Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of RomeCrawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
History
Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2: Studies from the Chronicles of Rome
Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion)
Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
After all, his bones have been allowed to rest in peace, which is more
than can be said of all that have been buried within the area of the
church. Urban the Sixth had no such good fortune. He so much surprised
the cardinals, as soon as they had elected him, by his vigorous moral
reforms that they hastily retired to Anagni and elected an antipope of
milder manners and less sensitive conscience. He lived to triumph over
his enemies. In Piacenza he was besieged by King Charles of Naples. He
excommunicated him, tortured seven cardinals whom he caught in the
conspiracy and put five of them to death; overcame and slew Charles,
refused him burial and had his body exposed to the derision of the
crowd. The chronicler says that 'Italy, Germany, England, Hungary,
Bohemia, Poland, Sicily and Portugal were obedient to the Lord Pope
Urban the Sixth.' He died peacefully, and was buried in Saint Peter's in
a marble sarcophagus.
But when Sixtus the Fifth, who also surprised the cardinals greatly, was
in a fit of haste to finish the dome, the masons, wanting a receptacle
for water, laid hands on Urban's stone coffin, pitched his bones into a
corner, and used the sarcophagus as they pleased, leaving it to serve as
a water-tank for many years afterwards.
In extending the foundations of the church, Paul the Third came upon the
bodies of Maria and Hermania, the two wives of Honorius, the Emperor who
'disestablished' paganism in favour of Christianity. They were sisters,
daughters of Stilicho, and had been buried in their imperial robes, with
many rich objects and feminine trinkets; and they were found intact, as
they had been buried, in the month of February, 1543. Forty pounds of
fine gold were taken from their robes alone, says Baracconi, without
counting all the jewels and trinkets, among which was a very beautiful
lamp, besides a great number of precious stones. The Pope melted down
the gold for the expenses of the building, and set the gems in a tiara,
where, if they could be identified, they certainly exist today--the very
stones worn by empresses of ancient Rome.
Then, as if in retribution, the Pope's own tomb was moved from its
place. Despoiled of two of the four statues which adorned it, the
monument is now in the tribune, and is still one of the best in the
church. A strange and tragic tale is told of it. A Spanish student, it
is said, fell madly in love with the splendid statue of Paul's
sister-in-law, Julia Farnese. He succeeded in hiding himself in the
basilica when it was closed at night, threw himself in a frenzy upon the
marble and was found stone dead beside it in the morning. The ugly
draperies of painted metal which now hide much of the statue owe their
origin to this circumstance. Classical scholars will remember that a
somewhat similar tale is told by Pliny of the Venus of Praxiteles in
Cnidus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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