pius the sixth performs all the religious functions of his office in the most solemn manner; not only on public and extraordinary occasions, but also in the most common acts of devotion. i happened lately to be at st. peter’s church, when there was scarcely any other body there; while i lounged from chapel to chapel, looking at the sculpture and paintings, the pope entered with a very few attendants; when he came to the statue of st. peter, he was not satisfied with bowing, which is the usual mark of respect shewn to that image; or with kneeling, which is performed by more zealous persons; or with kissing the foot, which i formerly imagined concluded the climax of devotion;[35] he bowed, he knelt, he kissed the foot, and then he rubbed his brow and his whole head with every mark of humility, fervour, and adoration, upon the sacred stump.—it is no more, one half of the foot having been long since worn away by the lips of the pious; and if the example of his holiness is universally imitated, nothing but a miracle can prevent the leg, thigh, and other parts from meeting with the same fate. this uncommon appearance of zeal in the pope, is not imputed to hypocrisy or to policy, but is supposed to proceed entirely from a conviction of the efficacy of those holy frictions; an opinion which has given people a much higher idea of the strength of his faith, than of his understanding. this being jubilee year, he may possibly think a greater appearance of devotion necessary now, than at any other time. the first jubilee was instituted by boniface the eighth, in the year 1300. many ceremonies[36] and institutions of the roman catholic church are founded on those of the old heathens. this is evidently an imitation of the roman secular games, which were exhibited every hundredth year in honour of the gods[1]; they lasted three days and three nights; they were attended with great pomp, and drew vast numbers of people to rome, from all parts of italy, and the most distant provinces. boniface, recollecting this, determined to institute something analogous, which would immortalize his own name, and promote the interest of the roman catholic religion in general, and that of the city of rome in particular. he embraced the favourable opportunity which the beginning of a century presented; he invented a few extraordinary ceremonies, and declared the year 1300 the first jubilee[37] year, during which he assured mankind, that heaven would be in a particular manner propitious, in granting indulgences, and remission of sins, to all who should come to rome, and attend the functions there to be performed, at this fortunate period, which was not to occur again for a hundred years. this drew a great concourse of wealthy sinners to rome; and the extraordinary circulation of money it occasioned, was strongly felt all over the pope’s dominions. clement the sixth, regretting that these advantages should occur so seldom, abridged the period, and declared there would be a jubilee every fifty years; the second was accordingly celebrated in the year 1350. sixtus the fifth, imagining that the interval was still too long, once more retrenched the half; and ever since there has been a jubilee every twenty-fifth year[2]. it is not likely that any future[38] pope will think of shortening this period; if any alteration were again to take place, it most probably would be, to restore the ancient period of fifty or a hundred years; for, instead of the wealthy pilgrims who flocked to rome from every quarter of christendom, ninety-nine in a hundred of those who come now, are supported by alms during their journey, or are barely able to defray their own expences by the strictest ?conomy; and his holiness is supposed at present to derive no other advantage from the uncommon fatigue he is obliged to go through on the jubilee year, except the satisfaction he feels, in reflecting on the benefit his labours confer on the souls of the beggars, and other travellers, who resort from all corners of italy to rome, on this blessed occasion. the states which border on the pope’s dominions, suffer many temporal inconveniencies from the zeal of the[39] peasants and manufacturers, the greater part of whom still make a point of visiting st. peter’s on the jubilee year; the loss sustained by the countries which such emigrants abandon, is not balanced by any advantage transferred to that to which they resort; the good arising on the whole, being entirely of a spiritual nature. by far the greater number of pilgrims come from the kingdom of naples, whose inhabitants are said to be of a very devout and very amorous disposition. the first prompts them to go to rome in search of that absolution which the second renders necessary; and on the year of jubilee, when indulgences are to be had at an easier rate than at any other time, those who can afford it generally carry away such a stock, as not only is sufficient to clear old scores, but will also serve as an indemnifying fund for future transgressions.
