Figs. 291 and 292.—1. The Nail used in the Crucifixion of our Lord, preserved in the Church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme, at Rome. 2. The Holy Bit of Carpentras, brought to that town between 1204 and 1206. This is the bit which St. Helena forged for the horse of the Emperor Constantine from nails which had been driven into the holy cross.—After the Engraving of M. Rohault de Fleury, in his work called “Mémoire sur les Instrumens de la Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.”
Fig. 293.—The Title or Superscription upon our Lord’s Cross: fragment of the piece of cedar-wood given to the Pope by St. Helena, and preserved in the Church of Santa Croce di Gerusalemme, at Rome.—The Inscription, which signifies “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” was in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, written backwards and in sunken characters; only a third remains.—Fac-simile from M. Rohault de Fleury’s Engraving for his work called “Mémoires sur les Instrumens de la Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.”
Fig. 294.—Touching the Relics of St. Philip.—Fresco Painting by Andrea del Sarto, in the Cloister of the Church of the Annunziata, at Florence.
Christian Rome, bedewed with the martyrs’ blood and enriched with their relics, has since the first ages of Christianity been the central object of the great majority of pilgrimages. Her three hundred churches have one after another been visited by a host of believers drawn thither by pious recollections, by all kinds of effectual acts of grace or indulgences, by an abundant hospitality, by a pompous ceremonial, and, above all, by the ardour of their faith. On great anniversaries, at jubilees and at the Inventions of the bodies of saints, the number of pilgrims multiplied indefinitely. As many as twelve hundred thousand have been known to have arrived in the course of a single day, from different parts of the world—pious bands which encamped around the walls of the Eternal City, their ranks being constantly added to by fresh arrivals during several consecutive months. Besides the basilica of St. Peter, Rome possessed several privileged sanctuaries which were at all periods the chief haunts of the pilgrims: these were the Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, where the manger in which our Lord was born was seen; San Praxeas, the basilica which contained two thousand five hundred martyrs; San Giovanni Laterano, in which are the scala santa, the same steps blessed by the blood of Jesus Christ when He was wearing the crown of thorns, and which are only ascended by people upon their knees; San Pietro-in-Montorio, the crypt of which stands upon the spot where that apostle was crucified; San Sebastiano-fuor-gli-Muri, famous for its catacombs; San Paolo da Tre Fontane—miraculous springs which gushed from the ground with three leaps, just as St. Paul’s head rebounded three times from the ground when he was executed; San Paolo-fuori-le-Muri, where is preserved the crucifix which spoke to St. Bridget; San Lorenzo-fuori-le-Muri, where are interred the bodies of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence; Santa Croce di Gerusalemme (Fig. 293), a basilica founded by the august mother of St. Constantine on her return from a pilgrimage to Palestine; St. Cecilia, a church built upon the site of the house in which that saint lived, and containing the bath-room in which she suffered martyrdom; as well as twenty other churches which have been the cradles of the Christian religion, and which, by their origin, tradition, and relics, command the pious respect of those who visit them. No matter by what road the pilgrims travelled, they passed on their way to Rome a vast number of sanctuaries and stations which were dedicated either to the Virgin Mary or to illustrious saints (Fig. 294). Upon the sea-coast, the church of Our Guardian Lady and of Our Lady of Genesta, the tutelary guardians of the Gulf of Lyons and the Gulf of Genoa; and with them St. Martha and St. Magdalene; St. George, the legend of whose warlike exploit is reproduced in so many pictures; at Lucca, Our Lady of the Rose; in the Neapolitan States, Our Lady of the Commencement, Our Lady of the Conception, Our Lady of the Assumption, Our Lady of Naples, Our Lady of Mount St. Januarius; in Sicily, Our Lady of the Crown, St. Restituta, St. Agatha, but particularly St. Rosalie; towards the eastern shores of the Ionian Sea, several virgins of Byzantine origin, who were worshipped conjointly with St. Nicholas and St. Spiridion; along the Adriatic other Madonnas and other saints, conspicuous among whom, like a precious pearl, shines the celebrated image known as Our Lady of Victory. It was in her honour that an Eastern emperor caused a triumphal car to be constructed, in order that she might be drawn through the streets of Constantinople whenever the empire was threatened with danger. Brought to Venice and deposited in the Church of St. Mark, she was looked upon as the safe-guard of the republic, and, in place of the triumphal car, a magnificent gondola was specially reserved for this image. From the days of Godfroy de Bouillon, who, with a part of the Crusaders, made a pilgrimage to Bari, on the “soil of Monseigneur St. Nicholas,” before pursuing his journey to Jerusalem, this august sanctuary became the scene of continuous devotions. Joinville, Froissart, Philippe Giraud de Vigneulles, and other chroniclers speak of the number of pilgrims who visited Bari to do honour to the relics of St. Nicholas. The miracles accomplished there through the intercession of the blessed Bishop of Myra, form a rich volume of legends dating from the eleventh century, when forty burghers of the town of Bari went into Asia Minor to rescue his precious body from the violence of the Saracens.
