The splendid and tiresome ceremonies of Holy Week set in; also the rain,
which held up for two days. Rome without the sun, and with rain and the
bone-penetrating damp cold of the season, is a wretched place. Squalor
and ruins and cheap splendor need the sun; the galleries need it; the
black old masters in the dark corners of the gaudy churches need it; I
think scarcely anything of a cardinal's big, blazing footman, unless
the sun shines on him, and radiates from his broad back and his splendid
calves; the models, who get up in theatrical costumes, and get put into
pictures, and pass the world over for Roman peasants (and beautiful many
of them are), can't sit on the Spanish Stairs in indolent pose when it
rains; the streets are slimy and horrible; the carriages try to run
over you, and stand a very good chance of succeeding, where there are
no sidewalks, and you are limping along on the slippery round
cobble-stones; you can't get into the country, which is the best part
of Rome: but when the sun shines all this is changed; the dear old dirty
town exercises, its fascinations on you then, and you speedily forget
your recent misery.
Holy Week is a vexation to most people. All the world crowds here to see
its exhibitions and theatrical shows, and works hard to catch a glimpse
of them, and is tired out, if not disgusted, at the end. The things to
see and hear are Palm Sunday in St. Peter's; singing of the Miserere
by the pope's choir on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the Sistine
Chapel; washing of the pilgrims' feet in a chapel of St. Peter's, and
serving the apostles at table by the pope on Thursday, with a papal
benediction from the balcony afterwards; Easter Sunday, with the
illumination of St. Peter's in the evening; and fireworks (this year in
front of St. Peter's in Montorio) Monday evening. Raised seats are
built up about the high altar under the dome in St. Peter's, which will
accommodate a thousand, and perhaps more, ladies; and for these tickets
are issued without numbers, and for twice as many as they will seat.
Gentlemen who are in evening dress are admitted to stand in the reserved
places inside the lines of soldiers. For the Miserere in the Sistine
Chapel tickets are also issued. As there is only room for about four
hundred ladies, and a thousand and more tickets are given out, you may
imagine the scramble. Ladies go for hours before the singing begins, and
make a grand rush when the doors are open. I do not know any sight so
unseemly and cruel as a crowd of women intent on getting in to such a
ceremony: they are perfectly rude and unmerciful to each other. They
push and trample one another under foot; veils and dresses are torn;
ladies faint away in the scrimmage, and only the strongest and most
unscrupulous get in. I have heard some say, who have been in the
pellmell, that, not content with elbowing and pushing and pounding, some
women even stick pins into those who are in the way. I hope this latter
is not true; but it is certain that the conduct of most of the women is
brutal. A weak or modest or timid woman stands no more chance than
she would in a herd of infuriated Campagna cattle. The same scenes
are enacted in the efforts to see the pope wash feet, and serve at the
table. For the possession of the seats under the dome on Palm Sunday
and Easter there is a like crush. The ceremonies do not begin until
half-past nine; but ladies go between five and six o'clock in the
morning, and when the passages are open they make a grand rush. The
seats, except those saved for the nobility, are soon all taken, and the
ladies who come after seven are lucky if they can get within the charmed
circle, and find a spot to sit down on a campstool. They can then see
only a part of the proceedings, and have a weary, exhausting time of it
for hours. This year Rome is more crowded than ever before. There are
American ladies enough to fill all the reserved places; and I fear they
are energetic enough to get their share of them.
