A few examples of such libraries may be cited; but, before doing so, I must mention the Record-Office (_Archivum_), erected by Pope Damasus (366-384). It was connected with the Basilica of S. Lawrence, which Damasus built in the Campus Martius, near the theatre of Pompey. On the front of the Basilica, over the main entrance, was an inscription, which ended with the three following lines: ARCHIVIS FATEOR VOLUI NOVA CONDERE TECTA ADDERE PRAETEREA DEXTRA LAEVAQUE COLUMNAS QUAE DAMASI TENEANT PROPRIUM PER SAECULA NOMEN. I confess that I have wished to build a new abode for Archives; and to add columns on the right and left to preserve the name of Damasus for ever. These enigmatical verses contain all that we know, or are ever likely to know, respecting this building, which is called _chartarium ecclesiae Romanae_ by S. Jerome[106], and unquestionably held the official documents of the Latin Church until they were removed to the Lateran in the seventh century. The whole building, or group of buildings, was destroyed in 1486 by Cardinal Raphael Riario, the dissolute nephew of Sixtus IV., to make room for his new palace, now called Palazzo della Cancelleria, and the church was rebuilt on a new site. The connexion with Pope Damasus is maintained by the name, S. Lorenzo in Damaso. No plan of the old buildings, or contemporary record of their arrangement, appears to exist. My only reason for drawing attention to a structure which has no real connexion with my subject is that the illustrious De Rossi considers that in the second line of the above quotation the word column signifies colonnades; and that Damasus took as his model one of the great pagan libraries of Rome which, in its turn, had been derived from the typical library at Pergamon[107]. According to this view he began by building, in the centre of the area selected, a basilica, or hall of basilican type, dedicated to S. Lawrence; and then added, on the north and south sides, a colonnade or loggia from which the rooms occupied by the records would be readily accessible. This opinion is also held by Signor Lanciani, who follows De Rossi without hesitation. I am unwilling to accept a theory which seems to me to have no facts to support it; and find it safer to believe that the line in question refers either to the aisles of the basilica, or to such a portico in front of it as may be seen at San Clemente and other early churches. A letter to Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons in A.D. 441, from a correspondent named Rusticus, gives a charming picture of a library which he had visited in his young days, say about A.D. 400: