More interesting to us than these and the tiresome array of the many other pontifical and prelatical personages, was the arch near the front door of the Basilica, which covers the remains of the last of the Stuarts. Canova carved the memorial-stone of James III. (the Pretender), his sons, Charles Edward (the Young Pretender), and Henry, who,—with desperate fidelity worthy of a better cause, wearied out by the successive failures and misfortunes of his race,—gave himself wholly to the Church, devotion to which had cost his father independence, happiness, and England. Henry Stuart died, as we read here, Cardinal York. Marie Clementine Sobieski, wife of James III., named upon the tablet, “Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland,” who never set foot within the British Empire,—completes the family group. It is said the expenses of these testimonials were defrayed by the then reigning House of Hanover. It could well afford to do it.
In a chapel at the left of the entrance is a mammoth font of dark-red porphyry which has a remarkable—I can hardly say, in view of cognate facts—a singular history. It is the inverted cover of Hadrian’s sarcophagus. Having rested within its depths longer than his life had entitled him to do, this Emperor was ejected and Otho III. took his place. In due season, a pope of a pious and practical turn of mind ousted Otho, and transferred the lid of the coffin to its present place. The bronze fir-cone from the top of the mausoleum of Hadrian, now the Castle of San Angelo, is a prominent ornament in the gardens of the Vatican. Near it are two bronze peacocks, the birds of Juno, from the porch of the same edifice.
“Entirely and throughout consistent,” said Caput, caustically.
“I beg your pardon! Did you address me, sir?” asked a startled voice.
The Traveling American was upon us. Pater Familias, moreover, to the sanguine young people who had attacked systematically, Baedeker, Murray and Forbes in hand—the opposite chapel, the gem of which is Michael Angelo’s Pietà—the Dead Christ upon his mother’s knees. We recognized our interlocutor. A very worthy gentleman, an enterprising and opulent citizen of the New World, whom we had met, last week, in the salon of a friend. He was making, he had informed a listening circle, “the grand European tour for the third time, now, for educational purposes, having brought his boys and girls along. A thing few of our country-people have money and brains to undertake!”
“I was saying”—explained Caput, “that the Popes have done more toward the destruction of the monuments of pagan Rome than barbarians and centuries combined. I lose patience and temper when I see what they have ‘consecrated’ to the use of their Church. Vandalism is an insipid word to employ in this connection.”
Pater Familias put out one foot; lifted a hortatory hand.
“I have learned to cast such considerations behind me, sir! Anachronisms do not trouble me. Nor solecisms, except in artistic execution. I travel with a purpose—that of self-improvement and the foundation, in the bosoms of my family, of true principles of art, the cultivation of the instinct of the beautiful in their souls and in mine. Despising the statistical, and, to a certain degree, the historical, as things of slight moment, I rise into the region of the purely æsthetic. For example:” The hortatory hand pointed to the opposite arch, within which is a gorgeous modern copy, in mosaic, of Raphael’s “Transfiguration.” “For example, pointing to that inimitable masterpiece, I say to my children—‘Do not examine into the ingredients of the pigments staining the canvas, nor criticise, anatomically, the structure of the figures. But catch, if you can, the spirit and tone of the whole composition. Behold, recognize, and make your own the very soul and mood, the inspiration of Michael Angelo!’”
Caput drew out his watch.
“Do you know, my dear,” he said, plaintively, “that it is an hour past our luncheon-time?”