The statue of St. Sebastian in this church is an antique, altered by Maini, that of St. Agnes is by Ercole Ferrata; the bas-relief of St. Cecilia is by Antonio Raggi. Over the entrance is the half-length figure and tomb of Innocent X. (Gio. Battista Pamfili, 1644—55), an amiable but feeble pope, who was entirely governed by his strong-minded and avaricious sister-in-law, Olympia Maldacchini, who deserted him on his death-bed, making off with the accumulated spoils of his ten years' papacy, which enabled her son, Don Camillo, to build the Palazzo Doria Pamfili, in the Corso, and the beautiful Villa Doria Pamfili.[307]
"After the three days during which the body of Innocent remained exposed at St. Peter's, say the memoirs of the time, no one could be found who would undertake his burial. They sent to tell Donna Olympia to prepare for him a coffin, and an escutcheon, but she answered that she was a poor widow. Of all his other relations and nephews, not one gave any sign of life; so that at length the body was carried away into a chamber where the masons kept their tools. Some one, out of pity, placed a lighted tallow-candle near the head; and some one else having mentioned that the room was full of rats, and that they might eat the corpse, a person was found who was willing to pay for a watcher. And after another day had elapsed, Monsignor Scotti, the majordomo, had pity upon him, and prepared him a coffin of poplar-wood, and Monsignor Segni, Canon of St. Peter's, who had been his majordomo, and whom he had dismissed, returned him good for evil, and expended five crowns for his burial."—Gregorovius.
Beneath the church are vaulted chambers, said to be part of the house of infamy where St. Agnes was publicly exposed[308] before her execution.
"As neither temptation nor the fear of death could prevail with Agnes, Sempronius thought of other means to vanquish her resistance; he ordered her to be carried by force to a place of infamy, and exposed to the most degrading outrages. The soldiers, who dragged her thither, stripped her of her garments; and when she saw herself thus exposed, she bent down her head in meek shame and prayed; and immediately her hair, which was already long and abundant, became like a veil, covering her whole person from head to foot; and those who looked upon her were seized with awe and fear as of something sacred, and dared not lift their eyes. So they shut her up in a chamber, and she prayed that the limbs which had been consecrated to Jesus Christ should not be dishonoured, and suddenly she saw before her a white and shining garment, with which she clothed herself joyfully, praising God, and saying, 'I thank thee, O Lord, that I am found worthy to put on the garment of thine elect!' and the whole place was filled with miraculous light, brighter than the sun at noon-day.
* * * * * * * *
"The chamber, which, for her preservation, was filled with heavenly light, has become, from the change of level all over Rome, as well as from the position of the church, a subterranean cell, and is now a chapel of peculiar sanctity, into which you descend by torchlight. The floor retains the old mosaic, and over the altar is a bas-relief, representing St. Agnes, with clasped hands, and covered only by her long tresses, while two ferocious soldiers drive her before them. The upper church, as a piece of architecture, is beautiful, and rich in precious marbles and antique columns. The works of art are all mediocre, and of the 17th century, but the statue over her altar has considerable elegance. Often have I seen the steps of this church, and the church itself, so crowded with kneeling worshippers at matins and vespers, that I could not make my way among them;—principally the women of the lower orders, with their distaffs and market baskets, who had come thither to pray, through the intercession of the patron saint, for the gifts of meekness and chastity,—gifts not abounding in these regions."—Jameson's Sacred Art.
Yorkshire maidens, anxious to know who their future spouse is to be, still consult St. Agnes on St Agnes' Eve, after 24 hours' abstinence from everything but pure spring water, in the distich:
"St. Agnes, be a friend to me,
In the boon I ask of thee;
Let me this night my husband see."
Here, on the festival of St. Agnes, the papal choir sing the antiphons of the virgin saint, and the hymn "Jesu Corona Virginum."
The front of Sant' Agnese opens upon the Piazza Navona, a vast oblong square on the site of the ancient Circus Agonalis, decorated with three fountains. That in the centre, by Bernini, supports an obelisk brought from the Circus of Maxentius, where it was erected in honour of Domitian. Around the mass of rock which supports the obelisk are figures of the gods of the four largest rivers (Danube, Nile, Ganges, Rio de la Plata). That of the Nile veiled his face, said Bernini, that he might not be shocked by the façade which was added by Borromini to the Church of St Agnes.