Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1886-01-06
WORK OF OLD MASTERS.
The Splendors of the Pope's Palace.

The pictures Of the Vatican, Its library
and its museum have not been touched
/ upon. The reason is very obvious.
! They have been described by pens much
more eloquent 50 many times that their
i attractions are well understood. To
visit them is great privilege to any
one who has looked into the worlds
progress. They have been and still are
/ centres Of great power. Edicts and
anathemas and bulls have issued from
their walls which have affected multi
iudes of the human race.
The Pope, who is called the ''PrisOn-
er OF the Vatican" surely cannot
complain of the narrowneSs nor the
meanness Of his so-called prison. Its
external appearance, as it stands so
close to the great pile of st. Peters, is
not impressive in any sense. But the
great stairway by which the approach
/ is made and when once within its walls
the spIendor of the palace comes upon
| yoI suddenly and sensibly. One can
easily feel the spirit of the past upon
him. The frescoes and the paintings
of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and
many others whose names have stood
/ before the world criticism for SO many
years, fill you with solemn admiration
and silence. To SIT in the S;Stine Chap
/ el and iook up az the Last Judgment, -
as the hand SO skilled and tie brain so
imaginative has painted it, is feast Of
| terrible things. The heart is awed and
the mind hesitates in its effort to fol-
low the outlines and details CT the de-
pIcted sorrow, anguish, despair, sting
ing conscience and endless remoTse.
The acres of ruins, where the palaces
and the gardens of the Caesars were
built, are, under the hand of scientific
/ research and excavation, giving up
many evidences of unrecorded pomp,
power and tyranny. So also the Roman
! Forum, so long covered with earth and
debris, has been made by such acute
aTcl1)lOgists as Mr.. Forbes to tell IFS
ancient story in fresh language and
increased accuracy. The temptation
TO describe these is also decreased by
the fact that better mention than l
could make stands as part of the
worlds literature. Being interested in
and well up on prisons at home and
abroad, could tell you all about the
Mamertine prison, linked as it has been
with the imprisonment of st. Paul, if
there was anything wonderful to de-
scribe. But there is nothing special.
Two dark rooms, about fifteen feet
square, one of which is used rs a chapel,
make the prison above ground. In one
OF these rooms a circular hole is shown
as the place where the unfortunate
victims were lowered into the still
darker dungeon. The guide did not
take this method OF descent for his
visitor, but with very poor lamp on
short stick showed the way down a
narrow stairway cut in the rocks.
Once down, it was but duplicate of
the room above, with greater exclusion
of light and air. This lower prison is
hewn out of the rock and gives wing 10
the imagination to call up all the cruel
ties and horrors possible under the
Roman Empire, But rs / saw it, clean,
silent, and free from any instruments
of torture, it conveyed less horror TO
my mind than some dungeon IN modern
prisons which / have visited. II IS very
much like Sir Walter RaIeIgh's prison
IN the Tower of London, or the
Beauchamp Tower on the Thames. II
has served Its days as a place of confne-
ment long ago and will perhaps soon,
under the march OF new building and
progress in Rome, be made TO give way
for store, a school or 4 rich mans
residence. The hard hand of trade las
little veHeration for age or historic
ruins.