Pagan and Christian Rome

The crypt of Cornelius contains other historical records. A metric inscription composed by Damasus and placed above the loculus says to the pilgrim: "Behold: a descent to the crypt has been built: darkness has been expelled: you can behold the memorial of Cornelius and his resting-place. The zeal of Damasus has enabled him, though careworn and ailing, to accomplish the work and make your pilgrimage easier and more efficacious. If you are prepared to pray to the Lord in purity of heart, entreat Him to restore Damasus to health; not that he is fond of life, but because the duties of his mission bind him still to this earth." These verses are, probably, the very last composed by the dying pontiff († 384). His work was finished by Siricius (a. d. 384-397), as proved by a second inscription below the loculus: "Siricius has completed the work and dressed the tomb of Cornelius in marble."

The paintings of the crypt, although they date from the Byzantine period, are of historical interest. On the right we see the images of Cornelius and Cyprian, bishop of Carthage. Their intimate connection in life, their martyrdom on the same day of the same month, made their memory inseparable. The church commemorates them on the same natale or anniversary, and their images stand side by side in this crypt. The artist who painted them prophesied the future; he saw that the time would come when, in their graves, the bodies of the two friends would be united as their souls had been while they lived. Their remains were removed to Compiègne in the reign of Charles the Bald, those of Cornelius from Rome, those of Cyprian from Carthage, never to part again.

A circular pedestal, like a section of a column, stands against the wall under the images. Such pedestals are not uncommon in the catacombs; and they were intended to support a large flat bowl not unlike the holy-water basins of modern churches. Several specimens have been found in situ, in the cemeteries of Saturninus, Alexander, Agnes, and Callixtus. They are of the same make, cut in marble so delicately as to be translucent, flat-bottomed, and very low. For what were they used? We cannot think of "holy water" in the modern sense, because in those days the faithful were wont to purify their hands, not in receptacles of stagnant water, but in springs or living fountains. It seems more in accordance with ancient rites to consider them as lamps, filled with scented oil or nard, on the surface of which wicks, secured to a piece of papyrus, floated like a veilleuse, to guide the footsteps of pilgrims in the darkness.

CRYPT OF POPE CORNELIUS

A papyrus in the archives or treasury of the cathedral at Monza contains a list of oils collected by John, abbot of Monza, in the cemeteries of Rome, and offered by him to Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards. Special mention is made in the document of the oil from the tomb of S. Cornelius; and de Rossi asserts that the fragments of a diaphanous oil-basin found in the exploration of this crypt were soaked with an oleaginous substance.¹⁰⁷

Portrait of Pope Cornelius; from a fresco near his grave.

One cannot help being impressed by the coexistence on this same road, and within a mile of each other, of two family vaults of the Cornelii: one in the aristocratic burial-grounds between the viæ Appia and Latina, the other in the subterranean haunts of a despised and persecuted race. One need not be a deep thinker or a religious enthusiast to appreciate that each is worthy of the other; and that the Cornelius of the third century who chose to die the death of a criminal rather than betray his conscience, is a worthy descendant of the Scipios, the heroes of republican Rome. Whenever I happen to pay a visit to the hypogæum of the Cornelii Scipiones,¹⁰⁸ I try to finish my walk by way of that of their noble representative, the victim of the persecution of Decius.

The Pontifical Crypt. I have just mentioned the vault of the Popes as belonging to the same Cemetery of Callixtus. It was discovered in 1854. Its approaches were inscribed with a great number of graffiti, which marked the place as the most celebrated in the cemetery, if not in the whole of underground Rome. A pious hand had written near the entrance door: GERVSALE[M] CIVITAS ET ORNAMENTVM MARTYRVM DNI [Domini]: "This is the Jerusalem of the martyrs of the Lord." The débris which obstructed the chamber was removed as quickly as the narrowness of the space would permit, and as it passed under the eyes of de Rossi, he was able to detect the names of Anteros, Fabianus, Lucius, and Eutychianus on the broken marbles. There were, besides, one hundred and twenty-five fragments of a metric inscription by Damasus, which gave the desired information, in the following words:—

"Here lie together in great numbers the holy bodies you are seeking. These tombs contain their remains, but their souls are in the heavenly kingdom. Here you see the companions of Sixtus waving the trophies of victory; there the bishops [of Rome] who shielded the altar of Christ; the pontiff who saw the first years of peace [Melchiades, a. d. 311-314]; the noble confessors who came to us from Greece [Hippolytus, Hadrias, Maria, Neon, Paulina], and others. I confess I wished most ardently to find my last resting place among these saints, but I did not dare to disturb their remains."

Callixtus (218-223), the founder of the cemetery, does not lie in it. He perished in a popular outbreak, having been thrown from the windows of his house into the square, the site of which corresponds with the modern Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, the area Callisti of the fourth century. The Christians recovered his body, and buried it in the nearest cemetery at hand,—that of Calepodius by the Via Aurelia (between the Villa Pamfili and the Casaletto di Pio V.).

Urban, his successor (a. d. 223-230), opens the series in the episcopal crypt of the Appian Way. His name, OYPBANOC E (πισχοπος), has been read on a fragment of a marble sarcophagus. Then follow Anteros (a. d. 235-236), Fabianus (a. d. 236-251), Lucius (a. d. 252-253), and Eutychianos (a. d. 275-283),—in all, five bishops out of the eleven who are known to have been buried in the crypt.

In looking at these humble graves we cannot help comparing them with the great mausolea of contemporary emperors. A war was then raging between the builders of the catacombs and the occupants of the imperial palace. It was a duel between principles and power, between moral and material strength. In 296, bishop Gaius, one of the last victims of Diocletian's persecution, was interred by the side of his predecessors in the crypt; in 313, only seventeen years later, Sylvester took possession of the Lateran Palace, which had been offered to him by Constantine. Such is the history of Rome; such are the events which the study of her ruins recalls to our memory.

The Tomb of Gregory the Great. In the account of his life given in the "Liber Pontificalis," i. 312, two things especially attract our attention: the mission sent by him to the British Isles, and his entombment in the "Paradise" of S. Peter's. Beginning with the latter, we are told that he died on March 12 of the year 604, and that his remains were buried "in the basilica of the blessed Peter, in front of the secretarium, in one of the intercolumniations of the portico." This statement requires a few words of comment.

We have seen how the bishops of the age of persecutions were buried in the underground cemeteries, with a marked preference for those of the Via Appia and the Via Salaria. From the time of Sylvester (314-335) to that of Leo the Great (440-461) they still sought the proximity of martyrs, and obeyed the rule which forbade burial within the walls of the city. Sylvester raised a modest mausoleum for himself and his successors over the Cemetery of Priscilla, on the Via Salaria, the remains of which have just been discovered.¹⁰⁹ Anastasius and Innocent I. found their resting-place over the Cemetery of Pontianus, on the road to Porto; Zosimus and Sixtus in the church of S. Lorenzo; Boniface I. in that of S. Felicitas, on the Via Salaria.

The Vatican began to be the official mausoleum of the Popes with Leo I. in 461. The place selected is not the interior of the church, but the vestibule, and more exactly the space between the middle doorway (the Porta argentea) and the southwest corner, occupied by the secretarium, or sacristy, a hall of basilican shape in which the Popes donned their official robes before entering the church. The place can be easily identified by comparing the accompanying reproduction of Ciampini's drawing of the front of the old basilica of S. Peter's with the plan published in chapter iii., p. 127. For nearly two and a half centuries they were laid side by side, until every inch of space was occupied, the graves being under the floor, and marked by a plain slab inscribed with a few Latin distichs of semi-barbaric style. These short biographical poems have been transmitted to us, with a few exceptions, by the pilgrims of the seventh and ninth centuries, whose copies were afterwards collected in volumes, the most important of which is known as the Codex of Lauresheim. At the time of Gregory the Great there was but a small space left near the secretarium. This was occupied by Pelasgius I., Johannes III., Benedict I., and a few others.

The Atrium of Old S. Peter's.

Sergius I. (687-701) was the first who dared to cross the threshold of the church, which he did, however, not for his own benefit, but to do honor to the memory of Leo I. The inscription in which he describes the event is too prolix to be given here. It tells us that the grave of Leo the Great was in the vestibule below the sacristy. There he lay "like the keeper of the temple, like a shepherd watching his flock." But other graves had crowded the place so that it was almost impossible to single them out, and read their epitaphs. Sergius therefore ordered the body of his predecessor to be removed to an oratory, or chapel, in the south transept of the church, and to be enclosed in a beautiful monument which he adorned with costly marbles, and with mosaics representing prophets and saints. The monument was destroyed by Paul V. on Saturday, May 26, 1607.

