Gundeberg, the daughter of Theodolinda, had a similar fate to her mother in being the wife of two successive kings (Ariold and Rotharis). She also imitated her in church-building. The church of S. Giovanni in Borgo at Pavia, was erected by her.[28] It is said that after S. Michele this was the finest building of the age. It had a nave and two aisles, with a gallery over the arches. The apse had the external colonnade, and practicable gallery, and the octagonal dome. The façade, as usual, was divided into three parts, and was rich in symbolical friezes. Half-way up the façade was an ambulatory, on six double arches and small columns, which communicated with the internal galleries for the women. This was reached by two spiral stairways cut in the pilasters of the façade. (In reading this we seem to be reading over again the description of Hexham in England.) The lower half of the façade was of sandstone, the upper half of brick adorned "a cacabus," _i.e._ inlaid with various convex plates in different-coloured smalto.[29] It is a great pity that this interesting church was destroyed in 1811, and its symbolic reliefs and carved stones ruthlessly used in the foundation of modern buildings. Some were, however, saved by a nobleman of Pavia, Don Galeazzo Vitali, and are preserved in his villa between Lodi and Pavia. Here, on May 13, 1828, the Signori Sacchi[30] went to see them, and found many valuable specimens of Comacine symbolical art. Here are square slabs which may have been parts of friezes or _plutei_ (panels of marble), covered with interlaced work, formed of entwining vines, or even serpents; sometimes a simple cord in mystic and continuous knots, precisely similar to the ones recently discovered in S. Agnese and S. Clemente at Rome. There were several capitals of columns and pilasters with significant grotesques, such as a man between two lions; a maze of vines with a satyr in them, possibly an emblem of Christianity which constrains and civilizes even the wildest natures; two armed warriors on horseback meeting in battle, figuring the Church militant. (There is a similar capital in S. Stefano at Pavia.) In one, two hippogriffs meet at the angles; in another, two dragons with tails intertwined are biting a man between them placed at the angle. (The same emblem of the strife with sin is represented in S. Pietro of the "golden roof.") One is a curious symbol which would seem to be a remnant of paganism, and represents the fish goddess of Eastern religions. A woman, with only a fig-leaf for dress, has a double tail instead of legs. She holds the two ends of this dual tail, while serpents coiling into it suck her breasts--a very mystic conception of Eve. There is a very remarkable round mass of stone, with a toothed circle carved on each side, and in the circles a cross. It is said by Muratori that this stone was placed high up over the altar so that all worshippers should behold the cross.