Ulrich Middeldorf CASTLE S T ANGELO AND THE EVIL EYE. gchtfl gUbittxrmii (KhapUrs to "ROBA DI ROMA." BY WILLIAM W. STORY. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1877. LONDON BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. PREFACE. The paper in this volume on " The Castle St Angelo " originally appeared in " Blackwood's Maga- zine," and is now reprinted in its present form by the kind permission of the Editor and Publisher. The paper on "The Evil Eye" formed originally a chapter in the first editions of u Roba di Roma." When that work was reduced to one volume it was omitted, together with another chapter. In respect to the latter paper I wish here to state that the books cited in " The Evil Eye" I have personally and at first hand examined, read, and quoted from. The citations, were ^ made with no intention to parade erudition, but in order to save my readers the trouble of referring to well-known authors, as well as to indicate, and by extracts to exhibit, the opinions of others who are little known, and whose works it is not always easy to find. iv PREFACE. The subject of this essay, unprofitable as it may seem to many, aroused my interest and curiosity, and for several years I hunted it down from library to library. Especially rich in rare old works in which this subject is treated is the interesting Library at Siena, where I spent months of amusing research, and to which I would refer the reader who is curious in the matter. In no case did I omit personally to ex- amine any book treating of it which came to my knowledge, though there are many whose tediousness I have not thought it worth while to bestow upon my readers. In fact, the literature on this subject is so extensive that it would of itself compose a good- sized library. The great difficulty is to restrict oneself within proper bounds, and if I have over- stepped the line I claim to have been guilty merely of a lack of judgment. In reprinting this essay I have transposed parts and thrown the greater part of the references into the notes, so as not to encumber the text. In other respects there is scarcely any material alteration. Rome, April, 1877. CONTENTS. PAGE CASTLE ST. ANGELO 1 THE EVIL EYE. CHAP. I. FASCINATION — AND THE EVIL EYE 147 II. FASCINATION BY TOUCH AND INCANTATION 165 III. THE EVIL EYE . 183 IV. CONCLUSION . . . 206 I LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. castle st. ANGELO Frontispiece the mole of HADRIAN Vignette rome from the villa Corsini To face page 30 1'ORTICO of octavia 59 HOUSE OF RIENZI 62 BASALT LIONS AT THE FOOT OF THE CAPITOL . . . . 66 ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL „ 116 PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI „ 130 THE FORUM . . . . . . . „ 143 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. " Das grosste "Werke dieser Art im Abendlande zugleich das Schicksal- reichste in seinen Erinnemngen — eine Geschichte in der Geschichte." — Yon Iieumont, * Gescliiclite der Stadt Rom.,' vol. i. p. 471. CHAPTER I. MONGr the massive remains of Imperial Rome, one of the most imposing is the ancient Mauso- leum or Mole of Hadrian, now known as the Castle St. Angelo. It stands on the site where once were the gardens of Domitia,* overlooking the undu- lating plains of the Campagna in its rear, and stretching out its long covered corridor to the Vatican. Poised on its summit, and dark against the blue Italian sky, towers the bronze figure of the Archangel Michael, as if he had just alighted with outspread wings and floating mantle, and * So, at least, it would seem from a passage in Capitolinus, where he says of Hadrian, " Reliquias ejus Romani pervexit sancte et reverenter atque in hortis Domiti» collocavit.'' But, according to Casaubon, the term "collocare" is to be distinguished from "condere" and "sepelire" — and the meaning of this passage may be, that the ashes of Hadrian were merely temporarily col- located or laid in state in the gardens of Domitia, and afterwards transferred to the Mausoleum. Where precisely these gardens were we are nowhere clearly told by any ancient writer — unless they be the " Hortes Domitii " (not Domiti») mentioned by Publius Victor as being in the fifteenth region of the city. B CASTLE ST. ANGELO. paused there in the act of sheathing his sword. Beneath it flows the Tiber, in whose tawny and troubled waters it has cast its wavering reflection for nearly eighteen centuries. There, standing apart from all other buildings, it lifts its battlemented towers and bastions like a guard or a menace to the closely-built city lying across the river before it, and challenges every passenger who, crossing the ancient iEliaii Bridge, passes before it on his way to the great Basilica of St. Peter. The bridge has changed its name as well as the Mausoleum, and is now called the Ponte St. Angelo. The statues of gods and heroes placed there by Hadrian have disappeared, and on their pedestals stand the sculptured saints of Bernini, fantastic in their draperies and grotesque in their attitudes, but picturesque in their general effect. The funeral processions, which in the great days of Borne bore the ashes of her pagan emperors across that bridge to the sounding chambers of the mighty Mausoleum, have vanished, and a motley Christian crowd now passes over these ancient arches, through which the swift river has whirled its turbulent current for so many generations ; swift, like the river of time — turbulent, like the history of the place — fleeting, never to return, like the generations that have passed. On festal days, from the tower and bastions of the Castle float the great painted gonfalons of the Church, and from its battlements whirl out white wreaths of smoke as the black mouths of cannon thunder forth their salvos. Along its ramparts flash the glittering bayonets of soldiers, and the shriek of trumpets and the rattle of drums is heard. The bridge, too, is alive with crowds that are hurrying to St. Peter's. Over its pavement jar the. gilded coaches of cardi- nals, dragged by black stallions with nodding scarlet plumes, and clung to by lackeys in harlequin liveries. There, too, may be seen the more modest equipages of ambassadors and CASTLE ST. ANGELO. 3 princes, and nobles not of the Church. Mounted dragoons with gleaming helmets wave their swords at the head of the bridge to warn off the rush of cabs that are forced to take the other route — forced, despite the earnest remonstrances of ladies in black veils, who lean out and implore the dragoons, and of English improvised lord-lieutenants in red uniforms, sometimes mounted on the box with the driver, who threaten and gesticulate in an unknown tongue. But the motley mob of foot-passengers are all free to pass ; and picturesque enough they are as they crowd along, mixed quaintly together, monks, soldiers, and beggars of course, for, as the saying runs, the bridge is never free of these. Then there are peasants in bright-coloured costumes ; sisters of charity in black, with their stiff white linen head-gear; schools of boys dressed like little sad old men in black coats and tall hats ; flocks and trains of charit}^ children ; all the lame and mutilated beggars in town limping on crutches ; laughing squads of Paini and Trasteverini, the men with their jackets hung over their shoulders, the women bedizened in all their golden jewellery and corals, with a handkerchief over their glistening braids of black hair ; priests and abbes with their big boat-like hats, tucking up under their arms their silken or worsted mantles ; gamins rushing through them all like shuttles, or seated on the parapet of the bridge ; limonavi tugging their way along with a booth on their backs, ready to make lemonades for the crowd ; cigar-vendors with a box hanging from their necks filled with scelti and dolci, and shrieking " Chi vuol rigavi dolci ? " — and all good- natured and peaceable. While this is going on, if one but casts one's eyes back down the long vista of history, wdiat a revulsion comes over one ! How the ghosts rise and mock at the gaiety ! "What a change has come over men and things since first the stones of this great Mausoleum were laid ! Could they B 2 4 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. speak, how sad, how terrible a history they might reveal of human baseness, tyranny, hypocrisy; of human arrogance and misery ; and, let us hope, somewhat too of noble endur- ance, of heroic patience, of uncorrupted virtue and patriot- ism ! Inside those walls what crimes have been committed, what agonies have been endured ! Outside those walls