The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-08-24
The Ascent Of St. Peters.

we nave just returned from the ascent
| OF ST. Peters. We had been waiting just
two weeks, for just the right morning, and
to-day, at seven o'clock, seeing the old roofs
all aglow with the unmistakable brightness
| of clear sun, we took our measures &C.
cordingly, as the ascent must be made be-
fore eleven o'clock in the day.
No morning could be more perfect than
this. And as we drove into the pillared
court of st. Peters, its fountain seemed
like satin clouds rising in the air. This
court is the most harmonious thing in the
world. Its widespread arms seems out
stretched as if to embrace all mankind );
and every time one sees it, it gains on one
by secret, irresistible power. 1t is more
| perfect of its kind than even the church it.
| SELF
The way into the dome is up gradual,
winding slope which brings you on the roof
"a most magnificent promenade platform.
The church roofs of Strasburg, Milan and
Rome, remind one of the old story of the
hanging gardens of Babylon, whence one
looked down on kingdoms spread out like
map below. But we did not stay long, but
climbed the winding stairway that brought
us into the gallery within the dome. Here
first, think, felt acquainted with Michael
Angelo. Before | had seen him as one sees
from the outside vain, brusque old fellow,
who seems to you always diverging into
extravagancies, and transcending your pow
er of sympathy. You see the creature of
a superior order-that he has something in
him he wishes to get out and made effective,
hnf
not until l found myself shivering and
trembling, with feeling as if the iron rail
ing on which stood was like a cobweb,
and myself and all our party like summer
flies thereon-whie the great dome above,
and the blue, dizzy, dreamy distance below
seemed to become vast and solemn power,
which shook one with sense of awe, such
as one feels at Niagara or Mount Blanc. 1t
was armament of architecture, bending
its vast harmonious arch above studded
thick with golden stars, with solemn forms
of angel, saint, evangelist and martyr. Far,
far below we could trace dimly, the mosaic
of the splendid floors, and see the priests 60
sweeping their solemn robes over the floor,
and from one of the cEapels the sound of
chanting swelled solemnly upward-sung so
distant and dreamy, as if it were the sigh.
ings and breathings of some mighty soul
that lived in and vitalized this exalted tenn
pie. Strange, we thought, that man could
have power to conceive and execute what
makes man so insignificant One feels
fading away and losing consciousness in this
sense of vastness, and still one is facinated
with the grand loveliness of the whole.
This, then, and such as this, was what
the artist would do; because his soul was
always expanding to such breadths and
heights is it that his fragmentary works
scattered here and there have such an air of
extravaganza. They are aerolities fallen in
to our daily sphere, out of some higher re-
gion of conception, and we have nothing by
which to measure or judge them-they need
a world of their own to live in-and seen in
it they might come to their true proportions.
We cannot come from driving on the Pin
clio, and pricing jewelry at Casteani, in any
easy summer morning attitude of mind, to
turn our eyeglasses up at the roof of Sistine
Chapel. Of the crowd who do if they spoke
their minds, the majority would say it was
a borrid old goblin thing, full of savage i'm
ages not worth the trouble of deciphering
To see and feel it Alright, one should first
get the measure of St. Peter's-get one s
soul widened to its breadth height-one
should come alone, without gay party to
divert ones thought, and walk up and down
the isles below in distance so great, that the
chanting in the chapel sounds faint and far
off, like "a voi:e crying in the wilderness. ~
Then ascending the dome you should feel
yourself poised, as it we're, in the great sky,
floating like disembodied spirit over the
profound depths below, and moving slowly
round. watch the changing perspective of
the long drawn aisles-where chant and sac
ri6ce seem far off and distant as do the sighs
of human hearts in vast eternity.
Then 60 up outside and see yourself lifted
up in the sunshine of warm morning, with
the history OF two thousand years spread out
at your feet. The immense building you
stand on seems scarce a building reared by
hands but rather akin to those great airy
mountain solitudes where one sits on the
battements of Gods own building, and
looks forth on world at ones feet, one sees
there the wide sweep of sealike Campagna
almost treeess--varied in stripes and
dashes by the shadows of sailing clouds
above-One sees the mountain that girdles
the plain; silvery with SHOWS, simmering
through the purple and rosy films that veil
their sides-and then the plain over which
marched the legions of old Rome, when her
roads ran to the ends of the earth-when
stretched her aquedncts such as one still
sees standing 10 graceful ruins.
Then the ruined palaces of the Caesars
with their shapeless dumb, mountainous
confusions of brick cliffs and Roman cement,
and lastly the Colisseum-most vast of all
opening the eyes of its many round arches