"QUOD NON FECERUNT BARBARI," ETC.
(Vol. v., p. 559.)
Your correspondent Mr. Breen is mistaken in supposing this "epigram" to refer to the Barberini spoliation of the Coliseum; it was an equally important and more sacrilegious theft that aroused Pasquin's satire and indignation.
Urban VIII. (Matteo Barberini), 1623-44, had just stripped the dome of the Pantheon of the bronze that adorned it, to construct therewith the baldacchino over the high altar in St. Peter's. The amount of metal obtained, says Venuti, was upwards of 450,250 pounds weight; and upon the principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the material thus stolen from the Madonna was dedicated to the service of San Pietro. Bernini was the artist employed, from whose taste, perhaps, little better was to be expected; and the baldacchino, though highly ornamented, richly gilt, and of imposing dimensions, certainly makes the beholder regret that the metal was moved from its original position. It was costly enough too, upwards of 20,000l. having been expended upon its production.
Urban evidently had a practical turn for warfare by no means unusual to the possessors of the "holy see," for we find that the surplusage of the metal was cast into cannon for the defence of St. Angelo.
This pope certainly was one of the most unsparing despoilers of the Coliseum, inasmuch as the huge pile of the Palazzo Barbarini was erected by him with stone supplied solely from that convenient and inexpensive quarry. If, however, we reflect that he did but follow the example of many of his predecessors (Paul II. built the Palazzo di Venezia, and Paul III. the Farnese, from the same exhaustless supply), and that the Coliseum was not only much ruined by the "barbarians" during the various sieges of Rome, but was used as a fortress by the Frangipani in the Middle Ages, the pasquinade quoted by Mr. Breen would hardly have been applicable to Urban's misdeeds in that quarter. Nor was the Coliseum at that time consecrated ground, as it was not till the year 1750 that Benedict XIV., with a view to protect it from future depredation, dedicated it to the memory of the Christian martyrs who had perished in its arena. But the Pantheon, consecrated as early as A.D. 608, under the name of S. Maria Rotonda, had been respected and spared by all, whether Arian or barb-"arian;" and it was reserved for a "Santo Padre" of the seventeenth century to despoil a Christian Church, and himself set an example of sacrilege to the Christian world. Urban was the sole member of the Barberini family (of Florentine extraction) that ever attained the papal tiara. The amount of wealth stated to have been amassed by him during his pontificate appears almost fabulous.
The author of the pasquinade in question is, I believe, unknown.
A. P.
Bayswater.