what tumult of seething battle, what clashing of arms and shrieks of pain and fury, what glaring of wild flames, what raging of wilder passions wreaking themselves in murder, rapine, and horrors without a name ! In its secret cells popes have been strangled, starved, and sent to a bloody end ; philosophers and thinkers have perished, vainly strug- gling against bigotry and superstition ; patriots have fought and died for liberty. On the foul walls of its dungeons artists and poets have scrawled their names, their verses, and their pictures, longing for the light of clay ; beauty and youth have perished in the dark, vainly praying for help ; innocent men have falsely confessed crimes under the torture of the rack. In its frescoed halls emperors and popes have held their courts, and banqueted and trampled on the rights of man ; and the ashes of emperors have filled the vases of its sepulchral chamber. ' The silent statues which gathered once around its colonnades and looked upon the glory and pageant of ancient Rome, saw also the storm and fury of barbarian battle, and the desolation by the Goths, before they were toppled down upon the heads of an infuriated soldiery. These walls, too, have seen the dreary processions of the plague pass under them. They have shaken with the awful heave of the earthquake and the sudden explosion of powder. They have been the silent witnesses of the history of the Church in its blackest moments and at the zenith of its pride and power; and they still stand, a part of the present as of the past. This massive Mausoleum — by turns a tomb and a fortress, a prison and a palace, a chapel and a MAUSOLEUM OF HADRIAN. 5 treasure-chamber ; now threatening the liberty of Rome, now defending its very existence ; now the refuge of the Republic, now the hiding-place of the popes ; through war and peace, from the Imperial days of Rome, through all the Gothic and medieval epochs clown to the present hour, — has never ceased to be a living part of the history of Rome. Fully to write the history of this tomb and fortress would be to write the history of Rome. A humbler task, yet not without interest, would be to string upon it as a thread some of the most striking incidents of which it was the theatre, and slightly to sketch some of the more important personages that there have lived, or acted, or suffered. The earliest notices of the Mausoleum by the ancient Latin writers are by Spartian and Dion Cassius ; but their mention of it is as laconic as a catalogue. All that Spartian says is, in enumerating Hadrian's works, "He made the bridge and sepulchre called by his name next the Tiber."* Dion says, "Hadrian was buried on the bank of the river close by the ^Elian Bridge, for there his sepulchre was built. The monument of Augustus was already filled, and no one after was buried in it." t These brief statements are all these writers deem it neces- sary to make about this magnificent Mausoleum. Rome was then the world, and doubtless to them it seemed superfluous to describe what was so familiar to every one who came to Rome. There it stood before the e} r es of everybody, and there it would stand for ever. There is a sort of stoical reticence and pride in these brief words which is very characteristic of the time and the people ; but one cannot help wishing that some garrulous old gentleman, like Pliny, * "Fecit et sui nominis pontem et sepulchrum juxta Tiberini." f ' ' Sepultus est Adrianus in ripa fluvise juxta Pontem /Elium. Illic enim sepulchrum conditimi. Jam enim Augusti monumentum repletum erat, ne quis- quam amplius in eo sepeliebatur. " 6 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. had given us an account of it, taking, of course, a little more pains to be exact than Pliny usually did. Besides this tomb we also know that Hadrian built several others, to his horses and dogs chiefly ; for he seems to have had a passion for dogs and horses as well as for the building of sepulchres.* Of one of these, " In Borysthenem Equum," there is a special mention ; and though we have no account of the Mausoleum, care was taken to record an epigram written by the Emperor on this favourite horse. The Mausoleum would take care of itself — the epigram might be lost. Though the Mausoleum was built in the latter part of the second century, it is not until the sixth century, when Pro- copius wrote his history of the Gothic wars, that we have any description of it. This also is very brief and unsatis- factory ; but we should not even have had this, were it not that the Mausoleum had then been turned into a fortress, and become the main key to the defence of Borne against its invaders. Even now we have no account of its architec- ture, and almost no description of the statues with which it was adorned ; while contemporary with this first description is the account of its mutilation. "Bej^ond theAurelian Gate," says Procopius, "a stone's throw from the walls, is the tomb of Hadrian, a wonderful and remarkable work, built of large blocks of Parian marble, superposed and closely fitted together without cement or clamps to bind them. The four sides " (of the basement, he means) " are equal, each about a stone's throw in length, and the height is greater than the walls of the city. On the summit aret admirable statues of men and horses of the same material, and as this tomb formed a defence to the city thrown out beyond the walls, it was joined to them by * " Equos et canes sic amavit ut eis sepulchra constituent." t " Eiai," lie says, as if these still remained, though he writes, after many, at least, of the statues were thrown down during the attack of the Goths. STATUE OF HADRIAN. 7 the ancients (iraXaiÓL avOpoùTTOi) by two arms built out to it, so that it seemed to rise out of them like a lofty turret." To this brief description John of Antioch, the author of a book of antiquities in the eighth century,* cited by Sal- masius in his notes to Spartian's 6 Life of Hadrian/ adds the fact that the Mausoleum was surmounted by a statue of Hadrian in a car drawn by four horses, and so large that a full-grown man might pass through one of the horses' eyes. And yet, he says, in consequence of the great height of the Mausoleum, the horses, as well as the statue of Hadrian, seen from below, have the effect of being very small. This would seem to indicate that the horses were hollow, and if so, they must have been cast in bronze, and not made of marble, as stated by Procopius, and as were those on the tomb of Mausolus. Pietro Manlio, who wrote in the middle of the twelfth century (1160), at the time of Alexander III., thus describes it : " There is also the castle which was built in memory of Hadrian, as one may read in the sermon of the Pòpe S. Leo on the festival of St. Peter, wherein he says that the temple of wonderful size built by the Emperor Hadrian is entirely covered by stones and adorned by various histories. In its circuit it is furnished with brazen gates, with golden pea- cocks, and a brazen bull, two of which [peacocks] are ' in Cantharo Paridisi.' On the four sides of the temple were four gilt bronze horses in front of each of the brazen gates. In the centre was the porphyry sepulchre now in the Laterali, in which Innocent II. is buried ; and the cover of it is in St. Peter's, over the tomb of the prefect." t * This treatise is in the Codex Palatinus, No. 94, in the Vatican Library. t The prefect here mentioned is Otto II., and the cover now serves as the baptismal font in St. Peter's. — See Hist. Basil. Antiq. S. Petri Apost. in Vatic, eh. vii. p. 50 ; and Lord Broughton's Italy, vol. ii. p. 163, where it is quoted. s CASTLE ST. ANGELO. This description, it will be observed, is taken from a sermon by St. Leo. Whether accurate or not, it seems to have been followed and repeated by all subsequent writers and restorers. From an anonymous writer in the thirteenth century we learn that the marble with which it was faced, as well as the bronze doors, still existed in his day; and he also speaks of horses and gilded peacocks and a bull as forming a part of it.