"The allegory of a ship is peculiarly dwelt upon by the ancient Fathers. A ship entering the port was a favourite heathen emblem of the close of life. But the Christian idea, and its elevation from individual to universal or catholic humanity, is derived directly from the Bible,—see, for instance, I Peter iii. 20, 21. 'Without doubt,' says St. Augustine, 'the ark is the figure of the city of God pilgrimising in this world, in other words, of the Church, which is saved by the wood on which hung the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.' The same interpretation was recognised in the Latin Church in the days of Tertullian and St. Cyprian, &c. The bark of St. Peter is similarly represented on a Greek gem, found in the Catacombs, as sailing on a fish, probably Leviathan or Satan, while doves, emblematical of the faithful, perch on the mast and stern,—two Apostles row, a third lifts up his hands in prayer, and our Saviour, approaching the vessel, supports Peter by the hand when about to sink.... But the allegory of the ship is carried out to its fullest extent in the fifty-seventh chapter of the second book of the 'Apostolical Constitutions,' supposed to have been compiled in the name of the Apostles, in the fourth century."—Lord Lindsay's Christian Art, i. 18.
On the right is (first) the gateway of the deserted convent of Redemptorists, called S. Tommaso in Formis, which was founded by S. Giovanni de Matha, who, when celebrating his first mass at Paris, beheld in a vision, an angel robed in white, with a red and blue cross upon his breast, and his hands resting in benediction upon the heads of two captives,—a white and a black man. The bishop of Paris sent him to Rome to seek explanation from Innocent III., who was celebrated as an interpreter of dreams,—his foundation of the Franciscan order having resulted from one which befell him. S. Giovanni was accompanied to the pope by another hermit, Felix de Valois. They found that Innocent had himself seen the same vision of the angel between the two captives while celebrating mass at the Lateran, and he interpreted it as inculcating the duty of charity towards Christian slaves, for which purpose he founded the Trinitarians, since called Redemptorists. The story of the double vision is commemorated in a Mosaic, erected above the door, A.D. 1260, and bearing the name of the artist, Jacobus Cosmati.
The next gate beyond the church is that of the Villa Mattei, the garden of the Redemptorists. (The villa is now the property of Baron Richard Hoffmann: visitors are generally admitted upon writing down their names at the gate.)
These grounds are well worth visiting—quite the ideal of a deserted Roman garden, a wealth of large Roman daisies, roses, and periwinkle spreading at will amid remains of ancient statues and columns. A grand little avenue of ilexes leads to a terrace whence there is a most beautiful view towards the aqueducts and the Alban Hills, with a noble sarcophagus and a quantity of fine aloes and prickly-pears in the foreground. There is an obelisk, of which only the top is Egyptian. It is said that there is a man's hand underneath;—when the obelisk was lowered it fell suddenly, and one of the workmen had not time to take his hand away. In the grounds annexed to the lower part of the villa is the Fountain of Egeria (p. 375).
Almost standing in the garden of the villa, and occupying the site of the house of Sta. Cyriaca, is the Church of Sta. Maria in Domenica or della Navicella. (If no one is here, the hermit at S. Stefano Rotondo will unlock it.) The portico is due to Raphael (his design is at Windsor). The damp interior (rebuilt by Leo X. from designs of Raphael) is solemn and striking. It is in the basilica form, the nave separated from the aisles by eighteen columns of granite and one (smaller, near the tribune) of porphyry. The frieze, in chiaroscuro, was painted by Giulio Romano and Pierino del Vaga. Beneath the confessional are the bones of Sta. Balbina, whose fortress-like church stands on the Pseudo-Aventine. In the tribune are curious mosaics, in which the figure of Pope Paschal I. is introduced, the square nimbus round his head being an evidence of its portrait character, i. e., that it was done during his lifetime.[166]
"Within the tribune are mosaics of the Virgin and Child seated on a throne, with angels ranged in regular rows on each side; and, at her feet, with unspeakable stiffness of limb, the kneeling figure of Pope Paschal I. Upon the walls of the tribune is the Saviour with a nimbus, surrounded with two angels and the twelve apostles, and further below, on a much larger scale, two prophets, who appear to point towards him. The most remarkable thing here is the rich foliage decoration. Besides the wreaths of flowers (otherwise not a rare feature) which are growing out of two vessels on the edge of the dome, the floor beneath the figures is also decorated with flowers—a graceful species of ornament seldom aimed at in the moroseness of Byzantine art. From this point, the decline into utter barbarism is rapid."—Kugler.
"The Olivetan monks inhabited the church and cloisters of Sta. Maria in Domenica, commonly called in Navicella, from the rudely sculptured marble monument that stands on the grass before its portal, a remnant of bygone days, to which neither history nor tradition has given a name, but which has itself given one to the picturesque old church which stands on the brow of the Cœlian Hill."—Lady Georgiana Fullerton.
A tradition of the Church narrates that St. Lorenzo, deacon and martyr, daily distributed alms to the poor in front of this church—then the house of Sta. Cyriaca—with whom he had taken refuge.
Opposite, is the round Church of S. Stefano Rotondo, dedicated by St. Simplicius in 467. It appears to have been built on the site of an ancient circular building, and to have belonged to the great victual market—Macellum Magnum—erected by Nero in this quarter.[167] It is seldom used for service, except on St. Stephen's Day (December 26), but visitors are admitted through a little cloister, in which stands a well of beautiful proportions, of temp. Leo X.—attributed to Michael Angelo. The interior is exceedingly curious architecturally. It is one hundred and thirty-three feet in diameter, with a double circle of granite columns, thirty-six in the outer and twenty in the inner series, enclosing two tall Corinthian columns, with two pilasters supporting a cross wall. In the centre is a kind of temple in which are relics of St. Stephen (his body is said to be at S. Lorenzo). In the entrance of the church is an ancient marble seat from which St. Gregory is said to have read his fourth homily.
The walls are lined with frescoes by Pomerancio and Tempesta. They begin with the Crucifixion, but as the Holy Innocents really suffered before our Saviour, one of them is represented lying on each side of the cross. Next comes the stoning of St. Stephen, and the frescoes continue to pourtray every phase of human agony in the most revolting detail, but are interesting as showing a historical series of what the Roman Catholic Church considers as the best authenticated martyrdoms, viz.: