The grandeur of Rome: Sacred and Profane

(Excerpted from Selected Journalism by HAJ Hulugalle)

One of the first questions my friend Leone Cattani, lawyer and journalist, asked me as he drove me in his car along the Via del Corso in Rome was, “If you had time to see only one important building in Rome, what should it be?” I thought of St. Peter’s, the Vatican Museum, the Colosseum, the Forum and the Capitol. I had already seen some of these places with admiration and even awe. Cattani knew better. The most famous, as well as the most perfect classical monument in Rome is the Pantheon. The original building was erected 27 years before the birth of Christ but a reconstruction was effected in the first century A.D.

The main feature of the Pantheon is the great dome, the model of the cupola of St. Peter’s. The perfect harmony of the proportions of the Pantheon never ceases to compel the admiration of architects who echo the tribute of Nathaniel Hawthorne that the world has nothing to equal it. Light and air are admitted through a large aperture at the summit of the cupola showing the sky – “as if heaven were looking down into the interior of this place of worship.”

This Roman temple became a Church, the national Church of all Italians where their kings were buried. But a greater man than any Italian king lies buried in the Pantheon. Over the tomb of Raphael, probably the greatest artist of all time, is the inscription: “Here lies Raphael: Living, great Nature feared he might outlive his works; and, dying, fears herself to die.”

I shall, of course, not attempt to describe St. Peter’s or the Vatican Museum. Many books have been written about them and it would be foolish to try to convey their grandeur or beauty in a brief article. The first impression one gets from the interior of St. Peter’s is likely to be disappointing. But in the course of several visits the huge building reveals itself as a suite of majestic halls that look almost like vast cathedrals. The basilica has a unique setting. The vast square is dominated by the great dome which rises against the background of the sky and the imposing colonnade forms a solemn entry to St. Peter’s and the Vatican.

Archbishop of Colombo His Grace Thomas Cooray who subsequently became a Cardinal. Also In the picture Mr Vernon Samarawickrema

Two famous statues leave an ineffaceable impression in the mind. One is the “Pieta,” a beautiful work of the young Michelangelo. On the knees of the Virgin lies the body of Christ who seems to be asleep. The other statue is a more severe piece of sculpture. It is the celebrated bronze statue of St. Peter. The pious pilgrim as he passes kisses the foot already worn away by the lips of many generations of visitors.

It takes many hours to make even a quick journey of the Vatican Museum: the sculpture, the picture galleries, the Sistine Chapel, and so on. The Louvre in Paris does not possess a more representative collection of art treasures than the Vatican Museum. A profane mind notices that the nakedness of the classical male statues is covered with an obvious fig leaf although no such concession to middle class propriety is seen in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

Room XV of the Vatican Picture Gallery has a collection of portraits. It is in the last room that one sees among the Popes and Cardinals an enormous picture of George IV of England by Sir Thomas Lawrence, described thus in the Official Guide: “George IV of England, by Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), the most famous English portrait painter of the last two centuries: a magnificent court portrait.” The King is in strange company.

I did not try to obtain an audience with His Holiness the Pope nor join the pilgrims who catch a glimpse of that saintly and handsome Prince of the Church. I live in hope that I shall be able to spend a longer time than 10 days in Rome and see all that I failed to see on my first visit and to do so in a mood untroubled by the anxieties of a stranded passenger living in comfort. If I did not see the Pope, I saw places he frequents, including the Vatican gardens and Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence. I also saw some striking portraits of the Pope, especially one at the Collegio Propaganda Fide when I was talking to that charming man Father Muttukumaru who has already spent four or five years in Rome and is held in great esteem by all those who know him.

No Ceylonese spending even a day in Rome should omit to meet Father Muttukumaru. On my way to the Collegio I went up to the Janiculum, a hill parallel to the Tiber which, according to Roman legend, was the abode of the god Janus. From here, as from the Pincio Gardens one gets a fine view of the City.

There is some doubt whether St. Peter was crucified on the site of San Pietro Montorio, near by the Janiculum, or in Nero’s circus, a site now partially occupied by St, Peter’s. St. Peter and St. Paul were in prison for nine months and were led out to death in 67 A D. St. Paul’s -without-the-Wall and St. Peter’s are the two grand basilicas in Rome.

Leone Cattani took me to the Capitoline hill, or the Piazza del Campodoglio as it is now called, and from a small terrace whence we had a good view of the Forum, he recreated for me what it would have looked like in the days of Virgil, Horace and Augustus. At the end of a broad highway running alongside the Forum is the Colosseum which was built five years after St. Paul’s death. The Colosseum is, of course, the most impressive ruin in Rome. They say that 12,000 Jewish prisoners were employed in building it.

H V Morton writes: “It is said that the first Christian to die there was the venerable St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who has always been claimed by Eastern tradition as the little child whom Jesus placed in the midst of his disciples as a model of innocence. It is related of him that so great was the purity of his life that he was granted the privilege of hearing the song of angels, and that is the reason why he introduced responses into his church service.”

Although Cattani is on the board which regulates new buildings in the City he was always regretting some of the modern additions. “You should have seen that square 20 years ago when I first came to live in Rome to go to the University,” he would tell me. “All those Ugly additions blocking what was once a charming view. What a pity!” Watching the building of a new Church somewhere towards the Via Flaminia, he said, “Don’t you think we have enough churches in Rome?”

The noisy and crowded metropolis, it is true, has lost some of the beauty of Rome as Henry James saw it on a day in 1869 when he went “reeling and moaning thro’ the streets in a fever of enjoyment.” “At last,” he wrote to his brother, “for the first time I live. It beats everything; it leaves the Rome of your fancy – your education – nowhere. It makes Venice -Florence-Oxford-London- seem like cities of pasteboard.”

It would take a genius to spoil Rome although Count Guiseppe Sacconi who designed the neo-classic Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, that gigantic wedding cake in the heart of the city, almost did it. Meanwhile there are still, and there will always be, such gracious places like the Pincio Gardens; and for song and refreshment – a glass of good Italian wine and a “pizza” – the pizza at Tarverno in Via Margutta.

(First published in 1951. The writer later spent some years in Rome as Ceylon’s Ambassador to Italy)