroes live once more beforeus , and amid the secular dust of Rome we feelourselves the heirs of all the ages . All roads lead tothe Eternal City, and no guide can equal in charm or

penetration the glowing pages of Ferdinand Gregor

R. W. S . W.

Ut liceat Romae oblivisc i, querendus mihi estaliquis fiuvius LethaeuB.

—ERASMUS

ATIME will come when the Papal monuments willhave very much the same importance as have

the busts and statues of the Roman Caesars at thepresent day. There will no longer be any Popes .Religion w ill have expressed itself in a new form , aform as yet unknown to us ; and to mankind underthe new dispensation the long line of the historicPapacy will , beyond all doubt, appear a far moremarvellous creation than to us who behold it inclose perspective .

Is it not the mightiest of all social systems, limitless in its wide embrace — a democracy permeatingevery organ of a body devoid of exact po litical limits,a strictly regulated aristocracy, an absolutism dispensing w ith the claims of inheritance , absolute, andyet again resting on a democratic basis ? In theimmeasurable spiritual sphere that embraces, dividesand governs heaven and earth, w ith a policy and astrange phantasy, the mere thought of which dazzlesthe imagination , the Pope has placed himself as thecentral po int— the Pope , so often but a weak old man .

In a trembling hand are laid the thunderbolts of

Heaven . Assuredly, after countless ages, men willmarvel at these greybeards of St . Peter’s as wondrousbeings of the past . Some ‘

of their monuments willhave withstood the onslaughts of time , and before

3


these old men in their stern majesty of dominioncrowned w ith the triple tiara and clad in stately flowing robes. w ith long beards and countenances mild orforbidding, attractive or fanatical , and hands raised onhigh to bless men or to curse— men w ill pause in

astonishment and exclaim , These were the Popes ,spiritual overlords of the w orld of their day ! How

senile and gloomy must that world have beenIt w as, and it was not. From these old men pro

ceeded alike old age and darkness ,youth and light and

not a few of them carried a fresher heart than Kingsgrown old before their time . But truly no man canwithhold a feeling of astonishment, as he standsbefore those priestly forms in St . Peter ’s, and picturesto himself what stupendous power the unanimousvoice of mankind adjudged to these old men for so

many centuries in unbroken succession .

It is not enough that they, weak and defenceless asthey were , quelled the resistance of warlike princes

,

humbled and drove them from their thrones : that inanger they bade monarchs wait before their gates

,

barefoot and in lowly sinner’s garb, and in friendshipgraciously permitted them to serve at meals, or holdtheir palfrey’s bridle .

They rose up from the darkness of the commonplace

, not as kings who have been born in the purple,but often reared in poverty and obscurity ; yet hereditary kings and emperors have stooped to kiss theirfeet and owned themselves the vassals of their grace .

But yesterday, they were unheeded and unknown ,and to - day they hold the reins of universal historyand decide the outcome of whole nations’ fates. In

the cowl of the beggar or the hermit they mountedthe throne of the earth, and the world marvelled not.

4


Neither family nor nation influenced their choice ;Greeks or Syrians, Germans or Span iards , French ,English or Italian— men scarce knew which of thesethey w ere , for all nation s heeded their command .

And as they had acquired the throne all unsuspectingo f the call, so too they laid down their office allignorant of the choice which Fortune ’s passing fancymight ordain . In the hour of death no one of themknew his successor, and yet their elective kingdom,

than none more Open to the whims of chance , hasproved immoveable as Divine Necessity .

Their pronouncements were the whole world ’s laws .More terrible than Jehovah Himself, they imposedwith a mere wo rd despair and the stillness of death,and spread over w ide continents the desolation of the

They could proclaim war and peace, found and dissolve empires . Lands and seas they granted away,though they were not theirs to grant ; and they, whopossessed nothing, divided among princes still undiscovered coasts, as if this planet w ere their own . Astroke of their pen across the map of the world prescribed boundaries to nations and to kings .They set limits to the march of human thought, orpermitted progress as to them seemed good . Knowledge they measured out with sparing hand, and freedom yet more grudgingly— thw arting the intellect’srapid expansion by the artificial barriers of a poeticmystery, by playing upon the love and the fear of

Man . With these three chains they girtmankind andbrought them to kiss their rod of chastisement .They w ere masters of the w orld ’s conscience .

Their pow er, incorporeal and w eaponless, restedsolely upon belief and superstition . They ruled in

5


the realm of spirits with the magic wand of phantasy .

They banished men not only from the earthly, butalso from the heavenly Paradise ; they hurled men 'ssouls into the abyss of Hell , and then drew themforth again in safety ; they pushed their pretensionsinto the farthest future and the long- vanished past .They had the power to loose and to bind . They gaveto men the name of Blessed ,

’ raised them up amidthe saints of heaven , and sanctioned their miraculousrepute . They were the judges of the dead and of theliving.

Their whole being w as mythical, and their wholeEmpire , so real and so potent, a veritable poemblending earth and heaven .

What was the origin of this enigmatic power of aweak and mortal man , a power which had neverbefore appeared in history, and which no future agew ill ever witness PIt is rooted in Monotheism and in their Christiantheocracy, which has conceived of mankind as one

single Christian republic . In its central point thePope has placed himself. The nations of Christendom have recognized and honoured him as the salvation - bearing Father of mankind, as Head of theChurch Universal , which shall gather all races and allpeoples into one family of God. As the human soulholds mastery over the body, so the Pope hasdrawnthe whole organism of mankind , the commune of theworld , beneath his sole sway. Nay more , he hasmade universal in its extension that harmony of being,which the Church embraces and controls . He hasblended earth w ith heaven in an eternal unity,makinghimself the while God ’s deputy on earth .

Much then as we may marvel at the political world6


empire of the Romans as a solitary fact of history, itis surely but a sorry dream , when compared w ith theconception formed by the Roman Pontifl'

of his own

position .

But his mighty mission seems now to be fulfilled .

His pow er has long fallen to decay. The old ideal ofa Catholic w orld - policy received its death - blow at theReformation , and the Papacy, deprived of its politicalbasis also amid the catastrophes of the present age ,preserves but the ruins of its former greatness.Let us then strive to realize the changeful epochs

of its history by the inspection of the Papal monuments.

THE reader of this essay must imagine to himselfa sort of Via Appia of the Papacy, stretch

ing out across all the centuries to our own times . On

either side he will perceive monuments rising likethose of the ancient Romans beside the Appian Way .

Many have perished, others have come down to us infragments or in ruins ; many still stand tri umphantover time .

But in this connexion the course of time broughtinto favour a very difl

'

erent principle from that whichhad prevailed among the Romans . With the latterit remained architectonic, while with the Christiansthe plastic element was introduced . The RomanEmperors reared noble mausoleums to receive theirown burial - urns ; the Roman Popes w ere for manycenturies buried in sarcophagi of very much the samekind , inscribed w ith suitable epitaphs . But later, asArt arose from barbarism, they added effigies to theirmausoleums . They w ished to be perpetuated in fullpersonality, and hoped that even after death theirmarble presence might exercise its influence upon theChurch . Many of them became lasting forces in thepublic w orship of the faithful .To this principle - I mean the desire for com

memorating the visible form of the Princes of theChurch , for their own glory and for the edification of

8


Via Appia , which had originally served as the burialvault of the noble family of the Caecilii. In the year197 Zephyrinus and Calixtus constructed a vaultthere, specially for the use of the Popes but theirplace of interment w as not invariably the same . In

the third , fourth and fifth centuries the Bishopswere also buried in the Catacombs of Priscilla ,Calepodius, P raetextatus, Balbina, Domitilla andelsewhere . In the Catacombs of Priscilla in theyear 335 w as interred Pope Silvester, in whose timethe Emperor Constantine made Christianity the re

ligion of the whole Empire .

After the middle of the fifth century the placegenerally chosen for their interment was St. Peter’s,where its founder, the great Constantine, is believedto have laid to rest, in a bronze sarcophagus, thebody of the Prince of the Apostles . Henceforwardthe Vatican has always been deemed the Holy of

Ho lies of Christian burial . Not only Bishops, butalso Roman magnates, consuls and praefects, and

even Emperors sought their tomb in the Portico of theApostle's Church . Honorius w as the first ChristianEmperor to be buried there .

This tomb of a Caesar, placed so modestly amidthose of bishops and other private individuals in thevestibule of a Christian church, not far distant fromthe splendid and, as yet, un injured mausoleum of theEmperor Hadrian , proved how decided was thevictory w on by Christianity over the ancient re

1 The great Christian archaeologist, De Rossi, of Rome, discovered this Papal vault in the year 1854 since then he has givenan entirely fresh in terpretation to the scientific history of theCatacombs.

I O


Beside St . Peter’s also lay the two wives of

Honorius, the sisters Maria and Thermantia ,

daughters of Stilicho . The tomb of the EmpressMaria w as acc identally discovered , after an intervalof more than a thousand years, on February 4, 1544,during the demolition of the chapel of St . Petronillain St. Peter ’s . The daughter of Stilicho , whoseimperial marriage had been celebrated by Claudian ,the last poet of Pagan Rome, lay in a marble coflin ,

within a walled arch ; her remains were clothed inrobes and veil of delicate gold thread, and at her sidewere found jewels, pearls, gems and numerous ornaments of the most

‘artistic workmanship . It mayw ell have been a portion of her bridal adornmentswhich Claudian has described , and which wereplaced beside the Empress even in the grave .

l

When this remarkable treasure - trove w as handedover to Pope Paul III , he was highly delighted at sounhoped - for a contribution to his building designs atSt. Peter’s, and ordered these beautiful works of art tobe melted down . They yielded forty pounds of pure

Claudianw dc Nuptii: Hanan ? at Marisa a fine poem, addressedin heathen phraseo logy by a pagan to a Christian Imperial bride(and Maria is indeed a strange name for an Empress of old Rome).Verse 10 is as follows :

iam munera nuptsePraeparat : et pulchros Mariae sed luce minoresEligit ornatus : quicquid venerabilis olimLivia, divo rumque nurue geesere superbae.

Maria was related to Honorius, since her mother Serena was adaughter of the bro ther of Theodosius, who was likewise calledHonorius . The young Emperor was only fourteen when hemarried Maria ; he lived with her ten years , and then upon herdeath took her sister Thermantia to wife . At the close of hisEpithalamium Claudian had sketched, as though prophetically, thefate of Thermantia :

Aurea sic vident similes Thermantia tedas .I I


gold . 80 utilitarian , or so beggarly was the ageand yet every bone of an imaginary ma

'

rtyr w as carefully scraped up from the Catacombs , and everyr agment of a Blutflasche consigned to somehallow ed spot .The second , and at the same time the last, Roman

Emperor to find his grave in the Galilee of the

Vatican , was the nephew of Honorius, ValentinianIII . , son of the Princess Placidia and husband of thatEudoxia who , but three months after his murder,was carried off prisoner to Africa by Genseric, Kingof the Vandals. In later centuries we shall find inthe same Atrium the graves of three Anglo- SaxonKings, and a monument of a German Emperor.From the middle of the fifth century onwardsBishops of Rome have shared this hall with thegreatest of the laity, and for this reason it has beennamed the Portico of the Popes .8 Many of themwere buried in the subterranean vaults, by the sideof the Apostle, and were then commemorated by amonument in the atrium of the church . For inthose early centuries men w ere still afraid to set uptombs within the basilica itself, as an action out of

keeping with the sacred character of the building .

It was only in the porch that the dead were permitted to rest . Hence it came about that up to theseventh century the atrium of Old St . Peter ’sgradually became filled with Papal monuments .None of these have survived, but w e may conclude

A phial containing the blood of a saint or martyr.3 Here too was buried the Sicilian Helpis, the first wife of

Boethius . The beautiful inscription in distichs has come down to

us ; it was, perhaps, composed by the unfortunate philosopher

1 2


from the graves in the Catacombs that they consistedof simfle slabs of stone or marble or of carvedsarcophagi ; the idea of personal portraiture had not

as yet gained ground . Inscriptions in prose or indistichs proclaimed the glory of the deceased .

l

Though the inscri ption over Celestine I (43 2- 432) is put forward as the earliest on any Papal tomb, I have preferred to beginthe series with the sixth century only, because the earlier inscription s seemed to me hardly reliable . They are to be found scatteredthrough many works, e.g . in Gruter , Baronius, Galletti, Ciaconius,Papebroch, Torrigius, Giacobbe, in Roma subterranes," etc. For

the Vatican Crypts the principal work of reference is Dionysiusand Aemilianus Sarti, Appendix ad Philippi Laurentii Dionysiiopus de Vsticanis Cryptis, Rom e in which the oldest ihscriptions copied from s Vatican Codex, and the writing of PetrusMallius upon the basilica of St. Peter's, are well and systematicallym u ged.

13

THERE is no Papal monument dating from theeventful fifth century, which saw the ruin of the

Roman Empire . Till then the Bishops of Romepossessed no power beyond that of their priestlyomce, but the fall of the Imperial dignity and thegrowing misery caused in Italy by the barbarian inroads served to augment their moral influence and

The greatest Pope of the fifth century was Leo I .

(440 the founder of the Primacy of the RomanBishops , the Saviour of Rome as ambassador beforethe terrible King of the Huns, and the protector ofthe city during its sack by Genseric the Vandal .His tomb originally stood in the Porch of St . Peter’sbut it was removed thence in the year 668 , and amonument was erected inside the cathedral inmemory of the beatified Pope . Leo the Great wasthe first Pontifl

'

to be thus honoured . His tombperished ; but an altar was dedicated anew to hismemory by Clement XI . in 17 15 , in the chapel of

the Madonna Colonna in St. Peter’s, and above ithas been placed the famous relief ofAlgardi, whichrepresents Attila shrinking back in terror before Leoand the Apostles Peter and Paul . This legend hasbeen further depicted by Raphael in the Stanza diEleodoro in the Vatican .

14


There is an equal absence of monumen ts datingfrom the time when Theodoric and his Goths weremasters of Rome and of Italy, or when his gallantsuccessors perished in the dreadful w ar of annihilation waged by the troops of far Byzantium . ThePopes of this Gothic period w ere buried in theportico of St. Peter’s . Among them was the RomanPelagius I . (555 the contemporary of Belisariusaud Narses . The inscription on his tomb has beenpreserved .

Terrenum corpus claudant haec forte sepulchra,Nil sancti meritis derogatura viri .

Vivit in arce poli caelesti luce beatus,Vivit et hic cunctis per pia facts locisSurgere judicio certus dextramque tenereAngelica partem se rapiente manu.

Virtutum numeret titulos ecclesia Dei,Quos ven tura velut saecula ferre queant iRector apostolicae fidei veneranda retexitDogmata, quae clari constituere patres,Eloquio curana errorum schismate lapsos,Ut verum teneant corda placata fidem.

Sacravit multo s divina lege ministros,Nil pretio faciens immaculata manus

Captivos redimens, miseris succurrere promptus.

Pauperibus nunquam parts negare sibi .Tristia participans laeti moderator opimusAlterius gemitus credidit esse suos.

Hie requiescit Pelagius Papa. Qui sedit annoe IV .

Menses X . Dies XVIII . Depositus IV. Nonas Martil .‘

May this sepulchre for ever enclose his earthly remains ;It will ne’er detract from the merits of this holy man .

Now he lives in the heavenly citadel , amid the blessings of

eternal lightAnd here below too he lives, beloved in all lands for his pious

Assuredly he will rise at the Judgmen t and stand upon God 'sright hand.

I S


There fo llowed days of horror and disaster, whenRome , abandoned to her fate by the EasternEmperor, found herself hard pressed by the“Lombards, and began to grow deso late and depopulated .

The Popes were at this time the so le protectors andpreservers of the city . Never have they deservedmore unstinted praise than during those gloomycenturies of decay, when the ancient capital of theCaesars sank into ruins and barbarism .

One among them has earned a truly immortalrenown— Gregory the Great (590 a Roman of

the old Patrician family of the Anicn . He savedand preserved Rome when sorely pressed by theLombards, and elevated the Papacy to be thehighest moral and spiritual power of the Westernworld . A church upon the Coelian Hill ,where he hadonce founded a monastery, takes from him the name

Borne up by guardian angels.May the Church of God tell forth the names of his virtues ,And may future ages hear them ever in their memory !Director of the Apostolic faith , he set forth its venerable dogmas,Which illustrious fathers of the Church had established.H is eloquence cured of their errors those who had fallen into

schism,

So that their hearts were soothed into the true faith .

Many priests did he consecrate according to the Law Divine ;H is unstained hands did nought for gain .

He ransomed the captives, and was ever ready to succour thewretched,

Nor did he ever withhold from the poor the goods allotted to

his share .Partaking in men ’s sorrows and lavishing joy around ,He felt the groans of others as his own .

Here lies Pope Pelagius, who reigned 4 years 10 mon ths and18 days.

Laid to rest on the 4th of the Nones of March (AD .

16

THE TOMES OF . THE POPES

As may be seen from the closing lines, the spirit ofthis poet of the year 604 still inclined towards antiquemodels .For many a long year after Gregory the Great ,Rome lay submerged beneath the angry waves of

barbarism : Science and Art w ere extinguished, andthe City of Augustus and Trajan fell into completedecay. Nothing from this period speaks to us duringour w anderings through Rome, save a chance mosaic ,gloomy and expressionless, in one of the olderchurches.In the course of the seven th and eighth centuries,countless pilgrims from theWest and North swarmedto Rome , to receive baptism at the tomb of the Apostle .

English Kings , whose country owed its first missionaries to Gregory the Great, offered to St. Peter theircrowns and their flowing locks of hair, and receivedupon the steps of the Vatican the white robe of anovice as their highest reward . Ceadwalla , King of

Hunger he overcame with food, and Cold with raimentWhile by the sacred Scriptures he preserved souls from theenemy.

His actions ever fulfilled what his words '

had taughtAnd he so spake the mystic words of life, as ever to be him

self an example.By his pious fervour he turned the Engl ish unto Christ,Thus adding fresh peoples to the armies of the faith .

Such thy labour, such thy zeal and care, such thy efforts as ashepherd.

That thou might'st offer to the Lord the richest gains of theflock.

Thou wert the Consul of God : rejoice now in thy triumphs !For the eternal reward of thy deeds is already thine .Here reposes Pope Gregory I , who reigned 13 years 6 months

10 days .Laid to rest on the 4th day of the Idea of March.

18


the West Saxon s, Offa, King of the Mercians, andConrad all found a last resting - place in the atriumof the basilica , close beside the Papal monuments .‘

We have seen that already in the seventh centurythe tombs of those Popes who w ere regarded w ithspecial reverence , began to be transferred from thePortico of St. Peter’s to the interior of the basilica .

The feeling of religious aw e which characterizedearlier times had vanished, the dead effected anentrance into the sanctuary, and indeed came themselves to be objects of religious veneration . Alters

were erected above their remains ; and ere longthese came to be so deeply revered, that a Popew ould often choose his burial - place close to the altarof some canonized predecessor.None the less , throughout the seventh, eighth and

ninth centuries, the Portico of St . Peter’s continuedto be the usual burial - place of the Popes . All theRoman Pontiffs of the seventh century were buriedthere , with the so litary exception of the lucklessMartin I . (649- 653) who died in exile in the Crimea .

At a later date his remains w ere brought to Romeand interred in the basilica of S . Martino ai Monti .The epitaph of another Pope of this century,Boniface IV. (608 may still be read in theVatican Crypt, in common with various other lnscriptions rescued from Old St . Peter

’s . It does nothowever date from his ow n age, having been put upby Gregory IV. , and afterwards restored by BonifaceVI II . It is written in leonine verses, and containsthe remarkable statement that Boniface IV. received

The vainglorious epitaph upon Ceadwalla , King ofWessex,whodied in Rome in 689, is to be found in Bede and in Baronius.

I 9


the Pantheon as a present from the Emperor Phocas,and after cleansing it from the daemons of ancientw orship, dedicated it to All Saints .In the seventh century Rome and the Papacy w eresubjected by the Greek Emperor, whose Exarch inRavenna ruled all those provinces of Italy which hadnot fallen beneath the Lombard sway. It was onlyunder Gregory II . and Gregory III . (7 15 that theWestern Church , in consequence of the great Iconoelastic struggle , gradually shook off the yoke of theByzantines . The dogmatic controversy with theEastern Empire was transformed into a nationalItalian uprising, from which the Popes finallyemerged as masters of Rome and of the states of

the Church . They called in Frankish aid , and, displacing without any show of scruples the legitimateMerovingian dynasty , recognized the family of Pipin

as their successors upon the throne of France . Thevaluable services involved in this recognition wereamply rewarded by the extinction of the Lombardpower in Italy by Pipin and his still mightier son

Charles,by the destruction of the Byzantine Exar

chate , and by the momentous concession of atemporal dominion . To - day there are no traces of

the tombs of the two Gregorys who began thestruggle with Byzantium , nor of Zacharias (741nor of Stephen II . (752 who anointed theusurper Pipih and who received from him in 754

the document sanctioning his possession of the PapalStates . All these four Popes were buried in St.Peter’s .Close to the altar of Leo I . within St . Peter’s stoodthe tomb of the celebrated Adrian I . (772 thefriend of Charles the Great, the benefactor and

20


restorer of the City,the wary priest whose wise rule

preserved intact the newly w on territory of theChurch , beneath the protection of the powerfulFrankish King . Charles himself is responsible forAdrian ’s epitaph , which forms one of the most re

markable monuments of the Papacy, commemoratingas it does its union w ith the great Monarch of theFranks, shortly before the restoration of the Empire .

This inscription , upon a slab of black marble, hasbeen let into the w all of the Portico of St. Peter’s,and may still be seen there .

Hic pater ecclesiae. Romae decus , inclytus auctorHadrianus requiem Papa beatus habet :Vir cui vita Deus. pietas lex, gloria Christus,_Pastor apostolicus, promptus ad omne bonumNobilis ex magna genitus jam gente parentum,

Sed sacris longe nobilior meritiso rnare studens devoto pectore PastorSemper ubique suo templa sacrata Deo .

Ecclesias donis populos et dogmata sancto

Imbuit, et cunctis pandit ad astra viam.

Pauperibus largus, nulli pietate secundus,Bt pro plebe saoria pervigil in precibus

Doctrinis, opibus, muris erexerat m-ces,Urbis et orbis honor, in clyta Roma, tuas .Mors cui nil nocuit, Christi quae morte perempta est,Janus sed vitae moa melioris erst.

Post patrem lacrymans Carolus haec carmina soripai,Tu mihi dulcis amo r, te modo piango Pater.Tu memor esto mei : sequitur te mens mes semper,Cum Christo teh ees regna beats poli .Te Clerus, Populus magno dilexit amore,Omnibus unus amor, optime Praesul, eras .Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostraHadrianus, Carolus, Rex ego , tuque Pater.Quisquis legas versus, devoto pectore supplexAmborum mitis, die,mi serere Deus .Haec tua nunc teneat requies, carissime, membra,Cum sanctis anima gaudeat alma Del .

21


Ultima quippe tuas donec tuba ciamet in sures,

Principe cum Petro surge videre Deum.

Auditurus eris vocem, scio , judicis almamIntra nunc Domin i gaudia magna tui .

Tum memor sis tui nati, pater optime, posco .

Cum Patre, dic, natus pergat et iste meus.O pete Regna, Pater felix, coelestis Christi :Inde tuum precibus auxiliare gregem.

Dum sol ignicomo rutilus splendescit ab axe,Laus tua, Saneie Pater, semper in orbe manet.Sedit Beatae Mem. Hadrianus Papa Annos XXI I I .Mens. X . D . XVII . Obiit VII . Kai. Jan .

l

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

To adorn the temples dedicated to God.

He heaped gifts upon the churches, and imbued the people withthe sacred dogmas ;

To all he opened the narrow way to Heaven .

Generous to the poor, unequalled in piety, and instant in devoutprayers 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 ci tadels to honour, O noble Rome !Death has not harmed him, since Death was conquered by the

Saviour's deathNay 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 arden t love ;Thou alone wert loved of all, 0 best of Pontifls.

Most illustrious of men , I link thy names and titles with my ownI, Charles the King, thou, Adrian the Pope.

Ye who may chance to read these lines, say, with devout and

Have pity upon them both,most merciful God !22


May this thy body rest in peace, beloved Father,And may thy gentle soul joy with the saints of GodYea, 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 now 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 fatherO 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 23 years to months17 days, and died on the 7th of the Kalends of January.

