The patron saint of the church is S. Fermo, who together with S. Rustico, suffered martyrdom early in the fourth century. Their bodies first buried in the crypt were afterwards placed under the high altar in the church, where they were at all events safe from those inundations of the Adige that so often wrought havoc to the town, and that in their impetuosity respected neither saint nor sanctuary. The festival of the martyred saints is held on the 9th of August. The beautiful exterior of the apse and belfry can be well seen and studied on the way to the Palazzo Pompei. This palace contains the Museo Civico and the Picture Gallery, and stands on the other side of the Adige. The way to it lies across the Ponte delle Navi, a modern bridge built to replace the one set up in 1373 by Cansignorio, which was swept away in the inundation of 1757. It must seem ungracious on the part of a visitor, and of one too who has received much kindness and courtesy in the town, to complain of the arrangements and methods customary in the public buildings of Verona. But the way in which the works of art are kept and treated is lamentable in the extreme, and the disregard and indifference as to those treasures cannot but evoke feelings of surprise, indignation, and regret. The Palazzo Pompei, a fine Doric building designed by San Micheli, was bequeathed by its late owner to the city for a picture gallery; and that it was never built or intended for the purpose to which it is now put may perhaps serve as some excuse for its total inadequacy. The rooms are small; the windows so placed that a great deal of light falls on some pictures leaving others in darkness, and threatening besides to ruin paintings exposed for hours on bright days to a flood of unmitigated and uncurtained sunshine. The ground-floor consists of a collection of the most varied kind: there are Etruscan and Roman remains; prehistoric antiquities from the Lake of Garda; marble vases and sculptures, coins, utensils belonging to the prehistoric, bronze, and iron ages; mediæval statues in stone and in bronze; a large array of capitals, columns, and fragments of buildings and fortifications that have been dug up at recent excavations and brought here, and casts of modern works. The great inundation of the Adige in 1882, which is answerable for so much damage in Verona is also held responsible for the state of disorder to which this heterogeneous mass is reduced. The flood disarranged the Museum; and time and money do not yet seem to have been found wherewith to repair the mischief then caused.