THE LATER EMPERORS
People and Scenes of the Corso—The Collegio Romano—Cardinal Merry
del Val—Church of the Trinità dei Monti—A Picture of the Emperor
Theodosius and His Son—The Other Boy Emperor, Gratian—The Usurper,
Maximus—Nobility of Gratian—Finally Overcome by Treachery—Saint
Ambrose—Fifth Day at St. Peter of the Chains—Two Christian
Empresses—The Miracle of the Chains—High Mass at San Pietro—Latter
Days of the Pilgrimage—View from Janiculum Hill—Michelangelo and
Vasari—Michelangelo’s “Visiting Card.”
The second day of July, if we follow out our proposed seven days’
pilgrimage, brings us to a spot in the Corso which so hums and stirs
with modern life that it is difficult for the imagination to connect it
with antiquity at all. Not that the Corso itself has the appearance of
a modern street by any means. Narrow and anything but straight, with
great palaces and mean buildings crowding promiscuously and set as
close together as possible—princely houses flanked by humble shops—with
cross streets debouching into it every few hundred yards, and pouring
forth a stream of traffic, spreading away here and there as if pushed
out by main force, but yielding as little as possible of the coveted
sidewalks, it is the real artery of Rome, pulsing with the life of a
people who, from the days of Julius Cæsar to our own, have carried on
existence in the open air. There the lawyers discuss their cases, the
politicians air their opinions; the young men, at a certain hour of the
afternoon, stand in long lines, like troops on guard, on the outer edge
of the sidewalk, to ogle and criticise the women who roll by in their
carriages trying to look unconscious of the enfilade. But the morning
is the Corso’s real prime, a midday of spring for choice, when, from
a cloudless sky, the sun in his zenith rakes the long street from the
Piazza di Venezia to the Popolo without leaving so much as an inch of
shade as a refuge from his fierce rays, except where the shop-awnings
extend a merciful protection to foot-passengers. The flower vendors
are everywhere, offering whole baskets of lilacs—the fat Roman
lilacs—carnations, and roses for a franc or two, and eagerly offering
to carry the burden home for one on the spot. The great ladies, who
would rather die than be seen in the Corso on foot in the afternoon,
are racing about in twos and threes, dressed as simply as possible,
it is true, but with the huge diamond earrings, from which they never
part, focussing the sunbeams, while their high-voiced, intimate chatter
and proud faces express their complete contempt for and ignoring of
any human being outside their own aristocratic circle. This is the
golden hour for the dressmakers and milliners and jewellers, and their
faces are wreathed in smiles as they fly about to satisfy the wealthy
customers who make the morning their own. Few foreigners are seen;
they haunt the Piazza di Spagna and the Via Condotti, the street of
the jewellers, who work solely for them in Etruscan gold and cameos
and mosaics, ornaments which no Roman would ever think of buying or
wearing, though they are far more artistic than the Frenchified tiaras
and rivières to be seen on the Corso.
A few minutes before noon the crowd thickens there near the Collegio
Romano till it is hard to make one’s way through it; the buzz of talk
ceases, men get out their watches, and hold them in their hands while
all eyes are turned upward as if expecting the advent of some celestial
apparition. Silence reigns for a minute or two; then it is rent by the
thunderous boom of the midday gun at Sant’ Angelo, and the next instant
a babel of deafening sound has broken over the city. Every Church
bell in Rome is ringing madly. The crowd cries “Mezzo Giorno!” with
one voice, the black cone has run up on the flagstaff of the College
observatory, and the watches have been returned to their owners’
pockets. There is a kind of stampede to homes and restaurants for the
midday meal, unless it is checked by the appearance of a squadron of
dragoons clattering down the street like mounted suns, their helmets
and breastplates shining intolerably bright, their big black horses
pretending to paw and chafe in tune with the military band that follows
them and which is filling the air with the joyous strains of a popular
march that tries to outdo the pealing of the bells. Beside and behind
the band comes every ragamuffin in Rome, marching delightedly, head
in air, mouth open, and roaring out the tune; hunger and rags are
forgotten for the moment and every beggar boy feels like a victorious
general attending his own triumph.
