Morris tribune., 1903-08-08
.HISTORYOF THEvATiCAN
Famous Residence Of the Pope
and His Court.
VAST PALACE OF MANY ROOMS.

Designed to BE the Greatest Chris
tian Structure of Its Kind, 1t Cow
ers an Area of About Thirteen
Acres and Has Eight Grand stair
cases The Pope Has Only Three
Rooms, Furnished Very Simply.
-Four centuries and a half have
( passed since it came into the mind of
Pope Nicholas V. to make the Vatican
the largest and most beautiful palace
of the Christian world, says the New
York Herald. He planned to include
within its walls all the Offices Of the
papal government. Every cardinal was
to be housed within it's precincts. But
little was accomplished by this pope
toward the fulfllment Of his purpose.
/ All that he saw finished was the Tower
Of Borgia and private chapel.
Nearly every succeeding pope has
added something to the building Of the
Vatican until it has become an i'm
mense pile Of irregular architecture
| descriptive Of the successive pontifi-
Gates and telling of the individual
characters and tastes of the various
popes who inhabited the palace long
enough to leave some impression of
their own. After the popes retired from
Avignon they found their former resi-
dence on the Lateran hill in ruins
and adopted the Vatican in its stead in
| order to obtain the greater security
given by the Castle of st. Angelo, close
| at hand, a covered gallery connecting
the palace and the fortress along the
north line Of the Leonine wall.
| Alexander vi. constructed what is
known as the old palace, called the
! Appartamenh Borgia, and to this part
Sixtus Nv. added in 1474 the Sixtine
| chapel The Belvedere was erected by
Innocent VIII. in 1890, and Julius III.
united the Belvedere to the palace by
the celebrated loggie. To julius II.
the Vatican is indebted for the be-
ginning Of the museum, and it's founda-
tions were laid in the gardens of the
Belvedere under his initiation. After
his death Leo X. completed the loggie,
employing Raphael to direct the work
By 1900 the section of the palace was
completed which includes the ordinary
residence of the pope. 1t is the most
conspicuous portion Of the mass of
buildings rising above the piazza of st.
Peter The loggie were inclosed in
glass by Piux TX, thus protecting from
the weather the frescoes of Raphael,
and in the course of his long reign he
made many improvements in the pic
ture galleries.
The special work by which Leo XIII.
left his mark on the Vatican was the
decoration of the Gallery Of Candle
labra with frescoes by Seitz, with a
pavement of precious marbles and an
ique statuary from recent excavations,
while he built reading room for stu
dents in the Vatican library and new
wing for printed books, further con-
ferring an immense boon on foreign
students by throwing open the Vatican
archives and providing them with &C
commodation.
The celebrated staircase, the Scala
Regia, was constructed by Bernini I'M
der Urban VIII. Subsequent popes
built the range of apartments for the
Museo Pho Clementino and the Egyp-
tian and Etruscan museums. The fourth
side Of the Cortele di San Damaso was
closed by Plus TX, who reconstructed
the great staircase leading from the ar
cades of the piazza into the court.
Altogether the Vatican palace covers
an area of about thirteen and one-half
Of ryI,i oh 81 0ao11nin1
by the twenty courts, and contains per-
haps thousand halls, chapels, saloons
and private apartments, the greater
part of which are occupied by collec-
tons and showrooms, comparatively
small part of the building being set
apart for the papal court.
The length of the palace is 1,151 feet
staircases. The principal entrance to
the Vatican is at the end of the right
colonnade of st. Peters, where door
on the right opens upon the staircase
leading to the Cortile di Damaso. The
famous SiXtine chapel, which figures
80 prominently in connection with
pope's death and the election Of his
ouCCCSoOl, 1Oluucl1y hull5 O1 lCS-
rivals with the tapestries executed
from the cartoons of Raphael. The up
per portion is decorated in fresco by |
the great Florentine masters of the fif- |
teenth century. On the pillar between
the windows are the figures Of twenty |
eight popes by Sandro Botticelli. The |
vast fresco Of "The Last Judgment
occupied Michael Angelo seven years
and was finished in 1541 under Paul |
III.
Only those strangers admitted to a
special audience ever see the small por- i
lion Of the Vatican inhabited by the
pope. The three rooms occupied by the
pontiff are furnished with the utmost
They consist Of the bare
green saloon, the red saloon, containing
4 throne flanked by benches, and the
with yellow draperies, large
writing table and few pictures by old