first entering this most beautiful of Christian churches, is the absence of this feeling.

"Enter-its grandeur overwhelms thee not; And why? It is not lessened; but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot,

Has grown colossal, and can only find A fit abode wherein appear enshrined Thy hopes of immortality; and thou

Shalt one day, if found worthy, so refined, See thy God face to face, as thou dost now His holy of holies, nor be blasted by his brow."

"It is only after repeated visits, after having considered all its details, that an idea can be formed of this immense edifice, which continually presents new subjects of admiration. When thus examined, some defects will be perceived in it; for man is imperfect, and the master-pieces of his skill betray the imperfection of their author. But these defects do not offend the eye, they are unperceived in the general beauty of the building.

"On the right side, at the end of the grand nave, is seen an ancient bronze statue of St. Peter, which is much venerated. The saint is seated on a marble chair; with one hand he blesses the people, and with the other he holds the keys, the symbol of the authority God gave him on earth. The feet are always kept shining, and the right foot has been almost worn away, by the piety of the people, who reverently kiss them as a sign of their submission to the vicar of Jesus Christ. On St. Peter's day this statue is dressed with pontifical ornaments. According to the archives of the church, St. Leo made this statue, when Rome was delivered from the threatened invasion of Attila; a circumstance in which that Pontiff had a great part, but which he referred entirely to the intercession of the apostles. It was originally placed in the monastery of St. Martin, and was removed to its present position by Paul V.

"At the extremity of the middle nave is the pontifical altar, which was erected and consecrated by Clement VIII, in 1594. The table of this altar is a beautiful slab of marble, more than fourteen feet in length, and upwards of six feet in breadth. In this altar, according to a respectable tradition, is contained an altar dedicated to St. Peter, in

the time of St. Sylvester and Constantine. The Pope officiates at this altar three times in the year; at Christmas, Easter, and on the feast of St. Peter. He alone has a right to say mass at it; and if a cardinal supplies his place, as is generally the case on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, he receives permission for that purpose, by a special brief which only avails for that time. Over the pontifical altar is a colossal baldachino, or canopy, of costly materials and antique form. The top is of gilt bronze; it is in the form of a canopy, and sustained by four spiral columns of the same metal, entwined with vine branches, which rise as high as the Corinthian capitals. At each corner of the canopy are groups of angels; some holding a tiara, keys, and other emblems of pontifical authority; while others have garlands of flowers, which they seem about to throw on the altar. This admirable composition, the greatest that is known in bronze, was executed by Bernini, under the pontificate of Urban VIII. The escutcheon of this pontiff is seen on the pedestal of each column. To cast this canopy cost sixty thousand dollars, and the gilding of it forty thousand dollars. The metal was purchased at Venice; one hundred and eighty-six thousand Roman pounds of it were employed.*

"Fifteen years later, after the plan of the same Bernini, and by the orders of Alexander VII, was erected at the extremity of the church the superb monument called the Chair of St. Peter. The chair is sustained by two Latin fathers, St. Ambrose and St. Augustin; and by two Greek fathers, St. Chrysostom and St. Athanasius; and is surmounted by two genii who appear to protect it. Above shines a large glory, in the midst of which is the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. The rays of this glory are brilliant, because the work is entirely of gilt bronze, and it is illumined by glasses, which increase the effect of the gilding. This chair of bronze is a reliquary, in which the identical chair used by St. Peter is religiously preserved. It is of wood, and adorned with small columns. All around are figures of ivory. The back was somewhat injured, but it has been strengthened

*The Roman pound contains but twelve ounces.

by an iron band; and at the sides are the hooks, through which were passed the poles that served to carry the Pope on the day of his coronation, as has been the practice for many ages. Under the pontifical altar is a subterranean chapel; and in this chapel, where the first Christians were wont to assemble, and which the faithful of following times have adorned, is a tomb containing the relics of the great apostles. It is called the confession of St. Peter, although this name is extended to the great altar erected over it. The descent is by a double stairway of white marble, encircled by a balustrade of variegated marble, and bearing ninety lamps which burn day and night. These lamps are of gilt copper; formerly they were of silver, but in the evil days which closed the last century, the French took possession of them. The walls of the interior are incrusted with precious stones. The gate which leads to the tomb is of gilt bronze. Opposite this gate is the colossal statue of the venerable Pius VI, in the attitude of prayer. It is one of the masterpieces of Canova.

