"St Peter's, that glorious temple--the largest and most beautiful, it is said, in the world, produced upon me the impression rather of a Christian pantheon, than of a Christian church. The aesthetic intellect is edified more than the God-loving or God-seeking soul.

The exterior and interior of the building appear to me more like an apotheosis of the popedom than a glorification of Christianity and its doctrine. Monuments to the popes occupy too much space. One sees all round the walls angels flying upwards with papal portraits, sometimes merely with papal tiaras."--_Frederika Bremer._

"L'Architecture de St. Pierre est une musique fixee."--_Madame de Stael._

"The building of St. Peter's surpasses all powers of description.

It appears to me like some great work of nature, a forest, a mass of rocks, or something similar; for I never can realise the idea that it is the work of man. You strive to distinguish the ceiling as little as the canopy of heaven. You lose your way in St.

Peter's, you take a walk in it, and ramble till you are quite tired; when divine service is performed and chaunted there, you are not aware of it till you come quite close. The angels in the Baptistery are enormous giants; the doves, colossal birds of prey; you lose all sense of measurement with the eye, or proportion; and yet who does not feel his heart expand, when standing under the dome, and gazing up at it."--_Mendelssohn's Letters._

"But thou, of temples old, or altars new, Standest alone--with nothing like to thee-- Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.

Since Zion's desolation, when that He Forsook His former city, what could be Of earthly structures, in His honour piled, Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty,--all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not; And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality; and thou Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined, See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow."

_Byron, Childe Harold._

"On pousse avec peine une grosse portiere de cuir, et nous voici dans Saint-Pierre. On ne peut qu'adorer la religion qui produit de telles choses. Rien du monde ne peut etre compare a l'interieur de Saint Pierre. Apres un an de sejour a Rome, j'y allais encore passer des heures entieres avec plaisir."--_Fontana, Tempio Vaticano Illustrato._

"Tandis que, dans les eglises gothiques, l'impression est de s'agenouiller, de joindre les mains avec un sentiment d'humble priere et de profond regret; dans Saint-Pierre au contraire, le mouvement involontaire serait d'ouvrir les bras en signe de joie, de relever la tete avec bonheur et epanouissement. Il semble, que la, le peche n'accable plus; le sentiment vif du pardon par le triomphe de la resurrection remplit seul le cur."--_Eugenie de la Ferronays._

"The temperature of St. Peter's seems, like the happy islands, to experience no change. In the coldest weather it is like summer to your feelings, and in the most oppressive heats it strikes you with a delightful sensation of cold--a luxury not to be estimated but in a climate such as this."--_Eaton's Rome._

On each side of the nave are four pillars with Corinthian pilasters, and a rich entablature supporting the arches. The roof is vaulted, coffered, and gilded. The pavement is of coloured marble, inlaid from designs of Giacomo della Porta and Bernini. In the centre of the floor, immediately within the chief entrance, is a round slab of porphyry, upon which the emperors were crowned.

The enormous size of the statues and ornaments in St. Peter's do away with the impression of its vast size, and it is only by observing the living, moving figures, that one can form any idea of its colossal proportions. A line in the pavement is marked with the comparative size of the other great Christian churches. According to this the length of St Peter's is 613 feet; of St. Paul's, London, 520 feet; Milan Cathedral, 443 feet; St. Sophia, Constantinople, 360 feet. The height of the dome in the interior is 405 feet; on the exterior, 448 feet. The height of the baldacchino is 94 feet.

The first impulse will be to go up to the shrine, around which a circle of eighty-six gold lamps is always burning, and to look down into the Confessional, where there is a beautiful kneeling statue of Pope Pius VI. (Braschi, 1785--1800) by _Canova_. Hence one can gaze up into the dome, with its huge letters in purple-blue mosaic upon a gold ground (each six feet long).[331] "Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et tibi dabo claves regni clorum." Above this are four colossal mosaics of the Evangelists from designs of the Cav. d'Arpino; the pen of St. Luke is seven feet in length.