* We have no other description of it until the middle of the fifteenth century, when we find it represented in basso relievo on the bronze doors of St. Peter's, modelled by Antonio Pollajo by order of Pope Eugenius. In 1421, or thereabouts, Oricellarius, who wrote a learned commen- tary on Pub. Victor's work 6 De Eegionibus Urbis ' in the middle of the fifteenth century, says : " There still exist ? fixed to the walls of the Mole, the 6 elogia ' or inscriptions, which, like genealogical trees, as it were, contain the series of the family of the Antonines, which titles it pleased them here to record exactly, so as to avoid the ambiguity of others who might less properly set down the order of their ages and adoption." Cannicci, a century later, in the time of Paul III., tells us that he saw " a portion of the wall covered with marble, on which a large fragment of frieze was to be seen, with heads of oxen and festoons of flowers, with the architrave above, and below a tablet with an inscription to Commodus, and still lower a shorter inscription in large letters to Lucius Aurelius Verus." There is no other authentic description of ancient or medieval date, though various restorations exist on paper, founded upon these data, and fanciful in their character — as, for instance, those of Piranesi, Labacco, Bartoli, Lauro, Donato, and others ; and there still exists on the open cor- * See Venuti, Collect. Antiq. Kom., vol. ii. p. 200. THE BRONZE PIGNA. 9 riclor at the back of the Castle a painting in fresco, repre- senting the Mausoleum as it was supposed to have been in its original state. All these are purely conjectural, and differ in many respects. Bartoli, whose elevation of the Mausoleum may be seen in Montfaucon's ' Antiquities ' (vol. v.), gives only two rows of columns. Lauro and others give three rows. Others give one storey of pillars and an upper storey of pilasters. The basement is square, and at each corner are statues of horses ; while the upper portion consists of a low dome surmounted by the pigna. . The pigna was a large bronze pine-cone, now in the gardens of the Vatican, and said to have been unearthed in excavating near the Mausoleum ; but it would seem to be more than doubtful whether it ever formed a part of this monu- ment. The main argument in favour of such a hypothesis is the alleged discovery of it close under the Mausoleum, But though this fact has been constantly accepted on the faith of Vacca's statement, there seems on examination to be no evidence sufficient to support it. Vacca's words are ; 46 The bronze pigna which stands in the said cortile [of St. Peter's] was found in digging the foundations of the ancient church, ' della Traspontina, ' at the base (radici) of the Mausoleum of Hadrian. It crowned the said Mausoleum as the device of Hadrian." Now in this statement there i& carelessness, inaccuracy, and assumption. In the first place, it is an assumption that the pine-cone was the device of Hadrian, In the next place, it is most probable that he does not mean the " ancient church" of S. M. in Traspontina, which was built by Adrian I. in 772, more than seven cen- turies before his time ; but rather the more modern church of the same name, built by Pius IV. when he fortified the Leonine city in 1565, about thirty years before Vacca wrote. If he did mean the ancient church, his statement must have rested on mere tradition, inasmuch as it is found in no other IO CASTLE ST. ANGELO. writer: or he may have inaccurately used the word fondare, to found, instead of sfondare, to pull down. However this may be, one fact is clear; neither the ancient nor the modern church was at the base of the Mausoleum ; but on the contrary, both the ancient church was, and the modern church is, at a considerable distance from it. The former stood at the head of the portico of St. Peter's, deriving from its situation its original name of Sta. Maria in Portico, or in Capite Porticus, and was pulled down by Leo in order to make way for his new fortifications in the Vatican quarter. Then the new one was built, still further away from the Mausoleum. But though the ancient church at the portico of St. Peter's was at some distance from the Mausoleum of Hadrian, it stood nearly, if not precisely, upon the site of the Mausoleum of Honorius. Paolo Diacono, in the 14th book of his Supplement to Eutropius, speaking of Honorius, says that his body was brought to Rome, and buried in his mausoleum, adjoining the atrium of St. Peters (" Juxta Beati Petri apostoli atrium in mausoleo sepultum est"). If, then, the pigna crowned the summit of any mausoleum, it would seem far more probable that it belonged to that of Honorius than to that of Hadrian. Nardini, in his 6 Eoma Antica/ also takes this view : but Marangoni* thinks that it originally contained the ashes of Hadrian, and says it was removed in a.d. 498 by Pope Simmacus to the hall of St. Peter's as an ornament, and thence was carried to the gardens of the Vatican. If Marangoni be right, there is no foundation at all for Vacca's statement. Others, again, suppose it to be the same with that de- scribed by Pietro Manlio, as forming an ornament which originally stood over the statue of Cybele in the Pantheon; * " Delle cose gentilische e profane transportate ad uso delle Chiese." — Ch. lxix. « PEACOCKS. 11 while still others are of opinion that it once formed a por- tion of the pyramid to the Scipios. Mr. Ampere thinks that as the pigna is the extremity of the thyrsus, it is, in view of the mysteries of Bacchus and of his worship, a most fit ornament for a tomb. But this argument seems to be too curiously ingenious and far-fetched to be satisfactory, unless the fact that it did form a portion of the Mausoleum be clearly proved. But, after all these varieties of opinion and conjecture, two clear and positive statements must be overthrown before Vacca's opinion can be accepted. Procopius, speaking of his own knowledge, says, " On the summit are admirable statues of men and horses ; " and in this he is corroborated by the direct testimony of John of Antioch, who says that " the Mausoleum was surmounted by a statue of Hadrian in a car drawn by four horses.'' If this be so, the pigna was certainly not the crowning ornament of the Mausoleum. Mr. Ampere also supposes that the peacocks, which were the symbol of Juno, were placed there in honour of the em- presses, who were there interred. The peacock, he says, was the symbol of the apotheosis of the empresses, as the eagle was the symbol of the apotheosis of the emperors. This may be ; but if so, it is a curious fact that while we know the emperors after [Hadrian were buried there, no eagles are spoken of; while, however probable it is that the empresses were also buried there, we have no record of such fact. The first mention we have of these peacocks is by Pietro Manlio in the twelfth century, and his statement is on the authority of a sermon by the Pope St. Leo. If they were still there he could surely have made this statement on his own authority, and it would therefore seem clear that none were there in his day. The anonymous writer of the thirteenth century speaks as of his own knowledge of the bronze doors and the marble facing, but not with the same 12 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. certainty as to the peacocks and bull. Two of these pea- cocks, says Manlio, are in St. Peter's. They were then considered of value, and pains had been taken to preserve them. How was it that the others were left, if there were any others ? And where are these peacocks now ? If these two in St. Peter's were all that existed, what proof have w r e that they ever formed a portion of the Mausoleum ? If they did, is it not far more probable that among the other statues there was one of Juno, on which these peacocks w T ere the accompaniments ? A tradition has for a long time prevailed that twenty-four of the columns in San Paolo Fuori le Mure were taken from Hadrian's Mole by Constantine ; but this seems to have no satisfactory foundation, and rests purely upon a popular belief, given currency to by Pope Clement VII. and his architect Labacco. The columns of verde antico, which now adorn the niches at St. John Lateran, are also said to have once belonged to the second order in the Mausoleum ; but this belief rests upon no satisfactory evidence. As far, then, as we really know anything of the original appearance of this wonderful and renowned building, derived either from report or from the solid remains which war, earthquake, and time have failed to obliterate, it seems to have been founded on its great prototype, that wonder of the world which Artemisia erected to her Carian lord, and the broken fragments of which, after many centuries, have finally found a home among a people who when it was built were outer barbarians. Both suffered terribly from the violence of man and nature ; but while the tomb of Mausolus was levelled to the ground, so that the grass covered its site and obliterated even its vestiges, the tomb of Hadrian, resisting all assaults of time, still stands unshaken in its massive masonry. Of the admirable sculpture, however, that once adorned these mag- nificent mausoleums even less remains of the later Koman work STATUES — CONSTRUCTION OF MAUSOLEUM. 