Hence we are prepared to find the noblest families of Italy represented in the office, and notice such patrician names as Odescalchi, Altieri, Fieschi, Ruffo, Doria, Massimo, Pignatelli, Caracciolo, Barberini, Riario-Sforza, etc.
UDITORE.
The auditor of his Holiness—Auditor Papæ—is the agent-general, most intimate privy councillor, and canonist of the Pope. He is third in rank of the palatine prelates, and lived in the Quirinal, where his offices and the archives were situated, until the present iniquitous occupation, since which they have been removed to the Torlonia palace, near the Vatican. This office was instituted by Paul II. (1464-1471), and the first to hold it was the renowned J. B. Millini, a Roman, who was at the same time Bishop of Urbino (which was administered by some one else in his name); he later became a cardinal under Sixtus IV., in 1476. His successor at the present time is Monsignor Sagretti. Up to this century the power and general influence of the auditor were extraordinary, since he had a court of justice and ample jurisdiction, even exercising in the name of the Pope the supremacy of appeal in many matters. For this reason the great epigraphist Morcelli, who wrote before these judicial functions were abolished, called him Judex sacrarum cognitionum. Formerly he gave audience to all comers about matters of equity and appeal on Tuesdays, in his apartment at the Quirinal, standing in his prelatic robes behind a low-backed throne supposed by a sort of fiction to be then occupied by the Pope;[149] hence he was called in choice Latin Cognoscens vice sacrâ—i.e., in lieu of his Holiness. The common Italian appellation Uditore Santissimo is only a corrupt rendering of the Latin Auditor Sanctissimi. This post has always been occupied by one of the ablest jurists in Italy; and even now the auditor must be both very learned and most incorruptible, from the part that he takes officially in filling vacant sees and making other important nominations.
MAESTRO DEL SACRO PALAZZO.
The Master of the Holy Apostolic Palace—Magister Sacri Palatii Apostolici—is one of the most distinguished members for piety and doctrine of the Dominican Order. He is the Pope’s official theologian, and usually a consultor of several Roman congregations, more nearly concerned with matters of faith and morals, as the Inquisition, Indulgences and Relics, Index, etc. He ranks fourth among the palatine prelates, and resided until the late invasion in the Quirinal Palace with his “companion” and two lay brothers of his order. He is considered an honorary auditor of the Rota, and as such has a place with the prelates of this class in the papal chapels and reunions. He retains the habit of his order, but wears on his hat a black prelatical band. He is ex-officio president of the Theological Faculty in the Roman University, and the person to whom was entrusted the censorship of the press. The origin of this office dates from the year 1218, when S. Dominic, who established the Order of Friars Preachers, suggested to Honorius III. that it would be proper if some one were charged to give religious instruction to the many servants of cardinals, prelates, and others, who used to spend their time idly in useless talk and slanderous gossip with their brethren of the papal palace while their masters were expecting an audience or engaged with his Holiness.[150] The Pope was pleased, and at once appointed Dominic to the good work, who began by explaining the Epistles of S. Paul.[151] The fruit of these pious conferences was so apparent that the pope determined to perpetuate them under the direction of a Dominican. Besides the more familiar instructions, which were given at first extempore, it was arranged later that while the pope and court were listening to the preacher appointed to sermonize in the palace during Advent and Lent, the papal domestics and other servants should also have the benefit of formal discourses, but in another part of the building. It was always the father master—i.e., doctor—who held forth to them until the XVIth century, when the duties of his office becoming more onerous, especially by reason of the many attempts to misuse the recently-discovered art of printing to corrupt faith and morals in Rome itself, the obligation devolved upon his companion—Pro-Magister or Socius—who also holds three days of catechism in preparation for each of the four general communions that are given yearly in the palace. This deputy is appointed by the master, and is a person of consequence, succeeding sometimes to the higher office. The present master is Vincenzo Maria Gatti. When the learned Alexander V. became pope (1409), the Master of the Palace was required to stand by at his meals, especially on Sundays and festival days, and be ready to propose difficult points of debate, or to enter into an argument on any matter and with any person present as the Holy Father should command.[152] There have been seventy-nine occupants of this office since its institution (not to count several anti-masters created by anti-popes), of whom seventeen have been made cardinals, and among them the celebrated church historian Orsi. The great writer on Christian antiquities, Mamachi, held this office with distinction. It is one, of course, in which “brains” rather than “blood” find a place; and since there is no royal road to learning—for as an old monkish couplet says:
“Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed sæpe cadendo,
Sic homo fit doctus, non vi, sed sæpe studendo”
—we are not surprised that the series of Masters of the Apostolic Palace exhibits no such names as those that predominate among the chamberlains and majordomos—“Not many noble” (1 Cor. i. 26).
In the mother-church of the Dominican Order at Rome, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which is also the title of the first American cardinal,[153] there is a special vault beneath the chapel of S. Dominic for the entombment of the masters; but the brutal invaders who now hold possession of Rome having forbidden all intra-mural burials—evidently through malice, because, from the dry nature of the soil and the perfection of Roman masonry, there could not be the slightest danger from a moderate number of interments within the city—they will have to sleep after death in some less appropriate spot: “How long shall sinners, O Lord, how long shall sinners glory?… Thy people, O Lord, they have brought low: and they have afflicted thy inheritance” (Ps. xciii.)