[40]
there is one door into the church of st. peter’s, which is called the holy door. this is always walled up, except on this distinguished year; and even then no person is permitted to enter by it, but in the humblest posture. the pilgrims, and many others, prefer crawling into the church upon their knees, by this door; to walking in, the usual way, by any other. i was present at the shutting up of this holy door. the pope being seated on a raised seat, or kind of throne, surrounded by cardinals and other ecclesiastics, an anthem was sung, accompanied by all sorts of musical instruments. during the performance, his holiness descended from the throne, with a golden trowel in his hand, placed the first brick, and applied some mortar; he then returned to his seat, and the door was instantly built up by more expert, though less hallowed, workmen; and will remain as it is now, till the beginning[41] of the nineteenth century, when it will be again opened, by the pope then in being, with the same solemnity that it has been now shut. though his holiness places but a single brick, yet it is very remarkable that this never fails to communicate its influence, in such a rapid and powerful manner, that, within about an hour, or at most an hour and a half, all the other bricks, which form the wall of the holy door, acquire an equal degree of sanctity with that placed by the pope’s own hands. the common people and pilgrims are well acquainted with this wonderful effect. at the beginning of this jubilee-year, when the late wall was thrown down, men, women, and children scrambled and fought for the fragments of the bricks and mortar, with the same eagerness which less enlightened mobs display, on days of public rejoicing, when handfuls of money are thrown among them. i have been often assured that those pieces of brick, besides[42] their sanctity, have also the virtue of curing many of the most obstinate diseases: and, if newspapers were permitted at rome, there is not the least reason to doubt, that those cures would be attested publicly by the patients, in a manner as satisfactory and convincing as are the cures performed daily by the pills, powders, drops, and balsams advertised in the london newspapers. after the shutting of the holy door, mass was celebrated at midnight; and the ceremony was attended by vast multitudes of people. for my own part, i suspended my curiosity till next day, which was christmas-day, when i returned again to st. peter’s church, and saw the pope perform mass on that solemn occasion. his holiness went through all the evolutions of the ceremony with an address and flexibility of body, which are rarely to be found in those who wear the tiara; who are, generally speaking, men bowing under the load of years and infirmities. his[43] present holiness has hitherto suffered from neither. his features are regular, and he has a fine countenance; his person is straight, and his movements graceful. his leg and foot are remarkably well made, and always ornamented with silk stockings, and red slippers, of the most delicate construction. notwithstanding that the papal uniforms are by no means calculated to set off the person to the greatest advantage, yet the peculiar neatness with which they are put on, and the nice adjustment of their most minute parts, sufficiently prove that his present holiness is not insensible of the charms of his person, or unsolicitous about his external ornaments. though verging towards the winter of life, his cheeks still glow with autumnal roses, which, at a little distance, appear as blooming as those of the spring. if he himself were less clear-sighted than he seems to be, to the beauties of his face and person, he could not also be deaf to the voices of the women, who[44] break out into exclamations, in praise of both, as often as he appears in public. on a public occasion, lately, as he was carried through a particular street, a young woman at a window exclaimed, “quanto e bello! o quanto e bello!” and was immediately answered by a zealous old lady at the window opposite, who, folding her hands in each other, and raising her eyes to heaven, cried out, with a mixture of love for his person, and veneration for his sacred office, “tanto e bello, quanto e santo!” when we know that such a quantity of incense is daily burnt under his sacred nostrils, we ought not to be astonished, though we should find his brain, on some occasions, a little intoxicated.
vanity is a very comfortable failing; and has such an universal power over mankind, that not only the gay blossoms of youth, but even the shrivelled bosom of age, and the contracted heart of bigotry,[45] open, expand, and display strong marks of sensibility under its influence.
after mass, the pope gave the benediction to the people assembled in the grand court, before the church of st. peter’s. it was a remarkably fine day; an immense multitude filled that spacious and magnificent area; the horse and foot guards were drawn up in their most showy uniform. the pope, seated in an open, portable chair, in all the splendour which his wardrobe could give, with the tiara on his head, was carried out of a large window, which opens on a balcony in the front of st. peter’s. the silk hangings and gold trappings with which the chair was embellished, concealed the men who carried it; so that to those who viewed him from the area below, his holiness seemed to sail forward, from the window self-balanced in the air, like a celestial being. the instant he appeared, the music struck up, the bells rung from[46] every church, and the cannon thundered from the castle of st. angelo in repeated peals. during the intervals, the church of st. peter’s, the palace of the vatican, and the banks of the tiber, re-echoed the acclamations of the populace. at length his holiness arose from his seat, and an immediate and awful silence ensued. the multitude fell upon their knees, with their hands and eyes raised towards his holiness, as to a benign deity. after a solemn pause, he pronounced the benediction, with great fervour; elevating his outstretched arms as high as he could; then closing them together, and bringing them back to his breast with a slow motion, as if he had got hold of the blessing, and was drawing it gently from heaven. finally, he threw his arms open, waving them for some time, as if his intention had been to scatter the benediction with impartiality among the people.
no ceremony can be better calculated for striking the senses, and imposing on the understanding, than this of the supreme pontiff giving the blessing from the balcony of st. peter’s. for my own part, if i had not, in my early youth, received impressions highly unfavourable to the chief actor in this magnificent interlude, i should have been in danger of paying him a degree of respect, very inconsistent with the religion in which i was educated.
[1] the carmen seculare of horace was composed on occasion of those celebrated by augustus in the year of rome 736.
[2] to this last abridgement i am indebted for having seen the ceremonies and processions on the termination of this sacred year.
