THE VATICAN GARDENS, ROME. 
39 
once adorned the Borgia apartments, were also placed here by Canova. Among the antiques 
are a Hermes, a little statue of /Esop, a helmeted Minerva, busts of emperors, and a sleeping 
Genius. Charming putt? ride sea-horses on the balustrade, and a fountain in the middle is 
flanked by two more bovs plaving with dolphins. Over all looms the great dome, filling the eye and 
the mind with its overwhelming size and significance. It is in such a summer garden that the 
old painters loved to place their monks and Fathers, holding a sauta co??versaziotte in the evening 
of a southern summer. Here Pius IV, who loved an easy, simple, outdoor life, used to converse 
with his nephew and chief adviser, St. Carlo Borromeo. Here he assembled round him all the 
men of his time who were distinguished for their virtue and talents, and held those “ Notte 
Vaticane ” meetings at which at first poetry and philosophy were discussed. After the 
necessity for Church reform became apparent both to the Pope and St. Carlo, these meetings 
were entirely devoted to the discussion of sacred subjects. When the luxurious court of Leo X 
was the centre of artistic and literary life, the witty and pleasure-loving Pope held banquets and 
gave concerts in these gardens, and a circle, to wdiich ladies were admitted, listened to music 
and recitations of poets on these benches and beneath the shade of those pines and ilexes. 
Leaving the palazzetto by a broad flight of steps, more box-clipped hedges and long walks 
lead to a huge formal garden, to which P'alda assigns the somewhat inappropriate name of the 
“ secret garden.” It is laid out with box-edged flower-beds, lemon and orange trees set in 
terra-cotta vases, and adorned with statues and four large fountains. 
A yet more interesting spot was the inner garden, or Giardino della Pigna, which is entered 
by a door at the end of the long gallery of the Museo Chiaramt)nti, but its shrubs and flowers 
were destroyed to make room for a column to the Council of 1870.* 
In front of the semicircular niche of Bramante is set up the famous pigna, or giant fir cone, 
eleven feet high, which was believed to have formed the apex of the mausoleum of Hadrian, or, 
as some antiquarians hold, was the central ornament of a fountain, perhaps of the Lake of 
.A.grippa in the Campus Martins. Pope Symmachus early in the sixth century placed it over the 
fountain which he had made in front of the ancient basilica. It was still there in the time of Dante, 
who, describing a giant’s head which he saw through the mist in the last circle of hell, says : 
" l.ii faccia mi patea longa e 
Come la pina ili S. Pietro in Koma.” 
- Inj. xxxi, 58. 
It bears the name of the bronze founder who cast it, “ P. Cincius, P. L. Salvius, fecit. The 
marble pedestal on which it stands is a much later work, though also Roman, and very probably 
was brought from the Antonine baths of Caracalla. 
The two graceful bronze peacocks which stand on either side may have belonged to the 
tomb of a Roman empress. The peacock, the bird of Juno, was the symbol of the apotheosis 
of an empress, and one was loosed when her pyre was lighted, as was an eagle, the bird of 
Jove, for an emperor’s funeral. 
Behind the pigna is placed the splendid base of the column of Antoninus Pius, found in 
1709 at Monte Citorio, with a bas-relief of a winged Genius guiding the emperor and Faustina 
to Olympus. This column was a memorial erected by the emperor’s two adopted sons, IMarcus 
Aurelius and Lucius Verus. 
Returning to the great garden and traversing the broad terrace, we come to still other long 
walks tunnelled in close-growing ilex, dark and shady even on the hottest day. Below the belvedere 
is the entrance to the gentlv sloping passage, up which Pope Giulio II used to ride his mule to the 
upper storey of the palace. Here, in a wide fountain basin, is set Bernini’s beautiful bronze 
ship, executed for Paul V. It is still in good preservation ; its hull is decorated with mermaids, 
while Cupids plav in and out of the rigging. Its flag flies gaily, and an admiral gives orders 
through a speaking trumpet on its deck. The little cannon grin through the portholes, but its 
sails are ever furlect. E. M. P. 
•This is really part ol the great cortilc formed by Uramante under Giulio II (1503-13). who connected the old summer jialace 
()1 Innocent \' 1 1 1 of 148b with the N'atican. This grand scheme was designed to overcome great difticultics in the levels and directions 
of the older buildings, but it was unhappily destroyeil when the Vatican library was built in 1588 across thc^ centre. Ihc t.iardino 
della Pigna is one section only of the great corlilc, which had magnirtcent apses at cither end. ihe octagonal belvedere 
Court of the present Papal museums is formed out of the court of Innocent’s buildings. — A. I. B. 