"The lamps of the altar of St. Peter are extinguished on Good Friday. Their absence was formerly supplied by a spectacle no less brilliant than solemn. A metal cross, twenty-five feet high, and lit with three hundred and fourteen small lamps, was suspended from the top of the canopy, which formed a brilliant coup d'œil, and produced an extraordinary effect. Notwithstanding the extent of this basilica, the cross illumined the two great naves, and could be seen even from the extremity of the piazza. It was precisely the effect which it produced, that moved Leo XII, in 1824, to prohibit it; since that time it has not been exhibited. Young artists were accustomed to watch this moment to catch the chiari scuri, and sketch the beautiful reflections of light and shade. What was still more scandalous, a number of strangers assembled, and, regardless of the sacred sign of our redemption, profaned the sanctity of the place, and offered insult to the mystery, the remembrance of which was renewed on that day. That day is still a day of Christian sorrow; the sanctuary is in

mourning, the altar is without sacrifice; and if the Christian does not always abstain from labor, it is because labor is one of the punishments of sin, and the day of the Saviour's death, ought to be a day of penance. Honor, then, is due to the sovereign pontiff, who, in abolishing what he could not correct, at least saved the cross from the fresh outrages which heresy and infidelity would have offered. And who were those strangers who in the capital of Christendom, in a temple most calculated to inspire sublime thoughts, came, on that holy day, to mock at the faith of Christians-to laugh, to chat, to eat, and act in a manner they would not presume to do in a Turkish mosque ? There were Christians among them; but those erring Christians, whom unjust prejudices and secret interests keep separated from the Church of their ancestors. They were those English, who would scruple, in London, to touch a piano on Sunday; they were natives of a certain part of Germany, who preserve so gloomy a silence in their naked temples. Among them might be seen some young Frenchmen, in whom devotion to the arts extinguished other and better feelings, and who admit no religion that cannot be demonstrated by algebra! These were the people who came to outrage God in his mysterious humiliations. There are, doubtless, exceptions; all those who cultivate the arts, are not, therefore, to be ranked with the incredulous. Many English have preserved a respect for holy things, and are not prepared to offend public decency. All the Protestants of Germany do not regard the cross as a sign of superstition; for I can affirm that more than one of their ministers has a crucifix in his domestic oratory. It is, however, true, that on the great solemnities, when religion displays at Rome more pomp and magnificence, strangers assemble in greater number, and give more than ordinary scandal. Curiosity is not the only motive which brings them; they come with perfidious intentions; and on their return to their country they charge the Roman church with the disorders of which they themselves were the authors.

St. Peter, and what struck me most in the grand nave of the church. I would never finish if I were to pass thence to the side naves, and attempt a description of the beautiful chapels and splendid mausoleums they contain. All these chapels are admirable for the mosaics, the statuary and painting with which they are decorated. What most strikes the stranger who sees them for the first time, and considers them separately, is, that they all appear as large as churches; and in proportion as he recedes from them, they re-enter as it were, into their fitting proportions, and appear once more chapels. Hence he is enabled to estimate more correctly the extent of each part, and to judge better of the dimensions of the whole.

"In one of these chapels is a statue of the Blessed Virgin, holding her dead son in her arms. This group is regarded as one of the master-pieces of Michael Angelo, and was executed by him in his twenty-fifth year. The Gregorian chapel is so called from Gregory XIII, who constructed it, and who had the satisfaction to see it completed in his pontificate. It cost him more than six hundred thousand dollars. Under the altar, which is exceedingly rich, rests the body of St. Gregory of Nazianzen, transferred hither in 1580. Near this is the body of Gregory himself, who died in 1585. The bas relief, on the front of the tomb, represents the reformation of the calendar, which was made in 1582, by the exertions of this pontiff, and was at length adopted even by the Protestants.

"Two other mausoleums particularly struck me: that of Christina, queen of Sweden, who died at Rome in 1689; there is on it a bas relief, representing the abjuration of Lutheranism made by her at Inspruck, in 1655: the other of the celebrated Countess Matilda, whose ashes were removed from Mantua to Rome by Urban VIII. This countess having defended the Popes, is represented with a sceptre in the right hand, and the tiara and keys on the left arm. On the bas relief of this monument is seen Gregory VII, at Canossa, giving absolution to Henry IV, who is prostrate at his feet."

