The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-04 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 4, 1868.

ROMAN AFFAIRS.

(From the Correspondent of the Westminster Gazette.)
ROME, January 25.
The octave of St. Anthony and. its popular
custom of blessing the animals has been well
kept up this year. The custom of providing
against loss from the straying of sheep and
cattle by attaching a bell to their necks, is
common to all countries and times. It was a

natural Christian adaptation of this custom that
the bells should be blessed like other bells, and
that the churches of St. Anthony should be

selected for the performance of the ceremony.
I do not know whether this is still continued,

but it is very probable. At all events yon sel-
dom see a carefully harnessed donkey or mule,
but shining from under the tassels and feathers
adorning his top-knot yon may discern a brass
medal of St. Anthony, with his " tan-cross ;"
and all kinds of animals, from the dainty lupin°,

decked for the occasion with a new collar and

often streaming ribbons to boot, to the shaggy
sheep-dog of the Campagna, with his unmis-
takeable look of sagacity for his only orna-

meat ; from the shining team of the Pope's

ponderous black carriage-horses, to the rough
donkeys employed to draw the neat little carts
of the streetsweepers, are brought to receive
a blessing and. a medal at the Church of St.
Antonio this week.

This week also takes place the ceremony of
blessing the lambs, from whose wool the pal-
liums of archbishops and patriarchs are made.
They are brought in on a cushion and laid on
the altar during Mass, at the Church of St.
Agnese, outside the walls, on her feast, the
21st of January. The church always attracts
a large concourse both in carriages and on foot,
not only for this function, but during the whole
day, for it is one of the most popular drives
round Rome ; and on this occasion the festa
at the old church, and the catacombs of St.
Agnese being thrown open, afford great addi-
tional attractions. I met the Holy Father
driving in the same direction through the midst

of the throng.
The telegraph has already doubtless given
you the textc' of the Brief, dated 14th January,
and published here on the 18th, by which the
Pope restores Cardinal d'Andrea to the hon-
ours, privileges, and use of the insignia of the
Cardinalitial dignity, but decrees that for the
present the diocese of Sabina and the abbey
of Subiaco should continue'to be in the hands
of the administrators appointed by the Brief of
the 12th of June, 1866. They are, for the
diocese of Sabina, Mgr. Gandolfi, who resides
at Monte Rotondo, because Magliano, the pro-
per seat of the diocese, is situated in the ter-
ritory at present usurped by the Kingdom of
Italy—for the Abbey of Subiaco, Mgr. Manetti,
who resides at Subiaco itself.
The See of Sabina (Magliano) is one of six
immediately surrounding the city of Rome
(called Suburbicari), which are the dioceses of
the Cardinal-bishops. The first of them is
Ostia e Velletri, always the diocese of the
Dean of the Sacred College, to whom apper-
tains the exclusive right of consecrating the
Sovereign Pontiff. The other four are Porto
e St. Rufina, Albano, Frascati, and Pales-
trina. Sabina is counted the last in order,
and it is the only one that was absorbed by
the Kingdom of Italy. Magliano is a poor
little town of only about 3,000 inhabitants,
but its elevated situation and ruined castle
make it very picturesque. The canons of its
cathedral are privileged to wear the violet stock
and cappa with ermine, and to use the prelate's
taper and ewer at Mass.
The Abbey of Subiaco is one of those called
also dioceseos nullius (dioceseos), because they
are independent of the jurisdiction of any
bishop, without being themselves actual dio-
ceses ; but it is likely this will now be made
one. Its territory is of small extent, but en-
shrined in it lies the first monastery of St.
Benedict, and the sacro speco—the holy grot
—where his earliest aspirations after the re-
ligious life were offered to God.
It is thought likely that Cardinal d'Andrea
tbt
tpr
ao
up us
llaatre ;d atnodonine tohf atth ca a
os
tehhere will
will resign his See of Sabina, where, it is said,
e
probably
six.
I have not heard any new names
mentioned
this week, as thought of by the Pope for the
forthcoming creation of cardinals.
Mgr.
Berardi, one of those I mentioned before, is
at present Under-Secretary of State. He was
born in a little town of the P • Province of Frosi-
none, and has raised himself to his
present
high position by his
singular
virtues and
talents. He speaks several modern
languages,
including our own. He has travelled in
England, and expresses an appreciative ad-
miration of our national character. In 1862
he was designated to go to St. Petersbur
gthe
quality of Nuncio,post
a he would have filled
with great success but for Russia failingin
her
promise to receive an envoy of the Holy See.
He has been cardinal
in petto since 1858.
Another in the list sent—Mgr. F e
rrari—
hesitates to accept the dignity to which the
Holy Father would raise him.
Some ministerial changes are talked of here,
but I shall be able to k spea more freely of
them later.
The trial of the persons apprehended for
complicity in the Serristori
explosion is pro-
gressing, and brings out the worst revelations
of the plot by which Rome was threatened
on the night of that affair. We have looked
at it too much from the side of its defeat, and
that piecemeal, because the b •
earmg of one
outburst on another was not
known all at once.
I endeavoured, in my letter in your impres-
sion of the 21st ult., to gi •ve you, though in
of them
mere outline, a more entire view
I have seen put together as yet. But some
day, when the story of the scheme is written
by a hand that knows how to keep the reader
well
rea er
well in suspense long enough to take away his
breath with the contemplation
ofits possible
success and the consequent horrors, we shall
then, perhaps, gain some appreciation of the
redemption we have had—not only we, dwel-
lers in Rome, but all the civilized world, and
the whole history of the 19th century—and
which—so cleverly (not to use a hard word)
was the plot laid—could never have been com-
passed but through the vigilance of Govern-
ment, and the cordial co-operation of
the people,
police, and military.
Only imagine—but no ! one cannot—our
own dear old Rome, whose glowing sun gilds
the memory of so many winters passed, always
brighter than those to come ; whose titles are
household words with us, and whose classic
outlines interweave themselves with remem-
bered dreams and meditations as we walked a
long, with the landmarks of our serious friend-
ships and even of our lighter ties with society ; I
or Rome, as we knew her from the words of
others, from sketches, and prints, and " sun-
pictures," as we traced her form for ourselves
from the lives of the great and holy ones
who worked at her building up, or those we
counted blessed because they had visited her
before we had ; or Rome even as we guessed
at her in our days of study, when we pondered
over the credulous, yet free-thinking, old
lauthors, who mystified us so as to her ori-
gin, that they made us half believe she was
without beginning of days, as her undisputed
title makes her to be without end of life ;
when we learnt feebly to follow her majestic
development, and to recognize and watch for
the grand periods of her alternate shining and
eclipse, like those of some great coast light set
on a beacon-height, to be a token to all
nations ; or any other brain-picture you like
of Rome—with Castel Sant' Angelo, the Vati-
can, the Capitol, all the most remarkable
palaces and public buildings in ruins ! Why, if
St. Michael had forgotten to unsheathe his
sword, one might almost have expected to see—
Swift, 'swift the Great Twin Brethren
Come spurring from the East.
Or try to imagine Rome unpeopled of all her
sculptured ideals, and the children created by
her intelligent imagination, as well as the
almost willing captives testifying to her unsur-
passed, albeit undisciplined, prowess, dis-
persed as pledges to money-lenders and specu-
lators; beyond the power of all Europe to com-
bine and restore them to their only meet abid-