The Indianapolis journal., 1896-08-09
THE VATICAN.
Marion Crawford Describes the Great
Papal Palace.


To the average stranger the Vatican sug-
gests only the museum of sculpture. the
picture galleries and the Loggie. He re-
members besides the objects of which
he has seen, the fact OF having walked
great distance through straight corridors,
up and down short flights of marble steps,
and through irregularly shaped and un-
symmetrically disposed halls. If he had any
idea of the points OF the compass when he
entered. he is completely confused in five
minutes. and comes out at last with the
sensation of having been walking in laby-
rinth. He will find il hard to give any one
ain impression of the sort of building in
which he has been, and certainly ne can
not have any knowledge of the Topographic
cal relations of its parts. Yet in his pas
sage through the museums and galleries
he has seen but IA very small part of the
whole. and, excepting when in the Loggie,
he probably. could not once have stood
still and pointed in the direction of the
main part of the palace.
In order to speak even superfcially of ii
all. 1T is indispensable TO classify its parts
in some way. Vast ana irregular IL is at
its two ends, toward thAcolonnade and to-
ward the bastions of IN city. but the in
tervening stretch consists of two perfectly
parallel buildings each over $50 yards long
about eighty yards apart. and yoked In
the middle by the Braccio Nuovo of the
museum and a part of the library so as
TO incloSe two vastS courts, the one known
as the Belvedere-not TO be confused with
the Beivedere in the muSeum-and the
other called the Garden of the Pigna, from
the bronze pine cone which stands at the
end of IL.
Across these parallel buildings, and to-
ward the city, huge pile is erected about
200 hundred yards long, very irregular, and
containing the papal residence and the
apartments of several cardinals, the Sis
tine Chapel, the Pauline Chapel. the Bor-
gia Tower. the Stanze and Loggie of
Raphael and the court of St. Damascus.
At the other end of the parallelogram are
grouped the equally irregular but more
beautiful buildings of the old museum of
which the windows look out over the walls
of the city. and which originally received
the name of Belvedere account of the
lovely view. This is said to have been
sort of SUMMER house of the Borga, not
then connected with the palace by the long
galleries.
II would be hopeless and "A weary
task TO attempt to trace the history OF the
buildings. The PoDe's private apartments
occupy the eastern wing OF the part built
round the court of st. Damascus: that is
to say. they are at the extreme end of the
Vatican. nearest the city. and over the
rooms are visible from the square. The
vast mass which rises above the columns
to the right OF st. Peters Is only a small
part of the whole palace, but is not the
most modern by any means. 1t contains
for instance. the Sistine Chapel. which is
church. having been built by Sixtus ".
whose beautiful bronze monument is i'm the
Chapel OF the Sacrament IL contains too
Raphael's Stance. or halls. and Bramante' :
famous Loggie, the beautiful architecture
of which is frame for some of Raphael's $
best work.
But any good guide book will furnish
all such information. which IL would be
fruitess TO give In such paper as this
In the pages of Murray the traveller will
find. set down in order and accurately the
ages. the dimensions and the exact posi-