The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-24 00:00:00

TYPE POSSESSION of the LATERAN
CHURCH.
The solemn function to be celebrated on the Bth of
next month, the taking possession of the Lateran Ba-
silica, is so peculiar in its nature, and so antique in the
form in which his present holiness is about to restore it
(his immediate predecessors having departed from the
original) that we are sure some account of its institution
will be read with interest by all.
The Lateran is considered the mother and head of all
churches on earth, having been founded by Constantine
the Great, and deelicated to the Saviour, to St. John the
Baptist, and to the Evangelist of the same name. For-
merly the Por,es resided in a palace adjoining it, and
after their coronation at the Vatican, used to return in
procession, with all their court, to visit the sanctuary, and
solemr:iy enter into the occupancy of their sacred office.
Hence the origin of the function called the "passesso,"
wh'..ch at first immediately followed the rite of corona-
ti,,sn, but after the pontiffs left the Lateran Palace, in con-
'sequence of the unhealthy atmosphere to which it is ex-
posed, a later occasion was fixed on for the formery cere-
mony. The earliest " po,ssesso" of which we have a full
account, is that of Leo 111. in the ninth century, accord-
ing to the order of which the pontiff received the tiara
(in form of a helmet of " white cloth," probably silver
tissue) at the foot of the stairs before the Vatican
Basilica, whilst the priors, or chief magistrates of the
civic districts, chanted three times in Latin, " Our Lord
Pope Leo-, whom St. Peter has elected in his chair, to sit
therein many years." He then mounted his palfrey,
and attended by all his court, passed through the crowded
at'^ets to the Lateran. Some of the pontiffs were
'crowned out of Rome, but so important was the cere-
mony in the Lateran considered, that it always followed,
as in the case of St. Silvester, who, after his coronation
in the church of St. Mary of Collemaggio, without the
walls, returned to the city on a white horse to celebrate
the possession.
The popes who resided at Avignon, of course dispensed
with dam rite, but a procession was substituted for it, in
which., after receiving the crown, they passed through
the city in great magnificence. When Clement the
Si-,th made this progress, the Duke of Normandy, eldest
s.on of the King of France, the Duke of Burgundy, and
the Lord of Dauphiny, acted as his grooms.
After the return of the Popes to Rome, we find the
custom in use of throwing money to the people, who
were allowed the privilege of taking possession of the
horse, with its trappings, on which the pontiff had ridden,
and of the canopy borne over his head. This practice
gave rise to the most dangerous tumults, and similar
lawlessness, whether from motives more malignant,
actually proved fatal to two, PinslL and Sixtus IV., after
which the perquisites of the horse and canopy were with-
held. The accounts given of the magnificence of the
progress from the Vatican at the time the procession
was celebrated on the day of the coronation, are such as
call the most stately picture before the imagination.
The cardinals and prelates all rode in their mitres,
copes, rochets, or other most solemn attire, the fantastic
richness of the liveries worn by the laics who assisted,
the glittering of arms and waving of plumes, the spark-
ling of gems on the caps and collars of princes and
ambassadors ; these were the details of the gorgeous
accumulation. An ancient usage was then followed, of
having the blessed sacrament borne in a golden ciborium, I
on the back of a richly-caparisoned white mule, sur-
rounded by twelve assistants with great wax torches.
In the ceremonial of Innocent VIII. we read that as
soon as the Pope left the Piazza of St. Peter's, a marshal
of •:he court, called the soldano, bearing attached to his
sr..ddle two sacks of money, scattered the coin with both
-hands among the people, so skilfully that the more they
thronged around, the farther off the specie was thrown,
to prevent the impeding of the procession. The depu-
ties of the Jews presented themselves on the way, with
a copy of the Pentateuch, and thus addressed his holi-
ness:—" We, Hebrews, 0 most blessed father, in the
name of our synagogue, supplicate your holiness to
deign to confirm and approve the Mosaic law given on
Mount Sinai, by the Omnipotent God, to our Pastor
Moses, in the same manner as other supreme pontiffs,
predecessors of your holiness, approved and confirmed
it." The pope answered—" We praise the law, but
condemn the observance and intelligence in which you
hold it; inasmuch as Him whom you say is yet to come,
the church teaches and preaches in all lands, to be already
come, and our Lord Jesus Christ." It was an incident
characteristic of these wild times (1484), that when Pope
Innocent was borne on the portative chair from the
church of St. Clement, where he had left his horse, to
the Lateran, the impetuosity of the people was so great,
that the soldiers who carried him were driven into the
church with a violence which placed the pontiff in no
slight danger, and in their way to the portal from the
high altar, many of the cardinals were thrown down
before them. When the Pope was seated at the altar,
the antiphon was raised "De stercore erigit poperem," &c.,
to remind him that he owed his elevation to the provi-
'ience of God, and not, like secular princes, to birth or
ancestry. He then scattered copper money among the
people, saying, Silver and gold have I none, but such
as I have will I give thee." After the ceremonies in the
Lateran, he was taken to the adjacent chapel of St. Sil-
vester, and seated at the portal in a porphyry chair,
where the prior handed to him a rod in sign of correc-
tion, the keys of the Basilica and of the palace, the sym-
bols of his apostolic power; and then girded him with a
zone of red silk, from which hung a purse containing
twelve jewels allusive to the apostles, and a porticn of
musk, allusive to the words of St. Paul, "We are a
sweet odour of Christ."
