Mistress of the Vatican (43 page)

The Four Rivers Fountain is a seventeenth-century wonder, a tourist attraction to this very day. The center looks like a primeval rock from which water gushes and the obelisk rises. At the bottom of the rock are a horse, a lion, and a palm tree, writhing in theatrical contortions. Around the edges of the basin sit the four river gods, twisting themselves to better show their exaggerated muscles to admiring spectators.

The South American figure looks oddly African because Bernini had never seen a native of South America; however, he had probably seen Africans, as the 1650 census recorded thirteen of them living in Rome (out of a population of 126,192), and many noble visitors brought with them fashionable African child servants. Near the South Ameri-can figure is what is supposed to be an armadillo, but since there were none of those living in Rome either, Bernini’s armadillo looks more like a dragon. The Nile river god has his head covered with a drape, as if he were inhaling menthol fumes for a head cold. But the drape indicated that no one had seen the source, or head, of the Nile.

At the base of the fountain is the huge marble coat of arms of Pope Innocent X, with the dove holding the olive sprig in its mouth. Art aside, the propaganda statement was clear—the Pamphili family and the Roman Catholic Church reigned supreme over all four continents. On top of the fifty-four-foot obelisk was placed the Pamphili dove, which represented the pope and the Holy Spirit triumphing over pagan empires. Moreover, the living waters of the fountain symbolized

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Christian baptism sanctifying the ancient pagan arena. Olimpia, casting her glance to the left out of her parlor windows as the fountain rose, must have sighed with contentment.

But the people of Rome were not content. Just moving the obelisk cost twelve thousand scudi, and the fountain cost an additional eighty thousand, which the pope squeezed out of the Romans by placing a special tax on them in the middle of a famine. One morning the engineers arrived at the Piazza Navona to find a placard on the obelisk that read, “This obelisk is consecrated in eternity in the Piazza Navona of Innocent at the cost of the innocents.”
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Pasquino cried: “We don’t want an obelisk and a fountain head. Give us bread, bread, bread!”
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Though Olimpia was not able to create a real garden in the Piazza Navona, she found an opportunity elsewhere to build one of the most beautiful gardens of the seventeenth century. With Camillo back in Rome but instructed not to involve himself with anything important, Olimpia took over the design of his gardens at his pleasure villa, Bel Respiro. Unhappy over the fact that curious passersby on the Via Aurelia could look up the sloping hill and stare at her villa, she wanted more privacy out front and a fashionable sunken garden out back.

To this end she had hundreds of workmen cart thousands of wheelbarrows full of dirt out of her backyard and dump them on the slope in the front of the house. Then she built a massive retaining wall, which was all that the gawkers below would now see. She planted the sunken gardens with rare blooms, fragrant trees, and thick hedges, and decorated with fountains, statues, and grottoes. She even placed a fountain on the lower floor of the villa, which opened onto the terrace. There her guests could relax or dine to the playful sound of falling water and look out over her acres of stunning sunken gardens.

Many of the statues adorning her gardens were recent finds. It seemed that whenever a spade hit dirt in or around Rome, the glories of the ancient past resurfaced. In 1649, excavators digging in the Baths of Trajan found a room with a floor of lapis lazuli and fifty-four intact statues. Cemeteries were unearthed on the Via Latina, each tomb bursting with carved urns, sarcophagi, frescoes, inscriptions, vases, and jewels. In both cases, construction workers immediately sent word to Olimpia, who

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raced over with wagons and porters. Cartloads of priceless antiquities rumbled back to the Piazza Navona.

In acquiring new artifacts for her collections in this manner, Olimpia was doing nothing different from what Cardinal Nephew Scipione Borghese had done thirty years earlier, and indeed, she had never stolen paintings from church walls the way Borghese had. But a woman was not supposed to greedily snap up antiquities, and when people saw the ancient statues disappear behind the doors of her palazzo, they murmured.

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17

The Holy Jubilee Year

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We are all Pilgrims, who seek Italy.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

hough he was humiliated at home and abroad, Innocent’s luck was about to change. For he had the good fortune to be pope during the jubilee, a yearlong religious festival that Pope Boniface VIII had started in 1300 to bring God into the hearts of men and money into the coffers of Rome. During the jubilee, held every twenty-five years, the pope was the star of the European stage, and the church reigned triumphant.

Pilgrims flocked to Rome to obtain the indulgence of sins. The Catholic sacrament of penance affirms that in order to have sins forgiven the sinner must have a sincerely contrite heart, confess to a priest, who represents God, and make restitution to those he has harmed. Finally, he must endure either an earthly punishment or suffer in purgatory after death. It was far safer, Catholics believed, for the sinner to choose his own chastisement than to wait until after death and let God concoct the appropriate penalty. Self-imposed punishments included fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and making a long journey to a holy site. A pilgrimage was a popular form of punishment as it allowed the sinner to get in a great deal of sightseeing.

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Holy Year pilgrims obtained the indulgence of sins by visiting the four major Roman basilicas the number of times specified by the reigning pontiff. They shaved extra time off purgatory by touring the catacombs where early Christians had buried their dead and worshipped in frescoed underground chapels. More heavenly brownie points accrued by praying at the Colosseum, believed to be the site of the martyrdom of so many Christians, and asking for heavenly intercession at the shrines of the saints.

This influx of sinners was a huge stimulus for the Roman economy, with hundreds of thousands of visitors staying at inns, eating and drinking, and shopping for necessities, souvenirs, and luxury items. Most pilgrims piously gave donations to the churches they visited.

But it wasn’t all profit for the Vatican, which invested in preparations years in advance. Hospitals and dormitories were built, trees were planted, and streets were paved. In addition, Rome in the jubilee year was a kind of baroque Catholic Disney World, with easily recognizable biblical characters walking the piazzas in impressive costumes, exquisitely constructed stage sets on every street, and tacky expensive souvenirs for sale on every corner. Holy-Year celebrations awed and inspired with fireworks, feasts, and fountains running with wine.

