Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

“ Of all the secret places of the Vatican there is none which fires the imagination of the visitor more than the Garden of the Pope, so often called his Eden. The allusion is inevitable for at the very gates of the Vatican, on the pinnacle of the Castle of Sant' Angelo, is the great Bronze Angel with the drawn sword, whom the Pope will not pass, because the tomb of the heathen Emperor below is filled with the soldiers of the re-born Rome, which dispossessed the Church of the kingdom of this world. ”

“ This book is a fountain of inspiration to anyone who essays to write about Rome in the Middle Ages. Not only are its springs inexhaustible: the fountain itself is so clear and beautiful that to take draughts from it is a perpetual delight. The smaller volume of Gregorovius, from which I have made several quotations—the Tombs of the Popes, translated by Mr. R. W. Seton Watson, and published by Archibald Constable & Co. (with whose permission these quotations have been made) I should not have used so much but for the admirable English of the translation. ”

“ Truly the world was promised, if not a Renaissance, a fresh dawn, in which the clouds of Papal Schisms and Italian Wars should lift for a day of matchless brilliance, wherein the ships of Europe were to swim to Africa, India, and America, and the writers of Greece to come back across the Styx. ”

“ From the above it will be seen that I have aimed at giving the traveller who goes to Rome for sight-seeing, and the stay-at-home who has to do his sight-seeing in books of travel, some idea of the parts of the Vatican which are not generally seen; either because the visitor does not know where to look for them, or because they are only shown as a special favour. I am myself a Protestant, a member of the Church of England. My idea of patriotism makes it impossible that I should ever leave the Church of my forefathers. ”

“ On the first you may gaze on any weekday morning; the second none may behold but those who are bidden.
Who shall complain? There is little to observe in the Pope's apartments but his private life—and that he who lives the life of the man with the iron mask has a right to keep sealed from observation.
Apart from the aura of Sanctity, apart from venerable associations, this portion of the palace has nothing to show within which would compare with the work of the Borgias and della Roveres. It is only three hundred years old, and recent Popes have returned to Apostolic simplicity. ”

“ The word Vatican is familiar to travellers in the signification of a place with museums of matchless sculpture, and a gallery of paintings, and a chapel whose paintings are yet more famous. This does not help them to understand the first signification. The number of English people who have visited the Vatican Collections without giving any thought to the Vatican beyond them is very great. This is excusable because there is no guide-book in English, and no adequate guide-book in any language, to the Vatican as a Palace. ”

“ The few who have crossed the threshold of the Etruscan Museum may be glad to cross it again with one who has visited most of the Etruscan cities, half-buried in flowers and turf, on hills in hidden valleys, which are the delight and despair of the antiquarian. ”

“ Half my illustrations are reproductions of the hundreds of superb plans and plates in this book. Pistolesi is what Americans would call the bed-rock, upon which many of the later books about the Vatican are founded, and its value is much enhanced by the fact that, unlike most large Italian works, it is well indexed.
I hope that I have not omitted any of the works which have been valuable to me in the prolonged studies which preceded the writing of my book. If I have, I tender my most sincere apologies to their authors and publishers. ”

“ This volume gives the only description in English of the Vatican, considered, not as a collection of museums, but as the Royal Palace of the Popes, since Mr. Sladen's well-known book, The Secrets of the Vatican, is now completely out of print, and can never be published again, part of it remaining in the hands of the original publishers, Messrs. Hurst & Blackett, and part having been transferred to ourselves. This was because the chapters of the book which related to the home-life of the Pope necessarily need changing much oftener than the parts which describe the Vatican Palace itself. ”

“ For he made the springs of learning—the innumerable Archives—the priceless manuscripts, the half-million of printed books gathered in his own halls of study, mingle their currents for every scholar, of whatever country or creed, who thirsted for the river of learning, strewn with golden sands for discoverers. ”

“ Peter in Rome, which I have not seen.
One of the best accounts of the Pope's apartments to be found anywhere is in Zola's Rome, of which the English edition is published by Messrs. Chatto & Windus, who are likewise the publishers of the cheap editions of Charles Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth, into which Nicholas v. comes; and Wilkie Collins's Antonina.
Far the most interesting volume of gossip about the Popes is Silvagni's La Corte e la Società Romana nei XVIII. e XIX. secoli, of which a most spirited translation has been published by Mrs. Frances Maclaughlin (Elliot Stock) . ”

“ Besides Murray's Handbook to Rome, which has always been recognized as one of the best in any language, there are Sir A. H. Layard's Handbook to the Italian Schools of Painting, based on Kugler's handbook, sixth edition (2 vols., 24s. nett) ; Dennis's Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (2 vols., 36s. nett) ; Nielsen's History of the Papacy in the Nineteenth Century, 1907 (2 vols., 24s. nett) ; and Mr. W. G. Waters's Translation of the Journal of Montaigne's Travels, which contains some interesting passages about the Vatican Library. ”

“ Map of the Vatican.
vista, more regal if not so ancient or historical. The stranger will not heed the closely guarded staircase on his right until he knows that it is the Jacob's ladder to the apartments of the Pontiff himself. ”

“ Lucca. -296 . *S. Caio S. Caius . . Dalmatia. -304 . *S. Marcellino S. Marcellinus . Rome. -309 . *S. Marcello i. S. Marcellus i. . Rome. -3 " . *S. Eusebio . S. Eusebius . . Calabria. -314 . S. Melciade .. S. Melchiades . Africa. ”