ct (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 Verita, 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:--

ISTE LOCVS MVNDI SILVESTRI MEMBRA SEPVLTI
VENTVRO DOMINO CONFERET AD SONITVM.

We are ready to forgive the originators of the legend about the
rattling of the bones; the verses are so bad and distorted that it is
no wonder they were wrongly understood. Their author wanted to express
the readiness of the deceased to appear before the Lord at His coming;
but, not being particularly successful in the choice of his language,
his simple-minded contemporaries, so inclined towards the
supernatura