THE SISTINE TREASURY

The Vatican is full of treasures unsuspected by the sightseer, such as the Farnese Tapestries and the Treasury of the Sistine Chapel. So little is the latter known, that neither Baedeker, Murray, Macmillan, nor Chandlery mention it. But it is more interesting than the Treasury of St. Peter’s, because it is far more intimately connected with the Pope. The reason for the silence is that so few people have been permitted to see it. Its existence is practically a secret. You are shown over it by Don Giacomo, one of the Augustinian brothers who have charge of the Paoline Chapel, and from whom the Pope’s Sacrist is always taken. Leave having been obtained from the Papal authorities, you go to summon him in the little house occupied by the brothers at the back of the Loggia, frescoed by Giovanni da Udine, which is under Raffaelle’s Loggia. The door is always shut, but over it there is a square hatch about twelve or fifteen feet from the ground, and when you knock a smiling person puts his head out of it and talks in the Roman dialect to you. This is the cook of the brothers, who, after proper explanations, summons Don Giacomo.

Then you pass through the Sala Ducale, with its poor Pompeian frescoes by a painter named Bril or Brill--Paul Brill, a Fleming, who died in 1626--and its still poorer plaster arch by Bernini, into the Sala Regia. Bernini’s arch is made of the bodies of cherubs. The Sala Regia is huge and has huge frescoes of such subjects as the Battle of Lepanto. The colouring reminds you of the Duchess who is an artist and goes in for high living and high thinking--it is high rather than rich, and the painters have failed to invest the frescoes with any elegance. Rome abounds with vast sixteenth-century buildings, and their principal halls are apt to be given up to the Battle of Lepanto. One can see how the Battle of Lepanto woke Europe from the nightmare of a conquest by the Turks. The door opposite to the Sala Ducale admits to the Sistine Chapel. You pass through the exquisite white marble screen of Mino da Fiesole without looking at its lovely arabesques or gilded bars; you do not raise your eyes to the ceiling of Michel Angelo, though it is one of the wonders of the world. You do not glance right or left at the frescoes of Pinturicchio and Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Ghirlandajo, though you thread your way between a hundred people who are straining their eyes over the faded glories. You may cast an eye on the tumultuous assemblage which Michel Angelo conceived for the Last Judgment, and which Daniele da Volterra was commissioned to provide with clothes, because you are admitted through a hole in its bottom blocked by a door which is kept always locked. Then, after a ramble through various anterooms and upstairs, you arrive at the Treasury, which fills several rooms. In the first is kept one of the greatest treasures, the grand old linen lace robe, overpoweringly heavy, worn in 1298 by Boniface VIII., the Caetani Pope. Though this is the oldest object in the collection, the Caetani are still the premier family in the Roman nobility. In the same case is kept a gold brooch several inches in diameter, with three golden and pearl bosses, made in the shape of a Papal tiara, presented to the Pope in 1888 to hold his cope together. All round this room, at the backs of the treasure cases, are hung the splendid gold embroideries which the Grand Duke of Tuscany gave to Clement VIII. In a drawer below are kept Pius IX.’s white full-dress shoes, heavily embroidered with gold, with four diamonds and a large emerald in the centre. They seem to be copied from the Rostrum in the Forum. Here, too, you see the exquisite collection of robes of all the famous kinds of lace, Genoese, Venetian, English, Irish, and so on, one of the most superb being the robe of Venetian point worn by the Pope for the first time at the recent consecration of fifteen French Bishops.

The most extraordinary object in the room is the tall hat of red velvet, edged with gold brocade, shaped like a Japanese Daimio’s hat, which the Pope used to send to favoured individuals, though none have been sent since 1837--the Cappello Ducale. It has a pearl and gold tiara at the top. In this chamber or the next is the tiara worn by Pius VII. in his captivity, when Napoleon had deprived him of all his jewels. It is made of cloth of silver stretched over paper or leather, like all the other tiaras, but instead of being encrusted with magnificent gems, it is decorated with films of precious stones as thin as paper, with a backing of tinsel. Don Giacomo calls it all paper, so as to make the most of the rigours of the captivity at Savona and Fontainebleau. The whole room is given up to gorgeous robes for Mass, some of the crimson robes, heavily embroidered with bullion, being absolutely lovely. In each case is kept a suite for the Cardinals who assist the Pope at the Mass, as well as for the Pope himself. The most peculiar objects are the Pope’s stockings, which look like the loose beef-boots worn by the French Canadians in the backwoods, only that they are made of crimson silk embroidered with gold. If Popes wore trousers they would go inside their stockings easily. Perhaps I should convey my meaning more clearly if I said that these full-dress Papal stockings were as wide as the mackintosh bottoms which London policemen wear over their trousers in wet weather. The Pope has red shoes to match, made like Pius IX.’s, but about two inches longer. They cannot fit, because the gloves of the suite, which are exactly like ladies’ riding gauntlets, also of crimson and gold, only look about six-and-a-halfs. Some zealots from Spain have also sent the Pope pairs of marvellously embroidered green satin shoes, and white satin shoes, quite irrespective of size. They would have done for Goliath, but are very gorgeous. It is a very odd thing that the shoes of the Pope and of Hadrian’s courtiers on the Rostrum in the Forum are of the same rude latchet pattern which were worn by working-men in England right into the nineteenth century. The likeness is, of course, accidental; the one being due to coarseness and cheapness, and the other to the preservation of an archaic type. In the case adjoining are two robes presented to Leo XIII. for his Jubilee--one of a lace of very fine silk braid, the other of fine silver and gold net. There is yet another of crimson silk, embroidered with real pearls, given by the Roman ladies, but the pearls are of the _nouveau art_ grade.