23

EVER since the eighth century an insatiable lust for

pow er has made the Roman Pontifi'

a regardItaly as a possible Patrimony of the Church ; and itwas at the very time of their alliance with Pipin thatthat most monstrous of all their w eapons— the Donation of Constantine— came into existence . It is not ,

however, to the Roman Emperor, who from motivesof policy made Christianity the State religion , but toCharles the Great and his father Pipin that the titleof founder of the Temporal Power of the Papacyjustly belongs . Against him and not against Constantine should Dante have directed his famouslament upon the evil caused to the Church herself bya bestowal of a worldly dominion .

Ahi Costantino, di quanto mal fu matreNon la tua conversiomma quella doteChe da te prese il primo ricoo patre.

‘

In the year 800 Charles was crowned Emperor of

the Romans by Pope Leo III . , and a barbarianmonarch mounted the throne of all the Caesars . Butthis mighty landmark in the history ofmankind— therestoration of the Roman Empire—has left no monu

‘Ah, Constan tine ! to how much ill gave birth ,Not thy conversion , but that plen teous dower,Which the first wealthy father gained from thee (Carey ) .

24


By this time the Papal monuments in St. Peter’shad grown very numerous, and, instead of beingerected in the atrium , were now generally placed inthe interior of the Church . Here they stood alongthe sides of the tw o aisles, until Pius II . ordered themto be placed in something approaching order, againstthe right w all of the basilica . But of all the manytombs which St . Peter’s contained before its rebuilding under Julius II only a few dating from the 15thcentury have survived . The precipitate haste withwhich Julius II . tore down the ancient basilica wasequally fatal to the tombs of his predecessors . Thescanty fragments which escaped his ravages wereplaced in the subterranean crypt of St . Peter ’s, whichis still full of mediaeval sarcophagi and inscriptions .The sarcophagi are square chests of hewn stone or

marble, often devoid of all sculpture on the sides .Above lies the effigy of the Pope, in the austere attitude of death rather than in the milder pose of sleep,which became the common mode of representation inthe later sepulchral monuments . His head

,crowned

by the tiara , rests upon a cushion or pillow, the bodyis robed in stole and planets , while the hands areinvariably gloved and crossed upon the breast, theleft lying above the right ; a circular jewel is attachedto the left glove, and the finger bears the Papal ringof ofiice . The sarcophagi are simple and unassuming,as w as only fitting in days when Art w as wholly barbarized, and when no sculptor could have been foundto design a sarcophagus of the same merit as that ofJunius Bassus . The sculptor ’s profession being virtually non - existent, it became a very common practiceto employ early Christian carved sarcophagi as lastresting - places for the Popes . Indeed, they so far

26


mastered their prejudices as to make use of genuineantique pagan urns, a proceeding which must havecaused even more heart - burnings than the conversionof sedilia from the ruins of ancient Baths (Thermi)into episcopal thrones .The loss of these ancien t monuments is a genuinedisaster. Not a single tomb has survived from the9th and 10th centuries, the period at which Rome andItaly alike reached their lowest depths of ruin anddegradation , and when the history of the Popes inparticular reveals a gloomy picture of turbulent andbarbaric depravity. Even the bare catalogue of

names suggests a hideous tale— the Counts ofTusculumwho ruled the terrorized City ; Marozia and Theodora,the shameless women who made and unmade Popesat will ; Crescentina , in whose days Sant ’ Angelo ,

tomb, prison, and fortress alike, commenced itsghastly history. No other building in the world canboast so many memories of horror— not even theVatican itself. Side by side they stand, everbearing an equal part in the grim events of history,neighbour-monuments throughout the Christian cen

It was the time, also , of the three Ottos , by whomthe fates of Italy and Germany were so indissolublylinked and the tomb of the Emperor Otto II . , whodied in the Imperial City on December 7 , 983, is theone solitary monument of that age, which still lingerso n in Rome . It w as only fitting that the ambitiousyoung monarch should find his grave in the Citywhich he had hoped to restore to the position of

capital alike of his Empire and of the known world .

He was buried in the Galilee of St. Peter’s ;1 and tillOtto of Freisingen,Bk. vi . chap. 25 Ipse vero 0tho Secundus

2 7


October 20, 1609 , his remains lay there undisturbed .

But when Paul V . had the atrium of the old basilicaremoved to make way for the imposing new facade,the Imperial sarcophagus w as broken up. When theskeleton w as laid bare to view , the Emperor wasfound to have been a man of but slight stature . Themarble coffin in which he lay had once belonged to an

ancient Roman , as was proved by half- length figuresof a consul and his w ife ; while the lid, wroughtout of splendid porphyry, had been taken from Sant

’

Angelo , and indeed from the sarcophagus of Hadrianhimself. The dead Emperor was robbed of bothcoffin and lid ; the former was employed for afountain in the Court of the Quirinal Palace, w hilethe latter now serves as a font in St . Peter’s . Thisancient porphyry w as once dewed by the tears of

Theophano , the beautiful consort of Otto , who leftluxurious Byzantium for the as yet unculturedCourt of Germany, and who was so soon to standa widow by her youthful husband's tomb . Theremains of Otto now rest beneath a w ide hewnarchway overlaid with stucco , in the crypt of theVatican . In another part of the crypt a mosaicwhich had once adorned Otto ’s tomb in St. Peter’shas been let into the so lid wall it represents Christenthroned between the Apostles Peter and Paul .In it St . Peter holds not tw o but three keys—a

strange design , which may perhaps he meant tosymbo lize the power to bind and to loose , in Heaven ,

on earth , and in purgatory.

Not far from the grave of Otto stands the sarcophagne of the first Pope of German origin— Gregory

nono Imperii sui anno Roma moritur et ante Divi Petri Ecclesiamin eoncha marmorea honorifice humatur.

"

28


V .— Bruno (996 It w as erected by his cousinOtto III . With him the Dark Ages came to an end ,and the era of the Hildebrandine Reforms begins todawn . A fortunate accident has preserved his comn

and its inscription ; and its time -worn characters, inbarbarous Latin , make the past live once more beforeus . It w as an age full of glory for the Germannation, but dismal enough in the history of theEternal City . On April 29 , 998 , the castle of Sant ’

Angelo fell into the power of the young Emperor, andw ith it Crescentius, the forerunner of Arnold of

Brescia and Cola di Rienzo . For this daring Roman ,sprung from a noble Latian family, w as the first in thelong series of patriots who sought to free the city of

their fathers from the tyranny alike of Pope and

German Emperor . He had succeeded in expellingGregory V but Otto III . ere long restored hisfavourite to power ; and the luckless champion of

Liberty was beheaded in Sant ’Angelo , and his corpsehurled w ith savage insults from the battlements .‘

Gregory V . died young, like his kinsmen the Ottos,

Crescentius was buried in the basilica of St . Pancrazio , and

on his tomb the sorrowing Romans placed the following inscription

Vermis homo, putredo , cinis, laquearia quaeris,His aptandus eris sed brevibus gyaris.

Qui tenuit totam feliciter ordine Romam,

H is latebris tegitur pauper et exiguus.

Pulcher in aspectu dominus Crescentina et duxInclyta progen ies quem peperit sobo lem.

Tempore sub cuius valuit Tyberinaque tellus,Ius ad Apostolici valde quiets stetit .

Nam fortuna suo s convertit lusibus annos

Et dedit extremum finis habere tetrum.

Sorts sub has quisquis vitae spiramina carpis .Da vel huic gemitum, te recolens socium.

29


after a troubled reign of less than tw o years and ahalf ; he was only twenty - seven or twenty - eight.Otto III . ,who had loved him w ith youthful enthusiasmand had received from his hands the Imperial crown ,had the dead Pope interred clo se to Gregory theGreat, in a white marble sarcophagus , covered w ithrudely executed reliefs representing scenes fromscripture .

H ic quem claudit humus, ocuila vultuque decorum,

Papa fuit Quin tus nomine Gregorius,Ante tamen Bruno Francorum regia pro les,Filius Otton is de genitrice Judith .

0

Lingua Teutonicus Vuangia doctus in Urbe,Sed iuvenis cathedram sedit Aposto licam .

Ad binos annos et menses circiter octo ,

Ter seno s Februo connumerante dies .Pauperibus dives, per singula sabbata vestesDivisit, numero cautus Apostolico .

Usus Francisca, vulgari , et voce LatinaInstituit populos eloquio triplici .Tertius Otto sibi Petri commisit ovile,Cognatis man ibus unctus in imperium.

Exult et postquam terrenae vincula carnisAequivoc i dextro sustituit lateri .

Decessit XII Kai . Mai .‘

1 He who rests here, of noble eyes and countenance,Was once called Gregory, fifth of the name.His early name was Bruno , of the royal Frankish race,The son of Otto and of Judith his spouse.A German in speech, he was brought up in the city ofWormsHe yet mounted the Apostolic throne, when young in years .(He reigned) two years and almost eight months,(Dying) when February had numbered thrice six days .Generous to the poor, each Sunday he gave out vestments among

them .

Careful to observe the apostolic number.Vang ia is Worms . This famous o ld c ity has the honour of bearing quite

a number of different names—Wormatia , Gormetia , Guarmacis , Bo rbitomagus, Vanglo ,Vangiona and Augusta Vangionum .

30


One more Pope is closely connected w ith thecareer of Otto III .— namely Sylvester II the firstFrenchman to fill the Papal See . This was no otherthan Gerbert, a Benedictine , Archbishop first of

Rheims and afterwards of Ravenna— the mostintellectual man of his age , unrivalled as amathematician , an astrologer, and a sophist . On

the death of Gregory V . , the Emperor, enthralled byGerbert

’

s learning and genius , raised him to thePapal dignity . Rheims, Ravenna, and Rome werethus the three bishoprics which he successivelyoccupied, and w e are told that he composed thefollow ing verse with reference to the mysteriousletter R , which haunted him through life .

Scandit ab R Gerbertus ad R , post Papa viget R .

Legend has busied herself w ith his name , and hasmade of him a powerful magician , the prototype ofFaust . l His astounding know ledge of mathematica and mechanics— a concrete example of whichis still to be seen at Magdeburg, in the shape of

Gerbert’

s astronomical sundial— seemed to the men

of his century something superhuman , and in thecareer of intrigue which led none the less surely tothe Papal throne, they fancied that they discerned

Familiar with the vulgar tongue and the French and Latinlanguages,

His threefold eloquence instructed the peoples .The third Otto entrusted him wi th the sheepfold of Peter,And was anointed to the Empire by his kinsman 's hand .

And when he put off the chains of our human flesh,Otto laid him to rest at his namesake’s right hand . tHe died on the 12th day of the Kalends of May.[See article on Gerbert in English Historical Review, 1892 ,

by Roland Allen —Tu]7 His namesake (asqui vocus) is Gregory I .

31


the helping hand of the Evil One himself. The w ellknown chronicle of Martinus Polonus relates this inall the simplicity of conviction . Gerbert, urged on ,

as it was believed , by ambition and love of power,w on first Rheims and then Ravenna by means of

bribery, and finally secured the Papacy by the helpof the devil, but on the condition that after death hissoul should become the possession of him whosecunning had w on him such exalted honour. WhenGerbert enquired of the Fiend how long he wouldenjoy the Papal dignity, the Enemy of Mankindreplied -

u If thou dost not set foot within Jerusalemthou wilt live long Now it so happened that in thefourth year, the first month , and on the tenth day hecelebrated the Holy Oifi ce in the Basilica of SantaCroce in Gerusalemme . Here he suddenly bethoughthim of his destiny and of his coming end ; full ofrepentance, he confessed his errors to the assembledpeople , exhorting them to beware of ambition anddevilish lusts, and to lead a good and holy way of life .

He then besought those present to dismember hisbody after death , according to his deserts , then toplace it in a two -wheeled chariot , give free rein to thehorses and bury him at the spot to which chancemight lead them . The legend goes on to relate , that,at the bidding of Divine Providence, which sought toconvince evildoers that a place of pardon lay everOpen for them if they did but repent, the horseswent of themselves to the Lateran Basilica , and

there the corpse was . duly interred . The sameMartinus asserts that ever since then the HolyFather's approaching death has been foretold by therattling of bones and the appearance ofmoisture onthe Papal W izard ’s tomb . This superstition may be

32


Sylvester,whom one of his successors, Sergius IVhas honoured w ith a monument, was not the firstP0pe to be buried in the Lateran . Sergius III . (90491 1) rebuilt the ancient basilica of Constantine— themother- church of Rome and of Christendom , of

which every Pope after his consecration takes solemnpossession—and for long afterwards it became thepractice to bury the Popes there,

’ at first in thevestibule, but afterwards inside the church . In theeleventh and twelfth centuries the Lateran was thefavourite place of burial, perhaps because the Popesgenerally dwelt there , and still more because thedisorders arising from the citizens ’ republican tendencies confined the Papal authority in Rome to little morethan this church and its immediate neighbourhood .

St. Peter’s on the other hand, w as generally in thehands of the Antipope and his party.

He to whom this loyal and friendly mind were all too dearOtto , third Caesar of the name—has raised this tomb .

Each of the two sheds lustre on the age by his conspicuous virtueand wisdom

The whole age rejo iced, and every guilty thing was shattered .

Like the Apostolic Bearer of the Keys, he gained a place inHeaven ,

Having thrice been chosen to fill his place on earth.

After filling the See of Peter for the space of five years,Death carried him into eternity .

The world was stupefied by the loss of its peace,And, wavering, unlearned its repose and the triumphs of theChurch.

Sergius the priest, his successor, has adorned this humble tombWith gentle piety, and as a sign of love.Thou who may’st chance to turn thy gaze upon his tomb,Pronounce the prayer, Almighty God, have mercy on him !He died in the year of our Lord's Incarnation 1003, in the first

On the twelfih day of the month of May.

34 .


The old tombs of the Lateran have shared the fateof so many others , and with them have perished themonuments of an important period of Roman historyThe splendid basilica of Sergius was ravaged by firein the year 1308 , and scarcely had it been restored byClement V . , when it became once more a prey to theflames in 1360 . The little that may have escapedthese confiagrations and the rebuilding under Clementmust have perished during the restoration of theLateran under Urban V . (1362 At the presentday only scanty fragments of ancient monuments areto be seen in the cloisters and behind the tribune of

the church, the most kable being the smtuesof the Apostles Peter and Paul and thefigure of an unknown Pope .

ON the death or Sylvester II . the Roman Churchwas plunged once more into deep confusion and

anarchy ; the Holy See became the object of ferociousparty struggles and fell under the sway of thepowerful Counts of Tusculum . Indeed there came aday when Rome held three Papes, who fought eachother for the tiara . Once again , it was a GermanKing who put an end to such scenes of horror. Atthe Synod of Sutri the masterful Henry III . dispossessed the three rival Popes— Gregory VIBenedict IX . , and Sylvester III . As Dictator of theChurch , he assumed for himself the right of electinga Pope , and imposed his choice upon the faithful .Pour German Bishops in succession were raised byhim to the Papal throne— Clement II Damasus IL,

Leo IX . and Victor II .Clement II . was crowned Pope at Christmas, 1046,and on the same day placed the Imperial crown uponthe brows of Henry and his consort Agnes. Not longafter, on October 9, 1047 , he died at Pesaro , andhis death was commonly ascribed to poison . Hisbody was conveyed to his former bishopric of

Bamberg, where a monument was erected in theCathedral to his memory.

‘ He alone of all the Popes

Papebroch gives an illustration of the tomb in the oth volume orthe Bollandists, Month of May, p. 186 .

35


lies buried in Germany ; for Benedict V. , who hadbeen interred at Hamburg in the year 965 , wasafterwards brought back to the Eternal City.

Damasus II . only survived his election 23 days , anddying on the 23rd of August at Palestrina,was buriedin S . Lorenzo - fuori - le -Mura.

His successor was Leo IX . (1049 an Alsatiannamed Bruno a man of eminent talents, thefriend of the great Hildebrand, who owed to him thedignity of Cardinal - deacon , a zealous reformer, andan untiring traveller during the whole course of hispontificate in Germany, France and Italy. He wasthe first Pope to establish an army of his own , andhe actually led it in person against Benevento , in orderto wrest that city from the Normans, who had recentlymade good their footing in Southern Italy. At thebattle of Civita ( June 18 , 1053) the warlike sons ofTancred took the Holy Father prisoner, but, wise intheir generation , they came fresh from their victory tokneel humbly at his feet, they escorted him to Benevento with every honour, received Apulia in hcf fromhis hands and thus became the vassals of the RomanChurch . Thus, though defeated, the Pope returnedvictorious to Rome ; and soon afterwards he died ,on April 19 , 1054.

He was interred in the Vatican , close to the altarof Gregory I . In the year 1605 his sarcophagus wasdiscovered and placed beneath another altar in St.Peter's . The old incription runs as follow s

Victrix Roma dolet nono viduate Leone,Bx multis talem non habitura Patrem .

l

His successors , the German Victor II . and theFor her nin th Leo mourns victorious Rome,Many shall fade, ere one like him shall come.

37

THE yroms s or THE popes

Lorrainer Stephen IX . ,were interred in Florence . Thepremature death of Henry III . proved a serious blowto the German Monarchy ; for his heir, the lucklessHenry IV., was still a mere boy . Hence the Papacy,which the commanding personality of Henry III . hadsubjected to the Imperial Crow n , succeeded by meansof a revolution which was at once social, po litical andhierarchical , not merely in casting off the yoke buteven in enthralling the Empire itself. The leadershipin this revolution fell to the lot of the high -minded andmasterful Cardinal Hildebrand, the greatest Churchman of his age . For several pontificates after that ofStephen IX all Christendom felt the impact of themighty struggle . His immediate successor, NicholasII . , made a bold stand against the German King andhis pretensions . He is responsible for the famousdecree which forever deprived not merely the Romanpeople and nobility, but even the Emperor, of allshare in the Papal elections, and placed the decisionunreservedly in the hands of the College of Cardinals .The reigns of these Popes were but a period of

transition and preparation ; and the powerful Hildebrand, who had used them merely as instrumentstow ards the one great aim of securing freedom andsole supremacy for the Church , at length himselfmounted the chair of Peter in the year 1073 . Thespiritual order he subjected to the Papacy by the firmenforcement of celibacy, the Emperor he combatedby disputing his claims of investiture, the turbulentpopulace of Rome he terrified into submission by theswords of the Normans, whose usurped dominion inSouthern Italy was formally sanctioned by the RomanChurch , and who became the very bulwark of thePapacy.

83


In the bitter quarrel which ensued between thePapacy and the Empire, a bigoted but heroic amazonespoused with her whole soul the cause of GregoryVII . As long as she lived, Matilda defended thePapacy with shield and spear, and, dying , bequeathedher rich inheritance as a fresh nucleus for the expanding states of the Church .

With rash hand Gregory kindled the torch that wasto set a whole world afiame, under the spell ofhatredand of war. Fearlessly he hurled the thunderbolt oianathema against the loftiest head in Christendom ,

and at Canossa trod without pity the majesty of theEmpire in the dust . After this unequalled humiliationHenry IV . recovered heart hemarched with an armyagainst Rome, occupied St. Peter ’s, received theImperial Crown at the hands of an Antipope , andbesieged his redoubtable enemy in Sant’ Angelo . ButRobert Guiscard came to the rescue of the Pope , andcarried him off to Salerno , after ravaging the EternalCity with fire and sword .

Gregory VII . died on May 25, 1085 , repea ting theimmortal words , “ Because I have loved justice andhated iniquity, I die here in exile 1 He was buriedby Guiscard in the beautiful city of Salerno .

The tomb has perished , and even its ancientinscription has shared a like fate . In the year 1573Gregory

’s remains w ere discovered, and interredin a chapel of the Cathedral at Salerno , whichthe celebrated John of Procida had adorned w ithpaintings in the days when he was still a councillorof King Manfred, and when the Sicilian Vespers wereas yet an event of the future . Upon the altar abovethe ashes of Gregory stands his modern bust ,

39


characterless because imaginary ; and the inscriptionis equally inadequate and valueless .‘

The tomb of Gregory VII . at Salerno is a spot whichmarks an era and a turning - poin t in the history of

mankind . It stirs up very similar memories to those

grave beneath the golden dome of the Invalides.These tw o impetuous spirits have shaken the worldand overturned its very foundations ; the character ofeach alike was based upon a boundless resolution tolay the world at their feet. Only behind the ambitionof Gregory VII . lies concealed a loftier and universalprinciple, the Church . But unhappily he falsified theChristian ideal of the Church and set the Papacy inits place and it w as reserved for the Reformation torescue the world from the priestly supremacy whichHildebrand had inaugurated.

That no Pope should ever have thought of transferring the ashes of the mightiest of his predecessorsto Rome and of honouring them w ith a mauso leum in

So far as we are aware, the idea never occurred to

Before Gregory became Pope,Alphanus of Salerno wrote a hymnin his honour— " Ad Hildebrandum archidiaconum l It contains

Quanta vis anathematis ?Quicquid et Marius plusQuodque Julius egerantMaxima nece militum,

Voce tu modica fac is.

Roma quid ScipionibusCaeterisque QuiritibusDebuit magi s quam tibiCuius est studiis suae

Nacta via potentiz .

hymns of Alphanus are prin ted in the Italic:mm : of Ughelli .40


Italy lay sunk in the gloom of barbarism . In theyear 1077 Robert Guiscard won Salerno from Gisulf,

her last Duke ; three years later her splendidcathedral was dedicated by him to St . Matthew andadorned with mosaics by Alphanus, the first of herArchbishops . Here this friend of Desiderius interredthe fugitive Gregory VII . , and w as himselfburied nearhim in October 1085 . The heroic Robert Guiscard ,their common friend , had died in Cephalonia in thesame year on July 1 7 ,

At this date Desiderius, or Dauferius, to give himhis Lombard name, had already long been Abbot ofMon te Cassino . On May 24, 1086 , after a wholeyeai

Js interregnum , the Cardinals forced him to accept

the Papal dignity. But on the very fourth day afterhis election , he fled from Rome and sought refuge inhis scholarly seclusion at Monte Cassino . A secondtime the tiara was pressed upon him— ih Capua, on

March 2 1 , 1o87— and on the 9th ofMay Victor III . w as

consecrated in Rome . But even then he returnedonce more to Monte Cassino , nor would he permitthe appointment of another Abbot in his place . Fromtime to time he stopped as Pope in his belovedmonastery, round which he seemed to hover longinglylike a bird that is driven from its nest . There hesuddenly died on September 16, 1087 , and was buriedin the monastic chapter- house . The fair cloister, inwhose gardens Kings and Kings’ sons have delved inthe garb of monks, was the fitting home of a Pope

Robert Guiscard's haughty epitaph, at Venosa, is given byBaronius z

Hic terror mundi Guiscardus, H ic expulit UrbeQuem Ligures , Regem, Roma, Alemannus habet .

Parthus, Arabs, Macedumque phalanx non texit Alexim,

At fuga ; sed Venetum, nec fuga, nec pelagus .

42


who died of longing for the vanished stillness of hiscell . The learned Benedictines composed for him anepitaph in the best and chastest Latin

Quis fuerim, vel quid, qualis, quantusque doceri,Si quis forte velit aurea scripts docent.Stirps mihi Magnatum, Beneventus pan

-la, nomenEst Desiderius, tuque Casine decus :

Intactam sponsam, matrem, patriamque propinquos

Spernens huc propero, Monachus efi cior.

Abbas de inc factus, studui pro tempore totum,

Ut nunc adspicitur, hunc renovare locum.

Interea fueram Romans clarus in UrbePresbyter Bcclesiae Petre beatae tuae .

Hoc sen is lustris minus anno functus honore,Victor Apostolicum scando debino so lium,

Quatuor et semis vix mensibus inde peractis.

Bis sex lustra gercus, mortuus hic tumular.Solis virgineo stabat lux ultima signo ,

Cum me sol verus hine tulit ipse Deus.l

l He who may seek to know, who , what, and how great I have been,

May learn it from these letters of gold .

My lineage was princely : my home was Ben evento ;Desiderius was my name, and thou, Mon te Casino ,my glory.

Leaving in con tempt my unwon bride, my mother, my kin and

coun try,H ither I hastened to don the monkly garb .Then chosen Abbot, I was ever zealous to restoreThe whole convent, as ye behold it now .

Mean time I had grown famous in the City of Rome,As Presbyter of thy blessed Church, 0 Peter.

