mellini's "Chiese di Roma." A great many have disappeared
since the first institution, and are known only from ruins, or
inscriptions and chronicles. Others have been disfigured by
"restorations." Without denying the fact that our sacred buildings
excel in quantity rather than quality, there is no doubt that as a
whole they form the best artistic and historic collection in the
world. Every age, from the apostolic to the present, every school,
every style has its representatives in the churches of Rome.

The assertion that the works of mediaeval architects have been
destroyed or modernized to such an extent as to leave a wide gap
between the classic and Renaissance periods, must have been made by
persons unacquainted with Rome; the churches and the cloisters of S.
Saba on the Aventine, of SS. Quattro Coronati on the Caelian, of S.
Giovanni a Porta Latina, of SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio alle Tre Fontane,
of S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, are excellent specimens of mediaeval
architecture. Let students, archaeologists, and architects provide
themselves with a chronological table of our sacred buildings, and
select the best specimens for every quarter of a century, beginning
with the oratory of Aquila and Prisca, mentioned in the Epistles, and
ending with the latest contemporary creations; they cannot find a
better subject for their education in art and history.

From the point of view of their origin and structure, the churches of
Rome of the first six centuries may be divided into six classes:--

I. Rooms of private houses where the first prayer-meetings were held.

II. Scholae (memorial or banqueting halls in public cemeteries),
transformed into places of worship.

III. Oratories and churches built over the tombs of martyrs and
confessors.

IV. Houses of confessors and martyrs.

V. Pagan monuments, especially temples, converted into churches.

VI. Memorials of historical events.

In treating this subject we must bear in mind that early Christian
edifices in Rome were never named from a titular saint, but from their
founder, or from the owner of the property on which they were
established. The same rule applies to the suburban cemeteries, which
were always named from the owner of the ground above them, not from
the martyrs buried within. The statement is simple; but we are so
accustomed to calling the Lateran basilica "S. Giovanni," or the
oratory of Pudens "S. Pudentiana," that their original names (Basilica
Salvatoris