A CARDINAL IN VILLA D'ESTE
Villa d'Este at Tivoli was the residence of the late Prince-Cardinal Hohenlohe. See [interleaf, page 106].
During the period of their greatest splendour, it was no uncommon thing for a cardinal to have a household of several hundred persons, and though this number was later greatly reduced, a considerable retinue of servants, secretaries, domestic chaplains, and attendants of all sorts was always considered necessary to his princely state. Chief among these was his gentiluomo. This gentleman was indeed his constant "guide, philosopher and friend"; he drove with him, paid visits for him, entertained his friends, and in a wonderful Elizabethan dress of black velvet, with silk stockings, lace ruffles and a rapier, he was by his side at all state and church functions. Cardinal Wiseman's gentiluomo still lives in Rome where he received the guests of the new cardinal in the palace of the Consulta opposite the Quirinal, then occupied by Pius IX., and he remembers the cardinal taking the official costume with him to England for his English substitute. At the present day when the temporal rôle of cardinals is shorn of its significance, nothing better illustrates the unworthy subordination of the civil career to the clerical than the position of a cardinal's gentiluomo. Dressed in his knee breeches, a sword by his side, this attendant who belongs to the good bourgeoisie and may be an architect or engineer, is to be seen at every cardinal's high mass, waiting with the minor clerks, and presenting himself on one or two occasions during the ceremony with a ewer and basin which he offers kneeling on one knee while the cardinal washes the tips of his fingers.
It is fondly believed by the tourist, who will go any distance as a rule, and push through any crowd for a sight of the scarlet clothes, that a cardinal habitually lives in robes of red silk, with a white fur tippet round his shoulders. As a matter of fact his red robes are for state occasions only—either for attendance at the papal court or for great church functions. He wears a plain black cassock in ordinary life with a red sash and red buttons and silk pipings, and thus cannot be easily distinguished from other prelates whose silk trimmings vary with every shade from crimson to purple. The state robes of scarlet are very splendid indeed. The soutane of light scarlet cloth has a train; over this is worn the white rochet trimmed with deep lace and over this again the cappa magna a voluminous circular cloak of red watered silk, with a single opening for the head. It is gathered up to the elbows in front and floats behind into an ample train which is carried by pages or acolytes. The stockings, gloves, skull cap and berretta are of scarlet. The cappa magna has a hood pointed behind and forming a sort of shoulder cape in front, which in the winter months is covered with white ermine. Canons of the Roman basilicas wear a cappa magna of purple cloth, but they are not permitted to spread it out, it must be tightly coiled into a long rope and slipped through a loop at the side.
At social receptions a cardinal wears his black soutane and red sash, and over it a flowing scarlet silk cloak from the shoulder. If the occasion is an important one he is received at the palace gates by two servants with lighted torches, and these accompany him up the stairs to the door of the salon and there await his departure, when they escort him to his carriage again. When in this gala attire, a cardinal wears as an out-door wrap a gorgeous cloth cloak with many capes of purple and deep red, and a red priest's hat around which is twisted a red and gold cord finished with minute tassels the requisite fifteen in number.
The most responsible and arduous duty of the College of Cardinals is the conclave when the election of the future head of the Church depends upon their united vote. With the death of a pope their position changes on the instant from that of subject to ruler, and for the time being the destinies of the Church lie in their hands. They receive deputations and state visits seated upon their thrones, they drive in their carriages alone upon the principal seat, no companion being of sufficiently exalted rank to sit beside them, and the first among them, the Cardinal Chamberlain, is attended by a detachment of the Swiss guard and affixes his own seal to papal documents.
VILLA D'ESTE—PATH OF THE HUNDRED FOUNTAINS
Scarcely in accordance with this regal state are the rules still in force for conclave, which are, to say the least, antiquated. The incarceration to which the cardinals are obliged to submit is of the strictest, and for its maintenance the secular arm is called in in the shape of the Marshal of Conclave, a Roman nobleman who with his officers and subordinates assumes complete control outside the building. Accustomed to spacious rooms and numerous domestics, the cardinals are now forced to lodge in a tiny apartment of two rooms in a circumscribed portion of the Vatican palace—the rules prescribe one cell—one valet and one secretary each are allowed them, while two barbers and one confessor are considered sufficient to shave and shrive the whole college. From sumptuous living they are reduced to meals brought to their cells by their servants, and the rules permit a gradual reduction of the menu to an ultimate diet of bread and water, as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the voters and so precipitating their agreement. This rigorous treatment has been often tried in the past with various results.