For six lustre: save one year, I filled this honourable oflice,Then mounted, as Victor, the Apostolic throne .Scarce four mon ths had passed, and I now restIn this grave , at the age of twice six lustres .The sun was already deserting the sign of Virgo,When God, the true Sun , bore me hence .

FROM this date until the close of the twelfth century,the Popes w ere generally buried in the Lateran ,

and their tombs perished in the confiagration of theBasilica . It is doubtful whether Urban II . (1088who preached the first crusade at Clermont, w as

buried in St. Peter ’s or in the Lateran . The lucklessPaschal II . (1099 whom the Emperor Henry V .

cast into prison , that he might win by force thecession of the Papal claims in the question of

Investiture, found his last resting - place in the Lateran .

His successor Gelasius II . (1 1 18- 1 1 19) died a fugitivein the monastery of Cluny, and w as buried in theabbey church ; while we should search the Lateranin vain for the tomb of Calixtus II . ( 1 1 19 who

closed the struggle of Investiture by the Con cordat ofWorms, and for those of Honorius II . (1 124- 1 130) andInnocent II . (1 130Driven from Rome by the Antipope Anacletus,Innocent II ., a Roman from Trastevere, found, like hispredecessors, an asylum in France , and then oncemore returned to the City . Here he died on September2 3, 1 143, while the Roman populace rose valiantly inrevolt and restored the Republic upon the ruinedCapitol, introducing government by Senators andrestricting the Pope to his spiritual oflice . Innocent II .was interred in the Lateran , in the porphyry sar

44


cophagus of the Emperor Hadrian . The Lateranconfiagration destroyed this monument ; the fragmentsof its magnificent urn w ere thrown into the Court,and the Pope ’s remainsw ere removed to Santa Mariain Trastevere, w hich Innocent had restored andadorned with mosaics . Pius IX . has dedicated a newtomb in his honour—a simple marble coffin bearingthe record of his name .Unhappily no monuments have survived from that

memorable time, when the Popes struggled fiercelyw ith the Roman Republic, then inspired by the vigourof Arnold of Brescia , the famous prophet, heretic andstatesman , and when the greatHohenstaufi

'

en dynastyfirst acquired the Imperial dignity . Innocent ’s foursuccessors—Celestine II . , Lucius II . , Eugenius II Iand Anastasius IV .

— after brief and stormy reigns,marked by anathemas and exile, were all buried inthe Lateran . Adria IV. , however,who died in 1 159,

found his last resting- place in St. Peter’s, and hissarcophagus is still to be seen there .

Adrian IV . was the only Englishman who has evermounted the Papal throne . Sprung from the dust,he had begged his bread in youth, and then becominga monk, rose to the loftiest dignity in the Churchsolely by force of intellect and strength of will . The

held the stirrup of the former beggar- boy of St.Alban 's, when he came to Rome to receive fromAdrian the Imperial crown . On the very day of

Frederick's coronation , Arnold of Brescia, sacrificedby the Emperor to his political necessities, was burntas a heretic by Adrian ’s orders. The Pope died atAnagni and was buried in Rome ; his sarcophagus ofOriental granite still stands in the crypt of the

45


Vatican . It had once been the coffin of an ancientRoman , as is shown by the skulls of oxen which arecarved upon it. The sole inscription is : HadrianusPapa IV .

The long rivalry of the Church and the Empirecontinued under the Hohenstaufl

'

en . Alexander IIICardinal Roland Bandinelli (1 159 Adrian 'sbrilliant successor, was the bitter enemy of FrederickBarbarossa . Leaguedwith thedemocracy of the powerful Lombard cities, the great Pope , after a stormyreign , issued completely victorious from the struggle .

He died on August 30, 1 181 , in Civita Castellana, andwas buried in the Lateran . Here at a later date ,Alexander VII . Chigi, his fellow - citizen from Siena,raised a monument in his honour, in the right aisle ofthe basilica—a monstrous erection from the barocroage of art and utterly unworthy of so famous a Paps .

His portrait in medallion rests on a cylindricalpedestal of black marble, bearing a long inscription .

The quaint monument is richly ornamented, and issupported by columns of alabaster on a base of yellowmarble . Far more worthily, and this time with allthe pride of the Church Triumphant, has AlexanderIII . been immortalized in the Sala Regia of theVatican . Here a fresco painting of Vasari depictshim in the great scene at Venice , seated on the stepsof the basilica of S . Marco and placing his foot uponthe neck of the Emperor Frederick, who had justconcluded peace with the Lombard Republics and theChurch . This is, it is true, nothing more than an

arrogant clerical legend, according to which the Popeemployed the haughty words : I w ill tread upon thesnake and the basilisk, upon the lion and the dragon .

”

At this the humiliated Emperor is said to have cried45


out,“ Non tibi sed Petro ,

”on which the Pope re

sponded, Et mihi et Petro . In any case the storywas indeed a telling one in favour of Papal pretensions. The same scene has been more skilfully portrayed by Federigo Zuccari in the Palace of the Dogeat Venice .

After the death of Alexander, the Romans droveout his successor, Ubaldo Allucignole, a nobleLucchese , who had taken the name of Lucius III .

(1 181 Before his election he had been CardinalBishop of Ostia . Dying in exile at Verona , he waslaid to rest in the Cathedral of that city, in a tombwhich bore the fo llowing melancholy inscription

Luci Luca tibi dedit ortum, PontificatumOstia, Papatum Roma, Verona mori.Immo Verona dedit verum tibi vivere, RomaBxilium, curas Ostia, Luca mori .

Obitt 8 . Pater D . D . Lucius Papa II I . A . MCLXXXV . Dle XXV

Urban III . (1 185 a Milanese of the house 01

Crivelli , was elected Pope in Verona, but to him too

the gates of free Rome remained sternly closed . Hedied at Ferrara on February 19 , 1 187 , and his tombstill stands in the Cathedral— a handsome sarcophagusresting on four columns . His successor,GregoryVIII . ,reigned barely two months, and dying at Pisa , w as

buried in the cathedral there ; but his monument wasdestroyed during the great fire of 1600.

Once more we find two Popes interred in theLateran , Clement III . and Celestine III but neithertomb has survived . Indeed no monument is left in

l O Lucius, Lucca gave thee birth—Ostia, the purpleRome, the Papacy—and Verona, death .Nay, rather, Verona gave to thee true lifeRomq exile- 03th , sorrows—and Luca , dea th.

47


Rome of the fierce struggle of the Papacy with theHohenstaufl

'

en , with the sole exception of the

remarkable statue which the Romans had erectedupon the Capitol to Charles of Anjou, the conquerorof Naples, after they proclaimed him Senato r.The powerful Innocent III . Conti (1 198 - 12 16) has no

monument in Rome . This, the greatest of all thePopes, drove the Germans from Italy : granted theImperial Crown to the Guelf Prince Otto IV . ere longdeprived him of it once more to bestow it on

Frederick II the brilliant and versatile son of

Henry VI . and then found that he had welcomed tohis breast the Papacy ’s most deadly foe . Before himthe haughty Philip of France was forced to humblehimself ; from him the worthless John of England

received his crown in fief. He extirpated theAlbigensians, he introduced the Inquisition . In hisreign the Latin Empire arose in Byzantium . Innocentdied in Perugia on July 16, 1 2 16, and was buried inthe cathedral . An urn upon a lofty pedestal containshis ashes, together with those of Urban IV . and

Honorius III . Savelli, his successor (1216- 1229) isburied in Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, beside thealtar of the Manger. He was a man of fine character, a son of Amalrico of the noble Roman houseof Savelli, and bearing their favourite family name,Cencius. Brought up at the church of Santa Maria ,he became a Canon there, and later Camerarius or

Chancellor under Celestine III . He is the author oithe famous Codex whi ch is preserved in the VaticanLibrary under the name of Cencius Camerarius, awork of great importance for the history of Rome inthe Middle Ages . As Pope he authorized the Order

43


The Pope , crowned with the triple tiara, rests upon asarcophagus—a figure w ith powerful head and regularbut somewhat heavy features . The tomb is madeup of several stories, one above the other, richlyinlaid with mosaics, and culminates in a semicirculararch , in which the Virgin is represented , with thePope and the Archbishop kneeling in adoration . Aninscri ption breathing the fiercest hatred towards theHohenstaufl’en proclaims the fame of the leader of

the triumphant Guelfs.

Hic superis dignus, requiesc it Papa benignus,Laetus de Flisco , sepultus tempore prisco .

Vir sacer, et rectus, sancto velamine tectus.

U t iam collapso mundo temeraria passo ,

Sancta min istrari urbs posset quoque rectificari,Concilium fecit, veteraque juesa refecit.

Haeresis illisa tunc extitit atque recisa,Moenia direxit, recte sibi credita rexit,

Stravit inimicum Christi co lubrum Fridericum .

Janna de nato gaudet sic clarificato .

Laudibus immensis, urbs tu quoq ; Parthenopensis.

Pulchra decore sa tin, dedit hic sibi plurima gratis.Hoc titulavit ita Umberto s Metropolita. ‘

Here rests, long buried, the kindly Pope, Laetus de ’ F iesch i,worthy of the heavenly kingdom

A holy and upright man, robed in the veil of sanctity.

He assembled a council and renewed ancient laws,In order that, when the world was fallen on evil days and

sufi‘ered every kind of violence, the Holy City might be governedand led in the right way.

Heresy was then wiped out and extinguished.He governed the cities and ruled iustly what was committed tohis charge.He trampled under foot that serpent Frederick, theenemy ofChrist.Genoa is proud of her noble son,

And thou, too , city of Naples, dost render high praises to hisname ;Beautiful enough in thy charms, thou owest him many a gift .This was inscribed by Humbert the Metropolitan .

50


Another inscription in prose reads as follow s

D . O . M .

Innocentio IV Pont . Max.De Omn i Christiana Rep . Optime MeritoQui Natali 8 . Joannis Baptistae

Ann . MCCXLI I IPon tifex Renunciatus

Die Apostolor . Prin cipi Sacra CoronatusQuum Purpureo Primus PileoCardinales o rnasset

Neapolim A Conrado EversamS . P. Restituendam Curasset

Innumerisque Alila Praeclare Bt PropeDivine Gestis Pontifica tum SuumQuam Maxime Illustrem Reddidisset

Ann i MCCXLIVB . Luciae Virg in ia Luce Hac Luce CessitAnn ibal De Capua Archiep. Neap.In Sanc tissimi Viri Memoriam

Aboletum Vetustate Epigramma Restituit.‘

After Innocent IV Viterbo w as for some time therefuge and the residence of the Popes . F or when in1 257 the valiant Senator, Brancaleone di Andalo had

To Innocent IV. , Supreme Pontiff,Who hath deserved well of the whole Christian Republic,

Who was proclaimed PopeOn the day of St. John Baptist, in the year 1243,

And was crowned on the sacred day of the Prince of Apostles,And who,

Having decorated for the first time the Cardinals with the purplehat,

Having secured the restoration to St. PeterOf the Kingdom seized by Conrad,

And having made his reign illustriousBy countless other famous and almost divine achievements

Departed from this lightOn St. Lucy’s Day 1244.

Annibale of Capua, Archbishop of Naples,In memory of the holy man ,

Has restored this epitaph injured by time.5!


driven Alexander IV . and the Cardinals from the city,the Popes found themselves forced to take up theirabode in Anagni, Perugia, and Viterbo . We therefore find the tomb of Alexander IV . Conti (1254- 126 1)in the Cathedral of Viterbo , and that of his successorUrban IV. (1261 - 1264) in the Cathedral of Perugia .

l

Clement IV. also , the contemporary of St. ThomasAquinas, lies buried in Viterbo , where he died on

November 29, 1268 . A Frenchman from Languedoc ,and for a long time secretary to Louis IX . , he hadoffered to the ambitious Charles of Anjou the crownof the Hohenstaufi

'

en in Sicily, and survived the fallalike of Manfred and of Conradin . He stood uponthe walls ofViterbo , as the last of the Hohenstaufi

'

en

passed by w ith his army on the march to Rome, andforetold his coming destruction . That he made noeffort to prevent Conradin ’a shameful death , suggestshis implication in that judicial murder, even if he hadcome to no express understanding with the savageCharles of Anjou.

Urban IV.

's epitaph is as follows

Archilevita fui, Pastorque gregis Patriarchs ,Tunc Jacobus , Posui mihi nomen ab urbe Monarchs .Tune Civis exivi, Tumuli post condor in archa,Te sine fine frui, Tribuas mihi summe gerarcha .

Archdeacon was I, and shepherd and Patriarch of the flock,

Once called James (Pantaleon ), I took the name of the city whosemonarch I was. Then I went out from the city (into exile) ; nowI rest within the tomb . Highest lord of the world, grant that I mayenjoy thee without end.

52

(Pu ri m: Annu al.

GREGORY X.

in Aren o Cathedral .

THE struggle of the Papacy w ith the Hohenstaufi

'

en was now at an end . The Papacy hademerged from it victorious , yet deeply shaken ; andsimultaneously it had overcome the heresy of the Albigenses. But when a native French Pope appoin teda Prince of the House of France to be the executorof his vengeance and the heir of the Swabian powerin Italy, he plunged the Papacy and Italy itself intoruin . The See of St . Peter became the spoil of

France, the Pope soon came to occupy the po sitionof her vassal ; whilst Italy, thanks to internal disunion and interference from w ithout, was doomed toceaseless confusion , as the bone of contention for

foreign Princes . This period was initiated by ClementIV.

We may pass more quickly by the tombs o f thelast half of the thirteenth century— that in theCathedral ofArezzo ,ofGregoryX . ) during whose reignthe House of Hapsburg attained to the Imperialdignity, and those of Adrian V. and John XXI . in the

Gregory X.

’s epitaph is as fo llows

Gregorius deoua virtutum Luce serenusDormit in hac area, dignus Romae patriarchaQuem genuit Placentia, urbs Aretina tenet .

The tenth Gregory, shin ing in the light of his virtues, sleeps inthis tomb—a worthy Patriarch of Rome . Born at Piacenza, hisremains rest at Aresso .

"

53


Cathedral of Viterbo . Both the latter, and indeedtheir predecessor, Innocent V,, who was buried inthe Lateran , died in the year 1276 - mere passingshadows, leaving no traces among their fellow -men .

Nicholas III . Orsini (1277- 1280) would arrest ourattention longer if his tomb still survived in St .Peter’s . This masterful Prince of the Church is ofespecial importance, in that he concluded a lastingpeace w ith the pliant Rudolf of Hapsburg. By it thegreat donation of the Countess Matilda , which hadonce kindled a fierce w ar w ith the House of Hohenstaufl

'

en , w as ratified in favour of the Pope . TheImperial power renounced all its arrogant pretensionsin Italy , and recognized the Pope ’s claim to bestowthe Imperial crown .

The figure 01 Martin IV . (128 1 - 1285) demands amoment ’s notice . He was a Frenchman , and acreature of Charles of Anjou ; his short reign sawthe wild outburst of Sicilian Vespers, and the deathof his savage patron Charles in deep humiliation .

Two months later he himself follow ed him to the

grave, while the Sicilians whom he had anathematized made good their independence under the sw ayof Manfred 's grandson , Pedro of Arragon ,

againstwhom he had vainly launched the curses of theChurch . Martin died at Perugia on March 29 , 1 285

and in the cathedral church of S . Lorenzo he sharesthe same urn as Innocent III . It is but a narrowspace that holds the dust of men who in their dayconvulsed the history of the world .

The mighty thirteenth century, now fast drawingto its close , gives us the names of four more Popes .The first of these carries us to the beautiful basilica ofSanta Maria in Aracoeli, on the Capitol . There stands

S4


monuments in the church, and the best achievementof Leonardo da Sarzana . Nicholas IV. , an upstartfrom the very dust, had sought support by the sideof the powerful family of Colonna, and had shown ithigh favour. His friend, Cardinal Giacomo Colonna,contri buted with him to the restoration of the mosaicsin the Tribune of Santa Maria Maggiore ; and hencethe portraitslof both are to be seen among them . Itwas during the reign of Nicholas IV . that Ptolemais,the last foothold of the Christians in Asia , fell intothe power of the Mohammedans . So closes the ageof the Crusades .The last Pope but one of the eventful thirteenthcentury was Celestine V . To find his tomb we mustpay a pilgrimage to the Celestinian convent in thelittle town of Aquila in the Abruzzi . Here we pausew illingly to recall to mind a Pope whose strangeadventures belongmore to the realm of the imaginationthan to that of History, and who is a true t'ype of thesimplicity of this wonderful age, which saw Romanlegend and painting emerge from the lethargy of theDark Ages.For more than two years after the death ofNicholasIV . the Holy See remained vacant, ow ing to the dissensions of rival factions among the Cardinals— theFrench and Neapolitans on the one side and theRomans on the other. At length the Cardinal - Bishopof Ostia put forward the name of a hermit who hadlong remained hidden in the wild solitudes of

Apulia ; and his unanimous election seemed to falllittle short of a miracle . His name was Pietro , theson of a peasant from Castell Molise in the Terra diLavoro , the eleventh of twelve brothers. At the ageof twenty he had become a Benedictine, and ere

56


l ong found his way to Monte Murrone , where hespent five years in the strict seclusion of a hermit .He then withdrew to the Majella range in Apulia andgathered round him other hermits, who afterwardscame to bear the name of Celestinians . Here he livedfar from human ken , until the day when Archbishopsand Protonotaries appeared before him to summonhim from Ithe forest wilds of the Majella to assumethe highest dignity in Christendom . The terrified oldman refused vehemently the proferred honour. Two

Kings— Charles II . of Naples and Andrew III . of

Hungary— visited him in his seclusion , and throwingthemselves upon their knees, besought him to acceptthe Papal crown and thus to restore peace to distracted Christendom . With tears and sighs he yieldedto their exhortations. Their procession w as set inmotion towards Aquila, and the peasants flocking infrom all the countryside saw the new Pope make hisentry into the town, lowly, and riding upon an asshis bridle held by the two Kings walking barefootbeside him , and followed by the dignitaries of theChurch and a gleaming cavalcade of NeapolitanBarons . On August 29 , 1 294, the poor hermit wascrowned in the Church ofSantaMaria di Co llemmaggio .

He took the name of Celestine V.

It was not to Rome, but to Naples that hesummon ed the Cardinals ; and there he remained , amere passive instrument in the hands of Charles,timid and unhappy, for ever yearning after the tranquilsolitudes from which he had been so cruelly snatched .

The ambitious Cardinal Gaetani is said to havearoused his superstitious terror at nights by the blowingof trumpets and by mysterious spirit - voices, as thoughHeaven itself were biddinn resign an office for

57


which he had proved himself unworthy. On December 13 he abdicated ‘ and vanished once moreinto the deserts of the Majella. But no sooner hadGaetani been proclaimed Pope— only eleven dayslater— than , fearing a schism in the Church , he sentout to capture the luckless fugitive . Celestine fledthrough the woods of Apulia , till he reached the sea,then flung himself into a little bark and steered forthe Dalmatian coast . But a storm hurled his boat onshore at Viesta in the Capitanata, where the authorities recognized and detained the fugitive . He wasbrought to the palace of Boniface VIII . at Anagni, andthence removed to the tower of Fumone at Ferentino .

Here in a narrow and unhealthy cell the old man 01

eighty - one still lived for ten weary months, dying on

May 19, 1296 . The unhappy hermit sleeps his lastsleep in Aquila . Some years after his death ClementV . at Avignon numbered him among the Saints of theChurch . Strange and startling times were these , andit is truly a w ondrous spirit which breathes out fromthese old tombs and scarcely decipherable inscriptions .In the crypt of the Vatican , upon the lid of anancient marble coflin, tasteless and defaced by age.we may still trace the features of the celebratedBoniface VIII . of Anagni . He stood at the deathbedof the thirteenth century, and saw the fourteenth

In the 3rd Canto of the Inferno Dante saysVidi e conobbi la ombra di colui,Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto

“ I saw, and knew the shade of him who , to base fearYielding, abjured his high estate (Carey)

verses which are said to have been prompted by Celestine V.

’s

The history of the choice of Fra Morons is related by theChronicon Januense Jacobi de Varagine,” in Muratori, xi . p . 50.

58


overbearing character, he w as also high spirited andmajestic, the last Pontifl

' whose conception of thePapacy was that of Gregory VII Alexander III ., andInnocent III . After Boniface VIII ., no other Popeaspired to such lofty ideas .His corpse was conveyed to St. Peter’s by a greatprocession of knights and nobles, headed by CharlesII ., King of Naples . He was interred in a chapelwhich he had himself designed and adorned withmosaics, and a handsome tomb was erected to himthere . When this chapel was destroyed owing to thebuilding of the new basilica, by a strange stroke of

fate his corpse , still in good preservation , w as

discovered on the 302nd anniversary of his death .

The dead Pope was clothed in pallium and planets ,

and wore white gloves embro idered with pearls, anda small white mitre of woollen material ; a sapphireupon his finger was not worth more than thirty scudi .Boniface VIII . must have been unusually tall, for hisbody measured 7; palms according to the opinion ofthe doctors he was bald and beardless.

l His comnstands to this day in the crypt of the Vatican, andabove it he himself is represented in the attitude of

death . The head is handsome , severe and noble inits outlines ; it agrees thoroughly w ith his portraitfrom the hand of Giotto ,which also shows a beardlessface, finely avalled . The head is covered by a longmitre shaped like a sugar- loaf, on which tw o crownsare to be observed . For this arrogant priest w as thefirst to assume the double crown , all previous Popeshaving borne only a single - crowned mitre . Afterw ardsUrban V. added yet a third crown , thus producing thefamiliar triple tiara .

A good portrait of Boniface VI II . is to be found in Dionysius .60


There exists in the Grotte Vaticane yet anotherstatue of Boniface VIII . , in half- figure, which oncebelonged to his monument . It represents him asstretching forth his right hand in blessing, while inhis left he clasps the keys of Peter. N0 inscriptionupon him has been preserved .

ITH Boniface VIII . the mediaeval pow andglory of the Papacy came to an end . Ever since

the days of Gregory VII . the Church had laid claim to

universal and unassailed supremacy. But she couldnot retain her foothold on such dizzy heights ; indeedthe long struggle w ith the secular power of theHohenstaufl

'

en had left her tottering and exhausted .

It is true that she issued triumphant from her strugglewith heresy ; but the Wd tgeist whom she had so longenslaved, revealed an unsuspected strength in the newprinciple of Monarchy, which acquired sufficientpower in France to offer a successful resistance toPapal aggression .

0

So complete was the triumph of

secular brute - force , that the Sovereign Pontifl'

took uphis abode in France, and became a satellite of theHouse of Capet .In each succeeding epoch , though forms may varyand principles become obscured, the broad trend of

affairs is ever the same . For, after the Avignon Captivitywas over,the old strife of Pope and Emperor wastaken up once more ; and the self- restraint by whichit was characterized rendered it all the more deadly .

Evangelical heresy is no longer exterminated, but castout root and branch, and, under the name of Reformation , is torn asunder from the Church . The Papacy ’sloftiest conception , that of the moral unity of the

62


human race , is destroyed , and the guardianship of thisidea is entrusted to the individual . Meanwhile a newChurch system and a new spiritual lordship are alreadybeing fashioned, and ere very long a Caesarian statepolicy is destined to debase the Papacy, to place itonce more for a time at the mercy of France , andthen in our own days to deliver it up to the peoplesrising in their might .We shall see that the history of the Popes fromthe fourteen th century onwards can be fairly adequately treated by reference to their tombs .The immediate successor of Boniface VIIIBenedict XI .— an Italian from Treviso— has abeautiful tomb in S . Domenico at Perugia . Butfrom the historical standpoint it deserves but passingmention, since Benedict only filled the Holy See foreight months and left little mark upon the history of

After Benedict XI . follow the seven Popes of theAvignon Captivity, the last of whom restored thePapacy to Rome . Their history w ithdraw s us fromthe Eternal City , the central po int of the Christianworld, to an obscure corner of France ; and theFrench character which they impressed upon thePapacy cannot but detract from the interest w ithwhich we regard their achievements . Gregory XI . isthe first of them to have a monument in Rome hissix predecessors all found their resting- place in French

Clement V . (1305 who has been rendered so

notorious by his illegal dissolution of the KnightsTemplars, lies buried in the little church of SainteMarie d

’

Uzes in the county of Narbonne . Thehandsome Gothic monument of John XXII . (13 16

63


and that of his successor Benedict XII . ( 13341342) are still to be seen in the Cathedral of Avignon .