The Vatican also bore the substantial cost of refurbishing Rome’s famous churches to strike wonder into the hearts of pilgrims. Innocent ordered that all churches be cleaned, repaired, and ornamented. But particular attention was paid to the four jubilee churches—Saint Peter’s, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, and Saint Paul’s Outside the Walls.

Starting in 1647, Innocent began major renovations at two of these churches. Saint John Lateran was a fourth-century basilica built by Constantine, which over time had been sacked by barbarians, rattled by earthquakes, and blackened by fires. The beautiful Roman columns had become so unstable that earlier popes had surrounded them with ungainly bricks. The floor was wobbly, and some of the walls were leaning out of kilter.

When the first Saint Peter’s Basilica had been in a similar condition in the early sixteenth century, Pope Julius II demolished it and built a grand new church. But times had changed. Seventeenth-century Romans had

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an appreciation of antiquity that their great-grandfathers had lacked. Though delighted with the new magnificent Saint Peter’s, they realized that the priceless historical and sacred value of the old one was forever lost. It had been a grievous waste to knock it down and throw it out with the trash to build something bigger and newer.

To overhaul Saint John Lateran, Innocent hired Francesco Borro-mini to recommend repairs. The architect was hell-bent on completely redesigning the building from top to bottom, making it into the Church of Saint John Borromini. Innocent gently reined him in and instructed him to preserve as much of the ancient church as possible. No walls were torn down, and the ancient proportions were retained. Borromini reinforced the wobbly foundations, stabilized the walls, and adorned the church with magnificent decorations.

Meanwhile, Innocent turned his attention to Saint Peter’s. The interior decoration was not yet complete. The pilasters in the nave that held up the giant arches were of plain marble, which, people of the baroque felt, just cried out for adornment. With an eye toward the jubilee, soon after Bernini’s rehabilitation Innocent hired him to decorate the pilasters. Bernini and his team carved cherubs holding three-dimensional medallions of the first thirty-eight popes. The Pamphili dove and olive branch were visible on each pilaster, an eternal reminder of Innocent X’s generosity. Innocent also commissioned Bernini to design and lay down the sumptuous marble pavement in the nave.

In October 1649 Giacinto Gigli wrote that the churches “in other holy years were never this ornamented or beautiful. Because Saint Peter’s looked fabulous with its new floor of colored marble and the chapels of Paul V newly inlaid with marble and all the altars embellished and everything carefully washed and polished.”
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Given the astronomical expenses, the Holy Year was like a Broadway show with elaborate stage sets and a huge cast that had to be paid for before the first ticket was sold. All wealthy Romans were expected to make significant contributions the year before the jubilee. As first lady of Rome, Olimpia was assigned the Trinity Institute of Pilgrims, a huge guest house open for the Holy Year. The Roman people, aware of her avarice, were curious to see how much she would donate.

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Using her well-honed administrative skills, Olimpia organized a group of forty-two influential ladies to collect money for the maintenance of pilgrims. A team of three ladies canvassed each of Rome’s fourteen
rioni,
or districts. Olimpia’s team of fund-raisers collected 16,582 scudi, enough money to feed and shelter 226,771 men, 81,822 women, and 25,902 convalescents for three days each. It was a magnificent sum. It was noted, however, that Olimpia had not contributed a penny of her own.

Dormitories such as Olimpia’s Trinity Institute were never sufficient to shelter all pilgrims. In a day and age when hotel rooms were not reserved in advance—unless you sent someone ahead of you on a horse to do so—many exhausted visitors would arrive in the Eternal City to find there was not a single bed available in inns, pilgrim dormitories, or private homes. They would bed down where they could—in stables with cows and horses, under the loggias of public buildings, or in the vineyards just outside the walls of Rome. In 1649 the pope ordered tens of thousands of comfortable straw pallets for unsheltered pilgrims to buy at cost, as well as blankets, wine, and food.

To protect the pilgrims from racketeering, in 1648 Innocent had already passed a law prohibiting the raising of rents. Severe fines would be imposed on innkeepers and apartment owners who raised their prices to fleece the flock. The cost of food and wine, too, was carefully looked into. Any tavern keeper charging exorbitant prices during the jubilee would be fined and, if he continued, jailed.

On December 10, 1649, the pope issued various edicts regarding the approaching Holy Year. Priests were not allowed to wear long hair, and prostitutes were not allowed to wear crinolines or, as Gigli wrote, “go about in dresses similar to good women.”
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In a rare fit of frivolity, on December 21 Innocent hired back all the bell ringers Olimpia had made him fire in 1644 to save money. He decreed that to show joy during the jubilee, all churches ring their bells three times daily for the next year, at nine in the morning, at one, and at sunset. Considering that Rome boasted 355 churches, it must have made for a merry cacophony.

The jubilee year was officially inaugurated on Christmas Eve by the ceremonial opening of the holy doors of the four basilicas. These doors,

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which were bricked up during regular years, were opened by the cardinal who was archpriest of the basilica. In front of cheering crowds, the cardinal tapped on the bricks with a ceremonial hammer. The bricks had already been loosened by masons, who were standing behind them. When the masons heard the tapping, they pulled down the bricks, creating a thunderous drama.

Embedded in each holy door was a chest of gold medals minted to celebrate the previous jubilee and struck with the image of the last Holy Year pope. This box was to be given to the door-opening cardinal. The medals were highly coveted and extremely valuable. As soon as the cardinal had taken his chest of holy medals and the masons had carted off the rubble, the crowds of excited pilgrims would race through the door to be the first to claim the indulgence.