Now the doors of the Collegio have opened to let out another great
stream to join the throng—students of all classes and nationalities
pour into the street. On certain days those of the Collegio di
Propaganda Fide may be seen hurrying across the town to take their
exercise in the suburbs. Here come Greeks and Copts, Bengalis and
Chinese, crossing similar processions of fair-haired English and
Germans, the latter picturesquely notable as they stride along, two
by two, some forty of them perhaps, in the vivid scarlet cassock
and hat which Gregory XVI imposed upon them to cure them of slipping
unnoticed into a “birreria” for a glass of their national beverage,
and which costume has caused the Romans to give them the nickname of
“Gamberi”—Lobsters! They make a great contrast to the English-speaking
students, Scotch, Irish, American, and English proper, who wear sombre
black or dark purple; but the form of the uniform is always the same,
a long cassock with St. Ignatius’ streamers reaching to the hem and
flying from the shoulders at every touch of wind, every movement of the
muscular young bodies. The whole is crowned by a wide, three-cornered
hat, from under which the boyish faces look out roguishly enough on
what the owners evidently consider a mighty pleasant world.
A young priest who lately returned from studying for three years at the
American College in Rome, was telling me the other day what delightful
recollections he had brought away with him, of the cheery home-like
atmosphere of the college—of the wisdom and kindness of the Superior
and his aides, and of all the merry larks that the American boys
indulged in when study hours were over. A frequent visitor there was
Cardinal Merry del Val, the most boyish-hearted of ecclesiastics; he
took the greatest interest in their baseball contests, which he used to
watch closely to learn the rules of the game.
The Cardinal’s father was the Spanish ambassador to the Pope for many
years, and the Countess was a friend of my own dear mother, who admired
her enthusiastically. She was a highly cultivated and most holy woman,
combining all the dignity of the old-time great lady with the gentle
urbanity of a Religious; indeed, when she and her young daughters
entered a room they seemed to bring with them that ineffable convent
fragrance, sweet as the message of hidden violets, which one scarcely
looks to meet in the outside world. Their home was in the Spanish
palace, from which the Piazza di Spagna takes its name, standing just
opposite the splendid sweep of the “Spanish Steps,” which mount in
broad gradations to their crown, the towering Church of the Trinità dei
Monti.
But I was talking of a warm spring morning, and that ascent should be
made in the cooler hours. It is pleasanter just now to linger under
some awning near the end of the Corso, and, looking down across the
sun-smitten expanse of the Piazza del Popolo to the gate of that name,
to muse on the processions which have passed through that northern
portal of the city. There is one picture that returns oftener than
others to my mind when I look at it, the picture of Theodosius,
the great Emperor, entering the city in state, with his little son,
Honorius, on his knee, and his co-emperor, the younger Valentinian, by
his side. Rome, like some aged and neglected parent, was seldom visited
by her Emperors in those days; their headquarters were fixed where
great events were stirring—in Constantinople, in Ravenna, in Milan, or
Treves. So the 13th of June, 309 A.D., marked an event long remembered
by the Romans, the hour when they looked upon their rulers’ faces
for the first time. There was but one real ruler just then, however;
his younger colleague and his little son were merely being trained to
take their places when he should be no more. The cheering crowds were
carried away by the sight of the princely child, as crowds always are,
but some of the more thoughtful must have gazed—not too confidently—on
the face of Theodosius, the strong, dark, capable Spaniard, so just and
merciful in his calm moments, so violent in his angry ones that only
his beloved adopted daughter, Serena, dared approach him then. And,
whether calm or angry, there was one memory that seems never to have
left him, the memory of his brave, loyal soldier father, ignominiously
put to death by the Roman Emperor whom he had faithfully served—on a
charge so futile that it was not even mentioned in the order for his
execution.
Yet, remembering, he forgave, and did all in his power to protect and
help the Romans. His son grew up, alas! a mere shadow of a man, too
weak and indolent even to be wicked, his short life a strange contrast
to another, cut off in the flush of youth the year before he was born.
Even with a son of his own to follow him, we know Theodosius never
ceased to mourn the untimely death of Gratian, “the graceful,” “the
gracious,” “the gratitude inspiring,” as the orator Themistius calls
him.
We have indeed one beautiful picture of Honorius, when still but a
youth he entered Rome again, and again heard the Roman shouts as he
passed on to the Palatine, standing in his gilded chariot, the sun
resting on his dark head and playing radiantly on the great necklaces
of emeralds that rose and fell in response to the joyful beatings of a
heart still very young, still responsive at times to noble impulses,
the people cheering him madly, and the women weeping for joy at the
sight of his beauty. After that, all is darkness; his intellect, such
as it was, was devoted to the most futile of pursuits—the raising of
prize poultry! It was but a few years later that, on being told that
“Rome had perished,” he cried out in dismay, “What, my beautiful fowl?”
