Roman or to mediæval times; its monuments belong to the days of
Honorius and Placidia, to the days of the Gothic kingdom, to the very
first days of the restored Imperial rule. To these, except one or two
of the churches of Rome, there is nothing in the West to answer. The
monuments of Trier are spread over a far wider space of time. They
stretch from the first days of Roman occupation to an advanced stage of
the Middle Ages. The mighty pile of the Black Gate, the _Porta Nigra_
or _Porta Martis_, a pile to which Ravenna, and Rome herself, can
supply no rival, is a work which it is hard to believe can belong to
any days but those when the city was the dwelling-place of Emperors.
Yet scholars are not lacking who argue that it really dates from the
early days of the Roman only, from a date earlier than that which
some other scholars assign to the first foundations of the colony,
from the days of Claudius. The amphitheatre is said to date from the
reign of Trajan. The basilica, so strangely changed into a Protestant
church by the late King of Prussia, can hardly fail to be the work of
Constantine. But, after all, the building at Trier which will most
reward careful study is the metropolitan church. At the first glimpse
it seems less unique than the Porta Nigra; its distinct outline is
massive and picturesque, but it is an outline with which every one
who has seen many of the great churches of Germany must be thoroughly
familiar. Or, if it has a special character of its own, it seems
to come from the blending of the four towers of the main buildings
with a fifth, the massive tower of the _Liebfrauenkirche_, which,
in the general view, none would fancy to be one of the most perfect
and graceful specimens of the early German Gothic of the Thirteenth
Century. It is only gradually that the unique character of the building
dawns on the inquirer. What at first sight seemed to be a church of
the type of Mainz, Worms, and Speyer, and inferior to them in lacking
the central tower or cupola, turns out to be something which has no
parallel north of the Alps, nor, we may add, south of them either.
It is a Roman building of the Sixth Century--none the less Roman for
being built under a Frankish king--preserving large portions of a yet
earlier building of the Fourth. The capitals of its mighty columns peep
out from amid the later work, and fragments of the pillars lie about
in the cloister and before the western door, as the like fragments do
in the Forum of Trajan. Repaired and enlarged in the Eleventh Century
in remarkably close imitation of the original design, the church has
gone through a series of additions and recastings, in order to change
it into the likeness of an ordinary mediæval German church. Had St.
Vital at Ravenna, had St. Sophia itself, stood where the _Dom_ of Trier
stands, the same misapplied labour would most likely have been bestowed
upon them. But, well pleased as we should have been to have had such a
building as this kept to us in its original form, there is no denying
that those who enjoy spelling out the changes which a great building
has gone through, comparing the statements of the local chroniclers
with the evidence of the building itself--a process which, like every
other process of discovery, is not without its charm--will find no
more attractive problem of the kind than is supplied by the venerable
minster of Trier.
_Historical and Architectural Sketches_ (London, 1876).
THE VATICAN.
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.
The hollow of the Janiculum between S. Onofrio and the Monte Mario is
believed to have been the site of Etruscan divination.
“Fauni vatesque canebant.”
_Ennius._
Hence the name, which is now only used in regard to the Papal palace
and the Basilica of S. Peter, but which was once applied to the whole
district between the foot of the hill and the Tiber near S. Angelo.
“... Ut paterni
Fluminis ripae, simul et jocosa
Redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
Montis imago.”
_Horace_, Od. i. 20.
Tacitus speaks of the unwholesome air of this quarter. In this district
was the Circus of Caligula, adjoining the gardens of his mother
Agrippina, decorated by the obelisk which now stands in the front of S.
Peter’s, near which many believe that S. Peter suffered martyrdom.[13]
Here Seneca describes that while Caligula was walking by torchlight
he amused himself by the slaughter of a number of distinguished
persons--senators and Roman ladies. Afterwards it became the Circus of
Nero, who from his adjoining gardens used to watch the martyrdom of the
Christians[14]--mentioned by Suetonius as “a race given up to a new
and evil superstition”--and who used their living bodies, covered with
pitch and set on fire, as torches for his nocturnal promenades.
[Illustration: THE VATICAN.]
The first residence of the Popes at the Vatican was erected by S.
