University of Virginia Library

58. LETTER LVIII.

Palm Sunday opens the ceremonies. We drove
to the Vatican this morning, at nine, and, after waiting
a half hour in the crush, kept back, at the point
of the spear, by the pope's Swiss guard, I succeeded
in getting an entrance into the Sistine chapel. Leaving
the ladies of the party behind the grate, I passed
two more guards, and obtained a seat among the cowled
and bearded dignitaries of the church and state
within, where I could observe the ceremony with ease.

The pope entered, borne in his gilded chair by
twelve men, and, at the same moment, the chanting
from the Sistine choir commenced with one long,
piercing note, by a single voice, producing the most
impressive effect. He mounted his throne as high as
the altar opposite him, and the cardinals went through
their obeisances, one by one, their trains supported by
their servants, who knelt on the lower steps behind
them. The palms stood in a tall heap beside the altar.
They were beautifully woven in wands of perhaps
six feet in length, with a cross at the top. The cardinal
nearest the papal chair mounted first, and a palm
was handed him. He laid it across the knees of the
pope, and, as his holiness signed the cross upon it, he
stooped, and kissed the embroidered cross upon his
foot, then kissed the palm, and taking it in his two
hands, descended with it to his seat. The other forty
or fifty cardinals did the same, until each was provided
with a palm. Some twenty other persons, monks of
apparent clerical rank of every order, military men,
and members of the catholic embassies, followed and
took palms. A procession was then formed, the cardinals
going first with their palms held before them,
and the pope following, in his chair, with a small frame
of palmwork in his hands, in which was woven the
initial of the Virgin. They passed out of the Sistine
chapel, the choir chanting most delightfully, and, having
made a tour around the vestibule, returned in the
same order.

The ceremony is intended to represent the entrance
of the Savior into Jerusalem. Bishop England, of
Charleston, South Carolina, delivered a lecture at the
house of the English cardinal Weld, a day or two ago,
explanatory of the ceremonies of the holy week. It
was principally an apology for them. He confessed
that, to the educated, they appeared empty, and even
absurd rites, but they were intended not for the refined,
but the vulgar, whom it was necessary to instruct and
impress through their outward senses. As nearly all
these rites, however, take place in the Sistine chapel,
which no person is permitted to enter who is not furnished
with a ticket, and in full dress, his argument
rather fell to the ground.

With all the vast crowd of strangers in Rome, I
went to the Sistine chapel on Holy Tuesday, to hear
the far-famed Miserere. It is sung several times during
the holy week, by the pope's choir, and has been
described by travellers, of all nations in the most rapturous
terms. The vestibule was a scene of shocking
confusion, for an hour, a constant struggle going on
between the crowd and the Swiss guard, amounting
occasionally to a fight, in which ladies fainted, children
screamed, men swore, and, unless by force of
contrast, the minds of the audience seemed likely to
be little in tune for the music. The chamberlains at
last arrived, and two thousand people attempted to get
into a small chapel which scarce holds four hundred.
Coat-skirts, torn cassocks, hats, gloves, and fragments
of ladies' dresses, were thrown up by the suffocating
throng, and, in the midst of a confusion beyond description,
the mournful notes of the tenebræ (or lamentations
of Jeremiah) poured in full volume from the
choir. Thirteen candles burned in a small pyramid
within the paling of the altar, and twelve of these,
representing the apostles, were extinguished, one by
one (to signify their desertion at the cross), during the
singing of the tenabræ. The last, which was left
burning, represented the mother of Christ. As the
last before this was extinguished, the music ceased.
The crowd had, by this time, become quiet. The
twilight had deepened through the dimly-lit chapel,
and the one solitary lamp looked lost at the distance of
the altar. Suddenly the miserére commenced with
one high prolonged note, that sounded like a wail;
another joined it, and another and another, and all the
different parts came in, with a gradual swell of plaintive
and most thrilling harmony, to the full power of
the choir. It continued for perhaps half an hour.
The music was simple, running upon a few notes, like
a dirge, but there were voices in the choir that seemed
of a really supernatural sweetness. No instrument
could be so clear. The crowd, even in their uncomfortable
positions, were breathless with attention, and
the effect was universal. It is really extraordinary
music, and if but half the rites of the catholic church
had its power over the mind, a visit to Rome would
have quite another influence.

The candles were lit, and the motley troop of cardinals
and red-legged servitors passed out. The harlequin-looking
Swiss guard stood to their tall halberds,
the chamberlains and mace-bearers, in their cassock
and frills, took care that the males and females should
not mix until they reached the door, the pope disappeared
in the sacristy, and the gay world, kept an hour
beyond their time, went home to cold dinners.

The ceremonies of Holy Thursday commenced
with the mass in the Sistine chapel. Tired of seeing
genuflexions, and listening to a mumbling of which I
could not catch a syllable, I took advantage of my
privileged seat, in the ambassador's box, to lean back
and study the celebrated frescoes of Michael Angelo
upon the ceiling. A little drapery would do no harm
to any of them. They illustrate, mainly, passages of

scripture history, but the “creation of Eve,” in the
centre, is an astonishingly fine representation of a
naked man and woman, as large as life; and “Lot
intoxicated and exposed before his two daughters,”
is about as immodest a picture, from its admirable
expression as well as its nudity, as could easily
be drawn. In one corner there is a most beautiful
draped figure of the Delphic Sybil—and I think
this bit of heathenism is almost the only very decent
part of the pope's most consecrated chapel.

After the mass, the host was carried, with a showy
procession, to be deposited among the thousand lamps
in the Capella Paolina, and, as soon as it had passed,
there was a general rush for the room in which the
pope was to wash the feet of the pilgrims.

Thirteen men, dressed in white, with sandals open
at the top, and caps of paper covered with white linen,
sat on a high bench, just under a beautiful copy of the
last supper of Da Vinci, in gobelin tapestry. It was
a small chapel, communicating with the pope's private
apartments. Eleven of the pilgrims were as vulgar
and brutal-looking men as could have been found in
the world; but of the two in the centre, one was the
personification of wild fanaticism. He was pale, emaciated,
and abstracted. His hair and beard were neglected,
and of a singular blackness. His lips were
firmly set in an expression of severity. His brows
were gathered gloomily over his eyes, and his glances,
occasionally sent among the crowd, were as glaring
and flashing as a tiger's. With all this, his
countenance was lofty, and if I had seen the face on
canvass, as a portrait of a martyr, I should have
thought it finely expressive of courage and devotion.
The man on his left wept, or pretended to weep, continually;
but every person in the room was struck
with his extraordinary resemblance to Judas, as he is
drawn in the famous picture of the last supper. It
was the same marked face, the same treacherous, ruffian
look, the same style of hair and beard, to a wonder.
It is possible that he might have been chosen on
purpose, the twelve pilgrims being intended to represent
the twelve apostles of whom Judas was one—but
if accidental, it was the most remarkable coincidence
that ever came under my notice. He looked the hypocrite
and traitor complete, and his resemblance to
the Judas in the picture directly over his head, would
have struck a child.

The pope soon entered from his apartments, in a
purple stole, with a cape of dark crimson satin, and
the mitre of silver-cloth, and, casting the incense into
the golden censer, the white smoke was flung from
side to side before him, till the delightful odor filled
the room. A short service was then chanted, and
the choir sang a hymn. His holiness was then unrobed,
and a fine napkin, trimmed with lace, was tied
about him by the servitors, and with a deacon before
him, bearing a splendid pitcher and basin, and a procession
behind him, with large bunches of flowers, he
crossed to the pilgrims' bench. A priest, in a snow-white
tunic, raised and bared the foot of the first. The
pope knelt, took water in his hand, and slightly rubbed
the instep, and then drying it well with a napkin,
he kissed it.

The assistant-deacon gave a large bunch of flowers
and a napkin to the pilgrim, as the pope left him, and
another person in rich garments, followed, with pieces
of money presented in a wrapper of white paper. The
same ceremony took place with each—one foot only
being honored with a lavation. When his holiness
arrived at the “Judas,” there was a general stir, and
every one was on tip-toe to watch his countenance.
He took his handkerchief from his eyes, and looked
at the pope very earnestly, and when the ceremony
was finished, he seized the sacred hand, and, imprinting
a kiss upon it, flung himself back, and buried his
face again in his handkerchief, quite overwhelmed with
his feelings. The other pilgrims took it very coolly,
comparatively, and one of them seemed rather amused
than edified. The pope returned to his throne, and
water was poured over his hands. A cardinal gave
him a napkin, his splendid cape was put again over his
shoulders, and, with a paternoster the ceremony was
over.

Half an hour after, with much crowding and several
losses of foothold and temper, I had secured a place
in the hall where the apostles, as the pilgrims are
called after the washing, were to dine, waited on by
the pope and cardinals. With their gloomy faces and
ghastly white caps and white dresses, they looked
more like criminals waiting for execution, than guests
at a feast. They stood while the pope went round
with a gold pitcher and basin, to wash their hands,
and then seating themselves, his holiness, with a good-natured
smile, gave each a dish of soup, and said
something in his ear, which had the effect of putting
him at his ease. The table was magnificently set out
with the plate and provisions of a prince's table, and
spite of the thousands of eyes gazing on them, the
pilgrims were soon deep in the delicacies of every
dish, even the lachrymose Judas himself, eating most
voraciously. We left them at their dessert.