"The cupola is glorious, viewed in its design, its altitude, or even its decorations; viewed either as a whole or as a part, it enchants the eye, it satisfies the taste, it expands the soul. The very air seems to eat up all that is harsh or colossal, and leaves us nothing but the sublime to feast on:--a sublime peculiar as the genius of the immortal architect, and comprehensible only on the spot."--_Forsyth._

"Ce dome, en le considerant meme d'en bas, fait eprouver une sorte de terreur; on croit voir des abimes suspendus sur sa tete."--_Madame de Stael._

_The Baldacchino_, designed by Bernini in 1633, is of bronze, with gilt ornaments, and was made chiefly with bronze taken from the roof of the Pantheon. It covers the high altar, which is only used on the most solemn occasions. Only the pope can celebrate mass there, or a cardinal who is authorised by a papal brief.

"Without a sovereign priest officiating before and for his people, St. Peter's is but a grand aggregation of splendid churches, chapels, tombs, and works of art. With him, it becomes a whole, a single, peerless temple, such as the world never saw before. That central pile, with its canopy of bronze as lofty as the Farnese Palace, with its deep-diving stairs leading to a court walled and paved with precious stones, that yet seems only a vestibule to some cavern or catacomb, with its simple altar that disdains ornament in the presence of what is beyond the reach of human price,--that which in truth forms the heart of the great body, placed just where the heart should be, is then animated, and surrounded by living and moving sumptuousness. The immense cupola above it, ceases to be a dome over a sepulchre, and becomes a canopy over an altar; the quiet tomb beneath is changed into the shrine of relics below the place of sacrifice--the saints under the altar;--the quiet spot at which a few devout worshippers at most times may be found, bowing under the hundred lamps, is crowded by rising groups, beginning from the lowest step, increasing in dignity and in richness of sacred robes, till, at the summit and in the centre, stands supreme the pontiff himself, on the very spot which becomes him, the one living link in a chain, the first ring of which is rivetted to the shrine of the Apostles below.... St. Peter's is only itself when the pope is at the high altar, and hence only by, or for, him it is used."--_Cardinal Wiseman._

The four huge piers which support the dome are used as shrines for the four great relics of the church, viz., 1. The lance of S. Longinus, the soldier who pierced the side of our Saviour, presented to Innocent VIII., by Pierre d'Aubusson, grandmaster of the Knights of Rhodes, who had received it from the Sultan Bajazet;[332] 2. The head of St. Andrew, said to have been brought from Achaia in 1460, when its arrival was celebrated by Pius II.; 3. A portion of the true cross, brought by Sta.

Helena; 4. The napkin of Sta. Veronica, said, doubtless from the affinity of names, to bear the impression--vera-icon--of our Saviour's face.

"The 'Volto-Santo,' said to be the impress of the countenance of our Saviour on the handkerchief of Sta. Veronica, or Berenice, which wiped his brow on the way to Calvary, was placed in the Vatican by John VII., in 707, and afterwards transferred to the Church of Santo Spirito, where six Roman noblemen had the care of it, each taking charge of one of the keys with which it was locked up. Among the privileges enjoyed for this office, was that of receiving, every year, from the hospital of Santo Spirito at the feast of Pentecost, two cows, whose flesh, an ancient chronicle says, 'si mangiavano l, con gran festa.' In 1440, this picture was carried back to St. Peter's, whence it has not since been moved.

When I examined the head on the Veronica handkerchief, it struck me as undoubtedly a work of early Byzantine art, perhaps of the seventh or eighth century, painted on linen. It is with implicit acceptance of its claims that Petrarch alludes to it--'verendam populis Salvatoris Imaginem.' Ep. ix., lib. 2. During the republican domination in 1849, it was rumoured that about Easter, the canons of St. Peter saw the Volto-Santo turn pale, and ominously change colour while they gazed upon it."--_Hemans'

Catholic Italy_, vol. i.

The ceremony of exhibiting the relics from the balcony above the statue of Sta. Veronica takes place on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Day, but the height is so great that nothing can really be distinguished.

"To-day we gazed on the Veronica--the holy impression left by our Saviour's face on the cloth Sta. Veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight of the Cross. We had looked forward to this sight for days, for seven thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it.

"But when the moment came we could see nothing but a black board hung with a cloth, before which another white cloth was held. In a few minutes this was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years."--_Schonberg-Cotta Chronicles._

The niches in the piers are occupied by four statues, of Longinus, St.

Andrew, Sta. Helena, and Sta. Veronica, holding the napkin or "sudarium," "flourishing a marble pocket-handkerchief."[333]

"Malheureusement toutes ces statues pechent par le gout. Le rococo, mis a la mode par le Bernin, est surtout execrable dans le genre colossale. Mais la presence du genie de Bramante et de Michel-Ange se fait tellement sentir, que les choses ridicules ne le sont plus ici; elles ne sont qu' insignifiantes. Les statues colossales des piliers representent: St. Andre, par Francois Quesnoy (Fiammingo), elle excita la jalousie du Bernin; St. Veronique par M. Mochi, dont il blamait les draperies volantes (dans un endroit clos). Un plaisant lui repondait que leur agitation provenait du vent qui soufflait par les crevasses de la coupole, depuis qu'il avait affaibli les piliers par des niches et tribunes: St. Helene par A.

Bolgi, St. Longin par Bernin."--_A. Du Pays._

Not very far from the confessional, against the last pier on the right of the nave, stands the statue of St. Peter, said to have been cast by Leo the Great, from the old statue of Jupiter Capitolinus. It is of very rude workmanship. Its extended foot is eagerly kissed by Roman Catholic devotees, who then rub their foreheads against its toes. Protestants wonder at the feeling which this figure excites. Gregory II. wrote of it to Leo the Isaurian: "Christ is my witness, that when I enter the temple of the prince of the Apostles, and contemplate his image, I am filled with such emotion, that tears roll down my cheeks like the rain from heaven." On high festivals the statue is dressed up in full pontificals.

On the day of the jubilee of Pius IX. (June 16, 1871), it was attired in a lace alb, stole, and gold-embroidered cope, fastened at the breast by a clasp of diamonds; and its foot was kissed by upwards of 20,000 persons during the day.

"La coutume antique chez les Grecs d'habiller et de parer les statues sacrees s'etait conservee a Rome et s'y conserve encore.

Tout le monde a vu la statue de saint Pierre revetir dans les grandes solennites ses magnifiques habits de pape. On lavait les statues des dieux, on les frottait, on les frisait comme des poupees. Les divinites du Capitole avaient un nombreux domestique attache a leur personne et qui etait charge de ce soin. L'usage romain a subsiste chez les populations latines de l'Espagne et elles l'ont porte jusqu'au Mexique ou j'ai vu, a Puebla, la veille d'une fete, une femme de chambre faire une toilette en regle a une statue de la Vierge."--_Ampere, Hist. Rom._ iv. 91.

Along the piers of the nave and transepts are ranged statues of the different Founders, male and female, of religious Orders.

Returning to the main entrance, we will now make the tour of the basilica. Those who expect to find monuments of great historical interest will, however, be totally disappointed. Scarcely anything remains above-ground which is earlier than the sixteenth century. Of the tombs of the eighty-seven popes who were buried in the old basilica, the greater part were totally lost at its destruction,--a few were removed to other churches (those of the Piccolomini to S. Andrea della Valle, &c.), and some fragments are still to be seen in the crypt. Only two monuments were replaced in the new basilica, those of the two popes who lived in the time and excited the indignation of Savonarola--"Sixtus IV., with whose cordial concurrence the assassination of Lorenzo di Medici was attempted--and Innocent VIII., the main object of whose policy was to secure place and power for his illegitimate children."

"The side-chapels are splendid, and so large that they might serve for independent churches. The monuments and statues are numerous, but all are subordinate, or unite harmoniously with the large and beautiful proportions of the chief temple. Everything there is harmony, light, beauty--an image of the church-triumphant, but a very worldly, earthly image; and whilst the mind enjoys its splendour, the soul cannot, in the higher sense, be edified by its symbolism."--_Frederika Bremer._

The first chapel on the right derives its name from the _Pieta of Michael Angelo_, representing the dead Saviour upon the knees of the Madonna, a work of the great artist in his twenty-fourth year, upon an order from the French ambassador, Cardinal Jean de Villiers, abbot of St. Denis. The sculptor has inscribed his name (the only instance in which he has done so) upon the girdle of the Virgin. Francis I.

attempted to obtain this group from Michael Angelo in 1507, together with the statue of Christ at the Minerva, "comme de choses que l'on m'a assure estre des plus exquises et excellentes en votre art." Opening from this chapel are two smaller ones. That on the right has a Crucifix by _Pietro Cavallini_; the mosaic, representing St. Nicholas of Bari, is by _Christofari_. That on the left is called _Cappella della Colonna Santa_, from a column, said to have been brought from Jerusalem, and to have been that against which our Saviour leant, when he prayed and taught in the temple. It is inscribed:

"Haec est illa columna in qua DNS Nr Jesus XPS appodiatus dum populo praedicabat et Deo p[=n]o preces in templo effundebat adhaerendo, stabatque una cum aliis undeci hic circumstantibus de Salomonis templo in triumphum. Hujus Basilicae hic locata fuit demones expellit et immundis spiritibus vexatos liberos reddit et multa miracula cotidie facit. P. reverendissimum pre[=m] et Dominum Dominus. Card. de Ursinis. A.D. MDCCCXXXVIII."

A more interesting object in this chapel is the sarcophagus (once used as a font) of Anicius Probus, a prefect of Rome in the fourth century, of the great family of the Anicii, to which St. Gregory the Great belonged. Its five compartments have bas-reliefs, representing Christ and the Apostles.

Returning to the aisle, on the right, is the tomb of Leo XII., Annibale della Genga (1823--29) by _Fabris_; on the left is the tomb of Christina of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, who died at Rome, 1689, by _Carlo Fontana_, with a bas-relief by Teudon, representing her abjuration of Protestantism in 1655, in the cathedral of Innspruck.

On the right is the altar of St. Sebastian, with a mosaic copy of Domenichino's picture at Sta. Maria degli Angeli; beyond which is the tomb of Innocent XII., Antonio Pignatelli (1691--1700). This was the last pope who wore the martial beard and moustache, which we see represented in his statue. Pignatella is Italian for a little cream-jug; in allusion to this we may see three little cream-jugs in the upper decorations of this monument, which is by _Filippo Valle_. On the left is the tomb, by _Bernini_, of the Countess Matilda, foundress of the temporal power of the popes, who died in 1115, was buried in a monastery near Mantua, and transported hither by Urban VIII. in 1635. The bas-relief represents the absolution of Henry IV. of Germany, by Hildebrand, which took place at her intercession and in her presence.

We now reach, on the right, the large _Chapel of the Santissimo Sacramento_, decorated with a fresco altar-piece, representing the Trinity, by _Pietro da Cortona_, and a tabernacle of lapis-lazuli and gilt bronze, copied from Bramante's little temple at S. Pietro in Montorio. Here is the magnificent tomb of Sixtus IV., Francesco della Rovere (1471--81), removed from the choir of the old St. Peter's, where it was erected by his nephew, Cardinal Giulio della Rovere, afterwards Pope Julius II. This pope's reign was entirely occupied with politics, and he was secretly involved in the conspiracy of the Pazzi at Florence; he was the first pope who carried nepotism to such an extent as to found a principality (Imola and Forli) for his nephew Girolamo Riario. The tomb is a beautiful work of the Florentine artist, _Antonio Pollajuola_, in 1493. The figure of the pope reposes upon a bronze couch, surrounded, in memory of his having taught successively in the six great universities of Italy, with allegorical bas-reliefs of Arithmetic, Astrology, Philology, Rhetoric, Grammar, Perspective, Music, Geography, Philosophy, and Theology, which last is represented like a pagan Diana, with a quiver of arrows on her shoulders. Close to this monument of his uncle, a flat stone in the pavement marks the grave of Julius II., for whom the grand tomb at S. Pietro in Vincoli was intended.

Returning to the aisle, we see on the right the tomb of Gregory XIII., Ugo Buoncompagni (1572--85), during whose reign the new calendar was invented, an event commemorated in a bas-relief upon the monument, which was not erected till 1723, and is by _Camillo Rusconi_. The figure of the pope (he died aged eighty-four) is in the attitude of benediction: beneath are Wisdom, represented as Minerva, and Faith, holding a tablet inscribed, "Novi opera hujus et fidem." Opposite this is the paltry tomb of Gregory XIV., Nicolo Sfrondati (1590--91).

"Le tombeau de Gregoire XIII., que le massacre de Saint Barthelemy rejouit si fort, est de marbre. Le tombeau de stuc ou d'abord il avait ete place, a ete accorde, apres son depart, au cendres de Gregoire XIV."--_Stendhal._

On the left, against the great pier, is a mosaic copy of Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome. On the right is the chapel of the Madonna, founded by Gregory XIII., and built by Giacomo della Porta. The cupola has mosaics by Girolamo Muziano. Beneath the altar is buried St. Gregory Nazianzen, removed hither from the convent of Sta. Maria in the Campo Marzo by Gregory XIII.

St. Gregory Nazianzen (or St. Gregory Theologos) was son of St.

Gregory and St. Nonna, and brother of St. Gorgonia and St. Cesarea.

He was born _c._ A.D. 328. In his childhood he was influenced by a vision of the two virgins, Temperance and Chastity, summoning him to pursue them to the joys of Paradise. Being educated at Athens (together with Julian the Apostate), he formed there a great friendship with St. Basil. He became first the coadjutor, afterwards the successor, of his father, in the bishopric of Nazianzen, but removed thence to Constantinople, where he preached against the Arians. By the influence of Theodosius, he was ordained Bishop of Constantinople, but was so worn out by the cabals and schisms in the Church, that he resigned his office, and retired to his paternal estate, where he passed the remainder of his life in the composition of Greek hymns and poems. He died May 9, A.D. 390.

On the right is the tomb of Benedict XIV., Prospero Lambertini (1740--58), by _Pietro Bracci_, a huge and ugly monument. On the left is the tomb of Gregory XVI., Mauro-Cappellari (1831--46), by _Amici_, erected in 1855 by the cardinals he had created.

Turning into the right transept, used as a council-chamber (for which purpose it proved thoroughly unsatisfactory), 1869--70, we find several fine mosaics from pictures, viz.: The Martyrdom of SS. Processus and Martinianus from the Valentin at the Vatican; the Martyrdom of St.

Erasmus from Poussin; St. Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, from Caroselli; Our Saviour walking on the sea to the boat of St. Peter, from Lanfranco.

Opposite to the last-named mosaic is the famous monument of Clement XIII., Carlo Rezzonico (1758--69), in whose reign the Order of Jesuits was attacked by all the sovereigns of the house of Bourbon, and expelled from Portugal, France, Spain, Naples, and Parma. The pope, who had long defended them, was about to yield to the pressure put upon him and had called a consistory for their suppression, but died suddenly on the evening before its assembling. This tomb, the greatest work of Canova, was uncovered April 4, 1795, in the presence of an immense crowd, with whom the sculptor mingled, disguised as an abbe, to hear their opinion.

The pope (aged 75) is represented in prayer, upon a pedestal, beneath which is the entrance to a vault, guarded by two grand marble lions. On the right is Religion, standing erect with a cross; on the left the Genius of Death, holding a torch reversed. The beauty of this work of Canova is only felt when it is compared with the monuments of the seventeenth century in St. Peter's; "then it seems as if they were separated by an abyss of centuries."[334]

Beyond this are mosaics from the St. Michael of Guido at the Cappuccini, and from the Martyrdom of St. Petronilla, of Guercino, at the Capitol.

Each of these large mosaics has cost about 150,000 francs.