It rained Sunday; but there was a steady stream of people and carriages
all the morning pouring over the Bridge of St. Angelo, and discharging
into the piazza of St. Peter's. It was after nine when I arrived on the
ground. There was a crowd of carriages under the colonnades, and a heavy
fringe in front of them; but the hundreds of people moving over the
piazza, and up the steps to the entrances, made only the impression of
dozens in the vast space. I do not know if there are people enough in
Rome to fill St. Peter's; certainly there was no appearance of a crowd
as we entered, although they had been pouring in all the morning, and
still thronged the doors. I heard a traveler say that he followed ten
thousand soldiers into the church, and then lost them from sight: they
disappeared in the side chapels. He did not make his affidavit as to
the number of soldiers. The interior area of the building is not much
greater than the square of St. Mark in Venice. To go into the great
edifice is almost like going outdoors. Lines of soldiers kept a wide
passage clear from the front door away down to the high altar; and
there was a good mass of spectators on the outside. The tribunes for the
ladies, built up under the dome, were of course, filled with masses of
ladies in solemn black; and there was more or less of a press of people
surging about in that vicinity. Thousands of people were also roaming
about in the great spaces of the edifice; but there was nowhere else
anything like a crowd. It had very much the appearance of a large
fair-ground, with little crowds about favorite booths. Gentlemen in
dress-coats were admitted to the circle under the dome. The pope's choir
was stationed in a gallery there opposite the high altar. Back of the
altar was a wide space for the dignitaries; seats were there, also, for
ambassadors and those born to the purple; and the pope's seat was on
a raised dais at the end. Outsiders could see nothing of what went on
within there; and the ladies under the dome could only partially see, in
the seats they had fought so gallantly to obtain.
St. Peter's is a good place for grand processions and ceremonies; but it
is a poor one for viewing them. A procession which moves down the nave
is hidden by the soldiers who stand on either side, or is visible only
by sections as it passes: there is no good place to get the grand effect
of the masses of color, and the total of the gorgeous pageantry. I
should like to see the display upon a grand stage, and enjoy it in a
coup d'oeil. It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings
are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the mass of
spectators. It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to
walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions
be if more people could see him! The grand altar stuck up under the dome
not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave
back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the
mass behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point
of display in the church to a mere chapel. And when you add to that the
temporary tribunes erected under the dome for seating the ladies, the
entire nave is shut off from a view of the gorgeous ceremony of high
mass. The effect would be incomparable if one could stand in the door,
or anywhere in the nave, and, as in other churches, look down to the end
upon a great platform, with the high altar and all the sublime spectacle
in full view, with the blaze of candles and the clouds of incense rising
in the distance.
At half-past nine the great doors opened, and the procession began,
in slow and stately moving fashion, to enter. One saw a throng of
ecclesiastics in robes and ermine; the white plumes of the Guard Noble;
the pages and chamberlains in scarlet; other pages, or what not, in
black short-clothes, short swords, gold chains, cloak hanging from the
shoulder, and stiff white ruffs; thirty-six cardinals in violet robes,
with high miter-shaped white silk hats, that looked not unlike the
pasteboard “trainer-caps” that boys wear when they play soldier;
crucifixes, and a blazoned banner here and there; and, at last, the
pope, in his red chair, borne on the shoulders of red lackeys, heaving
along in a sea-sicky motion, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver
miter on his head, feebly making the papal benediction with two upraised
fingers, and moving his lips in blessing. As the pope came in, a
supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door,
set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely
through the building. All the music of the day is vocal.
The procession having reached its destination, and disappeared behind
the altar of the dome, the pope dismounted, and took his seat on
his throne. The blessing of the palms began, the cardinals first
approaching, and afterwards the members of the diplomatic corps, the
archbishops and bishops, the heads of the religious orders, and such
private persons as have had permission to do so. I had previously seen
the palms carried in by servants in great baskets. It is, perhaps, not
necessary to say that they are not the poetical green waving palms,
but stiff sort of wands, woven out of dry, yellow, split palm-leaves,
sometimes four or five feet in length, braided into the semblance of
a crown on top,--a kind of rough basket-work. The palms having been
blessed, a procession was again formed down the nave and out the door,
all in it “carrying palms in their hands,” the yellow color of which
added a new element of picturesqueness to the splendid pageant. The pope
was carried as before, and bore in his hand a short braided palm, with
gold woven in, flowers added, and the monogram “I. H. S.” worked in
the top. It is the pope's custom to give this away when the ceremony
is over. Last year he presented it to an American lady, whose devotion
attracted him; this year I saw it go away in a gilded coach in the hands
of an ecclesiastic. The procession disappeared through the great portal
into the vestibule, and the door closed. In a moment somebody knocked
three times on the door: it opened, and the procession returned, and
moved again to the rear of the altar, the singers marching with it and
chanting. The cardinals then changed their violet for scarlet robes; and
high mass, for an hour, was celebrated by a cardinal priest: and I was
told that it was the pope's voice that we heard, high and clear, singing
the passion. The choir made the responses, and performed at intervals.
