Six miles from Rome is the Rotondo, believed to have been the family mausoleum of a poet-friend of Horace, Massala Corvinus. It is larger than the tomb of the “wealthiest Roman’s wife,” but not so well-preserved. A miserable wine-shop was in the court-yard, and we paid the mistress half-a-franc for permission to mount a flight of easy steps to the summit. Upon the flat roof, formed by the flooring of the upper story, the walls of which are half gone, olive-trees have taken root and overhang the sides. The eye swept the Campagna for miles, followed the Via Appia, stretched like a white ribbon between grassy slopes and sepulchre-ruins, back into Rome and onward to Albano. A faintly-tinged haze brought the mountains nearer, instead of hiding them—purpled the thymy dells between the swells of the far-reaching prairies. Flocks of sheep browsed upon these, attended by shepherds and dogs. A party of English riders cantered by from Rome, the blue habit and scarlet plume of the only lady equestrian made conspicuous by the white road and green banks. Near and far, the course of the ancient highway was defined by masses of masonry in ruins, some overgrown by herbs, vines, and even trees, but most of them naked to the sun and wind. These have not been the destroyers of the tombs. On the contrary, the uncovered foundations are hardened by the action of the elements, until bricks are as unyielding as solid marble and cement is like flint. Nature and neglect are co-workers, whose operations upon buildings raised by man, are far less to be feared in this than in Northern climates. The North, that let loose her brutish hordes upon a land so much fairer than their own that their dull eyes could not be tempted by her beauty except to wanton devastation. They were grown-up children who battered the choicest and most delicate objects for the pleasure of seeing and hearing the crash.
“Some day,” said Caput, wistful lights in the eyes that looked far away to where the road lost itself in the blue hills—“Some day, I mean to drive all the way to the Appii Forum, and follow St. Paul’s track back to the city.”
He brought out his pocket Testament, and, amid the broken walls, the shadows of the olive-boughs flickering upon the page, we read how the Great Apostle longed to “see Rome,” yet knowing that bonds and imprisonment awaited him wherever he went—the Rome he was never to quit as a free man, and where he was to leave a multitude of witnesses to his fidelity and the living power of the Gospel, of which he was an ambassador in bonds. Thence we passed to the few words describing his journey and reception:
“We came the next day unto Puteoli, where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days. And so we went toward Rome. And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. Whom, when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.”
For some miles the Way has been cleared down to the ancient pavement. It was something to see the stones over which St. Paul had walked.
We took St. Peter’s in our drive home. When one is used to the immensity of its spaces, has accommodated his imagination comfortably to the aisle-vistas and the height of the ceilings, St. Peter’s is the most restful temple in Rome. The equable temperature—never cold in winter, never hot in summer; the solemn quiet of a vastness in which the footfalls upon the floor die away with out echo, and the sound of organ and chant from one of the many chapels only stirs a musical throb which never swells into reverberation; the subdued light—all contribute to the sense of grateful tranquillity that allures one to frequent visits and slow, musing promenades within the magnificent Basilica. Madame de Staël says in one line what others have failed to express in pages of labored rhetoric:
“L’Architecture de St. Pierre est une musique fixée.”
Listening with all our souls, we strolled up one side of the church past the bronze Image, in appearance more Fetish than saint. A statue of Jupiter was melted down to make it. The frown of the Thunderer still contracts the brows that seem to find the round of glory, spoked like a wheel, too heavy. The projecting toe, often renewed, bright as a new brass kettle from the attrition of kisses, rests upon a pedestal five feet, at least, from the floor. Men can conveniently touch it with their lips. Short women stand on tiptoe, and children are lifted to it. Each wipes it carefully before kissing, a ceremony made necessary by a popular trick of the Roman gamins. They watch their chance to anoint the holy toe with damp red pepper, then hide behind a column to note the effect of the next osculation. At the Jubilee of Pius IX., June 16, 1871, they dressed the hideous black effigy in pontifical vestments, laced and embroidered to the last degree of gorgeousness, and fastened the cope of cloth-of-gold with a diamond brooch!
The baldacchino, or canopy, built above the high altar and overshadowing the tomb of St. Peter, is of gilded bronze that once covered the roof of the Pantheon,—another example of popely thrift. Beneath, yawns an open crypt, lined with precious marbles and gained by marble stairs. Upon the encompassing balustrade above is a circle of ever-burning golden lamps, eighty-six in number. Pius VI. (in marble by Canova) kneels forever, as he requested in his will, before the closed door of St. Peter’s tomb, below.
“I wish I could believe that Peter’s bones are there!” Caput broke a long thought-laden pause, given to silent gazing upon the kneeling form. “Roman Catholic historians say that an oratory was erected here above his remains, A.D. 90. The circus of Nero was hereabouts. The chapel was in honor of the thousands who died a martyr’s death in his reign, as well as to mark the spot of Peter’s burial. In the days of Constantine, a Basilica superseded the humble chapel, at which date St. Peter’s bones were encased in a bronze sarcophagus. Five hundred years afterward, the Saracens plundered the Basilica. Did they take Peter—if he were ever here—or in Rome at all? Or, did they spare his bones when they carried off the gilt-bronze coffin and inner casket of pure silver?”