Clement VI . (1342 a man of deep learning andconsiderable talent, w as buried at Chaise Dieu nearAvignon but both his monument and the magnificenttomb of Clement V . only survive in a fragmentarysmte , having been demolished by the Calvinists in theFrench Wars of Religion .

The bulky Gothic tomb of Innocent VI . (1352is to be seen in the Chartreuse at Villeneuve, nearAvignon ; the handsome monument of Urban V . , inthe monastery of St . Victor at Marseilles . Of allthese French Popes , Urban alone saw the Christiancapital . The pressing appeals of despot - ridden Italycame home to him with added force when he learntof the disorganization of his own territories. OnOctober 16 , 1367 , Urban entered Rome, but, terrorstricken by the desolation and barbarism of the City,he soon withdrew to Viterbo and Montefiascone ,

and in September 1370 returned to the more secureasylum of Avignon , dying at Marseilles before theyear was out. Any mention of either Urban or

his predecessors must recall to our minds the twogreatest names of Rome in the fourteenth centuryGil d ’

Albornoz and Co la di Rienzo—the greatCardinal , who , during the absence of the Popes inFrance, had wrested their disintegrated territory fromthe hands of its petty tyrants, and thus made possiblethe eventual return ofthe Papacy to Rome ,— and thebrilliant Tribune of the People, who had dazzled andenchanted an admiring w orld by the strange drama oia restored Roman Republic .In the Roman Forum , beside the Via Sacra, standsthe church of Santa Francesca Romana, formerly

54


the world, consecrated by the destinies of mankind ,had during the Babylonian Captivity been leftentirely to her own resources . She had seen theRepublic of Rienzi flash like a gleaming meteor acrossthe sky, doomed to sink all too swifi ly amid the ruinsof the Capitol . The City of the Caesars and of thePopes had safl

'

ered almost beyond recognition , andwas now desolated, disfigured and decayed . Grassgrew in the very centre of the town , cattle browsedin many of the churches, wretched hovels stood upamid heaps of ruins, and beside the Tiber the wholeCampus Martins had become a mere swamp .

Incredible as it may seem , the population haddwindled to souls—the sole remnant of apeople w hich under the Emperors had numberedmorethan two millions . Hence the return of the Popefrom France w as a turning- po int in the history of

Rome, as in the history of the Church . But GregoryXI . died only one year after his return , at the end of

March 1378, deeply respected and mourned by thecitizens of Rome . He was the last Frenchman whohas attained the Papal dignity. He was buried inSanta Francesca Romana, the church to which hehad ow ed his title when Cardinal . The monument,however, is of later date ; the Roman Senatedecreed its erection in 1584, in memory of the greatevent of Gregory’s reign , and entrusted the sculptorPietro Oliveri with the task . It bears the following

Chr. Sal.Gregorio XI . Lemovicensi

Humanitate Doctrina Pietateque Admirabili QuiUt Italias Seditionibus Laboran ti Mederetur SedemPontificiam Avenioni Diu Translatam D ivinoAEatus Numine Hominumque Maximo Plausu

66


Post Annos Septuaginta Ramam Fel iciter ReduxitPontificatus Sui Anno VI I .

S . P. Q . R . Tantas Religionis Bt Beneficii NonImmemor Gregorio XI II Pont. Opt. Max Comprobw ts Anno Ab Orbe Redm fi o CICIQLXM III

Joanne Petro Dm o

Cyriaco Matthaeio CossJo Baptists AlberoThoma Bubalo De Cancellariis Priore. ‘

To Gregory XI ,ofLimoges, admirable for his humanity, in ta ingand uprighmess . Eager to rescue I taly sick to death by reason of

her confusion , and mow d by the Holy Ghost and the rejo icing of

mankind, he glofi ously restored the Papal See to Rome, after an“m eg of yw a, in the seventh year of his Pontificate.

The Sm ats and people of Rome, in memory of such great uprightness and well- doing, with the approval of Gregory XI II .

In the year 1584 after the redemption of the world.Johannes Petrus DracoCyriacus Matthaeus, ConsulsJo . Battista Albero

Bubalo De Cancellariis,

IMMEDIATELY after the death of Gregory XI .began the Great Schism , in consequence of the

hostile division of the College of Cardinals into aFrench and an Italian faction, a division which soonspread to the various States and peoples of Europe .

The Christian world split into two halves , eachsubject to a Pape who claimed to be the solelegitimate Pontifl

'

, launched spiritual curses at hisopponent ’s head, and disputed his pretensionsby forceof arms.These terrible times were ushered in by theNeapolitan Pope , Urban VL, whose harsh andirascible nature was aggravated by party hatred till itbecame scarcely human . He died in the year 1389 .

A monument was erected to him in St. Peter’s, but ithas perished, and only his sarcophagus still remainsin the Grotte. Its strange inscription has been

Hac animo magnus, sapien s, iuetueque MonarchsParthenopeus adest Urbanus Sextus in archa.Pervebat fidei latebras conferre magistrisO decus hia fretus semper post prandia siatris.

Quid luvat hunc terria mortali tollere laudePro n et itia caeli aplendet sibi gloria valde.‘

68


That the tomb of Urban VI . , despite its absurd andbarbarous inscription , must have been trulymagnificent, is proved by the drawings of it madebefore it was destroyed to make way for the newChurch . Old St. Peter's also contained the tombs of

his two successors, Boniface IX Tomacelli (13891404) and Innocent VII Migliorati (1404 PapalHistory at this period is complicated by the GreatSchism and the Reforming Councils . It was thetime of Hues and Jerome of Prague, the time whenthe elements of the approaching reformation began toferment in Germany, whilst the Italian democraciessank beneath the rule of petty tyrants and their

In the Cathedral of Recanati lies Gregory XIIAngelo Correr, a Venetian (1406 in theFranciscan Church at Bologna his successor AlexanderV . , a native ofCandia (1409 while the Baptisteryat Florence received the ashes of John XXIII .Baldassare Cossa . This ambitious and unscrupulousPontifl

'

, by birth a Neapo litan , was deposed by theCouncil of Constance , after seeking by an ignominiousflight to escape from their accusations . For threeyears he was imprisoned in Heidelberg by the

Elector Palatine, and only owed his release to the

a monarch magnanimous, wise and just. In his zeal he oflered asafe refuge to the teachers oi

’

the faith.

s s s s s

He opposed a great schism with yet greater courage ; everyapproach to simony trembl ed before such a Pon tili . What profitsit to extol him upon earth by human praises ? Assuredly the gloryof beaven shines upon him as the reward of his merits !" Theobscurity of the fourth line is so great, that I have preferred to

leave it untranslated : Gregorovius’s German version of it leaves

69


intercession of Cosimo de ’ Medici or to the paymentof a substantial sum ofmoney. He then w ithdrew to

Florence , and, to the astonishment of the w orld ,threw himself at the feet of his successor Martin V .

By him he was named Cardinal of Tusculum , butonly survived his humiliation a few months . Hedied at Florence, and there Cosimo , heir, as reportwould have it, to the great riches of the ex - Pope ,erected a costly monument in his honour, w ith the

In this tomb'

lies the body of Baldassare Cossa ,formerly Pope John XXIII ."

This tomb, like that of Gregory XI forms animportant landmark in the history of the nations . It isat once the sepulchre of the great schism in theChurch , and the last Papal tomb which is outside

The long, weary schism was at length closed byMartin V the Pope chosen at Constance by unan imousconsent of the nations (November 1 2 , and theauspicious herald of the restored unity of the Church .

With him , too , came to an end the anarchical con

ditions of the City, which henceforth was to risegradually from her debasement to renewed splendourMartin was a Roman by birth , the first Pope from therenowned Ghibelline House of the Colonna, and forthis very reason welcome to the populace of Rome .When he made his entry into the City in September,142 1 , he found it, as Gregory XI . before him had foundit, sunk in the deepest misery, shattered by the feudsof its turbulent nobility, its streets scarcely passable ,blocked by baronial towers, its churches deserted or

fallen in , its population degraded by poverty and

vendettas . Martin restored peace and order ; but the70


City had to buy his benefactions at the price of herrepublican freedom . For the first time , the Popesreduced to thorough submission that Sena tu: P opulasque Roma ny : which had so long held its groundupon the hoary Capitol .Upon the tomb of Martin V stands inscribedFelicitas Temporum Snorum . It still survivesbefore the high altar of the Lateran Basilica— a

bronze slab on which the Pope is represented inbasso - relievo . With Antonio F ilarete , the authorof this design , began the Renaissanc e of the Arts inRome.

THE fifteenth century is pre - eminently that of theRenaissance, and for the Papacy itself forms a

new epoch . Its great theological and theocratictasks had now been brought to completion ; it hadencompassed the whole world w ith its two systemsof hierarchic administration and canon law ; it hadoverpowered the Germanic Empire , converting it intoa mere Papal fief, and had exalted itself into atribunal between peoples and princes . Then it hadsunk slowly down from these heights, and its prestigehad sufi

'

ered first from the exile to Avignon, then fromthe long schism that disturbed the Church . Now

that it had regained its catholicity under Martin V. itfound the spirit of the age (the Weltgeist) flowingaround it in new currents. Mankind was revivified

by the newly- awakened knowledge and art of theheathen world ; and for its part the Papacy realizedwhat the new age demanded of it. As in the epochof the Crusades, so too now it placed itself boldly atthe head of the great movement . The Pope assumedthe role of Maecenas in the pagan Renaissance, andcontinued to play the part un til the evangelicalRenaissance— the Reformation— deprived the Popeseven of this moral supremacy.

The line ofRenaissance Popes began w ith Eugenius72


In this boastful epitaph we can already trace thealtered spirit of the times. Yet Eugenius ’ monumentin St. Peter's perished. To - day in the little Churchof S . Salvatore in Lauro may be read this proudepitaph upon the same Pontiff:

Urbs . Venetum. Dedit. Ortum. Quid. Roms . Urbis .Bt. Orbis. Jura. Det. Optanti . Caelica . Regna. Deus .

MemoriaeBugeuli . I II I .

Summi. Atq. Optimi. PontificisHic . In . Pace. Gravis. In . Bellis . Pro . Christi .

Bcclesia. ImpigerIn Iniuriis. Patien s. Religiosorum. Amator . Ac. In

Eruditos. Viros. Munificus

Concilii. Basileensis. Insolentism

Concilio Florentiae . Celebrato . Refrenavit. Ac. FregitIn. Quo

Joannes . Paleologus . Graecise . ImperatorRomanum. Caput . Agnoscens

Eius. Pedibus. Se . Multasq. Externas . Et. Remotes

Nationes, Humill. Substrsvit.

Before his sacred feet two Caesars bent their heads ,One from the rising , onc from the setting sun

One beseeching him to aoccpt the proofs of the Latin faith ,And one, to receive upon his brows the golden crown ofEmpire.Led by the Greelns' example, the Armenians and EthiopiansRecognized the Roman faith,Then the Syrians and Arabs, and the Indiansfrom the ends of theglobeVerily great deeds—yet none so great as the spirit of Eugenius

For he moved against the Turks once more with a powerful fle et :But while he moved, grim death bore him away .

He ever despised the empty honours of this wm ld,And exclaimed, “Bury me in this earth trampled beneath thefeet of men .

’

But Francis, of his illustrious family, could not endure thisHe whom he had once adorned with the red hat .

N0, mindful of his merits, he undertook the nobleAnd excellent monumen t which ye now behold.”

74


Congregatio . Canonicorum. S . Gregorii . In . Alga. Venet .

Pundatori. Religiosissimo . Pietatis . Caussa . P. C .

‘

Here the inscription takes care to remind us of theinsult oflered to the Pope by his expulsion ; and thedistich Speaks of his sway over the City. For

Eugenius IV . , though he long lived in exile, dideventually reduce the Romans ; but his success wasen tirely due to the iron strength of the PatriarchGiovanni Vitelleschi , that terrible Cardinal who takesa place of honour as a warrior beside his famouscontemporaries, Fortebraccio da Montone, Piccinino ,

and Francesco Sforza . But when Vitelleschi won

back Rome and the patrimony by his valour,EugeniusIV. , at the instance of the Florentines , rewarded himwith the basest ingratitude ; a treacherous onslaughtwas made upon him on the Bridge of the Tiber, andhe was left to die in the

‘

dungeons of Sant' Angelo .

The above inscription in S . Salvatore in Lauro w as

placed upon the restored tomb of Eugenius IV. , by thecongregation of the Canonici of S . Giorgio in Alga inVenice, out of gratitude for their own foundation .

Even this monument dates from the fifteenth centuryand is one of the few ancient tombs in Tuscan

Ven ice did give thee life,Rome , rule o‘er the world and the CityGrant, 0 Father on high , grant him the Kingdom of Heav

'

n .

In Memory of Bugenius IV.

The best and noblest of the Popes .Renowned in peace,most valiant in war for the sake of Christ’s

Church,patient under injury, a friend of the religious, and libera l

towards the learned, he restrained and broke down the inso lence ofthe Council at Basel, which threatened the power of the RomanPontifis, by holding the celebrated Council of Florence, at whichjohn Palaeologus, Bmperor of Greece , recogn ized the supremacy o fRome and humbly prostramd himself and many distant nations athis feet .”

75


Romanesque style . The figure of Eugenius reclines

in the monuments of the later middle ages, theVirgin between tw o Angels is represented in re

lief. above the recumbent figure . The niches in thedelicately wrought pillars contain small figures of

saints . Their execution . however, is crude andafi

'

ected, and is far inferior to those other sepulchraladornmm ts of the fifteenth century, in which Romeis so rich .

Indeed, under Eugenius IV. and his successors , richprelates vied with the Popes themselves in the emptyambition of erecting splendid tombs and of assuringthemselves even before death of a marble immortality.

Those countless monuments of bishops, abbots, andcardinals which throng the cloisters and churches ofRome, date from this period , when a new impulsewas given to the sculptor’s art by the celebrated Minoda Fiesole, by Paolo Romano , Antonio F ilarete ,

Pollaiuolo and many others .Though, unhappily, we no longer possess the two

finest monuments of this age— the tombs of Nicho lasV. and Paul II . in Old St. Peter’s— yet from thefragments preserved in the crypt , w e may still gathersome idea of the grandeur and extent of their artisticdesign .

With Nicholas V Thomas of Sarzana (1447the most liberal of all promoters of knowledge, theHumanism of the century actually mounted the Papalthrone . The Papacy had once more repressed andturned to its own advantage those efforts after ChurchReform which had been so much in evidence since

7 6


The remains of the immortal friend of the Muses ,Nicho las V. , are enclosed in a square urn of whitemarble, surmounted by his full - length efiigy . Theinscription , composed by his secretary Mafeo Vegio ,

is the last Papal epitaph written in verse .

Hie sita aunt Quin ti Nicolai Antistitis ossa,Aurea qui dederat secula Roma tibi.Consilio illustris, virtute illustrior omniBmcoluit doctos doctior ipse viro s.

Abstulit errarem, quo Schisma infeeerat Orhem,

Restituit mores, moenia, Templa, domos.Tum Bernardino statuit sua sacra Senensi,Sancta Jobelei tempora dum celebrat.

Cinait honore caput Friderici, et conjugis aureo ,

Res Italas ieto foedere composuit.Attica Romanae complura volumlna linguaeProdidit : en tumulo fundite thurs sacro .

‘

On the death of Nicholas V the vacantvery nearly came to be filled by the Greek Bessarion ,the most learned of all the Cardinals.”The successful

Here rest the bones of the Sovereign Pontifl Nicholas V .

Who had brought back to thee, 0 Rome, the Golden Age.Illustrious for his wisdom, yet more illustrious for every virtue ,He honoured learned men, himself more learned than them all .He removed those errors with which the Schism had infected the

globe,He reformed Manners, be restored the walls, the temples, and

the abodes of Rome.He gave to Bernardino of Siena the saintly meed,While celebrating the Holy Year of Jubilee.

He crowned with golden honour the heads of Frederick and hisspouse ;

By the treaty which he concluded he settled the afl’

alrs of Italy .

At his command many Greek works were transcribed into theLatin tongue .

Burn incense before this sacred tomb !‘Bessarion had become Cardinal under Eugenius IV. , in the year

1431 ; he died in 1472 . His tomb is to be found in the clo isters or

78


candidate, however, proved to be a Spaniard , CalixtusIII . , uncle of Rodrigo Borgia . He too had a handsome tomb ih St: Peter’s, of which only a few fragments are now to be seen in the Crypt.Happier than his tw o predecessors was Pius II .— ifindeed it can be said to contribute aught of happinessto the dead to be handed down to posterity in tombspiled high with marble or w ith bronze . His monument, originally erected in Old St. Peter

’s, was afterwards transferred to Sant'Andrea della Valle,and hasbeen preserved uninjured . It cannot fail to excite thedeepest interest, since it belongs to one of the mostcelebrated of the Popes, so remarkable for his attraetive and stimulating personality.

Aeneas Sylvius was the son of a poor nobleman of

the family of Piccolomini in Sieni, which owed itsgreatness to his genius. His brilliant talents alike aspoet, courtier, and man of the world, rapidly transformed him from a literary adventurer into a man of

wide fame and popularity . In early life he w as

secretary to the Antipope Felix V. , and ambassadorto the Emperor Frederick III . , who solemnly invested him w ith the poet ’s laurel crown , and whosehistory Aeneas wrote . At the Council of Basel he

the Santi Apostoli, where he put up his epitaph in his own life

Bessarion Bpiscopus Thusculanus, Sanctae Romanas Bcclesiae

Cardinalis,Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus. Nobili Graecia Ortus Oriundusque

Sibi Vivens Posuit. Anno Salutis MCCCLXVI .Tak en c apfm {Gr drm aéfiafl d im

To this monumen t there was afterwards added an inscription and

the portrait of the Cardinal—a noble head with long hair and beard»fully worthy of a philosopher .

79


eloquently championed the rights ofGeneral Councilsas opposed to those of the Roman Pontifi

'

s , but

afterwards seceded to the party of Eugenius IVand laid the final foundations of his good fortune asSecretary to three successive Popes, until CalixtusIII . raised him to the rank of Cardinal . When eventually he succeeded the latter on the Papd throne ,he renounced all the traditions of his past life .

During an all too brief reign, the cause that laynearest to his heart was the destruction of theTurkish power. His ardent desire was to placehimself at the head of a Crusading army, and hedied w ith w eapon already in hand, full of warlikeenthusiasm , amid the din of arming hosts assembledat the seaport of Ancona.His tomb is an architectural monstrosity, fourseparate stories in height. In fact, so large a spacedoes it occupy between two pillars in the Church ofSant’ Andrea della Valle, that there is still ampleroom left beneath it for an organ - loft. The fourstories are divided off from each other by mouldings ;and an architrave rounds off the whole w ith ahighly curious effect. The height of the strueture renders it impossible to identify the numerous reliefs which adorn the various panels .The central division is taken up with the sarcophagus, on which lies the full - length figure of thePope : he was small of stature, and had grown old

before his time through loose living and hard study .

The pilasters are adorned, according to ancientfashion, with figures of Saints in the niches.Vasari ascribes this monument to two pupils of

Paolo Romano—Nico la della Guardia and Pietro daTodi . Fully in keeping with the pedantry of this

80


V. , for it came from the hand of Mino da Fiesole. Alarge fragment of it, in the shape of lunettes, repre

senting the Last Judgment, and a number of figuresof Saints and moral virtues, convey some idea of therichness of the original design . The actual cofiin issquare and simpler than Paul II . had himself wished ;

Constantia (now in the Vatican Museum) w as re

moved to his Palace of S . Marco from the Cappelladei Santi near Sant’ Agnese , and set apart for the

The inscription boasts that this Pope was preeminent among the ancient race of the Barbi fornoble gifts of nature , and was in no w ay inferior tohis uncle Eugenius IV . Paul came of the Venetianfamily of Condulmer,which in a brief space of timesaw three of its members elevated to the Papacy .

For Angelo Condulmer w as at once the brother ofGregory XII ., the father ofEugenius IV .,and the uncleof Paul II . Pietro Barbo was a man of noble aspect.When he emerged from the Conclave as supremePontifi

'

, he wished to adopt the name of Formosus,but the Cardinals po inted out to him that the assumption of such a title would seem a mere idle allusion tohis handsome figure . Men mocked at his vanity

,

because he loved nothing better than to show him

self in procession, where he towered above the headsof other men . He decked himself out like a con

ceited w oman , before he went to attend the solemnfunctions of the Church . He squandered vast sumsupon the adornment of his person . He had sapphires

,

chrysolites, smaragdi, diamonds and pearls sent tohim from all parts of the w orld, that he mightadorn his mitre , and then displayed himself in it

82


before the populace as the most handsome of all thePopes . Nicholas V. had collected manuscripts forhis library w ith the passion of a humanist and an

antiquary ; Paul II with equal zeal , collectedantique gems

, medals, statues, and works of art ofevery kind . He was the first to lay out, in hispalace of 8 . Marco , a cabinet of curiosities and an

Rome still can show many traces of thisvoluptuous Venetian—more especially the splendidpalace of S . Marco , and the name of the Corso ,

where he was the first to introduce the races of theCarnival . To the sciences he showed no favour ;indeed he even persecuted and suppressed theRoman Academy, whose head was the celebratedPomponius Laetus .

His successor Sixtus IV . della Rovere ( 147 1 - 1484)is the first of a series of Popes who had nothingspiritual about them save their priestly robes . Pursuing purely secular aims , they were free fromevery scruple as to the means for their attainment .The Papacy was ere long converted into a tyrannythe States of the Church were founded anew, whilethe Church itself sank deeper and deeper into theabyss of vice and corruption . The Holy Fathermodelled his conduct only too exactly on that of

secular Princes , and each succeeding Pontificate

was made up of intrigues and plots and aggressivew ars against the neighbouring States . The Italianhegemony was at this time contested betweenVenice , Milan , Florence, Naples and numberlesspetty principalities and amid the ever recurringleagues and conspiracies, the cunning schemes andlabyrinthine negotiations, the successor of Peter

83


sailed w ith the w ind and cast his broad net upon thedoubtful waters .It is a matter of common know ledge that SixtusIV. was the prime instigator of the murderousConspiracy of the Pazzi in Florence . To him alsoattaches the infamy of introducing the system o f

Papal nepotism . For in , granting Imola and Forli tohis nephew Giro lamo Riario , he w a s the first Popeto invest a kinsman w ith a temporal sovereignty .

His political aspirations w ere elaborated by theBorgia w ith truly diabolical skill .The nephew of Sixtus , Pope Julius II . , when stillCardinal erected a monument to his terrible uncle .

It formerly stood in the chapel of the choir of OldSt . Peter's, but has been removed to the Chapel ofthe Blessed Sacrament. It consists of a bronze slab ,desi gned by the Florentine Antonio Pollaiuolo , in theyear 1493. The sides of the pedestal are coveredw ith allegorical figures ; above rests the full - lengthfigure of the Pope . The base is surrounded byfemale forms in relief, representing Arithmetic ,Astrology, Dialectics, Rhetoric and Grammar, Perspective and Music, Geometry , Philosophy andTheology . Sixtus was, it is true, a learnedFranciscan , the friend of Bessarion , and a teacherat six of the mo st famous Universities of Italy insuccession , and thus far are these allegoricalfigures suited to his professional calling ; but theyoffer a most startling contrast to the modern concep

tion of the Papal dignity . The half- naked figures aremeagre and strikingly affected , and appear all themore extraordinary ow ing to the arbitrary choice oi

their attributes . F or what can be stranger than torepresent Theo logy as a w oman carrying a quiver ful l

84


of arrows on her shoulder, like the heathen goddessDiana— as though , instead o f sitting gravely amidFathers of the Church and dogmas, she should haveplunged into the forest in pursuit of a gallant stagThe combination of ideas in the artist's mind is in thehighest degree mysterious, and even Winckelmann ,

who fell into such deep error as to the relationship of

Allegory and Art and busied himself so much w iththe invention of new allegories, stood bew ilderedbefore this quiver- bearing Theo logy. What impressesone most in the tomb of Sixtus is not so much theemployment of allegorical figures—these were indispensable for tombs of the Popes, since , after all, theirwhole being and activity rests upon a moral basis ;far rather is it the singular blending of Christian andpagan conceptions . The figure of the Pope, withhead full of expression and character, w ith stronglyprojecting chin and aquiline nose , is the most strikingfeature of this strange work of art, at which Pollaiuoloworked for ten whole years.The same sculptor wrought also the bronze tomb

of Innocent VIII . Cibd (1484 It stands in St.Peter’s, against a pillar close to the chapel of thecho ir, and raised high above the ground . Like

'

the

tomb of Sixtus , it is paltry and full of afi'

ectation .