Here, too, is the beautiful altar-front, of cloth of silver embroidered with gold, which is always laid on the altar in front of the Pope when he is celebrating at great functions.

The most peculiar things of all are the Cardinals’ robes, made of cloth of gold and black silk, which look like shot-brown silk. These they wear at a Mass for a dead Pope. The living Pope, for the time being, wears crimson; it would not be right for him to wear mourning. One large armoire is full of gorgeous cushions, mostly of rich white silk embroidered with gold, for the Pope to kneel on.

Then you go into another room, and, passing a large collection of stoles enriched with beautifully painted miniatures of Saints, come to the glass case which contains the famous Golden Rose. The Golden Rose is a complete rose-bush, a foot and a half high, with about a dozen blossoms of heavy, clumsy, not very well-made or natural roses; but the foliage is of thin gold leaf, like the garlands found in Etruscan tombs. The bush stands in a rich, odd-shaped, silver-gilt vase, as quaint as the vases of Tunis, two feet high. It is always kept here as the sample from which the Pope can order a copy on the very rare occasions when he wishes to bestow “the Golden Rose,” as our King bestows the Order of “the Garter.” The last person who received it is said to have been an American woman who had given two million dollars to the Pope.

The queer little silver boxes, mostly with conical tops, inscribed ol., like chemists’ jars, contain the chrism for (1) the sick; (2) catechumens; and (3) confirmation.

The Pope’s tiaras[19] are made of cloth of silver stretched over some stiff substance. They are twelve or fifteen inches high, surrounded by three crowns of golden leaves rather like arum leaves, each with a costly gem in the centre, coming out of a band three-quarters of an inch wide, thickly studded with magnificent gems. There are two visible here, the present Pope’s and Pio Nono’s. Each is surmounted by a blue enamelled ball, like the ball of St. Peter’s, and a little diamond cross. Tiaras have strings like Glengarry caps. Here is kept the Venetian point robe given to Leo XII. for his Jubilee.

In this room is kept the faded scarlet hat worn by Pius VII. at Fontainebleau in his captivity, which has a long inscription devoted to it.

The first object which strikes you in the next room is a magnificent processional cross, seven feet high, made of silver gilt, adorned with figures, enamelling, etc., presented by the late Marquess of Bute. Here, too, is kept the magnificent silver-gilt altar service given by Queen Victoria to Leo XIII. for his Jubilee. Close by is a model of the famous Cellini brooch of gold, five inches in diameter, with a large diamond in the centre--a cope brooch. A Princess Corsini gave her wedding train, made of crimson velvet with gold embroidery, to the Pope for his exhibition. You live in an atmosphere of crimson silk and gold embroidery here. In this room are some wonderful pictures woven in silk. In an alcove opposite, fourteen feet by ten, are about twenty of the robes worn by the Pope on his Throne on the Sedia Gestatoria; each contains twenty-five metres of silk. They are about seven feet long, so they have to hang very high, but they are quite light compared with the embroidered copes.

There are said to be seventy rooms of plate. Everything here is plate, except Boniface VIII.’s lace robe. This is because Napoleon carried off all the Vatican treasures and only returned the church plate. The gems and gold and other jewellery disappeared.

Here I must point out the finger of Fate. When Paul III. was building the Sacristy, he came across the tomb of the Empresses Maria and Thermantia, the two wives of Honorius; their bodies were intact, and they still wore their pearl robes, and were surrounded by many costly feminine trinkets. Paul, one of the least saintly of the Popes, was feverishly building St. Peter’s to take the place of children as his posterity. He was vulgar enough to melt down the gold, forty pounds in weight, which he applied to the building, but he kept the gems and put them in his tiara. Napoleon cared nothing for Paul III.’s tiara; it was broken up too, whereas if they had been left in the Empress’s jewels, Napoleon would certainly have preserved them as wonders of the world, and they would have found their way back to the Vatican. Paul’s own tomb, too, in St. Peter’s--as if in retribution--has felt the hand of the spoiler; two of its statues are gone. There is nothing by Benvenuto Cellini in the Sistine Treasury, and there are very few other grand monstrances or crosses, but some of those in the Pitti Palace may have come from here, because the Papal plate there is so very splendid. It is a curious change to pass from this silent treasury of the dead Popes back into the Sistine Chapel, where you see a Roman crowd without a Roman in it, and are deafened by earth’s many languages.