little, or to pursue some other worldly matter: and then kneeling
down again, to resume the contrite supplication at the point where
it was interrupted. In one church, a kneeling lady got up from her
prayer, for a moment, to offer us her card, as a teacher of Music;
and in another, a sedate gentleman with a very thick walking-staff,
arose from his devotions to belabour his dog, who was growling at
another dog: and whose yelps and howls resounded through the
church, as his master quietly relapsed into his former train of
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meditation – keeping his eye upon the dog, at the same time,
nevertheless.
Above all, there is always a receptacle for the contributions of
the Faithful, in some form or other. Sometimes, it is a money-box,
set up between the worshipper, and the wooden life-size figure of
the Redeemer; sometimes, it is a little chest for the maintenance
of the Virgin; sometimes, an appeal on behalf of a popular Bambino;
sometimes, a bag at the end of a long stick, thrust among the
people here and there, and vigilantly jingled by an active
Sacristan; but there it always is, and, very often, in many shapes
in the same church, and doing pretty well in all. Nor, is it
wanting in the open air – the streets and roads – for, often as you
are walking along, thinking about anything rather than a tin
canister, that object pounces out upon you from a little house by
the wayside; and on its top is painted, ‘For the Souls in
Purgatory;’ an appeal which the bearer repeats a great many times,
as he rattles it before you, much as Punch rattles the cracked bell
which his sanguine disposition makes an organ of.
And this reminds me that some Roman altars of peculiar sanctity,
bear the inscription, ‘Every Mass performed at this altar frees a
soul from Purgatory.’ I have never been able to find out the
charge for one of these services, but they should needs be
expensive. There are several Crosses in Rome too, the kissing of
which, confers indulgences for varying terms. That in the centre
of the Coliseum, is worth a hundred days; and people may be seen
kissing it from morning to night. It is curious that some of these
crosses seem to acquire an arbitrary popularity: this very one
among them. In another part of the Coliseum there is a cross upon
a marble slab, with the inscription, ‘Who kisses this cross shall
be entitled to Two hundred and forty days’ indulgence.’ But I saw
no one person kiss it, though, day after day, I sat in the arena,
and saw scores upon scores of peasants pass it, on their way to
kiss the other.
To single out details from the great dream of Roman Churches, would
be the wildest occupation in the world. But St. Stefano Rotondo, a
damp, mildewed vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome,
will always struggle uppermost in my mind, by reason of the hideous
paintings with which its walls are covered. These represent the
martyrdoms of saints and early Christians; and such a panorama of
horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he
were to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men being
boiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild beasts,
worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped up
small with hatchets: women having their breasts torn with iron
pinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jaws
broken, their bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon the
stake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among the
mildest subjects. So insisted on, and laboured at, besides, that
every sufferer gives you the same occasion for wonder as poor old
Duncan awoke, in Lady Macbeth, when she marvelled at his having so
much blood in him.
There is an upper chamber in the Mamertine prisons, over what is
said to have been – and very possibly may have been – the dungeon
of St. Peter. This chamber is now fitted up as an oratory,