Gregorius. Diac. Card. S. Eustach.

Hic. Etiam. Diu. Vixit. M. Gregori Mater. S. Silvia. Hoc. Maxime Colenda. Quod. Tantum. Pietatis Sapientiae. Et. Doctrinae. Lumen Pepererit.

"Cette ville incomparable renferme peu de sites plus attrayants et plus dignes d'eternelle memoire. Le sanctuaire occupe l'angle occidental du mont Clius.... Il est a egale distance du grand Cirque, des Thermes de Caracalla et du Colisee, tout proche de l'eglise des saints martyrs Jean et Paul. Le berceau du christianisme de l'Angleterre touche ainsi au sol trempe par le sang de tant de milliers de martyrs. En face s'eleve le mont Palatin, berceau de Rome paenne, encore couvert des vastes debris du palais des Cesars.... Ou est donc l'Anglais digne de ce nom qui, en portant son regard du Palatin au Colisee, pourrait contempler sans emotion ce coin de terre d'ou lui sont venus la foi, le nom chretien et la Bible dont il est si fier. Voila ou les enfants esclaves de ses aeux etaient recueillis et sauves! Sur ces pierres s'agenouillaient ceux qui ont fait sa patrie chretienne! Sous ces voutes a ete concu par une ame sainte, confie a Dieu, beni par Dieu, accepte et accompli par d'humbles et genereux chretiens, le grand dessein! Par ces degres sont descendus les quarante moines qui ont porte a l'Angleterre la parole de Dieu, la lumiere de l'evangile, la succession apostolique et la regle de Saint-Benoit!"--_Montalembert, Moines d'Occident._

Hard by was the house of Sta. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory, of which the ruins still remain, opposite to the church of S. Giovanni e Paolo, and in the little garden which still exists, we may believe that he played as a child under his mother's care. Close to his mother's home he founded the monastery of St. Andrew, where he dwelt for many years as a monk, employed in writing homilies, and in the enjoyment of visionary conversation with the Virgin, whom he believed to answer him in person from her picture before which he knelt. "To this monastery he presented his own portrait, with those of his father and mother, which were probably in existence 300 years after his death; and this portrait of himself probably furnished that peculiar type of physiognomy which we trace in all the best representations of him."[160] During the life of penance and poverty which was led here by St. Gregory, he sold all his goods for the benefit of the poor, retaining nothing but a silver bason given him by his mother. One day a poor shipwrecked sailor came several times to beg in the cell where he was writing, and as he had no money, he gave him instead this one remaining treasure. A long time after, St.

Gregory saw the same shipwrecked sailor reappear in the form of his guardian angel, who told him that God had henceforth destined him to rule his church, and become the successor of St. Peter, whose charity he had imitated.[161]

"Un moine (A.D. 590) va monter pour la premiere fois sur la chaire apostolique. Ce moine, le plus illustre de tous ceux qui ont compte parmi les souverains pontifes, y rayonnera d'un eclat qu'aucun de ses predecesseurs n'a egale et qui rejaillera comme une sanction supreme, sur l'institut dont il est issu. Gregoire, le seul parmi les hommes avec le Pape Leon Ier qui ait recu a la fois, du consentement universel, le double surnom de Saint et de Grand, sera l'eternel honneur de l'Ordre benedictin comme de la papaute. Par son genie, mais surtout par le charme et l'ascendant de sa vertu, il organisera le domaine temporel des papes, il developpera et regularisera leur souverainete spirituelle, il fondera leur paternelle suprematie sur les royautes naissantes et les nations nouvelles qui vont devenir les grands peuples de l'avenir, et s'appeler la France, l'Espagne, l'Angleterre. A vrai dire, c'est lui qui inaugure le moyen age, la societe moderne et la civilisation chretienne."--_Montalembert._

The church of St. Gregory is approached by a cloistered court filled with monuments. On the left is that of Sir Edward Carne, one of the commissioners to obtain the opinion of foreign universities respecting the divorce of Henry VIII. from Catherine of Arragon, ambassador to Charles V., and afterwards to the court of Rome. He was recalled when the embassy was suppressed by Elizabeth, but was kept at Rome by Paul IV., who had conceived a great affection for him, and he died here in 1561. Another monument, of an exile for the catholic faith, is that of Robert Pecham, who died 1567, inscribed:

"Roberto Pecham Anglo, equite aurato, Philippi et Mariae Angliae et Hispan regibus olim a consiliis genere religione virtute praeclaro qui cum patriam suam a fede catholica deficientem adspicere sine summo dolore non posset, relictis omnibus quae in hac vita carissima esse solent, in voluntarium profectus exilium, post sex annis pauperibus Christi heredibus testamento institutis, sanctissime e vita migravit."

