Chapter 11

PAPAL TOMBS.

Portraits of the early Popes.--Those of SS. Peter and Paul.--The tombs of the Popes.--Their interest for the student.--The tomb of Cornelius Martyr.--Inscriptions and other monuments found in his crypt.--The two Cornelii, pagan and Christian.--The pontifical crypt in the Cemetery of Callixtus.--The tomb of Gregory the Great.--S. Peter's as a burial-place for the Popes.--Gregory's several resting-places.--The stress of Rome in his time.--The legend of the angel.--Gregory's good works.--His house.--The tomb of the Saxon Ceadwalla.--That of Benedict VII.--The turbulent times in which he lived.--The Crescenzi.--The church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.--Pope Sylvester II.--The tradition about his death and tomb.--The vicissitudes of the Lateran basilica.--The Vassalletti.--Study of the antique by mediæval artists.--The stone-cutter's shop on the site of the Banca Nazionale.--The tomb of Innocent VIII.--The story of the holy lance.--The tomb of Paul III.--His services to art.--The tomb of Clement XIII.--Bracci and Canova.--The Jesuits in Clement's time.

Among the curiosities of the three principal basilicas of Rome,--the Lateran, the Vatican, and the Ostiensis (S. Paul's),--were collections of portrait heads of the Popes, which were painted above the colonnade on the three sides of the nave. In S. Peter's there were two sets, one on the frieze, above the capitals of the columns, the other on the walls of the nave, above the cornice; the first is marked with the letters "G H." in the drawing of Ciampini which is reproduced in