hurch, lying below the
existing building, which at some unknown date and for some unrecorded
reason was abandoned and filled up with earth, while a new building was
erected upon it as a foundation. The most probable account is that the
earlier church was so completely overwhelmed in the ruin of the city in
1084, when Robert Guiscard burnt all the public buildings from the Lateran
to the Capitol, that it was found simpler and more convenient to build a
new edifice at a higher level than to repair the old one. The annexed plan
(fig. 15) and view (fig. 16) show the peculiarities of the existing
building. The church is preceded by an _atrium_, the only perfect example
remaining in Rome, in the centre of which is the _cantharus_ or fountain
for ablutions. The atrium is entered by a portico made up of earlier
fragments very carelessly put together. The _chorus cantorum_, which
occupies about one-third of the nave, is enclosed by a low marble screen,
about 3 ft. high, a work of the 9th century, preserved from the old church
but newly arranged. The white marble slabs are covered with patterns in low
relief, and are decorated with ribbons of glass mosaic of the 13th century.
These screen-walls stand quite free of the pillars, leaving a passage
between. On the ritual north stands the gospel-ambo, of octagonal form,
with a double flight of steps westwards and eastwards. To the west of it
stands the great Paschal candlestick, with a spiral shaft, decorated with
mosaic. Opposite, to the south, is the epistle-ambo, square in plan, with
two marble reading-desks facing east and west, for the reading of the
epistle and the gradual respectively. The sanctuary is raised two steps
above the choir, from which it is divided by another portion of the same
marble screen. The altar stands beneath a lofty _ciborium_, supported by
marble columns, with a canopy on smaller shafts above. It retains the rods
and rings for the curtains to run on. Behind the altar, in the centre of
the curved line of the apse, is a marble episcopal throne, bearing the
monogram of Anastasius who was titular cardinal of this church in 1108. The
conch of the apse is inlaid with mosaics of quite the end of the 13th
century. The subterranean church, disinterred by the zeal of Father
Mullooly, the prior of the adjacent Irish Dominican convent, is supported
by columns of very rich marble of various kinds. The aisle walls, as well
as those of the narthex, are covered with fresco-