But perhaps the most astonishing part of St. Peter's is its magnificent cupola. The Pantheon undoubtedly suggested the first idea of this bold undertaking. "The temple of all the Gods" was a model of architecture which found admirers in all the artists of Europe. The multitude appeared surprised that the earth sustained its weight. "I will hang it in the air," said Michael Angelo, and he raised the dome of St. Peter's. This prince of artists, at the age of eightyone was extremely desirous of ending his days at Florence, whither he had been so often invited by the Duke Cosmo, and so earnestly by Vasuri. He was prevented from so doing, not so much from his years, as from the interest he took in the building of St. Peter's, which, under his eye, underwent continual alterations, through the inexperience of workmen, and the malignity of persons interested in protracting the work. Among the architects of St. Peter's, was the Signor Don Pirro Ligorio, a Neapolitan nobleman of Portu Nuova. He treated Michael Angelo as in his second childhood, and wished in consequence to alter the order of the building. Paul IV, was indignant at such treatment, and deprived Don Pirro of his charge. Michael Angelo was a rock against which beat the storm of envy, calumny, and the malice of all those who expected to derive some benefit from the fabric. At his advanced age Buonarotti saw the edifice completed as far as the beautiful drum of travertine, on which was to be placed the cupola. The friends of Michael Angelo, and especially Cardinal di Carpi, induced him in consequence of the comparative lowness and want of talent in thers, to make a model for the cupola, notwithstanding his years. He at length completed a small one in clay, from which one was formed of wood, after much labor and study on the part of Buonarotti. This model was the admiration of every one, and at length executed under Sixtus V.

"The drum of this amazing cupola is sustained by arches which rest on pilasters, about two hundred and thirty feet in circumference. At the foot of these pilasters are chapels, adorned with colossal statues

of St. Andrew, St. Veronica, St. Helena and St. Longinus. These statues are beautiful, and have a reference to the four most precious relics of the church, after those of the apostles that is, the handkerchief with which St. Veronica wiped the sacred face of Jesus, on the way to Calvary; a piece of the wood of the true cross, which St. Helen was so happy as to discover; the lance with which the soldier, known since by the name of Longinus, pierced the side of our Lord; and the head of St. Andrew. These relics are exhibited to the people on certain days. They are preserved in beautiful niches above one of the statues, and to which an ascent has been made within the thick pilasters. The canons of St. Peter alone are permitted to ascend; whoever desires to participate in the privilege must first be made an honorary canon of this church, a favor which is only granted to foreigners of great distinction. In 1625, Urban VIII gave this title to Ladislas, who was subsequently king of Poland, and in 1700, Innocent XII conferred it on Cosmo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany. In more ancient times, in 1425, the Emperor Frederick III, having come to Rome for the ceremony of his coronation, received from Nicholas V permission to wear a canon's dress, and see the handkerchief of St. Veronica. The cupola is crowned by a lantern; and this lantern which, from the piazza, appears so light, is itself a second cupola, around which persons may safely walk. The ball of gilt bronze, which surmounts it, is more than eight feet in diameter, and can contain fifteen persons very conveniently. The cross on the top is thirteen feet high."

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Though every thing in this church is admirable," says Addison, "the most astonishing part of it is the cupola. It is not easy to conceive a more glorious show in architecture than what a man meets with when he stands under the dome. If he looks upward he is astonished at the spacious hollow, and has a vault on every side of him that affords one of the most beautiful vistas that the eye can possibly pass through. Upon my going to the top of it I was astonished to find that the dome seen