The _Church_, rebuilt in 1734, under Francesco Ferrari, has sixteen ancient granite columns and a fine Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. Among its monuments we may observe that of Cardinal Zurla, a learned writer on geographical subjects, who was abbot of the adjoining convent. It was a curious characteristic of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II.

(1503-13), that her friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in this church, and to inscribe upon her tomb: "Imperia, cortisana Romana, quae digna tanto nomine, rarae inter homines formae specimen dedit. Vixit annos xxvi. dies xii. obiit 1511, die 15 Augusti,"--but this monument has now been removed.

At the end of the right aisle is a picture by _Badalocchi_, commemorating a miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation. It will be observed that in this and in most other representations of St. Gregory, a dove is perched upon his shoulder, and whispering into his ear. This is commemorative of the impression that every word and act of the saint was directly inspired by the Holy Ghost; a belief first engendered by the happy promptitude of Peter, his arch-deacon, who invented the story to save the beloved library of his master which was about to be destroyed after his death by the people, in a pitiful spirit of revenge, because they fancied that a famine which was decimating them, had been brought about by the extravagance of Gregory.[162] An altar beneath this picture is decorated with marble reliefs, representing the same miracle, and also the story of the soul of the Emperor Trajan being freed from purgatory by the intercession of Gregory. (Chap. IV.)

A low door near this leads into the monastic cell of St. Gregory, containing his marble chair, and the spot where his bed lay, inscribed:

"Nocte dieque vigil longo hic defessu labore Gregorius modica membra quiete levat."

Here also an immense collection of minute relics of saints are exposed to the veneration of the credulous.

On the opposite side of the church is the _Salviati Chapel_, the burial-place of that noble family, modernized in 1690 by Carlo Maderno.

Over the altar is a copy of Annibale Caracci's picture of St. Gregory, which once existed here, but is now in England. On the right is the picture of the Madonna, "which spoke to St. Gregory," and which is said to have become suddenly impressed upon the wall after a vision in which she appeared to him;--on the left is a beautiful marble ciborium.

Hence a sacristan will admit the visitor into the _Garden of Sta.

Silvia_, whence there is a grand view over the opposite Palatine.

"To stand here on the summit of the flight of steps which leads to the portal, and look across to the ruined Palace of the Caesars, makes the mind giddy with the rush of thoughts. _There_, before us, the Palatine Hill--pagan Rome in the dust; _here_, the little cell, a few feet square, where slept in sackcloth the man who gave the last blow to the power of the Caesars, and first set his foot as sovereign on the cradle and capital of their greatness."--_Mrs.

Jameson._

Here are three Chapels, restored by the historian Cardinal Baronius, in the sixteenth century. The first, of _Sta. Silvia_, contains a fresco of the Almighty with a choir of angels, by _Guido_, and beneath it a beautiful statue of the venerable saint (especially invoked against convulsions), by _Niccolo Cordieri_--one of the best statues of saints in Rome. The second chapel, of _St. Andrew_, contains the two famous rival frescoes of _Guido_ and _Domenichino_. Guido has represented St.

Andrew kneeling in reverent thankfulness at first sight of the cross on which he was to suffer; Domenichino--a more painful subject--the flagellation of the saint. Of these paintings Annibale Caracci observed that "Guido's was the painting of the Master; but Domenichino's the painting of the scholar who knew more than the master." The beautiful group of figures in the corner, where a terrified child is hiding its face in its mother's dress, is introduced in several other pictures of Domenichino.

"It is a well-known anecdote that a poor old woman stood for a long time before the story of Domenichino, pointing it out bit by bit and explaining it to a child who was with her,--and that she then turned to the story told by Guido, admired the landscape, and went away. It is added that when Annibale Caracci heard of this, it seemed to him in itself a sufficient reason for giving the preference to the former work. It is also said that when Domenichino was painting one of the executioners, he worked himself up into a fury with threatening words and gestures, and that Annibale, surprising him in this condition, embraced him, saying: 'Domenico, to-day you have taught me a lesson, which is that a painter, like an orator, must first feel himself that which he would represent to others.'"--_Lanzi_, v. 82.

"In historical pictures Domenichino is often cold and studied, especially in the principal subject, while on the other hand, the subordinate persons have much grace, and a noble character of beauty. Thus, in the scourging of St. Andrew, a group of women thrust back by the executioners is of the highest beauty. Guido's fresco is of high merit--St. Andrew, on his way to execution, sees the cross before him in the distance, and falls upon his knees in adoration,--the executioners and spectators regard him with astonishment."--_Kugler._

The third chapel, of _Sta. Barbara_, contains a grand statue of St.

