Part 18
This extraordinary decoration envelops up to their summits the three ogival windows that open upon the porch. It goes up as high as the triforium, by a succession of seven rows of niches closed by trefoil arches, and separated from them by panels and corner-pieces of leaves borrowed from the flora of the country and divinely carved. You see in turn: the laurel, the vine, the pear, the apple, the holly, the oak, the ivy, the water-lily, the bulrush, the peony, the clover, the chestnut, the liverwort, and the olive. A hundred and twenty-two statues of incomparable beauty, rivalling the most beautiful productions of sculpture of former times, occupy the niches, and, deliciously set off by the floral decoration of the plain surfaces, stand out like living personages from the dark background of the niches.
Each one of these figures is a most precious work, studied from nature with a sovereign knowledge of drapery and movement. Here is a priest officiating in his chasuble and holding the Eucharist; there, is a warrior in coat-of-mail, who seems to have just returned from the Crusades; moreover, there are some prophets of heroic mien, noble virgins with trailing robes, and martyrs, illuminated with ecstasy. All this mural decoration was made in the spirit of the architecture, intended to complete the iconography of the great door and to amplify still further the cyclic character,--the general theme being the history of Christ and the glorification of the Virgin, with the accessory scenes that belong to it.
Let us cross the threshold: we are outside, before the façade. We must walk farther away in order to embrace all the lines and take in the masterly idea of the whole. It is most celebrated, that is well-known; for a long time, its richness has been a synonym of beauty in mediæval art. I have already said that the general conception is of the highest order, the upward movement is magnificent, the statues blossom with a bewildering luxuriance, and the infinite multiplication of the details, which--miraculous fact--do not obliterate the majestic section of the lower stages, so happily cut by the tall bays scattered in the bell-towers. Nevertheless, when you come nearer, you are surprised at finding so much uncertainty in the conduct of this terrible enterprise! How much weakness and lassitude in the highest parts! You perceive both haste and economy there. All that dates from the end of the Fourteenth and the beginning of the Fifteenth Century is mediocre; the sculpture, cut in bad materials that are injured by the frost, is coarse and flabby: the nobility of the contours is lost beneath the excessive ornamentation, and the absence of the spires deprives this aërial building of its necessary finish.
To be satisfied, the eye must rest below the row of Kings made during the reign of Charles V.
While the upper stories have been made of soft stone of a bad quality, the lower parts, built of hard stone, have acquired in the course of time the hues of Florentine bronze. It is here that the Champagne sculptor has lavishly exhibited the treasures of his spirit, his audacity and his genius. When the great statues of the portals of Rheims are mentioned, everybody is of one accord.
The Queen of the basilica, the Virgin, is the soul of this cosmos, the centre from which everything radiates.
She is crowned by Christ beneath the daïs of the great gable, and this composition, which is still brightened by the remains of the gold background from which it stands out, is one of the most exquisite creations of Christian Art; the Virgin is also on the pier; she is directly or indirectly in every scene of the life of Jesus. Her memory, her legend, her poetry are everywhere: she is at once the culminating point and the humble pretext of all this magnificence. At Paris, at Bourges and at Amiens, it is Christ; here, it is the Virgin; and around this admirable theme a powerful thought has quickened into being a race of statues, a people in whom life, movement and fantasy circulate, beneath the compassionate gaze of the Mother of God and under the influence of her adorable grace. Charm is really the special characteristic of the sculpture at Rheims,--a special charm that is always evident, a charm carried to the point of _morbidezza_ which in certain figures has been compared, and not without reason, to the mysterious charm of Leonardo da Vinci.
All these personages of high stature, blackened and polished by time, possess an indescribable grace, smiling and familiar, an indescribable and eloquent gravity that puts them into communion with the spectator; they are indeed of our country and of our race; their idealism, always youthful despite the centuries, is not too far removed from earth to respond even now to the secret aspirations of our souls; they are the glory of the portals of Rheims, the glory of French sculpture.
Beautiful as these figures are, they must not let us forget the population of two thousand five hundred statues that make the Cathedral of Rheims a unique monument of decorative and monumental sculpture. All the images of this old basilica deserve attentive study. An entire volume would scarcely suffice to enumerate them. It is necessary to take a trip to the roof to measure fully this incredible wealth: giants of stone, angels with spread wings, apostles, saints and royal figures, fantastic animals, more than forty metres high, which occupy the pinnacles of the buttresses, are lined along the galleries of the transepts or fortify the balustrade of the roof; figures full of vitality that project from the corners, the springs of the arches, the junction of curves, as crowns, supports, caryatides, mascarons, and gargoyles; capricious, expressive and energetic figures, to execute which the Champagne chisel, the freest and most supple of Gothic chisels, has given itself full scope, with an exuberant joy.
Despite the devastations of the rococo period, to which was added that of the Revolutionary period, the Cathedral of Rheims has not been entirely stripped of her incomparable artistic treasures. She has preserved a great portion of her tapestry hangings, and her Treasury is still one of the richest in France.
The tapestries of Rheims have been very learnedly described by M. Ch. Loriquet. Before the Revolution the collection was unique. Hincmar, Hérivée, Regnault de Chartres, Juvénal des Ursins, Robert de Lenoncourt, the great Cardinal of Lorraine, the Cardinal of Guise, Henri de Lorraine, the Kings of France and the Chapter were the principal donators.
These tapestries were used to decorate the cathedral on days of special solemnity. Of the magnificent collection there only remain the fifteen pieces by Lenoncourt, two of the six tapestries of the _Grand Roi Clovis_, given by the Cardinal of Lorraine, fifteen tapestries executed by Pepersack, at the order of Henri de Lorraine, the four pieces ordered from Lombart d’ Aubusson by the Chapter, four tapestries called the _Cantiques_ and two Gobelins after Raphael’s Cartoons.
The most remarkable are certainly those by Lenoncourt and those of the Clovis set. The first were offered to the cathedral by the Archbishop Robert de Lenoncourt; one of them bears the dedication of 1530. They represent the _Life of the Virgin_. They are of Flemish origin and of a very fine execution. The composition is rich, spirited and of an extremely graceful style. Some of them have not lost the freshness of their colours and can still be counted among the best specimens of the art of tapestry at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. These precious hangings occupy the wall surfaces of the side-aisles of the nave, where they produce a sumptuous effect.
THE CASTLE OF S. ANGELO
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE
The Ponte S. Angelo is the Pons Elius of Hadrian, built as an approach to his mausoleum, and only intended for this, as another public bridge existed close by, at the time of its construction. It is almost entirely ancient, except the parapets. The statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, at the extremity, were erected by Clement VII., in the place of two chapels, in 1530, and the angels, by Clement IX., in 1688. The pedestal of the third angel on the right is a relic of the siege of Rome in 1849, and bears the impress of a cannon-ball.
These angels, which have been called the “breezy maniacs” of Bernini, are only from his designs. The two angels which he executed himself, and intended for this bridge, are now at S. Andrea della Fratte. The idea of Clement IX. was a fine one, that “an avenue of the heavenly host should be assembled to welcome the pilgrim to the shrine of the great apostle.”
From the Ponte S. Angelo, when the Tiber is low, are visible the remains of the bridge by which the ancient Via Triumphalis crossed the river. Close by, where Santo Spirito now stands, was the Porta Triumphalis, by which victors entered the city in triumph.
