:io 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Roman innovation. But who thinks of 

 that, standing before it today with the 

 golden Italian sunshine glorifying every 

 scar, and conjuring back from the dead 

 past vivid spectacles of Roman holidays 

 full of noise and color, laughter and 

 bloodv agonies ; or when liquid moonlight 

 transfigures the classic ruin into a magic 

 fabric where stalk the thin ghosts of saint 

 and vestal, slave and Emperor? 



THE UNDERGROUND CITIES OF THE DEAD 



Nature has been kind to the Palatine, 

 that hill where dwelt the shepherd kings 

 and where later rose the tremendous pal- 

 aces of Emperor after Emperor, by cloth- 

 ing its scanty ruins with lavish verdure. 

 The silence of oblivion broods over the 

 fragments of the halls where Domitian 

 played with his fleas and Caligula bathed 

 in shimmering seas of minted coins. The 

 most compelling thing upon the whole 

 bosky hill is the little stone altar chiseled : 

 Set Deo, Sei Deivcu — to the Unknown 

 God. 



This was really the shrine of the pro- 

 tecting deity of the city, the patron god 

 of Rome, and only the priests knew the 

 dread spirit's name. It was never writ- 

 ten, but handed down verbally from gen- 

 eration to generation, because, if the com- 

 mon people knew whom they worshiped, 

 any traitor could reveal the sacred name 

 to an enemy, who might bribe the deity 

 to forget Rome. 



What a contrast ! — the home of the 

 Unknown God on the pleasant hillside, in 

 the sun-sweetened air. and far under- 

 ground, pent in the damp chill of the 

 Catacombs, the altars — often the sar- 

 cophagi of martyrs — of the stout-hearted 

 who worshiped the Known God. 



Originally cemeteries, perfectly well 

 known to the pagan authorities, these re- 

 markable vaults and galleries and chapels, 

 20 to 50 feet below the surface, became 

 hiding places for the faithful in time of 

 persecution. More than forty of these 

 cities of the dead, which extend around 

 Rome in a great subterranean circle, have 

 been explored, and it has been estimated 

 by an Italian investigator that between 

 six and eight million bodies were interred 

 in them. 



Not onlv are the tombs hewn in tiers 



along the walls of the galleries, but the 

 galleries themselves are in stories, one 

 above another, in one place seven tiers 

 high. Their decorations range from 

 mere daubs of red paint, telling the name 

 of the deceased in a given tomb, to elab- 

 orate frescoes. Above ground there seems 

 a great gap between the temples of the 

 pagan city and the existing churches of 

 Christian Rome, since all the oldest 

 churches have been destroyed. This gap, 

 however, is at least partly bridged over 

 by the Catacombs. 



ST. peter' s cathedrae 



It would be as impossible to give an 

 adequate idea of Rome's multitudinous 

 churches as it would of the enormous 

 quantity of art treasures in the museums, 

 or an adequate and intelligible idea of the 

 city's unique and marvelous historv. The 

 overpowering monument of the Church 

 of Rome is St. Peter's Cathedral — the 

 tangible evidence of the evolution of the 

 early Church into the present-day world- 

 encircling spiritual power. 



Many an architect had a share in its 

 building, but all that is admirable may be 

 accredited to two : first, Bramanti, then 

 Michelangelo, who planned that vast 

 dome, floating lightly as a soap-bubble 

 above the roof. What a pity that the last 

 architect should have spoiled its effect by 

 cutting off the view of the whole lower 

 part by a lengthened nave and statues 19 

 feet high above the facade! (see pages 

 302-305). 



About 80,000 persons — nearly a sixth 

 of the entire population of Rome — can 

 gather in this huge cathedral. The vast 

 nave stretches away tremendously im- 

 pressive under its magnificent barrel 

 vault, 75 feet in span ; yet so perfectly is 

 the building proportioned that only when 

 standing beside a given detail can one 

 grasp its real size. Nothing but a cata- 

 logue could describe the great interior, 

 with its lavish mortuary monuments to 

 dead Popes, its magnificent bronze balda- 

 chin, its celebrated effigy of the kissing 

 ceremony, its amazinglv perfect mosaic 

 copies of the paintings of the old masters, 

 which have been removed. 



Nor could any pen picture a tithe of 

 the o-l rv of Michelangelo's frescoes in 



