Walks in Rome

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"The eye does not know where to rest in this the masterpiece of sculpture since the time of the Greeks. It seems to be as much an incarnation of the genius of Michael Angelo, as a suitable allegory of Pope Julius. Like Moses, he was at once lawgiver, priest, and warrior. The figure is seated in the central niche, with long-flowing beard descending to the waist, with horned head, and deep-sunk eyes, which blaze, as it were, with the light of the burning bush, with a majesty of anger which makes one tremble, as of a passionate being, drunken with fire. All that is positive and all that is negative in him is equally dreadful. If he were to rise up, it seems as if he would shout forth laws which no human intellect could fathom, and which, instead of improving the world, would drive it back into chaos. His voice, like that of the gods of Homer, would thunder forth in tones too awful for the ear of man to support. Yes! there is something infinite which lies in the Moses of Michael Angelo. Nor is his countenance softened by the twilight of sadness, which is stealing from his forehead over his eyes. It is the same deep sadness which clouded the countenance of Michael Angelo himself. But here it is less touching than terrible. The Greeks could not have endured a glance from such a Moses, and the artist would certainly have been blamed, because he had thrown no softening touch over his gigantic picture. That which we have is the archetype of a terrible and quite unapproachable sublimity. This statue might take its place in the cell of a colossal temple, as that of Jupiter Ammon, but the tomb where it is placed is so little suited to it, that regarded even only as its frame it is too small."—Gregorovius.

On either side of the principal figure are niches containing Michael Angelo's statues of Rachel and Leah,—emblematic of active and contemplative life. Those above, of the Prophet and the Sibyl, are by Raphael da Montelupo, his best pupil; on the summit is the Madonna with the Infant Jesus by Scherano da Settignano. The worst figure of the whole is that, by Maso dal Bosco, of the pope himself, who seems quite overwhelmed by the grandeur of his companions, and who lies upon a pitiful sarcophagus, leaning his head upon his hand, and looking down upon the Moses. He is represented with the beard which he was the first pope to reintroduce after an interval of many centuries,—and it is said to have been from his example that Francis I., Charles V., and others, adopted it also.

After all, Julius II. was not buried here, and the tomb is merely commemorative. He rests beneath a plain marble slab near his uncle Sixtus IV., in the chapel of the Sacrament at St. Peter's.

Close to the Moses is the entrance to the chapel in which the chains are preserved, behind a bronze screen—the work of Pollajuolo. They are of unequal size, owing to many fragments of one of them (first whole links, then only filings) having been removed in the course of centuries by various popes and sent to Christian princes who have been esteemed worthy of the favour![262] The longest is about five feet in length. At the end of one of them is a collar, which is said to have encircled the neck of St. Peter. They are exposed on the day of the "station" (the first Monday in Lent) in a reliquary presented by Pius IX., adorned with statuettes of St. Peter and the angel—to whom he is represented as saying, "Ecce nunc scio vere."[263] On the following day a priest gives the chains to be kissed by the pilgrims, and touches their foreheads with them, saying, "By the intercession of the blessed Apostle Peter, may God preserve you from evil. Amen."

"Peter, therefore, was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands."—Acts xii. 5—7.

Other relics preserved here are portions of the crosses of St. Peter and St. Andrew, and the body of Sta. Costanza.

The sacristy, opening out of this chapel, contains a number of pictures, including, very appropriately, the Deliverance of St. Peter from Prison, by Domenichino. Here, till a few years ago, was preserved the famous and beautiful small picture, known as the Speranza of Guido. It has lately been sold by the monks to an Englishman, and is replaced by a copy.

In this church Hildebrand was crowned pope as Gregory VII. (1073). Stephen IX. was also proclaimed here in 939. The adjoining convent was built from designs of Giuliano San Gallo. Its courtyard contains a picturesque well (with columns), bearing the arms of Julius II., by Simone Mosca. The arcades were decorated in the present century with frescoes by Pietra Camosci, as a votive offering for his recovery from cholera, to St. Sebastian, "depulsori pestilitatis."

Opposite S. Pietro in Vincoli is a convent of Maronite monks, in whose garden is a tall palm-tree, perhaps the finest in Rome. In the view from the portico of the church it forms a conspicuous feature, and the combination of the old tower, the palm-tree, and the distant capitol, standing out against the golden sky of sunset, is one very familiar to Roman artists.

The tall machicolated Tower on the right was once a fortress of the Frangipani family, who obtained their glorious surname of "bread-breakers" from the generosity which they showed in the distribution of food to the poor during a famine in the thirteenth century. The tower is now used as a belfry to the adjoining Church of S. Francesco di Paola, being the only mediæval fortress tower applied to this purpose. The adjoining building is known as the House of Lucrezia Borgia, and the balcony over the gateway on the other side is pointed out as that in which she used to stand meditating on her crimes. Here Cæsar Borgia and his unhappy brother, the Duke of Gandia, supped with Lucrezia and their mother Vanozza, the evening before the murder of the duke, of which Cæsar was accused by popular belief. It is worth while to descend under the low-browed arch from the church piazza, and look back upon this lofty house, with its steep, dark, winding staircase,—a most picturesque bit of street architecture, which looks better the further you descend. The Via S. Francesco di Paola is considered by Ampère[264] to have been the place where the house of the Horatii and the Tigellum Sororis once stood.