The Pope lies upon a bronze sarcophagus, resting on

piers . Above the tomb he is represented once more ,as in life, enthroned and raising his right hand inblessing, while he holds in his left the Holy Lancewhich came as a present from the Sultan Bayezid.

On either side the niches of the pillars are filled withtheological and moral virtues— Faith , Love and Hope ,Justice, Courage, Moderation and Wisdom . Theinscription acclaims Innocent as the unwearied

85


preserver of peaee in Italy, and as the glory of thenew world which w as discovered in his reign .

The epigrams composed upon the mediaeval Popeswere ofi en beautiful and ingenious , nay often breatheda noble spirit and a penetrating wit . Compared w iththese, how sorry and unworthy seem the inscriptionsof later Popes, such as Pius II . and Innocent VIII . ,who died at the very threshold of such portentousevents . Only thirty years before his election Constantinople had fallen into the power of the Osmanlis ;but what Christendom had lost in the East she wasere long destined to recover in the West. Innocentlived to see the Conquest of Granada by Ferdinand oiArragon . The Spanish and Portuguese branches of

the Latin race rose to the height of a genuine religiouspower, which won fresh victories and new worlds forthe Church , The terrible Inquisition had been introduced by Ferdinand, and now Innocent saw the stakeonce more in flames to receive the heretics, just as hispredecessor, third of the name, had beheld it duringthe Albigensian War . In later times the gloomyfervour of Spain ’s religious faith w as to give birth tothe Order of Jesus , the doughtiest opponent of thatGerman monk whose birth had taken place but a fewmonths before Innocent VIII .

'

s accession . Whatmighty changes were at hand, what fiery strugglesand overpowering losses, such as the slothful Pontifi

'

dreamt not of l He only saw the Catholic faith advancing in triumph over the expanding world . BartholomewDiaz had already discovered the Cape of Good Hopethe route to India lay open. But the Pope could stillboldly regard himself as overlord of the world, andinvested John II . of Portugal w ith all the lands of

Africa already discovered and yet to be explored , as a86

ALEXANDER VI .Borgia (1492 In the eyes ofthosewho lovetopersonifywhole epochs in a single

name, the name of Borgia, rendered doubly terribleby the father and the son , has become a symbol of depravity as expressive as the name of Tiberius amongthe Roman Caesars . Amid the bright rays of thedawning Reformation , the blackest shadow s fall uponthe Papacy and upon Italy. Columbus and Lutherare the antitheses which reconcile us to the age .

Pope Alexander VI . will never free himself fromthe judgment of being the representative of his timestimes of bloodthirsty self- interest and infamous vice,when nought was considered holy save egotistic aims ,and nought more creditable than skill in attaining them . The drama in which such passionsare revealed is rendered the more impressive by thenarrow limits of the stage, but at the same timeinspires the philosopher with so much the more con

tempt. The struggles of Julius Caesar and Octavianfor the possession of the world seem noble by reasonof their very vastness, and through their commandinginfluence upon the fate of mankind. The efforts of aCaesar Borgia, on the contrary, seem to us to - daylittle short of absurd, when we consider to w hatdepths of crime and infamy he stooped that he mightscrape together a petty kingdom for himself from a

88


few scattered cities of Italy. His end w as a pleasantcontrast to his bloodstained career. He found anhonourable soldier's death in the service of hisbrother- ih -law, the King of Navarre .‘His infamous father is reputed to have died fromthe effects of po ison which he had sought to ad

minister to one of the richer cardinals ; but this storyis probably little more than an idle rumour. Throughout life he was favoured by a boundless fortune .

Nature had endowed him with a majestic presenceand a lively understanding. The motives of his fearful crimes are to be found not so much in his ambitionas in his sensuality and love for his bastard children .

His reign brought with it universal ruin ; it was thecurse of Italy, whom he delivered over to the mercyof French and Spm ish armies, and the curse of theChurch, in whose eyes his pontifieate must remain aneternal disgrace . And indeed a dreadful Nemesiswas at hand. The voice of Savonarola , it is true ,w as stifled in the flames of the stake ; but Luther stilllived, and no succeeding Pope has ever availed toundo his mighty work .

With what moral virtues shall we find the tomb of

an Alexander VI . adorned 2 W ill Theo logy appear asDiana with quiver full of darts, or as Venus , or as thepoisoner Locusts — The Borgia Pope has no monu

Caesar Borgia lies buried in Pampluna . A Spanish poet com

posed this indifl'erent epitaphA qui yaze en poca tierra

q ue toda la temia ;En esto vulto se encierra

El que la pu y la guerra

En su mano lo tenia.

“Here lies in scanty earth he whom all the world '

feared ; in this

place is shut in he who held peace and war in his hand ."89


ment,—not even a grave . Julius II his second successor and former enemy, ordered the removal ofAlexander ’s remains from the Vatican Crypt to theChurch of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, and whenthat church fell into ruins, they were transferred to

Santa Maria di Monserrato , the other national churchof the Spaniards in Rome . Here they still lie withouta tomb , in the wooden chest in the sacristy, togetherwith the remains of Calixtus I II . On the chest is thefollowing inscription

Los guesos de dos Papas estan en esta caseta, y son Calisto yAlexandro VI ., y eran Espafi

'

oles.

In the same way the Sarcophagus in the Vaticancrypt, which is shown as that of Alexander, alsobelongs to his uncle Calixtus III . , whose full lengthfigure lies above. l

Sannazzaro wro te the following inscription upon AlananderPortasse nescis, cuius hie tumulus sietAdsta viator, ni piget.Titulum quem Alexandri vides, baud illiusMagn i est, sed huius, qui modoLibidino sa sanguinis captus sitiTot civitates inclytas

Tot regna evertit, tot duces letho dedit,Natos ui impleat suos .Orbem rapin is, ferro et igne funditusVastavit, hsusit, eruit.

Humans iura, nee minus coelestiaIpsosque sustulit Deos.Ut scilicet licm h heu scelus !patri

Nee venerandis abstinere nuptis

Timore sublato semel.So far as concerns the allusion to the Pope’s criminal intercourse

with his daughter Lucrezia , I may refer my readers to my “ LucreziaBorgia, nach Urkunden und Correspondenzen ihrer Zeit.

9°


still a Cardinal, he became habituated to all the vicesof the age ; at first he was the bitter enemy of

Alexander VI but later on , self- interest promptedhim to ally himself w ith Caesar Borgia and even tobecome one of the most zealous promoters of

CharlesVIII .

'

s Italian Expedition ,which was destined

to plunge his fatherland into such awful depths of

mise ry. His hatred towards the Borgia never restedUpon moral grounds nor indeed did considerations ofmorality ever influence his outlook upon the w orld.

Throughout life statecraft and policy w ere his soleguides . During his eventful reign he sought to expelthe French once more from Italy, but he could onlyrid himself of one invader by calling in another ; andfrom his Pontificate dates the long Spanish predominance in the Peninsula . He subjected Bologna,Piacenza, Parma , Reggio and Urbino to the Church,and became the second founderof the PapalMonarchy.

This has appeared his greatest glory in the eyes of

those who deem it not unbecoming to the ofli ce of

a Pope to conquer and to administer wide temporaldomains . Tod ay the Papal States, as organized byJulius II . , exist no longer ; but happily for this Pontifl

'

other titles to fame have survived. His name cannever be dissociated from the great masterpieces ofthe Renaissance , which owe to him their origin.The immortality of Raphael and Michel Angelo hasembraced the haughty Pontifl

'

w ithin its folds , and inthem alone he lives . Raphael has painted his portrait, and from the noble fresco of Heliodorus Juliuslooks forth lofty and resolute—borne into the templeupon his chair, his stern gaze fixed upon the coweringrobbers, so that one cannot say who has caused thispanic among the polluters of the temple— the Heavenly

92


Rider, glowing w ith fierc e anger, or the calm andsilent Pope . This allegory denotes the expulsion of

the foe from the States of the Church , and as such isc haracteristic of Julius II .It may be observed that for centuries before him

no Pope had worn a beard . It was indeed befittingthat he, of all the Popes, should be the first to assumethis sign of manly pow er. His example was follow edby Francis I . , Charles V. , and their courtiers , and

though the immediate successors of Julius II . wereonce more beardless, yet Clement VII . gave somepermanence to the custom , when , after the sack of

Rome by Bourbon ’s mercenaries, he allowed hisbeard to grow as a sign ofgrief and mournin g. From thedays of Clement VII . till w ell into the eighteenth centurywe shall continue to see these bearded figures uponthe Papal monuments. They are not invariably beardssuch as those of the Apostolic age sometimes indeed,to our amazement, w e see long mustachios and im

perials similar to those worn by Wallenstein andTilly . In the century of Henri Quatre and theThirty Years ’ War , all the Popes had the appearanceof commanders - ln - chief and cavalry officers . Julius IIon the contrary, wore the beard of a Patri arch or anApostle .

This ambitious creator of the Papacy in themonarchical spirit of the times had the further desireof glorifying himself and his acts, like a secondAugustus . He resumed the plans of Nicholas V.

All Rome w as to be his monument. To give expression to his dreams , he found ready at hand the geniusof Bramante and Raphael , and above all of MichelAngelo . St . Peter’s, whose foundations he laid, thepaintings of the Sistine Chapel

,the Loggie of

93


Bramante , the Stanze of Raphael,are the imperish

able monuments ofJulius II .We , how ever, are concerned solely with h is tomb .

Long before his death he had commissioned the grea tMichel Angelo to design it . The plan was fully inkeeping w ith the temporal ambition of the Pope ; andthat it was not completed according to the originaldesign is a permanent loss to Art in general. Letone but imagine what such a monument from thehand of Michel Angelo would have been ! It was tohave been eighteen feet in height and twelve feet inbreadth, and would have included more than thirtystatues, among them Moses, Saints Peter and Paul,Rachel and Leah, the Arts and Provinces captive inchains, and further, figures representing Heaven andEarth, which, in accordance w ith a truly titanic con

ception, were to support the sarcophagus of a RomanPontifl

'

.

The death of Julius II . in the year 1513 made theexecution of so vast a design impossible ; and it wasonly after long negotiations that Paul III . arranged acompromise between Michel Angelo and Julius ’s heir,the Duke of Urbino , by which the original plan wasabandoned in favour of the existing figures. Thismonument, which has won universal fame throughthe figure of Moses, is the noblest of all the Papaltombs , since it draws its inspiration from the geniusof Michel Angelo . It stands in the church of S .

Pietro in Vinculis, from which Julius had taken histitle as Cardinal . All the remaining figures whichare grouped around it,whether of real excellence or

wholly inadequate, like the cramped architectoniccomposition—all are banished completely from themind by the central figure ofMoses .

94


of Active and Contemplative Life, personified inLeah and Rachel . They too are from the hand of

Michel Angelo , and indeed Rachel displays therobust character of all his female figures . Thestatues in the upper portion of the tomb have beenexecuted after his models— the Sibyl and theProphet, by his most talented pupil , Raffaelle daMontelupo- but they are devoid of all artistic merit,and hence the upper portion of the tomb prese

nts

a harsh contrast to the lower. The Pope, reposingupon the small sarcophagus, forms but a very modestpart of the whole design . He has dwindled to anunreal and insignificant ornament of his own tomb .

Besides , his attitude is somewhat unusual for he isnot represented as a dead man (as w as the practiceon other Papal tombs) , but he lies there w aking,and leans his crowned and bearded head upon hishand, gazing down upon the figure of Moses . Infact the figure of Julius is the worst of the who legroup ; its artist, Maso da Bosco , might perhapsplead in his excuse that his ideas were stifled anddwarfed by the great central creation of the Moses. "

Of higher merit is the Madonna and child—byScherano da Settignano— which rounds 03 the wholedesign .

Hence this tomb of the celebrated Julius II .—or

rather his monument , since he himself lies buried inSt. Peter’s, beside his uncle Sixtus

‘ IV .—i s only

worthy of him in its central figure . For the rest,as w e gaze upon this famous Moses with its boldoutlines , the flow ing beard and the robe flung in

povverful folds across the knee , w e see in dimperspective the whole of Roman statuary in theseventeenth century— all the Papal monuments and

96

[Fan-

ram Au tism.

JULIUS I I .

in S . Pietro - in»Vin culis, Rome.

HE tomb of Leo X . Medici (15 13 Thismight well stand also for a monument of the

Golden Age of Italy, which is for ever associated withthe names of Leo and the Medici, just as the Age of

Horace w as linked with those of Maecenas andAugustus . For the tomb ofLeo neither Moses, norLeah and Rachel were suitable, but far rather thepagan Apollo and the Muses . For beneath his magicw and the gods ofGreece came once more to life ; thesecularized Papacy— under Alexander VI . tyrannical,under Julius II . monarchical— had become under theson of Lorenzo the Magnificent sybaritic . In no agehas the spirit been so free to indulge its passions, nor

has any age shown so boundless a capacity for enjoyment ; and it was to these tw o qualities of the agethat, amid the decay of morals and of purity of life ,the rich blossoms of Art in all her branches weredirectly due . The after-world, which has condemnedthe crimes of the Popes of that epoch , should at leastbe grateful for their frankly pagan aesthetic tastes ;for they have flooded the human soul with that feelingfor beauty which so pervades modern life and, butfor them , the stern abnegating spirit of the Reformation would have robbed us of the other halfof culture .Giovanni de ’ Medici was born at Florence on

December 1 1 , 1475 , and even in the cradle wasmarked out by his father for the Papacy. At the age

98


of seven he received the tonsure at thirteen he wasraised to the dignity of Cardinal . At thirty- eight bemounted the Papal throne as Leo X . While stillCardinal- legate he was taken prisoner at the bloodybattle of Ravenna . Mounted on the same white horsewhich he had ridden on that eventful day, he passedthrough Rome to take possession of the Lateran .

At his Coronation the purely pagan spirit of the agedisplayed itself in the festivities held in his honour.The city was resplendent with triumphal arches

,

altars, carpets, festoons and garlands of flowers ,paintings and statues , which crowded the publicstreets and piazzas . It was as though Leo X . weremaking his entry into Athens . On the bridge of

Sant’ Angelo , one of the arches of triumph bore thisinscription :

Olim babnit Cypria sua tempora, tempora MavoraOlim habuit nunc sua tempora Pallas babet. i

Such was the strange mode of greeting a Pope—byreminding him that he had owned allegiance first toVenus, then to Mars, and now worshipped at thefeet of Minerva . Others how ever, with perhaps abetter show of reason, have referred this inscriptionto the reigns ofAlexander VI . and Julius II . , and tothat of Leo X . which was now commencing. But lestthe goddess Venus should be passed over at this actof Papal homage, her statue was erected close to thesame triumphal arch , and the following inscription

Mars fuit : est Pallas : Cypria semper em.“

1 Venus and Mars have once had their day ; it is now the turnof Pallas ."3 Mars has been now Pallas has her day but I, Venus, shallever be with you.

"

99


Leo X. was a lover of all that was bright and witty ,

Music and Poetry, the plastic Arts and PlatonicPhilosophy. Under him the Opera found its originand the first Italian tragedy, the Sophonisba of

Trissino , was acted before him . That luxuriant age,which te - echoes with the magic lines of Ariosto ,

could boast a constellation of geniuses such as fewsingle epocbs in the history ofmankind have ever be

held . When Raphael went to the Court ofLeo ,wherebe filled just such a role as Michel Angelo with JuliusII he brought with him a whole crowd ofartists,andwelcomed in the Vatican a throng of poets andw ants. Here might be seen Bembo , Sadoleto ,

Bibbiena, Navagero, Tebaldeo , Accolti and so manyothers. Raphael has painted almost all of them . Aswe wander through the Stanze, how vividly we arereminded of that sway of the Graces when thehumanizing spirit was free and unrestrained. Whatcan give a clearer conception of the condition of thePapacy under Julius and Leo than the painting of theDisputa in the Vatican , representing Theology and theSacraments, facing each other on the most equalterms—here the school of pagan Athens, and thereParnassus, with Apollo playing upon the viol, andthe listening Muses and Poets ?The combination of pagan and Christian ideas atthat time was startlirig and extraordinary. Erasmusin one of his public addresses compared Pope Juliuswith Zeus, the sufl

'

erings of Christ with the fates ofSocrates and Iphigenia. Indeed it was quite acommon practice to employ the names of Jupiter forthe Deity,Aesculapius for our Lord, and Diana for theBlessed Virgin . Even in the churches and on thesepulchral monuments of the time, one may trace

roo


tasks of the Church, it was little wonder that hefailed to grasp the meaning of this sudden ferment ofthe intellect in Germany. His debauchery andmagnificence, and perhaps even more so his passionfor building, gave a great impetus to the LutheranReformation . In fact it was the building- fund of

St. Peter's which absorbed the German indulgencemoney .

The tomb of Leo X . stands in the choir of SantaMaria sopra Minerva . Even this accidental com

bination of the names Mary and Minerva, whichreminds us of the historical process by whichChristianity and Paganism were blended in Rome, issingularly appropriate for this Pope . But themonument is in keeping neither w ith his own

character nor with that of the age . It is of largeproportions, and contains a number of unimportantsculptures. Antonio da San Gallo had drawn thedesign , and Baccio Bandinelli carried most of it intoexecution . The figure of the Pope , on a somewhatclumsy pedestal , is seated in a niche formed betweenfour Corinthian pillars ; and these again support anattic with three large reliefs

,surmounted by the

Medici arms . Leo holds the keys in his left hand,while the right is raised in blessing. In later centurieswe shall meet more and more frequently with thismanner of representing the figures of the Popes inthe act of blessing. It seems to have been adoptedfrom Byzantine mosaics, w hich generally portrayOur Lord enthroned, blessing the faithful : and to

represent his vicegerent upon earth in exactly the samemanner was a very natural idea . For in this solemnact is comprehended the whole energy of theirspiritual office and functions, when all people of the

102


earth fling themselves upon their knees in eagerreverenc e, to receive the benediction . Few scenescan rival in impressive grandeur the great festivalwhen the Holy Father blesses the multitudes in St .Peter’s, when he appears borne aloft upon his throne,crowned with the triple tiara and robed in wide foldsof spotless white— as though some being from anotherworld had flashed down from Heaven , and revealeditself to the kneeling crowd . In the credulous MiddleAges this scene of rapturous devotion must have beenindeed overpowering . But w e of to - day have seentoo many of these Papal statues, each in the selfsame attitude, and they strike the eye with a sense ofweariness and monotony.

The actual figure of Leo X . is a work of indifl'

erent

workmanship, from the chisel of Raffaelle da Montelupo , and equally unimportant are the statues of St .Peter and St . Paul in the niches on either side .

At the feet of Leo 's monument is the sepulchralslab of Bembo , his brilliant and talented friend .

1

Another monument ; another Pope, and othertimes . After the flowers and music of Leo ’s carnival,a gaunt and voiceless Lent .

The grave of Benibo , without any monument, in the recentlyrestored church, is covered by a new marble slab on which isinscribed : D .O .M . Petro Bembo Patritio Veneto . Ob eius singulares virtutea a Paolo I II . P .M . in Sac . Collegium cooptati Tor.

quatus Bembus P . 0b. xv . K. Feb . MDXLVII Vixit an . LXXVI .M .

VII . D . XXVIII . But the old half- pagan inscription says :

H ic Bembua lacet Aonidum lausmaxima PhoebiCum so le, et luna vix perituris hono s.

Hie et fama iacet, apes, et suprema galeriQuam non ulla quest restituisse dies .

Hie iacet exemplar vitae omn i fraude carentis,Summa iacet, summa hie cum pietate fides.

103


Adrian VI . made his entry into Rome—Adrian ofUtrecht, an upright and morose professor from the

gloomy city of Liege , the former tutor of Charles V .

The son of a ship ’s carpenter, he was brought up, notlike Leo in the lap ofluxury, but in the school of needand poverty . Artists and humanists alike were now

banished from the Vatican . There were no morerecitations oi sonnets, no more Platonic dialogues ;even musical instruments were hushed ; the brush andthe chisel were put aside. Adrian spent his days inprayer and work . He said , " I will no t have thechurches as ornaments ofthe priesthood,but the priestsas ornaments of the churches .

” When he w ent out, hewas surrounded no longer by poets, artists, andsavants, but by beggars and cripples,whom he blessedand rewarded with liberal alms .Thus Rome suffered a w ell merited penance for hersins ; but a single year brought her deliverance, forAdrian died on September 14, 1523. Hated by theRoman courtiers and mocked at in their satires ,because he had sought to check the Reformation bypurifying the abuses and crimes of the Curie, theunhappy Adrian felt the tragedy of his pod tion . Histomb bears the following lament

Prob Dolor ! Quantum Refert in QuneTempora cuiusque Virtue Incidet.‘

Adrian VI . was the last German and the lastforeigner to fill the Papal throne. Several Germanshad held the oflice, and almost every one of them hadstriven for the reform of the Church . Adrian's tombstands in Santa Maria dell”Anima, the church of theGermans in Rome ; it was erected here in the presby

Alas ! howmuch depends upon the age in which even the mostvirtuous of men is placed !

104


corner of the relief as the river- god with his horn of

plenty ; and thus poor Adrian , who carried his devation to the length of pedantry, could not preventthe spirit of the age from leaving its pagan tracesupon his tomb .

Once more the Medicean Zeitgeist mounted thePapal throne in the person of Clement VII . (1523

the son of that Giuliano who had lost his lifethrough the Pazzi conspiracy in Florence . But hispontificate was very different from that of his cousin ;and he was as unlucky as Leo had been fortunate.The long - threatened deluge burst upon EcclesiasticalRome . By the aid of France, Clement sought to freeItaly from the sway of the Emperor ; but Charles V .

pitilessly rent asunder the web of intrigue which thisdegenerate Medici had w oven ; and never in allhistory has a Pope suffered a more awful chastisementat the hands of an Emperor . Charles sent his armyunder Bourbon and Frundsberg against Rome . OnMay 6, 1527 , Clement VII . beheld the same terrifyingspectacle as hie great predecessor Gregory VII . Fromhis place of refuge in Sant’ Angelo he could see thestorm of the city, which the efl

'

emina te Romansyielded without resistance to the maddened soldieryof the Empire ; he could see the long sack of theseven - billed Babylon , more terrible than any of theoutrages of Vandals and Saracens, and the intolerableinsults offered to the Papacy by the Lutheran landskmclzts, who escorted to the Vatican an efligy of

Clement fastened to the back of an ass , and draggedcaptive cardinals through the streets amid the mostbrutal outrages . 1

Bourbon fell before the walls of Rome . The Germans carriedhis body to Gaeta, buried him there in the Cathedral, and set the

106


Alike politically and morally, this catastrophestruck a death - blow to the authority of the Pope .

Before the very eyes of the Apostle, a terribleNemesis had shattered his prestige and destroyed theuniversality of his pow er.The unlucky Clement remained for seven w eary

months a close prisoner in Sant' 'Angelo ; but evenafter he regained his freedom fresh troubles andlosses fell to his lot, for he lived to see the defectionof England under Henry VIII . fi‘

om the Roman faithand died, leaving the Church in ruins and despair.His tomb faces that of Leo X . in Santa Maria sopraMinerva, and w as carried out after the same designof San Gallo and with the same indifferent workmanship . Thus are Fortune and Misfortune representedin the tombs of two kinsmen of a celebrated familythe two reverses of the co in of life .

The sympathy aroused by the fate of Clement VII .is, however, greatly diminished when we rememberthat this w eak and clumsy disciple of the principlesinculcated by Machiavelli ’s Prince ” was the man

who cheated his native city, the glorious Republic of

Florence, of her freedom , and brought her beneaththe yoke of the Medici bastards .Between these tw o graves there are but a fewsteps . Time measures them out by spans, and noPope reigns long, since each one of them commenceshis career of fame at a time of life when , by a naturallaw , man must prepare himself for the grave . Andhence the most sign ificant ceremony at the coronationof a Pope is tha t in which a priest approaches him ,

following vigorous in scription above his tomb Aueto imperio , Gallovieto, superata Italia, Pontifice obsesso , Roma capta CarolusBorbonius in victoria caesus hie iacet.