13 than of its Carian rival. Nothing, in fact, now exists of all the statues that stood on Hadrian's tomb save the so-called Barberini Faun now in the gallery at Munich; and this noble work, which in breadth of st}de, spirit of conception, and rendering of character, may challenge comparison with the best works of Greece, only deepens our sense of the loss Art has sustained in the destruction of all the rest. It is also probable that the colossal busts of Hadrian himself and of Pallas, now in the Vatican, came from this Mausoleum, as well as the large sarcophagus of black-and-white granite in the Museo Pio dementino, the porphyry basin which forms the baptismal font of St. Peter's, and the porphyry sarco- phagus in which Innocent II. was buried. The ashes of the emperors are blown to the winds like common dust, and their place is usurped by Papal successors, while the infant of to-day is dipped in the cover of a pagan sarcophagus to be baptised into the Christian Church. " Here's fine revo- lution, an we had the trick to see 't/' The Mausoleum was constructed of brickwork and square blocks of peperino-stone laid with such care and exactness that lightning, battle, and earthquake have failed to shake it from its perfect solidity. Inside and outside it was faced with courses of Parian marble. The -basement was a square of about 340 feet each w T ay, and about 75 feet high. Above this rose a circular tower of some 235 feet in diameter and 140 in height, divided into two or three storeys, and orna- mented with columns. Between these columns were statues executed by the ablest artists of the period ; and as Hadrian was devoted to the arts, and especially to that of sculpture, there can be little doubt that the statues and bassi relievi which adorned this splendid structure were among the noblest works in Eome. Above the circular tower was a dome, or at least a curvilinear roof, which must have risen to the height of some 300 feet. This was probably crowned 14 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. by a colossal group representing Hadrian in a chariot drawn by four horses, after the plan of the tomb of Mausolus, its Grecian prototype. Eich friezes girdled it around, some storied with figures, some architectural with heads of oxen and festoons of flowers. On each of the four sides of the square basement was a massive door of gilt bronze, and at each of these doors were four horses, also of gilt bronze. Between the doors on the basement were large tablets, on which were inscribed the names and titles of the emperors who were buried within it. The walls were of immense thickness ; not filled up in the centre with rubbish, but throughout of the most solid work- manship, as may be seen by a breach made for a temporary purpose long after it was built. In the centre were two chambers in the shape of a Greek cross, one above the other, each cased in rich Paonazetto marble, and illuminated by two openings which pierced the thickness of the giant walls. Here the ashes of the emperors were deposited, the post as- signed to the porphyry sarcophagus of Hadrian being under the large arch on the southern side. The magnificent iElian Bridge, resting on massive arches and adorned with statues, formed the splendid stone avenue by which the Mausoleum was approached. Over this came the funeral processions which bore the ashes of the dead emperors to their last resting-place. Facing the bridge was one of the great golden gates, which, swinging open, let through the train into a long, dark, sloping corridor, arched above, cased in marble at the sides, and paved in black-and- white mosaic. Over this gentle rise the train passed in, its torches flaring, its black-robed prczficce chanting the dirge of the dead, and its wailing trumpets echoing and pealing down the hollow vaulted tunnel. Next came the mimes, declaiming solemn passages from the tragic poets, and followed by waxen figures representing the ancestors of the dead FUNERALS OF THE EMPERORS. 15 emperor, and clad in the robes they had worn in life. Be- hind them streamed great standards blazoned with the records of the emperor's deeds and triumphs. Last came the funeral couch of ivory, draped with Attalic vestments embroidered with gold, over which a black veil was cast. It was borne on the shoulders of his nearest relations and friends, and followed by the crowd of slaves made free by his will, and wearing the pileum in token of the fact. Over the bridge they slowly passed, in at the golden gate, and up the hollow-sounding corridor, till, after making the complete interior circuit of the walls, they entered the vast cavernous chamber, where they laid at last the dead ashes of him who living had ruled the world. Such was the Mole of Hadrian — imposing and magnificent, the boast of Eome, and vying with, if not surpassing in rich- ness, the splendid tomb of Mausolus. It was one of the great triumphs of Eoman architecture and of Boraan art — with its dome and its colonnade and its statues — suggested in some measure by its great predecessor, but peculiar in many of its features to Eome. What shall we then think of the swelling phrases with which Lord Byron in his " Childe Harold" professes to celebrate it? It would seem almost impossible, when he wrote these verses, that he could ever have looked at it even in its defaced and degraded condition, much less that he could ever have troubled himself to inquire what it was in its original form : — " Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model doomed the artist's toils To build for giants," &c. Can it be that he thought the Pyramid of Cains Sestius was the Mausoleum of Hadrian ? 16 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. It seems to be doubtful whether this mausoleum were completely finished during the lifetime of Hadrian. At all events it is clear that he was not its first occupant. If we may trust a passage in Capitolinus, iElius Verus, who was only a Caesar by name, was the first to be deposited here. Speaking of the burial of Lucius Verus, he says, "Illa- tumque ejus corpus est Adriani sepulcro in quo et Caesar pater ejus sepultus est." The second occupant of the mausoleum was Hadrian. According to Spartian, he died at Baùe, where he had retired, leaving Antoninus to reign at Borne in his stead. Here, weary of life and longing for death, the strong man, who had slain lions with his own hand, turned away from every one, and sought to end his days by the hand of a gladiator. Baring his breast, he pointed out the spot where the blow should be struck ; but the gladiator refused to per- form that office. At last he died of dropsy at seventy-two years of age,* and, unseen of all, was burned, as Spartian tells us, and buried in the Villa Ciceroniana, at Pozzuoli. Over him Antoninus Pius erected a temple to serve as a sepulchre, and established in his honour games and other sacred ceremonies and offices. Capitolinus, however, asserts that the ashes of Hadrian were brought to Borne and placed in the sepulchre built by him in Domitia's gardens, and Dion Cassius says he was huried in his Mausoleum near the iElian bridge. It is not probable that Spartian would have invented the facts he states ; and the apparent contradiction is reconciled by the supposition that Hadrian was first buried in the Villa Cice- roniana, where a temple was erected over him, and after- wards, at a later period, removed to Borne and placed in his Mausoleum. All the fortune of Hadrian, all his honours, all his * Dion Cassius says he was sixty- two. HADRIAN — ANTONINUS PIUS — VERUS. 