Ciampini believed it to have been the building known as the Basilica Siciniana (or, more properly, Sicinina), a church supposed to have been constructed out of some hall in the palace of the Sicinian family; but that so-called basilica, there is little or no doubt, was really the same edifice as the church better known as the Basilica Liberiana, or Santa Maria in Presepe, otherwise Santa Maria Maggiore (v. De Rossi, Bull. di Arch. Crist. 1871, p. 19).

The real origin of the building of which I am writing is clearly proved by an inscription which existed in the apse, and was copied in an imperfect state by several antiquaries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Pietro Sabino, Ugonius, and De Winghe; but the most perfect text is found in an epigraphical collection, preserved in manuscript in the public library of Sienna. In this it runs:

IVNIVS BASSVS V. C. CONSVL ORDINARIVS PROPRIA IMPENSA A SOLO FECIT ET

This Junius Bassus, Cavaliere De Rossi (Bull. 1871, p. 46) thinks may be confidently asserted to be the Bassus who was consul in A.D. 317. He usually appears in the Fasti Consulares as Septimius Bassus; but this, according to De Rossi, is an error, arising from a confusion made between a Bassus, consul, and a Septimius Bassus, præfectus urbi in the same year, 317.

The grounds on which De Rossi excludes the four Bassi who appear in the Fasti as consuls in A.D. 289, 330 (or 331), 408, and 431, from the number of the probable founders of the building will be found in his memoir (Bull. 1871, p. 44), and will probably be thought tolerably conclusive. As in very many cases. the whole of the names of the personages who filled the great offices at Rome have not been preserved to us, it is often impossible to attain anything like certainty as to the family of many-consuls and others—and it has been disputed whether Junius Bassus, consul in 317, and his namesake, prefect of the city in 359, were or were not of the family of the Bassi alluded to in the well-known lines of Prudentius:

"Non Paulinorum noi. Bassorum dubitavit

Prompta fides dare se Christo stirpemque superbam
Gentis patritiæ venturo attollere sæclo."

(In Symmachum, v. 642.)

a Cav. de Rossi warns his readers against the supposition that the building was a temple because thə consul dedicated it.

b Vide Sac. Vatican. Basil. Crypt. Mon. by P. L. Dionysius, Rome 1773, p. 201.

Cav. de Rossi's opinion is that they were father and son, and of a family of the Gens Junia, known as that of the Bassi.

Had the name of the younger Junius Bassus appeared in the Fasti as consul, the erection of the basilica might have been ascribed to him, but the Bassus, consul in 330 (or 331), appears to have been of the Gens Annia, and those who were consuls in 408 and 431 to have been of the Gens Anicia; it would therefore seem that we must consider the consul of 317 as the founder.

The second stage in its history was also vouched for by an inscription running as follows:

Hæc tibi mens Valilæ decrevit prædia Xre

Cui testator opes detulit ille suas
Simplicius quæ papa sacris cælestibus aptans
Effecit vere muneris esse tui.

Et quod apostolici deessent limina nobis
Martyris Andreæ nomine composuit
Utitur hæc heres titulis ecclesia justis

Succedensque domo mystica jura locat.

Plebs devota veni perque hæc commercia disce
Terreno censu regna superna peti.

These verses record the dedication of the building to St. Andrew after it with the adjacent property had been bequeathed to the church by Flavius Valila, a Goth, who, entering the service of Rome, became "magister utriusque militiæ." He is known by the Carta Cornutiana (Mab. de re Diplom., Paris, 1709, p. 462) to have been alive in 471, and, as Pope Simplicius died in 482 (or 483), the dedication must have taken place between those years.

These verses were placed below the semi-dome of the apse, and over them, in mosaic, figures of our Lord and six apostles standing erect. The original decoration of the apse, though removed from the upper portion, appears to have been allowed to remain in the lower, as the inscription of Junius Bassus retained its place; nor as it would seem were the decorations of the rest of the building meddled with, however unsuited they might be to a church.

It is conjectured that the affix of Catabarbara Patricia, by which this church was distinguished in the eighth and ninth centuries, became attached to it in consequence of its connection with this residence of the barbarian patrician (vide De Rossi, Bull. 1871, p. 25).

Pope Gregory II., it is stated in the Liber Pontificalis, "instituit gerontocomium monasteriumque juxta positum Sancti Andreæ apostoli quod Barbaræ nuncupatur."

In the fifteenth century it was in a condition of decay approaching ruin, for

Platina (Hist. de Vitis Pontificum, in vitâ Simplicii), after stating that Pope Simplicius dedicated the church, adds, "adhuc vestigia quædam antiquitatis apparent, quæ persæpe flendo inspexi, ob incuriam eorum quibus ipsa templa jam ruinam minantia commissa sunt."

About the same time the celebrated architect Sangallo made the drawing preserved in the Barberini Library, in a volume dated 1465. A copy of this drawing copied from the Bull. di. Arch. Crist. for 1871 is given in Plate XXI.

It subsequently ceased to be used as a place of worship, and its attached monastery was incorporated with the adjacent convent of San Antonio Abate, to which a hospital was attached. Grimaldi, who wrote about 1622, states (Bull. 1871, p. 18) that the French monks of St. Anthony, who served the hospital, had conceived the idea that the cements (mixturæ glutinum) by which the incrustations were held to the walls were excellent remedies for fever, and accordingly destroyed the mosaic pictures in order to abtain this admirable medicine! Whatever mischief the monks may have done, time, producing decay of the cement, no doubt did its share, for since the remaining fragments have been better cared for many parts have been lost, and I saw a piece of blue glass drop from the mosaic representing the consul whilst I was looking at it.

The two compartments shown in Plates XVIII. and XIX. were conveyed to the palace of Cardinal Massimi at the Quattro Fontane, now the property of the Prince del Drago.

In the course of this century the decay of the buildings and its mosaics progressed rapidly, and it was dismantled in 1686; but some portions of the walls are said still to remain.

I have thus given a summary of the history of the building which Cav. de Rossi has worked out with that assiduity and almost unrivalled knowledge of all that relates to the antiquities of Rome which distinguish him. It remains to describe the building, its system of decoration, and the still existing fragments of the mosaics which adorned it.

The building is peculiarly worth attention, if we may-as it seems to me we reasonably may-consider it as one of the very few examples of the great state apartment of a Roman house of the first class of which we have any accurate knowledge, and certainly the only one of the internal ornamentation of which we know anything. No house at Pompeii or Herculaneum is of the same character or size as were the palaces of the great patrician families at Rome, and of the imperial palace little is left of the great apartments except foundations.

It is well known that besides the great public basilicas there were vast halls