cted
this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new structure and
also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St
Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The
church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister
supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of
the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at
Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured
sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are
ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to
Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it
performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by
children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at
waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been
transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the
splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly
after Guiscard's death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the
Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the
protector of Hildebrand.

"A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno."

The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so
glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this
generous client upon earth.

The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash and gaudy decoration, is
a perfect treasure-house of works of art--antique, medieval, Renaissance--of
which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations
have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard
transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone
so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to
serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate
was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and
follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:

"Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina."

("If a ca