The Argosy — page 301: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

» 284 A frak of Fortune. procession. We could discern banners, crosses, and sacred baldochini ; the diversified garbs of various fraternities; the black-habited Pas- sionists ; and then a long train of peasant people in their festal attire. After awhile, again the procession appeared, now in larger dimensions, at the top of the Corso, on the church platform. Here the Brethren of the Holy Tnnity, who had ascended from their monastery below, in their habits of pure white flannel, presented to his Holiness an address, in the name of the town, which had been rapidly cobbled up, in very bad Latin, by the Prior himself, and in which all the inhabitants of Monte del Caccia, old and young, vowed eternal fidelity to Holy Church. No one can imagine the glorious solemnity of the scene (said Signora Giulia, with a suddenly altered tone of voice, and the tears starting to her eyes); it was a scene of heavenly radiance. Holy Father, twenty years younger than now, seated on his snow-white led horse ; his countenance beaming with a celestial benignity, extending his hands in blessing over the kneeling throng, which had gathered as by magic from all the hills and towns around: Frascati and Marino, Gensano and Grotto Ferrata ; from the heights of Hannibal’s camp; from the solitudes of Nemi: regardless of their dress ; all seized, as it were, with a frenzy to behold his Holiness.and to receive his blessing. The open spaces before the church and round the fountain, and all the long breadth of the Corso, were paved, as it were, with prostrate human forms ; men, women, and little children; through which the sacred procession now slowly descended: Holy Father, with benignity on his face, pouring out his blessing upon them as he went. It was, in fact, the most gorgeous and real Corpus Domini procession that we ever had ; for the Arci- prete, having collected his wits, had concluded that the best precedent for this memorable occasion was that of this favourite festa; especially as he wished to show that, though Monte del Caccia was poor in a worldly sense, yet it was rich in sacred treasures. Thus the golden umbrella and the yellow baldochino of cloth of gold, and all the other paraphernalia of the church, were made manifest ; whilst the matrons and girls formed themselves into their various holy societies, and the men dropped into the ranks of the two fraternities of Purgatorio and Miserecordia. First and foremost of the latter came Pompeii, the opulent and fat fuzzicagnolo, or cheesemonger, with his bald, bare head. He had toiled up and down Sopra Monte at the risk of a sunstroke or apoplexy, of which, good man, he never thought during this work of salvation ; especially as, in the descent from the convent, he contrived a momentary halt before his shop, which was ornamented with buffalo- cheeses, hams, and chaplets of bay. Holy Father, eager to gratify or countenance the efforts of these simple folk, lifted up his arms in benediction, whilst the afternoon sun, shining now full upon him through an opening in the houses, seemed to add radiance to his comicbooks co