St. Peter's Chair

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 28 November 1907, Page 33

St. Peter's Chair

St. Peter's chair is a yell,ow chair, formed by four uprights, united by horizontal biars, two being, higher than the other to form the back, (says an exchange). The four legs were evidently once square, "but are eaten by age, and have also had pieces cut from them. These timeworn portionsl have been strengthened and rendered more ornamental by pieces -of dark acacia wood, which form the whole interior part of the chair, and which appear to have hardly! suffered at! all from the same causes which have so altered the appearance of the legs. The panels, and the front and sides', and the row of arches with the tympanum ab.ove them, which form the back, are also composed of this wood.

But the -most remarkable circumstance about these two different kinds of material is that all the ivoryornaments which cover the front and back of the. chair, are attached to the acacia portion alone and never to parts composed of oak. Some of the ornamentation is attributed to the age .of Charlemagne, and some, such as the efforts of Hercules, in the ivory panels, are more ancient ; the oak work, is deemed likely to be; as old as tradition states it to be. It is known that Damascus placed it in the baptistry .of the Vatican, and considered it» probable that up to that period it may have been kept in the crypt of St. Peter's tomb or in the basilica of Constantinople. It was moved from the chapel of the Vatican before the days of Pope Alexander VII., who enclosed it in a bronze monument.