CITY OF THE VATICAN

Evening Star, Issue 20468, 26 April 1930, Page 1

CITY OF THE VATICAN

PAPAL BUILDING OPERATIONS If the energy of Signor Mussolini and the Fascist authorities in transforming Rome, and particularly the ancient fora, the Lateran pact has also had a marked effect upon the City of the Vatican—the 109 acres around and about St. Peter’s which constitute the new Papal State (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne ‘ Argus ’). When the Lateran pact -was signed the Papal authorities at once saw that the construction of a railway station, a governor’s palace, a wireless centre, and a court of justice necessitated building practically a new quarter of the City of the Vatican, especially as it would be necessary also to erect several blocks of flats for officials and servants. Some of these are being built to the west and south-west of St. Peter’s, and they take up, ground hitherto given up to the Pope’s private garden, but other buildings are rising in the north of the, City of the Vatican. The nuns who keep the Vatican tapestry in repair—the Sisters of the Tapestry, as they are called—will have a new homo alongside the Church of St. Anna, in the Via di Porta Angelica, and a post office and other buildings are being built 'on the land behind it, stretching to the Gardens del Belvedere, among them the new offices of the Vatican newspaper, the ‘ Osservatore Romano.’ 1 Visitors to the Vatican museum and picture gallery in old times had to walk right • round the basilica of St. Peter’s before they reached their destination. • A hew entrance is ijo w being made on the north side of the city. A tunnel has been cut in the wall of Leo IV., giving direct access to the Vatican Library,- picture gallery, and museum. , The Hew entrance affords a lovely view of Michelangelo’s tower, at' a point where it is seen at its best, hot spoilt by the ill-conceived facade added by Carlo Maderno, which dwarfs the great dome, as seen from the Piazza di San Pietro, the view which is most familiar to tourists. The mighty masses of Michelangelo’s architecture in St. Peter’s can be realised only by those who study them from the Vatican gardens or from the position opened up by the new northern entrance. Later an even more elaborate official entrance will be built leading from the Piazza del Risorgimonto to the gardens of the Belvedere, and so to the Vatican Palace itself. Along this road will be built the garages for the Vatican motor cars. The new railway station will connect the Vatican buildings with the socalled, San , Pietro station, which has been in*existence for many years just outside the southern wall of * the Vatican. This is a :single-line railway running to Viterbo; only ten 'trains' pass along it daily. The rmw Vatican railway station is not intended to replace present railway facilities used by the Vatican, staff. It yvilJ primarily be bf a ceremonial, character’. ' Hi chief feature will be the splendid waiting rooms for the Papal Court, the Papal ambassadors, and the cardinals. The Italian State railways will provide ’ the necessary engines and rollipg stock, apart from the three coaches specially built for the Pope. When the.new mosaic factory, the court of justice, and the wireless station are finished the City of the Vatican will have been completed. A thousand builders, carpenters, and engineers are engaged on the work, which will occupy the greater part of two more years.