‘How striking this approach to the Mistress of the World! How heart-stirring the memories of the illustrious departed which it must have called up in every heart!
‘We are not aware of any similar arrangement of equal extent and grandeur among all the remains of ancient times.’
So numerous are the churches in Rome, that I believe it may be said there is one for every day in the year. They abound everywhere, and during a short visit one can only, of course, see a few of those which may be regarded as among the chief. All of them, however, possess some distinguishing mark to attract attention. We entered a good many, the very names of which we did not know. And it is useful to notice that in general it is necessary to visit the churches before twelve o’clock; after the hour of noon they are closed, except in the case of some of the more important.
The Pantheon (built B.C. 27) is the only ancient building in Rome which is now standing entire, although bereft of its ornamentation; but such has been the accumulation of rubbish around it, that the steps leading up to it are now considerably below the level of the street. The edifice itself, also, is much hid by surrounding houses, and is not seen till one is close upon it. Passing through a grand columnar portico, we enter a vast circular expanse 140 feet wide, surmounted by a dome 140 feet high. There are large recesses or deep niches around, which were formerly used as receptacles for statues of the gods, when it became a Roman temple. The place now looks very vacant. The building has been stripped also externally of its marble covering or skin and other adornments, so that it no longer exhibits the magnificence it once possessed. But here Raphael and other great painters have been buried, and here the body of Victor Emmanuel, the gallant first King of Italy, has found its resting-place. Mr. Thomson observes:
‘The noblest of all the remains of ancient Rome, the Pantheon was, without doubt, originally built as a portion of these (Agrippa’s) baths; it is proved by the contiguity of the other fragments, and by the identity of the style of the brickwork. It was turned into a temple by Agrippa himself, on which occasion he added the portico of sixteen Corinthian columns of granite, each of one stone, 50 feet 9 inches in length and 5 feet 9 inches in diameter. Thirteen of these remain as originally placed; the three on the east side are modern restorations.’[33]
San Pietro in Vinculi is visited because it possesses Michael Angelo’s grand colossal statue of Moses. Notwithstanding its masterly power, it is far from pleasing in the confined space in which it is placed.
The Jesuit Church (under which one of the lost obelisks has been unfortunately buried) is very gorgeously adorned, and the altar of St. Ignatius (the body of Ignatius Loyola lies below it) exhibits a globe of lapis lazuli, said to be the largest known. This, like every other church at Rome, is besieged by beggars at the door, who whiningly importune for coppers, and one of them always officiously pushes open the thick, heavy, greasy mat placed swinging at the doorway, to keep out the cold air and to offer a convenient asylum to the insect world, and thus, as it is never cleaned, affording a valid excuse for a demand (were reason required). But in all the churches where anything is to be seen inside, a spider is on the watch in the shape of a guardian, who, keys in hand, proffers his services to open locked doors and exhibit the treasures of the church, or to draw curtains which conceal principal paintings. However, the fee is small; one franc or half a franc for the party generally suffices.
One of these churches, containing a veiled picture, the celebrated St. Michael of Guido Reni, is that of the Capuccini. The picture is certainly well worth seeing, and, in some respects, it may claim a preference over that of the same subject by Raphael in the Louvre. But why should such pictures—except for fees—be veiled? The veiling is very detrimental to the colour, as the exclusion of sunlight will in time make a picture black. Italian churches are dark enough as built, without shutting out the light of day from the paintings by an impervious curtain.
That for which, however, people chiefly go to the Capuccini is the extraordinary vaulting below the church. Here are arranged in all manner of devices the bones of the monks attached to the Capuccini monastery, of which this is the church. The skeletons of the more noted are exposed entire in their garments, some of them 300 years old. It is a ghastly spectacle, and was shown to us by a monk, who told us he expected his own bones, when he died, would be placed in the vaults, although we had understood the practice had been stopped.
Of a very different kind of interest was what is underground of two other churches,—San Clementi and San Cosmo in Damian. In the vaults below them we were shown the remains of the original churches, built not later than the fourth century, though the precise date cannot be ascertained. Those of San Clementi, discovered in excavating since 1858, are extensive and extremely interesting, including frescoes of the eighth and ninth centuries—one of them being the Crucifixion. It carries one back to Christianity in Rome of a very early period.