The remains of Gregory the Great have also been moved several times. His tombstone must have been worn by the feet of pilgrims, as only eighteen letters out of many hundred have been preserved to our time. These were discovered not many years ago, in a dark corner of the Grotte Vaticane. Two centuries after his death, his successor, Gregory IV. (827-844), carried his remains inside the church, to an oratory near the new sacristy, covered the tomb with panels of silver, and the back wall with golden mosaics. The body remained in this second place until the pontificate of Enea Silvio Piccolomini, Pius II. (1458-1464), who, having built a chapel to S. Andrew the apostle, removed Gregory's coffin to the new altar. The coffin is described as a conca ægyptiaca, an ancient bathing-basin, of porphyry, which was protected by an iron grating. The chapel, the altar, and the tomb were again sacrificed to the renovation of the church in the time of Paul V. On December 28, 1605, the porphyry urn was opened, and the body of the great man transferred to a cypress case; on the eighth day of the following January a procession, headed by the college of cardinals and the aristocracy, accompanied the remains to their fourth and last resting-place, the Cappella Clementina, built by Clement VIII., near the entrance to the modern sacristy. There are now two inscriptions: one on the marble lid, "Here lies Saint Gregory the Great, first of his name, doctor of the church;" the other on the cypress case, "Evangelista Pallotta, cardinal of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, dean of this church, collected in this case the remains of Gregory the Great, and removed them from the altar of S. Andrew to this new chapel. Done by order of Paul V., in the first year of his pontificate, on Sunday, January 8, a. d. 1606." The altarpiece was not painted by Muziano, as stated in old guidebooks, but by Andrea Sacchi. The picture was removed to Paris, with many other masterpieces, at the time of Napoleon I.; but Canova obtained its restitution in 1815. It is now preserved in the Vatican Gallery; the copy in mosaic is the joint work of Alessandro Cocchi and Francesco Castellini.

The history of the pontificate of Gregory has been written and will shortly be published by my learned friend Professor H. Grisar. No better or greater subject could be found than this period when the city, abandoned by the Byzantine emperors, harassed, besieged, starved by the Lombards, found in her bishops her only chance of salvation. They never appear to greater advantage than in those eventful times, when Rome was sinking so low within, when her surroundings were changed into a lifeless desert. The queen who had ruled the world was trampled under the feet of her former slaves, and found assistance and sympathy nowhere. When Alboin overran the peninsula in 568, at the head of his Lombards, with whom warriors of several other races, especially Saxons, were intermixed, the emperor Justin could offer no other help to the Romans than the advice of bribing the Lombard chiefs, or of calling in the Franks. Barbarians for barbarians!

Statue of S. Gregory the Great.

"On the death of Pope John III. in 573, Rome was so closely pressed that it was impossible to send to Constantinople for the confirmation of Benedict I., who had been elected his successor, and the papal throne remained vacant for one year. The same appears to have been the case on the death of Benedict, in 578, when Rome was held in siege by Zoto, duke of Beneventum, for the Lombard power had been distributed among thirty-six duchies. The particulars of this siege are unknown, but it probably lasted two or three years. On withdrawing from Rome Zoto took and plundered the Benedictine convent on Montecassino. The monks retired to Rome and established themselves in a convent near the Lateran, which they named after S. John Baptist, whence the basilica of Constantine or the Saviour subsequently took its name.... The misery of the Romans was aggravated by some natural calamities. Towards the end of 589, several temples and other monuments were destroyed by the flooding of the Tiber, and the city was afterwards afflicted by a devastating pestilence.

"To the year 590, which is that of the election of Gregory, is referred the legend of the angel that was seen to hover over the Mausoleum of Hadrian, while Gregory was passing it in solemn procession, and to sheathe his flaming sword as a sign that the pestilence was about to cease. At the same time three angels were heard to sing the antiphony Regina Cœli, to which Gregory replied with the hymn Ora pro nobis Deum alleluja!"¹¹⁰

