Anastasius, the librarian, gives an account of the rebuilding of the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin.[80] He says that Adrian found it absolutely beneath a pile of ruins (_sub ruinis positam_) of a former temple to Ceres and Proserpine, which literally hung over it. As this mass of ruin prevented the enlargement of the new church, it was entirely demolished "by fire, and by the labours of the people." The space being cleared, a new and spacious Basilica was erected "a fundamentis tres absides, in ea constituens." The writer mentions this form with three apses as being new in Rome. We have, however, seen that in the north of Italy the Comacines had been, for the past century or two, building Basilican churches on precisely this plan. In fact the three round apses had become one of the special marks of their churches. Cattaneo argues that the form came from the East, as some of the Syrian churches of the fifth century and the great Basilica of St. Simeon Stylites at Kaiat Senian, erected in 500, have signs of the same conformation. Whether these were of absolutely Oriental origin, or the result of some early emigration of the _liberi muratori_, archæologists must judge. The two rows of columns which divide the nave from the aisles, have solid piers of masonry interposed between each three columns; these are elongated above the colonnade to support the roof, and strengthen the upper gallery.[81] It is evident that the Comacines availed themselves of old material in this work; the columns are of all species and styles, some fluted, some smooth, some with antique Corinthian capitals, others of Comacine work. One is of the same form as those we have described in S. Maria Matricolare at Verona, with solid volutes, placed perpendicularly, instead of the graceful acanthus. The same capital is seen in S. Agnese fuori le mura. There is in S. Maria in Cosmedin a very interesting fragment of the Comacine decoration of the time when Adrian I. was the patron of the guild. It is a bit of cornice, formed of a little colonnade of round arches; beneath it an inscription in a curious early style, the letters all sizes and shapes. It runs-- "DE DON IS D͠I ET S͠CE D͠I GENETRICIS MARIÆ. TEMPORIBUS DO͞NI ADRIANI PAPE EGO GREGORIUS." I have seen another fragment during the recent restorations. A fine _intreccio_ on a marble slab in one of the pulpits, which had been reversed and inlaid on the other side in thirteenth-century mosaic. The church of S. Saba on Mount Aventine, which was also built under Adrian I., has every mark of Comacine work, especially in the mediæval and unclassic form of capitals. Probably the supply of ancient capitals fell short after the building of the other churches, and the builders had to supply them with their own chisels. They made a rude imitation of the Ionic form, as far from the classic grace of the original, as their plain hard volutes were from the elegance of the Corinthian.