February 5, 2012

No new column this week because of important information in the bulletin from the Bishop.

Have you ever heard of the Passetto in Vatican City? If I told you that it is 800 meters long, would that help? Another small hint is that the Passetto became very important in 1527?

The Passetto (small passage) is the corridor atop the old Vatican wall between St. Peter's and the Castel Sant' Angelo. This 800 meter- long passageway is also known as the Passetto di Borgo for the district where it's located. During the Sack of Rome in 1527, it was used by Pope Clement VII to escape to the Castel Sant' Angelo.

A Vatican visitor strolling in the gardens one day with an officer of the Swiss Guard came to a series of old steps which, since the Middle Ages, has led to the passage. This non-commissioned officer of the Swiss Guard has his quarters at the top of the steps, and the visitor was told that it is the duty of the Guard to keep the keys of the corridor, along which it is still possible to pass secretly to the fortress.

'Naturally we hope that if the Holy Father ever asked for the keys, it would be for purely antiquarian reasons,' said the officer. 'And we always have them ready.'

If you are ever in Rome and visit this passage, you will find an air of incredible age hangs about this odd and unfrequented place. It is never cleaned up for visitors and remains just as the centuries have left it, like an old attic full of lumber which no one visits from one generation to another.

As the visitor and Swiss Guard explored this queer, dusty bit of the Middle Ages, they came to the locked gate leading to the corridor, a place which has the attraction of a secret passage. The top is a machicolated walk, which means there are many openings in the floor through which things can be dropped on an enemy. The corridor itself is a narrow, arched passage hardly wide enough for two people to walk abreast.

On the morning of May 6, 1527, the armies of Charles V advanced to attack Rome. There were Lutheran Germans, Catholic Spaniards and Italians, and they were all mercenaries who had been unpaid for months and thirsted for loot. As they stormed the Borgo, an area on the west bank of the Tiber in Rome, Clement VII, was on his knees in St. Peter's. As the cut-throats broke into the Hospital of Santo Spirito and slew all the patients to spread terror, the cries of the dying and the explosion of cannon could be heard on the very steps of St. Peter's. The Pope was persuaded to take flight along the covered corridor to S. Angelo.

Wearing the enormous scarlet train of his cape, the distracted Pope was shown into the vaulted corridor and, to help him along, a Cardinal looped the train over his arm. Clement wept as he looked down through the windows of the passage and saw the fearful scenes in the street below and in the space before St. Peter's, where the Swiss Guard was dying to a man.

The windows were so close together in the corridor that a Cardinal, afraid that the Pope might be recognized by those below, flung a cloak over his head and shoulders, and in that way Clement VII was smuggled into the castle.

If you ever have the chance to visit this passage, you will surely have the feeling that nothing cheerful could ever have happened there.

Have a great week and may God bless each and every one of you.

Jim Beane