17 achievements, failed to satisfy him. Vacillating and various in character, by turns severe and gay, cruel and clement, mean and liberal, ardent and dilatory, he passed away at last, shaping a little poem, according to Spartian, inferior to many others that he made, and yet which is so sweet and gentle that it still lives in the mouths and hearts of men : — "Animula, vagula, blandula, Hospes comesque corporis, Quse nunc abibis in loca, Pallidula, rigida, nudula, Nec ut soles dabis jocos. ,, When, for the third time, the funeral procession passed through those golden doors, it was to deposit there the ashes of Antoninus Pius — the cheerful and dignified man, the calm and noble philosopher, the generous and clement ruler, who said to himself, "Malie se unum civ em servare quatti mille hostes occidere" His death was of a piece with his life. He had fallen ill at his Lorian villa, and after ordering the golden statue of Fortune to be transferred to his successor, he gave the countersign, " Equanimity, " to the tribune of the guard, turned over as to sleep, and passed calmly out of life at the ripe age of seventy-four years. When next the Mausoleum doors opened, it was to receive a very different man — Lucius Verus — the fantastic fop and voluptuary, who sprinkled his hair with gold, and was guilty of every sort of luxurious extravagance, taking his siesta at noon on a couch stuffed with rose-leaves and strewn with a coverlet of lilies. But, after all, Lucius Verus, vain and luxurious as he was, was by no means wanting in character and ability. If he invented a pasty which became the favourite dish at the Imperial table, he seems also to have performed with zeal and diligence the duties of praetor ; and as a soldier at the head of the Pannonian legions he dis- tinguished himself by energy, courage, and skill. Certainly c 18 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. the letters of Marcus Aurelius to him breathe a warm affec- tion and esteem ; and he lamented deeply his loss, saying, sadly, that in choosing him as his successor he had leaned upon a falling wall. He died of apoplexy at Altinum, in Venetia. A few years more went by, and the tomb again opened to receive the ashes of the philosopher and gentleman Marcus Aurelius, the noblest, wisest, purest, most virtuous and self- denying man that ever in any age wore the Imperial robes. After a long and almost spotless life he met death quietly and with dignity, not as a calamity, but as a blessing, fearing only to fall below his own high standard of life and duty. Dismissing at last his attendant with these words, " Turn to the rising sun, for I am setting," he covered his head as if for sleep, and alone his spirit went out on the dark road. He died at Vienna in the year 180, in the fifty- ninth year of his age, leaving behind him in his É Medi- tations ' a work so full of purity of feeling, calm dignity of thought, heroic utterance, and noble philosophy, that it might be a fit handbook for any man's life. The ashes of Commodus, whose only virtue was his courage, were next laid in this Mausoleum. Base, cruel, polluted in morals and life with every shameless vice, he fell a victim at last to his mistress Marcia. Weary of him, and fearing him as well, she administered poison to him in his own palace ; but the poison not operating rapidly, she called in at last one of his gladiators, who strangled him. Such was the hatred borne to him in Eome that the Senate demanded that his body should be refused burial and thrown into the Tiber. Through the exertions of Pertinax it was finally placed with its predecessors in the great Mausoleum, but secretly, and under the cover of night. Pertinax himself, the affable but illiberal and sordid old man, who succeeded Commodus as Emperor, and reigned COMMODUS — DIDIUS JUL. — SEVERUS. 19 for only two months and twenty-five days, seems not to have been buried here. Stabbed by a pike while in the act of haranguing his soldiers, his head, hewn from his body, was stuck on a spear and carried through the city and the •camp, and at last, with the body, placed in a tomb belonging to his wife's family. Under Severus an imaginary funeral was made, and the Emperor himself delivered a funeral •oration. Didius Julianus, his successor, the glutton, miser, and gambler, who bought the empire for 25,000 sesterces to each Praetorian, in like manner was buried in the tomb of his family at the fifth milestone of the Via Labicana, after his short reign of two months and four days. The Mausoleum again opened in a.d. 211 to receive the ashes of Septimius Severus, who died at York, after reigning seventeen years. Tall, with a long beard and white curling liair, reverend in his aspect, severe by nature, and implacable to crimes, devoted to philosophy and study, a great admirer of Marcus Aurelius, he won the admiration of the world, tired out by the crimes and beastliness of Commodus. His remains were brought to Kome with reverence, a costly funeral was then made in his honour, his ashes were placed in an urn, which, according to Spartian, was of gold, to Dion of porphyry, and to Herodian of alabaster, and he was then enrolled among the gods. " Omnia fui et nihil expedit" was his account of himself, and " Laboremus " was his last •countersign. After Severus no emperor was buried in this Mausoleum. His successors found their last resting-place in the tombs of their families ; and the first great act being ended, the curtain of obscurity descends upon the Imperial tomb. c 2 CHAPTER IL OE centuries after the burial of Severus we have no glimpse of the Mausoleum in history. Then the curtain lifts, and it is no longer a tomb but a fortress. At what period it began to be put to this use it is impossible to say. Procopius in the sixth century first breaks the silence, and describes it as rising like a tower out of the walls of the city, to which it had been joined by the ancient Romans so as to make a portion of the fortifications of the city. Donato supposes this change to have taken place before the time of Justinian, and during the first Gothic war, when Alaric moved on Rome (409, 410), and Honorius fortified it for defence against the invaders. Nardini is of the same opinion. Fea, however, thinks it was fortified first by Theodoric, who also restored the walls, about the year 500, and that it thence received the name of the Prison or House of Theodoric, by which it was generally known as late as the tenth century. But this fact does not conflict with the notion that it was previously made into a fortress, since it could not have served as a prison or house unless it had been already fortified, or unless Theodoric himself fortified it for this express purpose. As there is no account of his having done this, the probabilities are that when he made use of it as a prison it was already a fortress. Gibbon asserts that it was for the first time con- verted to the uses of a citadel by Belisarius in the beginning ATTACK BY VITIGES. 21 of the sixth century, but this is manifestly a slip. It was probably first fortified when it was united to the walls by the ancients, but precisely when this change was made we have no clear knowledge. Possibly it was first put to this use as early as the year 270, when Aurelian extended the walls, enclosing within them the Campus Martius. The Mauso- leum being thus comprehended within them, would naturally become a sort of citadel from its strength and position. Procopius would scarcely have said that it was fortified by the ancients, if it had only been fortified within his own or even a previous century. The phrase certainly would indi- cate that it had long been a fortress. At all events it is plain that when the Goths under Vitiges attacked the Romans under Belisarius in the year 537, it was already a fortress, and was assaulted and defended with great spirit by both sides. It seems to have been comparatively uninjured at this time, and adorned at least by many, if not all, of its statues, marbles, and bronzes. The Goths attacked the Aurelian Gate and the Mausoleum on the side where they seemed weakest ; and not being provided with machines, they at first made their approach with great cau- tion. Crouching under their shields, and partially covered by the portico of the ancient Church of St. Peter, they crept as near as possible to the Mole, and when concealment was no more possible, suddenly rushing out in mass they attacked it on all its exposed sides at once, and despite the showers of arrows and the stones of the balistae poured down by the Romans, forced and pressed them so fiercely that for a moment, strong as was the position of the soldiers of Belisarius, they lost heart and stood transfixed with fear, abandoning the defence. Profiting by this pause, the assailants rushed to the walls and planted against them their scaling-ladders, up which they began to swarm, when the spirit of the Romans returned. In fury and shame they 22 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. looked about them for some means of overwhelming their enemies. Nothing was at hand but the noble statues look- ing calmly down upon them from their pedestals, and seizing upon these, they wrenched them from their places,, and toppled them down upon the heads of the foes who were crowded beneath and swarming up the walls. Con- fusion ensued among the ranks of the Goths, and the encouraged Eomans, plying their torments