Facing the bridge, is the famous Castle of S. Angelo, built by the Emperor Hadrian as his family tomb, because the last niche in the imperial mausoleum of Augustus was filled when the ashes of Nerva were laid there. The first funeral here was that of Elius Verus, the first adopted son of Hadrian, who died before him. The Emperor himself died at Baiæ, but his remains were transported hither from a temporary tomb at Pozzuoli by his successor Antoninus Pius, by whom the mausoleum was completed in A.D., 140. Here also were buried, Antoninus Pius, A.D., 161; Marcus Aurelius, 180; Commodus, 192; and Septimius Severus, in an urn of gold, enclosed in one of alabaster, A.D., 211; Caracalla, in 217, was the last Emperor interred here. The well-known lines of Byron:
“Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear’d on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt’s piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travell’d phantasy from the far Nile’s Enormous model, doom’d the artist’s toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome! How smiles The gazer’s eye with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth,
seem rather applicable to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius than to this mausoleum.
The Castle, as it now appears, is but the skeleton of the magnificent tomb of the Emperors. Procopius, writing in the Sixth Century, describes its appearance in his time. “It was built,” he says, “of Parian marble; the square blocks fit closely to each other without any cement. It has four equal sides, each a stone’s throw in length. In height it rises above the walls of the city. On the summit are statues of men and horses, of admirable workmanship in Parian marble.” Canina, in his _Architectura Romana_, gives a restoration of the mausoleum, which shows how it consisted of three stories: 1, A quadrangular basement, the upper part intersected with Doric pillars, between which were spaces for epitaphs of the dead within, and surmounted at the corners by marble equestrian statues; 2, a circular story, with fluted Ionic colonnades; 3, circular story, surrounded by Corinthian columns, between which were statues. The whole was surmounted by a pyramidal roof, ending in a bronze fir-cone.
The history of the Mausoleum, in the Middle Ages is almost the history of Rome. It was probably first turned into a fortress by Honorius, A.D., 423. From Theodoric it derives the name of “Carcer Theodorici.” In 537, it was besieged by Vitiges, when the defending garrison, reduced to the last extremity, hurled down all the magnificent statues which decorated the cornice, upon the besiegers. In A.D., 498, Pope Symmachus removed the bronze fir-cone at the apex of the roof to the court of St. Peter’s, whence it was afterwards transferred to the Vatican garden, where it is still to be seen between two bronze peacocks, which probably stood on either side of the entrance.
Belisarius defended the castle against Totila, whose Gothic troops captured and held it for three years, after which it was taken by Narses.
It was in 530 that the event occurred which gave the building its present name. Pope Gregory the Great was leading a penitential procession to St. Peter’s, in order to offer up prayers for the staying of the great pestilence which followed the inundation of 589; when, as he was crossing the bridge, even while the people were falling dead around him, he looked up at the Mausoleum and saw an angel on its summit, sheathing a bloody sword, while a choir of angels around chaunted with celestial voices, the anthem, since adopted by the church in her vesper service--“_Regina cœli, lætare--quia quem meruisti portare--resurrexit, sicut dixit, Alleluja_.”--To which the earthly voice of the Pope solemnly responded: “_Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluja_.”[10]
In the Tenth Century the fortress was occupied by the infamous Marozia, who, in turn, brought her three husbands (Alberic, Count of Tusculum; Guido, Marquis of Tuscany; and Hugo, King of Italy), thither, to tyrannize with her over Rome. It was within the walls of this building that Alberic, her son by her first husband, waiting upon his royal stepfather at table, threw a bowl of water over him, when Hugo retorted by a blow, which was the signal for an insurrection, the people taking part with Alberic, putting the King to flight, and imprisoning Marozia. Shut up within these walls, Pope John XI. (931–936), son of Marozia by her first husband, ruled under the guidance of his stronger-minded brother Alberic; here, also, Octavian, son of Alberic and grandson of Marozia, succeeded in forcing his election as John XII. (being the first Pope who took a new name), and scandalized Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery and incest.
