"6. As military conquerors in the name of the Virgin, the Emperor Heraclius, and Narses, the general against the Arians.
"7. A group of three female figures, representing the three famous saintly princesses, who in marriage preserved their virginity, Pulcheria, Edeltruda (our famous Queen Ethelreda), and Cunegunda.
"8. A group of three learned Bishops, who had especially defended the immaculate purity of the Virgin, St. Cyril, St. Anselm, and St. Denis (?).
"9. The miserable ends of those who were opposed to the honour of the Virgin. 1. The death of Julian the Apostate, very oddly represented; he lies on an altar, transfixed by an arrow, as a victim; St. Mercurius in the air. 2. The death of Leo IV., who destroyed the effigies of the Virgin. 3. The death of Constantine IV., also a famous iconoclast.
"The statues which are placed in niches are—
"1—2. St. Joseph, as the nominal husband, and St. John the Evangelist, as the nominal son, of the Virgin; the latter, also, as prophet and poet, with reference to the passage in the Revelation, xii. i.
"3—4. Aaron, as priestly ancestor (because his wand blossomed), and David, as kingly ancestor, of the Virgin.
"5—6. St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who was present at the death of the Virgin, and St. Bernard, who composed the famous 'Salve Regina' in her honour.
"Such is this grand systematic scheme of decoration, which, to those who regard it cursorily, is merely a sumptuous confusion of colours and forms, or at best a 'fine example of the Guido school and Bernini.' It is altogether a very complete and magnificent specimen of the prevalent style of art, and a very comprehensive and suggestive expression of the prevalent tendency of thought in the Roman Catholic Church from the beginning of the seventeenth century. In no description of this chapel have I seen the names and subjects accurately given: the style of art belongs to the decadence, and the taste being worse than questionable, the prevailing doctrinal idea has been neglected, or never understood."—Legends of the Madonna, lxxi.
On the right is the tomb of Clement VIII. (1592—1605), the Florentine Ippolito Aldobrandini, the builder of the new palace of the Vatican, and the cruel torturer and executioner of the Cenci. He is represented in the act of benediction. The bas-reliefs on his monument commemorate the principal events of his reign,—the conclusion of peace between France and Spain, and the taking of Ferrara, which he seized from the heirs of Alphonso II.