with renewed vigour, finally drove them off in complete and disastrous* rout. The citadel was saved, but those noble statues, the pride of Eome and the glory of the Mausoleum, lay broken to fragments at its base. The loss was irreparable to art, and no one even thought of attempting to repair it. Where the statues fell they were allowed to remain. None even of the fragments were ever replaced, or even rescued from the spot where they lay, until, centuries after, when the ditch was cleared in the time of Urban VIII., the Barberini Faun, now at Munich, was accidentally discovered and un- earthed — the sole representative of all that noble company that once adorned the massive Mole. But a short period of rest ensued. Again, in the year 549, Borne was attacked by the Goths under Totila. The resistance which they met was vigorous ; but the gates of St. Paul were finally opened to them by traitors, w T ho sold themselves for barbarian gold, and the enemy poured into* the city. Paulus, one of the Boman leaders, a Cilician soldier trained under Belisarius, would not yield ; but falling back with 400 horse, he retreated into the Mausoleum, and occupied the bridge leading to St. Peter's. Here Totila be- sieged this little band. For a time they defended them- selves with vigour, but at last famine stared them in the face. Nothing remained for them to eat but the flesh of their horses. They then called a council to decide what they should do. The result was a determination no longer ATTACK BY TOTILA — CONDITION OF ROME. 23 to remain on the defence, but, sallying forth, to buy thei death as dearly as possible by the slaughter of their enemies. This decision having been come to, they embraced and kissed each other, as if to take final leave before death. A was ready, and the hour approached for the sally, when a message was received from Totila, to whom their resolution had in some way been made known, offering them their lives and a free pass to go to Byzantium, on condition that they should give up their horses, lay down their arms, and bind themselves by oath not to wage war against the Goths. Or, if these terms were not satisfactory, Totila offered to take them into his own service as they were. His offer was ac- cepted, and, with the exception of the two leaders, all seem to have taken service with him. Soon after this, in 552, finding his army greatly diminished in numbers, Totila withdrew into the Mausoleum and a small portion of the city surrounding it, and there he stored all his valuables and strongly fortified himself, adding a wall on one side to increase its strength. Issuing thence, he at- tacked the eunuch Narses, by whom he was routed and slain. Narses himself, the first of the exarchs of Eavenna, then took possession of the Mausoleum in the name of Justinian, and transmitted it to the exarchs who succeeded him in the administration of Eoman affairs under the Greek emperors. In 590 Gregory the Great was elected Pope. Eome was now at its lowest ebb of suffering and disgrace. It was scarcely inhabited. The millions of its ancient populations had shrunk to thousands. Large portions within the walls of the city had many years before been sown with grain by Diogenes,* and desolation and decay were within her streets. She was no longer the seat of empire. Her glory and her wealth were gone. Earthquakes had shaken down her temples ; great inundations had ravaged her plains ; and in * Procopius, De Bell. Goth., lib. iii. c. 36. 24 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. the rear of these rose famine and pestilence, which threa- tened to sweep away the remnant of the people. Vainly the pious implored the mercy of Heaven. Out of one proces- sion that had gathered for this object no less than eighty persons died within an hour. It was in the midst of these horrors and calamities that, as Gregory the Great was passing before the Mausoleum of Hadrian at the head of a penitential procession, he looked up and beheld hovering over it the figure of the Archangel Michael, who paused and sheathed his flaming sword, while three angels were heard to chant the antiphony " Eegina Coeli."* This vision Gre- gory at once interpreted to be a token from heaven that the pestilence should cease; and to the chant of the angels he responded with the hymn " Ora pro nobis Deum. Alleluja." After this vision the plague began to diminish, and soon ceased, and in celebration of it a chapel was afterwards built on the top of the Mausoleum by Boniface IX., t which was dedicated to St. Michael, and received the name of St. An- gelo "inter nubes," or "inter coelos." It was from this event that it derived the name by which it is now known — the Castle of St. Angelo. Charlemagne marched to Rome in 77 4, and, arriving on Holy Saturday, passed over the Bridge of St. Angelo, and proceeded on foot to the Vatican. The Pope, Adrian, re- * " Regina coeli laetare — quia quern memisti portare— resurrexit. Alleluja." This anthem has been since adopted by the Church in its vesper office. There are two Madonnas in Rome — one at the Aracceli, and the other at the Sta. Maria Maggiore— each of which claims to have been the Madonna carried by- Gregory on the occasion of this vision ; and on St. Mark's festival, when the parochial clergy make a procession to St. Peter's, the Franciscans of Aracceli and the canons of Sta. Maria Maggiore always chant this anthem as they pass over the bridge. t Baronius states that this church was built by Boniface IX. ; but others, as Grimaldi and Donato, insist that the church built by Boniface was that of St. Angelo in Pescaria. But this opinion seems scarcely tenable. — See Car- dini, Roma Antica, vol. iii. p. 367. INVASION BY LOMBARDS AND SARACENS. 25 ceived him at the entrance of St. Peter's, and the Emperor ascended the steps on his knees until he reached the Pope and received his blessing. He then departed from the city, after confirming his father Pepin's donation to the Papal See. In 755 the Lombards appeared before Rome, led by As- tolphus, and invested it in three divisions. One of these besieged the Castle St. Angelo, and Rome had never been harder pressed. The repairs which Gregory had made on the walls alone preserved the city from capture ; but the suburbs and the Campagna were terribly desolated and ravaged. In 846 the Saracens invaded Italy; and Leo IV., a Roman by birth, and a man of extraordinary courage and vigour, under- took the fortification of Rome, and enclosed with a wall that portion of it surrounding the Vatican, which has ever since been called after him the Leonine City. These walls com- menced at the Castle St. Angelo, enclosed St. Peter's, and extended into the river below the gate of Sto. Spirito. They were of tufa and brick, forty feet high, nineteen feet thick, and defended with forty-one towers. They had three gates — a small one near the Castle St. Angelo, named Posterula St. Angelo ; a large one called at first the Porta S. Peregrini, and afterwards Porta Viridaria ; and a third corresponding to the Porta S. Spirito. He also fortified anew the Castle itself, which was the key of the whole, and drew an iron chain across the Tiber. On these works he spent four years ; and when they were completed, a solemn procession was made on the 27th of June, 852, in which the Pope and all the clergy, barefooted and in sackcloth, marched round the walls, sprinkling them with holy water, invoking the blessing of the holy angels and apostles, and praying that this new Rome might be ever preserved pure, prosper- ous, and impregnable. The ceremony concluded with high 26 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. mass at St. Peter's, and a distribution of gold and silver presents and rich stuffs among the nobles. This then be- came the Papal city ; and the Castle St. Angelo, which was the key of the entire fortification, was henceforth not only to brave the brunt of war, but to become the prison of State, and to be the theatre of secret and terrible crimes. We next find the Castle in the possession of the cele- brated Theodora, though how she became possessed of it does not clearly appear. She was a woman of illustrious birth; and by means of her personal charms, her great wealth, and her powerful position, she seems to have exercised an influence over Eome scarcely inferior to that of a queen. Of her parentage we only know that her father's name was Glycerius, but beyond his name nothing is known about him. She was, according to a contemporary chronicler, the wife of Theophylactus, the leader of the noble party that espoused the cause of King