Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city

by Maud Howe Elliott

“Every twenty-five years, you say?” Patsy insisted, “and the last Jubilee was in 1825—how is that?”

“In 1850 and again in 1875 Rome was so unsettled that the observance of the Anno Santo was not expedient,” said the monsignore, shortly.

“Let me see,” mused Patsy; “in 1850 Pius the Ninth was at Gaeta, trying a change of air for his health, and Mazzini was at the head of the Roman Republic. In 1875, Pius still thought that the Dukes of Savoy were only casual visitors and had not yet realized that they had come to Rome to stay. Isn’t that about the size of it?”

“My dear boy,” said the monsignore imperturbably, “now you are talking about things you do not understand.” He talked of other things for a few moments and then went away.

On Christmas Eve the pilgrims began to arrive in torrents, and have been pouring in and out of the city ever since. They will not be allowed to come in July and August—supposed to be the least healthy months. They have gathered from the uttermost parts of the earth hordes of strangers invading Rome as I believe it has not been invaded since the days of Attila and his Huns. From the terrace we see pilgrims from all the Catholic nations of the earth pass to bow the knee and drop the obolo at the feet of the Prisoner of the Vatican. These vast pilgrimages, sometimes several thousand strong—are admirably managed. A dearth of cabs is the first sign we notice of their arrival. The piazza is deserted, not a cab in sight. A little later a procession of cabs, crowded with pilgrims (six to a carriage) and their belongings—the queerest boxes, bales, bundles begin to rattle across the piazza to the vast buildings in the rear of the Vatican where the pilgrims lodge. They usually stay three days; during that time they are received by the Pope, visit all the Basilicas, see the sights, and depart richer in experience and plenary indulgence, leaving the Pope, the shop keepers, hotel keepers, and cabmen richer in money. Each flood gilds (or silver plates) poor old Rome till it shines as it has not shone in years.

I did not suppose there were so many splendid costumes left in the world as have passed through the Piazza of St. Peter’s and under my eyes during these few months! Hungarians in tight-fitting black breeches, jackets trimmed with black astrakhan and long high boots. Herzegovinians with wonderful garments of white sheepskin, embroidered in red silk outlined designs (the woolly side of the sheepskin is worn next the person, the outside looks like parchment), fur-trimmed boots, hair cut square across the shoulders, faces of rapt devotion. The Poles were a superb group, the women wore costumes of striped vermilion and emerald green, the men, scarlet breeches, green jackets, and picturesque woollen caps. There were Cossacks from the river Don, with long, gray woollen caftans down to their heels, high pointed caps, and cartridge belts over their shoulders, they would be ugly customers to come up against on a less peaceful excursion. While driving, we passed one Don Cossack who reminded us so vividly of Taras Bulba, the hero of Gogol’s Iliad of the North, that we followed him for half an hour, as he stalked about the city, looking at the sights as if they were all perfectly familiar to him. He was a giant with a mane of bronzed hair, dark eyes, high cheek bones, and a look of indomitable power, of silent reserved strength, that made the careless casual passer-by seem an effete, over-civilized being. He wore jewel-handled daggers stuck in a waist belt, fastened with turquoises “as big as my two thumbs.” He must be “somebody” at home.

The other evening J. brought home the news that there were a lot of pilgrims lodged in the wing of the Palazzo Torlonia, opposite his studio. The next morning R. and I hurried over to the Borgo St. Angelo to see what was to be seen. The Palazzo Giraud Torlonia, which has a splendid front on the Borgo Nuovo, only a block away from the Rusticucci—has two long wings in the rear, with a courtyard between them, the entrance to both wings being on the Borgo St. Angelo, rather a squalid back street. The studio is a vast room as big as a church on the second floor. When my mother was in Rome, on her wedding journey, she danced in this room at one of the famous balls, given by old Torlonia, the banker prince, the founder of the family, and grandfather of the present incumbent, J.’s landlord. The studio—at the time J. took it the only available one in Rome large enough for his purpose—could only be had by hiring the whole wing, with its three stories, the right to re-let being refused. This makes him master of all he surveys, as the grim, stone-paved courtyard, with its ever-flowing fountain fringed with maidenhair fern, goes with his wing.

I received a shock on entering the studio, and looking at the big picture for the first time in days. The little blindfold Love who led the procession of the centuries in The Flight of Time, has been painted out! He now exists only in my memory, and in the cartoon, a red chalk drawing hanging in our hall. Though the composition is better without him, it gave me a pang to find him gone. To console me, I found three portrait studies of the beautiful Lady K.

From the studio windows we could see into the vast high rooms of the opposite ell, which is hired for the pilgrims, when, as on this occasion, they cannot all be accommodated in the huge lazzaretto the Pope built during the last cholera summer. That was in 1884. Naples was decimated by the disease; everybody believed that the cholera would come to Rome (everybody except J., who calmly passed the summer here). The Pope built the great lazzaretto against the cholera’s coming; King Humbert, of the high courage, went to meet the cholera, went to pest-stricken Naples, walked through the hospital wards where the cholera patients lay, spoke comfortably to them, won new glory for the brave house of Savoy, a fresh hold on his people’s hearts. As the lazzaretto—it has never been used as such—was not big enough to hold the French pilgrimage, some of it spilled over into the empty wing of the Torlonia Giraud Palace, across the courtyard from the studio.

When R. and I arrived on the scene it was the hour of bedmaking. We could see the neat, light figures of the nuns (to whose care the entertainment of the pilgrims is entrusted) tucking in the sheets, smoothing out the pillows of the long lines of white cots that filled the rooms. On the sidewalk, outside the green door—all our doors in the Borgo seem to be green—sat a group of old men smoking the solemn, after-breakfast pipe. Feeling that we must see the pilgrims at nearer view, we went down to the street and out of our door just in time to meet a rosy young sister as she came out of the opposite door with a little old peasant woman, whose face was wrinkled and brown as an English walnut. The old peasant wore over a full white linen shirt a dark cloth jacket cut square at the bosom, with straps going over the shoulders. The double-breasted jacket was fastened with silver buttons and heavily embroidered in a charming pattern with variegated silks. On her head was a plain white cap of sheer muslin turned back over the ears, and hanging to the shoulders. Under the muslin cap was a sort of gilt skull-cap. She wore a heavy plaited skirt of dark blue broadcloth, sabots painted black, long earrings of filigree gold inset with seed pearls. Even beside the pure linen of the sister, she positively shone with cleanliness.