Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER IV.

THE Christmas Holydays are at hand, and on every side we hear the note of preparation. The shops are decorated with flowers, while the altars of the churches are arrayed in their most splendid ornaments. The images of the Virgin in particular are seen in their gayest dress, and all the jewelry which the treasury can furnish is brought out to give them an elegant and fashionable appearance.

At this time, too, in addition to the varied population of the city-its priests, soldiers, and beggars, who together form the great proportion-a new accession is pouring in from the surrounding country. The peasants who live in the deserted tombs on the Campagna-the natives of the Alban mountains, fierce banditti-looking fellows, who gather their cloaks about them with a scowling air which would not be at all pleasant to encounter among their own hills—and the Trasteverini, in their picturesque costumes, boasting themselves to be the only true descendants of the ancient Romans, and as proud and haughty in their bearing as if they had also inherited the heroic virtues of their ancestors ;-these are to be met roaming about every street, and in the churches, gazing in wonder at their magnificence.

The most singular, however, are the Calabrian minstrels, the pifferari. Their dress is wild and striking, consisting of a loose sheep-skin coat, with the wool left on it, and a high peaked cap, decked with gay ribbons and sprigs of heather, while the huge zampogne of goat-skin is formed like the bag

pipes of Scotland, and resembles them too in its shrill music. These interesting characters arrive during the last days of Advent, and consider themselves the representatives of the shepherds of Judea, who were the first to announce the news of the Nativity. Their usual gathering place is on the steps of the Piazza di Spagna, where they lounge and sleep in the warm sun. Every little while a party sets out on a tour through the city, blowing away with the most desperate energy. At the next corner is one of the shrines of the Madonna, and this is their first stopping place, to salute the Mother and Child. Lady Morgan says, it is done "under the traditional notion of charming her labor-pains on the approaching Christmas.' They turn down the Via Frattina, and a short distance farther come to a carpenter's shop, which must also be favored with a tune, "per politezza al messer San Giuseppe," "out of compliment to St. Joseph." The owner hands them out a bajoccho, and they continue their march until the circuit is completed.

[ocr errors]

At sundown on Christmas eve, the cannon sounded from the castle of St. Angelo, to give notice that the Holy Season had begun. We were advised to attend service in the Sistine Chapel, and accordingly at an early hour repaired to the Vatican, in which it is situated. Gentlemen are only admitted in full dress, and ladies also are compelled to appear in black, their heads covered only with a veil. The entrance was guarded by the Pope's harlequin-looking guards, in the ridiculous uniform said to have been designed by Michael Angelo; and the company all gathered round them until the doors were opened, when they pushed in as best they could, jostling and being jostled. Half way up the chapel there is a grating, beyond which the ladies are not permitted to go, so that for once the gentlemen were best accommodated. At the upper end of the large area above is the altar, while on the sides are raised seats for the Cardinals, and to these we struggled up, until all further advance was

cut off by the halberts of the guards. Here we took our stand, and waited with the most exemplary patience for the service to begin.

Nearly an hour passed while the Cardinals were collecting. One by one they came into the area, their long red trains supported by two priests in purple dresses, and after kneeling for a moment on the floor, facing the altar, ascended to their seats. Their brethren, already there, rose and greeted them with a stately bow, and the attendants placed themselves humbly at their feet. At length the music began, but I confess I was disappointed. It was too loud for the size of the chapel, and we missed the sweet sounds of the organ, which formed so noble an accompaniment at Vespers in St. Peter's. In the middle of the chapel stood a lectern, and to this at different parts of the service, a priest would be escorted, who, after going through his portion in a kind of recitative manner, was again in form escorted back to the door. These modulations, we are told by Roman Catholic writers, were first introduced to raise and support the voice, to extend its reach and soften its cadences, because its common tones cannot adequately be heard when the service is performed in a large church. They vary, however, in number and solemnity in the different parts of the service. "In the lessons and epistles, the interrogations, exclamations, and periods only are marked by a corresponding rise or fall: the Gospel has its variations more numerous and more dignified: the preface is rich in full melodies and solemn swells, borrowed, as it is supposed, from the stately accents of Roman tragedy. The Psalms, or to use an expression more appropriate, the anthems that commence the service, precede the Gospel, usher in the offertory, and follow the communion, together with the Gloria in excelsis and Creed, were set to more complicated and more labored notes."* The priests who officiated

* Eustace, vol. ii. p. 81.

this evening seemed to have been selected for their voices, and we certainly never heard any thing superior to them in As with their faces turned to compass and richness of tone. Heaven, they sang from the large golden-clasped volumes, it seemed to be the very perfection of the human voice. There could, however, be no devotion except for those well acquainted with the service, and as there was great sameness in the singing, the audience evidently soon began to grow weary. For a time, therefore, I scrutinized the Cardinals, some of whom have magnificent heads―keen, intellectual looking men, well worthy to be pillars of the Vatican. Then I tried to make out the frescos on the ceiling, and the great painting of the Last Judgment by Michael Angelo, which occupies the end of the chapel, and is more than sixty feet high. But the paintings were too far off to be seen even by the brilliant lights around us, and the brightness of their colors has been sadly dimmed by the smoke of the candles and incense during the last two centuries.

The audience seemed to be almost entirely English, and Such at least is the complaint I suppose were Protestants. of the Italians, that they can never gain admittance to the services of their own Church, but every place is occupied by foreigners. This formed the subject of one of the satirical witticisms of Pasquin. One night the question was affixed to his statue-"How shall I, being a true son of the Holy Church, obtain admittance to her services ?" The next night the answer which appeared was-" Declare that you are an After Englishman, and swear that you are a heretic."

a while, the rumor began to spread round among the spectators, that the Pope was not to be present this evening, and therefore there would be no High Mass after Vespers. This news apparently made them more restless, and they began to thin out. One party after another passed down the line of guards as they stood like statues, and departed. Many went to the Church of St. Maria Maggiore, to see at midnight the

true cradle in which our Lord was rocked carried in procession. Having however little taste for such exhibitions we did not join them. I found indeed, from the account of a friend who witnessed it, that we did not lose much. After standing for some hours in a dense crowd listening to the singing of the choir, a procession of priests carried the Holy Relic across the Church from the sacrisity to the altar. It was enclosed in a splendid coffer of silver with a canopy of gold cloth elevated over it. Banners waved—the lighted tapers were held up-incense rose in clouds about itthe guard of soldiers, and the crowd which filled the Church dropped on their knees-it passed-and the whole show was

over.

Near midnight we took our course homeward, beneath as splendid a moon as ever shone, even through the transparency of an Italian sky. In the square before St. Peter's, the obelisk raised its tapering point up to Heaven, and the fountain on each side flung high its waters, which fell in silver spray as they reflected back the clear light of the moon. We stood for a while on the Bridge of St. Angelo, looking at its beams play upon the Tiber. That mighty fortress—Hadrian's massive tomb-was frowning darkly above us, and the statues which lined the bridge looked pale and wan in the clear night, till they appeared like pallid phantoms, steadfastly watching the current of time, by which they could be influenced no more.*

Christmas morning fulfilled in its beauty the promise of the night before. It is the great Festival of the winter. The Papal banners are displayed from the Castle, and the streets

"Les rayons de la lune faisoient des statues comme des ombres blanches, regardant fixément couler les flots et le temps qui ne les concernent plus." Corinne.

« PreviousContinue »