of other prelates and of the
Archbishop, who gave the same assurance. Later, learned archaeologists in
Rome were appealed to, regarding this assertion made in Naples, and the
consensus of opinion obtained declares their assertion true. Professor
Lanciani has himself publicly expressed this conviction. Still, it
remains a curious question as to when this sarcophagus was placed in the
sacristy, for the date goes back into long-buried centuries.

Adjoining Santa Domenica Maggiore is the monastery in which Thomas
Aquinas lived and lectured (in 1272), and the cell of the great doctor
of philosophy is now made into a chapel. His lectures called together
men of the highest rank and learning and were attended by the king and
the members of the royal family. The entire locality of this church is
replete with historic association. The most distinguished of the
nobility of Naples have, for centuries, held their chapels in this
church, and in these are many notable examples of Renaissance sculpture.

The Accademia des Arcades of Rome, founded in the seventeenth century to
do honor to lyric art, celebrated the placing of a bust of Vittoria
Colonna in a gallery of the Capitoline, in May of 1865, by a resplendent
poetic festa. According to the gentle, leisurely customs of the land,
where it is always afternoon and time has no value, thirty-two poets
read their songs, written in Latin or in Italian, for this occasion,
which were published in a sumptuous volume to be preserved in the
archives of the Arcadians, who take themselves more seriously than the
world outside quite realizes. This bust of Vittoria Colonna was the gift
of the Duca and Duchessa of Torlonia of that period. It was crowned with
laurel, as that of Petrarca had been, and the government took official
recognition of the event.

Goethe was made a member of this Accademia that regarded itself as
reflecting the glories of the Golden Age of Greece, and which was a
century old at the time of his visit to Italy. "No stranger of any
consequence was readily permitted to leave Rome without being invited to
join this body," he recorded, and he wrote a humorous description of the
formalities of his initiation.

Mrs. Horatio Greenough was honored by being made a member of this
Accademia in recognition of her musical accomplishments, and the record
of it is placed on the memorial marble over her grave in the Protestant
cemetery in Rome. Every year, on Tasso's birthday (April 25),