I confess that I have wished to build a new abode for Archives; and to add columns on the right and left to preserve the name of Damasus for ever.
These enigmatical verses contain all that we know, or are ever likely to know, respecting this building, which is called chartarium ecclesiæ Romanæ by S. Jerome[106], and unquestionably held the official documents of the Latin Church until they were removed to the Lateran in the seventh century. The whole building, or group of buildings, was destroyed in 1486 by Cardinal Raphael Riario, the dissolute nephew of Sixtus IV., to make room for his new palace, now called Palazzo della Cancelleria, and the church was rebuilt on a new site. The connexion with Pope Damasus is maintained by the name, S. Lorenzo in Damaso. No plan of the old buildings, or contemporary record of their arrangement, appears to exist. My only reason for drawing attention to a structure which has no real connexion with my subject is that the illustrious De Rossi considers that in the second line of the above quotation the word column signifies colonnades; and that Damasus took as his model one of the great pagan libraries of Rome which, in its turn, had been derived from the typical library at Pergamon[107]. According to this view he began by building, in the centre of the area selected, a basilica, or hall of basilican type, dedicated to S. Lawrence; and then added, on the north and south sides, a colonnade or loggia from which the rooms occupied by the records would be readily accessible. This opinion is also held by Signor Lanciani, who follows De Rossi without hesitation. I am unwilling to accept a theory which seems to me to have no facts to support it; and find it safer to believe that the line in question refers either to the aisles of the basilica, or to such a portico in front of it as may be seen at San Clemente and other early churches.
A letter to Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons in a.d. 441, from a correspondent named Rusticus, gives a charming picture of a library which he had visited in his young days, say about a.d. 400:
I am reminded of what I read years ago, hastily, as a boy does, in the library of a man who was learned in secular literature. There were there portraits of Orators and also of Poets worked in mosaic, or in wax of different colours, or in plaster, and under each the master of the house had placed inscriptions noting their characteristics; but, when he came to a poet of acknowledged merit, as for instance, Virgil, he began as follows:
Virgilium vatem melius sua carmina laudant;
In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbræ
Lustrabunt convexa, polus dum sidera pascet,
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.
Virgil's own lines most fitly Virgil praise:
As long as rivers run into the deep,
As long as shadows o'er the hillside sweep,
As long as stars in heaven's fair pastures graze,
So long shall live your honour, name, and praise.[108]
Agapetus, who was chosen Pope in 535, and lived for barely a year, had intended, in conjunction with Cassiodorus, to found a college for teachers of Christian doctrine. He selected for this purpose a house on the Cælian Hill, afterwards occupied by S. Gregory, and by him turned into a monastery. Agapetus had made some progress with the scheme, so far as the library attached to the house was concerned, for the author of the Einsiedlen MS., who visited Rome in the ninth century, saw the following inscription "in the library of S. Gregory"—i.e. in the library attached to the Church of San Gregorio Magno.
SANCTORVM VENERANDA COHORS SEDET ORDINE LONGO
DIVINAE LEGIS MYSTICA DICTA DOCENS
HOS INTER RESIDENS AGAPETVS IVRE SACERDOS
CODICIBVS PVLCHRVM CONDIDIT ARTE LOCVM
GRATIA PAR CVNCTIS SANCTVS LABOR OMNIBVS VNVS
DISSONA VERBA QVIDEM SED TAMEN VNA FIDES
Here sits in long array a reverend troop
Teaching the mystic truths of law divine:
'Mid these by right takes Agapetus place
Who built to guard his books this fair abode.
All toil alike, all equal grace enjoy—
Their words are different, but their faith the same.