ions with great skill." This statement may be correct in a
general way, especially in regard to the Middle Ages, but is subject
to important exceptions. There is no doubt, for instance, that the
likenesses of SS. Peter and Paul have been carefully preserved in Rome
ever since their lifetime, and that they were familiar to every one,
even to school-children. These portraits have come down to us by
scores. They are painted in the cubiculi of the catacombs, engraved in
gold leaf in the so-called _vetri cemeteriali_, cast in bronze,
hammered in silver or copper, and designed in mosaic.[105] The type
never varies: S. Peter's face is full and strong, with short curly
hair and beard, while S. Paul appears more wiry and thin, slightly
bald, with a long pointed beard. The antiquity and the genuineness of
both types cannot be doubted. After the peace of Constantine, when
Sylvester, Mark, Damasus, Siricius, and Symmachus began to fill the
city with their churches and memorial buildings, and as the habit of
exhibiting in each of them portraits of the founders became general,
it is evident that the author of the collection of portraits in S.
Paul's, which dates from the fifth century, must have had plenty of
authentic originals at his disposal.

Next to these portraits, in the power of exciting the imagination and
appealing to the sentiments of visitors and pilgrims, come the tombs
of the Popes. I place them next to the images, because the tombs were
of the most simple and modest character, and marked only by a name, or
by an inscription which a few could read and decipher. But to us,
passionate students of history and art, those graves are invaluable;
they mark the various stages of the decline and fall of the great city
from year to year, as well as of her glorious resurrection; they
chronicle the leading events which have agitated Rome, Italy, and the
world for the last sixteen centuries. To be sure, there are
considerable breaks in the chain, due to the destruction of old S.
Peter's, which contained eighty-seven graves; but the descriptions of
Pietro Mallio, of Maffeo Vegio, and of Pietro Sabino, and the drawings
of Grimaldi and Ciampini, help us to fill the gaps.

Ferdinand Gregorovius was inspired to write his book on the subject
while in contemplation of the monument of Paul III., Farnese. He
glanced around in the dim light of the evening and saw effigy after
effigy of venerable men, seated on their marble thrones, with
out