Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals / In Two Volumes, Volume I.

by Samuel Finley Breese Morse

"June 28. In the evening went to the piazza of St. Peter's to witness the illumination of its magnificent dome and the piazza. The change from the smaller to the larger illumination is one of the grandest spectacles I ever beheld.

"The lanterns which are profusely scattered over it, showing its whole form in lines of fire, glow brighter and brighter as the evening advances from twilight to dark, till it seems impossible for its brilliance to increase. The crowds below, on foot and in carriages, are in breathless expectation. The great bell of St. Peter's at length strikes the hour of nine, and, at the first stroke, a great ball of light is seen ascending the cross to its pinnacle. This is the signal for thousands of assistants, who are concealed over its vast extent, to light the great lamps, and in an instant all is motion, the whole mass is like a living thing, fire whirling and flashing over it in all directions, till the vast pile blazes as if lighted with a thousand suns. The effect is truly magical, for the agents by whom this change is wrought are invisible."

After the illumination of St. Peter's he went to the Castle of St. Angelo where he witnessed what he describes as the grandest display of fireworks he had ever seen.

"Tuesday, June 29. This day is St. Peter's day, the grandest festa of the Romish Church. I went with Mr. B. early to St. Peter's to see the ceremonies. The streets were filled with equipages, among which the splendid scarlet-and-gold equipages of the cardinals made the most conspicuous figure. Cardinal Weld's carriage was the richest, and next in magnificence was that of Cardinal Barberini.

"On entering St. Peter's we found it hung throughout with crimson damask and gold and filled with people, except a wide space in the centre with soldiers on each side to keep it open for the procession. We passed up near the statue of St. Peter, who was to-day dressed out in his papal robes, his black face (for it is of bronze) looking rather frightful from beneath the splendid tiara which crowned his head, and the scarlet-and-gold tissue of his robes.

"Having a little time to spare, we followed a portion of the crowd down the steps beside the pedestal of the statue of St. Veronica into the vaults beneath the church, which are illuminated on this festival. Mass was performing in several of the splendid chapels, whose rich decorations of paintings and sculpture are but once a year revealed to the light, save from the obscure glimmering of the wax-taper, which is carried by the guide, to occasional visitors. It is astonishing what a vast amount of expense is here literally buried.

"The ornamented parts are beneath the dome; the other parts are plain, heavy arches and low, almost numberless, and containing the sarcophagi of the Popes and other distinguished characters. The illumination here was confined to a single lamp over each arch, which rather made darkness visible and gave an awful effect to some of the gloomier passages.

"In one part we saw, through a long avenue of arches, an iron-grated door; within was a dim light which just sent its feeble rays upon some objects in its neighborhood, not strong enough to show what they were. It required no great effort of the imagination to fancy an emaciated, spectral figure of a monk poring over a large book which lay before him. It might have been as we imagined; we had not time to examine, for the sound of music far above us summoned us into the regions of day again, and we arrived in the body of the church just as the trumpets were sounding from the balcony within the church over the great door of entrance. The effect of the sound was very grand, reverberating through the lofty arches and aisles of the church.

"We got sight of the head of the procession coming in at the great door, and soon after the Pope, borne in his crimson chair of state, and with the triple crown upon his head and a crimson, gold-embroidered mantilla over his shoulders, was seen entering accompanied by his fan-bearers and other usual attendants, and after him the cardinals and bishops. The Pope, as usual, made the sign of the cross as he went.

"The procession passing up the great aisle went round to the back of the great altar, where was the canopy for the Pope and seats for the cardinals and bishops. The Pope is too feeble to go through the ceremony of high mass; it was, therefore, performed before him by one of the cardinals. There was nothing in this ceremony that was novel or interesting; it was the same monotonous chant from the choir, the same numberless bowings, and genuflections, and puffings of incense, and change of garments, and fussing about the altar. All that was new was the constant bustle about the Pope, kissing of his toe and his hand, helping him to rise and to sit again, bringing and taking away of cushions and robes and tiaras and mitres, and a thousand other little matters that would have enraged any man of weak nerves, if it did not kill him. After two hours of this tedious work (the people in the mean time perfectly inattentive), the ceremony ended, and the Pope was again borne through the church and the crowd returned."