Rome.
Pius the Sixth performs all the religious functions of his office in
the most solemn manner; not only on public and extraordinary occasions,
but also in the most common acts of devotion. I happened lately to be
at St. Peter’s church, when there was scarcely any other body there;
while I lounged from chapel to chapel, looking at the sculpture and
paintings, the Pope entered with a very few attendants; when he came
to the statue of St. Peter, he was not satisfied with bowing, which is
the usual mark of respect shewn to that image; or with kneeling, which
is performed by more zealous persons; or with kissing the foot, which
I formerly imagined concluded the climax of devotion; he bowed, he
knelt, he kissed the foot, and then he rubbed his brow and his whole
head with every mark of humility, fervour, and adoration, upon the
sacred stump.—It is no more, one half of the foot having been long
since worn away by the lips of the pious; and if the example of his
Holiness is universally imitated, nothing but a miracle can prevent
the leg, thigh, and other parts from meeting with the same fate. This
uncommon appearance of zeal in the Pope, is not imputed to hypocrisy
or to policy, but is supposed to proceed entirely from a conviction
of the efficacy of those holy frictions; an opinion which has given
people a much higher idea of the strength of his faith, than of his
understanding. This being jubilee year, he may possibly think a greater
appearance of devotion necessary now, than at any other time. The first
jubilee was instituted by Boniface the Eighth, in the year 1300. Many
ceremonies and institutions of the Roman Catholic church are founded on
those of the old Heathens. This is evidently an imitation of the Roman
secular games, which were exhibited every hundredth year in honour of
the gods[1]; they lasted three days and three nights; they were attended
with great pomp, and drew vast numbers of people to Rome, from all parts
of Italy, and the most distant provinces. Boniface, recollecting this,
determined to institute something analogous, which would immortalize
his own name, and promote the interest of the Roman Catholic religion
in general, and that of the city of Rome in particular. He embraced
the favourable opportunity which the beginning of a century presented;
he invented a few extraordinary ceremonies, and declared the year 1300
the first jubilee year, during which he assured mankind, that heaven
would be in a particular manner propitious, in granting indulgences,
and remission of sins, to all who should come to Rome, and attend the
functions there to be performed, at this fortunate period, which was
not to occur again for a hundred years. This drew a great concourse of
wealthy sinners to Rome; and the extraordinary circulation of money it
occasioned, was strongly felt all over the Pope’s dominions. Clement the
Sixth, regretting that these advantages should occur so seldom, abridged
the period, and declared there would be a jubilee every fifty years; the
second was accordingly celebrated in the year 1350. Sixtus the Fifth,
imagining that the interval was still too long, once more retrenched the
half; and ever since there has been a jubilee every twenty-fifth year[2].
It is not likely that any future Pope will think of shortening this
period; if any alteration were again to take place, it most probably
would be, to restore the ancient period of fifty or a hundred years;
for, instead of the wealthy pilgrims who flocked to Rome from every
quarter of Christendom, ninety-nine in a hundred of those who come now,
are supported by alms during their journey, or are barely able to defray
their own expences by the strictest œconomy; and his Holiness is supposed
at present to derive no other advantage from the uncommon fatigue he is
obliged to go through on the jubilee year, except the satisfaction he
feels, in reflecting on the benefit his labours confer on the souls of
the beggars, and other travellers, who resort from all corners of Italy
to Rome, on this blessed occasion. The States which border on the Pope’s
dominions, suffer many temporal inconveniencies from the zeal of the
peasants and manufacturers, the greater part of whom still make a point
of visiting St. Peter’s on the jubilee year; the loss sustained by the
countries which such emigrants abandon, is not balanced by any advantage
transferred to that to which they resort; the good arising on the whole,
being entirely of a spiritual nature. By far the greater number of
pilgrims come from the kingdom of Naples, whose inhabitants are said
to be of a very devout and very amorous disposition. The first prompts
them to go to Rome in search of that absolution which the second renders
necessary; and on the year of jubilee, when indulgences are to be had at
an easier rate than at any other time, those who can afford it generally
carry away such a stock, as not only is sufficient to clear old scores,
but will also serve as an indemnifying fund for future transgressions.
There is one door into the church of St. Peter’s, which is called the
Holy Door. This is always walled up, except on this distinguished year;
and even then no person is permitted to enter by it, but in the humblest
posture. The pilgrims, and many others, prefer crawling into the church
upon their knees, by this door; to walking in, the usual way, by any
other. I was present at the shutting up of this Holy Door. The Pope being
seated on a raised seat, or kind of throne, surrounded by Cardinals and
other ecclesiastics, an anthem was sung, accompanied by all sorts of
musical instruments. During the performance, his Holiness descended from
the throne, with a golden trowel in his hand, placed the first brick,
and applied some mortar; he then returned to his seat, and the door
was instantly built up by more expert, though less hallowed, workmen;
and will remain as it is now, till the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when it will be again opened, by the Pope then in being, with
the same solemnity that it has been now shut. Though his Holiness places
but a single brick, yet it is very remarkable that this never fails to
communicate its influence, in such a rapid and powerful manner, that,
within about an hour, or at most an hour and a half, all the other
bricks, which form the wall of the Holy Door, acquire an equal degree of
sanctity with that placed by the Pope’s own hands. The common people and
pilgrims are well acquainted with this wonderful effect. At the beginning
of this Jubilee-year, when the late wall was thrown down, men, women,
and children scrambled and fought for the fragments of the bricks and
mortar, with the same eagerness which less enlightened mobs display, on
days of public rejoicing, when handfuls of money are thrown among them.
