The "Scheme of decorations in this gorgeous chapel is so remarkable, as testifying to the development which the theological idea of the Virgin, as the Sposa or personified Church, had attained in the time of Paul V.--the same pope who in 1615 promulgated the famous bull relative to the Immaculate Conception"--that the insertion of the whole passage of Mrs.

Jameson on this subject will not be considered too much.

"First, and elevated above all, we have the 'Madonna della Concezione,' 'Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception,' in a glory of light, sustained and surrounded by angels, having the crescent under her feet, according to the approved treatment. Beneath, round the dome, we read in conspicuous letters the text from the Revelation:--SIGNUM. MAGNUM. APPARAVIT. IN. CLO. MULIER.

AMICTA. SOLE. ET. LUNA. SUB. PEDIBUS. EJUS. ET. IN. CAPITE. EJUS.

CORONA. STELLARUM. DUODECIM. Lower down is a second inscription expressing the dedication. MARIae. CHRISTI. MATRI. SEMPER. VIRGINI.

PAULUS. QUINTUS. P.M. The decorations beneath the cornice consist of eighteen large frescoes, and six statues in marble, above life size. We have the subjects arranged in the following order:--

"1. The four great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, in their usual place in the four pendatives of the dome.

"2. Two large frescoes. In the first the Vision of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Heretics bitten by Serpents. In the second, St.

John Damascene and S. Ildefonso miraculously rewarded for defending the majesty of the Virgin.

"3. A large fresco, representing the four Doctors of the Church who had especially written in honour of the Virgin: viz., Irenaeus and Cyprian, Ignatius and Theophilus, grouped two and two.

"4. St. Luke, who painted the Virgin, and whose gospel contains the best account of her.

"5. As spiritual conquerors in the name of the Virgin, St. Dominic and St. Francis, each attended by two companions of his Order.

"6. As military conquerors in the name of the Virgin, the Emperor Heraclius, and Narses, the general against the Arians.

"7. A group of three female figures, representing the three famous saintly princesses, who in marriage preserved their virginity, Pulcheria, Edeltruda (our famous Queen Ethelreda), and Cunegunda.

"8. A group of three learned Bishops, who had especially defended the immaculate purity of the Virgin, St. Cyril, St. Anselm, and St.

Denis (?).

"9. The miserable ends of those who were opposed to the honour of the Virgin. 1. The death of Julian the Apostate, very oddly represented; he lies on an altar, transfixed by an arrow, as a victim; St. Mercurius in the air. 2. The death of Leo IV., who destroyed the effigies of the Virgin. 3. The death of Constantine IV., also a famous iconoclast.

"The statues which are placed in niches are--

"1--2. St. Joseph, as the nominal husband, and St. John the Evangelist, as the nominal son, of the Virgin; the latter, also, as prophet and poet, with reference to the passage in the Revelation, xii. i.

"3--4. Aaron, as priestly ancestor (because his wand blossomed), and David, as kingly ancestor, of the Virgin.

"5--6. St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who was present at the death of the Virgin, and St. Bernard, who composed the famous 'Salve Regina' in her honour.

"Such is this grand systematic scheme of decoration, which, to those who regard it cursorily, is merely a sumptuous confusion of colours and forms, or at best a 'fine example of the Guido school and Bernini.' It is altogether a very complete and magnificent specimen of the prevalent style of art, and a very comprehensive and suggestive expression of the prevalent tendency of thought in the Roman Catholic Church from the beginning of the seventeenth century. In no description of this chapel have I seen the names and subjects accurately given: the style of art belongs to the _decadence_, and the taste being worse than questionable, the prevailing _doctrinal_ idea has been neglected, or never understood."--_Legends of the Madonna_, lxxi.

On the right is the tomb of Clement VIII. (1592--1605), the Florentine Ippolito Aldobrandini, the builder of the new palace of the Vatican, and the cruel torturer and executioner of the Cenci. He is represented in the act of benediction. The bas-reliefs on his monument commemorate the principal events of his reign,--the conclusion of peace between France and Spain, and the taking of Ferrara, which he seized from the heirs of Alphonso II.

