and Montfaucon makes out from it the words TITUS CORNELIUS NEPOS, and Zirardini, an antiquary of Ravenna, PETRUS EPISCOPUS. You will conceive, that inscriptions which may be interpreted so differently, are perfect enigmas, from which nothing can be learned; but it appears to me that both these learned men are decidedly wrong, since the monogram contains an F, and no E. The pulpit of this church is of a single piece of marble, and seems to have been cut out of one drum of a fluted column, about five feet and a half in diameter. It is supposed to have been some ornamental or monumental column, for Ravenna does not boast any ancient edifice which would require a column of that size. San Giovanni della Sagra was built in 425 by Galla Placidia, in consequence of a vow she had made, when, having been overtaken by a storm in returning from Constantinople, she was saved from shipwreck by the intercession of St. John the evangelist. After it was built, the lady sought far and wide for some relic of the tutelar saint, but in vain. Her confessor, St. Barbaziano, proposed that they should pass a night in prayer in the new church, in order to obtain of the Lord by miracle, what human means had failed to procure. During the night St. John appeared in pontifical vestments, with a censer in his hand, incensing the temple and the altar; St. Barbaziano saw him first, and knowing him for the beloved disciple of our Saviour, pointed him out to the empress, who with great joy ran to throw herself on her knees before him, and to embrace his feet. The saint immediately vanished, leaving behind him the sandal of his right foot. The empress having thus obtained the desired relic, deposited it somewhere in the church, but the precise spot is unknown. The story is represented in sculpture over the principal entrance, and as this doorway is a production of the pointed architecture of the thirteenth century, we may obtain an approximation to the date of the legend. I admire, however, the modesty which refrained from producing the sacred relic. The church itself was of the usual form, with marble columns, and a great niche adorned with mosaics; but the mosaics are gone, and the nave has been a good deal modernized.