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Pupils of every nationality are educated here—generally about two hundred at a time—who return to their own lands, after ordination, to spread the Roman Catholic faith, the cost of their education and support in Rome being paid by the College. Their costume is familiar to every visitor to the city, consisting of a long black cassock, edged with red and bound with a red girdle, with two bands, representing leading-strings, hanging from the shoulders behind. The "congregation" of the college is composed of twenty-five cardinals, sixteen of whom are resident in Rome, and they meet to transact business once every month. At the beginning of each year a public festival is held in the large hall attached to the college, when students deliver speeches in the different languages taught here, and take part in musical performances, the score of which is usually composed by the Professor of Music in the college. The strange costumes, the differing types of countenance, the varying shades of colour, the medley of strange languages, the peculiarities of voice and expression, all combine to make the gathering of great interest, and the hall is always crowded on these occasions.

Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the faith itself, no one can read the bold inscription upon the front of the building, "Collegio di Propaganda Fide," without feeling admiration at the way in which the objects in view have been carried out. When other churches were idle, this church was at work, and from North Pole to South, from the rising of the sun to its setting, there is not a region that has not been taken possession of by members of this college, and cultivated for the Roman Catholic Church. And in all the stories of heroism ever told, there is not a nobler than that of the struggles of the students of this college.

The Library is very rich in rare theological works and Oriental MSS.; there is also a printing-office, formerly celebrated as the richest in type for foreign languages. From this office have gone forth innumerable books and tracts and pamphlets, in all languages, and to suit the education of all peoples. There is also a bookseller's shop connected with the establishment, where the publications of the institution may be obtained.

On the most prominent parts of the exterior of the edifice are sculptured bees, the well-known armorial bearings of the Barberini family. "The bees of the Barberini carved upon its architectural ornaments are no inapt symbol," says Hugh Macmillan, "of the spirit and method of working of this busy theological hive, which sends its annual swarms all over the world to gather ecclesiastical honey from every flower of opportunity."

In front of this college stands the Column of the Immaculate Conception, of green and white marble of Carystus, generally known as cipollino, from the veins of pale green, which resemble those of an onion. The column is one of the largest known monoliths, being forty-two feet high and five feet in diameter, and is some two thousand years old. It was found about a hundred years ago when digging among the ruins of the Amphitheatre of Statilius Augustus, constructed in the reign of Cæsar Augustus, and was erected by Pius IX. to commemorate the establishment by Papal bull (in 1851) of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. On the summit of the column is a bronze statue of the Virgin—a wretched work of art and beneath are statues of Moses, David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, and some poor bas-reliefs of the incidents connected with the publication of the dogma.

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Starting again from the Piazza del Popolo, we take the road branching out to the right, the Via di Ripetta, and, continuing to the right, arrive at the Ponte St. Angelo, the ancient Pons Elius, so called from one of the names of the Emperor Hadrian, by whom it was built, A.D. 136. The bridge is adorned with statues, and is a noble approach to the Castle of St. Angelo-the huge monumental tomb erected by Hadrian for himself and his family. When the Goths besieged Rome the tomb was converted into a fortress, and the statues on the summit were hurled down on the besiegers.

There is a legend that when Gregory the Great was conducting a procession to the tomb-fortress, in the year 590, to pray for a cessation of the plague then raging, he saw the Archangel Michael sheathing his sword, and from that moment the plague was stayed. In commemoration of this miraculous event Boniface IV. erected a chapel on the summit of the mole, and a bronze statue of the archangel is still to be seen on the spot where Gregory saw the apparition.

The Castle of St. Angelo has seen many a terrible siege, and is now strongly garrisoned. In the prisons are shown the cells in which Beatrice Cenci, Cellini, Cagliostro, and others are said to have been confined. Napoleon III. was a prisoner here for a short time after the affair of 1830.

A short distance from here is the goal of ten thousand times ten thousand pious pilgrims the great Church of St. Peter. St. Peter's as seen from the Pincio realises every reasonable expectation, but St. Peter's as seen from the Piazza in front of it, or anywhere near at hand, is undoubtedly disappointing. In the distant view it stands displayed in all its harmonious proportions-a marvel of grandeur and beauty-but close at hand the drum of the dome is invisible: in short, the nearer you approach the poorer becomes the effect, for with each step towards it the dome sinks gradually out of sight. Michael Angelo is not to blame for this, but Carlo Maderno, who altered his design from a Greek to a Latin cross. Notwithstanding this, the effect of the enormous façade, in the midst

of its elaborate surroundings, is grand and imposing in the extreme.

The Piazza di S. Pietro is a vast oval plane, paved with square blocks of lava, and crossed at intervals by marble walks; in the centre is a huge Egyptian obelisk, which once stood in the Cireus of Nero, but was removed by means of rollers, and placed in its present position, under Sixtus V., in 1586. On either side are magnificent fountains, with their tall plumes of silvery spray, supplied by the Aqua Paola; and enormous colonnades, built by Bernini, sweeping in semi-circles around two sides of the Piazza. These colonnades consist of four series of columns in each, of the Doric order, with balustrades, on which are statues. There are in all two hundred and eighty-four columns and two hundred and thirty-six statues, each column being forty-two feet six inches in height, and each statue sixteen feet in height. In the centre of the Piazza are stones indicating the centres of the radii of the colonnades, and standing on these, each series of columns appears to be but one. These colonnades lead-one to the Basilica, and the other to the Vatican. In order to understand the vastness of the space which forms so magnificent an approach to St. Peter's, let the following figures speak for themselves :

The space

enclosed by the colonnades measures seven hundred and ninety-four feet three inches by seven hundred and fifty-four feet six inches. They form-taking the line

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round the outsides and joining the ends-an ellipse, measuring nine hundred and thirteen feet six inches by seven hundred and fifty-four feet six inches, or two hundred and twenty-six feet four inches one way, and one hundred and eighty-nine feet four inches the other, larger than the Colosseum. To this area must be added that of the Piazza Rusticucci at one extremity, which measures two hundred and sixty-six feet three inches

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by two hundred and twenty-five feet; and the irregular square in front of St. Peter's at the other, which measures three hundred and seventy-two feet nine inches by three hundred and sixty-seven feet six inches."*

A broad flight of marble steps, with colossal statues of St. Peter and St. Paul at the foot, leads up to the vestibule. Before ascending these to enter the largest church in the world, a few particulars may be given of this marvellous building, though it would require a volume to describe it in detail. It stands on the site of the Circus of Nero, the scene of the terrible martyrdoms of the Christians, and on the traditional site of the spot Wood, "New Curiosum Urbis."

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