Turning to the right down the Via dei Serpenti, we reach the Piazza Sta. Maria in Monti, containing a fountain, and a church dedicated to SS. Sergius and Bacchus, two martyrs who suffered under Maximian at Rasapha in Syria.
One side of this piazza is occupied by the Church of Sta. Maria in Monti, in which is deposited a figure of the beggar Labre (canonized by Pius IX. in 1860), dressed in the gown of a mendicant-pilgrim, which he wore when living. Over the altar is a picture of him in the Coliseum, distributing to his fellow-beggars the alms which he had obtained. His fête is observed here on April 16. (At No. 3 Via dei Serpenti, one may visit the chamber in which Labre died—and in the Via dei Crociferi, near the fountain of Trevi, a chapel containing many of his relics,—the bed on which he died, the crucifix which he wore in his bosom, &c.)
"Benoît Joseph Labre naquit en 1748 dans le diocèse de Boulogne (France) de parents chrétiens et jouissant d'une modeste aisance. D'une piété vive et tendre, il voulut d'abord se faire religieux; mais sa santé ne put résister, ni aux règles des Chartreux, ni à celles des Trappistes, chez lesquels il entra successivement. Il fut alors sollicité intérieurement, est il dit dans la notice sur sa vie, de mener une vie de pénitence et de charité au milieu du siècle. Pendant sept années, il parcourut en pèlerin-mendiant, les sanctuaires de la Vierge les plus vénérés de toute l'Europe; on a calculé qu'il fit, à pied, plus de cinq mille lieues, pendant ces sept années.
"En 1777, il revint en Italie, pour ne plus en sortir. Il habitait Rome, faisant seulement une fois chaque année, le pèlerinage de Lorète. Il passait une grande partie de ses journées dans les églises, mendiait, et faisait des œuvres de charité. Il couchait quelquefois sous le portique des églises, et le plus souvent au Colysée derrière la petite chapelle de la cinquième station du chemin de la croix. L'église qu'il fréquentait le plus, était celle de Ste. Marie des Monts; le 16 Avril, 1783, après y avoir prié fort longtemps, en sortant, il tomba, comme évanoui, sur les marches du péristyle de l'église. On le transporta dans une maison voisine, où il mourut le soir."—Une Année à Rome.
Almost opposite this church, a narrow alley, which appears to be a cul-de-sac ending in a picture of the Crucifixion, is in reality the approach to the carefully concealed Convent of the Farnesiani Nuns, generally known as the Sepolte Vive. The only means of communicating with them is by rapping on a barrel which projects from a wall on a platform above the roofs of the houses,—when a muffled voice is heard from the interior,—and if your references are satisfactory, the barrel turns round and eventually discloses a key by which the initiated can admit themselves to a small chamber in the interior of the convent. Over its door is an inscription, bidding those who enter that chamber to leave all worldly thoughts behind them. Round the walls are inscribed,—"Qui non diligit, manet in morti."—"Militia est vita hominis super terram."—"Alter alterius onera portate"; and, on the other side, opposite the door,
"Vi esorto a rimirar
La vita del mondo
Nella guisa che la mira
Un moribondo."
In one of the walls is an opening with a double grille, beyond which is a metal plate, pierced with holes like the rose of a watering-pot. It is beyond this grille and behind this plate, that the abbess of the Sepolte Vive receives her visitors, but she is even then veiled from head to foot in heavy folds of thick bure. Gregory XVI., who of course could penetrate within the convent and who wished to try her, said, "Sorella mia, levate il velo." "No, mio padre," she replied, "E vietato dalla nostra regola."
The nuns of the Sepolte Vive are never seen again after they once assume the black veil, though they are allowed double the ordinary noviciate. They never hear anything of the outer world, even of the deaths of their nearest relations. Daily, they are said to dig their own graves and lie down in them, and their remaining hours are occupied in perpetual and monotonous adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Returning as far as the Via Pane e Perna (a continuation of the Via Maganaopoli) we ascend the slope of the Viminal Hill, now with difficulty to be distinguished from the Quirinal. It derives its name from vimina, osiers, and was once probably covered with woods, since a temple of Sylvanus or Pan was one of several which adorned its principal street—the Vicus Longus—the site of which is now marked by the countrified lane called Via S. Vitale. This end of the hill is crowned by the Church of S. Lorenzo Pane e Perna, built on the site of the martyrdom of the deacon St. Laurence, who suffered under Claudius II., in A.D. 264, for refusing to give up the goods of the Church. Over the altar is a huge fresco, representing the saint extended upon a red-hot gridiron, and below—entered from the exterior of the church—a crypt is shown as the scene of his cruel sufferings.[236]