Pagan and Christian Rome

by Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani

Gregory's paternal house stood on the slope of the Cælian, facing the palace of the Cæsars, on a street named the Clivus Scauri, which corresponds very nearly to the modern Via dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Fond as he was of monastic life, he extended hospitality to men of his own sentiments and habit of thought; and transformed the old lararium into a chapel of S. Andrew. The place, which was governed by the rule of S. Benedict, became known as the "Monastery of S. Andrew in the street of Scaurus." The typical plan of a Roman palace was not altered; the atrium, accessible to the clients and guests of the monks, is described as having in the centre a "wonderful and most salubrious" spring, no doubt the "spring of Mercury" of classical times. It still exists, in a remote and hardly accessible corner of the garden, but its waters are no longer believed to be miracle-working, nor are they sought by crowds of ailing pilgrims as formerly. Time has brought other changes upon this cluster of buildings. In 1633 cardinal Scipione Borghese completed its modernization by raising the façade, which does so little honor to him and his architect, Giovanni Soria. But let us pause on the top of the staircase which leads to it, with our faces towards the Palatine; there is no more impressive sight in the whole of Rome. Placed as we are between the Baths of Caracalla, the Circus Maximus, the dwelling of the emperors, and the Coliseum, with the Via Triumphalis at our feet, we can hardly realize the wonderful transformation of men and things. From the hill beyond us the generals who led the Roman armies to the conquest of the world took their departure; from this modest monastery went a handful of humble missionaries who were to preach the gospel and to bring civilization into countries far beyond the boundary line of the Roman empire. Of their success in the British Islands we have monumental evidence everywhere in Rome. Here in the vestibule of this very church is engraved the name of Sir Edward Carne, one of the Commissioners sent by Henry VIII. to obtain the opinion of foreign universities respecting his divorce from Catherine of Aragon; and, not far from it, that of Robert Pecham, who died in 1567, an exile for his faith, and left his substance to the poor.

These, however, are comparatively recent memories. In the vestibule of S. Peter's, not far from the original grave of Gregory the Great, we should have found that of a British king, reckoned among the saints in the old martyrologies, who had come in grateful acknowledgment of the double civilization which his native island had received from pagan and Christian Rome.[111] Under the date of 688 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records: "This year king Ceadwalla went to Rome and received baptism from Pope Sergius, and he gave him the name of Peter, and in about seven days afterwards, on the twelfth before the Kalends of May (April 20), while he was yet in his baptismal garments, he died, and he was buried in S. Peter's." The fair-haired convert, who had met with a solemn and enthusiastic reception from Pope Sergius, the clergy, and the people, received after his death the greatest honor that the Church and the Romans could offer him: he was buried in the "Popes' Corner," or porticus pontificum, almost side by side with Gregory the Great. The verses engraved on the tomb of the latter—

"Ad Christum Anglos convertit pietate magistra
Sic fidei acquirens agmina gente nova,"

(by pious cares he converted the English to Christ, acquiring thereby for the true faith multitudes of a new race)—could not have found a more convincing witness to their truth than this grave of Ceadwalla, because with his conversion, which was due to the preaching of S. Wilfrid, the Christian religion spread rapidly among the Saxons of the West, and that part of the country which had most resisted the new faith was forever secured to Christian civilization. In fact Wessex became the most powerful member of the Heptarchy, till it attained absolute dominion over the whole island.

Ceadwalla's tomb, forgotten, and perhaps concealed by superstructures, was brought to light again towards the end of the sixteenth century. Giovanni de Deis, in a work published in 1588, says: "The epitaph[112] and the tomb on which it was engraved lay for a long time concealed from the eyes of visitors, and only in later years it was discovered by the masons engaged in rebuilding S. Peter's." Not a fragment of the monument has come down to us, and such was the contempt with which the learned men of the age looked upon these historical monuments, that none of them condescended to give us the details of the discovery. "It is deeply to be regretted," says cardinal Mai, "that such a notable trophy as the tomb of Ceadwalla, the royal catechumen, which was erected and inscribed by Sergius I., disappeared from the Vatican, and was irretrievably lost, together with innumerable monuments of ancient art and piety, owing to the calamities of the times, the avidity of the workmen, and the negligence of the superintendents."