107


bearing in one hand a candle and in the other a reedto which a handful of tow is attached. As he sets onealight by means of the other , he pronounces thewords, Sic transit gloria mundi," and another priestadds, H Sancte pater, non habebis annoe Petri .”

The legendary reign of the Apostle as first Bishop of

Rome extended to five and twenty years ; the averageduration of a Papal reign is no more than seven .

Truly nothing demonstratesmore clearly the transitorynature of all greatness than this triple crown , whichDeath hands on from greybeard to greybeard .

Once more we find ourselves in St. Peter’s before aPapal tomb— the handsome monument of Paul III .

Farnese (mg r Guglielmo della Porta ’s masterpiece . The sarcophagus stands in a niche of theprincipal Tribune, to the left of the altar of theCanonized Popes , and is surmounted by the bronzeseated figure of Paul III . , a dignified old man whosebearded countenance bends forward as though in deepthought. In front of the coffin lie the female figures ofPrudence and Justice, the former old and bearing themirror, the latter youthful and holding the Fa ces.

Both alike reveal the impress of Michel Angela 'spowerful style, and bear some likeness to the figuresof Day and Night on the tombs of the Medici in S .

Lorenzo at Florence . Prudence is the portrait of thePope’ smother, Giovanna Gaetani of Sermoneta , of therace of Boniface VIII . while justice is said to be alikeness of Paul's sister, the beautiful Giulia Farnese ,the mistress of Alexander VI . , to whom Paul himselfowed his eminent position in the Church . Originallyboth figures were nude, till Bernini clothed them withshirts of plated metal , thus entirely destroying theeffect of the tw o statues . It must, however, be

108


admitted that the voluptuous form of youthful Justicemight well rouse the disgust of a Rome which hadlong left behind it the days of Alexander and of Paul .Formerly the tomb was further adorned by two

other corresponding figures— Mildness and Plentywhich are now preserved in

.

a room of the PalazzoFarnese . The tomb was erected in the year 1562 inthe old basilica, and in 1574 was removed to a spotin the new church now occupied by the figure of

Veronica it w as only in 1629 that it was placed in itspresen t position , and the niche proved too narrow for

the reception of the tw o pedestal figures .This, the finest Papal tomb in St. Peter’s, cost

Roman scudi , which w ere disbursed by thePapal treasury. But it was not always the Statechest from which such contributions came for aPope was but rarely honoured with a monument atthe expense of his immediate successors, it being of

the nature of the Papal elective monarchy that thenew Pope is generally chosen from the Oppositionparty, and is the enemy ofhis predecessor. For thisreason the Papal monuments have for the mostpart been erected either by the Papal nephews or

by cardinals who owed their advancement to theparticular Pontifl

'

in question .

Paul III . was the first Roman Pope since the daysof Martin V.

— 103 years . A pupil of Pomponius

Laetus, he was learned and a good classical scholar,lively and witty in conversation . But his boundlessambition and nepotism remind one of the worstdays of the Borgia, under whom his licentious youthhad been spent . His natural son Pierluigi Farnese ,a monster of immorality, but without a trace of

Caesar Borgla ’s ability, was invested by Paul II I .109


with Parma, which was created a Duchy in hishonour. Nor did the Pope pay much attention tothe infamous deeds of his bastard, though even atthis distant date their enormity is enough to makeour blood boil. For his grandson Ottavio hesecured the hand of Margaret, the natural daughterof Charles V. , in after days Regent of the Netherlands .‘ We are still reminded of this marriage bythe Palazzo Madama and the Villa Madama, whichwere both assigned to Margaret, after Paul III . hadunjustly confiscated the goods of the Medici in Rome .

The Pope himself is recalled to our memory by thesight of the most magnificent palace in all Rome ,erected by him when he w as still a cardinal ; and thefamous Farnesina also preserves the memory of afamily which has played so great a part in the historyof Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, and which is asintimately connected with the history ofArt as wereeven the Medici . It is well - known how zealouslyPaul III . urged on the erection of St. Peter’s byMichel Angelo , and how during his reign the mightysculptor completed his Last Judgment in theSistine Chapel.This brilliant Pontiff died in the fulness of renown ,beloved by the people and proud in the consciousnessof having founded a princely house . But his familygave him ceaseless trouble ; Pierluigi fell by the handof an assassin , and Ottavio revolted against his grandfather. This last blow proved too much for theoctogenarian Pope and brought him to the grave .

With Paul III . we reach the close of the classicalperiod of the Papacy. All those mysterious influences

The issue of thismarriage was the famous Alessandro Farnese.Duke of Parma, and leader of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands.

1 10

IN a chapel of the Dominican Church of SantaMaria sopra Minerva, erected to St . Thomas

Aquinas by Cardinal Olivieri Carafl'

a and adornedwith pd ntings by Filippo Lippi, we find the monument of a Pope who arouses our interest in a veryeminent degree . Seated upon a sarcophagus of

yellow marble, the Pope is clothed in rich flowingrobes, his right hand raised aloft in blessing or inanathema, while in his left rest the keys of Peter.The face, overshadow ed by a scanty beard , ishaggard

and emaciated, with sharp and rigid features—a

typical Dominican countenance . The eyes are sunkdeeply in their sockets ; the furrows on the brow andchecks and round the determined imperious mouth,

are not so much the lines of advanced old age, as so

many evidences of a soul whose impetuous andglowing zeal had marked him out to be a ruler ofmen .

This keen personality !stamped the impress of itswill alike upon men and upon events ; it distilled anatmosphere such as inspired all with passion or withfear. Even the terrible Duke of Alba, who nevertrembled before mortal man , confessed, after his interview with this redoubtable Pope, that no othercountenance had stricken him with such fear as thatof the fiery old man . This face which looks down

1 12


upon us in marble , belongs to Paul IV . , of the Neapolitan race of the Carafl

'

a .

He it was who inspired the Catholic Church withthat energy which enabled it, not merely to resist theinroads of the Reformation , but even to recoverground in the heart of the enemy ’s country. Hekindled the Church with a breath of en thusiasmwhich has only had its like in the thirteenth century,in the days of Dominic and Francis . The Inquisition ,the torture - chambers, the Autos - da - fé, the censorship,are all alike his works . From him the Order of Jesusderived encouragement and support ; to him in thefirst instance Loyola and Xavier had recourse— men

filled with the same gloomy lust for battle as hadspurred on Cortez and Pizarro on other fields of

heroic energy.

The great breach which the Reformation hadcreated among mankind had deprived the Papacy of

its spiritual supremacy. It had become a mere partof the whole, in the same sense as the ProtestantChurch . But when this unpleasant fact was oncedriven home to her, she rallied all her forces, purgedherself of all hostile elements, proclaimed martial lawwithin her camp, intrenched herself behind a newand stricter discipline, and at length, after carefulpreparation , assumed the ofl

'

ensive, with newly discovered weapons, with new ly devised battle - arrayand with freshly conceived tactics .Whatever the Order of Jesus may have been , itwill ever remain a wonderful product of the humangenius, and notably because it first established thenotion of the Society on a grand scale— of a societywhich, though based on a very definite and verysitnple principle, was yet related to the universal, and

1 13 I


embraced all human capabilities and tendencies in itsca lculations. This universal nature and power of

adaptation lies at the root of the greatness of the

combined ubiquity and secrecy . In later days menopposed to it the League of Freemasons, and this

sion ; but it lacked a middle point, a clearly workingcentral principle, and hence it remained a mere idealof cosmopo litan humanitarianism .

Thus under Paul IV. the Church became instinctwith a fierce passion for the fray, and assumed oncemore the radiant robe of victory. All the pomp thatJulius and Leo had lavished upon the worldly aspectof their dominion, was now diverted to the spiritualfunction . A gorgeous ritual was of far greater mo

ment to the Church and her triumphs than to hersupreme ruler upon earth .

Ere long Rome saw herself transformed into thecity of Sixtus V where even Antiquity, aftertriumphing in the reign of Leo X . over the Christianspirit, w as once more thrown into subjection— wherethe obelisks of Egypt were surmounted by the Cross ,and the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius bythe figures of the Apostles Peter and Paul .Nor did Paul IV. neglect the art of building— thoughhis achievements in this direction were not pillaredhalls and loggias and picture - galleries, but a pr isonfortified with walls and gates, reserved for thoseobjects of his peculiar hatred, the Jew s . The Ghettois his architectural monument . When he died , in thefifth year of his pontificate, at the age of eighty- three

,

the Roman populace rose in fury, plundered thepalace of the Inquisition, attempted to set fire to the

1 14


An amusing incident is related of Pius IV . beforehis elevation to the Papacy . In the days of Paul IVa number of friendly cardinals were seated togetherat table , and were listening to a handsome youth whoimprovised upon the lyre . Cardinal Alessandro Farnese laughingly beckoned to the boy, handed him awreath , and bade him crown with it whichever of thecardinals present he believed would one day becomePope . Without hesitation he placed the crown uponthe head of Angelo Medici ; in after days the singerhimself, Silvio Antoniano, wore the purple robes of a

Under Pius IV . the reform of the Church con

tinued to run its course ; and the Papal nephew of

this reign was a saint— the famous Carlo Borromeo .

Paul IV .

’

s infamous nephews, the Carafl'

a , met witha tragic end ; and Pius spared neither their high ranknor the memory of his predecessor . The fate of theDuke of Palliano , who with true Roman composurehad ordered the execution of his own wife, struckterror into the nobility of the city ; he was himselfexecuted in the castle of Sant’ Angelo , and CardinalCarlo Caraffa shared the same fate . Henceforwardthe position of the Papal nephews was an alteredone . They no longer acquired principalities ; theyonly founded rich and distinguished families, whichhave beautified Rome w ith their sumptuous palacesand villas .Under Pius IV. the Tridentine Council was brought

to a successful issue ; and the Church stood forthfreshly organized in all her branches .We must now pay a visit to the Church of SantaMaria Maggiore, in which we have not seen a Papaltomb since the days of Nicholas IV . On either side

1 16


of the church stand tw o large chapels, each shapedlike a Greek cross , and surmounted by a cupola .

They are in every way identical ; in both the sensesare oppressed by a luxuriance of paintings , of Corinthian columns with gilded capitals, of every varietyof costly stones , with which the w alls and floor areencrusted . In either chapel two large tombs of thesame style and dimensions occupy the two side walls ;in each case one of the tombs is surmounted by thefigure of a Pope in the act of blessing , while oppositeanother Papal figure kneels in silent prayer.These monuments block up the whole extent of the

walls, like some gorgeous Persian carpet, while atthe same time they serve as decoration , for theirsculptures, their co lumns of nerds antz

'

co, their friezesand gables, encroach upon , rather than harmonizew ith , the architectural design of the chapel itself.All that was spiritualized and inward in the sepulchralmonuments of the Middle Ages , all their naiveté andcharm , has here perished, and left not a trace behind .

All that remains is the empty flaunting pomp of ritualand Jesuitical display, to which the Catholic Churchnow resorted, conscious that her hopes lay in thecounterpart of Protestantism . And nowhere can thissoulless conception be better realized than in themonuments of these two chapels .The other chapel,known as theCappella del Presepio ,

was built by Sixtus V . Above the monument whichit contains is seated the figure of a Pope, with thenimbus of a saint encircling the head . This is PiusV . Ghislieri (1566 the consummator of theCatholic Reformation which the fanatical Carafla hadbegun . Pius saw the outbreak of the bloody w ars ofReligion in France and the Netherlands ; he survived

1 1 7


the great victory of Lepanto , and only died shortlybefore the massacre of the Huguenots on St . Bartholomew

’

s Eve, which was celebrated in Rome byfervent thanksgivings to the Almighty . Such horrorsand triumphs of the faith form a faint halo of gloryperchance a haze of blood—for the head of the piousDominican , who so often appeared bareheaded andbarefooted in the midst of a procession .

His ostentatious monument is scarcely in keepingwith so ascetic a character ; but it was perhaps ihtended to commemorate, not so much Pius V . , as thetriumphs of the Catholic Church over heretics andunbelievers . Four columns stand at the sides of thetomb, supporting an entablature ; and the Popehimself is seated in the central niche . On either sideis a relief representing an event from the life of PiusV . ; while in the upper section are three more— thefifth, which represents the coronation of Pius, beingdirectly above the Pope ’s statue . Other nichescontain the figures of St. Peter Martyr and of St.Dominic .The figure of Pius V. , a haggard monk shrunken

almomto a shadow, is seated, in the act of blessing,

upon the sarcophagus, on the front of which he isonce more portrayed, in a gilded bronze - relief. It isthe work of Leonardo da Sarzana ; but the sculptorhas been less successful with this than with the tombof Nicholas IV. The reliefs were executed by variousartists, notably the Flemings, Nicholas of Arras andEgidius ; in all of them the most marked features areperspective , foreshortening, bold projection of thefigures , and a true conception of the picturesque .They clearly demonstrate the fact that Sculpture inthe beginning of the seventeenth century was steadily

1 18


The inscription sets forth that PiusV. had conqueredthe heretics, restored France and hung up the trophiesof victory in the Lateran Basilica. From all thesereliefs we may recognize that the Church has once

more assumed the r61e ofEcclesz’

a Mz'

lz'

lanr at mumpsam.

I 2O

Pluto (Pu r ses: ALINARI.8T. P IUS V.

in S anta Maria Maggiore, Rome.


compagni . It is the work of the skilful CamilloRusconi, and though not free from a certain straining after cfl

'

ect, is yet not altogether unpleasing .

Wisdom in the guise of Minerva, armed with helmetand shield, is drawing back a covering from the coffin ,in order to expose to view the relief which we havealready referred to ; whilst on the other side standsthe figure of Faith holding the Bible and a tableton which are inscribed the words : u Novi opera eius

et fidem. The Pope sits above the sarcophagus inthe act of blessing—a venerable figure , full of power

And now we stand before the tomb of Sixtus V.

Peretti (1585 Of all the monuments that stillawait our inspection , surely none can vie in interestwith that of this extraordinary man , who herdedcattle in his youth and as an old man imposed hiswill upon princes and peoples, who filled Rome withso many public works , that almost every street reechoes his name to the traveller of to - day .

We still marvel at the mysterious destiny that raisedNapoleon to an imperial throne ; but if in the historyof temporal rulers a rare chance has permitted suchwonderful events , in the history of the Papacy, on

the other hand, they are by no means exceptionaland indeed their frequency is of the very essence ofChristianity, which takes account not of the outerman but only of the soul within .

Felice Peretti watched his father ’s swine in Mon

talto , and as a youth pushed on his studies by thescanty light of a Madonna ’s shrine . With a fewmen of rare genius a single drop of knowledge soon

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acquires the volume of an ocean , and the waywardrays shed by one great idea break in upon them asa heavenly vision , while leaving the common herd intheir former poverty.

As a Franciscan friar, he electrified the whole ofRome by his Lenten sermons in the Church of theSm ti Apostoli . He became Bishop of Fermo , butere long his appointment as cardinal brought himback to Rome,where he lived simply and w ithoutdisplay. He owned a vineyard close by the wall ofServius Tullius . Here amid the mournful and un

trodden solitudes of the Esquiline—now , alas ! re

placed by the hideous streets of modern Romeembedded in a grove of gloomy cypresses, stood untilwithin our own days a colossal figure of M inerva , as

the solitary emblem of a Rome that is no more . Thearms carved upon its pedestal—a lion holding threepears in his claws—proved the statue to have beenerected by Felice Peretti . These arms, and theholm - oak of the house Della Rovers , are more frsquently met with in Rome than those of any other

Sixtus became Pope in the year 1585 . He filledthe See of Peter

'

for only five years, and yet so fardid his passion for building outstrip that of all hispredecessors that five years sufficed for him to renewRome . What Julius II . and Leo X . had been in theclassic period of the Papacy, Sixtus V. was in thetime of its political and religious revival . His greatand practical intellect took the measure of the age ,rounded it off, and made of Rome its monument .

His tomb in the same chapel of Santa MariaMaggiore , which contains the remains of Pius Vreminds us, in many ways, of what S ixtus was —a

123


genuine Latin character, like Marius of old, just asharsh , just as stern of w ill, equally unattractive,commanding and pitiless , never swayed by the softinfluence of the Graces, but full of bold proj ects andlofty dreams , a born monarch over men . The fivereliefs upon his tomb are naturally very similar instyle to those on the monument of Pius V dating,as they do , from the same period : that to the rightof the Pope ’s figure is of peculiar interest. In theforeground w e see the figures of Peace and War ,

in the centre and background battle - scenes , and men

who , in true Turkish fashion , are grasping new lysevered human heads by the hair. On anc ientChristian sarcophagi are to be seen pictures of OurSaviour, the Apostles Peter and Paul , charmingfigures of angels, the Virgin and saintly martyrs or

patriarchs : while mediaeval monuments are adornedwith allegorical virtues ; but here we have , upon aPapal tomb , depicted with a grim and brutal realism ,

the blood - smeared heads of bandits ,which the headsman dangles by the hair, and which the Pope himselfwas not ashamed to commemorate upon his tomb,among the chief trophies of his life . So glaring isthe contrast between any age and its artistic sentiments .This relief recalls to our memory the mercilessrigour with which Sixtus V . exterminated the brigands, who since the times of Gregory XIII . hadmade the whole Campagna and even Rome itselfunsafe . Even nobles, such as Alfonso Piccolominiand Roberto Malatesta, played a leading part amongthem . The existence of these bands of robbers andoutlaws was to some extent the result of the con

m4


which had revivified Antiquity and inspired it witha human interest, yielded ever more and more to atasteless prosaic feeling, giving thought for nothingsave the needs of the present hour.Sixtus the Fortunate, honoured and feared alike asspiritual and temporal monarch , died at the age of

sixty- nine, on August 27 , 1590. His kneeling statue,with folded hands—a powerful work of Vasoldo

shows us an ugly, powerful, thick- set figure ; the

face is firm and massive, and indeed behind its broadforehead lay an ample understanding and a will ofiron . His eyes were small and lively, his eyebrowsthick and black, his beard white and flowing . Amongthe Franciscans of the Ara Coeli one may still occasionally see a man of robust physique, who bears aresemblance to Sixtus V .

126

[Fu ru u Au nam.

S IXTUS V.

in Santa Maria Maggiore. Rome.


Opposite Clement ’s tomb stands that of the RomanPope , Paul V . Camillo Borghese ( 1605 LikeSixtus V. , he is represented kneeling— a trulyHerculean figure, w ith powerful head, in whose thickneck pride, violence and sensuality may be clearlytraced . He was the first Pope to trim his beard incavalier fashion , like Henri Quatre . He lived to seethe beginnings of the Thirty Years ’ War, as far as thebattle of the White Mountain . This countenance,thick - set, round, and almost insolent in its strength,was wholly in keeping w ith Paul's violent overbearing nature , so full of the sense of his majesty of

dominion . Who has not heard of his quarrel withVenice, and of the task which his masterly opponentPaolo Sarpi executed with such invincible courageThe reliefs upon Paul ’s tomb represent the receptionof envoys from Congo and Japan , the building of thefortress at Ferrara, the despatch oftroops to Hungaryto aid the Emperor Rudolf II . , and the canonizationof Francesca Romans and Carlo Borromeo .

Under Paul V. was completed the greatest monument of the Papacy , the mighty Dome of St. Peter

’s ,which Julius II . had begun . On the frieze of thefacade the name of Borghese is boastft inscribedin

'

huge letters, as a title to immortality . St . Peter 'sis the giant fortress of the Catholic religion ,which thePopes erected as a defiance to the Reformation . Itwas their last exertion of power, the crown and thecompletion ofthe glory of the Catholic - Roman Church .

1

For since then the Papacy sank deeper and deeperinto the impotence of weakness . The Thirty Years ’

War sealed with streams of blood the permanentexistence of the Reformed faith . The centre of

Die Krone “Nd def Srb1m: def kaMoIi JM - rfimmm Herrh'

rM .

1 28

THE T OMBS OF THE POPES

gravity for Europe was for ever transferred fromRome to the lands beyond the Alps .Paul V . still survives in the family of his

nephews, which eventually became allied by marriagewith the Bonapartes . His nephew , Cardinal ScipioBorghese , built the splendid villa outside the Portsdel Popolo , and acquired the largest palace in all thecity. None of the many collections of art - treasuresamassed by Papal families since the sixteenthcentury to perpetuate their name, can be com

pared with those of the Borghese . Palaces ,villas, riches and titles were now the prizes whichfell to the Papal nephews, instead of the princelycrowns which they had won for themselves a centurybefore ; and Rome peopled itself with a new nobility,which found its origin in the Vatican .

We have passed over one monumen t—that of LeoXI . Medici, who succeeded Clement VIII . , but onlywore the tiara for twenty- six days . It stands in St.Peter’s ; under a wreath of flowers is inscribed themotto Sic F lorui.” This monument, though sharingthe conventionality of the period, is yet one of

Algardi'

s best achievements . The two virtues whichstand on either side of the sarcophagus, Wisdom asMinerva, and Plenty pouring gold and jewels fromher horn , create a good impression and are immenselysuperior to similar figures on other monuments .Our way now leads us to a church which we have

never as yet visited, since it only dates from theperiod of which we have just been speaking. TheJesuit Church of Sant’ Ignazio , which is attached tothe Collegio Romano , is a large and sumptuous building of the seventeenth century, and at the same timea remarkable testimony to the versatile talents of the

129 x


Jesuits for not only have many of its sculpturesand paintings been executed by Jesuits, but even thearchitectural design is partially the work of a memberof the Order. Here, in a chapel close to the Tribune,stands the tomb of the Bolognese, Gregory XV .

Ludovisi (162 1 the zealous promoter of

Jesuitism . He it was who canonized the heroesof the Order, Loyola and Xavier, and founded thelargest institution in the whole world, the Propsganda . His monument, designed and for the mostpart executed byLe Gros, is a startling example of theoverladen taste of the seventeenth century, and of

the magnificence of the Order of Jesus .The Pope is seated in a niche above the sarcophagna, robed in gorgeous swelling garmen ts,beneath a rich canopy, from the sides of whichthere hang down draperies of bright alabaster withgolden tassels . From their folds genii lean out ,

flourishing forth his renown upon their trumpets.At the foot of Gregory XV.

’

s sarcophagus standsthat of his once all - powerful nephew, CardinalLudovico Ludovisi. It was he who built Sant ’

Ignazio , and laid out the noble Villa Ludovisi, so

famous for its art - treasures . His name will alwaysbe associated with the most lovely marble bust of thegoddess Juno which has survived from antiquity .

Since the sixteenth century w e have frequently hadcause to refer to the decay of Art, and have from timeto time been made aware of the subversion of MichelAngelo ’s grandiose style by one of utter afi

'

ectation ,

and finally of the picturesque or indeed theatricaltreatment of the sculptor ’s art. This false tendencyof Art found its genius in Bernini. He toweredabove the poverty of his age es much as Raphael and

13o

OR the first time we stand before a work fromthe hand of Bernini, the tomb of Urban VIII .

Barberini (1623 This famous sculptor livedthrough the reigns of no less than nine Popes ; but toUrban VIII . he was in every way what Raphael hadbeen to Leo X . and Michel Angelo to Julius II . Allthe architectural achievements of Urban 's reign wereplanned by Bernini— the fountain of Tritons on thePiazza Barberini , the vast family palace itself, thefountain on the Piazza di Spagna, the additions toSant’ Angelo and the walls of the city, and the colossal“ Confession in St. Peter’s. Urban VIII . , like morethan one of his predecessors , had a passion for building, especially works of fortification, which he considered necessary for the preservation of his rule overRome and the Papal States.Entirely worldly in his outlook, he sought to beking rather than priest . To the States of the Church

,

re - created by Julius II . and extended by several laterPontiffs, he made their final addition by the annexation of the Duchy of Urbino , whose princely house ofDella Rovere had become extinct.By his orders the ashes of the famous Coun tessMatilda were transported from Tuscany to Rome, and

132


were interred in St. Peter’s in a mausoleum designedby Bernini . On the sarcophagus he had the scene ofCanossa portrayed, mainly as a demonstrationagainst Ferdinand II . and the tw o branches of theHouse of Hapsburg.