And on being told that it was the Mother of cities, the Heart of the
Empire, which had succumbed to Alaric, the Goth invader, he gave a sigh
of relief, exclaiming, “I thought you meant my bird was dead!”
Far different was the character of the other boy-Emperor, Gratian, the
son of Valentinian.
There is something wonderfully appealing as well as pathetic in the
story of this pure and high-hearted youth into whose twenty-five years
of life there entered every element of the fierce mental and material
conflicts that convulsed the world in the fourth century of our era,
the century when Imperial children were used as shields and standards
for the conflicting parties and were called upon to exercise the powers
of government almost before they had learnt to read. Valentinian, bent,
like those before and after him, on converting an elective sovereignty
into an hereditary one, resolved on taking his son into partnership on
the throne while Gratian was, by most accounts, only eight years old.
As usual, the question would be decided by the army, or that portion of
it nearest at hand, and Valentinian, having insinuated the idea into
his soldiers’ minds, found that they were not averse to it. Any such
proceeding was sure to be welcome to them, since it was certain to be
accompanied by the large donatives of money for the sake of which the
Purple was so constantly changing wearers in those times.
Valentinian was at Amiens, and the troops, having been called together
in the plain before the city, he presented the boy to them in a
harangue full of spirit, reminding them that Gratian, from his birth,
had played with their children, grown up with their own sons, and
promising that he should be a worthy leader of such noble company. The
bright, fearless child stood up beside his father on the tribunal,
and the soldiers, forgetting ulterior motives, hailed him with real
enthusiasm, shouting, “Gratiane Auguste! Gratiane Auguste!” with all
their heart. There was a great burst of trumpets and clash of arms,
and then Valentinian spoke to the boy, so that all could hear him.
It is a fine speech, the speech of a soldier, and short, as soldiers’
speeches should be: “Thou hast now, my Gratian, by my decision and that
of my brave comrades, been invested with the Imperial robes. Begin to
strengthen thy soul to bear their weight. Prepare to cross the Danube
and the Rhine, to stand firm in battle with these thy warrior friends,
to shed thy blood and give up thy life itself for the defence of thy
subjects, to think nothing too great or too little by which thou canst
preserve the safety of the Empire. This is all I will say to thee
now, but the rest shall be told thee when thou art mature enough to
comprehend it.” Then, turning to the troops, he ended by saying: “To
you, my brave soldiers, I commit the boy—with the prayer that your love
may guard him, your arms defend him, all his life!”
Valentinian’s next care was to provide Gratian with wise tutors, and
surely few youths were ever more favoured in that respect. The tie
between him and St. Ambrose was as strong and tender a one as history
has ever presented to our admiration. Gratian, in every circumstance
of his short and stormy life, turns to the great Bishop for support
and counsel. Ambrose never seems to have the young ruler out of his
thoughts; the Saint’s outburst of sorrow at his death is the cry of
a broken heart. It all forms a chapter of most unusual beauty in the
story of mankind.
Hardly less attractive is Gratian’s affection for his other tutor,
Ausonius, whom, even in the urgency of affairs and the stress of
war, he never forgets, taking time to send him a letter or a gift,
remembering even the poet’s harmless weaknesses, and making a
long journey so as to assist in person at the investiture with the
Consulship, which Gratian had bestowed upon him, thus crowning the
highest ambition of the good man’s heart. Yet, what a contrast the two
teachers present! Ambrose, the “golden-mouthed” indeed, but inflexible,
the unconquerable fighter for the independence of the Church, the
judge of his Emperor Theodosius, whom he punishes—during eight long
months—for the Thessalonian massacre, by forbidding him to enter the
sanctuary till he has repented of his cruelty publicly in dust and
ashes before its threshold—and Ausonius, the “tranquil and indulgent
man, mild of voice and eye,” rejoicing in the beauties of his lovely
home by the Moselle, bringing the exquisite freshness of a summer
morning before us as few others have done, his sincere Christianity
all warmed and illumined by his born kinship with Nature and his
gratitude to the Creator; yet so human in his fluttering delight at
Gratian’s favours, his innocent triumph when the young Emperor not only
associates him with himself in the Consulship, but sends him the very
purple robe embroidered with palm branches which the great Constantine
had worn on the same occasion.