Berengarius, and consul, senator, and patrician of Eome. Out of the darkness of history suddenly appears this remark- able woman, and as suddenly disappears in the darkness, flashing across the scene for a moment. Whence she came and how she obtained the power she exerted is unknown. Her very identity is confused with that of her daughter, and her character is equally doubtful and disputed. On the one hand she is called by Eugenius Vulgarius a " holy god- beloved, revered matron; " while Luitprandus stigmatises her as a base and impudent courtezan. She had two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, both notorious in their life ; and whether her character had suffered from being confounded with that of her daughter who bore her name it is impossi- ble clearly to determine, while the fact that the daughter Theodora was married to another Theophylactus confuses the matter still more. The weight of evidence inclines cer- tainly to the character given her by Luitprandus. As to her THEODORA — FORMOSUS — SERGIUS III. 27 wealth and power there seems to be no question. She held many fortified castles, and several of the massive tombs and arches of the ancient Eomans, turned into fortresses, were garrisoned by her soldiers ; but her most powerful strong- hold was the Castle St. Angelo, where she lived and held her court, controlling the affairs not only of the State but also* of the Church. During this period the rivalry of popes and parties created constant feuds between the various noble houses of Rome, and the latter part of the ninth century is. a history of faction and dissension. Towards the close of the year 896, Stephen VI., then Pope, convoked a council to condemn his predecessor Formosus, and dishonour his. memory. He caused the body to be disinterred, dressed in pontifical robes and ornaments, and seated in the pontifical chair. An advocate was assigned to the corpse to answer for it. Stephen then publicly addressed to it this question, " Why did you, Bishop of Porto, carry your ambition so far as to usurp the seat of Eome ? " and neither the corpse nor its advocate replying, Stephen condemned it formally, de* spoiled it of its costly robes, cut off the head and the three fingers of the right hand used in consecration, and ordered the remains to be cast into the Tiber. He soon paid the penalty, however, for this disgraceful act. After a few months' reign he was seized, driven from the pontifical chair, thrown into an obscure prison, and there strangled. Sergius III., his successor, was elected in 898 ; but he was forced to flee into Tuscany to save his life, and there he remained seven years, during which time the violence of the dissensions occasioned by the condemnation of For- mosus was fomented by Theodora. At last, however, Sergius returned to Eome. Here he seems to have been greatly attracted by the beauty of Marozia, the daughter of Theo- dora, who had inherited alike her mother's charms and her looseness of morals. She was in the bloom of her youth 28 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. and beauty, and had either just married or was about to marry Alberic, Marquis of Camerino, a wealthy and powerful personage, to whom she gave her hand about the year 906. This, however, did not prevent her from having a liaison with Pope Sergius, which may have been purely platonic in its character, but which Luitprandus does not hesitate to call a " nefarious adultery," and asserts that John XI. was the fruit of it. There appears, however, to be no sufficient ground for this statement, and it is generally supposed that John XI. was the legitimate offspring of Marozia and Alberic her husband.* Of Theophylactus, the husband of Theodora her mother, we hear but little. He seems soon to have disappeared, and many were the lovers who followed the husband. Among them she chiefly favoured Albert, Count of Etruria, sur- named the Rich, whom she admitted to a share of her bed and her fortress. Captivated afterwards by a young eccle- siastic named John, she procured him to be made succes- sively Bishop of Bologna and Archbishop of Ravenna ; but shortly after his departure to attend to the affairs of his archbishopric, and in order to bring him back to Borne, she by her power and persuasion prevailed in obtaining for him the nomination of Pope. He then returned, and, assuming the title of John X., lived at her side, though not without scandal. The affairs of the Church, however, seem to have been adminstered by him with fairness and justice, and he made war not without glory against the Saracens. When Theodora was first attached to John, she had ulready passed the flower of her youth ; and soon after he became Pope she passes out of history, and probably died, * Muratori combats the statement of Luitprandus ; and Leone Marsicano, who lived in the following century, declares that John XI. was the son of Alberic, but he mistakes in the same sentence that he succeeded Agapetus. L'Anonymo Salertano also says he was Alberic' s son. THEODORA AND ALBERIC. 29 leaving to him the possession of the Castle St. Angelo. Marozia in the meantime had been married to Alberic, and was as ambitious as her mother. To John she bore no love, and after Theodora's death she began strenuously to in- trigue against him. The Pope then expelled Alberic from Home ; but he and Marozia returned, attacked him, and drove him from the Castle St. Angelo, which she took possession of, and still more strongly fortified. Alberic wa& soon after killed in a sedition in the year 925, and she then gave her hand in marriage to Guido, Duke of Tuscany.. They carried matters with a high hand. Before the very eyes of the Pope they assassinated his brother Peter, and him they dragged to prison in the Castle, where they kept him till he died in 928 — of suffocation, according to Luit- prandus. Two popes, Leo VI. and Stephen VII., they then successively placed in the chair of St. Peter, over whom they exercised almost absolute control. In the year 931 the second husband of Marozia died ; but Marozia, though widowed, still ruled the city of Rome. Her son, John XL, she succeeded in placing in the papal chair in the same year; but fearing her other son, Alberic, who had now grown to* manhood, and feeling herself inadequate, despite her rank of Patricia et Senatrix, to rule alone, she married Hugo of Provence, King of Italy, to strengthen her hand. In 932 he came to Rome with a considerable force, and, leaving his troops outside the city, was received by the people with great state and festivity, and his marriage with Marozia was celebrated with pomp in the Castle St. Angelo. Alberic, the son, looked, however, with little favour on his step-father, and an incident soon occurred which brought them to open enmity. While pouring out some water in a basin for Hugo to wash his hands, either by accident or de~ sign he spilt some of it on the King, who in an impulse of passion struck him on the face. The high-spirited Alberic, 30 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. furious at this insult, rushed out into the streets, called the people together, and by his passionate appeals to them to rebel against the tyranny of a woman and a stranger, so roused them that they armed at once, and under his leader- ship stormed and took the Castle. Hugo attempted no de- fence, but, letting himself down the walls by a rope, escaped and fled from the city. Marozia, who remained behind, was then seized by Alberic and imprisoned ; and the Pope, John XL, his brother, was sent to the Laterali in strict surveil- lance, if not imprisonment. Marozia seems then to have been placed in a convent, where she remained until her death. John XL died in 936, and Alberic named as his succes- sors Leo VII., Stephen VIII. , Martin III., and Agapet IL, all of whom he kept in complete subservience. For twenty- two years he held absolute sway, despite all the efforts of his enemies to overthrow him. A formidable conspiracy was at one time formed against him, in which his sisters took part, as well as many princes and persons of authority in the Church; but it was discovered and crushed, and he continued to hold his seat and maintain his power to his death in 954. Such was his authority, even at the last, that he prevailed in exacting from the Church a pledge that his son and suc- cessor, Octavian, should be made Pope on the death of Agapet, the then occupant of the Papal chair ; and this pledge was strictly kept in the following year, when Octavian, then only eighteen years of age, was created Pope under the title of John XII. , being