A fact that is of botanic interest is to be met with here in the epigraph below the organ to Francesco Calceolari. He was the first botanist who ever made his mark in Verona, and his name at all events suggests some connection with the flower whose gaudy colours were once in such request for the bedding-out garden.
Immediately below the sacristy is the marble sarcophagus erected by the citizens of Verona to the memory of Torello Saraina, who, as has been said, wrote the first printed history of the town, and whose opinion and authority on Veronese antiquities and monuments is of great weight and value. The Saraina chapel standing beside the tomb was erected by the historian himself, and dedicated by him to the Trinity, to the Virgin, and to the Archangel Raphael. It contains a fine painting by Torbido over the altar, a Madonna and Child in the clouds, with the Archangel and Tobias below. According to Morelli, this work makes Torbido worthy to be compared with the elder Bonifazio. The coffin containing the ashes of Saraina was probably removed to the side (where it stands resting on two turrets of marble) when the chapel was arranged for the celebration of the Mass. Saraina died May 8, 1550. That he was a patron of art as well as a man of letters is proved by the fact that not only did he order the fine picture painted by Torbido for the Saraina chapel, but that the house he inhabited in the Via della Stella was also by his desire decorated with frescoes by the same master.
The pulpit is a beautiful bit of fourteenth century work. It is rich in marbles, and has many good designs surmounted with frescoes that for many years were supposed to be the work of Stefano da Zevio. Recent investigations, however, have proved them to be by Martini, whose signature upon them has also come to light.
The patron saint of the church is S. Fermo, who together with S. Rustico, suffered martyrdom early in the fourth century. Their bodies first buried in the crypt were afterwards placed under the high altar in the church, where they were at all events safe from those inundations of the Adige that so often wrought havoc to the town, and that in their impetuosity respected neither saint nor sanctuary. The festival of the martyred saints is held on the 9th of August.
The beautiful exterior of the apse and belfry can be well seen and studied on the way to the Palazzo Pompei. This palace contains the Museo Civico and the Picture Gallery, and stands on the other side of the Adige. The way to it lies across the Ponte delle Navi, a modern bridge built to replace the one set up in 1373 by Cansignorio, which was swept away in the inundation of 1757.
It must seem ungracious on the part of a visitor, and of one too who has received much kindness and courtesy in the town, to complain of the arrangements and methods customary in the public buildings of Verona. But the way in which the works of art are kept and treated is lamentable in the extreme, and the disregard and indifference as to those treasures cannot but evoke feelings of surprise, indignation, and regret. The Palazzo Pompei, a fine Doric building designed by San Micheli, was bequeathed by its late owner to the city for a picture gallery; and that it was never built or intended for the purpose to which it is now put may perhaps serve as some excuse for its total inadequacy. The rooms are small; the windows so placed that a great deal of light falls on some pictures leaving others in darkness, and threatening besides to ruin paintings exposed for hours on bright days to a flood of unmitigated and uncurtained sunshine.
The ground-floor consists of a collection of the most varied kind: there are Etruscan and Roman remains; prehistoric antiquities from the Lake of Garda; marble vases and sculptures, coins, utensils belonging to the prehistoric, bronze, and iron ages; mediæval statues in stone and in bronze; a large array of capitals, columns, and fragments of buildings and fortifications that have been dug up at recent excavations and brought here, and casts of modern works. The great inundation of the Adige in 1882, which is answerable for so much damage in Verona is also held responsible for the state of disorder to which this heterogeneous mass is reduced. The flood disarranged the Museum; and time and money do not yet seem to have been found wherewith to repair the mischief then caused.
The pictures are on the first floor, and are for the most part the works of Veronese masters. The first room, known as the Sala Bernasconi, has a fine but faded picture by Paolo Farinato (No. 13) of Christ shown to the multitude. No. 32 is an early but graceful work by Titian of the Madonna and Child and St John. No. 34, a Madonna and Child, and St John the Baptist with two angels, is said to be by Perugino; and much of it probably is by him, the rest by one of his pupils.
Room II. has several good pictures, though not all are by the artists to whom they are ascribed. No. 86, for instance, is a lovely Presentation in the Temple, with a forged signature of Gian Bellini. No. 88 is a Holy Family by Andrea del Sarto, but so cleaned as