It is difficult to understand how the grandson of “Gratian the
rope-maker”—that rough country lad who wandered into the Roman camp
at Cibalæ in Pannonia to sell his wares, and so pleased the soldiers
by his strength and audacity that they kept him with them—should have
come to be the very model and ideal of a gentle knight, both in heart
and person. He seems far more nearly allied to the noble Constantine,
of whom he speaks indeed as a parent, but only on the ground of
having married his granddaughter Constantia. It was an age when the
unending ramifications of the various Imperial families furnished more
occupants for thrones than there were thrones to occupy, and in which a
successful claimant could almost always find a royal bride with whose
name to strengthen his own hold on power. Add to this multiplicity of
true heirs the numberless usurpers who struck but for themselves, or
those whom the different Legions raised to the purple for their own
ends (“barrack Emperors” as our own great historian, Thomas Hodgkin,
called them), and you have such a bewildering crowd of Emperors and
sham Emperors, of usurpers and rival usurpers, that one can scarcely
remember their names, and their histories only awake a passing thrill
of pity for the violent ends to which most of them came.
One of the usurpers indeed (Magnentius by name) left an important, if
disturbing, legacy to the world in the person of his widow Justina,
a beautiful but not over-wise Sicilian woman whom his conqueror,
Valentinian, already the father of Gratian, took to wife. The story
of her triumphs and misfortunes, of the obstinate championship of the
Arian heresy which brought her into such a series of battles with St.
Ambrose, would fill volumes, and one gathers that she was a great thorn
in the side of her stepson Gratian, who, while obliged to restrain her
as far as possible, nevertheless treated her with unvarying kindness
and deference. One of the most touching incidents in the life of the
boy Emperor is the fear and depression expressed in the letter in
which he beseeches St. Ambrose to send him some good book from which
he can draw faith and courage in the struggle lying before him, the
subjugation of the Goths, who had rebelled against his Arian uncle,
Valens, still the reigning Emperor in the East. St. Ambrose responds
by writing and sending his treatise “Of Faith,” and from that time
forth it is said that Gratian carried the little book about with him,
studying it even in his chariot when on his travels.
These were never-ending, his vigilance driving him hither and thither,
to settle disputes, subdue rebellions, to pacify his still barbarous
allies or correct the misdemeanours of iniquitous governors of
provinces. His actual reign only lasted seven or eight years, but very
little even of that time can have been passed at the nominal seat of
government, Augusta Treverorum, the modern Treves, at that time the
finest and best fortified city in the Empire, and showing, even now,
magnificent blocks of fortress long put to base uses, but in these days
restored to the original ones by the energetic militarism of Prussia.
If Gratian was fortunate in having the holy Ambrose and the wise
Ausonius to instruct him in the Faith and in the humanities, he was
hardly less so in the military adviser who taught him the arts of war.
The old Frankish general, Merobaudes, is one of the people I always
feel I should have liked to know. He was as loyal as he was valiant and
experienced, and the young Emperor reposed implicit and well-merited
trust in him. But even his craft and courage could not save Gratian
from falling a victim to treachery at last.
In spite of his elevated and attractive character, his prudence, his
zeal, his clemency, there were two parties in the Empire of whom one
remained and the other became irreconcilable to Gratian’s policy. The
first, though not the most powerful, consisted of the large number of
Senators and nobles in Rome who adhered to the old pagan worship with
the tenacity of despair. It had never been proscribed, but its outward
ceremonies were discouraged when they were not actually forbidden;
idols had been removed from the public places where it was customary to
burn incense before them, and in some instances revenues pertaining to
the discredited faith had been diverted to other uses. The partisans of
paganism, counting on Gratian’s youth and inexperience, made repeated
efforts to obtain from him some official recognition of the ancient
religion, particularly in the matter of replacing the Altar of Victory,
which Constantius, a zealous though Arian Christian, had removed from
the Senate hall in the Capitol where it had stood for four hundred
years. They also attempted to persuade him to take on the state and
robes of “Pontifex Maximus,” the head and high priest of the cult of
the Olympian deities. Some of Gratian’s immediate predecessors had been
either indulgent or indifferent about such matters, and had now and
then yielded a point to the old traditions, but the young and ardent
Gratian looked upon these weaknesses with horror and met such demands
with stern and uncompromising denial. When the hierophants who had
besought him to assume the robe of the chief of their order withdrew,
in sullen mortification, from the audience, their leader uttered
a prediction which proved to be a threat: “The Emperor may refuse
this honour, but in spite of him there will soon be another Pontifex
Maximus.” This was later construed into a prophecy, pointing to the
usurper Maximus who, for the sorrow of the Empire, snatched the purple
and held it for a while after Gratian’s death.
