One of the doors in the hall opens into the Monte di Pietà, founded by Cardinal Orsini to relieve the poor of his diocese, where money was lent on articles pledged and without the least interest, conformably to the bulls of Leo X. and Paul V., which definitely regulated such institutions. He established, moreover, a Mons Frumentarius, or wheat fund, to furnish grain to the poor in want of bread, or to sow, at the mere recommendation of their curate, and inscribed over the door appropriate texts from Holy Writ, showing him to be the comforter of the poor:
Mons frumentarius Beneventanus erectus anno Domini 1694.
Factus es fortitudo pauperi, fortitudo egeno[[56]] (Isaias xxv.)
Eripiet de angustia[[57]] pauperem (Job xxxvi.)
Revolutions have naturally put an end to these charitable institutions, without substituting anything more to the advantage of the people, but they cannot efface the memory of the incomparable prelate who founded them. Canonico Feuli has reason to say in his Bulletino Ecclesiastico that “others may equal Orsini, but can never surpass him.”
At the top of the staircase is a kind of marquise, supported by elegant columns, before the door leading to the private apartments. Above are the Orsini arms of inlaid marbles, the colors conformed to the rules of heraldry, and the inscription:
Fr. Vinc. Maria. Ord. Præd. Card. Ursino. Archiep. An. MDCCVIII.
which reminds us that Cardinal Orsini belonged to the Dominican Order. Even when pope he continued to be a frate. From him emanated the celebrated constitution which admonished bishops chosen from the regular orders to remember, by the color of their costume, the solemn profession they had once made.
The most striking thing in the antechamber is a double band of emblematic medallions on the walls, with explanatory mottoes, such as were popular in the sixteenth century. They all refer to the obligations of a bishop, and evidently allude to Cardinal Orsini as the model of one. They begin with the holy name of God in Greek, with the Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, the angels’ eternal song of praise. We will rapidly review the other emblems here employed to raise the mind from the visible to the invisible, the material to the spiritual.
The telescope, which enables the human eye to penetrate the profound mysteries of the heavens. So the spiritual world is opened by prayer and meditation. Alta a longe cognoscit (Ps. cxxxvii. 6).