d so harmonize with the details of the
decoration as to make it decorous and solemn, and worthy of the
worship of Christ in hymns and canticles, for the protection and glory
of the city of Siena." So spoke the artists of that age, and their
language was understood and felt by the multitudes. Their lives were
made bright and cheerful in spite of the troubles and misfortunes
which weighed upon their countries. Think of such sentiments in our
age!

[Illustration: THE TRANSLATION OF S. CYRIL'S REMAINS (Fresco in S.
Clemente, done at the order of Maria Macellaria)]

But I am digressing from my subject. Another step of the religious and
material transformation of the city is marked by the substitution of
chapels and shrines for the old _arae compitales_, at the crossings of
the main thoroughfares. The institution of altars in honor of the
_Lares_, or guardian genii of each ward or quarter, is ancient, and
can be traced to prehistoric times. When Servius Tullius enclosed the
city with his walls, there were twenty-four such altars, called
_sacraria Argeorum_. Two facts speak in favor of their remote
antiquity. The priestess of Jupiter was not allowed to sacrifice on
them, unless in a savage attire, with hair unkempt and untrimmed. On
the 17th of May, the Vestals used to throw into the Tiber, from the
Sublician bridge, manikins of wickerwork, in commemoration of the
human sacrifices once performed on the same altars.

When Augustus reorganized the capital and its wards, in the year 7
B. C., the number of street-shrines had grown to more than two hundred.
Two hundred and sixty-five were registered, A. D. 73, in the census
of Vespasian; three hundred and twenty-four at the time of
Constantine. A man of much leisure, and evidently of no occupation,
the cavaliere Alessandro Rufini, numbered and described the shrines
and images which lined the streets of Rome in the year 1853. As
modern civilization and indifference will soon obliterate this
historical feature of the city, I quote some results of Rufini's
investigations.[24] There were 1,421 images of the Madonna, 1,318
images of saints, ornamented with 1,928 precious objects, and 110
ex-votos; 1,067 lamps were kept burning day and night before them,--a
most useful institution in a city whose streets have not been
regularly lighted until recent years.

[Illustration: The Shrine and Altar of Mercurius Sobrius.]

As prototypes of a classical and Christian street-shrine,
respecti