This Maximus, a Spaniard of low extraction, was both the mouthpiece
and the tool of the other and far more powerful party in the Empire
which had some show of reason for being discontented with Gratian’s
rule, the Roman Legionaries whose jealousy was aroused by his frank
preference for his Gothic and Teutonic fighting men. The preference
was fully justified; the “Barbarians,” as the Romans still affected to
call them, were brave, clean-living loyal soldiers, great fair-haired
fellows rejoicing in feats of strength and in the display of rich
ornaments on their handsome persons; they were far more sympathetic
to Gratian than the decadent Romans, many of whom, as Hodgkin points
out, were themselves the effeminate descendants of quite recently
Romanised aliens. The parvenu is always the most zealous defender of
the privileges of the class to which he has been undeservedly promoted;
they made no secret of their discontent when the Emperor chose some
big, genial Alani for his bodyguard and for many positions of honour
and sent a couple of Roman Legions to improve their health and mend
their ways in the sad isle of Britain.
It is amusing to read the wailing complaints of the exiled sybarites,
condemned to what they considered a kind of convict station and quite
the most miserable spot in the world. What, they, the flower of the
aristocracy and the army, were to pass their precious time in dreary
solitudes where the sun never shone, where grapes did not grow, and
where the pay of an officer did not permit him even a decent glass
of wine? Live under grey skies, on a soggy island cut off from the
real world by most uncomfortably rough seas (the Latin is a wretched
sailor to this day), where there was no music, no fun, and scarcely any
pretty women—and, for their sole occupation, to have to keep the savage
inhabitants from exterminating one another? No, it was not to be borne!
And, after the usual time had passed in ever more angry grumbling, the
Legions revolted, deposed the absent and unconscious Gratian, and named
Maximus Emperor in his stead.
Had the garrison of Great Britain alone been in question, we
should most likely never have heard of their mutiny, but that was
unfortunately not the case. The jealousy and discontent in Gaul and
other portions of the realm had spread and smouldered till but a single
touch was needed to make it burst out in a blaze. That was applied
by Maximus, who now, with a large body of troops, abandoned Britain
and appeared in Gaul at the mouth of the Rhine. Gratian, who had been
subduing some hostile tribes, hastened back to his camp to find that
a large proportion of his men had deserted him to join his rival. He
could still count, however, on sufficient numbers to give him hopes
of success, and one is glad to read that the good veteran Merobaudes
was with him and that another brave captain, one Vallio, clung to him
loyally in this great emergency. They found Maximus encamped near
Paris, but all their efforts failed to draw him to do battle. The
crafty adventurer kept the commanders busy with feints of attack and
cleverly planned skirmishes, and utilised the time thus gained to draw
the Emperor’s men to desert, by lavish bribes and promises. At the
end of a few days Gratian, who had no money wherewith to buy fidelity,
found himself forsaken by all but his two old friends and some three
hundred horsemen, and, in bitter humiliation and anger, turned to flee,
hoping to reach Milan, the first point where he would have been able
to pause in safety. The journey was a terrible one; the news of his
disaster travelled faster than he did, every door was closed to him,
and he could scarcely procure food enough to sustain life. Meanwhile
the pursuers, led by one Andragathius, his bitterest enemy, raced at
his heels, and every day that passed diminished his chances of escape.
But the faith and courage of which he had given so many proofs before
did not leave him now. A hunted fugitive, forsaken and starving, he
never wavered or repined. “My soul waiteth upon God,” he said. “My foes
can slay my body, but they cannot quench the life of my soul.”
He was taken by treachery at last. As he drew near the city of Lyons,
he perceived, on the opposite bank of the Rhone, a litter hurrying
along escorted only by a few servants. Some one told him that the
traveller was Læta, the beautiful girl he had just married, Constantia
having died some little time before. He insisted on crossing the
river—rushed to the litter—and was instantly caught in the arms of
Andragathius, triumphant at the success of the snare he had prepared.
