Page:The Voyage of Italy (1686).djvu/263

 little chapel on the left hand, where St Peter and St Paul took leave of one another, before they were led to martyrdom.

Soon after I came to St Paul’s Church, here Paul was buried by Lucina a Roman Lady, and therefore Constantine the Great built this church in the honour of St Paul as he had done that of St Peter mentioned above. Its built cross-wise, and the body of it is 477 foot long, and 258 broad, with a hundred pillars in all, set in four ranks; all of them ancient round marble pillars taken out of the Baths of Attonius, saith Vaffari. Yet in all this vast body of the church there are no chapels, nor any decoration, except at the very end of it near the great door, where there is an altar with these words in stone over it, Hic inventum est caput S. Pauli. The most remarkable things which I saw here, were these. 1. The high altar with canopy of stone like a tabernacle born up by four porphyry pillars, and adorned with statues. Under the altar reposeth half of the bodies of S Peter and S Paul (as observed before in S Peters Church) and as the inscription upon the side of the altar here affirms in these words; Sub hoc altari requiescunt gloriosa corpora Apostolorum Petri & Pauli pro medietate. Behind the altar, stands the Confession of St Paul like that of St Peter described above, Under the little low doors which let the priest into the steps of the altar are written these words in golden letters, Limina Apostolorum, which makes me bold to hold against some modern writers, that this was the precise place, and not the door of the church, which was called Limina Apostolorum.