[306] The old brick building with three apsides and a vaulted roof, near the entrance to this crypt, long used as a gardener’s storehouse, has been claimed as the basilica which Damasus provided for the burial of himself, his mother, and sister; but it was more probably the fabricia for worship or the celebration of the agape, or simply for the guardian of the Catacomb.
[307] About A. D. 230, say the Acts, although the Christians then enjoyed profound peace.
[308] An antique fresco at St. Cecilia represents the apparition of the martyr to the pontiff as he slept in his throne on St. Peter’s day.
[309] In an arched recess under the high altar of St. Cecilia is a beautiful marble statue of the saint in a recumbent posture, by Stefano Maderna, accompanied by the following inscription:
EN TIBI SANCTISSIMAE VIRGINIS CAECILIAE IMAGINEM QVAM IPSE INTEGRAM IN SEPVLCHRO IACENTEM VIDI EADEM TIBI PRORSVS EODEM CORPORIS SITV HOC MARMORE EXPRESSI.
“Behold the image of the most holy Virgin Cecilia, whom I myself saw lying incorrupt in her tomb. I have in this marble expressed for thee the same saint in the very same posture of body.”
[310] The modern additions have less claim on our reverence. The skeptical will see no reason why the remains of Cecilia should defy the laws of nature for fourteen centuries, when after only two those of Charles Borromeo, also a saint, which are exhibited at Milan arrayed in costly gold-embroidered robes and sparkling with gems, reveal only a black and decaying head and eyeless sockets, the skin shriveled and ruptured and the shrunken lips parting in a ghastly smile.
[311] Monumen. Art. Crist. Prim., p. 172.