On the left is the tomb of Paul V. (1605-1621), Camillo Borghese,--in whose reign St. Peter's was finished, as every traveller learns from the gigantic inscription over its portico,--who founded the great Borghese family, and left to his nephew, Cardinal Scipio Borghese, a fortune which enabled him to buy the Borghese Palace and to build the Borghese Villa.

"It is a truly herculean figure, with a grandly developed head, while in his thick neck, pride, violence, and sensuality seem to be united. He is the first pope who wore the beard of a cavalier, like that of Henry IV., which recalls the Thirty-years' War, which he lived through; as far as the battle of the White Mountain. In this round, domineering, pride-swollen countenance, appears the violent, imperious spirit of Paul, which aimed at an absolute power. Who does not remember his famous quarrel with Venice, and the role which his far superior adversary Paolo Sarpi played with such invincible courage? The bas-reliefs of his tomb represent the reception given by the pope to the envoys of Congo and Japan, the building of the citadel of Ferrara, the sending of auxiliary troops to Hungary to the assistance of Rudolph II., and the canonization of Sta. Francesca Romana and S. Carlo Borromeo."--_Gregorovius._

The frescoes in the cupola are by _Cigoli_; those around the altar by the Cav. D'Arpino; those above the tombs and on the arches by _Guido_, except the Madonna, which is by _Lanfranco_. The late beloved Princess Borghese, _nee_ Lady Gwendoline Talbot, was buried in front of the altar, all Rome following her to the grave.

The funeral of Princess Borghese proved the feeling with which she was regarded. Her body lay upon a car which was drawn by forty young Romans, and was followed by all the poor of Rome, the procession swelling like a river in every street and piazza it passed through, while from all the windows as it passed flowers were showered down. In funeral ceremonies of great personages at Rome an ancient custom is observed by which, when the body is lowered into the grave, a chamberlain, coming out to the church door, announces to the coachman, who is waiting with the family carriage, that his master or mistress has no longer need of his services; and the coachman thereupon breaks his staff of office and drives mournfully away. When this formality was fulfilled at the funeral of Princess Borghese, the whole of the vast crowd waiting outside the basilica broke into tears and sobs, and kneeling by a common impulse, prayed aloud for the soul of their benefactress.

The chapel has been lately the scene of a miraculous story, with reference to a visionary appearance of the Princess Borghese, which has obtained great credit among the people, by whom she is already looked upon as a saint.

The first chapel in the right aisle is that of the Patrizi family, and close by is the sepulchral stone of their noble ancestor, Giovanni Patricino, whose bones were found beneath the high altar, and deposited here in 1700. A little further is the chapel of the Santa Croce, with ten porphyry columns. Then comes the _Chapel of the Holy Sacrament_, built by Fontana for Sixtus V. while still Cardinal of Montalto. Gregory XIII., who was then on the throne, visited this gorgeous chapel when it was nearly completed, and immediately decided that one who could build such a splendid temple was sufficiently rich, and suppressed the cardinal's pension. Fontana advanced a thousand scudi for the completion of the work, and had the delicacy never to allow the cardinal to imagine that he was indebted to him. The chapel, restored 1870, is adorned with statues by Giobattista Pozzo, Cesare Nebbia, and others. Under the altar is a presepio--one of the best works of Bernini, and opposite to it, in the confession, a beautiful statue of S. Gaetano (founder of the Theatines, who died 1547[276]), with two little children. On the right is the splendid tomb of Pius V., Michaele Ghislieri (1566--72), the barefooted, bareheaded Dominican monk of Sta. Sabina, who in his short six years' reign beheld amongst other events the victory of Lepanto, the fall of the Huguenots in France, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, events which were celebrated at Rome with _fetes_ and thanksgivings. The figure of the pope, a monk wasted to a skeleton (by Leonardo de Sarzana), sits in the central niche, between statues of St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr. A number of bas-reliefs by different sculptors represent the events of his life. Some are by the Flemish artists Nicolas d'Arras and Egidius.