His intense hatred for Spain - Austria, induced himto refuse his spiritual and temporal support at atime when the Thirty Years ’ War threatenedChurch and Empire with the gravest dangers ; andthis perverse attitude materially aided the Protestantcause . He rejo iced openly at the triumph of

Gustavus Adolphus, compared the Sw edish King toAlexander the Great, and lamented his untimelythough heroic death . And thus , by reason of thetemporal requirements of the States of the Church ,whose independence w as threatened by the Hapsburgpredominance , the Pope was induced to act at openvariance with his spiritual duties and with the pressingneeds of the Catholic Church . Later on, it is true,circumstances forced him to make his peace with theHouse of Hapsburg .

Urban VIII . was a humane man , w itty and highlycultured ; but neither his classical learning nor thefavour of the Muses can blot out one stain from theescutcheon of his fame . This was the condemnationof the greatest genius of his time—Galileo— by theRoman Inquisition . From w ounded vanity, he permitted, nay rather procured, this ignoble verdict andthe luckless astronomer’s act of perjury.

Urban founded one of the last great families of

Papal nephews and it still flourishes in Rome to - day.

His young nephew ,Don Taddeo , married a daughter

of the House of Co lonna, and thus acquired Palestrina,their ancient family seat. The Cardinal - nephew

I S3


Francesco collected the library and picture gallerywhich still adorn the Palazzo Barberini .Urban VIII . w as a man of powerful frame and ironhealth he reigned twenty- one years, and died at theage of seventy - six.His tomb stands opposite that of Paul III . in theTribune of St. Peter ’s, and, like it, is of bronze. Ateither side of the black marble sarcophagus standJustice with torch and sword, and Charity carryinga child in her arms—worthless figures, insuflerablyaffected . A winged, go lden skeleton— more calcu

lated to produce laughter than terror— is seatedabove the coflin ,

’

and seems to be engaged in inscribing the Pope

’s signature in the book of the dead.Urban himself is throned upon a pedestal , raisinghis hand to bless— a handsome, full - bearded man ,his robes draped about him in disorder and gatheredin a heap upon his knees . This profusion of draperywas a common trick in the art of the period . The

Barberini arms— bearing bees— sets a seal to thedesign of the whole monument . The family arms ofthe Popes are seldom absent from their monuments,and are generally at the highest point.The next Pope, Innocent X . Pamfili (1644 - 1655) is

not so much remarkable for his achievements asnotorious for his nepotism and the intrigues whichhis kinsfolk set in motion among and against eachother. The infamous Donna Olympia Maldachini,

his sister- in - law , ruled the w eak and amiable old

man , and the insatiate greed of this woman and hisother relations w on him the universal hatred of hissubjects . Though the Roman Senate honoured himw ith a statue on the Capitol (he w as extraordinarilyugly) , yet this distinction was probably conferred on

134


account of his building the walls ofTrastevere and thecompletion of the second palace of the Capitol. Hehad a great liking for the ample Piazza Navona andhe lies buried in the adjoining church of Sant’ Agnese,which he had erected close to his family palace, andin front ofwhich a beautiful fountain from a design ofBernini had been placed by his command . His bustis to be seen there above the entrance door ; but thereis a want of life and expression . It was Don Camillo ,

the son of Donna Olympia, who erected the gorgeousPalazzo Pamfili, in the Corso , and who laid out thelarge villa near the Ports S . Pancrazio . When one

beholds these extravagant results of Papal nepotism ,

one cannot be astonished at the poverty of the PapalStates .Innocent X.,who had relied so much on his insatiatekinsmen , was to earn , when he came to die, a justreward for his conduct . The contemporary accountof this is too remarkable to be omitted here .

“Afterthree days,” we read in one of the journals, duringwhich the Pope ’s remains w ere laid out in St . Peter’s,no one could be found to take upon himself the taskof burial . A message was sent to Donna Olympia,asking her to provide cofiin and grave - clothes ; butshe replied that she was only a poor widow . Noneof his other relatives or nephews bestirred themselves,and the body was removed to a chamber where themasons engaged upon repairs stored their buildingmaterial . Out ofcompassion oneof them lighted a coarsetallow candle at his head, and when another remarkedthat the room was infested by mice, which mightgnaw the neglected corpse, some one disbursed sufficient money to provide a watcher. After anotherday the majordomo , Monsignor Scotti, took pity

135


upon the dead Pape , and himself ordered a coffin ofpoplar- w ood ; while Monsignor Segni, a Canon of St.Peter’s, who had once been Innocent’s majordomoand had then been dismissed, rewarded evil withgood by paying five dollars for his burial ."

The fate of Popes is no better than that of thelowliest of men only in so exalted a position thecommon lot of ingratitude is all the more striking andrevolting .

From this point we must begin to hasten our steps,since only a few monuments must be allow ed to

arrest our atten tion, in times when the Papacy hasalready lost its historical import as a w orld - power.Here w e have a second tomb by Bernini— that ofAlexander VII . Chigi, of Siena (1655—1667)—a t whosecommand the untiring sculptor constructed the magnificent Scala Regia in the Vatican, and the imposingcolonnades of the Piazza di 8 . Pietro , thus setting thefinishing touches upon this wonderful monument ofthe Papacy. In extreme old age, Bernini also erectedAlexander’s monument in St. Peter’s. In it theba rocco style has reached the extreme limit of affectstion into which the sculptor ’s art has fallen . Abovethe door leading to the sacristy, a hideous gildedskeleton, stretching out an hourglass in its bony claws,rises out of s drapery of alabaster. Beside the bulky,ill - proportioned pedestal stand a repulsive figure of

Truth , pressing her foot firmly upon a globe, and amost affected figure of Charity . The Pope, who wasof slight but graceful build— and an eloquent and witty

1 See the life of this Pope by Narvaes. Donna Olympia, whocontrived to emerge unscathed from the process instituted again sther by Inh ocent's successor, died of the plague, wretched and

abandoned, in her country house at Viterbo .

136

SMOOTH countenancesare the order oftheeighteenthcentury ; and this isnomere accidents l symbol of the

birth of a new era— the century of Sentimentality, ofhumanitarian dreams, of Revolution when men havethe aspect of young Werther, or the Vicar of Wakefield ; of Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot ; of Robespierre , Washington and Frederick the Great. _

Thiscentury commenced like a sickly girl, and ended as amailed Minerva. Quickened and pervaded by thespirit of Philosophy, it brought to birth the mostastounding contrasts of peace and war, the mostsplendid array of heroes and lawgivers, thinkers andpoets, musicians and sculptors, lofty and noble souls .The whole age was indeed a dithyramb, with thestruggle of humanity for light and freedom as itsennobling theme. It was man ’s second, philosophicalRenaissance .

But whilst in all other spheres of human activitythis wonderful century brought forth many mightyspirits, it passed the Papacy by. Tw o different centuries had seen the Popes at the height of fortunethe thirteenth, which had lavished every favour uponthem, and the sixteenth, which had given them withone hand as much as it had taken from them w ith theother. In each of these epochs they struggled valiantly against the German intellect ; but in the eigh

138


teenth cen tury circumstances combined against them .

The crown was snatched from the head of Religionand placed upon the brows of Philosophy. ThePapacy seemed as though borne down by mishaps ;it was truly the period of its Passion .

The century opened with Clement XI . Albani

(1700 who reigned long, but achieved little . Inthe chapel of the choir in St. Peter’s he lies buriedbeneath a marble slab with a simple inscription . His

family name at once reminds us that the days of

Winckelmann are at hand .

Innocent XIII . Conti (1 72 1 who w as alsoburied in St. Peter’s, has no monument. His successor, Benedict XIII ., has a most uncouth monumentin Santa Maria sopra Minerva, from the hand of

Pietro Bracci . Only in one particular does it differfrom the conventional rendering ; the Pope , a baldheaded old man with features displaying all the fansticism of a monk, is represented as absorbed in silentprayer, as though he had flung himself upon hisknees in the midst of the sermon . Benedict was theeldest son of Ferdinand Orsini , Duke of Gravina ; renouncing his right of succession , he became a Dominican , and with noble zeal strove to restore the Churchto her former purity of morals . He reigned from1 724 to 1 730.

His successor, Clement XII . Corsini (1730 isthe last Pope who was buried in the Lateran . Herehe had erected one of the most magnificent chapelsin Rome, in honour of his ancestor, Sant’ AndreaCorsin i , and as a burial place for himself and othermembers of his family . His mausoleum vies with themost gorgeous of the Papal monuments, in the richness of its decoration . His sarcophagus is fa m ed

139


from an ancient bath of the time of Agrippa, w hichhe had removed from the hall of the Pantheon . It isof the most costly porphyry, and of exquisite design .

Above it stands the colossal bronze statue of thePope, with gilded robes and gilded tiara, placed between two of the Cardinal Virtues—dazzling in itsefi

'

ect, and after all not wholly unpleasing.

But in the tomb of the learned Benedict XIV . Lambertini (1740- 1758) in St. Peter

's, Art, under theguidance of Pietro Bracci, has taken an altogethertheatrical turn . The manner of presentment is entitely new , for the great marble statue of the Popestands upright above one of the doors . The singularaffectation of his attitude, with one hand stretchedout before him , inevitably suggests, not a Popeblessing the multitude, but an actor delighted at thesuccess with which he is declaiming his chosenperiods .Happily, this is the last Papal figure from the age

of artistic decadence and mannerism . For the tombof his successor, Clement XII I . Rezzonico , of Venice

( 1 758 is a w ork of Canova . On April 4, 1 795 ,

when the great sculptor himself unveiled it in St.Peter’s before an admiring crowd, the final victorywas won over the advocates of Bernini ’s style of art.Canova himself, disguised as an Abbé, listened to thejudgments passed by the onlookers , and might wellcongratulate himself upon the general opinion . Thereturn of Plastic Art to classical forms and examplescelebrated here its first great triumph . It is truethat Canova ’s first public work in Rome was themonument to Clement XIV but here the purity of

conception was still marred by certain traces of

afiectation .

140


The tomb of Clement XIII . consists of a lofty substructure of marble, in which an ancient Doric portalleads directly into the vault . On its steps lie the two

famous marble lions. To the left of the sarcophagus,which is entirely without ornament, stands Religionw ith the Cross, a figure whose attitude is somewhatstiff and massive ; on the right leans the Genius of

Death , with reversed torch . In the head of thisgenius, which Canova himself held to be one of hisfinest w orks, may be traced the influence of antiquemodels upon the great sculptor, especially of theApollo Belvedere . But w ith all its charm , the figureis certainly sentimental and not wholly free frommannerism . Clement is represented kneeling , w ithhands folded in prayer ; and the artist has striven ,not in vain , to give insight into a fervent soul andstrongly marked character. To compare it w ith themonuments of the seventeenth century in St. Peter’sis to heighten its artistic effectiveness ; for it seemsas though divided from them by an abyss of cen

The tomb of Clement XIII . arouses historicalmemories . During his reign the Order of Jesus wasat length summoned before the tribunal of Europe .

So deeply had philosophic enlightenment— the childof the Reformation— and the cosmopolitan ideal overturned the mighty structure reared by Carafl

'

a . Menhad come to see that Theory and Opinion ,when oncethey become thoroughly assimilated by the race, willshatter even the w orld ’s most deeply rooted ordinances. On February 3, 1769 , the Holy Consistorywas to pronounce its decision upon the process,whilethe irresolute Pontifl

'

w as to offer at the shrine of theZeitgeist the deadliest weapon wielded by Catholicism .

141


He died suddenly upon the eve of the fatal day— an

old man of seventy - five .

What he had lacked the courage to complete, wascarried out by his successor ,Clement XIV. Gangaaelli,a noble -minded man , more conspicuous for his

elegance than for commanding genius . In his personthat Philosophy of Humanity,

” which is so Characteristic of the eighteenth century, seemed to mountthe Chair of St. Peter. We have seen it filled bymany heroic and platonic Popes ; and now we findthere a philanthropist, full of the spirit of his age )In the year 1 773 he annulled the Order of Jesus .As men hinted, this was as good as if he had takenpoison . Soon afterwards his appearance altered, hecomplained of pains in his Vitals, he wasted awaylike a shadow . I am passing into eternity,” he said,“ and I know the reason why.

” On September 22 ,

1774, he died at the age of sixty - nine . His bodybecame black immediately, and decayed so rapidlythat it was impossible to lay out the body for theceremony of kissing his feet. And yet he had possessed an iron constitution , such as seemed capableof lasting till a hundred .

His tomb stands in the Church of the Santi Apostoli .In this, Canova still verges on the manner of his precessors ; for though he reveals a nobler taste and

instincts far truer to nature, he yet shows too manytraces of the beginner. The figure of Temperance is

1 [Not the least of Clement XIV.

’s claims to greatness are his

“ Letters , which are still a model of elegant Italian style, and

which reflect in every page the gen ial, acute and tolerant spirit oftheir writer . Thus Clemen t XIV. shares with Gregory the Great,Pius I I ., and the late venerable Pope Leo XI I I . the honour ofbeingone of the few Pontiffs distinguished for their literary talents.

Trans !142


leaning over the sarcophagus, w hileMildness is seatedbeside it, plunged in grief ; the conception of both ischaste:and skilful . Here , too , the Pope is representedin the act of blessing, enveloped in rich robes , whosefolds are more natural than those of Bernini ’s statues,but yet not simple enough . Few subjects, it is true,within the whole realms of art, require more delicatetreatment than the figure ofa Pope forwhile sculpturedirects its efforts towards the nude human form ,

inthis special instance it has to represent one whoseomce cannot be dissociated from elaborate vestments .Hence Bernini and his school played a foolhardygame with the Papal vestments, flinging their foldsw ildly in all directions, or heaping them up on theknees of the figure , as though the Pope were Zeusthe cloud - gatherer.In one further po int Canova has departed from theusual custom ; the Pope no longer raises his righthand in blessing, but stretches it forth with a motionof command . Perhaps the sculptor drew the idea forthis innovation from the equestrian statue of MarcusAurelius on the Capitol ; but the strained effort anddictatorial temper which the movement suggests arequite out of keeping with the character of Ganganelli .For as we gaze upon this Pope ’s benevolent countenance, we are reminded what type of man he w as—a

Joseph II . among the Popes— and, like Joseph or allwho strive to reform humanity by humanitarian laws

,

But still more unfortunate than Clement XIV . washis successor, Pius VI . Braschi . In his reign oc

curred the dreadful catastrophe of the French Revolution . If its predecessor, the Reformation , hadwrested half Europe from the grasp of the Papacy

,

t4a


Freedom, Independence and Unity. The Papal dominion was only possible so long as Italy remaineddismembered and ruined , the slave of foreign powers.Pius VI . reigned twenty - four years, from 1775 to

1 799 , seeing many changes and enduring much. Hehas no tomb in St . Peter’s . His body rests in theGrotte Vaticane, his heart at Valence, where Napoleon raised a monument to his memory. Only hisstatue— by Canova—kneels upon the floor of the“ Confession ,

” and w ill kneel there so long as S t .Peter's Dome endures above it. Gazing into itssombre depths beyond the circle of ever - burninglamps , one beholds in vague outline the figure of

this luckless old man . Who does not know how

Pius VI . , in the days of the Franco - Roman Republ ic ,w as carried ofi

‘ forcibly fi'

om the Vatican , how placeafter place received the friendless exile, and how at

length he died in a foreign land ? And of the manywho 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 tw o Popes who reared it thereas an eternal delight for mankind lThus the eighteenth century closed upon the

Papacy in exile and despair ;

144

XVI I

TWO decades are still w anting ere the nineteenthcentury shall have run its course l m the great

century of machinery and steam , of industry andscience , of unbelief and pessimism, of popular libertyand military despotism , of Jew ish usury and taxation ,

of enormous capital and enormous misery. Morebarren in genius though richer in incident than theeighteenth century, possessing fewer great men ,

though more varied materials for culture , the nineteenth century must none the less , thanks to itsmarvellous discoveries, remain one of the mostmomentous epochs of mankind . New theories andnew inventions have quickened the pulse of theworld's life to fever- heat. Thought has conqueredtime and space, and the world has become its propertv.

In its first half our century lacked power andstamina . Then , after a breathing space , the reviv

ing spirit of Europe rose from the lethargy of re

action , and since 1848 the work of three decades hassufficed to change the whole aspect of the politicalworld. Questions bequeathed by the eighteenthcentury for solution the nineteenth has already par

[The reader is reminded that these words were written in theyea rns—Trans ]

x45


tially solved . It has introduced a loftier conceptionof mankind and of the individual ; it has burst thefetters of all the ages—abolishing the Guild, Serfdom,

Slavery. Regions of the globe till now inaccessiblehave been explored and opened out, and have beendrawn into the system of universal culture . Theproblems of long ages have at length been workedout ; Germany and Italy have recovered their ih

dependence and unity, France has revived the Republic . The empire of the Turks in Byzantium is inprocess of dissolution the States of the Church havevanished, and the abandoned Papacy has been leftto choose between perishing like her secular power,and renovating the time -worn fabric of the Churchby freedom .of thought and of inquiry. What theChurch had formerly undertaken as a mission of

faith— the great task of uniting mankind in a ChristianRepublic— has now become the task of Culture ingeneral . But the masses, unchained and frenzystricken, now -seem preparing a veritable inundation 1of socialistic ideas ; the old regime of law and order,the Christianity of past ages, and humanistic cultureare alike threatened ; and it is reserved for thetwentieth century to behold and struggle with thesestormy revolts, before that European Confederacy orVelkerbund can be formed, towards which the spiritof the nineteenth century has already laid the path .

Though hard hit amid the convulsions of the FrenchRevolution , the long - sufl

'

ering Papacy once moreraised its head under Pius VII . Chiaramonti (1800

This Pope concluded the Cont withNapoleon Buonaparte and crowned the usurper asEmperor of the French . But though he was himself

Eine Volkerwanderung soc ialistischer Ideen .

146


and pride of life have vanished , but with them thevigour and majesty of world - empire . Overladen anddecadent as the monuments of the seventeenthcentury invariably are, it is none the less true thatthe sculptors of those days had a far loftier con

ception of the Papacy than Canova, or still moreThorwaldsen, could possibly have had . It mighteven be objected to the tomb of Pius VII that it istoo Protestant in character. Be this as it may, to

gain an impression of the striking contrasts of Papalhistory, one need only turn from Julius IL , from theMoses ” of Michel Angelo , or from the figure of

Paul III to the work of the great Danish sculptor.The old man is seated upon a marble chair, composed ,yet brooding on his fate—his hand raised in gentleexhortation . In the niche two w inged genii areseated on either side ; but their conception is altogether paltry and inadequate, and detracts greatly fromthe general effect of the monument . Besides, thetomb is not in keeping with the vast proportions ofSt. Peter’s , and if in natural simplicity of style it issuperior to Canova’s tomb for Clement XIII . , itcertainly produces a far less vivid impression of

power and vigour.We have now reached the end of our wanderingsthrough the underworld of the Papacy ; for only threemonuments still remain to be inspected . That of

Leo XII . Genga (1823- 1829) is from the hand of thesculptor Fabris, and consists of a life - size and onlytoo modern figure, standing above a door. That ofPius VI II . Castiglione, who only reigned a year, w as

designed by Tenerani . Above the door leading to

the sacristy is the marble figure of the Pope , kneelingin prayer ; behind him, on a throne, is seated Our

148


Saviour, with the tw o Princes of the Apostles on

either side— the whole is cold and lifeless. To thesuccessor of Pius VIII Gregory XVI . Capellari

(1831 the cardinals who owed their electionto him have erected an imposing monument inSt. Peter’s, from the hand of Amici. In design itresembles the works of Canova ; the Pope isrepresented seated and in the act of blessing.

x49

XVIII

LET into the wall above a door near the chapel ofthe choir in St . Peter’s is a simple cofi n hewn

out of white marble . To each living Pope it re

echoes the dismal refrain , Memento Mori,”for him

too does it await, infallible as destiny. When a Popedies, this cofl

'

in opens to receive him and to retainhim till his dead successor bids him yield his place

,

or till he can be laid to rest in his own completed

tomb . To - day this sarcophagus bears, in hugegleaming letters, the inscription — 1

PIUS IX .

When evening twilight peoples the noble Cathedralwith shadowy forms, one might well imagine that thewhite sarcophagus up yonder was suspended in theair, like the cofl

’

in of Mahomet in Medina . For our

present purpose it forms the last landmark of a longepoch in Papal history, now for ever relegated to thepast.The dead man who rested in this cofi n ' was

destined to fulfil the mighty decrees of Fate , thetheme of the sayings of sibyls and prophets . With

[The reader is remlnded that tbese words were written in the

year I8GO.—Trana.]

[Until his monument was completed in S. Lorsnso - fuorie ls

Mme—Trans.)150


whole people, and yet came to rely for its supportupon the weapons of foreign mercenaries.What had won his blessing as Italian Prince, called

forth a curse from his priestly oflice .

He peopled heaven with saints, and Italy withmartyrs.As a Moses he showed himself to the expecmnt

w orld, and he brought down with him from Sinai, asTables of Stone, nothing save meaningless monkishdogmas and the Syllabus.And why, we may well ask, do we meet with thesemany contradictions in the life of a man of undoubtedgenius and spirit, and even of genuine patriotismThe answer is not difficult to find . In Pius IX . thePo litical Papacy had run its course, and hence the two

tendencies which have filled the breast of every Popecame into most violent oppod tion—that of the Princeand that of the Priest.He died as vo luntary prisoner in the Vatican ,where he had remained secluded for seven longyears ; whilst his rival held his Court undisturbed inthe Quirinal

,felicitated by the world and feted by the

Italians, just as he himself had once been . He sawnew rulers and new Empires arise, friends and foesalike pass into the silence of the tomb . In thewonderful length of his reign he has outstripped allhis predecessors, even St. Peter himself.It was early in the year 1878, that Death summoned

mankind before the great w orld- stage of Rome, andofl

‘

ered to their view a drama so majestic that it cannever fade from history. One after the other he laidthe tw o rivals upon the funeral bier— ih the Quirinalthe first King of Italy, in the Vatican the lasttemporal Pope . It was one of those so lemn pauses,

152


when the struggles of the nations are hushed, andwhen the war- god Mars seems to rest for a momentbeside an open grave . There he sits, his w eariedhand leaning the sword upon his knee , and gazesthoughtfully before him into the world, which aninexorable Necessity has condemned to eternal hatredand strife . It was thus that the ancients have portrayed the god Mars, like a crouching lion

A guisa di leon quando si pou .

In the Pantheon of Agrippa the Italians laid to resttheir first King on January 1 7 , 1878 . If Pius IX .

could glean any satisfaction from the knowledge thatthe usurper of his lands lay dead within the Quirinal,such satisfaction was vouchsafed to him . But unlikeInnocent IV. ,who burst forth in terms of unrestraineddelight at the news of the death of his mighty enemyFrederick II Pius IX. preserved a silence such asbecame his priestly office . He survived VictorEmmanuel by only twenty- nine days .On February 9, the body was exposed in theChapel of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's,that the faithful might kiss the dead Pope ’s feet.Chance so ordained that the spot where Pius lay wasdirectly Opposite the niche containing the greatCountess Matilda's statue . On February 9, 1878,

Matilda ofTuscany beheld at her feet the last ruler ofthose States of the Church, which she had once sovaliantly defended and so generously endowed .

On February 13, amid striking solemnities, theremains of Pius IX . were raised aloft and con

signed to the white sarcophagus in the Tribune of St.Peter ’s.The Catholic world will, it is believed, acclaim him

x53


as a Saint, and will without doubt erect a monumentto him in St. Peter ’s. What a task fortomb of Pius 1x . 1 The last memorialPapacy, the very antithesis of theJulius II ., whose petty greatness afounder of the temporal power wrungAngelo such grandiloquent designs .And then the inscription for his tdeath evoked neither the ode of awell turned epigram of a Bembo .

Pasquino remained mute,though not

fifteenth century but had suffered after

trivial for this Priam of the Papacy,who onbed might have said, w ith better rightmelancholy Roman Caesar,

Omnia fui, et a ll a pedit.

What race, we may fairly exclaim inbehold the last of the Popes laid wi

tomb P An idle but pardhuman

our day, will still endure , when a trZealand stands upon the broken arch of

Bridge and gases upon the ruins of St. Paul ’sAccording to an ancient prophecy of the

Rome and as we reckon up the Papal

‘Hacauhy, in his essay on Ranke'c “History of154


dicted in it, we find that this fall is drawing near.We give here the last characters of this prophecy,adding to them the corresponding names of Popes

VI .Aquila Rapax (Rapacious eagle)— Pius VII .Canis et Coluber (Dog and serpent)—Leo XII .