This graceful story is the invention of a later century, but it is worth while to trace its origin. It was customary in the Middle Ages to consecrate the summits of hills and mountains to Michael, the archangel, from an association of ideas which needs no explanation. Similarly, in classical times, the Alpine passes had been placed under the protection of Jupiter the Thunderer, and lofty peaks crowned with his temples. Without citing the examples of Mont Saint Michel on the coast of Normandy, or of Monte Gargano on the coast of Apulia, we need only look around the neighborhood of Rome to find the figure of the angel wherever a solitary hill or a commanding ruin suggested the idea or the sensation of height. Deus in altis habitat. Here is the isolated cone of Castel Giubileo on the Via Salaria (a fortified outpost of Fidenæ); there the mountain of S. Angelo above Nomentum, and the convent of S. Michele on the peak of Corniculum. The highest point within the walls of Rome, now occupied by the Villa Aurelia (Heyland) was covered likewise by a church named S. Angelo in Janiculo. The two principal ruins in the valley of the Tiber—the Mausoleum of Augustus and that of Hadrian—were also shaded by the angel's wings. The shrine over the vault of the Julian emperors was called S. Angelo de Augusto, while that built by Boniface IV. (608-615) above Hadrian's tomb was called inter nubes (among the clouds), or inter cœlos (in the heavens). This shrine was replaced later by the figure of an angel. During the pestilence of 1348 the statue was reported by thirty witnesses to have bowed to the image of the Virgin which the panic-stricken people were carrying from the church of Ara Cœli to S. Peter's. In 1378 the ungrateful crowd destroyed it in their attempt to storm the castle. Nicholas V. (1447-1455) placed a new image on the top of the monument, which perished in the explosion of the powder-magazine in 1497. The shock was so violent that pieces of the statue were found beyond S. Maria Maggiore, a distance of a mile and a half. Alexander VI., Borgia, set up a statue for the third time, which was stolen by the hordes of Charles V. for the sake of its heavy gilding. The marble effigy by Raffaele di Montelupo was placed on the vacant base, and remained until Benedict XIV. (1740-1758) set up a fifth and last figure, which was cast in bronze by Wenschefeld.

The Angel on the Mausoleum of Hadrian.

It is remarkable that Gregory could think of the spiritual mission of the church in times so troubled, when the last hour of Rome and the civilized world seemed to have come. He saw that neither the condition of the world nor that of the Church was hopeless, and his ability, assisted by political circumstances, gave promise of more prosperous times. A great part of Europe accepted the Christian faith during his pontificate. Theolinda, queen of the Lombards, after the death of her husband Autharic, in 590, contributed greatly to the spreading of the gospel among her own people. The west Goths of Spain were converted through Reccared, their king. We need not repeat here the well-known story of the manner in which Gregory's sympathy for the Anglo-Saxon race was excited by seeing one of them in the slave-market of Rome. The mission to which he intrusted the conversion of the British Isles was composed of three holy men, Mellitus, Augustin, and John, who were accompanied by other devout followers. They left Rome in the spring of 596, but could not land on the shores of England until the middle of the following year. Mention of this fact is made in two documents only,—in the "Liber Pontificalis," vol. i. p. 312, and in a writing by Prosper of Aquitania in which the English nation is called gens extremo oceano posita (a people living at the end of the ocean).

Not less surprising in the career of this man is the institution of a school for religious music. It was established in one of the halls of the Lateran, and even the Carlovingian kings obtained from it skilful maestri and organists. It is still prosperous. To Gregory we owe the canto fermo, or Gregorian chant, which, if properly executed, imparts such a grave and solemn character to the ceremonies of our church.

Modern façade of the Monastery of S. Gregory on the Cælian.

Gregory's paternal house stood on the slope of the Cælian, facing the palace of the Cæsars, on a street named the Clivus Scauri, which corresponds very nearly to the modern Via dei SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Fond as he was of monastic life, he extended hospitality to men of his own sentiments and habit of thought; and transformed the old lararium into a chapel of S. Andrew. The place, which was governed by the rule of S. Benedict, became known as the "Monastery of S. Andrew in the street of Scaurus." The typical plan of a Roman palace was not altered; the atrium, accessible to the clients and guests of the monks, is described as having in the centre a "wonderful and most salubrious" spring, no doubt the "spring of Mercury" of classical times. It still exists, in a remote and hardly accessible corner of the garden, but its waters are no longer believed to be miracle-working, nor are they sought by crowds of ailing pilgrims as formerly. Time has brought other changes upon this cluster of buildings. In 1633 cardinal Scipione Borghese completed its modernization by raising the façade, which does so little honor to him and his architect, Giovanni Soria. But let us pause on the top of the staircase which leads to it, with our faces towards the Palatine; there is no more impressive sight in the whole of Rome. Placed as we are between the Baths of Caracalla, the Circus Maximus, the dwelling of the emperors, and the Coliseum, with the Via Triumphalis at our feet, we can hardly realize the wonderful transformation of men and things. From the hill beyond us the generals who led the Roman armies to the conquest of the world took their departure; from this modest monastery went a handful of humble missionaries who were to preach the gospel and to bring civilization into countries far beyond the boundary line of the Roman empire. Of their success in the British Islands we have monumental evidence everywhere in Rome. Here in the vestibule of this very church is engraved the name of Sir Edward Carne, one of the Commissioners sent by Henry VIII. to obtain the opinion of foreign universities respecting his divorce from Catherine of Aragon; and, not far from it, that of Robert Pecham, who died in 1567, an exile for his faith, and left his substance to the poor.