On the left, is the tomb of Sixtus V. (1585-90), Felice Perretti, who as a boy kept his father's pigs at Montalto; who as a young man was a Franciscan monk preaching in the Apostoli, and attracting crowds by his eloquence; and who then rose to be bishop of Fermo, soon after to be cardinal, and was lastly raised to the papal throne, which he occupied only five years, a time which sufficed for the prince of the Church who loved building the most, to renew Rome entirely.

"If anything can still the spectator to silence, and awaken him to great recollections, it is the monument of this astonishing man, who, as child, herded swine, and as an old man commanded people and kings, and who filled Rome with so many works, that from every side his name, like an echo, rings in the traveller's ear. We never cease to be amazed at the wonderful luck which raised Napoleon from the dust to the throne of the world, as if it were a romance or a fairy story. But if in the history of kings these astonishing changes are extraordinary accidents, they seem quite natural in the history of the popes, they belong to the very essence of Christendom, which does not appeal to the person, but to the spirit; and while the one history is full of ordinary men, who, without the prerogative of their crown, would have sunk into eternal oblivion, the other is rich in great men, who, placed in a different sphere, would have been equally worthy of renown."--_Gregorovius._

In a little chapel on the left of the entrance of this--which is as it were a transept of the church--is a fine picture of St. Jerome by _Spagnuoletto_, and in the chapel opposite a sarcophagus of two early Christian consuls, richly wrought in the Roman imperial style, but with Christian subjects,--Daniel in the den of lions, Zaccheus in the sycamore-tree, Martha at the raising of Lazarus, &c.

At the east end of the right aisle, near the door, is perhaps the finest gothic monument in Rome,--the tomb of Cardinal Gonsalvi, bishop of Albano, _c._ 1299.

"A recumbent statue, in pontifical vestments, rests on a sarcophagus, and two angels draw aside curtains as if to show us the dead; in the background is a mosaic of Mary enthroned, with the Child, the apostle Matthias, St. Jerome, and a smaller kneeling figure of Gonsalvi, in pontifical robes; at the apex is a tabernacle with cusped arch, and below the epitaph 'Hoc opus fecit Joannes Magister Cosmae civis Romanus,' the artist's record of himself. In the hands of St. Matthias and St. Jerome are scrolls; on that held by the apostle, the words, 'Me tenet ara prior'; on St. Jerome's,'Recubo presepis ad antrum', these epigraphs confirming the tradition that the bodies of St. Matthias and St.

Jerome repose in this church, while indicating the sites of their tombs. Popular regards have distinguished this tomb; no doubt in intended honour to the Blessed Virgin, lamps are kept ever burning, and vases of flowers ranged, before her mosaic image."--_Hemans'

Mediaeval Christian Art._

At the west end of the right aisle is the entrance of the _Baptistery_, which has a vast porphyry vase as a font. Hence we reach the _Sacristy_, in the inner chamber of which are some exceedingly beautiful bas-reliefs by _Mino da Fiesole_.

One of the greatest of the Christmas ceremonies is the procession at 5 A.M., in honour of the great relic of the church--the Santa Culla--_i.e._, the cradle in which our Saviour was carried into Egypt, not, as is frequently imagined, the manger, which is allowed to have been of stone, and of which a single stone only is supposed to have found its way to Rome, and to be preserved in the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. The "Santa Culla" is preserved in a magnificent reliquary, six feet high, adorned with bas-reliefs and statuettes in silver. On the afternoon of Christmas eve the public can visit the relic at an altar in a little chapel near the sacristy. On the afternoon of Christmas Day it is also exposed, but upon the high altar, where it is less easily seen.

"Le Seigneur Jesus a voulu naitre dans une etable; mais les hommes ont apporte precieusement le petit berceau qui a recu le salut du monde, dans la reine des cites, et ils l'ont enchasse dans l'or.