Vir Religiosus (A man of piety)— Pius VIII .

De Balneis Hetruriae (From the baths of Etruria)

Crux de Cruce (A Cross by a Cross) - Pius IX.

Lumen in Coslo (A light in heaven)— Leo XIII .

Ignis Ardens (A burning fire)— Pius X.

Religio Depopulata (Desolated religion!

Pastor Angelicus (The angelic shepherd)Pastor et Nauta (Shepherd and sailor)Flos F lorum (Flower of fiowers)De Medietate Lunae (Of the half-moon)De Lahore Solis (From the labour of the sun)Gloria Olivae (Glory of the olive)In persecutione extrema Sanctae Romanae Ec

clesia esedebit Petrus Romanus (secundus) , qui pascetoves in multis tribulationibus, quibus transactis civitassepticollis diruetur, et Judex tremendus iudicabit

populum suum . Amen .

In the final persecution of the Holy RomanChurch , a second Peter, a Roman, shall reign , whoshall pasture his sheep in many tribulations, andwhen these be ended, the City of the seven hills shallbe destroyed, and the dreadful Judge shall judge hispeople . Amen.

” 1

l The firet edltion of this prophecy lc by Arnold Wion in the

year 3695 (~m vitae." us. ii . c.x55


These prophecies are usually ascribed to St.Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, who diedin Others maintain that they were compo sedat the time of the Conclave in the year 1590. Theycommence with Cel

'

estine II . In the succession of

the Popes, the words “Peregrine: Apostolicu: areassigned to Pius VI. , reminding us of his journey toVienne and his long exile while the words Crux

dc Cruce,” which fall to Pius IX ., inevitably suggest

the displacement of the Cross of Mother Church bythe Red Cross of Savoy. When Leo XI II . waselected Pope , it was observed that the armorialbearings of his family contain a star, and that thushere too the prophecy might seem to have attainedfulfilment.A thousand years ago the Venerable Bede said

When falls the Colosseum , Rome shall fallWhen falls the City, all the world shall fall .

Had he seen the dome of St. Peter's, he might w ellhave exclaimed

When falls St . Peter’s, Rome shall fal lWhen Rome falls, all the world shall fall.

The Colosseum , St . Peter’s, Rome, thewill some day perish .

156

CATALOGUE OF THE POPES1st Century 8 .

8 .

S .

S .

and Century 8 .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

168 S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

S .

275- 283 S .

S .

S .

S .

goo 8 .

Peter, according to tradition buried in theVatican.

Linus, fromVolterra, buried in the Vatican .

Anencletus, a Roman, ditto .

Clement I . (P)Evaristus, from Bethlehem, in the Vatican .

Alexander I ., a Roman , by the Via Nomentana.Sixtus I ., a Roman , in the Vatican .

Telesphorus, a Greek, di tto .

Hyginus, Greek, ditto .

Pius I ., from Aquileia, ditto .

Anicetus, Syrian, in the Cemetery of Calixtus (P) .Soter, from Fundi , dittoEleutherius , Greek, in the Vatican .

Victor I . , from Africa, ditto .

Zephirinus, Roman, in the Cem. of Calixtus .Calixtus I Roman, in the Cem . of Calepodius.

Urbanus I Roman, in the Cem. of Praetextatus.

Pon tianus, Roman , in the Cem . of Calixtus .Anteros, Greek, ditto .

Fabianus, Roman, ditto .

Cornelius, Roman , ditto (Novah‘

anur, Antip0pe).Lucius L , Roman , ditto .

Stephanus I ., Roman , ditto .

Sixtus IL , Greek, ditto .

Dionysius, Greek, ditto .

Fel ix I ., Roman, in the Cemetery of S . Felice onthe Via Aurelia.Eutychianus, from Lucca, in the Cemetery of

Calixtus .Caius, a Dalmatian , ditto .

Marcellinus, Roman, in the Cem. of Priscilla.Marcellus I ., Roman , ditto .

Busebius, Greek. in the Cem. of Cal ixtus.I 59


536-537

537- 555

S . Melchiades, African, ditto .

S . Sylvester I . , Roman, in the Cem. of Priscilla.8 . Marcus. Roman. in the Cem. of Balbina.8 . Julius I ., Roman , in the Cem. of Calepodius.

S . Liberius , Roman , in the Cem. of Priscilla.Felix 1L, Antipope,Roman , in the Baths of Trajan) .S . Damasus I ., from Portugal , on the Via Ardeatina, then in S . Lorenzo in Damaso .

S . S iriciua, Roman, in the Cem . of Priscilla .

S. Anastasius I ., Roman, in the Cemetery of Ursus

S . Innocentius I from Al ba in Montferrat, ditto .

S. Zosimus , Greek, in S . Lorenzo in Via Tiburtina.

S . Bonifiacius I Roman, in the Cemetery of S .

Felicitas on the Via Appia.S . Coelestinus I . , Roman , in the Cem. of Priscilla.S . Sixtus I l l Roman , in the Cemetery of 8 . Lorenzo

in Via Tiburtina.S . Leo I the Great, Tuscan , in St . Peter's .S . Hilarius, Sardinian , in the Cem. of S . Lorenzo .

S . Simplicius, from Tibur, in St . Peter’ s.S . Felix I I I Roman , in St. Paul's .S . Gelasius I ., Roman in the portico of St. Peter's .S . Anastasius I I ., Roman, ditto .

S . Symmachus, Sardinian, ditto .

Laurentius, Antipope.S . Hormisdas, from Prusino, in the portico of St .Peter’s .

S . John I ., from Siena, in St . Peter's .S . Felix IV., Fimbrius, from Benevento , ditto .

S . Bon iface II ., son of S igismund, a Go th fromRome, ditto .

S. John I I ., Mercurius, from Rome, ditto .

S . Agapitus I Roman, died in Con stantinople ,

buried in St. Peter’s.S. Silverius, from Frosinone in the Campagna,buried on the island of Palmaria.

Vigilius, Roman, died at Syracuse, buried in St .Peter’s.

Pelagius I .,Vicarianus, Roman, in St. Peter ’s .S . John II I ., Catelinus, Roman, ditto .

Benedict I ., Bonosus, Roman, ditto .

160


847- 855 S . Leo IV Roman, ditto.

855—858 Benedict II I . , Roman , ditto .

8 . Nicholas I ., Roman, ditto .

867- 87 3 Adrian IL, Roman , ditto .

John VII I ., Roman. ditto .

882- 884 Marinus I ., from Montefiascone, ditto .

884- 885 Adrian IIL, Roman , in the cloister of Nonantola

Stephen V. , Roman, in St . Peter’s.Formosus, from Corsica. thrown into the Tibet ,buried in St . Peter’s.

Boniface VI . , Roman, buried in St. Peter’s.Stephen VI . , Roman . strangled in prison (P)Romanus, from Gallese near Civita Castellana, in

St . Peter's.Theodorus I I Roman, ditto .

John IX ., from Tivoli, ditto .

Benechct IV ., Roman, ditto.

Lco V. , from the Roman Campagna, in St . John

Christoferus. Roman, in St. Peter’s.Sergius I I I . , Roman, in St. Peter's or the Lateran.

Anastasius III . , Roman, in St. Peter’s.Lando, a Sabine, ditto .

John X., Roman, strangled in prison (i’)Leo VI Roman , in St. Peter’s.Stephen VII ., Roman, ditto.

John XL . son of Alheric of Tusculum, died in

prison, buried in the La teran .

Leo VI I ., Roman, in St. Peter’s.Stephen VIII .,Roman, ditto.

Marinus II ., Roman, di tto .

Agapitus IL , Romm , in the Lateran.

John XI I Octavian, of Tusculum, murdered, buriedin the Lateran .

Leo VI II ., Antipope.Benedict V., Grammaticus, Roman, buried first inHamburg. then in Rome.

John XII I ., Roman, in S . Paolo fuori is mura,

Rome .Benedict VI ., Roman, strangled in 8ant

’ Angslo.

Benedict VI I ., Roman. in Santa Cross in Gerusalemme, Rome.

16:


Bon iface VII . 0)935 - 995 John XV., Roman, in St. Peter’s .

Gregory V. Bruno , from Saxony. ditto.

Sylvester II ., Gerbert, Frenchman, in the Lateran .

John XVII . Secchi 0)John XVI II . Phasianus, in the Lateran.

Sergiu's IV . Bocca di porco , RomanBenedict VII I ., from Tusculum, in St. Peter's.John XIX.. his brother, ditto.

Benedict IX ., from Tusculum, buried at GrottaFerrata, near Rome.

row- 3046 Gregory VI . Gratianus, Roman, died in the cloisterof Clugny.

1046- 1047 Clement I I ., Suidw . from Saxony, buried at Bamberg.

Damasus II . Boppo, from Bavaria, in 8 . Loreneo

S . Leo IX. Bruno , from Alsace, in St . Peter’s .Victor I I . Gebhard, German, in the old Cathedralof Santa Reparata at Florence.Stephen IX., from Lorraine, ditto .

Benedict X. Mincius, from Tusculum, in Santa

1059 - t Nicholas I I . Gerhard, from Burgundy, died atFlorence

root - ton Alexander I I . Anselm di Badagio. from Milan,buried in the Lateran .

1073- 1085 8 . Grego ry VI I . Hildebrand, from Soana, in Salerno

t ow- rah Victor I I I . Desiderius, Lombard, from Benevento,at Monte Cassino .

1088 - 1099 Urban I I . Otto , from Chatillon, near Rheims, probably buried ln St . Peter's.

1099-4 t Paschal I I . Raniero , from Bieda, near Viterbo , in

the Lateran .

i ris- ru g Gelasius II . Giovanni Gaetani, from Gaeta, buried

at Clugny.ru g- n u Calixtus II . son of Count William of Burgundy, in

the Lateran .

n ae- rm Honorius I I . Lambert, n-cm Pagnano, near Bologna. ditto.

"so- rm Innocent II . Gregorio Papaneschi, h'

om Trastevere,in 8 . Maria in Trastevere.

163


Celestine I I . Gmdo , h'om Citti

'

di Ca tel lo . in the

Lucius I I . Caccianemici, from Bologna, ditto.

Eugenius I I I . Paganelli, Roman, in St . Peter’s.Anastasius IV. Conrad, Roman. in the Lateran .

Adrian IV. Boeakspeare, Engl ish, in St. Peter’s .Alexander I I I . Roland Bandinelli. from Siena, inthe Lateran .

I IBI - I l as Lucius III . Ubaldo Allucingoli, from Lucca, in

Verona Cathedral.Urban III. Uberto Crivelli, from Milan , in FerraraCathedral.

Gregory VI II. Alberto de Mort-a, from Benevento ,

in Pisa Cathedral .u B7 - xxgx Clement II I . Paol ino Scolari, Roman, in the La

n gx- n ga Celestine II I. Giscinto Bobo Orsini, Roman , di tto .

" gt- taro Innocent I I I . Conti, from Anami, buried in S .

taro- 1237 Hono rius I I I . Geneina Savelli.Roman, in San ta MariaMaggiore.

1327- 1343 Gregory IX. Ugolino Conti , from Anagni, in St .

Peter'sCelestine IV. Castiglione, fromMilan , ditto .

Inno cent IV. Sinibaldo de ’ Fieschi, Genoese, in

Naples Cathedral.”54- ta Alexander IV. Orlando Conti , from Anagni

n ot - rm Urban IV. Jacques Hyacinthe Pantaleon , fromTroyes, in Perugia Cathedral.

1365- 1368 Clement IV. Guido Fulcodi, h'om St. Gilles, in

127 14 276 B . Gregory X . Teobaldo Vieconti, from Piacenza,in Arezzo Cathedral.Innocent V. Pietro, from Tarantu la in Savoy, inthe Lateran.

Adrian V. Ottobono de’F ieschi,Genoese, in Viterbo

John XXI . Pietro (Ispano), from Lisbon, in V iterboCathedral .

ran - two N olss II I . Gian Geetano Orsini, Roman, in S t.

164

THE TOMBS OF THE

1455- 1458 Calixtus III . Alfoneo Borgia,Spain, unburied in S . Maria di

1453 - 1464 Pius I I.

Paul I I . Pietro Barbo , Venetian, in St .Sixtus IV. Francesco della Rovere,ditto.

Innocent VIII . Cybo, Genoese, dittoaAlexander VI . Rodrigo Bo rgia, fromburied in 8 . Maria di Monserrato.

Pius I II . Piccolomini, from Siena, indella Valle.

15o3- 15 13 Julius I I . Giuliano della Rovere,St . Peter's.

15 13- 153 1 Leo X. Giovanni de’ Medici,Maria sopra M inerva.

15as- t5a3 Adrian VI . Florence of U tre cht, in

dell, Anims.

1533- 1534 Clement VII . Giulio de’ Medici, from

Paul I I I . Alessandro Farnese, in St .Julius I I I . del Monte, from MonteAresxo, ditto .

Marcellus I I . Marcello Cervini, £rom

ditto .

1555 - 1559 Paul IV. Giovann i Pietro Carail’a ,

San ta Maria sopra Minerva.1559- 1565 Pius IV . Glovan Angelo Medici,

1566- 1573

1573 - 3585 Gregory XI II . Ugo Buoncom

in St . Peter‘s.1585

- 1590 Sixtus V. Fel ice Peretti, from

ditto.

1592- 1605 Clemen t VII I . Ippo lito Aldobrandini,

in Santa Maria Maggiore .166


1605 Leo XI . Alessandro Medici, fi-om Florence, in St.

Peter's.1605- 169 1 Paul V. Camillo Borghese, Roman , in Santa Maria

Maggiore.

in S . Ignazio, in Rome .1623- 1644 Urban VIII . Mail

'

eo Barberini, from Florence, inSt . Peter’s.

1644- 1655 Innocent X . Gian Battista Pamfili, Roman, in Sant’Agnese , in Rome.

1655- 1667 Alexander VI I . Fabio Chigi, from Siena, in St.

Peter’s.Clement IX . Giulio Rospigliosi, from Pisto ls, ditto .

Clemen t X . Bmilio Altieri , Roman , ditto .

Innocent XI . Benedetto Odescalchi, from Como ,

ditto .

Alexander VI I I . Pietro Ottoboni, Venetian, ditto .

Innocent XII . Antonio Pignatel li, Neapo litan, ditto .

Clement XI . Giovanni Francesco Albani, from

162 1- 1623

172 1 - 1724 Innocent XI II . Michel Angelo Con ti, ditto .

1734- 1730 Benedict XI I I . Vincenzo Maria Orsini, in Santa

1730- 1740 Clement XI I. Lorenzo Corsin i, Roman, in theLateran .

1740 - 1758 Benedict XIV. Prospero Lambertini, from Bologna,in St . Peter’s .Clement XI I I . Carlo Rezzon ico , Venetian , ditto .

Clement XIV. Lorenzo,Francesco Ganganelli, from

S . Angelo in Vado, buried in the SS. Apostol i,in Rome.

1775- 1799 Pius VI . Angelo Braschi. from Cessna, in St.

Peter's .Pius VI I . Chiaramon ti, from Ceseno, ditto .

Leo XII . della Genga, from Spoleto , ditto .

Pius VI II . Castiglione, from Cingoli, ditto .

Gregory XVI . Capellari, from Belluno , ditto .

Pius IX . Mastai Ferretti, from Sinigaglia, in S .

Lorenzo fuori - le -mura.Leo XIII . Coun t Gioacchino Pecci, from Carpineto .

Pius X . Giuseppe Sarto , from Riese near Asolo .

167

IN DEX

was”m

un, 1

AM 56 Avignon, 63 ,

AccoltiAcqua

Adrian L, 20 “M 45 ;

53 ; V1 x04- 5

S Iy VIUS (Pim n )t 79Alba,Dube of, 1 13

5364

Alerts, Clemens August,Alexander IIL, 46, 60 ; W" 53 ;v. 69 ; VI., 88 - 90 ;

'

VII 46

136 ; VIII., 137Algardi, fresco by, 14Alp 40hanus, (note). 41Alvarez ofToledo, 1 1 1Amari,Michele xxiv.

Amid ,sculptor, 149

Anacletus, Ant OPG»44

W ‘sfis’”45

Ancona, 80Andrew III. of Hungary, 57Anieii family, 16Antoniano,Silvio, 1 16Apulia. 37 . 56Aquila. 9. 56Aquinas, St. Thomas, 53 , 1 13A n Coeli, Church of, 54, 126Aren a. 9. 53Arras

,Nicholas of, 1 18

Ariosto, 100Arnold of Brescia, 29 , 45Athenais

,xxxiv.

168

Balbina, Catacombs oi, 10

Bamberg, Clement l l . buried at,

9.36

Bandinelli, Bsccio (1493

Bar“

46Barberini rban

BVIIL), 13a

Basel, Council of, 73, 79Bayezid II. , 85Beds, Venerable, 17, 19, 156Belisarius, 1Bembo , Card

sinal , 100, 103, 1 1 1

Benedict V. , 37 ; IX. , 36 ; XL ,63 XII ., 64 ; XIII ., 139XIV., 140

Benevento, 37 , 41Berlosi ,Giuseppe, 137M

659I

B140

w hen 77 . 78. 84Bibbiena, Cardinal, 100Bo! 9 . 9x. 92

Boni ace IV. , 19 ; VIII ., 19, 586 1 ; IX., 69Borghese, Camilla (Paul 1 28

Villa, 129Borgia, Alfonso (Calixtus

79Caesar, n iii 88

,89

INDEX

Domitilla, Catacombs oi , 9, 10

E

Eleodoro, Stanza di, in Vatican,

Enkefort, en sign, 105Erasmus, xxxiii , u n lit , 100

Eugenius III., 45 ; IV. , 72

Euphoria», xxv

Fabris, sculptor, 148Farnese, Alessandro (Paul108- 1 1 1

FaustFerdinand IL, 133 ; V., 86

Fa rm . 9. 47 . 127Ferrata, Ercole, 13Fieschi (Innocent 49Filarete,Antonio (d. 7 1, 76Flavius Blondus, xxxii.Florence. 69 . 73. 83. 107Fon tana, Domenico ( 1543125Forli , 84

Fortebraccio da Montone, 75Francis, Saint, 55Francis L, 93Franks,Th 20Frederick 46 II 48, 49III., 79

I4

Gaetani, Giovanna, 108Boniface VIII . , 57

Galileo, 133 °

Gangenelli (Clement 140

Geladus IL , 44Genseric theVandal, 12, 14Gerbert Sylvester IL), 3 1Germ 38»36 1 37 1 38 1 104Gervinus, xxi. , xxx.Ghetto ofRome,The, 1 14Ghislieri (St. Pius 1 17

Iconoclasm,20

Inquisition, 48, 86, 1 14,133. 147

GranadaiConquest of, 86

Gregory theGreat, 16 ; IL, III

VIIL. 47 ; Ill . 49° X .

1

67 , 12 1 ; XIV. , 127 , XV. ,

130 ; XVI ., 149Gregory of Trebwond,”

77 . 144Gas

ardia,Niccolodella (circ.0.

Gustavus Adolphus, 133

Hadrian, Emperor, xvi ., 28 , 45Hamburg, Benedict V. buried at,37Hapsburg.House oi , 53, 133Heidelberg, 69

Henrym . W . 38. 39 .

Henry“VIIL of England, 107Hildebrand (Gregory VII ), 38

“Ohm “flm r The: 45»461 49152 .54Honorius, E 10, 1 1Honorius IL, , 44 ; II I 48IV. , 55Humanism, 41

Run . John. 69

J

Jerome ofPrzgue, 69

m ower

John XXII 63 ;

{amv1.Palaeologus.73

Jubilee,Year of, 59Julius 1L. 26. 77 . 84. 91

- 97. 123.III ., 1 1 1

L

Lateran Basilica (8. Giovanni inLemm a). 32 . 34. 44. 59. 7 1.99. 339Le Gros, sculptor, 97 , 130Leo lL ths Great, 14 ; III., 24,3 5 ; IX . 37 ; X».98 - 192 . " 4.

XL,1

129 ; XIL, 148 ;XI , viii .

Lemardo ofSaru na , 56, 1 18

Lepanto, Battle oi, 1 18, 1 19Ligorio, Pirro, 1 15Lippi, Filippo, 1 12Louis IX. , 52Loyola, Ignatius, 1 13, 130Lucius IL, 45 I II

Luther, 881 7008. Synod of. 49

Macaulay, Lord, 154Machiavelli,Niccolo, 107Magdeburg, 3 1misfit . $7. 58

Maratta, 13Marcellus I 1 1 1

Maria, Empress, 1oMarozia, 27Marseilles, 64, 6

5,Martin l ., 19 ; I 48, 54 ; V. ,

70Martinus Polonus, 32Maso da Bosco, 96Massimi family, 77Mati lda of Tuscany. 39 . 41 . 54.

132 , 153Max

x

x

i

i

milian IL King of Bavaria,v.

Medici,Alessandro (LeoXL 129Codmo de', 7oGim

é

hnsd o (Pius We

1 1

Giovanni (Leo XMS

Meli,Michel Angelo, 92- 7 , 1 10, 130Michel Angelo Sanese, 105Milan, Capture of, 101Minghetti,Marco, axi.Mino da Fiu ole ( 143 1 76- 82

Mirandola, 91Monnot, Stefano, 131Monte Cassino , 9, 41 , 42Montefiascone, 64Montfort,Amalric de, 49Monuments, Papal , how few

INDEX

Nicholas IL, ; lnw 54 ; N

559 3 36 3

0

King ofMercia, 19Oli n

-i, Pietro (circ. 66

Orsini (Nicholas(Benedict XI I 1

89Ferdinand, D. of avina,39I

650m IV., 48

Pasquino, 154Paul IL, —83 ; III.,

IV., 1 1 1 1 15 ;

Perez, Count Paolo, n .

PM & 90 489 52 : 540 63Peruzzi, Baldassare ( 1481

Phocas, Emperor, 20Piacenza, 92Piccin ino , 75Piccolomini (Pius II. 79,9 1

Pipin le Bref, 20, 24

3 2L726, 79 IIIPi

9 1 ;W., 1 15 - 1 16 ; V., 1 18- 20

VI. , 144, 155 ; VII ., 346. S SVIII. 148

Pius IX. , viii., xxiii., n viL, 45 ,

73»150—1Placidia,Poggio Bracciolini, 77Poland, xvii.Pollaiuolo, Antonio ( 142976, 84

Pomponius Laetus, 83. 109Ponte Molle, xix.Porta, Guglielmo della. 108 , 1"Praeta tatus, Catacombs of, 10Priscilla

,Catacombs of, 10

Procida. John of. 39Ptolemais, 56

S

Sadoleto, Cardinal Jacopo, 100Sala Regia of Vatican, 46Salem ». 9. 39. 4!San Gallo, Antonio da (145515 102

Sant’ 0, Castle of, 27 , 29 ,39. 75. 99. ‘06 107 , " 6. 333

Q

Quirinal Palace, 28, 147 , 1 52

RRafiaelle da Montelupo ( 1505

96. 103

M W.‘4093 1 13°

Ravenna, 20, 31, 99Recanah,

.9, 69

Reformation, 40, 62 , 7 2 , 101 ,

104, 1 13, 128

Reggie. 92

Renaissance, 7 1 300.

Reumont, Alfred von, 2111.Revolution, French,Rheims, 3 1

Girolamo , 84Rienzi, Cola di, 29, 64, 15 1Robert Gulacar’ d, 42

Romano, Paolo, 7 80

Rudolf I Emperor, 54Rusconi, Camilla, 97 , 12 1

INDEX

Villafranca , Peace of, xviii.Villani, Giovanni, 58

Valence, 144 Villeneuve, 64Valentinian III ., 12 Vitelleschi, Cardinal, 75Valla.Loren». 77 Vita l». 9. 51. 52. 54. 64Valle, Filippo, 137Vasari, Giorgio, Fresco of, 46, 80 WVasoldo, 126 Winckelmann, 85, 139vaficm s 10, 37 1 581 591 77 1 10" Worms, Concordat Of, 44

125. 127 . 129. 136.144, 152 X

ubrary.m , 48. 77Vegia,Mafeo , 78 Xavier, St. Francis, 1 13, 130

Venice. 46. 7s. 83Verona, 9, 46 ZVespers. Sicilian. 39. 54Victor 36, 37 ; 41 - 3 Za chargas. Pope. 20Victor Emmanuel IL, 153 269117 1211108 . I QViesta, 53 Zuccari, Padengo, 47

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