NAPLES
After meeting Pius X., late the beloved patriarch of Venice, I feel assured that he is peculiarly fitted to lead his portion of the Christian church in this great endeavor.
The Vatican, which serves as the home and executive offices of the supreme pontiff of the Catholic church, is an enormous building, or rather collection of buildings, for it bears evidence of additions and annexes. One might be easily lost in its maze of corridors. The ceilings of the chief apartments are high and, like the walls of the spacious rooms and halls, are covered with frescoes of priceless value. The Vatican adjoins St. Peter's cathedral—or basilica as it is called—a description of whose beauties would fill a volume. The basilica is so harmoniously proportioned that one does not appreciate its vastness from a distance, but once within its walls it is easy to credit the statement that fifty thousand persons can be crowded into it. In a crypt just beneath the great dome is the tomb of St. Peter, about which myriad lamps are kept constantly burning. Near the tomb is a crucifix suspended under a canopy supported by four spiral columns that are replicas of a column elsewhere in the cathedral that is said to have been part of Solomon's temple. Not far from the crucifix is the famous bronze statue of St. Peter, made from a pagan statue of Jupiter. It is mounted upon a pedestal about five feet high and the large toe of the right foot, which projects over the pedestal has been worn smooth by the lips of devout visitors to the basilica.
To me the most remarkable of the splendors of the cathedral were the mosaic pictures, of which there are many of heroic size. These mosaics depict Bible scenes and characters and are done with such marvelous skill that a little way off one can hardly doubt that they are the product of the brush of some great master. The colors, tints and shades are so perfect that it is difficult to believe that the pictures are formed by the piecing together of tiny bits of colored marbles and other stones. The Vatican maintains a staff of artists in mosaic, some of whose work may be purchased by the public. I was shown the masterpiece of Michael Angelo in the cathedral of St. Peter in Vinculo—a statue of Moses, seated. In the right knee there is a slight crack visible and it is tradition that, when the great sculptor had finished his work, he struck the knee with his mallet in a burst of enthusiasm and exclaimed, "Now, speak." St. Paul's cathedral, which stands outside the ancient wall of the city, is of modern construction and is therefore less interesting to the visitor than the great basilica of St. Peter's.
Next to the Vatican and the cathedrals in interest are the ruins of ancient Rome. In England and France I had seen buildings many centuries old; in Rome one walks at the foot of walls that for nearly two thousand years have defied the ravages of time. The best preserved and most stupendous of the relics of "The Eternal City" is the Colosseum. It is built upon a scale that gives some idea of the largeness of Roman conceptions and of the prodigality with which the emperors expended the money and labor of the people. The arena in which the gladiators fought with their fellows and with wild beasts—the arena in which many of the Christian martyrs met their death—is slightly oval in form, the longest diameter being about 250 feet. The arena was so arranged that it could be flooded with water and used for aquatic tournaments. The spectators looked down upon the contests from galleries that rose in four tiers to a height of 150 feet. At one end of the arena was the tribune occupied by the emperor and his suite; at the other end the vestal virgins occupied another tribune and it was their privilege to confer either life or death upon the vanquished gladiators by turning the thumb up or down—turned up it meant life, turned down, death. The Roman populace gained access to the galleries by 160 doors and stairways. The seating capacity of the Colosseum is estimated to have been fifty thousand.
GRAND CANAL—VENICE
The Forum is even richer than the Colosseum in historic interest and recent excavations have brought to light what are supposed to be the tomb of Cæsar and the tomb of Romulus. The tribune is pointed out from which the Roman orators addressed the multitude. Here Cicero hurled his invectives at Cataline and Mark Antony is by Shakespeare made to plead here for fallen Cæsar. The triumphal arch of Constantine stands at one end of the Forum and is in an excellent state of preservation. Among the carvings lately exhumed are some (especially attractive to an agriculturist) showing the forms of the bull, the sheep and the hog. They are so like the best breeds of these animals to-day that one can scarcely believe they were chiseled from stone nearly twenty centuries ago. In Rome, as in Paris, there is a Pantheon in the familiar style of Greek architecture. In the Roman Pantheon is the tomb of Raphael. Cardinal Bembo, in recognition of Raphael's genius, caused to be placed upon his tomb a Latin epitaph which Hope has translated: