Chapter VII: Part 7

The population of southern India in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century was probably hardly less than it is now--some thirty millions--and if one-third or one-fourth of such a population were to seek employment in building, the results, if persevered in through centuries, would be something astonishing. A similar state of affairs prevailed apparently in Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs, but with very different results. The Egyptians had great and lofty ideas, and a hankering after immortality, that impressed itself on all their works. The southern Indians had no such aspirations. Their intellectual status is, and always was, mediocre; they had no literature of their own--no history to which they could look back with pride, and their religion was, and is, an impure and degrading fetishism. It is impossible that anything grand and imposing should come out of such a state of things. What they had to offer to their gods was a tribute of labour, and that was bestowed without stint. To cut a chain of fifty links out of a block of granite and suspend it between two pillars, was with them a triumph of art. To hollow deep cornices out of the hardest basalt, and to leave all the framings, as if of the most delicate woodwork, standing free, was with them a worthy object of ambition, and their sculptures are still inexplicable mysteries, from our ignorance of how it was possible to execute them. All that millions of hands working through centuries could do, has been done, but with hardly any higher motive than to employ labour and to conquer difficulties, so as to astonish by the amount of the first and the cleverness with which the second was overcome--and astonished we are; but without some higher motive true architecture cannot exist. The Dravidians had not even the constructive difficulties to overcome which enabled the Mediæval architects to produce such noble fabrics as our cathedrals. The aim of architects in the Middle Ages was to design halls which should at the same time be vast, but stable, and suited for the accommodation of great multitudes to witness a lofty ritual. In their struggles to accomplish this they developed intellectual powers which impress us still through their works. No such lofty aims exercised the intellectual faculties of the Hindu. His altar and the statue of his god were placed in a dark cubical cell wholly without ornament, and the porch that preceded that was not necessarily either lofty or spacious. What the Hindu architect craved for, was a place to display his powers of ornamentation, and he thought he had accomplished all his art demanded when he covered every part of his building with the most elaborate and most difficult designs he could invent. Much of this ornamentation, it is true, is very elegant, and evidences of power and labour do impress the human imagination, often even in defiance of our better judgment, and nowhere is this more apparent than in these Dravidian temples. It is in vain, however, we look among them for any manifestation of those lofty aims and noble results which constitute the merit and the greatness of true architectural art, and which generally characterise the best works in the true styles of the western world....

Immediately in front of his choultrie, Tirumulla Nayak commenced a gopura, which, had he lived to complete it, would probably have been the finest edifice of its class in southern India. It measures 174 ft. from north to south, and 107 ft. in depth. The entrance through it is 21 ft. 9 in. wide; and if it be true that its gateposts are 60 ft. (Tripe says 57 ft.) in height, that would have been the height of the opening. It will thus be seen that it was designed on even a larger scale than that at Seringham, and it certainly far surpasses that celebrated edifice in the beauty of its details. Its doorposts alone, whether 57 ft. or 60 ft. in height, are single blocks of granite, carved with the most exquisite scroll patterns of elaborate foliage, and all the other carvings are equally beautiful. Being unfinished, and consequently never consecrated, it has escaped whitewash, and alone, of all the buildings of Madura, its beauties can still be admired in their original perfection.

The great temple at Madura is a larger and far more important building than the choultrie; but, somehow or other, it has not attracted the attention of travellers to the same extent that the latter has. No one has ever attempted to make a plan of it, or to describe it in such detail as would enable others to understand its peculiarities. It possesses, however, all the characteristics of a first-class Dravidian temple, and, as its date is perfectly well known, it forms a landmark of the utmost value in enabling us to fix the relative date of other temples.

The sanctuary is said to have been built by Viswanath, the first king of the Nayak dynasty, A. D. 1520, which may possibly be the case; but the temple itself certainly owes all its magnificence to Tirumulla Nayak, A. D. 1622–1657, or to his elder brother, Muttu Virappa, who preceded him, and who built a mantapa, said to be the oldest thing now existing here. The Kalyana mantapa is said to have been built A. D. 1707, and the Tatta Suddhi in 1770. These, however, are insignificant parts compared with those which certainly owe their origin to Tirumulla Nayak.

The temple itself is a nearly regular rectangle, two of its sides measuring 720 ft. and 729 ft., the other two 834 ft. and 852 ft. It possessed four gopuras of the first class, and five smaller ones; a very beautiful tank, surrounded by arcades; and a hall of 1000 columns, whose sculptures surpass those of any other hall of its class I am acquainted with. There is a small shrine, dedicated to the goddess Minakshi, the tutelary deity of the place, which occupies the space of fifteen columns, so the real number is only 985; but it is not their number, but their marvellous elaboration that makes it the wonder of the place, and renders it, in some respects, more remarkable than the choultrie about which so much has been said and written. I do not feel sure that this hall alone is not a greater work than the choultrie; taken in conjunction with the other buildings of the temple, it certainly forms a far more imposing group.

_History of Indian and Eastern Architecture_ (New York, 1891).

THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN.

THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.

The Cathedral absorbs the attention of every traveller who visits Milan. It dominates the town, standing in the centre as its chief attraction and marvel. To it one hastens immediately on arriving, even on a night when there is no moon, to grasp at least a few of its outlines.

The _piazza del Duomo_, irregular enough in its form, is bordered with houses of which it is customary to speak ill; the guide never omits telling the traveller that these should be razed to make this a symmetrical square in the Rivoli taste. I am not of this opinion. These houses with their massive pillars and their saffron-coloured awnings standing opposite to some irregular buildings of unequal height, make a very good setting for the Cathedral. Edifices often lose more than they gain by not being obstructed: I have been convinced of this by several Gothic monuments, the effect of which was not spoiled by the stalls and the ruins which had gathered around them, as might have been believed; this is not, however, the case with the Cathedral, which is perfectly isolated; but I think that nothing is more favourable to a palace, a church, or any regularly constructed building than to be surrounded by heterogeneous buildings which bring out the proportions of the noble order.

When we look at the Cathedral from the square, the effect is ravishing: the whiteness of the marble, standing out from the blue of the sky, strikes you first; one would say that an immense piece of silver lace had been placed against a background of _lapis lazuli_. This is the first impression, and it will also be the last memory. Whenever I think of the Duomo of Milan, it always appears like this. The Cathedral is one of those rare Gothic churches of Italy, yet this Gothic resembles ours but little. We do not find here that sombre faith, that disquieting mystery, those dark depths, those severe forms, that darting up from earth towards the sky, that character of austerity which repudiates beauty as too sensual and only selects from a subject what is necessary to bring you a step nearer to God; this is a Gothic full of elegance, grace, and brilliancy, which one dreams of for fairy palaces and with which one could build alcazars and mosques as well as a Catholic temple. The delicacy in its enormous proportions and its whiteness make it look like a glacier with its thousand needles, or a gigantic concretion of stalactites; it is difficult to believe it the work of man.

The design of the façade is of the simplest: it is an angle sharp as the gable-end of an ordinary house and bordered with marble lace, resting upon a wall without any fore-part, of no distinct order of architecture, pierced by five doors and eight windows and striped with six groups of columns with fillets, or rather mouldings which end in hollowed out points surmounted by statues and filled in their interstices with brackets and niches supporting and sheltering figures of angels, saints, and patriarchs. Back of these spring out from innumerable fillets, like the pipes of a basaltic grotto, forests of little steeples, pinnacles, minarets, and needles of white marble, while the central spire which resembles frost-work, crystallized in the air, rises in the azure to a terrific height and places the Virgin, who is standing upon its tip with her foot on a crescent, within two steps of Heaven. In the middle of the façade these words are inscribed: _Mariae nascenti_, the dedication of the Cathedral.

Begun by Jean Galéas Visconti, continued by Ludovico le More, the basilica of Milan was finished by Napoleon. It is the largest church known after Saint Peter’s in Rome. The interior is of a majestic and noble simplicity: rows of columns in pairs form five naves. Notwithstanding their actual mass, these groups of columns have a lightness of effect on account of the grace of their shafts. Above the capitals of the pillars there is a kind of gallery, perforated and carved, where statues of saints are placed; then the mouldings continue until they unite at the summit of the vault, which is ornamented with trefoils and Gothic knots made with such perfection that they would deceive the eye, if the plaster, which has fallen in places, did not reveal the naked stone.

In the centre of the cross an opening, surrounded by a balustrade, allows you to look down into the crypt, where the remains of Saint Charles Borromeo rest in a crystal coffin covered with plates of silver. Saint Charles Borromeo is the most revered saint of the district. His virtues and his conduct during the plague in Milan made him popular, and his memory is always kept alive.

At the entrance of the choir upon a grille which supports a crucifix, surrounded by angels in adoration, we read the following inscription framed in wood: _Attendite ad petram unde excisi estis_. On each side there are two magnificent pulpits of wood, supported by superb bronze figures and ornamented with silver bas-reliefs, the subjects of which are their least value. The organs, placed not far from the pulpits, have fine paintings by Procacini, if my memory does not deceive me, for shutters; above the choir there is a _Road to the Cross_, sculptured by Andrea Biffi and several other Milanese sculptors. The weeping angels, which mark the stations, have a great variety of attitudes and are charming, although their grace is somewhat effeminate.

The general impression is simple and religious; a soft light invites you to reflection; the large pillars spring to the vault with a movement full of vitality and faith; not a single detail is here to destroy the majesty of the whole. There is no overcharging and no surfeit of luxury: the lines follow each other from one end to the other, and the design of the edifice is understood in a single glance. The superb elegance of the exterior seems but a veil for mystery and humility within; the blatant hymn of marble makes you lower your voice and speak in a hushed tone: the exterior, by reason of its lightness and whiteness, is, perhaps, Pagan; the interior is, most assuredly, Christian.

In the corner of a nave, just before ascending the dome, we glance at a tomb filled with allegorical figures cast in bronze by the Cavalier Aretin after Michael Angelo in a bold and superb style. You arrive straightway on the roof of the church after climbing a stairway decorated at every angle with prohibitive, or threatening inscriptions, which do not speak well in favour of the Italians’ piety or sense of propriety.

This roof all bristling with steeples and ribbed with flying-buttresses at the sides, which form corridors in perspective, is made of great slabs of marble, like the rest of the edifice. Even at this point it is higher than the highest monuments of the city. A bas-relief of the finest execution is sunk in each buttress; each steeple is peopled with twenty-five statues. I do not believe there is another place in the world that holds in the same amount of space so large a number of sculptured figures. One could make an important city with the marble population of the Cathedral statues. Six thousand, seven hundred and sixteen have been counted. I have heard of a church in the Morea painted in the Byzantine style by the monks of Mount Athos, which did not contain less than three thousand figures. This is as nothing in comparison to the Cathedral of Milan. With regard to persons painted and sculptured, I have often had this dream--that if ever I were invested with magical power I would animate all the figures created by art in granite, in stone, in wood, and on canvas and people with them a country which would be a realization of the landscapes in the pictures. The sculptured multitude of this Cathedral bring back this fantasy. Among these statues there is one by Canova, a Saint Sebastian, lodged in an _aiguille_, and an Eve by Cristoforo Gobi, of such a charming and sensual grace that it is a little astonishing to see her in such a place. However, she is very beautiful, and the birds of the sky do not appear to be scandalized by her Edenesque costume.

From this platform there unfolds an immense panorama: you see the Alps and the Apennines, the vast plains of Lombardy, and with a glass you can regulate your watch from the dial of the church of Monza, whose stripes of black and white stones may be distinguished....

The ascent of the spire, which is perforated and open to the light, is not at all dangerous, although it may affect people who are subject to vertigo. Frail stairways wind through the towers and lead you to a balcony, above which there is nothing but the cap of the spire and the statue which crowns the edifice.

I will not try to describe this gigantic basilica in detail. A volume would be needed for its monograph. As a mere artist I must be content with a general view and a personal impression. After one has descended into the street and has made the tour of the church one finds on the lateral façades and apses the same crowd of statues, the same multitude of bas-reliefs: it is a terrifying debauch of sculpture, an incredible heap of wonders.

Around the Cathedral all kinds of little industries prosper, stalls of second-hand booksellers, opticians selling their wares in the open air, and even a theatre of marionnettes, whose performances I promise myself not to miss. Human life with its trivialities swarms and stirs at the foot of this majestic edifice, which, like petrified fireworks, is bursting its white rockets in the sky; here, as everywhere, we find the same contrast of sublimity of idea and vulgarity of fact. The temple of the Saviour throws its shadow across the hut of Punchinello.

_Voyage en Italie_ (Paris, new ed., 1884).

THE MOSQUE OF HASSAN.

AMELIA B. EDWARDS.

The mosque of Sultan Hassan, confessedly the most beautiful in Cairo, is also perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem world. It was built at just that happy moment when Arabian art in Egypt, having ceased merely to appropriate or imitate, had at length evolved an original architectural style out of the heterogeneous elements of Roman and early Christian edifices. The mosques of a few centuries earlier (as, for instance, that of Tulûn, which marks the first departure from the old Byzantine model) consisted of little more than a courtyard with colonnades leading to a hall supported on a forest of pillars. A little more than a century later, and the national style had already experienced the beginnings of that prolonged eclipse which finally resulted in the bastard Neo-Byzantine Renaissance represented by the mosque of Mehemet Ali. But the mosque of Sultan Hassan, built ninety-seven years before the taking of Constantinople, may justly be regarded as the highest point reached by Saracenic art in Egypt after it had used up the Greek and Roman material of Memphis, and before its new-born originality became modified by influence from beyond the Bosphorus. Its pre-eminence is due neither to the greatness of its dimensions, nor to the splendour of its materials. It is neither so large as the great mosque at Damascus, nor so rich in costly marbles as Saint Sophia in Constantinople; but in design, proportion, and a certain lofty grace impossible to describe, it surpasses these, and every other mosque, whether original or adapted, with which the writer is acquainted.

The whole structure is purely national. Every line and curve in it, and every inch of detail, is in the best style of the best period of the Arabian school. And above all, it was designed expressly for its present purpose. The two famous mosques of Damascus and Constantinople having, on the contrary, been Christian churches, betray evidences of adaptation. In Saint Sophia, the space once occupied by the figure of the Redeemer may be distinctly traced in the mosaic-work of the apse, filled in with gold tesseræ of later date; while the magnificent gates of the great mosque at Damascus are decorated, among other Christian emblems, with the sacramental chalice. But the mosque of Sultan Hassan built by En Nasîr Hassan in the high and palmy days of the Memlook rule, is marred by no discrepancies. For a mosque it was designed, and a mosque it remains. Too soon it will be only a beautiful ruin.

A number of small streets having lately been demolished in this quarter, the approach to the mosque lies across a desolate open space littered with débris, but destined to be laid out as a public square. With this desirable end in view, some half dozen workmen were lazily loading as many camels with rubble, which is the Arab way of carting rubbish. If they persevere, and the Minister of Public Works continues to pay their wages with due punctuality, the ground will perhaps get cleared in eight or ten years’ time.

Driving up with some difficulty to the foot of the great steps, which were crowded with idlers smoking and sleeping, we observed a long and apparently fast-widening fissure reaching nearly from top to bottom of the main wall of the building, close against the minaret. It looked like just such a rent as might be caused by a shock of earthquake, and, being still new to the East, we wondered the Government had not set to work to mend it. We had yet to learn that nothing is ever mended in Cairo. Here, as in Constantinople, new buildings spring up apace, but the old, no matter how venerable, are allowed to moulder away, inch by inch, till nothing remains but a heap of ruins.

Going up the steps and through a lofty hall, up some more steps and along a gloomy corridor, we came to the great court, before entering which, however, we had to take off our boots and put on slippers brought for the purpose. The first sight of this court is an architectural surprise. It is like nothing that one has seen before, and its beauty equals its novelty. Imagine an immense marble quadrangle, open to the sky and enclosed within lofty walls, with, at each side, a vast recess framed in by a single arch. The quadrangle is more than 100 feet square, and the walls are more than 100 feet high. Each recess forms a spacious hall for rest and prayer, and all are matted; but that at the eastern end is wider and considerably deeper than the other three, and the noble arch that encloses it like the proscenium of a splendid stage, measures, according to Fergusson, 69 feet 5 inches in the span. It looks much larger. This principal hall, the floor of which is raised one step at the upper end, measures 90 feet in depth and 90 in height. The dais is covered with prayer-rugs, and contains the holy niche and the pulpit of the preacher. We observed that those who came up here came only to pray. Having prayed, they either went away or turned aside into one of the other recesses to rest. There was a charming fountain in the court, with a dome-roof as light and fragile-looking as a big bubble, at which each worshipper performed his ablutions on coming in. This done, he left his slippers on the matting and trod the carpeted dais barefoot....

While we were admiring the spring of the roof and the intricate Arabesque decorations of the pulpit, a custode came up with a big key and invited us to visit the tomb of the founder. So we followed him into an enormous vaulted hall a hundred feet square, in the centre of which stood a plain, railed-off tomb, with an empty iron-bound coffer at the foot. We afterwards learned that for five hundred years--that is to say, ever since the death and burial of Sultan Hassan--this coffer had contained a fine copy of the Koran, traditionally said to have been written by Sultan Hassan’s own hand; but that the Khedive, who is collecting choice and antique Arabic MSS., had only the other day sent an order for its removal.

Nothing can be bolder or more elegant than the proportions of this noble sepulchral hall, the walls of which are covered with tracery in low relief incrusted with discs and tesseræ of turquoise-coloured porcelain; while high up, in order to lead off the vaulting of the roof, the corners are rounded by means of recessed clusters of exquisite Arabesque woodwork, like pendant stalactites. But the tesseræ are fast falling out, and most of their places are vacant; and the beautiful woodwork hangs in fragments, tattered and cobwebbed, like time-worn banners which the first touch of a brush would bring down.

Going back again from the tomb to the courtyard, we everywhere observed traces of the same dilapidation. The fountain, once a miracle of Sarascenic ornament, was fast going to destruction. The rich marbles of its basement were cracked and discoloured, its stuccoed cupola was flaking off piecemeal, its enamels were dropping out, its lace-like wood tracery shredding away by inches.

Presently a tiny brown and golden bird perched with pretty confidence on the brink of the basin, and having splashed, and drunk, and preened its feathers like a true believer at his ablutions, flew up to the top of the cupola and sang deliciously. All else was profoundly still. Large spaces of light and shadow divided the quadrangle. The sky showed overhead as a square opening of burning solid blue; while here and there, reclining, praying, or quietly occupied, a number of turbaned figures were picturesquely scattered over the matted floors of the open halls around. Yonder sat a tailor cross-legged, making a waistcoat; near him, stretched on his face at full length, sprawled a basket-maker with his half-woven basket and bundle of rushes beside him; and here, close against the main entrance, lay a blind man and his dog; the master asleep, the dog keeping watch. It was, as I have said, our first mosque, and I well remember the surprise with which we saw that tailor sewing on his buttons, and the sleepers lying about in the shade. We did not then know that a Mohammedan mosque is as much a place of rest and refuge as of prayer; or that the houseless Arab may take shelter there by night or day as freely as the birds may build their nests in the cornice, or as the blind man’s dog may share the cool shade with the sleeping master.

_A Thousand Miles up the Nile_ (London, 2d ed., 1889).

THE CATHEDRAL OF TRÈVES.

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN.

The ancient capital of the Treveri has the privilege of being known by two modern names, native and foreign, each of which preserves a letter of the ancient name which is lost in its rival. _Treveris_ is by its own people contracted into _Trier_, while by its neighbours it is cut short into _Trèves_. But one who looks out from the amphitheatre beyond its walls on the city which boasts itself to have stood for thirteen hundred years longer than Rome, will be inclined to hold that the beauty of its position and the interest of its long history cannot lose their charm under any name. It was not without reason that the mythical Trebetas, son of Ninus, after wandering through all lands, pitched on the spot by the Mosel as the loveliest and richest site that he could find for the foundation of the first city which arose on European soil....

Trier holds, north of the Alps, a position which is in some respects analogous to the position of Ravenna south of the Alps. The points both of likeness and unlikeness between the two cities may be instructively compared. In physical position no two cities can well be more opposite. No two spots can be more unlike than Trier, with its hills, its river, and its bridge, and Ravenna, forsaken by the sea, left in its marshy flat, with its streets, which were once canals like those of Venice, now canals no longer. In their history the two cities have thus much in common, that each was a seat of the Imperial power of Rome in the days of its decline. Each too is remarkable for its rich store of buildings handed on from the days of its greatness, buildings which stamp upon each city an unique character of its own. But, when we more minutely compare either the history or the surviving antiquities of the two cities, when we compare the circumstances under which each city rose to greatness, we shall find on the whole less of likeness than of unlikeness. The difference may be summed up when we say that Trier is the city of Constantine, that Ravenna is the city of Honorius....

Ravenna has nothing of any consequence belonging either to heathen 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.

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.

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.