"A barber of the Cardinal S. Giorgio was an artist, who painted very well in tempera, but had no idea of design. He made friends with Michael-Angelo, who made him a cartoon of a St. Francis receiving the stigmata, which the barber carefully carried out in colour, and his picture is now placed in the first chapel on the left of the entrance of S. Pietro in Montorio."—Vasari, vi.
The third chapel on the left contains a Virgin and Child with St. Anne, of the school of Perugino; the fourth, a fine Entombment, by an unknown hand; the fifth, the Baptism of Christ, said to be by Daniele da Volterra.
The Transfiguration of Raphael was painted for this church, and remained here till the French invasion. When it was returned from the Louvre it was kept at the Vatican. Had it been restored to this church, it would have been destroyed in the siege of 1849, when the tribune and bell-tower were thrown down. Here, in front of the high altar, the unhappy Beatrice Cenci was buried without any monument.
Irish travellers may be interested in the gravestones in the nave, of Hugh O'Neil of Tyrone, Baron Dungannon, and O'Donnell of Tyrconnell (1608). Near the door is the fine tomb, with the beautiful sleeping figure of Julian, Archbishop of Ragusa, ob. 1510, inscribed "Bonis et Mors et Vita dulcis est." An inscription below the steps in front of the church commemorates the translation of a miraculous image of the Virgin hither in 1714.
In the cloister is the Tempietto, a small domed building resting on sixteen Doric columns, built by Bramante in 1502, on the spot where St. Peter's cross is said to have stood. A few grains of the sacred sand from the hole in the centre of the chapel are given to visitors by the monks as a relic.
"St. Peter, when he was come to the place of execution, requested of the officers that he might be crucified with his head downwards, alleging that he was not worthy to suffer in the same manner his divine Master had died before him. He had preached the cross of Christ, had borne it in his heart, and its marks in his body, by sufferings and mortification, and he had the happiness to end his life on the cross. The Lord was pleased not only that he should die for his love, but in the same manner himself had died for us, by expiring on the cross, which was the throne of his love. Only the apostle's humility made a difference, in desiring to be crucified with his head downward. His Master looked toward heaven, which by his death he opened to men; but he judged that a sinner formed from dust, and going to return to dust, ought rather in confusion to look on the earth, as unworthy to raise his eyes to heaven. St. Ambrose, St. Austin, and St. Prudentius ascribe this his petition partly to his humility, and partly to his desire of suffering more for Christ. Seneca mentions that the Romans sometimes crucified men with their heads downward; and Eusebius testifies that several martyrs were put to that cruel death. Accordingly, the executioners easily granted the apostle his extraordinary request. St. Chrysostom, St. Austin, and St. Austerius say that he was nailed to the cross; Tertullian mentions that he was tied with cords. He was probably both nailed and bound with ropes."—Alban Butler.
The view from the front of the church is almost unrivalled.
Behind it is the famous Fontana Paolina, whose name, by a curious coincidence, combines those of its architect, Fontana, and its originator, Paul V. It was erected in 1611, and is supplied with water from the Lake of Bracciano, by the aqueduct of the Aqua Trajana, thirty-five miles in length. The red granite columns, which divide the fountain, were brought from the temple of Minerva in the Forum Transitorium.
"The pleasant, natural sound of falling water, not unlike that of a distant cascade in the forest, may be heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when the tumult of the city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, and popes, the great men of every age, have found no better way of immortalising their memories, than by the shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, up-gush and down-fall of water. They have written their names in that unstable element, and proved it a more durable record than brass or marble."—Hawthorne.
"Il n'y a rien encore, dans quelque état que ce soit, à opposer aux magnifiques fontaines qu'on voit à Rome dans les places et les carrefours, ni à l'abondance des eaux qui ne cessent jamais de couler; magnificence d'autant plus louable que l'utilité publique y est jointe."—Duclos.