Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1896 — TOMBS IN ST. PETER’S. [ARTICLE]

TOMBS IN ST. PETER’S.

Some of Them Have Been Violated and the Bones Scattered. One of the best tombs in the basilica is that of Sixtus IV., the first pope of the Rovere family, in the Chapel of the Sacrament. The bronze figure, lying low on a sarcophagus placed out upon the floor, has a quiet, manly dignity about It which one cannot forget. But in the same tomb lies a greater man of the same race, Julius II., for whom Michelangelo made his great “Moses" In the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, a man who did more than any other, perhaps, to make the great basilica what It Is, and who, by a chain of mistakes, got no tomb of his own. He who solemnly laid the foundations of the present church, and lived to see the four main piers completed, with their arches, has only a little slab in the pavement to recall his memory. The protector and friend of Bramante, of Michelangelo, and of Raphael—of the great architect, the great sculptor, and the great painter—has not so much as the least work of any of the three to mark his place of rest. Perhaps he needed nothing but his name, which must always stand among the greatest. After nil, his bones have been allowed to rest in peace, which is more than can be said of all that have been buried within the area of the church. Urban VI. had no such good fortune. He so much surprised the cardinals, as soon as they had elected him, by his vigorous moral reforms, that they hastily retired to Anagni, and elected an antipope of milder manners and less sensitive conscience. He lived to triumph over his enemies. In Piacenza he was besieged by King Charles of Naples. He excommunicated him, tortured seven cardinals whom he caught in a conspiracy, and put five of them to death, overcame and slew Charles, refused him burial, and had his body exposed to the derision of the crowd. The chronicler says that “Italy, Germany, England, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Sicily and Portugal were obedient to the Lord Pope Urban VI." He died peacefully, and was buried in St. Peter’s in a marble sarcophagus. But when Sixtus V., who also surprised the cardinals greatly, was In a fit of haste to finish the dome, the masons, wanting a receptacle for water, laid hands on Urban’s stone coffin, pitched his bones into a corner, and used the sarcophagus as they pleased, leaving it to serve as a water-tank for many years afterward. In extending the foundations of the church, Paul III, came upon the bodies of Maria and Hermantia, the two wives of Honorius, the emperor who “disestablished" paganism !n favor of Christianity. They were sisters, daughters of Stilicho, and had been buried in their imperial robes, with many rich objects and feminine trinkets; and they were found intact, as they had been buried, in the month of February, 1543. Forty pounds of fine gold were taken from their robes alone, says Baracconi, without counting all the jewels and trinkets, among which was a very beautiful lamp, besides a great number of precious stones. The Pope melted down the gold for the expenses of the building, and set the gems in a tiara, where if they could be identified, they certainly exist to-day—the very stones worn by empresses of ancient Rome.—The Century. The reason that stare twinkle while planets do not (to any great degree) is that the stars are so far away from us thatthey appear as mere points of light, whereas the planets are near enough to show a measurable disc. Twinkling is caused by irregular refraction and interference of the light of the stars after it reaches our atmosphere. The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.— Goethe.