A few days after their incarceration, St. Peter and St. Paul were condemned to death. According to one tradition, St. Peter suffered martyrdom in the Circus of Caligula at the foot of the Vatican, and was crucified between two metæ, i.e. the goals or terminæ in the Circus, round which the chariots turned in the race; but, according to another tradition, he was put to death in the court-yard of a barrack or military station on the summit of Mons Janicula, where the church of San Pietro in Montorio now stands; that is, on an eminence above the site of the Circus of Caligula. At his own request, and that his death might be even more painful and ignominious than that of his Divine Master, he was crucified with his head downwards. [Illustration: 72 Crucifixion of St. Peter (Giotto)] In the earliest representations I have met with,[189] St. Peter is raised on the cross with his head downwards, and wears a long shirt which is fastened round his ankles. In the picture of Giotto,[190] the local circumstances, according to the first tradition, are carefully attended to: we have the cross erected between the two metæ, and about twenty soldiers and attendants; among them a woman who embraces the foot of the cross, as the Magdalene embraces the cross of the Saviour. Above are seen angels, who bear the soul of the martyred saint in a glory to heaven. Masaccio’s composition[191] is very simple; the scene is the court-yard of a military station (according to the second tradition). Peter is already nailed upon a cross; three executioners are in the act of raising it with cords and a pulley to suspend it against a great beam of wood; there are several soldiers, but no women, present. In Guido’s composition[192] there are only three figures, the apostle and two executioners; it is celebrated as a work of art, but it appeared to me most ineffective. On the other hand, Rubens has gone into the opposite extreme; there are only three persons, the principal figure filling nearly the whole of the canvas: it is full of vigour, truth, and nature; but the brutality of the two executioners, and the agony of the aged saint, too coarsely and painfully literal. These simple representations of the mere act or fact should be compared with the fresco of Michael Angelo,[193] in which the event is evolved into a grand drama. Here the scene is evidently the summit of the Mons Janiculum: in the midst of a crowd of soldiers and spectators, St. Peter lies nailed to the cross, which a number of men are exerting their utmost strength to raise from the ground. * * * * *