THE FOUNTAINS OF ST. PETER'S, AND

PART OF THE COLONNADES.

"Oswald sentit une emotion tout-à-fait extraordinaire en arrivant en face de St. Pierre. C'était la première fois que l'ouvrage des hommes produisait sur lui l'effet d'une merveille de la nature."

DE STAEL.

THE approach to St. Peter's, like that to our own cathedral church of St. Paul's, is very unfavourable to the architectural effect of the edifice. A long and narrow street of mean houses leads to an open space of about two hundred feet square, on passing which the traveller arrives at the colonnades in front of the church. This edifice was not contemplated in the original design of the building; for at the point which is now the entrance of the colonnade stood the house of Raphael, designed by Bramanti, which, with several other buildings, was removed in the year 1660 to afford room for the colonnades. That structure was designed by Bernini, during the pontificate of Alexander the Sixth, with a taste which has been often severely criticised. It consists of a semicircular colonnade of four rows of pillars, enclosing a space of seven hundred and twenty-eight feet by six hundred and six. In number the pillars are two hundred and fifty-six, and they are surmounted by one hundred and ninety-two statues of saints. Some idea of the magnificence of the colonnade may be formed, when we

find that through the centre rows of the pillars two carriages may pass abreast, and that each of the statues which surmount them is eleven feet in height. Undeterred by the criticisms of his predecessors, Mr. Forsyth has spoken in high terms of the colonnade. "How beautiful the colonnades! how finely proportioned to the church! how advantageous to its flat, forbidding front, which ought to have come forward like the Pantheon to meet the decoration! How grand an enclosure for the piazza! how fortunate a screen to the ignoble objects around it! But, advance or retire, you will find no point of view that combines these accessories with the general form of the church. Instead of describing its whole cycloid on the vacant air, the cupola is more than half hidden by the front-a front at variance with the body, confounding two orders in one, debased by a gaping attic, and encumbered with colossal apostles."

In the centre, if it may be so called, of each of the colonnades, rises a magnificent fountain, from the designs of Maderno. The waters, after having been forced into a number of splendid jets, are received into a noble basin composed of a single block of granite.

In the centre of the space formed by the colonnades of St. Peter's rises the obelisk of the Vatican, one of the most remarkable monuments of antiquity preserved in Rome. It appears to be one of the two obelisks mentioned by Herodotus as having been erected by Phero, the son of Sesostris, on his recovery from blindness. So great was the anxiety of the monarch that the pillar should be raised uninjured, that he fastened his own son to the summit in order to render the engineers more

careful in performing this operation. From Egypt it was transported by Caligula to Rome, a vessel being built for the purpose of conveying it. In the construction of this vessel a fir-tree of such enormous bulk was used, that four men could scarcely embrace it in their arms. The pillar was dedicated by Caligula to Julius and Angustus Cæsar, and erected in the Circus of Caligula, afterwards called the Circus of Nero-a position not far from that which it at present occupies. The precise spot falls within the church, and is marked by a square stone in the passage leading from the sacristy to the choir.

In the year 1586, Sixtus the Fifth directed the obelisk to be removed to its present situation. Of the difficulty of this task some idea may be formed from a statement of the magnitude and weight of the monument. The length, exclusive of the pyramid at the apex, is upwards of seventy-seven feet-the transverse section at the middle more than seven and a half feet square; the solid contents are one hundred and sixty-six cubic yards of granite, weighing upwards of three hundred and thirty-two tons; to which must be added four tons, the weight of the pyramid at the top. It has been calculated to be fourteen times the weight of the largest block of stone at Stonehenge, and is the largest wrought stone in Europe.

The operation of transporting this prodigious mass has been described by Fontana, the architect employed by the pope to superintend its removal. A castellum or frame, composed of eight upright beams of oak and walnut, was erected around the obelisk, which was covered with mats and planks bound together with iron and ropes to preserve it from injury. It was then raised, by

means of capstans and blocks, upon a platform resting on wooden rollers, and was thus removed to its present site. Six hundred men and a hundred and forty horses were employed in the transportation, the expense of which amounted to about nine thousand pounds. As a reward for his successful labours, the pontiff bestowed upon the architect the materials used in the removal of the obelisk, which were valued at twenty thousand crowns.

A singular anecdote with regard to the erection of the obelisk is related by some Italian writers. The pope, whose anxiety for the successful elevation of the pillar appears almost to have equalled that of Phero, is said to have issued a command that, during the progress of raising the monument, no person should venture to speak under the penalty of death. A member of the Bresca family (of the ancient republic of S. Remo), who was intently watching the progress of the operation, observing that the ropes were on the point either of breaking or of taking fire from the extreme friction, forgetting or disregarding the pontiff's order, called aloud for water. Sixtus, who saw the danger to which the machinery had been exposed, instead of threatening him with the infliction of the punishment, desired him to name his reward. He did so, and selected the office of supplying the papal chapel with palms on Palm Sunday; a privilege still claimed by the Bresca family. In the Vatican a painting may be seen representing the removal of the obelisk, and the seizure of this person by the papal guards.

Madame de Stael, who is never more eloquent than in her descriptions of the works of art which Rome exhibits,

:

and who gives such admirable expression to the sentiments which such exhibitions inspire, has embodied in her own beautiful language the feelings with which the traveller surveys the magnificent fountains and the obelisk of St. Peter's :-"Un obelisque de quatre-vingts pieds de haut, qui parait à peine élevé en presence de coupole de Saint Pierre, est au milieu de la place. La forme des obelisques elle seule a quelque chose qui plait à l'imagination leur sommet se perd dans les airs, et semble porter jusqu'au ciel une grande pensée de l'homme. Ce monument, qui vint d'Egypte pour orner les bains de Caligula, et qui Sixte Quint a fait transporter ensuite au pied du temple de Saint Pierre, ce contemporain de tant des siècles, qui n'ont pu rien contre lui, inspire un sentiment de respect. L'homme se sent si passager, qu'il a toujours de l'émotion en présence de ce qui est immuable. A quelque distance des deux côtés de l'obelisque, s'élevent deux fontaines dont l'eau jaillet perpetuellement, et retombe avec abondance en cascade dans les airs. Ce murmure des ondes qu'on a coutume d'entendre au milieu de la campagne produit dans cette enceinte une sensation toute nouvelle; mais cette sensation est en harmonie avec celle que fait naître l'aspect d'un temple majestueux.

"La peinture, la sculpture, imitant le plus souvent la figure humaine, ou quelque objet existant dans la nature, réveillent dans notre âme des idées parfaitement claires et positives; mais un beau monument d'architecture n'a point, pour ainsi dire, de sens déterminé; et l'on est saisi, en le contemplant, par cette réverie, sans calcul et sans but, qui mene si loin la pensée. Le bruit des eaux con