receptacle for water, laid their hands on the tomb of Pope Urban VI., dragged the marble sarcophagus under the dome on the edge of a lime-pit, and emptied it of its contents. The golden ring was given to Giacomo della Porta, the architect, the bones were put aside in a corner of the building, and the coffin was used as a tank from 1588 to 1615. [Illustration: S. PETER'S IN 1588. (From an engraving by Ciampini)] When we consider that the building-materials--stones, bricks, timber, cement, and water--had to be lifted to a height of four hundred feet, it is no wonder that five hundred thousand pounds of rope should have been consumed, and fifteen tons of iron. The dome was built on a framework of most ingenious design, resting on the cornice of the drum so lightly that it seemed suspended in mid air. One thousand two hundred large beams were employed in it. Fea and Winckelmann assert that the lead sheets which cover the dome must be renewed eight or ten times in a century. Winckelmann attributes their rapid decay to the corrosive action of the sirocco wind; Fea to the variations in temperature, which cause the lead to melt in summer, and crack in winter. The size and height, the number of columns, altars, statues, and pictures,--in short, the _mirabilia_ of S. Peter's,--have been greatly exaggerated. There is no necessity of exaggeration when the truth is in itself so astonishing. Readers fond of statistics may consult the works of Briccolani and Visconti.[86] The basilica is approached by a square 1256 feet in diameter. The nave is six hundred and thirteen feet long, eighty-eight wide, one hundred and thirty-three high; the transept is four hundred and forty-nine feet long. The cornice and the mosaic inscription of the frieze are 1943 feet long. The dome towers to the height of four hundred and forty-eight feet above the pavement, with a diameter on the interior of 139.9 feet, a trifle less than that of the Pantheon. The letters on the frieze are four feet eight inches high. The old church contained sixty-eight altars and two hundred and sixty-eight columns; while the modern one contains forty-six altars,--before which one hundred and twenty-one lamps are burning day and night,--and seven hundred and forty-eight columns, of marble, stone and bronze. The statues number three hundred and eighty-six, the windows two hundred and ninety.