Symmachus (A. D. 498–514) near the forecourt of the old S. Peter’s,
and here Charlemagne is believed to have resided on the occasion of
his several visits to Rome during the reigns of Adrian I. (772–795)
and Leo III. (795–816). During the Twelfth Century this ancient
palace having fallen into decay, it was rebuilt in the Thirteenth by
Innocent III. It was greatly enlarged by Nicholas III. (1277–81);
but the Lateran continued to be the Papal residence, and the Vatican
palace was only used on state occasions, and for the reception of
any foreign sovereigns visiting Rome. After the return of the Popes
from Avignon, the Lateran palace had fallen into decay, and, for the
sake of the greater security afforded by the vicinity of S. Angelo,
it was determined to make the Pontifical residence at the Vatican,
and the first Conclave was held there in 1378. In order to increase
its security, John XXIII. constructed the covered passage to S.
Angelo in 1410. Nicholas V. (1447–55) had the idea of making it the
most magnificent palace in the world, and of uniting in it all the
government offices and dwellings of the cardinals. He wished to make
it for Christendom that which the Milliarium Aureum in the Forum was to
the Roman Empire, the centre whence all the messengers of the spiritual
empire should go forth, bearing words of life, truth, and peace.[15]
Unfortunately Nicholas died before he could carry out his designs. The
building which he commenced was finished by Alexander VI., and still
exists under the name of Tor di Borgia. In the reign of this Pope,
his son Cesare murdered Alphonso, Duke of Bisceglia, husband of his
sister Lucrezia, in the Vatican (August 18, 1500). To Paul II. was due
the Court of S. Damasus. In 1473 Sixtus IV. built the Sixtine Chapel,
and in 1490 “the Belvedere” was erected as a separate garden-house by
Innocent VIII. from designs of Antonio da Pollajuolo. Julius II., with
the aid of Bramante, united this villa to the palace by means of one
vast courtyard, and erected the Loggie around the court of S. Damasus;
he also laid the foundation of the Vatican Museum in the gardens of
the Belvedere. The Loggie were completed by Leo X.; the Sala Regia and
the Paoline Chapel were built by Paul III. Sixtus V. divided the great
court of Bramante into two by the erection of the library, and began
the present residence of the Popes, which was finished by Clement VIII.
(1592–1605). Urban VIII. built the Scala Regia; Clement XIV. and Pius
VI., the Museo Pio-Clementino (for which the latter pulled down the
chapel of Innocent VIII., full of precious frescoes by Mantegna); Pius
VII., the Braccio Nuovo; Leo XII., the picture-gallery; Gregory XVI.,
the Etruscan Museum, and Pius IX., the handsome staircase leading to
the court of Bramante.
The length of the Vatican Palace is 1151 English feet; its breadth,
767. It has eight grand staircases, twenty courts, and is said to
contain 11,000 chambers of different sizes.
The principal entrance to the Vatican is at the end of the right
colonnade of S. Peter’s. Hence a door on the right opens upon the
staircase leading to the Cortile di S. Damaso, and is the nearest way
to all the collections, and the one by which visitors were admitted
until the fall of the Papal government. The fountain of the Cortile,
designed by Algardi in 1649, is fed by the Acqua Damasiana, due to Pope
Damasus in the Fourth Century.
Following the great corridor, and passing on the left the entrance to
the portico of S. Peter’s, we reach the Scala Regia, a magnificent work
of Bernini, watched by the picturesque Swiss guard of the Pope. Hence
we enter the Sala Regia, built in the reign of Paul III. by Antonio
di Sangallo, and used as a hall of audience for ambassadors. It is
decorated with frescoes illustrative of the history of the Popes.
On the right is the entrance of the Paoline Chapel (Cappella Paolina),
also built (1540) by Antonio di Sangallo for Paul III. Its decorations
are chiefly the work of Sabbatini and F. Zucchero, but it contains two
frescoes by Michelangelo.
On the left of the approach from the Scala Regia is the Sixtine Chapel
(Cappella Sistina), built by Baccio Pintelli in 1473 for Sixtus IV.
The lower part of the walls of this wonderful chapel was formerly
hung on festivals with the tapestries executed from the cartoons of
Raffaelle; the upper portion is decorated in fresco by the great
Florentine masters of the Fifteenth Century....
On the pillars between the windows are the figures of twenty-eight
Popes, by Sandro Botticelli....
The avenue of pictures is a preparation for the surpassing grandeur of
the ceiling.
The pictures from the Old Testament, beginning from the altar, are:--1.
The Separation of Light and Darkness; 2. The Creation of the Sun and
Moon; 3. The Creation of Trees and Plants; 4. The Creation of Adam; 5.
The Creation of Eve; 6. The Fall and the Expulsion from Paradise; 7.
The Sacrifice of Noah; 8. The Deluge; 9. The Intoxication of Noah.
The lower portion of the ceiling is divided into triangles occupied by
the Prophets and Sibyls in solemn contemplation, accompanied by angels
and genii. Beginning from the left of the entrance, their order is--1.
Joel; 2. Sibylla Erythraea; 3. Ezekiel; 4. Sibylla Persica; 5. Jonah;
6. Sibylla Libyca; 7. Daniel; 8. Sibylla Cumaea; 9. Isaiah; 10. Sibylla
Delphica.
In the recesses between the Prophets and Sibyls are a series of lovely
family groups representing the Genealogy of the Virgin, and expressive
of calm expectation of the future. The four corners of the ceiling
contain groups illustrative of the power of the Lord displayed in the
especial deliverance of His chosen people.
Only 3000 ducats were paid to Michelangelo for all his great work on
the ceiling of the Sixtine; less than a common decorator obtains in the
Nineteenth Century.
It was when Michelangelo was already in his sixtieth year that Clement
VII. formed the idea of effacing the three pictures of Perugino at the
end of the chapel, and employing him to paint the vast fresco of _The
Last Judgment_ in their place. It occupied the artist for seven years,
and was finished in 1541, when Paul III. was on the throne. During this
time Michelangelo frequently read and re-read the wonderful sermons
of Savonarola, to refresh his mind, and that he might drink in the
inspiration of their own religious awe and Dantesque imagination....
The small portion of the Vatican inhabited by the Pope is never seen
except by those who are admitted to a special audience. The three rooms
occupied by the pontiff are furnished with a simplicity which would be
inconceivable in the abode of any other sovereign prince. The furniture
is confined to the merest necessaries of life; strange contrast to
Lambeth and Fulham! The apartment consists of the bare Green Saloon;
the Red Saloon, containing a throne flanked by benches; and the
bedroom, with yellow draperies, a large writing table, and a few
pictures by old masters. The Papal life is a lonely one, as the dread
of an accusation of nepotism has prevented any of the later Popes from
having any of their family with them, and etiquette always obliges them
to dine, etc., alone. Pius IX. seldom saw his family, but Leo XIII. is
often visited twice a day by his relations--“La Sainte Famille,” as
they are generally called.
No one, whatever the difference of creed, can look upon this building,
inhabited by the venerable men who have borne so important a part
in the history of Christianity and of Europe, without the deepest
interest....
The windows of the Egyptian Museum look upon the inner _Garden of the
Vatican_, which may be reached by a door at the end of the long gallery
of the Museo Chiaramonti, before ascending to the Torso. The garden
which is thus entered, called _Giardino della Pigna_, is in fact merely
the second great quadrangle of the Vatican, planted, under Pius IX.,
with shrubs and flowers, now a desolate wilderness--its lovely garden
having been destroyed by the present Vatican authorities to make way
for a monumental column to the Council of 1870. Several interesting
relics are preserved here. In the centre is the _Pedestal of the Column
of Antoninus Pius_, found in 1709 on the Monte Citorio. The column was
a simple memorial pillar of granite, erected by the two adopted sons
of the Emperor, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. It was broken up to
mend the obelisk of Psammeticus I. at the Monte Citorio. Among the
reliefs of the pedestal is one of a winged genius guiding Antoninus and
Faustina to Olympus. The modern pillar and statue are erections of Leo
XIII. In front of the great semicircular niche of Bramante, at the end
of the court-garden, is the famous _Pigna_, a gigantic fir-cone, which
is said once to have crowned the summit of the Mausoleum of Hadrian.
Thence it was first removed to the front of the old basilica of S.
Peter’s, where it was used for a fountain. In the fresco of the old S.
Peter’s at S. Martino al Monte the pigna is introduced, but it is there
placed in the centre of the nave, a position it never occupied. It
bears the name of the bronze-founder who cast it--“P. Cincivs. P. L.
Calvivs. fecit.” Dante saw it at S. Peter’s, and compares it to a
giant’s head (it is eleven feet high) which he saw through the mist in
the last circle of hell.
“La faccia mi parea longa e grossa
Come la pina di S. Pietro in Roma.”
_Inf._ xxxi. 58.
On either side of the pigna are two lovely bronze peacocks, which
are said to have stood on either side of the entrance of Hadrian’s
Mausoleum.
A flight of steps leads from this court to the narrow _Terrace of the
Navicella_, in front of the palace, so called from a bronze ship with
which its fountain is decorated. The visitor should beware of the
tricksome waterworks upon this terrace.
Beyond the courtyard is the entrance to the larger garden, which may
be reached in a carriage by the courts at the back of S. Peter’s.
