St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1880-01-09
Letters from Italy.--No. 4.


Romae-the Degradation that Succeeded
her Glory-Remnants of Art, how
Preserved st. Clements Church
The 1ullianum-Sculptwes, Mosaics,
Paintings, fountains.
My Dear Editor We had read in
GibbOn and other authors of the causes
which cOnspired towards the downfall
of the majesty of old Rome, but till we
came hither we had not so fully real
lied the extremity of her prOstration,
nor how some of her noblest works of
art were ruined and utterly lost by the
vandalism of her own people in the
darker centuries. If she suffered much
from Hun and Goth, she was still more
wasted by internal dissensions. The
population in the second century was
about one and a-half millions in the
fourteenth, after the strife of Guelph
and Ghibelline, only twenty thousand
AS early as 800, Charlemagne began
to carry off columns and sculptures to
adorn new editices in France and Ger
many; and little later the popes, who
regarded the monuments of the city as
the property of the state, sold for pal
try prices and ignoble purposes the
cOstliest decorations of her temples.
Three new palaces in Rome we're built
of the marbles stripped from the seat
ing and walls of the Colosseum statues
and friezes of the finest workmanship
were consigned to limekilns the rich
ly enwrought sarcOphagi of heroes were
used as cisterns, washing-vats and
trOughs for feeding swine; and the ia
bles on which Roman matrens display
ed the jewelry were seized by butcher
and fish monger for the exposure of
their wares. What remains to us has
been preserved in two ways: first, in
slight measure by the priests who shared
in the common plunder and transferred
to new and well-built churches the
mOsaics and pillars of older ruins, but,
|
ruins beneath the accumulating rubbish
of centuries or by the incorporation OF
a portion of an old wall, or even whole
building, within the walls or foundation
of new structure. The edifces stu
ated on the slopes of the hills or in the
valleys beneath were particularly liable
| ol oln
interesting instance of this was brought
to our notice on our third days explor-
ations of the antiquities of the city.
On the northern slope of the Celian
Hill nearly midway between the Lat
eran Palace and the Colosseum, is Il
church bearing the name of st. Glenn
ente, so-called, as tradition has it, from
Clemente the third successor of St.
Peter in the bishopric of Rome. This
church belongs to the Irish college in
Rome and neither from its interior nor
from its surroundings would one notice
anything remarkable about it, except
that it was itself very old. (The date
about 1855 Father MullOoly, the Prior
of the college, discovered that the floor
of the church had a peculiar founda-
ton, and his curiosity was so much
aroused that, without communicating
his suspicious or his design to the au-
thOrities either of the church or the
city, he, beneath the vestry at the side
of the church, began to excavate. Soon
he found frescoed wall, then pillar,
and finally revealed the aisles and nave
and apse of an old church directly be-
low the existing edifice. The columns
of this second church were of different
styles and sizes, bearing thus unmis-
taxable evidence of having, at least in
part, been used in some still Older
structure. Moreover a careful exam
inatiOn of the walls of this lower church
disclosed at one side third kind OF
masonry such as was common in the
times of the empire, while at one end
and beneath the second church IRE
found the walls of private dwelling
dating still earlier. This fourth house
is thought by some good arch@ologists
to have been built fully two thousand
years ago, and, since there are passages
leading from it to the church adjoining
it is not without reason supposed that
this house was the residence of Clement,
Bishop of Rome, and that he was earlier
the pastor of church on this very spot
The frescoeS on the walls of the lower
church certainly show that such was
the belief of the Christians who wor-
shipped here somewhere from the sixth
added that the oldest, lowest house, Oh
account of an inflow of water, has not
yet been fully disinterred, and one
anxionsly hopes for farther interesting
developments. Such an instance shows
both the results and the method of very
recent examination of some of these
antiquities, and to us hardly anything
else in the city was more interesting.
Near this church and Oh the summit
of the C8lian Hill is the Lateran Palace
from $50 to 1850 A. D., the residence
of the Popes, but now entirely used as
a m,-chiefiy OF early Christian
Notwithstanding very well.
arranged series of inscriptions from the
catacombs. In the open square in front
of the palace is the largest obelisk il