for no reason that has yet been discovered. The actual church of S. Fermo dates from about the year 1065, but the oldest part of it is the crypt which boasts of a very great antiquity. From the archæologist’s and historian’s point of view the chief interest attaching to S. Fermo centres round this crypt, and they ascribe some portions of it to at least the second half of the eighth century. The different styles of architecture and of fresco-painting in this subterranean church are of all-engrossing matter; and hours might be spent here pondering over the ascendancy of Greek, Roman, Lombard, and Christian art, and deciphering the unmistakable signs that tell how, even in the ninth century, this lower church was decorated with the crude and primitive paintings then coming into vogue. The carvings representing in rude outline the cross in various shape, the fish, and other allegorical symbols point, as far as date is concerned, to a very early period of Christianity, and confirm the generally accepted belief that the crypt was the work of the very first Christians, and built at the moment of the suppression of paganism. To return however to the church. The interior is striking and beautiful. It consists of a single nave; no aisles are included in the plan, and it is crowned by a magnificent roof made of larch, and shaped like the ribbing of a ship, with paintings and carvings introduced at every possible coign of vantage. The church was first built for the Benedictines in the eleventh century as has been said. Two hundred years later it was transferred to the Franciscans, and it underwent considerable additions and alterations both at their hands, and again in the early part of the fourteenth century. These works were largely helped on by the piety and generosity of Daniele Gusman, the prior of S. Fermo, and by Guglielmo da Castelbarco who, as has been seen, did so much for St Anastasia, and whose tomb standing outside that church has already been described. Here too his memory has been perpetuated in a fresco over the archway to the right and left of the high altar, where he on one side, and Prior Gusman on the other are represented “offering willingly to the Lord.” The doubt as to who is the author of these frescoes is still unsolved. For a long time they were attributed to Giotto; and though Crowe and Cavalcaselle say that none of his work done in S. Fermo is left, they admit that the fresco of Castelbarco presenting the church of S. Fermo is by a different hand to the other frescoes in the church--these latter being all by Veronese masters.