The " possesso" of Alexander VI. (1492) had sur-
passed all former ones, but the full blaze of splendour
was reserved for that of the magnificent promoter of the
inAellectual interests of his age, the great Alcerias of
the church, Leo X. This pontiff ascended the throne
1513, and from the beginning of his reign displayed that
taste for the gorgeous which distinguished him no less
than his generosity towards the intellectually gifted. He
determined to ride in the procession to the Lateran on
the horse that had borne him when taken prisoner, a
year before, by the French, at Ravenna. He did not use
the ,‘ triregno,' of his predecessor, Julius IL, but another
^of cloth of gold, with three circlets of gems, and decked
with peacock's feathers. A crown of these feathers had
been used also by Innocent 111. (1198), their introduc •
--tion being intended to convey a symbol of the transi-
toriness and, apart from divine aid, the feebleness of all
earthly power. In the procession of Leo, coins of gold
and silver were profusely scattered amongst the people;
two hundred horsemen in white and red livery opened
the train ; then followed the servants of the cardinals
and a hundred signors of the houses of Orsini, Colonna,
and others ; then musicians, grooms, chamberlains,
standard-bearers, two figures of Cherubim borne aloft
on poles, the Gonfalonieri of the Roman people, of the
Knights of the Teutonic Order, and those of the Order
of Jerusalem, the standard of the church, borne by the
Duke of Murone, the horses of the papal stud, legates,
nobles, princes, and other assistants. The palfrey bear-
ing the blessed sacrament, surrounded with torches and
?shaded by a canopy sustained by eight Roman citizens,
preceded the more solemn train of ecclesiastics, with the
canters of the papal chapel, and other officials. After
his body guard, rode the Pope, under a canopy, his bridle
held for the first stage of the journey by the Duke of
Ferrara, and the last in the pageant was the bearer of
the canopy called the " Ombrella pontificale," in complete
armour, but bare-headed. As the procession moved,
the collegiate bodies of the churches it passed presented
themselves with censors and chanting of hymns. Altars
had been erected in the streets, resplendent with tapers;
and triumphal arches, with devices in which mythology
was sometimes blent with Christian imagery.
One of the above-mentioned arches presented, at one
facade, a figure of Apollo, between two fountains of
wine, and on the other, Christ giving the keys to St.
Peter. Another presented the statues of Numa Pompi-
Has and Antoninus Pius, two of the wisest monarchs of
ancient Rome with the inscription, "Non de ccesorum
'turner°, fusoque cruore, sed de sperata pace trophea damus."
On another were bas-reliefs, representing kings and
princes embracing each other, children burning the
weapons of war:with their torches, in appropriate allusion
to the peaceful auspices which greeted the new reign.
According to the rubrics for all these occasions, the
procession, on reaching the Gesi Church, turns in the
direction of the Capitol, where the senator of Rome, at-
tired in purple and cloth of gold, with a jewelled collar
and a sceptre of ivory, attended by his judges, officials,
and guards, receives his Holiness kneeling, and, in a
brief Latin address, promises him obedience and fealty
in the name of all the senate and people of Rome ;
to which his Holiness replies in the same lan-
guage. Descending the Capitol, the cortege passed for- ,
merly under an arch whose erection was the hereditary
duty of the Dukes of Parma, and afterwards of the
King of Naples, the heir of their property; and in later
times, instead of the presentation of the Scriptures, the
Jewish deputies were admitted to pay homage to, the
supreme pontiff in the " Campo Vacciuo," and after-
wards, for motives of convenience, at the Arch of Titus,
the memorial of their overthrow, a strikingly signifi-
cant, if accidental, arrangement. The ceremonies within
the church have long been observed according to an in.
variable order, whether the use of horses in the proces-
sion was dispensed with or not. (Amongst all the Popes,
only nineteen are recorded to have gone otherwise than
on horse-back.) The chapter of the Lateran meet his
holiness outside the church, with two crosses and two
pavilions borne before them, implying the pre-eminency
of their church over all others, " Orbis Ecciesiarum
Mater." After receiving their homage, his holiness enters
the portal, kneeling at its threshold to kiss a golden cross,
presented by the cardinal arch-priest, then ascends a
throne, where;after vesting for the rites within the church,
the same cardinal presents him with the keys of the Ba-
silica, one gold, the other silver, in a gilt basin filled
with flowers, addressing him, at the same time in Latin.
The clergy of the Basilica then pay homage, and his
holiness is carried into the church on the portative throne,
first to the altar of the blessed sacrament, where all
kneel to adore, whilst the Te Deum is sung, afterwards to
the high altar:for, a second act of worship before the relics
of St. Peter and St. Paul: thence he passes to the throne
in the tribune, and on receiving the obeisance of the car-
dinals, places in the mitre of each the "presbyterio," a do-
nation of two medals of gold and silver. The first cardi-
nal priest, with the auditors of the Rota and Concis-
torial Advocates, then passes to the altar, where the
" Exaudi Christe, 4-c." are sung. His Holiness
then repairs to the same altar, and gives the benedic-
ti_on,leaving a purse of silver money as the accustomed
offering at the confessional, or shrine of the apostles.
The cardinal deacon places the triple crown on his
,and re-
the
" iftgia of the ascending the portative throne, he is borne
grand facade, where the benediction
•.,-sesss
people in the usual form. The procession
apostolic
- • -re the
Abr' rem the Roman Advertiser
of
same order.—
_
A 43Vrik ye.ago
while the
zvefavtatint portion
- s castle add Berwick wewreorkmen: rth2e4.New.
of the near to Bothal Castle, they
of an trahal having a singlehori, growing o skeleton
• centre crrite forehead. The workmen generously
s present of it to Mr. John Cragg, watchmaker,
or-
peth, a well-known naturalist, who often superintends
the herculean works going 011 in that looglity,—Prev).
C 0606 Chrolak.