Walks in Rome

by Augustus J. C. Hare

"Au milieu de toutes les créations hardies et splendides de l'art dans le basilique de St. Pierre, il est une impression morale qui saisit l'esprit, à la vue des confessionaux des diverses langues. Il y a là encore une autre espèce de grandeur."—A. Du Pays.

The Crypt of St. Peter's can always be visited by gentlemen, on application in the sacristy; but by ladies only with a special permission. The entrance is near the statue of Sta. Veronica. The visitor is terribly hurried in his inspection of this, the most historically interesting part of the basilica, and the works of art it contains are so ill-arranged, as to be difficult to investigate or remember. The crypt is divided into two portions, the Grotte Nuove, occupying the area beneath the dome, and opening into some ancient lateral chapels,—and the Grotte Vecchie, which extended under the whole nave of the old basilica, and reaches as far as the Cappella del Coro of the present edifice.

The first portion entered is a corridor in the Grotte Nuove. Hence open, on the right, two ancient chapels. The first, Sta. Maria in Portico, derives its name from a picture of the Virgin, attributed to Simone Memmi, which stood in the portico of the old basilica; it contains, besides several statues from the magnificent monument of Nicholas V., which perished with the old church, a statue of St. Peter which stood in the portico, and the cross which crowned its summit. The second chapel, Sta. Maria delle Partorienti, has a mosaic of our Saviour in benediction, from the tomb of Otho II.; a mosaic of the Virgin, of the eighth century; several ancient inscriptions; and, at the entrance, statues of the two apostles James, from the tomb of Nicholas V. Behind this chapel were preserved the remains of Leo II., III., and IX., till they were removed to the upper church by Leo XII.

Entering the Grotte Vecchie, we find a nave and aisles separated by pilasters with low arches. Following the south aisle we are first arrested by the marble inscription relating to the donation of lands made by the Countess Matilda to the church in 1102. Near this is the small Cappella del Salvatore, containing a bas-relief of the Virgin and Child by Arnolfo, which once decorated the tomb of Boniface VIII.,—and the grave of Charlotte, Queen of Cyprus, who died in 1487. Near this are the sepulchral urns of the three Stuart princes, commemorated in the upper church. At the end of this aisle is the tomb of the Emperor Otho II., who died at Rome in A.D. 983; this formerly stood in the portico of the basilica.

Here is the empty tomb of Alexander VI., Rodrigo Borgia (1492—1503), the wicked and avaricious father of Cæsar and Lucretia, who is believed to have died of the poison which he intended for one of his cardinals. The body of this pope was not allowed to rest in peace. Julius II., the bitter enemy of the Borgias, turned it out of its tomb, and had it carried to S. Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, whence, when that church was pulled down, it was taken to Sta. Maria di Monserrato. The empty sarcophagus is surmounted by the figure of Alexander, who was himself a handsome old man, and in whose features may be traced the lineaments of the splendid Cæsar Borgia, known to us from the picture in the Borghese Palace.

At the end of the central nave is the sarcophagus of Christina of Sweden, who has a monument in the upper church.

The first tomb in the south aisle, beginning from the west, is that of Boniface VIII., Benedetto Gaetani (1294—1303).

"The last prince of the Church, who understood the papacy in the sense of universal dominion, in the spirit of Gregory VII., of Alexander and Innocent III. Two kings held the bridle of his palfrey as he rode from St Peter's to the Lateran after his election. He received Dante as the ambassador of Florence; in 1300 he instituted the jubilee; and his reign—filled with contests with Philip le Bel of France and the Colonnas—ended in his being taken prisoner in his palace at Anagni by Sciarra Colonna and William of Nogaret, and subjected to the most cruel indignities. He was rescued by his fellow-citizens and conducted to Rome by the Orsini, but he died thirty seven days after of grief and mortification. The Ghibelline story relates that he sate alone silently gnawing the top of his staff, and at length dashed out his brains against the wall, or smothered himself with his own pillows. But the contemporary verse of the Cardinal St. George describes him as dying quietly in the midst of his cardinals, at peace with the world, and having received all the consolations of the Church."—See Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. V.

The character of Boniface has ever been one of the battlefields of history. He was scarcely dead when the epitaph, "He came in like a fox, he ruled like a lion, he died like a dog," was proclaimed to Christendom. He was consigned by Dante to the lowest circle of Hell; yet even Dante expressed the universal shock with which Christendom beheld "the Fleur de lis enter Anagni, and Christ again captive in his Vicar,—the mockery, the gall and vinegar, the crucifixion between living robbers, the cruelty of the second Pilate." In later times, Tosti, Drumann, and lastly, Cardinal Wiseman, have engaged in his defence.

Boniface VIII. was buried with the utmost magnificence in a splendid chapel, which he had built himself, and adorned with mosaics, and where a grand tomb was erected to him. Of this nothing remains now, but the sarcophagus, which bears a majestic figure of the pope by Arnolfo del Cambio.