Page:How to See the Vatican, Sladen, 1914.djvu/37



this book I have traced the story of the Vatican Hill and the Vatican Palace from their earliest days. I have endeavoured to reconstruct Old St. Peter's out of the fragments that survive, and have lingered long in the Crypt of St. Peter's, which, with its memories and remains of the ancient basilica, is both as a monument and in history the most important part of the Vatican. My purpose in this volume has been to initiate the British and American public in the sights of the Vatican which visitors do not generally see.

I shall not take up their time by describing again in detail the parts of the palace which are already adequately described in a score of good books. We shall need all our space for the particular object we have in view.

Of all the secret places of the Vatican there is none which fires the imagination of the visitor more than the Garden of the Pope, so often called A