the first of the popes who changed his name and title upon election. John XII. enjoys the unenviable notoriety of having been one of the most infamous popes who ever disgraced the chair of St. Peter. In 962, finding the tyranny of Berengarius insupportable, he sent two legates to Otho to implore his assistance. Otho acceded to his request and came to Eome, POPE JOHN XII. AND OTHO. 31 where he was crowned by the Pope, who made oath on the body of St. Peter never to renounce obedience to him, and never to ally himself to Berengarius or his son Adelbert. Otho, on his part, confirmed to the Pope the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne, and added thereto a portion of the kingdom of Italy, establishing at the same time the formula for the election of popes, and reserving to himself and his successors the sovereignty and jurisdiction of Rome in case of any question. The original of this Act was written in letters of gold and deposited in the Castle St. Angelo. Otho then left Eome. In the subsequent year, however, John broke the pledges he had thus solemnly given, and made common cause with Adelbert against Otho. The Emperor then sent to demand the reason of this violation of faith, and received for answer by the Romans that John had joined Adelbert simply because they were fitted by nature and character to be friends, being equally corrupt and abominable in their lives. Otho then marched on Rome, and besieged the Pope in the Castle St. Angelo, which he finally took by storm. John fled, and had the good fortune ~to escape being captured. A council was now assembled by Hie Emperor, and John was cited to appear and defend him- self against the grave charges made against him, but he absolutely refused. At the session of the council the vices and crimes of which he was accused by the cardinals are sufficient to cover any one with infamy. The Emperor, in a letter which he wrote to John, enumerated the accusations made in the council against him, and declared that "the bishops, cardinals, priests, deacons, and all the people," had related of him acts so shameful as to make every one blush. "You have been accused/ ' he says, "of being guilty of homicide, perjury, sacrilege, and incest with two sisters, your near relations. You have drunk to the health of the devil. Playing at dice, you have implored the assistance of 32 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. Jupiter, Venus, and various demons." John, in his answer, refused to acknowledge the authority of the council, and threatened excommunication to all its members if they should attempt to nominate a new pontiff. Despite his pro- test and his threats, however, he was degraded from his dignity, and Leo VIII. was elected and placed in his chair. John refused to be bound by this act, and waited his oppor- tunity. The Emperor having sent away from the city many of his soldiers, in order to relieve the Komans from the expense of their maintenance, John excited the people to revolt, and, aided by a number of nobles attached to Alberic and his family, attempted to overthrow the Emperor and Pope. But the attempt failed, and Otho seized and condemned to death some of the conspirators. Shortly after this, the Emperor having left the city and retired to Spoleto, John returned in force, seized the Castle, where he fortified himself, drove out Leo, and revenged himself on his enemies by the most cruel reprisals. By his order, John, a cardinal deacon, was seized and his right hand cut off; and other leading personages of the Church he mutilated of their noses, of their tongues, and of their two fore-fingers. But his vices soon brought him to a violent end. Surprised one night outside the gates in a rendezvous with a married woman, in the darkness he received a blow on the temples — attributed by Luitprandus to the devil ("a diabolo percussus but aimed probably by the husband — of which he died within eight days, on the 14th May, 964. The Komans of his party then substituted a new Pope under the title of Benedict V. ; but Otho entered the city immediately after with his anti-pope Leo, and Benedict on his knees surrendered to him the tiara. On the death of Leo, in 965, John XIII., the son of a bishop, was elected by the order of Otho. By his haughty assumptions the new Pope soon brought upon himself the JOHN XIII. BENEDICT VI. AND VII. S3 hatred of the nobility, and he was finally seized by Eoffredo, the Prefect of Eome, and imprisoned in the Castle St. An- gelo. A few months later he made his escape with the assistance of his friend Conte Pandolfo, who found means shortly after to make away with Eoffredo. The Emperor then returned, and summary was his vengeance. He hung twelve of those who had assisted in the arrest of the Pope, disinterred the body of Eoffredo, dragged the corpses through the mud of the city, and cast them into the drains. The Prefect Peter he abandoned to the mercy of the Pope, by whose order his beard was cut off, and he was hung by the hair to the statue of Marcus Aurelius, then stripped, mounted backward on an ass, and driven ignominiously through the streets, pursued by the rabble. John was succeeded by Benedict VI., in 972, and wretched enough was his fate. He was seized by Boniface Franconi, son of Ferraccio, who, after imprisoning him in the Castle St. Angelo, and theti strangling, or, according to some accounts, starving him to death, assumed the tiara himself under the name of Boniface VII. His usurpation, however, lasted but two months, during which time he pillaged the churches, and, laden with their treasures, then fled to Con- stantinople. The Imperial party now raised Benedict VII., who was of the family of Alberic, in 975, to the Papacy; and on his death in 983 his successor was placed on the throne by the Eomans under the title of John XIV. But scarcely had he reigned eight months when Boniface VII. returned, reclaimed the Papal tiara, seized upon John, and threw him into the dungeons of St. Angelo, where he perished by strangling or famine. For eleven months the Church groaned under the rule of Boniface, when he perished abhorred by all. Such was the hatred of the Eomans to him, that after his death they wreaked their vengeance on his corpse, which D 34 CASTLE ST. ANGELO. they dragged through the streets, subjecting it to every species of insult and ignominy ; and finally, naked and covered with wounds, hung it to the brazen horse of Marcus Aurelius, then supposed to be the statue of Constantine. There is no period in the history of the popes more stained with crime than that of the three Othos. The re- cords of these days are so bad as to have been thought scarcely credible ; but after abating much for exaggeration, sufficient remains to show that the condition of the Church at this age was shameful. Fortunately for the popes, the chronicles of the time are comparatively brief, and hints are often given instead of detailed facts. Such were the num- ber and nature of the crimes, both in and out of the Church, that the patience of the Eomans was at last exhausted, and they looked for some leader who should purge Church and State, rule the factions that ruined Rome, and restore liberty and peace to the oppressed people. This leader they found in Crescentius. Of noble birth and directly descended from Alberic and Theodora, he was endowed with remarkable ability, and fired with an ardent ambition to revive the power and glory of the ancient days of Republican Rome. Animated with somewhat of the same spirit that inspired Rienzi at a later period, he was a far abler man, and without the restless vanity and love of pomp which ruined the last of the Tribunes. During the minority of Otho III. he was placed at the head of the government as Consul in 980, and took advantage of the general state of anarchy in Rome and in Germany to re- establish a republic, which should not be only a form but a power. The people seconded his efforts, glad to have a firm hand to guide them. Disgusted with the crimes of the popes, his first effort was to deprive them of their civil authority and subject them to rule. It was in the early days of his consulate that Boniface was slain and dragged through CRESCENTIUS AND POPE JOHN XVI. 35 the streets by the enraged populace ; and his successor, John XV., on his refusal to acknowledge the sovereignty of the people, he drove into exile, only suffering him to return to Eome on his submission. For a series of years, under the government of Crescen- tius, Eome enjoyed a peace and order to which it had long T)een a stranger ; but this was not to last long. On the