"C'est bien ici que nous devons accourir avec joie et redire ce chant triomphant de l'eglise: _Adeste, fideles, laeti triumphantes; venite, venite in Bethleem_."--_Une Chretienne a Rome._

Among the many other relics preserved here are two little bags of the brains of St. Thomas a Becket.

It was in this church that Pope St. Martin I. was celebrating mass in the seventh century, when a guard sent by the Exarch Olympius appeared on the threshold with orders to seize and put him to death. At the sight of the pontiff the soldier was stricken with blindness, a miracle which led to the conversion of Olympius and many other persons.

Platina, the historian of the popes, was buried here, with the epitaph: "Quisquis es, si pius, Platynam et sua ne vexes, anguste jacent et soli volunt esse."

Sta. Maria Maggiore was the scene of the seizure of Hildebrand by Cencius:

"On Christmas Eve, 1075, the city of Rome was visited by a dreadful tempest. Darkness brooded over the land, and the trembling spectators believed that the day of final judgment was about to dawn. In this war of the elements, however, two processions were seen advancing to the Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore. At the head of one was the aged Hildebrand, conducting a few priests to worship at the shrine of the Virgo Deipara. The other was preceded by Cencius, a Roman noble. At each pause in the tempest might be heard the hallelujahs of the worshippers, or the voice of the pontiff, pouring out benedictions on the little flock which knelt before him--when Cencius grasped his person, and some yet more daring ruffian inflicted a wound on his forehead. Bound with cords, stripped of his sacred vestments, beaten, and subjected to the basest indignities, the venerable minister of Christ was carried to a fortified mansion within the walls of the city, again to be removed at daybreak to exile or death. Women were there, with women's sympathy and kindly offices, but they were rudely put aside; and a drawn sword was already aimed at the pontiff's bosom, when the cries of a fierce multitude, threatening to burn or batter down the house, arrested the aim of the assassin. An arrow, discharged from below, reached and slew him. The walls rocked beneath the strokes of the maddened populace, and Cencius, falling at his prisoner's feet, became himself a suppliant for pardon and for life.... In profound silence, and with undisturbed serenity, Hildebrand had thus far submitted to these atrocious indignities.

The occasional raising of his eyes towards heaven alone indicated his consciousness of them. But to the supplication of his prostrate enemy he returned an instant and a calm assurance of forgiveness.

He rescued Cencius from the exasperated besiegers, dismissed him in safety and in peace, and returned, amidst the acclamations of the whole Roman people, to complete the interrupted solemnities of Sta.

Maria Maggiore."--_Stephens' Lectures on Eccles. Hist._

Leaving the church by the door behind the tribune, we find ourselves at the top of the steep slope of the Esquiline and in front of an _Obelisk_ erected here by Fontana for Sixtus V.,--brought from Egypt by Claudius, and one of two which were used to guard the entrance to the mausoleum of Augustus. The inscriptions on three of its sides are worth notice:--"Christi Dei in aeternum viventis cunabula laetissime colo, qui mortui sepulchro Augusti tristis serviebam."--"Quem Augustus de vergine nasciturum vivens adoravit, sed deinceps dominum dici noluit, adoro."--"Christus per invictam crucem populo pacem praebeat, qui Augusti pace in praesepe nasci voluit."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BASILICAS OF THE LATERAN, SANTA CROCE, AND S. LORENZO.

Via S. Giovanni--The Obelisk and Baptistery--Basilica and Cloisters--Mosaic of the Triclinium--Santa Scala--Palace of the Lateran--Villa Massimo Arsole--SS. Pietro e Marcellino--Villa Wolkonski--(Porta Furba--Tombs of the Via Latina--Basilica of S.

Stefano)--Santa Croce in Gerusalemme--Amphitheatrum Castrense--Porta Maggiore--(Tomb of Sta. Helena--Torre dei Schiavi--Cervaletto--Cerbara)--Porta and Basilica of S.

Lorenzo--Catacomb of S. Hippolytus.