Admittance is difficult to obtain, as the garden is constantly used by
the Pope. Pius IX. used to ride here upon his white mule. It is a most
delightful retreat for the hot days of May and June, and before that
time its woods are carpeted with wild violets and anemones. No one who
has not visited them can form any idea of the beauty of these ancient
groves, interspersed with fountains and statues, but otherwise left to
nature, and forming a fragment of sylvan scenery quite unassociated
with the English idea of a garden....
The Sixteenth Century was the golden age for the Vatican. Then the
splendid court of Leo X. was the centre of artistic and literary life,
and the witty and pleasure-loving Pope made these gardens the scene
of his banquets and concerts; and, in a circle to which ladies were
admitted, as in a secular court, listened to the recitations of the
poets who sprang up under his protection, beneath the shadow of their
woods.
_Walks in Rome_ (13th ed., London, 1896).
THE CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS.
JOHN RUSKIN.
It is the admitted privilege of a custode who loves his cathedral
to depreciate, in its comparison, all the other cathedrals of his
country that resemble, and all the edifices on the globe that differ
from it. But I love too many cathedrals--though I have never had the
happiness of becoming the custode of even one--to permit myself the
easy and faithful exercise of the privilege in question; and I must
vindicate my candour and my judgment in the outset, by confessing
that the Cathedral of AMIENS has nothing to boast of in the way of
towers,--that its central _flèche_ is merely the pretty caprice of a
village carpenter,--that the total structure is in dignity inferior
to Chartres, in sublimity to Beauvais, and in decorative splendour
to Rheims, and in loveliness of figure sculpture to Bourges. It has
nothing like the artful pointing and moulding of the arcades of
Salisbury--nothing of the might of Durham; no Dædalian inlaying like
Florence, no glow of mythic fantasy like Verona. And yet, in all, and
more than these, ways, outshone or overpowered, the Cathedral of Amiens
deserves the name given it by M. Viollet le Duc--
“The Parthenon of Gothic Architecture.”...
Whatever you wish to see, or are forced to leave unseen at Amiens,
if the overwhelming responsibilities of your existence, and the
inevitable necessities of precipitate locomotion in their fulfilment,
have left you so much as one quarter of an hour, not out of breath--for
the contemplation of the capital of Picardy, give it wholly to the
cathedral choir. Aisles and porches, lancet windows and roses, you can
see elsewhere as well as here--but such carpenter’s work you cannot.
It is late,--fully developed flamboyant just past the Fifteenth
Century--and has some Flemish stolidity mixed with the playing French
fire of it; but wood-carving was the Picard’s joy from his youth up,
and, so far as I know, there is nothing else so beautiful cut out of
the goodly trees of the world.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF AMIENS.]
Sweet and young-grained wood it is: oak, _trained_ and chosen for such
work, sound now as four hundred years since. Under the carver’s hand
it seems to cut like clay, to fold like silk, to grow like living
branches, to leap like living flame. Canopy crowning canopy, pinnacle
piercing pinnacle--it shoots and wreathes itself into an enchanted
glade, inextricable, imperishable, fuller of leafage than any forest,
and fuller of story than any book.[16]
I have never been able to make up my mind which was really the best way
of approaching the cathedral for the first time....
I think the best is to walk from the Hôtel de France or the Place
de Perigord, up the street of Three Pebbles, towards the railway
station--stopping a little as you go, so as to get into a cheerful
temper, and buying some bon-bons or tarts for the children in one of
those charming _patissier’s_ shops on the left. Just past them, ask
for the theatre; and just past that, you will find, also on the left,
three open arches, through which you can turn passing the Palais de
Justice, and go straight up to the south transept, which has really
something about it to please everybody. It is simple and severe at the
bottom, and daintily traceried and pinnacled at the top, and yet seems
all of a piece--though it isn’t--and everybody _must_ like the taper
and transparent fret-work of the _flèche_ above, which seems to bend
in the west wind,--though it doesn’t--at least, the bending is a long
habit, gradually yielded into, with gaining grace and submissiveness,
during the last three hundred years. And coming quite up to the porch,
everybody must like the pretty French Madonna in the middle of it, with
her head a little aside, and her nimbus switched a little aside too,
like a becoming bonnet. A Madonna in decadence she is, though, for all,
or rather by reason of all, her prettiness and her gay soubrette’s
smile; and she has no business there, either, for this is Saint
Honoré’s porch, not her’s; and grim and grey Saint Honoré used to stand
there to receive you,--he is banished now to the north porch where
nobody ever goes in. This was done long ago in the Fourteenth Century
days when the people first began to find Christianity too serious, and
devised a merrier faith for France, and would have bright glancing
soubrette Madonnas everywhere, letting their own dark-eyed Joan of Arc
be burnt for a witch. And thenceforward things went their merry way,
straight on, _ça allait, ça ira_ to the merriest days of the guillotine.