In 974, the Castle was seized by Cencio (Crescenzio Nomentano), the consul, who raised up an anti-pope (Boniface VII.) here, with the determination of destroying the temporal power of the popes and imprisoned and murdered two popes, Benedict VI. (972), and John XIV. (984), within these walls. In 996, another lawful pope, Gregory V., calling in the Emperor Otho to his assistance, took the Castle and beheaded Cencio, though he had promised him life if he would surrender. From this governor the fortress long held the name of Castello de Crescenzio, or Turris Crescentii, by which it is described in mediæval writings. A second Cencio supported another anti-pope, Cadolaus, here in 1063, against Pope Alexander II. A third Cencio imprisoned Gregory VII. here in 1084. From this time the possession of the Castle was a constant point of contest between popes and anti-popes. In 1313, Arlotto degli Stefaneschi, having demolished most of the other towers in the city, arranged the same fate for S. Angelo, but it was saved by cession to the Orsini. It was from hence, on December 15, 1347, that Rienzi fled to Bohemia, at the end of his first period of power, his wife having previously made her escape disguised as a friar.
“The cause of final ruin to this monument,” is described by Nibby to have been the resentment of the citizens against a French governor who espoused the cause of the anti-pope (Clement VII.) against Urban VI. in 1378. It was then that the marble casings were all torn from the walls and used as street pavements.
A drawing of Sangallo of 1465 shows the upper part of the fortress crowned with high square towers and turreted buildings; a cincture of bastions and massive square towers girding the whole; two square-built bulwarks flanking the extremity of the bridge, which was then so connected with these outworks that passengers would have immediately found themselves inside the fortress after crossing the river. Marlianus, 1588, describes its double cincture of fortifications,--“a large round tower at the inner extremity of the bridge; two towers with high pinnacles, and the cross on their summits, the river flowing all around.”
The Castle began to assume its present aspect under Boniface IX. in 1395. John XXIII., 1411, commenced the covered way to the Vatican, which was finished by Alexander VI.; and roofed by Urban VIII., in 1630. By the last named pope the great outworks of the fortress were built under Bernini, and furnished with cannon made from the bronze roof of the Pantheon. Under Paul III. the interior was decorated with frescoes, and a colossal marble angel erected on the summit, in place of a chapel (S. Angelo inter Nubes), built by Boniface XIV. for the existing angel of bronze, by a Dutch artist, Verschaffelt.
Of the Castle, as we now see it externally, only the quadrangular basement is of the time of Hadrian; the round tower is of that of Urban VIII., its top added by Paul III. The four round towers of the outworks, called after the four Evangelists, are of Nicholas V., 1447.
The interior of the fortress can be visited by an order. Excavations made in 1825 have laid open the sepulchral chamber in the midst of the basement. Here, stood in the centre, the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian, which was stolen by Pope Innocent II. to be used as his own tomb in the Lateran, where it was destroyed by the fire of 1360, the cover alone escaping, which was used for the tomb of Otho II., in the atrium of St. Peter’s, and which, after filling this office for seven centuries, is now the baptismal font of that basilica. A spiral passage, thirty feet high and eleven wide, up which a chariot could be driven, gradually ascends through the solid mass of masonry. There is wonderfully little to be seen. A saloon of the time of Paul III. is adorned with frescoes of the life of Alexander the Great, by Pierino del Vaga. This room would be used by the pope in case of his having to take refuge in S. Angelo. An adjoining room, adorned with a stucco frieze of Tritons and Nereids, is that in which Cardinal Caraffa was strangled (1561) under Pius IV., for alleged abuses of authority under his uncle, Paul IV.--his brother, the Marquis Caraffa, being beheaded in the castle the same night. The reputed prison of Beatrice Cenci is shown, but it is very uncertain that she was ever confined here,--also the prison of Cagliostro, and that of Benvenuto Cellini, who escaped, and broke his leg in trying to let himself down by a rope from the ramparts. The statue of the angel by Montelupo is to be seen stowed away in a dark corner. Several horrible trabocchette (oubliettes) are shown.
On the roof, from which there is a beautiful view, are many modern prisons, where prisoners suffer terribly from the summer sun beating upon their flat roofs.