Gratian was conducted, with some show of respect, to Lyons, where,
with every appearance of sincere deference, he was invited to wear the
Imperial Purple and to take his place at a magnificent banquet. He
was not wholly deceived by these specious attentions, and asked his
entertainers to give their oath that no harm was intended. This they
did, most solemnly; Gratian, incapable of believing in their deliberate
perjury, consented to their request, and a few moments later fell,
stabbed to the heart, calling on Ambrose with his last breath.
The great Bishop had suffered agonies of suspense about his beloved
pupil from the moment he had received the news of his discomfiture. He
followed him in spirit on his flight, saw in mind all his suffering and
danger, and was utterly broken-hearted when he learnt of his cruel and
untimely death at the hands of the usurper Maximus. But the bitterest
moment in the Saint’s whole life must have come, when, a little later,
Justina, wild with anxiety as to the fate meditated for her own young
son Valentinian (he had been associated with Gratian as Emperor,
dethroned by Maximus, and was now twelve years old), twice prevailed
upon him to travel to Treves and intercede with the murderer for the
boy’s life and for peace. The studied insults inflicted upon Ambrose
by Maximus on that occasion were hard to bear, but we have it from his
own lips that the internal trial of holding intercourse with the slayer
of his beloved pupil was a furnace of tribulation, which at times
threatened to overcome every consideration of policy and necessity,
and for which the partial success of his missions in no way consoled
him. For Maximus, after being foiled in his attempts to get possession
of the person of Valentinian, decided that he had gone far enough in
extermination and, being firmly seated on the throne, consented to
let the boy appear to share it with him for a time. Of Gratian’s two
friends, Merobaudes and Vallio—the former, seeing a disgraceful death
awaiting him, took his own life; the latter, apparently by the orders
of Maximus, was privately hanged, and it was given out that he had
killed himself in this cowardly manner because he—the staunch fighting
man—was afraid of cold steel! The incident reminds one of the recent
murder of the French Freemason, who, on his conversion to Christianity,
became the victim of a similar fate and a similar calumny, inflicted by
former associates. Even the Devil makes very stupid mistakes sometimes.
The walk down the Corso has indeed taken us a long way from our
starting-point, the Church of Sta. Maria in Via Lata, where over the
now subterranean chapel in which the Doctor of the Gentiles dictated to
St. Luke the Acts of the Apostles, the prelates called the “Auditors
of the Rota” with the “Master of the Sacred Palace” (the Vatican)
celebrated the fourth day of the Octave of the Feast of the Apostles.
On the fifth day, in pursuance of the design by which each department
of the hierarchy should in its turn honour the Princes of the Faith,
the Pope said Mass at the Church of St. Peter of the Chains, assisted
by the ecclesiastical body known as the Clerks of the Chamber. “San
Pietro in Vincoli” stands on a rather lonely part of the Esquiline, the
highest of the Seven Hills. The great poet of the Tenth Century, Adam
of St. Victor, the author of some of our most beautiful hymns, compares
the Apostles to the Hills, because the rising sun strikes them first
and then reaches the regions below. On the spot where now stands the
Church of St. Peter’s Chains there was originally, according to the
most ancient authorities, St. Jerome, the Venerable Bede, and others,
a sanctuary dedicated by St. Peter himself on the first of August, in
order to consecrate to God the month which the Romans had named after
Augustus Cæsar, and which they devoted to his worship. Of the precious
chains with which the sanctuary was destined to be enriched, those
which had fallen from St. Peter’s limbs in Herod’s prison were still
treasured by the Christians in Jerusalem; the others, in which he was
to be led out to martyrdom, were perhaps not yet forged, for he was
still a free man when he came to consecrate the Church on the Hill that
looks to the east, and to fix August the first as a day of special
reparation to the Almighty for the idolatry which that month saw the
Romans lavish on a dead mortal.
St. Peter’s chapel was still standing and attracted many pilgrims
when, some four hundred years after its erection, it was enclosed
and incorporated in the large Church we now know, called, from her
who built it, the Eudoxian Basilica. The name brings before us two
Christian Empresses, a mother and daughter, the elder the wife of
Theodosius II, Emperor of the East; the younger married to Valentinian
III, Emperor of the West. The elder Eudoxia[13] had made a vow to go
on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and when she visited the Holy City, the
faithful there presented to her the Chains of St. Peter, which she
received with transports of gratitude, holding them more precious than
the rarest jewels. Then, having venerated them with great devotion,
she sent them as a gift to her beloved daughter Eudoxia, the wife of
the Emperor of the West. The young Empress was in Rome at the time,
and she at once took the chains to the Pontiff, St. Leo the Great, and
he, to her joy and surprise, told her that in return for her piety he
would show her the Chains with which St. Peter had been loaded in Rome.
