The tombs of the popes Author:Ferdinand Gregorovius Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II 'T'HERE is no Papal monument dating from the eventful fifth century, which saw the ruin of the Roman Empire. Till then the Bishops of Rome possessed no pow... more »er beyond that of their priestly office, but the fall of the Imperial dignity and the growing misery caused in Italy by the barbarian inroads served to augment their moral influence and reputation. The greatest Pope of the fifth century was Leo I. (440-461), the founder of the Primacy of the Roman Bishops, the Saviour of Rome as ambassador before the terrible King of the Huns, and the protector of the city during its sack by Genseric the Vandal. His tomb originally stood in the Porch of St. Peter's but it was removed thence in the year 668, and a monument was erected inside the cathedral in memory of the beatified Pope. Leo the Great was the first Pontiff to be thus honoured. His tomb perished ; but an altar was dedicated anew to his memory by Clement XI. in 1715, in the chapel of the Madonna Colonna in St. Peter's, and above it has been placed the famous relief of Algardi, which represents Attila shrinking back in terror before Leo and the Apostles Peter and Paul. This legend has been further depicted by Raphael in the Stanza di Eleodoro in the Vatican. There is an equal absence of monuments dating from the time when Theodoric and his Goths were masters of Rome and of Italy, or when his gallant successors perished in the dreadful war of annihilation waged by the troops of far Byzantium. The Popes of this Gothic period were buried in the portico of St. Peter's. Among them was the Roman Pelagius I. (555-560), the contemporary of Belisarius aud Narses. The inscription on his tomb has been preserved. Terrenum corpus claudant haec forte sepulchra, Nil sancti meritis derogatura viri. Vivit in arce poli caelesti luce...« less