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render it certain that the persons alluded to were the founders, and are buried in the church, where two stone coffins have been found and are ascribed to them. Ottolina has been identified with the wife of Adinolfo, son of Landolfo of Aquino, first Count of Alsito, and sister of Gregorio and Aimone of Isola. She was sister-in-law to S. Thomas Aquinas. Nothing certain is known of Maria, but she is believed to have been either the mother or the daughter of Ottolina.

The interior of the church was very curious, having six pillars on one side of the nave and only three on the other. It has till lately been roofless and used as a Campo Santo. Now, Mgr. Paolo de Niguesa, the venerable and much honoured bishop of Aquino, is restoring it for use, but, alas, from a love of uniformity, is destroying its interest, by making one side exactly like the other.

Close to the church is a beautiful little Triumphal Arch,

through it, and it stands reflected in the clear water, which falls below it in a series of miniature cascades. It it a subject unspoilt by Rosa and his followers, and which would entrance an artist.

Descending the great marble staircase, we find a lane following the Via Latina, which retains some of its ancient lava pavement, but in other places this is torn up to make the walls at the sides. Passing a succession of Roman fragments, we reach the ruined Church of S. Tomaso, in which are several beautiful pieces of frieze from the temples. A little beyond, the Via Latina is crossed by the massive Porta S. Lorenzo, a Roman gateway in perfect preservation,

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Aquino was once a most important place. Strabo speaks of it in his time as a great city, chief amongst the Volscian cities," and Cicero mentions it as "frequens municipium." Tacitus says that Dolabella was exiled and put to death here. The Emperor Pescennius Niger was born here. Now, the

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circuit of the town is filled with vineyards and gardens, amid which gigantic fragments of ruin appear at intervals. The Volscian city was destroyed by the Lombards, when the inhabitants took refuge at Castro Cielo, on the top of the mountain, where only a church and castle now remain. Thence, after a time, they descended to Palazzuolo, where their descendants probably exist still. The ancient coins of Aquino bore a head of Minerva on one side and a cock on the other.

Following further the Via Latina, we see a succession of buildings in ruins-a theatre, some colossal blocks shown as having belonged to a temple of Diana and now called S. Maria Maddalena, and a huge mass of wall believed to have been a temple of Ceres, afterwards converted into the basilica of S. Pietro Vetere. All the ruins are embedded in vineyards, and surrounded by the most radiant loveliness of vegetation.

Returning through the Arco S. Lorenzo, and following the little stream in the valley, we find a strange old church supported upon open arches, through which there are most picturesque views of the present town scrambling along the edge of tufa rocks, crested and overhung by fig-trees.

This is the city which rose in the middle-ages under the powerful Counts of Aquino, but it now only contains 2700 inhabitants. It is however the oldest bishopric in the Roman Church, its bishops sign all ecclesiastical documents immediately after the archbishops, and the whole cathedral chapter of Aquino have still the right to wear mitres and full episcopal robes.

The long single street, for the width of the cliff allows no more, presents a charming diorama of the most thoroughly

Italian life. Every now and then the walls open and leave a little landing, with glimpses of purple mountains, of snowy distance, or of green depths of orchard and vineyard, kept ever fresh by the abundant streams of crystal water which are described by Italicus. There are dark archways, grimly overhung by massive vaulting, yet which seem quite illuminated by the stocks and valerians which fill their projecting cornices, and still more by the glorious costume of the people, whose blaze of colour catches and concentrates every flash of light as it falls. Now, we come upon the gateway of an old palazzo, built from the remains of temples, and with two huge Morgiana-pots filled with flowering oleanders, the last remaining of twelve Roman pots which were discovered, the rest having been broken up by the contadini, who believed them to be filled with treasure. Now, a pale olive hangs over a broad balustrade. Here, there is a ruined castle used as a bacon-shop, and beside it a palace with Venetian Gothic windows (the veritable "Casa Reale" in which S. Thomas was born, and where a kitchen is shown in which he fought with demons), now let out in poor tenements. There, a grand old marble lion, with a ring through his nose, stands in the piazza, amid a collection of Roman millstones and bases and capitals of columns. The winding street, with its pitilessly rugged pavement, is the place where all the business of life is carried on. The barber is shaving his patients in the street, the Friggitore is tossing up a frittura. One group of women is spinning, another is making lace. There are babies being rocked in baskets, and there are others the "creatures"-being carried in baskets on their mothers' heads, taking the place of the grand painted vases with the twisted handles, so huge and heavy when filled with

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water, and which yet the women here poise so lightly. A boy is climbing up a wall to pick the golden oranges which are hanging over it; beneath, a flock of chickens are pecking at a sieve filled with almost more golden Indian maize; and through all this collection of life when we were there, the priest, in purple cassock and white pellerine, was moving from house to house, pronouncing his Easter benediction upon the furniture and cooking utensils, and followed by a man with a large basket to receive the dole of eggs, saffroncakes, and fenocchi, which he expected in return.

S. Thomas Aquinas was born in the old palace of Aquino, March 7, 1224, being the son of Count Landolfo and his wife Teresa Caracciolo. His grandfather married the sister of the Emperor Frederick I., and he was therefore greatnephew of that prince. It has been the custom to say he was born at Rocca-Secca, which however was never more than a mere "fortezza" of the Counts of Aquino, and never used by them as a residence, and all uncertainty has been cleared by the late discovery of a letter of the saint in the archives at Monte Cassino, saying that he was coming to seek the blessing of the Abbot Bernard before setting out upon a journey, and that he intended to visit his birthplace at Aquino on the way. Here the youngest sister of S. Thomas was killed by a flash of lightning while sleeping in the room with him and her nurse. At five years old S. Thomas was sent to school at Monte Cassino, but at twelve his masters declared themselves unable to teach him any more. On account of his stolid silence, he obtained the nickname of "the dumb ox," but his tutor Albertus Magnus, after some answers on difficult subjects, said—" We call him the dumb ox, but he will give such a bellow in learning as