"'Masaccio,' says Vasari, 'whose enthusiasm for art would not allow him to rest contentedly at Florence, resolved to go to Rome, that he might learn there to surpass every other painter.' It was during this journey, which, in fact, added much to his renown, that he painted, in the Church of San Clemente--the chapel which now so usually disappoints the expectations of the traveller, on account of the successive restorations by which his work has been disfigured.... The heavy brush which has passed over each compartment has spared neither the delicacy of the outline, the roundness of the forms, nor the play of light and shade: in a word, nothing which constitutes the peculiar merit of Masaccio."--_Rio, Poetry of Christian Art._ At the end of the right aisle is the beautiful tomb of Cardinal Rovarella, ob. 1476. A statue of St. John the Baptist is by Simone, brother of Donatello. Beneath the altar repose the relics of St. Clement, St. Ignatius of Antioch--martyred in the Coliseum, St. Cyril, and St. Servulus. "'The Fathers are in dust, yet live to God:' So says the Truth; as if the motionless clay Still held the seeds of life beneath the sod, Smouldering and struggling till the judgment-day. "And hence we learn with reverence to esteem Of these frail houses, though the grave confines: Sophist may urge his cunning tests, and deem That they are earth;--but they are heavenly shrines." _J. H. Newman_, 1833. "St. Grégoire raconte que de son temps on voyait dans le vestibule de l'église Saint Clément un pauvre paralytique, priant et mendiant, sans que jamais une plainte sortît de sa bouche, malgré les vives douleurs qu'il endurait. Chaque fidèle lui donnait, et le paralytique distribuait à son tour, aux malheureux ce qu'il avait reçu de la compassion publique. Lorsqu'il mourut, son corps fut placé près de celui de Saint Clément, pape, et de Saint Ignace d'Antioche, et son nom fut inscrit au martyrologe. On le vénère dans l'Eglise sous le nom de Saint Servulus."--_Une Chrétienne à Rome._ The mosaics in the tribune are well worth examination.