"Ceadwalla's tomb," I quote from Tesoroni, "was not the only monument of Anglo-Saxon interest to be seen in old S. Pietro. William of Malmesbury and other chroniclers mention two other kings, Offa of Essex, and Coenred of Mercia, as having renounced their crowns and embraced the monastic life in one of the Vatican cloisters. They were also buried in the Paradise near the Popes' Corner. It is doubtful whether king Ina, who succeeded Ceadwalla, and his queen, Aethelburga, were buried in the same place, or in the Anglo-Saxon quarter by the church of S. Maria in Saxia, founded, probably, by Ina himself. It is certain, however, that at a later time king Burrhed of Mercia was entombed in the same quarter, and in the same church. The place is still named from the Anglo-Saxons, S. Spirito in Sassia."

The threshold of S. Peter's once crossed, we hear no more of Popes being buried outside, in the old atrium. The second aisle on the left—that entered by the Gate of Judgment—was intended to receive their mortal remains. Hence its name of porticus pontificum (the aisle of the pontiffs). On the day of his coronation the newly elected head of the church was asked to cross this aisle on his way from the chapel of S. Gregory to the high altar, that the sight of so many graves should impress on his mind the maxim, "The glory of the world vanisheth like the flame of a handful of straw;" and a handful of straw was actually burned before his eyes, while the dean of the church addressed to him the words, "My father, sic transit gloria mundi."

The Tomb of Benedict VII. (974-983). The basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme contains but one tomb, that of Benedict VII., whose career is described in a metric inscription of seventeen verses, inserted in the wall of the nave on the right of the entrance. I mention it because Gregorovius seems to have been unaware of its existence, in spite of its historical value.[113] It recalls to our mind one of the most turbulent and riotous periods in the annals of Rome and the papacy, the fight between the "independents" led by the Crescenzi, and the party of the Saxon emperors, represented by Popes Benedict VI. and VII. The Crescenzio mentioned in the epitaph of Benedict VII. was the son of John and Theodora, and one of the most active members of a family which has thrice attempted to reëstablish the republic of ancient Rome and shake off the yoke of German oppression. This one is known as Crescentius de Theodora, from the name of his mother; and also as Crescentius de Caballo, from his residence on the Quirinal, near the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, which have given to the hill its modern name of Monte Cavallo. The Castel S. Angelo was the stronghold of the family. Under the shelter of its massive ramparts they were able to dictate the law to the Popes, and commit bloodshed and sacrilege with impunity. In 928 Marozia and her second husband Guido, marquis of Tuscany, with their partisans, fell on Pope John X., who was staying in the Lateran Palace, murdered his brother Pietro before his eyes, and dragged him through the streets of Rome to the castle. The unfortunate Pope lingered awhile in a dark dungeon, and was ultimately killed by suffocation. Marozia, perhaps to dispel the suspicions of a violent death, allowed him to be buried with due honors near the middle door of the Lateran, at the foot of the nave. His gravestone was seen and described by Johannes Diaconus, but has long since disappeared. In 974 Crescenzio, son of Theodora, committed another sacrilegious murder, that of Benedict VI. Helped by a deacon named Franco he confined him in the same dungeon of Castel S. Angelo, while Franco placed himself on the chair of S. Peter, under the name of Boniface VII. The legal Pope was soon after strangled. Such crimes startled for a moment the apathy of the Romans, who besieged and stormed the castle, deposed the usurper, and named in his place Benedict VII., whose grave we are now visiting in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Yet Crescenzio and Franco did not pay dearly for their crimes. Franco, after plundering the Vatican basilica of its valuables, migrated to Constantinople, a rich and free man. Crescenzio died peacefully in the monastery of S. Alessio on the Aventine in the year 984. His tomb, the tomb of a murderer, whose hands had been stained with the blood of a Pope, was allowed the honor of a laudatory inscription. It can still be seen in the cloisters of the monastery: "Here lies the body of Crescentius, the illustrious, the honorable citizen of Rome, the great leader, the great descendant of a great family," etc. "Christ the Saviour of our souls made him infirm and an invalid, so that, abandoning any further hope of worldly success, he entered this monastery, and spent his last years in prayer and retirement."

All these events are alluded to in the epitaph of Benedict VII., in S. Croce. This church has been so thoroughly deprived of its charm and interest by another Benedict (XIV., in the year 1744) that one cannot help paying attention to the few objects which have survived the "transformation," and especially to this humble stone hardly known to students.

Should any of my readers care to arrange their researches in Rome systematically, and study its monuments group by group, according to chronological and historical connections, they will find abundance of material in the period in which the murders of John X. and Benedict VI. took place. There is the tomb of Landolfo, brother of Crescenzio, at S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura; that of Crescenzio at S. Alessio; the house of Nicola di Crescenzio, near the Bocca della Verità, a fascinating subject for a day's work.