Day 2
Saturday, April 6
The majority of our morning was spent touring the ruins of the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. We opted to not get a tour guide this year like we have in the past. Who needs a tour guide when you have Father Jenkins!
The afternoon consisted of visiting the Ara Coeli and the Victor Emmanuel Monument, two locations that Father always visits consecutively since they're so close to each other. Full price tickets for the elevator which takes you to the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument cost 17,00 €. It's worth it to enjoy a 360° view over the entire city of Rome!
In the late afternoon we visited more churches. Check out our map below.
1. Palatine Hill
The Palatine is the most celebrated 0f the Roman hills, having been the site 0f the city founded by Romulus, and the seat of empire from the time of Augustus , till the latter was transferred by Constantine to Constantinople.
The ascent is by a road close to the arch of Titus. There is little now to recall the ancient splendors of the place the noble vestibules with columns of giallo antico, the spacious courts with tesselated pavement, the marble colonnades, the imperial palaces with walls richly gilt and frescoed , the broad squares adorned with statues of gilded bronze, and with fountains whose waters descended like sheets of glass into basins of white marble, all these have disappeared, leaving nothing but ruins and fragmentary traces of artistic work behind. The devastation has been the work partly of the wasting hand of time , but chiefly of the destroying hand 0f man. (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
2. Roman Forum
The Forum, the very heart of Rome, the spot round which centred so many world-stirring events for a period of a thousand years, is now a scene of desolation; its temples are fallen, its pagan sanctuaries have crumbled into dust; its basilicas, colonnades, rostra, monuments lie scattered on the ground, which is cumbered with heaps of broken shafts, fragments of marble capitals and cornices, and masses of shapeless brickwork; only here and there a few shattered porticoes are left, helping us to form some imperfect idea of what this great centre of the civic life of ancient Rome was in the flourishing days of the Empire.
St. Fulgentius, of Carthage, who came to visit the tombs of the Apostles in A.D. 500, happened to pass through the Forum at the time when Theodoric, then King of Italy, seated on a high throne adorned with regal splendour, was receiving the homage of the Senate. The sight of all the grandeur and magnificence there displayed made such an impression on the Saint that he exclaimed: “ Ah, how beautiful must be the heavenly Jerusalem if earthly Rome is so glorious!" (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
3. Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Coeli
The interior is vast, solemn, and wonderfully picturesque. Twenty-two ancient columns separate the nave from the aisles. The high altar, rich in marbles, has an ancient painting of our Lady much venerated. Raphael's famous Madonna di Foligno, now at the Vatican, was painted for this altar and remained here for some years.
The first chapel in the right aisle, dedicated to St. Bernardine of Siena, was decorated with frescoes by Pinturicchio on the occasion of the Saint's canonization in 1450. In the third chapel of the right aisle, that of the Crucifix, was buried the lady Vannozza , the intimate friend of St. Frances of Rome, about 1430.
The floor of the nave is paved with fragments of porphyry, serpentine, and other precious marbles. The richly gilded ceiling was presented by the Roman Senate in 1571 , in thanksgiving to our Lady for the Victory of Lepanto.
The sacristan, if asked, will unlock the shrine of the Santo Bambino, an image of the Holy Child, carved by a Franciscan at Jerusalem in the seventeenth century, out of wood taken from the Garden of Olives. It is greatly venerated in Rome, and frequently carried to the sick for their consolation; even miraculous cures are said to have been wrought by it. (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
4. Mamertine Prison
This terrible prison consists of two subterranean chambers or dungeons one below the other, “with only one round in the center of each vault, through which alone light, air, food, and men could pass. When the upper story was full, we may imagine how much light and air could reach the lower. No other means of ventilation, drainage, or access existed. The walls, of large stone blocks, had rings fastened into them for securing the prisoners, but many used to be laid on the floor with their feet fastened in stocks." Originally the only access to each dungeon was by a small aperture in the center of each vault, through which the prisoners were let down by ropes. Sallust describes it as a dark, filthy, frightful den, twelve feet underground, walled in, and covered with massive stones.
SS. Peter and Paul were cast into this lower dungeon during the persecution of Nero, A.D. 65 or 66, and are said to have lain here eight or nine months, bound with chains to the wall. It would be hard to imagine a spot more appalling at the time the Apostles entered it; the thick darkness, the fetid atmosphere, the accretions of filth, the dampness, the intense cold, the tragic associations of the place, must have made confinement in it worse than death.
According to the acts of SS. Processus and Martinianus (the authenticity of which is questioned ) and to the lessons of the Roman Breviary, July 2, the Apostles here converted Processus and Martinianus, captains of the guard, with forty-seven fellow prisoners. There being no water wherewith to administer Baptism, St. Peter by his prayer unlocked a miraculous source which continues flowing to the present day. (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
5. Monument to Victor Emmanuel II
The Victor Emmanuel II National Monument also known as "Altar of the Fatherland", is a large national monument built between 1885 and 1935 to honor Victor Emmanuel II. It is not a religious site, but gives a great overview of the city of Rome.
"The best part about going to the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument is that you can't see the Victor Emmanuel Monument" (paraphrased quote from Father Jenkins)
6. Chiesa del Gesù
The students sing in the Gesù.
This noble church, one of the most frequented in Rome, was built for the Society of Jesus between the years 1568-1584. The interior is exceedingly rich and ornate, the profusion of decorations in marble, bronze, gilding, and fresco painting being almost bewildering. The ceiling, dome, and apse glow with frescoes, the best work of Baciccio; its altars are adorned with rich bronzes and sculptures; its walls are incrusted with costly marbles; its pavement is inlaid with porphyry and other precious stones; its sanctuary and side-chapels are bright with lamps kept constantly burning.
The church is rich in the traditions of the Society and in the memories of its Saints. The body of St. Ignatius, translated in 1587 from the little Church of S. Maria della Strada (now destroyed), is here enshrined, and for three centuries his sons have kept watch over his relics. The body of St. Francis Borgia rested here for a short while, till transferred to Madrid in 1617. At the altars of the Gesù often prayed and served Mass those angelic souls, SS. Aloysius and John Berchmans. Beneath its pulpit often sat St. John Berchmans listening to the sermons and instructions, himself preaching the while by the eloquence of his wonderful modesty and recollection. Before its shrines knelt Blessed Rodolf Aquaviva, Blessed Ignatius Azevedo, Blessed Edmund Campion, and many other illustrious martyrs and missionaries. In the chapel near the entrance to the sacristy are said to have been buried the first companions of St. Camillus de Lellis. At the altar of St. Francis Xavier, St. Benedict Joseph Labre received Holy Communion just before his death. (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
7. Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola
The students sing in front of the tomb of St. Robert Bellarmine.
At the back of the Roman College is the Church of S. Ignazio, belonging to the Jesuit Fathers. It was begun in 1626, in honour of the great Founder of the Society of Jesus, on occasion of his canonization , Cardinal Ludovisi, nephew of Pope Gregory XV, undertaking with princely liberality to defray all the expenses. The façade is by Agliardi, a pupil of Bernini; the rest of the building is from designs by Dome nichino and Father Grassi. The proportions of the church are singularly noble, and the nave is one of the finest architectural works of the seventeenth century.
More attractive than the frescoes are two other great works of Pozzi, the altars in the right and left transepts, which were designed by him, and beneath which are the bodies of the angelical youths, St. Aloysius and St. John Berchmans, in magnificent urns of lapis lazuli. The altar tomb of St. Aloysius has for its centerpiece a large marble relief of the young Saint surrounded by angels, the work of the eminent sculptor Le Gros. (Pilgrim Walks in Rome)
