Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city

by Maud Howe Elliott

February 26, 1898.

You will like to hear about a day of pure delight. I left home, duty, and family, and went off with Donna Primavera for an outing at Ostia. We started at ten in the morning, returned at six at night. I had been there before on my bicycle—it is a capital road—but on that occasion I saw nothing except the view. Ostia is an ancient Roman commercial town founded by Ancus Martius, the fourth of the Roman kings; that takes it back to the sixth century B.C. The ruins of Ostia are on the banks of the Tiber. From here the fleets of merchant galleys sailed away to Greece and Africa. I felt that I was penetrating into the business life of the Romans as never before. Of course, I knew vaguely that there was a great commerce underlying the whole vast scheme, supporting the army and the art, but I was not prepared for the illumination I received in wandering through the old warehouses, where we found rows of vast amphoræ (earthenware jars) which had contained wine, oil, and grain. Trade was as important in the time of Augustus as in the days of McKinley. The fleets that sailed into the harbor of Ostia brought nothing more precious than the marbles from Paros and Africa. It is said of Augustus that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. The threshold of the temple at Ostia is a single slab of africano sixteen feet long, delicious in color—rose, gray, and black blended in the most adorable mottlings. Signor Lanciani tells me they have lately discovered a large cargo of precious marbles at or near Ostia which has been lying waiting perhaps two thousand years for the hand of the builder. I should like to have a piece of it. In Rome one learns to appreciate marbles. I point out the different varieties to all the friends from home whom I pilot about the city (there are plenty of them), and it is a rare thing to find one who knows the difference between cipollino and serpentino. Tell that to the Kindergartnerins!

April 16, 1898.

Waked up at dawn this morning by the rattling of cabs and carriages and the footsteps of sixty thousand people going to St. Peter’s to celebrate the twenty-first anniversary of the Pope’s coronation. I had not meant to go,—these functions are such an old story to me,—but I could not resist the magnetism of the crowd. The Borgo and the Piazza were black with people. Before the obelisk a double cordon of troops stretched across the whole Piazza—government troops, you understand; the government keeps order when the Pope goes to St. Peter’s and is responsible for his safety. The Borgo is perhaps the safest place to live in that exists; I have never heard of any other so carefully guarded. Inside the Vatican the Papal troops keep order. At a certain point behind the church two sentinels pace their beat, the spot where they meet marking the line of the exterritorial limits of the Vatican. One sentinel wears the King’s uniform, the other wears the Pope’s; they appear to be on friendly terms.

My ticket admitted me to the bronze door. The crush going up the steps was terrific; once inside the church, all was well. I never have known a panic or a stampede in all the many crowds I have seen gather in the great church across the way. In the days of the Cæsars the Romans learned how to behave at a great pageant; they have never forgotten the lesson. The Roman crowd is the best behaved and most good-natured in the world. Of course, there are always people who feel the effects of being in such a crush; I saw three women faint and one man “tumble in a fit” to-day. They were immediately carried to one of the hospitals fitted up in various parts of the building on all such occasions. It happened once that a child was born in St. Peter’s while a great function was going on—I think it was a beatification.

An aisle was kept open, by means of movable benches, leading from the Chapel of the Sacrament, which communicates with the Vatican, to the papal throne, placed to-day for the first time since 1870 under the chair of St. Peter at the end of the basilica. The walls were hung with miles of crimson velvet and brocade. I like the church better plain, but it made a “soomptuous melée” of color. I saw the Crown Princess of Sweden and the Countess of Trani, sister of the Empress of Austria, in the tribune reserved for royal guests. The costumes of the papal court are simply enchanting. The red and yellow uniform of the Swiss Guard never palls; it was designed by Michael Angelo, who had some taste. The chamberlains, some of whom we know, looked so handsome in black velvet doublets and knee breeches, with stiff white ruffs and thick gold chains of office that it was hard to recognize them. The ambassadors wore their best togs, the noble ladies (they are obliged to go in black) all their jewels. The plebs in their way were quite as decorative as the patricians,—peasants with goatskin trousers and cioce, monks and nuns of every order, flocks of students from the theological seminaries in the dress Dante wore. The German students in vermilion habits—the scarlet tanagers of the Roman landscape—are the finest. The Pope was due at ten; at a quarter before eleven the cardinals began to arrive. Their dress is admirable; it never looks so well as when they are marching down the aisle at St. Peter’s. At eleven the Pope appeared in the gestatorial chair carried by eight lackeys in crimson brocade: Michael Angelo, they say, designed this livery too. The tall white feather fans carried in the procession reminded me of a bas-relief on the walls of the ruins at Karnak in Egypt representing the Pharaoh going in triumph to the temple. Pharaoh’s chair was not unlike the sedia gestatoria, the feather fans seem identical, the triple crown of the Pope is very like the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt worn by Rameses. In the midst of all this swirl of color imagine Leo’s alabaster face with the eyes of brown fire. When he rose feebly to give the benediction his hands looked transparent. There was even more shouting “Viva il papa ré!” than usual. The Pope is as exquisitely soigné as a young belle; his valet, Pio Centra,—one of whose duties is to taste everything his master eats or drinks,—certainly knows his business. Centra is a great personage and is kowtowed to by the people about the Vatican.

The Pope safely on his throne, I did not care to wait for the service and watched my chance of getting out. I edged my way to the vicinity of one of the exits and waited. I soon saw a gigantic German student—he must have been six feet six inches tall—who was evidently of the same mind about going. I managed to slip in behind him and follow in his wake. When we were close to the door the press was so great that I really was frightened; in another moment I should have been separated from my giant. In desperation I seized the streamers of red broadcloth that hung from his shoulders. He looked behind him, saw a woman, fancied the de’il was after him, and fled for his life, cleaving the solid wall of people with his mighty elbows. The faster he ran the tighter I held on, till at last he brought us both through that awful pressure—I thought it would break my ribs—down the steps and out into the piazza, where I let him go. I am not sure which of us was the most frightened!

One of the Guardia Nobile (the Pope’s Noble Guard) told me that in the year 1889 he was on duty in the Pope’s antechamber the night after the dedication of the statue of Giordano Bruno—a renegade Dominican or a great reformer, according to your politics—on the very spot where in 1600 Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy. The Pope was much offended, he felt that the Church had been insulted; there was even talk of removing the seat of the papacy from Rome. That plan, if it ever was seriously considered, was soon given up. The whole matter had agitated the Pope tremendously, and the people about him felt anxious about his health. When the usual hour passed for his light to be put out they grew more and more nervous. Eleven, twelve, one o’clock, still that thin line of light under the door. Finally they knocked. No answer. They gently opened the door and saw the old man kneeling weeping at his priedieu. Our friend, a man of the world, had been deeply moved by that glimpse through the open door. As for me, “’t is as if I’d seen it all.”

Like Pius the Ninth, Leo began by trying for a liberal policy. The power behind the throne—the faction of intransigentes—was too strong for him. When he was elected Pope he wished to give his benediction to the vast throng of people in the Piazza from the window over the door of St. Peter’s, as his predecessors had done. This was opposed, but a rumor spread through the city that the new Pope stood firmly to his intention. The Piazza was crammed with waiting people; at the Quirinal the royal carriage stood ready to bring the Queen to the Piazza to receive the blessing. After a long delay those who watched with glasses saw a small white figure hurrying down the passage which leads to the window. The Pope was coming! Suddenly the white figure hesitated, paused, turned back, retreated. The way had been barricaded with benches!

Sovereign Pontiff, indeed! This was forcible coercion!