The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-07-25
SCENES IN ROME.
The Vatican and QuirinaI Palaces De-
scribed by the Pen of Portland Woman.
Especial Correspondence

Especial Correspondents.
BAsLE, Switzerland, July 12.-Of all
places in the world to pass the Sabbath,
Rome seems the most fitting, since 1t
is eminently the home, as well as the
mother of churches, and embodies. all
early church history.
At the time of Diocletian all the places
of worship then existing were destroyed,
but few years after, when reaction
had set in, Constantine laid the founda-
ton both of all the succeeding church
edifices and of all the future life of the
church. Nine of the most important
churches claimed him as their founder,
four of which were the so-called ''patri-
archol churches the fifth of the latter
being the "Maria Maggiore" which was
founded little later by Pope Libefius in
accordance with a command by the Vir-
gin who appeared to him in the night
and told him where he would find a de-
post of snow the following morning and
it was on this spot he was to erect this
ediffce.
Out of the eighty Catholic churches in
Rome, the stranger makes tia point to-
visit at least twenty of the most import
tant, gathering as he does from their al
legories and sculpture the main spring of
their existence. And he must be indeed
impious in his inelinations who cannot
abstract more or less real worship from
fSY 81 ovaruopa of
these churches, among the devotees
kneeling about. some souls impress the
beholder as having the real spirit of piety
in their souls
And SO Sunday becomes day of rest
in Rome and one feels when Monday
morning dawns, ready for further re-
search among the antiquities and other
works of art.
The Vatican Palace.
On entering the region of the Vatican
on the side next to St. Peters Square,
one first ascends the Scala Pia, and after
getting his permit andrunning the gaunt-
let of the Swiss guards, he passes the
staircase which leads to the Pope's pri-
waite apartments and then ascends the
Scala Regia. After leaving cane OF UNI
flight to the Sistine Chapel which contains
the masterpieces of Michael Angelo
The Ceiling.
had entered this chapel and was
just in the agonies of examining this
ceiling which at first seems only a sea of
faces, chaos of inexplicible allegories,
without clue. Ihad tried the mirrors
and found them unsatisfactory, and in
my eagerness to get the thread of the
subject could not seem to sit down and
take it easy as some apparently were do
ing.
But at last had mastered it sufficiently
to be able to follow up the history,
when felt someone touch my arm, and
turing around saw two more Of the
most bewildered looking individuals T
had ever beheld. They were the Ger
man couple whom l had met in Naples,
and Rome had evidently been too much
for them. The first thing they said was:
s'And what is thistall about, these pict-
ures placed in such an uncomfortable
position that it breaks ones neck to look
at them.n | fastened to explain to them
that Michael Angelo had done it, but of
course they were equally ignorant of the
Author as of the subject.
[ tried to give them the clue it had
taken me SO long to get. I said there
is Eve,'' pointing to her as she stands
in the picture arraigned before her
Maker, thefmost beautiful type of female
loneliness ever placed on canvass, land
there is the serpent winding as he is
around the tree of knowledge of good
and evil near by in the picture.
'.SchIange;; ~ (serpent) the man said in the
tone ofithe boy who had seen the letter
CAP for, the first time and said, ''good-
ness's gracious is that GAP or something
of thatsort.
I Thought I. might take them back from
this sokaearly illustrated point to the
scenes Of them orning stars, ETC. etc. etc.,
and before, through the different stages
beyond che food, and SO on. But they
stopped me-, exclaiming! eff we should
stay TO looksthis all up, it would take
acht zehn Syierzehn Tage' eight, ten,
and even fourteen days.. Then they
said they thought. they would go up to
Raphael S rpoms and signifed desire
that should accompany them. But L
was not yet done with the lower vault
ings containing the prophets and SYPHILIS,
nor the corneFs with the forerunnefs of
Christ and Islead not yet examined the
terrible s'LasfS Judgement except in a
copy which had seen in the galley at
Naples.
Raphae1s EStanzas and Loggia.
But whentIshad finished here and had
been a few moments in the Stanzas of
Raphael, they nudged me again and
asked questions about the Burning
Bushs' Jacobs Ladder" "Justice and
the Scales, etc. j, etc., etc. The "Incendio
del Borgo',. interested them, where Pope
Leo W, sput out the fire in the Vatican
by makingsthe' sign of the cross. But
they could not understand much about
the SCHOOLS of Athens because they
had never heard of Plato or Aristotle
Socrates or Dfogenes. inor of Ptoiemy and
Zoroaster. Nor was the ''Parnassus'' any
more Ineligible since the muses. did
not amuse them, andfDante and Virgil
were not in the their liabrary and Sappho
and Horace, Petrarch and Pindar were
all one and the same thing to them.
They sighed and said they would 90,
since eight and ten and even fourteen
days would not be'enough to understand
it all.
The Loggia used to be an open cor
4 Il