viz. the Sculpture Galleries, the Sistine Chapel, the Stanze and Loggie of Raffaelle, and the Pinacoteca. They are merely catalogued in the opening chapter, in which I give the category of the various chapels, chambers, courtyards, and gardens which make up the Vatican. I take it for granted that everyone is familiar with them, and devote my space to introducing the British and American publics to the neglected or usually closed parts of the Palace, with the necessary historical allusions.
I open with the story of the Vatican and the Quintian Meadows from the days when the curly-haired Cincinnatus left his plough to head the armies of the Republic as Dictator. Then I tell the story of the building of the world's most famous palace from the time of Pope Saint Symmachus to the times of the three Popes of exile who bore the devoted name of Pius—Pius vi., Pius vii., and Pius ix.; and give two chapters to the reconstruction of Old St. Peter's, built by Constantine the Great, which lasted for more than a dozen centuries; and three chapters to that wonderful charnel-house of Gothic art; in Rome, the Crypt of St. Peter's, whose pavement is the actual floor of the Church of Constantine, and whose vaults are strewn with the shattered tombs of eighty-six Mediæval Popes.
It is into these chapters and the chapters on
