confined, provisions of wine, cheese, and oil have been
stored. The prison has recently passed into the possession of the
British and American Archaeological Society of Rome, which pays a
certain rent to the Italian Government for its use. By this society it
is illuminated and shown every Monday afternoon during the season. One
of the members conducts the party through the upper and lower prisons,
and explains everything of interest connected with them. Dr. Parker,
whose labours have done so much to elucidate this part of ancient
Rome, was the guide on the occasion of my visit; and as the party was
unusually small, we had a better opportunity of seeing what was to be
seen, and hearing the guide's observations.

The uppermost vault is still below the level of the surrounding soil,
and the entrance to it is by the church of San Giuseppe di Falegnami,
the patron of the Roman joiners, built over it. Beneath is a
subterranean chapel, forming a sort of crypt to the upper church,
called San Pietro in Carcere, containing a curious ancient crucifix,
an object of great veneration, and hung round with blazing lamps and
rusty daggers, pistols, and other deadly instruments, the votive
offerings of bandits and assassins who sought at this shrine of the
chief of the apostles to make their peace with heaven. Descending from
the chapel by a flight of steps we come through a modern door, opened
through the wall for the convenience of the pilgrims who annually
visit the sacred spot in crowds, to the ancient vestibule, or grand
chamber of the prison, commonly called the Prison of St. Peter from
the church tradition which asserts that the great apostle was
confined here by order of Nero before his martyrdom. The pillar to
which he was bound is still pointed out in the cell; and Dr. Parker,
lifting up its cover, showed us a well in the pavement of the floor,
which is said to have sprung up miraculously to furnish water for the
baptism of the jailors Processus and Martinianus whom he had
converted, though, unfortunately for this tradition, the fountain is
described by Plutarch as existing in the time of Jugurtha's
imprisonment. Indeed there is every reason to believe that this
chamber was originally a well-house or a subterranean cistern for
collecting water at the foot of the Capitol, from which circumstance
it derived its name of Tullianum, from _tullius_, the old Etruscan
word for _spring_, and not from Servius Tullius, who was erroneously