Tea at Trianon: On the Illumination of Saint Peter's Basilica

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

On the Illumination of Saint Peter's Basilica

From Liturgical Arts Journal:

In July of 2020 we covered the subject of The Sanpietrini and the Illumination of St. Peter's Basilica. In that article we gave some of the background and the mechanics of this practice, showing both interior and exterior images of the same. Since the writing of that article some more images of this have come to light, specifically of the lighting up of the exterior of the basilica -- which, to remind our readers, was a practice done for the most solemn occasions, such as canonizations.
The 18th-19th century German writer Goethe, author of Faust, had this to say about his impressions of this noble custom in 1780:
"Enlightenment is a spectacle of the amazing world of fairy tales; you don't believe your own eyes... The beautiful shape of the colonnade, the church and the dome, first of all in a burning fire frame and, after about an hour, in a burning mass, it is a unique and magnificent show to see."
Regrettably, most of us today have been deprived of any opportunity to experience this magnificent spectacle; a spectacle that had the power to capture the heart and mind of Catholic and non-Catholic alike. (Read more.)