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The old gentleman’s undoubting, unquestioning simplicity has a rare freshness about it in these matter-of-fact railroading and telegraphing days.  Hear him, concerning the church of Ara Coeli: 

“In the roof of the church, directly above the high altar, is engraved, ’Regina Coeli laetare Alleluia.”  In the sixth century Rome was visited by a fearful pestilence.  Gregory the Great urged the people to do penance, and a general procession was formed.  It was to proceed from Ara Coeli to St. Peter’s.  As it passed before the mole of Adrian, now the Castle of St. Angelo, the sound of heavenly voices was heard singing (it was Easter morn,) Regina Coeli, laetare! alleluia! quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia! resurrexit sicut dixit; alleluia!” The Pontiff, carrying in his hands the portrait of the Virgin, (which is over the high altar and is said to have been painted by St. Luke,) answered, with the astonished people, ‘Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!’ At the same time an angel was seen to put up a sword in a scabbard, and the pestilence ceased on the same day.  There are four circumstances which ’confirm’—­[The italics are mine—­M.  T.]—­this miracle:  the annual procession which takes place in the western church on the feast of St Mark; the statue of St. Michael, placed on the mole of Adrian, which has since that time been called the Castle of St. Angelo; the antiphon Regina Coeli which the Catholic church sings during paschal time; and the inscription in the church.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

From the sanguinary sports of the Holy Inquisition; the slaughter of the Coliseum; and the dismal tombs of the Catacombs, I naturally pass to the picturesque horrors of the Capuchin Convent.  We stopped a moment in a small chapel in the church to admire a picture of St. Michael vanquishing Satan—­a picture which is so beautiful that I can not but think it belongs to the reviled “Renaissance,” notwithstanding I believe they told us one of the ancient old masters painted it—­and then we descended into the vast vault underneath.

Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves!  Evidently the old masters had been at work in this place.  There were six divisions in the apartment, and each division was ornamented with a style of decoration peculiar to itself—­and these decorations were in every instance formed of human bones!  There were shapely arches, built wholly of thigh bones; there were startling pyramids, built wholly of grinning skulls; there were quaint architectural structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of the arm; on the wall were elaborate frescoes, whose curving vines were made of knotted human vertebrae; whose delicate tendrils were made of sinews and tendons; whose flowers were formed of knee-caps and toe-nails.  Every lasting portion of the human frame was represented in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo,