Pius to the Hills

Pius XI began last week in strictly routine fashion in Vatican City and ended it by making papal history in the Alban Hills. Never a man to coddle himself even in hottest August weather, he studied reports on the Austrian situation, received two U. S. prelates, ten U. S. athletic institute directors and the Argentine ambassador to the Holy See. Next day he welcomed 60 Canadian schoolteachers with a graceful little speech hailing them as "sculptors of souls."

The last visitor gone, the Pope donned his scarlet shovel hat, threw a black cloak over his white soutane, assembled a dozen members of his court. As dusk fell four automobiles bore the party out of Vatican City, through the streets of Rome. Seventeen miles out the Appian Way above the Campagna lay Castel Gandolfo. the old papal summer snuggery (TIME. May 14).

Never has a Pope been known to spend a night out of the Vatican since the last days of 1870 when Italian troops approached Rome and Pius IX called in his Zouaves before blood was shed. Nor has a Pope stayed at Castel Gandolfo since 1869. Built in 1629 by Pope Urban VIII, the papal villa was once a summer residence for most pontiffs and their courts. Abandoned when the Popes retired into the Vatican, the main palace fell into decay. When Pius XI gained his freedom by the Lateran Treaties in 1929, he not only regained the palace and 36 acres of land but the Italian Government gave him 100 acres more--the whole estate covering 25 acres more than Vatican City. Without undignified haste Pius XI began refurbishing the place, not for himself, he said, but for his successors.

Situated on a ridge in the Alban Hills overlooking the Campagna on one side and Lake Albano on the other (see map), Castel Gandolfo is 1,400 ft. above sea level. Ancient are its landmarks. Traditionally it is the site of Alba Longa, birthplace of Romulus' and Remus. The Romans dug an emissarium or conduit through the ridge, to carry water from the lake down to their city. Still to be seen are ruins of the villa of the Emperor Domitian, who dearly loved to sit in a nearby amphitheatre and watch the sportive slaughtering of wild animals.

Overshadowing the town piazza of Castel Gandolfo (pop. 2,200) is the principal palace, the three-story Villa Pontificia, in which are the Pope's quarters, throne room and antechamber of the Swiss Guards. There, too, is the ultra-short-wave wireless station built by Senator Marconi for secret communication with the Vatican: the papal villa is no rustic hideaway but a highly-geared workshop where business goes on as usual. Last week a convoy of motor trucks preceded the papal court into Castel Gandolfo. When the Pope arrived and was whizzed upstairs in an elevator, villagers were waiting to receive his blessing from the balcony. Then the Holy Father settled down for a nice rest of several weeks.

The Pope's holiday was first broken when he granted a mass audience to 300 students of the College for the Propagation of the Faith summering nearby. The Holy Father told them he was rapidly gaining strength, adding that he hoped they too would gain strength in the Alban Hills. In an audience with Bishop Bernard Mahoney of Sioux Falls, S. Dak. the Pope said, "Von Hindenburg's death makes the horizon cloudy, and the future is filled with misgivings."

To the rear of the Villa Pontificia is the tiny Palazzetto Cibo and to the southeast the Palazzo Barberini, in which will reside Vatican staff members, visiting prelates and Italian and foreign newsmen whom the Pope invited out for a holiday. Separated from the big palace by a country road, these buildings are connected with it by stone footbridges over which the Pope may pass without touching Italian soil. Biggest expanse of land within the walls which protect the papal acres is the Villa Barberini. The Pope may enjoy strolling in the formal terraced gardens to the west of the Villa Pontificia, but he has shown liveliest interest in the ilex lanes, the olive, orange and lemon groves of the Barberini tract. Here the papal bees buzz and the papal chickens peck and scratch before a gaily-decorated model chicken coop. Here also are the papal bull and the 27 brown Swiss cows, housed in an electrically ventilated barn and milked by machinery.

Soon after Pius XI settled himself at Castel Gandolfo he received exciting news from Rome. For a century, papal archeologists have been searching for traces of the earliest Basilica of St. John Lateran, mother church of Christendom and oldest of Rome's four great basilicas. Though it lies across the Tiber from the Vatican, this church is Rome's cathedral --the seat of the Pope as Bishop. Once a palace belonging to the Laterani family, it was acquired by Constantine, first Christian emperor, who gave it to the Church about 312 A.D. For a thousand years the Popes of Rome worshipped and resided in St. John Lateran. Sacked by Vandals, shattered by earthquake and damaged by fire, it was repeatedly rebuilt and remodeled. Today its exterior is big, baroque, showy. In the Lateran Palace in 1929 Benito Mussolini and Cardinal Gasparri set their names to the famed Treaty.

One day last week workmen were digging in the lowest crypts of the Basilica, preparatory to strengthening its foundations. One of them felt his pick shiver against masonry. Archeologists hastened over, had the workers trace the extent of the stonework. This, they were sure, was a priceless relic of the world's oldest Christian church.

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