The singing was not without a certain power; indeed, it was marvelous
how some of the voices really filled the vast spaces of the edifice,
and the choruses rolled in solemn waves of sound through the arches. The
singing, with the male sopranos, is not to my taste; but it cannot be
denied that it had a wild and strange effect.
While this was going on behind the altar, the people outside were
wandering about, looking at each other, and on the watch not to miss any
of the shows of the day. People were talking, chattering, and greeting
each other as they might do in the street. Here and there somebody was
kneeling on the pavement, unheeding the passing throng. At several
of the chapels, services were being conducted; and there was a large
congregation, an ordinary church full, about each of them. But the
most of those present seemed to regard it as a spectacle only; and as a
display of dress, costumes, and nationalities it was almost unsurpassed.
There are few more wonderful sights in this world than an Englishwoman
in what she considers full dress. An English dandy is also a pleasing
object. For my part, as I have hinted, I like almost as well as anything
the big footmen,--those in scarlet breeches and blue gold-embroidered
coats. I stood in front of one of the fine creations for some time, and
contemplated him as one does the Farnese Hercules. One likes to see to
what a splendor his species can come, even if the brains have all
run down into the calves of the legs. There were also the pages, the
officers of the pope's household, in costumes of the Middle Ages; the
pope's Swiss guard in the showy harlequin uniform designed by Michael
Angelo; the foot-soldiers in white short-clothes, which threatened
to burst, and let them fly into pieces; there were fine ladies and
gentlemen, loafers and loungers, from every civilized country, jabbering
in all the languages; there were beggars in rags, and boors in coats
so patched that there was probably none of the original material left;
there were groups of peasants from the Campagna, the men in short
jackets and sheepskin breeches with the wool side out, the women with
gay-colored folded cloths on their heads, and coarse woolen gowns; a
squad of wild-looking Spanish gypsies, burning-eyed, olive-skinned,
hair long, black, crinkled, and greasy, as wild in raiment as in face;
priests and friars, Zouaves in jaunty light gray and scarlet; rags and
velvets, silks and serge cloths,--a cosmopolitan gathering poured into
the world's great place of meeting,--a fine religious Vanity Fair on
Sunday.
There came an impressive moment in all this confusion, a point of august
solemnity. Up to that instant, what with chanting and singing the many
services, and the noise of talking and walking, there was a wild babel.
But at the stroke of the bell and the elevation of the Host, down went
the muskets of the guard with one clang on the marble; the soldiers
kneeled; the multitude in the nave, in the aisles, at all the chapels,
kneeled; and for a minute in that vast edifice there was perfect
stillness: if the whole great concourse had been swept from the earth,
the spot where it lately was could not have been more silent. And then
the military order went down the line, the soldiers rose, the crowd
rose, and the mass and the hum went on.
It was all over before one; and the pope was borne out again, and the
vast crowd began to discharge itself. But it was a long time before
the carriages were all filled and rolled off. I stood for a half hour
watching the stream go by,--the pompous soldiers, the peasants and
citizens, the dazzling equipages, and jaded, exhausted women in black,
who had sat or stood half a day under the dome, and could get no
carriage; and the great state coaches of the cardinals, swinging high in
the air, painted and gilded, with three noble footmen hanging on behind
each, and a cardinal's broad face in the window.