The visitor to the castle of St. Angelo is shown the Treasure Chamber
created by Sixtus. It is reached, after passing through the oil stores
and the Cannon Ball Court, by a long narrow corridor from which open the
so-called historical prisons, all of which are associated by tradition
with some famous occupant. One is that known as the “Petroni,” so-called
after the wife of Francesco Cenci, the stepmother of the unhappy
Beatrice; another is said to have been the resting place of Beatrice
herself, and yet another the place of durance of Benvenuto Cellini.
Cellini’s cell still preserves traces of a figure drawn in charcoal
representing “Christ Triumphant,” attributed to the famous artist’s own
hand, and there is internal evidence to show that this was the very cell
from which he started on his memorable escape. After wrenching from its
hinges the door which stood at the top of the steps, he made his way to
a small platform, which projected from the keep in the form of a
balcony, and lowered himself from this point by using the rope he had
manufactured out of his sheets. We view these hideous cells with horror;
they are dark and airless--the exact counterpart of mediæval
dungeons--and we can enter into the feelings of their wretched inmates
who languished there for years with little hope of release except by
death. From the level of these prisons, we mount to the first floor of
the papal apartments, and enter the hall named after Giulio Romano, and
pass into a circular chamber, really in the very centre of the castle,
which was the receptacle of the secret records and the papal treasury.
Walnut wood shelves in the plain style of Paul III surround this chamber
and it contains a number of huge boxes in oak, bound with iron and of
immense strength. The largest of these was the cash box of Sixtus V, and
in the smaller ones the crown jewels, the sceptres and tiaras and
precious relics were preserved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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