We must not be astonished at the profanities committed by the Mahometans at the places of pilgrimage in Palestine, since the cessation of the Crusades left these venerable sanctuaries at their mercy. It was to preserve the chapel of Nazareth from these outrages that God commanded his angels to carry it into a Christian country. According to a tradition confirmed by several papal bulls, the angels who carried off this chapel deposited it, on May 10th, 1291, at Rauneza, between Fiume and Tersatz, in Dalmatia. On the same night the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to a dying priest named Alexander, and told him of the miracle. The chapel transported to Rauneza was no other than the house in which the divine mother of God had been born and had conceived the Redeemer. After her death the apostles had converted it into a chapel; St. Peter had erected an altar in it, and St. Luke had with his own hands carved in cedar a statue of the Virgin for it. The priest who had had the vision rose from his bed cured of his disease, and went to prostrate himself before the holy image previous to making a public announcement of the apparition of the Virgin. The house of Nazareth was there standing to confirm the truth of his story. Then began the pilgrimages to Tersatz. The Emperor Rudolph, on being informed of this marvellous occurrence, sent several persons of distinction into Palestine to see whether the chapel of Nazareth had really been removed. Their report was of the most satisfactory character, and very soon the worship of Our Lady of Tersatz had become very general throughout the Danubian provinces. In order to preserve the treasure with which Providence had endowed this spot, the santa casa was surrounded by a wooden framework while the church of which it was to form the sanctuary was being built. But after standing for three years in Dalmatia, this holy house disappeared. Contemporary chroniclers relate that, on the 10th of December, 1291, it was carried up into the air by angels and borne across the Adriatic.
It appears that the santa casa, before taking up its definite position, halted near Recanati, upon a property belonging to two brothers who for eight months disputed its possession. In order to bring about a reconciliation between them, and chiefly, no doubt, because they were unwilling to leave this sanctuary at the mercy of these two jealous rivals, the angels bore it off once more, and finally deposited it in a field belonging to a poor widow of the name of Loreta—whence the denomination Our Lady of Loreta. Here may still be seen the santa casa, just as it came from Nazareth, but not as it was decorated, endowed, and enriched by the sumptuous devotion of the Middle Ages. Its treasures, valued at several million francs, already much diminished by the religious wars brought about by the great Western schism, ceased to accumulate in the sixteenth century during the struggle of the Church against Protestantism, and they were almost all carried off in 1796 by the pillaging armies of the French Republic. Nevertheless the fervour of the pilgrims was not in the least abated, and the splendid church in which the santa casa was as it were enshrined, was too small to contain all the votive offerings brought thither from every part of the world. The popes had granted numerous indulgences to those who made this pilgrimage, which was the most celebrated as well as the most frequented of any outside Rome.
The legend of the pilgrimages, as marvellous in Spain as it was in Italy, always associated the worship of St. James with that of the Holy Virgin. After the ascension of our Lord and the descent of the Holy Ghost, Santiago the Iberian—St. James, as we call him—bid adieu to his elder brother St. John the Evangelist, and afterwards went to ask the Virgin for her blessing. She said to him, “Dear son, since thou hast chosen Spain, the country which I love best of all European lands, to preach the Gospel, take care to found there a church dedicated to me, in the town where you convert the greatest number of heathen.” Santiago then left Jerusalem, and crossing the Mediterranean, arrived at Tarragona, where, despite all his efforts, he only succeeded in converting eight persons.