I have been often assured that those pieces of brick, besides their
sanctity, have also the virtue of curing many of the most obstinate
diseases: and, if newspapers were permitted at Rome, there is not the
least reason to doubt, that those cures would be attested publicly by the
patients, in a manner as satisfactory and convincing as are the cures
performed daily by the pills, powders, drops, and balsams advertised in
the London newspapers. After the shutting of the Holy Door, mass was
celebrated at midnight; and the ceremony was attended by vast multitudes
of people. For my own part, I suspended my curiosity till next day, which
was Christmas-day, when I returned again to St. Peter’s church, and saw
the Pope perform mass on that solemn occasion. His Holiness went through
all the evolutions of the ceremony with an address and flexibility of
body, which are rarely to be found in those who wear the tiara; who are,
generally speaking, men bowing under the load of years and infirmities.
His present Holiness has hitherto suffered from neither. His features
are regular, and he has a fine countenance; his person is straight, and
his movements graceful. His leg and foot are remarkably well made, and
always ornamented with silk stockings, and red slippers, of the most
delicate construction. Notwithstanding that the papal uniforms are by no
means calculated to set off the person to the greatest advantage, yet the
peculiar neatness with which they are put on, and the nice adjustment of
their most minute parts, sufficiently prove that his present Holiness is
not insensible of the charms of his person, or unsolicitous about his
external ornaments. Though verging towards the winter of life, his cheeks
still glow with autumnal roses, which, at a little distance, appear as
blooming as those of the spring. If he himself were less clear-sighted
than he seems to be, to the beauties of his face and person, he could
not also be deaf to the voices of the women, who break out into
exclamations, in praise of both, as often as he appears in public.
On a public occasion, lately, as he was carried through a particular
street, a young woman at a window exclaimed, “Quanto e bello! O quanto e
bello!” and was immediately answered by a zealous old lady at the window
opposite, who, folding her hands in each other, and raising her eyes to
heaven, cried out, with a mixture of love for his person, and veneration
for his sacred office, “Tanto e bello, quanto e santo!” When we know that
such a quantity of incense is daily burnt under his sacred nostrils, we
ought not to be astonished, though we should find his brain, on some
occasions, a little intoxicated.
Vanity is a very comfortable failing; and has such an universal power
over mankind, that not only the gay blossoms of youth, but even the
shrivelled bosom of age, and the contracted heart of bigotry, open,
expand, and display strong marks of sensibility under its influence.
After mass, the Pope gave the benediction to the people assembled in the
Grand Court, before the church of St. Peter’s. It was a remarkably fine
day; an immense multitude filled that spacious and magnificent area; the
horse and foot guards were drawn up in their most showy uniform. The
Pope, seated in an open, portable chair, in all the splendour which his
wardrobe could give, with the tiara on his head, was carried out of a
large window, which opens on a balcony in the front of St. Peter’s. The
silk hangings and gold trappings with which the chair was embellished,
concealed the men who carried it; so that to those who viewed him from
the area below, his Holiness seemed to sail forward, from the window
self-balanced in the air, like a celestial being. The instant he
appeared, the music struck up, the bells rung from every church, and the
cannon thundered from the castle of St. Angelo in repeated peals. During
the intervals, the church of St. Peter’s, the palace of the Vatican,
and the banks of the Tiber, re-echoed the acclamations of the populace.
At length his Holiness arose from his seat, and an immediate and awful
silence ensued. The multitude fell upon their knees, with their hands and
eyes raised towards his Holiness, as to a benign Deity. After a solemn
pause, he pronounced the benediction, with great fervour; elevating his
outstretched arms as high as he could; then closing them together, and
bringing them back to his breast with a slow motion, as if he had got
hold of the blessing, and was drawing it gently from heaven. Finally, he
threw his arms open, waving them for some time, as if his intention had
been to scatter the benediction with impartiality among the people.
No ceremony can be better calculated for striking the senses, and
imposing on the understanding, than this of the Supreme Pontiff giving
the blessing from the balcony of St. Peter’s. For my own part, if I had
not, in my early youth, received impressions highly unfavourable to the
chief actor in this magnificent interlude, I should have been in danger
of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in
which I was educated.
[1] The Carmen Seculare of Horace was composed on occasion of
those celebrated by Augustus in the year of Rome 736.
[2] To this last abridgement I am indebted for having seen the
ceremonies and processions on the termination of this sacred
year.