Information and directions for travellers on the continent, 5th edition

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

214-215

text excerpt

The magnificence displayed at Rome in church-ceremonies, and indeed on every public occasion, is unparalleled; but during the winter and spring of 1819, it could not be witnessed without astonishment. The first event which called forth this spirit of magnificence was the death of the exiled Queen of Spain; whose funeral is said to have cost thirty thousand scudi […] The procession amounted to three thousand persons; most of whom held large wax torches; and when their light (piercing through the veil of evening) was thrown on the castle of S. Angelo, where minute guns were fired as the Body passed; when the same light glanced on the magnificent colonnades of the Piazza di S. Pietro, and at length illuminated the façade of the church itself, this scene, combined with the death-like quietude of every spectator, the sonorous and solemn sound of the great bell at S. Peter's, and the roll on the muffled drums with which the body was received into the church, produced, altogether, the most impressive effect imaginable.

excerpt from 'Information and directions for travellers on the continent, 5th edition' pp. 214-215 (171 words)

1517241583287:

1517241583287