the approach to the tomb, are enriched with alabaster, lapis lazuli, verd antique, and beautiful marbles. The rails which surround this space are adorned with one hundred and twelve bronze cornucopia which serve as supporters to as many silver lamps that burn continually in honour of the apostle. The entrance to the tomb is by bronze folding doors; and by the same area the sacred grottoes may be visited, in which are deposited the remains of emperors, pontiffs, and princes. Amongst the tombs of St. Peter's, the most remarkable one to English visitants is the monument of the Stuarts, which commemorates those pseudo-monarchs, James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., kings of England! The smile with which the inflated inscription is usually read may not, however, conceal the fact, that these descendants of a long line of royal ancestry “had the crown" in hereditary prospective, and were denied the regal seat by the voice of the people only when their dynasty had manifested unfitness to govern. Kings may learn wisdom at the tomb of the Stuarts.

The ascent to the roof of St. Peter's is by a well-lighted staircase, winding round with an ascent so gentle that mules can ascend two abreast with the greatest ease. When the spectator reaches the platform of the roof, he is astonished at the number of cupolas, domes, and pinnacles that rise around him; and the galleries that spread on all sides, and the many apartments and staircases that appear in every quarter. Crowds of workmen are to be seen passing and repassing in every direction, and the whole has rather the form of a town than that of the roof of an edifice. It is here only that the dimensions of the dome can be felt in all their force. The vast platform of stone on which it reposes as on a solid rock; the lofty colonnade that rises on this platform, and by its resistance counteracts, as a continued buttress, the horizontal pressure of the dome, all of stone of such prodigious swell and circumference; the lantern which like a lofty temple sits on its towering summit; these are objects which must excite the astonishment of every spectator. The access to every part, and the ascent even to the inside of the ball upon which the terminal cross rests, is perfectly safe and commodious.

The illustrative view, taken from the gardens of the Janiculum Hill, by Eastlake, embraces a noble prospect not only of St. Peter's and its magnificent approaches, but also of the entire range of the Vatican Palace: it is proper, therefore, that we offer some brief notice of the latter structure. The Vatican* was erected by different architects at different eras, and for very different

• The Vatican Hill is supposed to derive its name from the prophecies or oracles (Vaticinia) formerly delivered there by the vates, or soothsayers. We find allusions to this mount in the Latin poets:

Juvenal alludes to the sacrificial vessels, some of which were made from the clay of the Vatican Hill.

purposes; and it is rather an assemblage of palaces than one regular structure. A palace appears to have been attached to the basilica from a very early period, probably from the time of Constantine. In the eighth century Charlemagne resided in the palace of the Vatican during his coronation by Leo III. In the twelfth century, the building having gone to decay, it was reconstructed by Innocent III.; and a century later it was enlarged by Nicholas III. After the return of the popes from Avignon, in 1377, this palace became the papal residence, since which time successive pontiffs have laboured to make it "the largest and most beautiful palace of the Christian world." It is now the theatre of some of the most imposing ceremonies of the Romish church; the repository of the records of ancient science, and the temple of the arts of Greece and Rome.

All the great architects and artists whom Rome has produced were, each in his age, employed upon the Vatican. The extent of the structure is immense, and includes an area of twelve hundred feet in length, and a thousand feet in breadth. Its elevation is proportionate, and the number of apartments it contains almost incredible. Galleries and porticos sweep around it and through it in all directions, and open an easy access to every quarter. Its halls and saloons are all on a great scale, and by their multitude and loftiness alone give an idea of magnificence truly Roman. The walls are adorned or rather animated by the genius of Raphael and Michael Angelo. The furniture is plain, and ought to be so: finery would be misplaced in the Vatican, and would sink into insignificance in the midst of the great, the vast, the sublime, which are the predominating features or rather the very genii of the place. The grand entrance is from the portico of St. Peter's by the Scala Regia, the most superb staircase in the world, consisting of four flights of marble steps, adorned with a double row of marble Ionic pillars. This staircase springs from the equestrian statue of Constantine which terminates the portico on one side; and whether seen thence, or viewed from the gallery leading on the same side to the colonnades, forms a perspective of singular beauty.

It were vain to attempt a description of the Vatican throughout. It must suffice to refer very briefly to two or three leading points of attraction.

The library consists of a double gallery of two hundred and twenty feet long, opening into another of eight hundred feet, with various rooms, cabinets, and apartments annexed. These galleries and apartments are all vaulted, and adorned with paintings embracing a vast range of sacred and profane subjects. The books are kept in cases; and, in the Vatican, the student seeks in vain for that pompous display of volumes, which he may have seen and admired in other libraries. The number of volumes and manuscripts in this library has been so variously stated, that little reliance can be placed on any of the authorities. The most moderate computation fixes the number of the manuscripts, at the present time, at nearly twenty-four thousand, and that of the books at thirty thousand. The library is open daily, except during the recess, and every facility of reference is afforded to learned travellers by the keepers and interpreters. It could scarcely be thought that in modern times an institution like this, which ought to be respected and held inviolate by the whole civilized world, would suffer injury even from an invader; yet the organized banditti of Napoleon made it an arena of plunder and outrage. "The French invasion," says Eustace, "which brought with it so many evils, and like a blast from hell checked the prosperity of Italy in every branch and in every province, not only put a stop to the increase of the Vatican library, but by plundering it of some of its most valuable manuscripts, lowered its reputation, and undid at once the labour of ages."

The Sistine Chapel, so named from the pontiff Sixtus IV., by whom it was built in 1473,

from the designs of Pintelli, is one of the wonders of the Vatican. for its paintings in fresco by Michael Angelo and his scholars.