These, however, are comparatively recent memories. In the vestibule of S. Peter's, not far from the original grave of Gregory the Great, we should have found that of a British king, reckoned among the saints in the old martyrologies, who had come in grateful acknowledgment of the double civilization which his native island had received from pagan and Christian Rome.¹¹¹ Under the date of 688 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records: "This year king Ceadwalla went to Rome and received baptism from Pope Sergius, and he gave him the name of Peter, and in about seven days afterwards, on the twelfth before the Kalends of May (April 20), while he was yet in his baptismal garments, he died, and he was buried in S. Peter's." The fair-haired convert, who had met with a solemn and enthusiastic reception from Pope Sergius, the clergy, and the people, received after his death the greatest honor that the Church and the Romans could offer him: he was buried in the "Popes' Corner," or porticus pontificum, almost side by side with Gregory the Great. The verses engraved on the tomb of the latter—

 
"Ad Christum Anglos convertit pietate magistra
Sic fidei acquirens agmina gente nova,"
 

(by pious cares he converted the English to Christ, acquiring thereby for the true faith multitudes of a new race)—could not have found a more convincing witness to their truth than this grave of Ceadwalla, because with his conversion, which was due to the preaching of S. Wilfrid, the Christian religion spread rapidly among the Saxons of the West, and that part of the country which had most resisted the new faith was forever secured to Christian civilization. In fact Wessex became the most powerful member of the Heptarchy, till it attained absolute dominion over the whole island.

Ceadwalla's tomb, forgotten, and perhaps concealed by superstructures, was brought to light again towards the end of the sixteenth century. Giovanni de Deis, in a work published in 1588, says: "The epitaph¹¹² and the tomb on which it was engraved lay for a long time concealed from the eyes of visitors, and only in later years it was discovered by the masons engaged in rebuilding S. Peter's." Not a fragment of the monument has come down to us, and such was the contempt with which the learned men of the age looked upon these historical monuments, that none of them condescended to give us the details of the discovery. "It is deeply to be regretted," says cardinal Mai, "that such a notable trophy as the tomb of Ceadwalla, the royal catechumen, which was erected and inscribed by Sergius I., disappeared from the Vatican, and was irretrievably lost, together with innumerable monuments of ancient art and piety, owing to the calamities of the times, the avidity of the workmen, and the negligence of the superintendents."

"Ceadwalla's tomb," I quote from Tesoroni, "was not the only monument of Anglo-Saxon interest to be seen in old S. Pietro. William of Malmesbury and other chroniclers mention two other kings, Offa of Essex, and Coenred of Mercia, as having renounced their crowns and embraced the monastic life in one of the Vatican cloisters. They were also buried in the Paradise near the Popes' Corner. It is doubtful whether king Ina, who succeeded Ceadwalla, and his queen, Aethelburga, were buried in the same place, or in the Anglo-Saxon quarter by the church of S. Maria in Saxia, founded, probably, by Ina himself. It is certain, however, that at a later time king Burrhed of Mercia was entombed in the same quarter, and in the same church. The place is still named from the Anglo-Saxons, S. Spirito in Sassia."

The threshold of S. Peter's once crossed, we hear no more of Popes being buried outside, in the old atrium. The second aisle on the left—that entered by the Gate of Judgment—was intended to receive their mortal remains. Hence its name of porticus pontificum (the aisle of the pontiffs). On the day of his coronation the newly elected head of the church was asked to cross this aisle on his way from the chapel of S. Gregory to the high altar, that the sight of so many graves should impress on his mind the maxim, "The glory of the world vanisheth like the flame of a handful of straw;" and a handful of straw was actually burned before his eyes, while the dean of the church addressed to him the words, "My father, sic transit gloria mundi."