Gregory by _Niccolo Cordieri_[163] (where the whispering dove is again represented), and the table at which he daily fed twelve poor pilgrims after washing their feet. The Roman breviary tells how on one occasion an angel appeared at the feast as the thirteenth guest. This story,--the sending forth of St. Augustine,--and other events of St. Gregory's life, are represented in rude frescoes upon the walls by _Viviani_.

The adjoining _Convent_ (modern) is of vast size, and is now occupied by Camaldolese monks, though in the time of St. Gregory it belonged to the Benedictines. In its situation it is beautiful and quiet, and must have been so even in the time of St. Gregory, who often regretted the seclusion which he was compelled to quit.

"Un jour, plus accable que jamais par le poids des affaires seculieres, il s'etait retire dans un lieu secret pour s'y livrer dans un long silence a sa tristesse, et y fut rejoint par le diacre Pierre, son eleve, son ami d'enfance et le compagnon de ses cheres etudes. 'Vous est-il donc arrive quelque chagrin nouveau,'

lui dit le jeune homme, 'pour que vous soyez ainsi plus triste qu'a l'ordinaire.' 'Mon chagrin,' lui repondit le pontife, 'est celui de tous mes jours, toujours vieux par l'usage, et toujours nouveau par sa croissance quotidienne. Ma pauvre ame se rappelle ce qu'elle etait autrefois, dans notre monastere, quand elle planait sur tout ce qui passe, sur tout ce qui change; quand elle ne songeait qu'au ciel; quand elle franchissait par la contemplation le cloitre de ce corps qui l'enserre; quand elle aimait d'avance la mort comme l'entree de la vie. Et maintenant il lui faut, a cause de ma charge pastorale, supporter les mille affaires des hommes du siecle et se souiller dans cette poussiere. Et quand, apres s'etre ainsi repandue au dehors, elle veut retrouver sa retraite interieure, elle n'y revient qu'amoindrie. Je medite sur tout ce que je souffre et sur tout ce que j'ai perdu. Me voici, battu par l'ocean et tout brise par la tempete; quand je pense a ma vie d'autrefois, il me semble regarder en arriere vers le rivage. Et ce qu'il y a de plus triste, c'est qu'ainsi ballotte par l'orage, je puis a peine entrevoir le port que j'ai quitte.'"--_Montalembert, Moines d'Occident._

Pope Gregory XVI. was for some years abbot of this convent, to which he was afterwards a generous benefactor;--regretting always, like his great predecessor, the peace of his monastic life. His last words to his cardinals, who were imploring him, for political purposes, to conceal his danger, were singularly expressive of this--"Per Dio lasciatemi!--voglio morire da frate, non da sovrano." The last great ceremony enacted at S. Gregorio was when Cardinal Wiseman consecrated the mitred abbot of English Cistercians,--Dr. Manning preaching at the same time on the prospects of English Catholicism.

Ascending the steep paved lane between S. Gregorio and the Parco, the picturesque church on the left with the arcaded apse and tall campanile (_c._ A.D. 1206), inlaid with coloured tiles and marbles, is that of _SS. Giovanni e Paolo_, two officers in the household of the Christian princess Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine, in whose time they occupied a position of great influence and trust. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he attempted to persuade them to sacrifice to idols, but they refused, saying, "Our lives are at the disposal of the emperor, but our souls and our faith belong to our God." Then Julian, fearing to bring them to public martyrdom, lest their popularity should cause a rebellion and the example of their well-known fortitude be an encouragement to others, sent off soldiers to behead them privately in their own house. Hence the inscription on the spot, "Locus martyrii SS. Joannis et Paoli in aedibus propriis." The church was built by Pammachus, the friend of St. Jerome, on the site of the house of the saints. It is entered by a portico adorned with eight ancient granite columns, interesting as having been erected by the English pope, Nicholas Breakspear, A.D. 1158. The interior, in the basilica form, has sixteen ancient columns and a beautiful Opus-Alexandrinum pavement. In the centre of the floor is a stone, railed off, upon which it is said that the saints were beheaded. Their bodies are contained in a porphyry urn under the high altar. In early times these were the only bodies of saints preserved within the walls of Rome (the rest being in the catacombs). In the Sacramentary of St. Leo, in the Preface of SS. John and Paul, it is said, "Of Thy merciful providence Thou hast vouchsafed to crown not only the circuit of the city with the glorious passions of the martyrs, but also to hide in the very heart of the city itself the victorious limbs of St. John and St. Paul."[164]

