Gold Hill Daily News

THE POPE OF ROME AND THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.
The kingdom of Italy, composed of a combination of independent municipal republics, with a population numbering twenty-six millions of people, lays claim to Rome and its surroundings, as necessary and pertaining to its national integrity as well as on the score of unity of race and common interest. The Italians, nationally, are a brave, enterprising people; believing in their manifest destiny and particularly desirous of seeing their country in possession of the most famous city in the world, with its renowned Vatican, whence have so long issued forth the edicts of His Holiness, the Pope—he whose ambition would rule over all the nations on the face of the globe. The coveted district is small, containing a population of about six hundred thousand, and is rather of a poor tract of land, burdened with debt, and ignorance, and of no great consequence, in a military point of view, but the Italians do not consider their country complete or secure so long as Rome remains an isolated Government within it. They also charge that the Roman people are unwilling subjects to the Pope, oppressed and kept arbitrarily bonded to his rule by spies and mercenary troops, and eventually they are determined to free them from such despotism. They do not insist on the Pope leaving Rome, but on the contrary are even anxious that he shall remain there as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church, his temporal power, alone, being taken from him, and he rendered like all other Italian citizens, subject to the laws of Italy. The Pope firmly urges that he rules as the hereditary successor of Jesus Christ; that he is the subject of nobody, but the master of all kings, potentates and people, infallible and inspired, and that his district was left to him in bequest by pious people; also that it is essential to his priestly independence that he should have a throne and a State, as well as a title, which position he defends at all hazards, and is constantly laboring to strengthen, improve upon and extend. The recent onward march of the victorious Italians to the very gates of Rome, caused great consternation in the camp of His Holiness, and fearful of the result, he removed, for better security, from his princely home in the Vatican, to the neighboring castle of St. Angelo. The Papal troops, however, assisted by the French, succeeded in utterly routing the brave and ambitious followers of Garibaldi, and the Pope rests once more quietly in the Vatican. How long he will remain master of the situation is a matter which time and the Italian people will decide.
The Castle of St. Angelo, which stands near one of the bridges over the Tiber, is surrounded with ramparts, ditches, and bastions, on which cannon are mounted, and really is the citadel of Rome. From 1850 to 1866 it was the headquarters of the French commandant. It was originally constructed, not as a fortress, but as a tomb, by the Emperor Hadrian, who died in 128, A. D. It was erected within the gardens of Domitia, aunt of Nero, and was probably suggested by the mausoleum of Augustus, on the other side of the Tiber. Merivale, the latest and most accurate historian of the Roman empire, declares that it far outshone the tomb of Augustus, and adds, "of the size and dignity which characterized this work of Egyptian massiveness, we may gain a conception from the existing remains; but it requires an effort of imagination to transform the scarred and shapeless bulk before us into the graceful pile which rose column upon column, surmounted by a gilded dome or spire almost unrivaled, and terminating in the statue of the beatified builder, whose remains reposed below." Several of Hadrian's successors, to the time of Septimius Severus (A. D. 211), were also interred there. It is a single massive tower, 185 feet in diameter, built of blocks of Parian marble, and standing on a square basement, each side of which is 253 feet long. As early as the fifth century it was converted into a fortress, and was occupied as such by so many various factions—papal, kingly, foreign and native—that its history may be read in the annals of Rome. More than one Pope was besieged therein. Bernini strongly fortified it in the middle of the seventeenth century, introducing cannon cast out of the bronze of the Pantheon. All the upper part of the building is modern, and the view from the top of the castle is one of the finest in Rome—the Vatican and St. Peter's being particularly distinguishable. The Castle of St. Angelo, however, is anything but impregnable, and it is doubtful whether it would stand even a twenty-four hours' siege.
The Eternal City, occupied for more than eighteen centuries by the temporal head of the Roman Church, it is to be hoped may still remain the home of the Pope, even though he be shorn of all except his spiritual power. Other portions of Italy are far more preferable as the capital of the Italian nation. Rome, as the seat of the Holy See and home of the Pope, will always be visited by people from all parts of the world, but divested of its holy presence, grass would grow on the deserted floors of St. Peter's, and with its miserable, desolate surroundings, the once magnificent and proud city would inevitably fall to utter abandonment, decay and ruin.