The cardinal, preoccupied also with their spiritual condition, found means of providing them with a chapel where they could attend Mass and on festivals hear a sermon. Their cells were sprinkled with holy water to drive away the malign spirit, and ornamented with pictures of devotion. They were forbidden to play cards or read bad books, and were to go to confession six times a year—at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, St. Peter’s day, Assumption, and All Saints. Every month the vicar-general visited them to listen to their grievances, remove all grounds of complaint, and assure himself that all orders had been executed. And the cardinal, who always kept an eye on everything himself, went to see them twice a year.
One item in the register of accounts is particularly touching. Cardinal Orsini increased the ration of bread from time to time at his own expense, and had a fire made in the winter, that the prisoners might not suffer from the cold.
The three soldiers employed to make the necessary arrests were under the command of a baricello, or corporal, all of whom, with the jailer, were lodged in the guardiola beside the arched passage which connects the two interior courts.
The second court is bounded on one side by the sacristy of the cathedral, and on the other by the stables and the jubilee hospice. The stables, built by Mgr. Pacca (of the same family from which the cardinal of that name descended), are large enough for about twenty horses—none too many for the archbishop and his suite, for his visits could not always be made in a carriage. Even in our day a cross-bearer precedes his eminence on horseback, clothed in a violet cassock and mantellone, and in former times the cortége must have been much more imposing.
The hospice affords a proof of Cardinal Orsini’s inexhaustible charity. He had before built a special asylum for pilgrims, not far from the palace, under the title of St. Bartholomew, patron of the city. There is nothing left now to remind one of it, except a narrow street still called the Via dei pellegrini. But on extraordinary occasions, as at the time of a jubilee, this asylum was insufficient, and the cardinal accordingly set apart a whole wing of his palace to lodge those who came to Beneventum or were on their way to Rome to gain the indulgence of the Holy Year. This hospice had two entrances to admit the sexes separately: one opening into the first court, the other into the second. The latter has on its lintel this inscription, which gives the precise date and object of the foundation:
Xenodochivm Archiepiscopale
Vrsinvm pro An. Ivbilæi MDCC.
Nor was the cardinal content to give them benches and tables in such numbers as still to be spoken of. He had the bare walls relieved by paintings of some religious subject. In the room where public prayers were offered and the rosary sung, as it still is daily in the cathedral to a peculiar air handed down by tradition, was painted Our Lady of the Rosary, with St. Dominic and St. Catharine of Siena at her feet. In the refectory was depicted a scene from the life of the Blessed Ambrogio Sansedoni, a Dominican friar. He was in the habit of serving five pilgrims in honor of the five wounds of our Lord. One day, while waiting on his guests, his eyes being opened by the Holy Spirit, denoted by the white dove on his shoulder, he saw with astonishment that they were five angels sent by God to reward his charity. In the room where the pilgrims’ feet were washed is to be seen the Blessed Andrea de Franchi, also a Dominican, humbly prostrate before a pilgrim who afterwards reveals himself to be the Saviour.
In the arched passage we find a staircase, leading on the one hand to the hall of state, and on the other to the curia. Taking the latter direction, we pass beneath a statue of St. Philip Neri, larger than life, for which reason it is called St. Filippone. Before it burns a votive lamp, a tribute of gratitude from Cardinal Orsini. Higher up are two medallions of the fifteenth century: one of the Blessed Virgin modestly veiled, her hands folded, borne to heaven by two angels; the other represents St. Mark with his usual attribute, the winged lion. The walls of the court-room are enlivened by a series of landscapes, alternating with the Orsini arms, but the most appropriate decoration is the sentence from the writings of St. Jerome:
Privsqvam avdias