in the church, is not the same with that seen without doors; the last being a kind of case to the other, the stairs lying between them both by which one ascends into the ball." When upon the roof of the dome you perceive you have never before had any just conception of its magnitude. The roof of this church seems of itself a little city covered with towns, cottages, cisterns, plains, and hills, slopes and precipices. They indeed are fortunate who after having indulged their wonder on this gigantic dome, should have seen the ceremony of its illumination on Easter night. It is the grandest, the most brilliant, the most awfully superb spectacle, says a manuscript before me, I ever witnessed on earth. The process of illumination commences immediately after dusk, when the whole of that dome, itself a prodigy of beauty, symmetry, and immensity, is lighted up with innumerable lamps, from the top of the cross on the ball to its base. The effect is inimitable both from the countless number of the lights and the order and elegance of their arrangement. I gazed at it steadfastly for an hour, and was still gazing in wonder and delight, when suddenly, and as if by magic these thousands of lamps which until then had been but separate lights, mingled their flames and transformed the dome into an immense orb of liquid fire, while upon its summit shone forth in brilliant triumph the Christian's standard-the glorious cross. To the extent of man's limited capacity, this gorgeous exhibition was worthy of the object it was intended to celebrate the triumph of Christ in his glorious resurrection. There is something in the idea of such a celebration most beautifully touching and effecting. To see the banner of our religion, the emblem of all our hopes, reaching almost to the very regions of heaven, and from its immense height illuminating the earth below by its resplendent brilliancy! To see that cross thus blazing aloft over the prostrate ruins of pagan Rome, the proud and relentless persecutrix of the followers and principles of the crucified God! To see that cross reared by the descendants of its own persecutors, and now by them so honored and so reverenced. What a crowd

of pregnant reflections do not such circumstances awaken in the mind!

From this account of St. Peter's church, a faint idea may be formed of its immensity and of that

"haughty dome which vies

In air with earth's chief structures, though their frame

Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the clouds must claim."

"A greater quantity of stones," says a celebrated writer, "could be raised to a greater height on a more extended base, but of so many colossal parts to compose a whole which appears simple and grand, from such accumulated riches to compose a monument, which is so purely magnificent, and by an astonishing harmony of proportions form one prodigy of so many united wonders-this is the master piece of art, and the work of Michael Angelo."

A few words may be well added on the time required for the construction of St. Peter's, the number of Popes who contributed to it and the sums expended on it.

"Julius II laid the first stone of this church on the 18th of April, 1506. He had adopted the plan of the celebrated Bramante, with whom the idea of the cupola originated. The eagerness of the Pontiff was zealously seconded; and although already in his seventieth year, he had the satisfaction, before his death, of seeing the pillars, that were to support the cupola, raised as far as the cornice. This precipitation might have injured the solidity of the building; but after the deaths of Julius and Bramante, Leo X employed architects, who strengthened the pillars already commenced, and made some change in the original plan, in consequence of the enormous expense it would require. At the death of Leo X the work was suspended, and was not resumed till the pontificate of Paul III. The architeet chosen by this Pontiff proposed a new plan; and this was about being adopted when Michael Angelo appeared, who gave one that was not to be subject to alteration. All his designs were approved. . . Having labored at the Basilica, under five different Popes, he died in 1564. The architects who succeeded him were ordered to adopt VOL. II.-No. 3.

his designs, and one of them lost his place, for having departed from them.

"Finally, forty-six years after, under Paul V, Maderno finished the church, and raised its façade; under Alexander VII Bernini constructed the portico which encloses the piazza; and finally, almost in our days, the unfortunate Pius VI added the sacristy, which is so necessary for church-service, but for which, however, Michael Angelo had reserved no place, either in the interior or exterior of the church-as he wished that the edifice should be detached from all additions, and perfectly regular, both in the interior and exterior. This sacristy was begun in 1776; it was finished in 1780, and consecrated on the 15th of June, 1784. If from that day, to which the completion of the entire work is to be assigned, we go back to the time when Julius II laid the first stone, we will find an interval of almost three centuries. In this interval thirty-four Popes governed the church.

"It is not easy to determine the sums of money expended on this immense building. According to the calculation of Fontana, who has left an accurate account of them, the expense in 1693 amounted to $47,000,000. To this sum must be added the gilding, sculpture, paintings, mosaics, and so many other ornaments since the time of Fontana; and, last, the new sacristy. It will not be extravagant to estimate the total expense at $50,000,000.”

ver.

It should be remembered also, that Michael Angelo, in gratitude for the confidence reposed in him by the Pope, in naming him architect of St. Peter's, declared that he would attend the building for the love of God without any reward whateThis declaration, says his biographer, was not like many others, made in the spirit of vain glory, for when the Pope afterwards wished to remunerate him, he could not be induced to accept any thing. By changing the designs of his predecessor Sangallo, he also cured many defects in the architecture of the church, and saved fifty years of time and three hundred thousand scudi. To his great accomplishments as an artist Michael Angelo united all the mascu

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