The Tomb of Benedict VII. (974-983). The basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme contains but one tomb, that of Benedict VII., whose career is described in a metric inscription of seventeen verses, inserted in the wall of the nave on the right of the entrance. I mention it because Gregorovius seems to have been unaware of its existence, in spite of its historical value.¹¹³ It recalls to our mind one of the most turbulent and riotous periods in the annals of Rome and the papacy, the fight between the "independents" led by the Crescenzi, and the party of the Saxon emperors, represented by Popes Benedict VI. and VII. The Crescenzio mentioned in the epitaph of Benedict VII. was the son of John and Theodora, and one of the most active members of a family which has thrice attempted to reëstablish the republic of ancient Rome and shake off the yoke of German oppression. This one is known as Crescentius de Theodora, from the name of his mother; and also as Crescentius de Caballo, from his residence on the Quirinal, near the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, which have given to the hill its modern name of Monte Cavallo. The Castel S. Angelo was the stronghold of the family. Under the shelter of its massive ramparts they were able to dictate the law to the Popes, and commit bloodshed and sacrilege with impunity. In 928 Marozia and her second husband Guido, marquis of Tuscany, with their partisans, fell on Pope John X., who was staying in the Lateran Palace, murdered his brother Pietro before his eyes, and dragged him through the streets of Rome to the castle. The unfortunate Pope lingered awhile in a dark dungeon, and was ultimately killed by suffocation. Marozia, perhaps to dispel the suspicions of a violent death, allowed him to be buried with due honors near the middle door of the Lateran, at the foot of the nave. His gravestone was seen and described by Johannes Diaconus, but has long since disappeared. In 974 Crescenzio, son of Theodora, committed another sacrilegious murder, that of Benedict VI. Helped by a deacon named Franco he confined him in the same dungeon of Castel S. Angelo, while Franco placed himself on the chair of S. Peter, under the name of Boniface VII. The legal Pope was soon after strangled. Such crimes startled for a moment the apathy of the Romans, who besieged and stormed the castle, deposed the usurper, and named in his place Benedict VII., whose grave we are now visiting in S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Yet Crescenzio and Franco did not pay dearly for their crimes. Franco, after plundering the Vatican basilica of its valuables, migrated to Constantinople, a rich and free man. Crescenzio died peacefully in the monastery of S. Alessio on the Aventine in the year 984. His tomb, the tomb of a murderer, whose hands had been stained with the blood of a Pope, was allowed the honor of a laudatory inscription. It can still be seen in the cloisters of the monastery: "Here lies the body of Crescentius, the illustrious, the honorable citizen of Rome, the great leader, the great descendant of a great family," etc. "Christ the Saviour of our souls made him infirm and an invalid, so that, abandoning any further hope of worldly success, he entered this monastery, and spent his last years in prayer and retirement."

All these events are alluded to in the epitaph of Benedict VII., in S. Croce. This church has been so thoroughly deprived of its charm and interest by another Benedict (XIV., in the year 1744) that one cannot help paying attention to the few objects which have survived the "transformation," and especially to this humble stone hardly known to students.

Should any of my readers care to arrange their researches in Rome systematically, and study its monuments group by group, according to chronological and historical connections, they will find abundance of material in the period in which the murders of John X. and Benedict VI. took place. There is the tomb of Landolfo, brother of Crescenzio, at S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura; that of Crescenzio at S. Alessio; the house of Nicola di Crescenzio, near the Bocca della Verità, a fascinating subject for a day's work.

The church of S. Croce has seen another strange death of a Pope,—that of Sylvester II. (999-1003), a Frenchman, Gerbert by name. A legend, related first by cardinal Benno in 1099, describes him as deep in necromantic knowledge, which he had gathered during a journey through the Hispano-Arabic provinces. He is said to have carried in his travels a sort of a diabolical oracle, a brazen head which uttered prophetic answers. After his election, in 999, he inquired how long he should remain in power; the response was "as long as he avoided saying mass in Jerusalem." The prophecy was soon fulfilled. He expired in great agony on Quadragesima Sunday, 1003, while celebrating mass in this church, the classic name of which he seems not to have known. The legend asserts that his sins were pardoned by God, and that he was given an honorable burial in the church of S. John Lateran. A mysterious influence, however, hung over his grave. Whenever one of his successors was approaching the end of life, the bones of Sylvester would stir in their vault, and the marble lid would be moistened with drops of water, as stated in the epitaph, which is still visible in S. John Lateran, against one of the pillars of the first right aisle. It begins with the distich:—