Among the sculptures found here were the Barberini Faun, now at Munich, the Dancing Faun, at Florence, and the Bust of Hadrian at the Vatican. The sepulchral inscriptions of the Antonines existed till 1572, when they were cut up by Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni), and the marble used to decorate a chapel in St. Peter’s! The magnificent easter display of fireworks (from an idea of Michael Angelo, carried out by Bernini), called the girandola, used to be exhibited here, but now takes place at S. Pietro in Montorio, or from the Pincio. From 1849 to 1870, the Castle was occupied by French troops, and their banner floated here, except on great festivals, when it was exchanged for that of the pope.
Running behind and crossing the back streets of the Borgo, is the covered passage intended for the escape of the popes to the Castle. It was used by Alexander VI. when invaded by Charles VIII. in 1494, and twice by Clement VII. (Giulio de’ Medici), who fled, in 1527, from Moncada, viceroy of Naples, and in May, 1527, during the terrible sack of Rome by the troops of the Constable de Bourbon.
“The Escape” consists of two passages; the upper open like a loggia, the lower covered, and only lighted by loop-holes. The keys of both are kept by the pope himself.
S. Angelo is at the entrance of the Borgo, promised at the Italian invasion of September, 1870, as the sanctuary of the papacy, the tiny sovereignty where the temporal sway of the popes should remain undisturbed,--the sole relic left to them of all their ancient dominions.
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
W. J. LOFTIE
Salisbury Cathedral, from the point of view of the architectural artist, is the most beautiful and the most perfect in England. The visitor who sees it first on a bright day, can never forget the impression it has made on his mind. Unlike the architects of the so-called “Great Gothic Revival,” the builders of Salisbury put their trust in proportion. Incidentally they made their details as elaborate and perfect as possible; but they were subordinated to the general effect, and when during the frightful ravages of the “restorers,” let loose upon the church in the past and present centuries, many of the best and most precious of these details and ornaments perished or were renewed, the main building survives, raising its exquisitely graceful spire into the blue sky, its thousand pinnacles all pointing upward and gleaming white against the deep green of the old trees and the emerald turf of the surrounding close. “How long,” asked an American visitor, “does it take to grow such turf?” “Oh! not long,” was the reply; “only a couple of centuries.” One feels at Salisbury that whether the answer was given there or at Oxford, of no place could it be more true. Though when we look near enough, we can see that fresh and white as is the general effect, the masonry of Salisbury is of great antiquity, except, of course, where it has been restored; and antiquity adds another charm, for Salisbury was the first complete cathedral built after the Romanesque tradition had died out, as St. Paul’s is the first built after it had been revived. In other cathedrals there are portions and fragments of the same style, and they are always the most beautiful features of the whole building. We can recall the western porch at Ely, and the angel choir at Lincoln, and the Chapter-house at Southwell; but here at Salisbury, we have the whole vast cathedral, all in the same supreme style, every part fitting into its place, and adding its contribution to the general effect, never in contrast, but always in harmony until the effect is attained. What that is may be read in countless books of travel or criticism. Salisbury cathedral, like the Parthenon and all the other--there are not many--buildings which tempt one to call them poems in stone--produces a different feeling in the minds of all who see it. I am not going to add another to the descriptions of the view. On the contrary, I am going about the prosaic task of trying to find out to what circumstances its beauty is due, and why the name of Richard Poore is honoured among lovers of good architecture with that of Christopher Wren, no other Englishman being worthy to make a third. The chief points to be noted about Salisbury are these. The effect does not in any way depend upon ornamental details. This may be proved by two examples taken from the building. The west front was greatly injured at different times, its carving broken, and its figures defaced. The carving has been copied and “restored,” and new figures have replaced the old. The front is now neat and spick and span, but the general effect is in no wise improved, but rather deteriorated, by having its antiquity destroyed. It is the same with the chromatic decoration of the interior, and with the “improvement” of the Chapter-house. The painting on the roof tends to lower it; the gaudy, shiny aspect of the Chapter-house goes far to spoil, if it could spoil, the exquisite design and subtle proportions.