It is chiefly celebrated
The roof was begun

in 1508 and finished in 1512, in the pontificate of Julius II. The architectural decorations of this ceiling form the framework of a series of paintings, which remain to this day a wonderful testimony of the artist's powers. The subjects include sublime conceptions of the progressive work of Creation, and embodiments of the types by which the coming Redemption was foreshadowed to the Jewish people. From the colossal size of the figures, and their exquisite artistic execution, these paintings command the admiration of the world. On the end wall opposite the entrance to the chapel, is the great fresco of the Last Judgment, a work which strikes the merest novice in art with astonishment. This sublime work was designed by Michael Angelo in his sixtieth year, at the request of Clement VII. After a labour of eight years, it was completed in the pontificate of Paul III., the painter then being little short of seventy years of age! Paul IV. objected to the nudity of the figures in this matchless painting. “Tell him," said Michael Angelo, "to reform the world, and the pictures will reform themselves." The painter however so far yielded to the pope, as to allow Daniele da Volterra to drape the most prominent figures; but he revenged himself upon Biagio, who first suggested the indelicacy, by placing him in hell, in the character of Midas; and when this person complained to the pontiff, the intercession of the latter failed to move Michael Angelo, who told his holiness that though he might have effected Biagio's release from purgatory, he had no power over hell.

The Chamber of Raphael, which is in fact a series of rooms, is devoted to the works of this great master. Here, amongst many other noble productions, may be seen the Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple, the Miracle of Bolsena,* Leo arresting Attila at the gates of Rome, and the Deliverance of St. Peter. In an adjoining gallery are the Tapestries of Raphael, those wondrous works of art, of which the Cartoons are preserved (?) in Hampton Court. The French carried off the Tapestries and sold them to a Parisian Jew, who actually burned one for the sake of the gold and silver thread with which portions of the work were wrought. The Israelitish scoundrel failed in his experiment, and gladly accepted the offer of Pius VII. to purchase the remainder of his reset.

In the gallery of the Vatican are two paintings deserving especial notice, namely, the Transfiguration by Raphael, and the Communion of St. Jerome by Domenichino. The first of these was painted for the Cathedral of Narbonne, and was not completed when, at the early age of thirty-seven, the illustrious painter died. This masterpiece of his genius was suspended over the artist's corpse for public homage, whilst the last traces of his hand were yet visible upon the canvas. The Communion of St. Jerome was painted for the Church of Ara Cœli, but the ignorant monks quarrelled with the painter and threw his work aside. They subsequently commissioned Poussin to paint an altar-piece, and in place of new canvas gave him the Communion to be painted over. Poussin threw up his commission with indignation, and loudly proclaimed the excellence of Domenichino's performance.

The Museum contains an extensive collection of ancient sepulchral inscriptions and monuments; and its numerous apartments are stored with remains of classic sculpture. To catalogue works of art, that must be seen to be appreciated and understood, is a mere waste of

See pages 52, 56.

words. We may, however, name a few of the sculptures, which are popularly known through the medium of engravings, or of plaster casts:-The Cupid of Praxiteles, the Statue of Demosthenes, Minerva Medica, the Fawn of Praxiteles, the Statue of Mercury, the Torso Belvidere, the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere, and the Genius of the Vatican.

THE BASILICA OF SAINT JOHN LATERAN.

THE ancient Basilica (so named from Bartheus, a king, whence Boihin, a royal house, a seat of authority, a court of justice) were the tribunals of the Roman magistracy during the latter times of the empire. These structures were simple in their character, and consisted of a nave, (testudo), and two side aisles (porticus), the latter separated from the nave by two rows of columns, from which sprang arches to support the wall that sustained the central roof. Transepts (chalcidica) were sometimes added to the extremity of the building, thereby giving it the form of the letter T. The nave terminated in a curve, which, as being the immediate seat of the judge, was named the tribunal. These few particulars are worthy of notice, inasmuch as all places of Christian worship to the present day, bear striking resemblance to the ancient basilicæ. On the fall of the empire, the Roman church, it would appear, was allowed to appropriate some of these structures as places of worship; and the bishop assumed the seat of the temporal judge in the tribunal.* When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, he erected a number of costly structures on the plan of the basilicæ, and with especial reference to Christian uses. Thus the character of ecclesiastical architecture was fixed, first by the choice of the church, and afterwards by the recognition of that choice by Constantine. In course of time the original model was modified by the removal of the transepts from the extremity of the building, so as to form a cross, which, according as the transepts were nearer to or farther from the centre of the building, obtained the name of a Greek cross, or a Latin From the time of Constantine to the present age these leading characteristics of church architecture have universally prevailed; and in the wide range between the Vatican temple and the meanest conventicle, the main features of the ancient basilicæ are still presented before us. In the Roman church the tribune is at once the seat of a temporal and a spiritual judge. In the cathedrals of the reformed episcopal church, the bishop occupies a different position, and the tribune terminates with the communion table, close behind which rises a screen, thus leaving no space for a throne similar to that of the Roman pontiff. Parish churches have, for the most part, more of the simplicity of the early basilicæ, and modern dissenting places

cross.

*We can scarcely regard the first occupation of the ancient Basilica by the Roman church as an accidental circumstance. The choice of these edifices appears to have been dictated by the desire for supremacy. These structures were the immediate precincts of magisterial authority, and long association had connected with the Tribune the awful attributes of a judge. Here, then, it was, upon the exalted tribune, that a Christian bishop fixed his throne and dwelt apart from the people; having the elevated steps of the tribunal, and even the altar itself, interposed between him and the congregation. Is any so blind that he sees not here the high priest in the holiest place, and a temporal ruler in his judicial seat?