Show MARVELS OF beautia ARE THE GARDENS WHICH SUR ROUND THE VATICAN from stor times the ground has been a sacred spot S te for many built by the roman emperors spec al correspondence from prehistoric times the ground now occupied by the vatican gardens has been a sacred spot although the vatican hill overlook ng the eternal city was not surrounded with the protecting walls until the n nth cen tury the place wh ch has sheltered the pope was cons dered conseco abed the earliest legends speak ot ane hill as the abode of a god augustus when he divided the cit des gnatek it as the last of tl e fourteen reg ons the beamut ful gro ands that ns gen aly and then form a po nt of vantage high above the ty i roper were once the s te of the gardens of agrippina and the still more tamo is ones of many h stor monuments and places of amused nt in the early roman times stood on the grounds now g ven up to the vatican an 1 which in po nt of arch textural tec tural sig rivaled in beauty the ele gance of the present bu adms here was the circus of cal gula wh ch was rendered consa chous by the lofty obe 1 sk which now adorns the piazza of at peter s the one obelisk which en founta n in vat can gardens joys the dist notion of never having been leveled to the ground lere was the sepulchre of the destroyer of carthage and that of hovonus and his abife maria daughter of stillicho Sti licho the last great roman general other sublime ed cices situated there and spoken of by pliny and all ancient writers temples dedicated by nero to the memory of romulus one to mars and another to apollo As the city of rome developed and grew eastward this outlying district was deserted and shares the general decad the hill was designated by detestable fields probably from the waters in the eighth century as the superset t ous and licentious rites car ned on in the neighborhood and from its generally ey 1 reputation for man vears it remained in a state 0 desolate on a place unsought by the roman populace and frequented only by the evil classes as a refuse from the author ties in 48 when leo IV was pope tie dreaded saracens ere defeated for a second time at ostia gifts of gold and allyer and sll litiA were distributed among the the populace and the colony 01 foreigners these fortifications and walls were almost entirely obliterated in the sixteenth century and rebuilt by pius IV with the revival of the taste for architecture and luxurious villas emch swept the entire roman world later pope sixtus IV to whom we owe the S st ne chapel first laid out the grounds extending up the hill as the gardens of the vatican the taste tor gardens was just ing and the building of medieval cas ties vas giving way to villas and as pope sixtus then created the garden it rema ns in a great measure to day in 1845 the grounds of the hospital dl san spir to a rel g ous institution were absorbed and the area was en barged from time to t me pius IX laid out the carriage drive and built ome supplementary wall but with few material changes the sacred gar dens have not u altered or im proved since his time the entrances to the gardens are from the of sculpture at the back of st peter and tor more than a cursory gl apse of them a special perm t is red this may be ob talked from one of the cardinals but before one is allowed to pass within the portals ho is met by the major domo who stands at the entrance to the scala regia and in pacts the pass after one has been ad bitted by this obliging and yet str ct official he may spend a pleasant early morning among the shaded wall s and adorned pavilions t 12 clock w en the pope gener alev enters the gardens for a walk or the place is cleared and in the stillness of this retreat no one Is seen except those invited there by his H liness fearing a more successful incas on of he despoilers the pope brought a great number of slaves to rome and set them to bori at restoring the walls his most far reaching under taking was the fortification of the vatican district an event in the bis tory of the city for out of this forti fl cation the civitts Leon lana or leo nine city arose a new quarter of rome and a new protect on destined to be of great importance in later centuries in the previous century when au relian had enclosed the city with walls the necessity tor including the vatican had not arisen and it remain ed open and without the enclosures it never occurred to any of the popes that the aravag ng bands would at tempt to sack the vatican and the necessity tor its protection had not occurred to any pope until the time or leo III even after st peter s and after convents hospitals and oth er buildings had grown up around it there was no protection leo III started the work it was suspended and in the meantime the saracens backed the basilica leo IV resumed the project and with the help of em geror lothar succeeded the expense which was enormous wai distributed so that every town in the eccles asti cal state the convents and all the do mains of the church bore a proper part when leo s walls were finished it was made an occasion for a great tes alval on june 27 which brilliance and impressiveness hessed in pom dedication of entire clergy strewn with i recession si following the nal bishops i with holy wa pope invoked 01 arter at |