Leo the Thirteenth is fond of variety--and no wonder, shut up for life as he is in the Vatican; he enjoys directing work and improvements in the gardens; he likes to talk with Vespignani, the architect of the Holy Apostolic Palaces, who is also the head of the Catholic party in the Roman municipality, to go over the plans of work he has ordered, to give his opinion, and especially to see that the work itself is executed in the shortest possible time. Time is short for a pope; Sixtus the Fifth, who filled Rome and Italy with himself, reigned only five years; Rodrigo Borgia eleven years; Leo the Tenth, but nine.
In 1893 the Pope began to inhabit the new pavilion designed and built by Vespignani in pure fifteenth-century style. It is built against the Torrione, the ancient round tower constructed by Saint Leo the Fourth about the year 850. In 1894 Leo the Thirteenth made a further extension, and joined another building to the existing one by means of a loggia, on the spot once occupied by the old barracks of the papal gendarmes, who are still lodged in the gardens, and whose duty it is to patrol the precincts by day and night. Indeed, the fact that two dynamiters were caught in the garden in 1894 proves that a private police is necessary.
During the great heat of summer the Pope, after saying mass, goes into the garden about nine in the morning and spends the whole day there, receiving everyone in the garden pavilion he has built for himself, just as he would receive in the Vatican. He dines there, too, and rests afterward, guarded by the gendarmes on duty, to whom he generally sends a measure of good wine--another survival of a country custom; and in the cool of the day he again gets into his carriage, and often does not return to the Vatican till after sunset, toward the hour of Ave Maria.
In the evening, about an hour later,--at 'one of the night,' according to the old Roman computation of time,--he attends at the recitation of the rosary, or evening prayers, by his private chaplain, and he requires his immediate attendants to assist also. He then retires to his room, where he reads, studies or writes verses, and at about ten o'clock he eats a light supper.
While in the garden he is fond of talking about plants and flowers with the director of the gardens. He walks with the officer of the Noble Guards and with the private chamberlain on duty. He speaks freely of current topics, tells anecdotes of his own life and visits the gazelles, goats, deer and other animals kept in the gardens. From the cupola of Saint Peter's the whole extent of the grounds is visible, and when the Pope is walking, the visitors, over four hundred feet above, stop to watch him. He has keen eyes, and sees them also. 'Let us show ourselves!' he exclaims on such occasions. 'At least they will not be able to say that the Pope is ill!'