Apparently the Empress did not know that they had been preserved and
venerated there ever since the beginning of the Second Century. It was
some forty years after the martyrdom of St. Peter that the reigning
Pope, St. Alexander, was made a captive, and placed under the charge
of the Tribune Quirinus, the governor of the Roman prisons. Quirinus
had a young daughter named Balbina, who was miraculously cured of a
great sickness by touching the chains of St. Alexander. As she knelt
in the transports of her joy, she could not cease from kissing and
weeping over the blessed chains, and Alexander said to her: “Kiss not
my chains, but rather go and find those of the Blessed Peter and kiss
them!”
Balbina hastened to obey. The chains with which Nero bound St. Peter
had been devoutly preserved by the Christians, and she had no trouble
in finding them. With the Pope’s consent she gave them into the keeping
of Theodora, the sister of St. Hermes, the Roman magistrate who had
been martyred under Trajan a few years earlier. Theodora seems to have
deposited them in St. Peter’s own little Church on the Esquiline, and
we can infer that it was there that the wonderful scene described in
the Roman Breviary took place more than four hundred years later. How
one wishes one could have seen the fair young Empress in her straight
Byzantine robe, stiff with gold and gleaming with jewels, kneeling with
clasped hands, her eyes wide with wonder, in the half light of the
old chapel, while St. Leo, not too absorbed in devotion to be keenly
interested in his examination, as he was in everything that seemed
worthy of attention at all—stood where the sun rays fell through one
dim window, and, the chain from Jerusalem in one hand and the Roman one
in the other, held them close together to compare and judge of them.
As he did so, they touched—and then the marvel happened. Link sprang to
meet link, ring welded into ring, and while the Pontiff gazed mute and
awestruck, that which he held had become one chain without scar or flaw
to show the point of union—the Chain still guarded, still venerated on
the very spot where the portent occurred.
Eudoxia built a noble Church as a shrine for the relic; this Church was
restored and added to as the ages passed on, and exactly one thousand
years after Eudoxia’s time, in 1477, Sixtus IV and his nephew, Giuliano
della Rovere, caused a splendid casket with bronze doors to be made and
placed under the High Altar to receive St. Peter’s Chains. There they
now lie, and on the 1st of August, every year, there is high festival
in San Pietro in Vincoli; the walls are hung from top to bottom with
crimson brocade, the pavement is strewn all the way from the door
to the High Altar with freshly gathered box sprigs, and their fresh,
clean fragrance mingles with the perfume of incense and the peculiar
sweetness that pure wax candles give out when lighted in great numbers
close together. There is High Mass with solemn music and the celebrant
and his assistant wear their richest vestments. The Church is crowded
with worshippers and wreathed in flowers, and when the two Chains which
became one in the hands of St. Leo are shown to the faithful, the sight
seems to bridge the centuries for us, and fills our hearts with love
and gratitude to God for giving us our first great Pastor, who bore
them so rejoicingly for his and our Master’s sake.
On the sixth day of the Octave the Pontiff said Mass in the Mamertine
Prison, where the two Apostles passed the last days of their life on
earth—the “Voters of the Chamber” assisting at the function. On the
seventh, the chosen sanctuary was that of S. Pietro in Montorio, the
spot on the Janiculum Hill where St. Peter suffered martyrdom. Its
terrace porch, high on the side of the slope, is the one spot I know
of from which all Rome can be seen, spread out like a mantle of jewels
on either side of its yellow river and raising its classic hills in a
wide semicircle against the shifting red and gold of the Campagna, the
blue of the serrated Sabines to the east and the soft green outlines of
the Alban Mountains to the south. The vast perfection of the scene is
almost more than sight can suffer; the beauty becomes a menace in some
strange way; it is as if man had challenged the Creator to a contest of
production. Exquisite as is the distant landscape, more lovely still is
that huge city with its hundred domes tossed up like opals to the sun,
its proud honey-coloured palaces raising tier after tier of fretted
marble in noble and perfect outlines, its mediæval towers, windowless,
huge, indestructible memorials of long past strife and carnage,
standing like half-drowned breakwaters frowning on the tide of ever
growing life and splendour that they have been powerless to arrest; the
Coliseum crouches like a sulky monster at the foot of the Esquiline,
whence St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran look down on it as the
angels might look down on the dead; wherever a convent or villa lies
along a ridge, the slender spires of cypresses mark the line, answering
to every kiss of the breeze, though the dark velvet of their foliage
refuses a single gleam to the sun; add to this the rush and sparkle
of Rome’s innumerable fountains, and you have a vision so matchless in
beauty and so supreme in associations that it inspires an awe too great
for delight.