Above the tribune are frescoes by _Pomerancio_. A splendid chapel on the right was built 1868;--two of its alabaster pillars were the gift of Pius IX. Beneath the altar on the left of the tribune is preserved the embalmed body of St. Paul of the Cross (who died 1776), founder of the Order of Passionists, who inhabit the adjoining convent. The aged face bears a beautiful expression of repose;--the body is dressed in the robe which clothed it when living.[165]

Male visitors are admitted through the convent to its large and beautiful _Garden_, which overhangs the steep side of the Clian towards the Coliseum, of which there is a fine view between its ancient cypresses. Here, on a site near the monastery, are some remains believed to be those of the temple built by Agrippina (_c._ A.D. 57), daughter of Germanicus, to the honour of her deified husband (and uncle) Claudius, after she had sent him to Olympus by feeding him with poisonous mushrooms. This temple was pulled down by Nero, who wished to efface the memory of his predecessor, on the pretext that it interfered with his Golden House; but was rebuilt under Vespasian. In this garden also is the entrance to the vast substructions known as the _Vivarium_, whence the wild beasts who devoured the early Christian martyrs were frightened by burning tow down a subterranean passage into the arena.

The famous Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice was founded by emigrants from this convent. The memory of these saints was so much honoured up to the time of Pope Gregory the Great, that the eve of their festival was an obligatory fast. Their fete (June 26) is still kept with great solemnities on the Clian, when the railing round their place of execution is wreathed and laden with flowers. When the "station" is held at their church, the apse is illuminated.

Continuing to follow the lane up the Clian, we reach the richly tinted brick _Arch of Dolabella_, erected, A.D. 10, by the consuls P.

Cornelius Dolabella and Caius Julius Silanus. Nero, building his aqueduct to the palace of the Caesars, made use of this, which already existed, and included it in his line of arches.

Above the arch is a _Hermitage_, revered as that where S. Giovanni di Matha lived, and where he died in 1213. Before he came to reside here he had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!

Passing beneath the gateway, we emerge upon the picturesque irregular Piazza of the Navicella, the central point of the Clian, which is surrounded by a most interesting group of buildings, and which contains an isolated fragment of the aqueduct of Nero, dear to artists from its colour. Behind this, under the trees, is the little marble _Navicella_, which is supposed to have been originally a votive offering of a sailor to Jupiter Redux, whose temple stood near this; but which was adapted by Leo X. as a Christian emblem of the Church,--the boat of St. Peter.

"The allegory of a ship is peculiarly dwelt upon by the ancient Fathers. A ship entering the port was a favourite heathen emblem of the close of life. But the Christian idea, and its elevation from individual to universal or catholic humanity, is derived directly from the Bible,--see, for instance, I Peter iii. 20, 21. 'Without doubt,' says St. Augustine, 'the ark is the figure of the city of God pilgrimising in this world, in other words, of the Church, which is saved by the wood on which hung the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' The same interpretation was recognised in the Latin Church in the days of Tertullian and St.

Cyprian, &c. The bark of St. Peter is similarly represented on a Greek gem, found in the Catacombs, as sailing on a fish, probably Leviathan or Satan, while doves, emblematical of the faithful, perch on the mast and stern,--two Apostles row, a third lifts up his hands in prayer, and our Saviour, approaching the vessel, supports Peter by the hand when about to sink.... But the allegory of the ship is carried out to its fullest extent in the fifty-seventh chapter of the second book of the 'Apostolical Constitutions,' supposed to have been compiled in the name of the Apostles, in the fourth century."--_Lord Lindsay's Christian Art_, i. 18.

On the right is (first) the gateway of the deserted convent of Redemptorists, called _S. Tommaso in Formis_, which was founded by S.

Giovanni de Matha, who, when celebrating his first mass at Paris, beheld in a vision, an angel robed in white, with a red and blue cross upon his breast, and his hands resting in benediction upon the heads of two captives,--a white and a black man. The bishop of Paris sent him to Rome to seek explanation from Innocent III., who was celebrated as an interpreter of dreams,--his foundation of the Franciscan order having resulted from one which befell him. S. Giovanni was accompanied to the pope by another hermit, Felix de Valois. They found that Innocent had himself seen the same vision of the angel between the two captives while celebrating mass at the Lateran, and he interpreted it as inculcating the duty of charity towards Christian slaves, for which purpose he founded the Trinitarians, since called Redemptorists. The story of the double vision is commemorated in a _Mosaic_, erected above the door, A.D. 1260, and bearing the name of the artist, Jacobus Cosmati.

The next gate beyond the church is that of the _Villa Mattei_, the garden of the Redemptorists. (The villa is now the property of Baron Richard Hoffmann: visitors are generally admitted upon writing down their names at the gate.)

These grounds are well worth visiting--quite the ideal of a deserted Roman garden, a wealth of large Roman daisies, roses, and periwinkle spreading at will amid remains of ancient statues and columns. A grand little avenue of ilexes leads to a terrace whence there is a most beautiful view towards the aqueducts and the Alban Hills, with a noble sarcophagus and a quantity of fine aloes and prickly-pears in the foreground. There is an obelisk, of which only the top is Egyptian. It is said that there is a man's hand underneath;--when the obelisk was lowered it fell suddenly, and one of the workmen had not time to take his hand away. In the grounds annexed to the lower part of the villa is the Fountain of Egeria (p. 375).

Almost standing in the garden of the villa, and occupying the site of the house of Sta. Cyriaca, is the _Church of Sta. Maria in Domenica_ or _della Navicella_. (If no one is here, the hermit at S. Stefano Rotondo will unlock it.) The portico is due to Raphael (his design is at Windsor). The damp interior (rebuilt by Leo X. from designs of Raphael) is solemn and striking. It is in the basilica form, the nave separated from the aisles by eighteen columns of granite and one (smaller, near the tribune) of porphyry. The frieze, in chiaroscuro, was painted by _Giulio Romano_ and _Pierino del Vaga_. Beneath the confessional are the bones of Sta. Balbina, whose fortress-like church stands on the Pseudo-Aventine. In the tribune are curious mosaics, in which the figure of Pope Paschal I. is introduced, the square nimbus round his head being an evidence of its portrait character, _i. e._, that it was done during his lifetime.[166]

"Within the tribune are mosaics of the Virgin and Child seated on a throne, with angels ranged in regular rows on each side; and, at her feet, with unspeakable stiffness of limb, the kneeling figure of Pope Paschal I. Upon the walls of the tribune is the Saviour with a nimbus, surrounded with two angels and the twelve apostles, and further below, on a much larger scale, two prophets, who appear to point towards him. The most remarkable thing here is the rich foliage decoration. Besides the wreaths of flowers (otherwise not a rare feature) which are growing out of two vessels on the edge of the dome, the floor beneath the figures is also decorated with flowers--a graceful species of ornament seldom aimed at in the moroseness of Byzantine art. From this point, the decline into utter barbarism is rapid."--_Kugler._

"The Olivetan monks inhabited the church and cloisters of Sta.

Maria in Domenica, commonly called in Navicella, from the rudely sculptured marble monument that stands on the grass before its portal, a remnant of bygone days, to which neither history nor tradition has given a name, but which has itself given one to the picturesque old church which stands on the brow of the Clian Hill."--_Lady Georgiana Fullerton._

A tradition of the Church narrates that St. Lorenzo, deacon and martyr, daily distributed alms to the poor in front of this church--then the house of Sta. Cyriaca--with whom he had taken refuge.

Opposite, is the round _Church of S. Stefano Rotondo_, dedicated by St.

Simplicius in 467. It appears to have been built on the site of an ancient circular building, and to have belonged to the great victual market--Macellum Magnum--erected by Nero in this quarter.[167] It is seldom used for service, except on St. Stephen's Day (December 26), but visitors are admitted through a little cloister, in which stands a well of beautiful proportions, of temp. Leo X.--attributed to Michael Angelo.

The interior is exceedingly curious architecturally. It is one hundred and thirty-three feet in diameter, with a double circle of granite columns, thirty-six in the outer and twenty in the inner series, enclosing two tall Corinthian columns, with two pilasters supporting a cross wall. In the centre is a kind of temple in which are relics of St.

Stephen (his body is said to be at S. Lorenzo). In the entrance of the church is an ancient marble seat from which St. Gregory is said to have read his fourth homily.

The walls are lined with frescoes by _Pomerancio_ and _Tempesta_. They begin with the Crucifixion, but as the Holy Innocents really suffered before our Saviour, one of them is represented lying on each side of the cross. Next comes the stoning of St. Stephen, and the frescoes continue to pourtray every phase of human agony in the most revolting detail, but are interesting as showing a historical series of what the Roman Catholic Church considers as the best authenticated martyrdoms, viz.:

{St. Peter, crucified.

{St. Paul, beheaded.

{St. Vitale, buried alive.

{St. Thecla, tossed by a bull.

Under Nero {St. Gervase, beaten to death.

{SS. Protasius, Processus, and Martinianus, beheaded.

{St. Faustus and others, clothed in skins of beasts {and torn to pieces by dogs.