But they could still carve in the Fourteenth Century and the Madonna
and her hawthorn-blossom lintel are worth your looking at,--much more
the field above, of sculpture as delicate and more calm, which tells
you Saint Honoré’s own story, little talked of now in his Parisian
faubourg....
A Gothic cathedral has, almost always, these five great entrances;
which may be easily, if at first attentively, recognized under the
titles of the Central door (or porch), the Northern door, the Southern
door, the North door, and the South door. But when we use the terms
right and left, we ought always to use them as in going _out_ of the
cathedral, or walking down the nave,--the entire north side and aisles
of the building being its right side, and the south its left,--these
terms being only used well and authoritatively, when they have
reference either to the image of Christ on the apse or on the rood, or
else to the central statue, whether of Christ, the Virgin, or a saint
in the west front. At Amiens, this central statue, on the “_trumeau_”
or supporting and dividing pillar of the central porch, is of Christ
Immanuel,--God _with_ us. On His right hand and His left, occupying
the entire walls of the central porch, are the apostles and the four
greater prophets. The twelve minor prophets stand side by side on the
front, three on each of its great piers.
The northern porch is dedicated to St. Firman, the first Christian
missionary to Amiens.
The southern porch to the Virgin.
But these are both treated as withdrawn behind the great foundation of
Christ and the Prophets; and their narrow recesses partly conceal their
sculpture until you enter them. What you have first to think of, and
read, is the scripture of the great central porch and the façade itself.
You have then in the centre of the front, the image of Christ Himself,
receiving you: “I am the Way, the truth and the life.” And the order
of the attendant powers may be best understood by thinking of them
as placed on Christ’s right and left hand: this being also the order
which the builder adopts in his Scripture history on the façade--so
that it is to be read from left to right--_i. e._ from Christ’s left
to Christ’s right, as _He_ sees it. Thus, therefore, following the
order of the great statues: first in the central porch, there are six
apostles on Christ’s right hand, and six on His left. On His left hand,
next Him, Peter; then in receding order, Andrew, James, John, Matthew,
Simon; on His right hand, next Him, Paul; and in receding order, James
the Bishop, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Jude. These opposite ranks
of the Apostles occupy what may be called the apse or curved bay of
the porch, and form a nearly semicircular group, clearly visible as we
approach But on the sides of the porch, outside the lines of apostles,
and not clearly seen till we enter the porch are the four greater
prophets. On Christ’s left, Isaiah and Jeremiah, on His right, Ezekiel
and Daniel.
Then in front, along the whole façade--read in order from Christ’s left
to His right--come the series of the twelve minor prophets, three to
each of the four piers of the temple, beginning at the south angle with
Hosea, and ending with Malachi.
As you look full at the façade in front, the statues which fill
the minor porches are either obscured in their narrower recesses
or withdrawn behind each other so as to be unseen. And the entire
mass of the front is seen, literally, as built on the foundation
of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief
corner-stone. Literally _that_; for the receding Porch is a deep
“angulus” and its mid-pillar is the “Head of the Corner.”
Built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, that is to say of
the Prophets who foretold _Christ_, and the Apostles who declared Him.
Though Moses was an Apostle of _God_, he is not here--though Elijah was
a Prophet of _God_, he is not here. The voice of the entire building
is that of the Heaven at the Transfiguration. “This is my beloved Son,
hear ye Him.”
There is yet another and a greater prophet still, who, as it seems at
first, is not here. Shall the people enter the gates of the temple,
singing “Hosanna to the Son of _David_;” and see no image of his
father, then?--Christ Himself declare, “I am the root and offspring of
David;” and yet the Root have no sign near it of its Earth?
Not so. David and his Son are together. David is the pedestal of the
Christ.
We will begin our examination of the Temple front, therefore with
this goodly pedestal stone. The statue of David is only two-thirds
life-size, occupying the niche in front of the pedestal. He holds his
sceptre in his right hand, the scroll in his left. King and Prophet,
type of all Divinely right doing, and right claiming, and right
proclaiming, kinghood forever.
The pedestal of which this statue forms the fronting or western
sculpture, is square, and on the two sides of it are two flowers in
vases, on its north side the lily, and on its south the rose. And the
entire monolith is one of the noblest pieces of Christian sculpture in
the world.