Yet, splendid as it appears to us, how much more splendid must it have
shone, externally, when St. Peter’s dying eyes looked their last on the
“Golden City” of Nero, teeming with its two millions of inhabitants;
and St. Peter saw what our eyes are too dim to see, the victorious army
of his martyred children already crowned in Heaven, the vast field
which they had bedewed with their blood to nourish the seed of the
Church—the miles of hidden sepulchres whence their bodies are to rise
triumphant at the Last Day; and the tears we are told he shed ere he
died were surely tears of joy for the glory that was to be Rome’s.
In the courtyard of the monastery attached to the Church of San Pietro
in Montorio, the exact spot where his inverted cross was erected is
enclosed in a lovely circular chapel surrounded by granite columns,
the work of the great Bramante. The hole where the cross stood has
never been filled up, but is left open to view, and, if you are one
of the faithful, the good monk who shows it will give you a few grains
of that consecrated soil to take home with you. The Church itself was
built by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and Michelangelo took great
interest in it, going to the length of quarrelling bitterly with his
friend Vasari about the design for the chapel which they had jointly
undertaken to put in for the reigning Pope, Julius III. He desired to
have there a fitting sepulchre and memorial for his Cardinal-uncle,
Antonio dei Monti, through whom the obscure Tuscan family had risen
to power and prominence. The sculptor, seeing with his mind’s eye
the statues he intended to place there, vowed that there should be no
architectural ornamentation to detract from their effect; Vasari looked
upon the statues as mere details of the ornamentation of the whole. So
they quarrelled, both about the subordinates chosen by Vasari to carry
out the work and about the work itself. Michelangelo won his point, the
chapel was left austerely bare; the statues looked cold and lonely in
it; and Michelangelo, who would have died rather than subscribe to an
artistic falsehood, admitted his error and acknowledged that Vasari had
been right.
He left some fine traces of his genius in the paintings now in other
chapels of the Church; he supplied Sebastian del Piombo with the design
for the “Scourging of Christ,” and Vasari tells us a quaint story
about another picture there. It seems that the famous Cardinal San
Giorgio had a barber who, in his leisure hours, had learnt to handle
the brush and had become a fine artist in tempera, but who could not
draw a single correct line. Michelangelo discovered him, encouraged him
to persevere, and, wishing to give him a chance, made a very careful
cartoon of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata, and told the barber
to copy and carry it out in colour. This the humble painter did, very
successfully, and his name, Giovanni dei Vecchi, has come down to us,
with those of the approved artists of his day.
The incident leaves us with a delightful impression of the
great-hearted genius, so patiently and kindly helping on an obscure
disciple, and lends much interest to the painting which stands as a
memorial of his condescension. There is another souvenir of him in
Rome, which calls up a picture equally attractive—that of his wandering
into the Farnesina one fine morning to have a chat with his young
friend, Raffaelle Sanzio of Urbino, who was employed in decorating
the sala of the exquisite little palace of the “Farnesina” with the
immortal story of Cupid and Psyche. But the place was deserted. Messer
Raffaelle had gone off to get his dinner, and Michelangelo could not
have any of the talk he enjoyed so much. Looking round for something
on which to write his name and let his friend know that he had tried to
see him, his eyes fell on Raffaelle’s palette and brushes, all charged
with colour. Michelangelo snatched them up, and, laughing in his beard
at the schoolboy joke he was perpetrating, mounted on a step-ladder and
dashed in a great strong head on one of the yet empty lunettes. It took
him just half an hour, and then he ran away, chuckling at the thought
of the young man’s surprise and perplexity when he should return and
see what some unknown visitor had done. But Messer Raffaelle was not
in the least perplexed. There was but one hand in the world that could
have drawn those bold, tempestuous lines. He refused to efface them,
and the head is there to this day, a tribute to Michelangelo’s humour
and Raphael’s reverence. They call it “Michelangelo’s visiting card.”