Chapter XV: The Borgo and St. Peter's (3)

In the interior of the building is a lofty hall, with gloomy frescoes of Dominican saints,--and many terrible dungeons and cells in which the victim is unable to stand upright, having their vaulted ceilings lined with reeds, to deaden sound,--but all this is seldom seen. When the people rushed into the Inquisition at the revolution, a number of human bones were found in these vaults, which so excited the popular fury, that an attack on the Dominican convent at the Minerva was anticipated. Ardent defenders of the papacy maintain that these bones had been previously transported to the Inquisition from a cemetery, to get up a sensation.[341]

Built up into the back of this palace is the tribune of the _Church of S. Salvatore in Torrione or in Macello_, whose foundation is ascribed to Charlemagne (797). Senerano (Sette Chiese) supposes that the French had here their schola or special centre for worship and assemblage. The windows of this building are among the few examples of gothic in Rome, and there are good terra-cotta mouldings. It may best be seen from the _Porta Cavalleggieri_, which was designed by Sangallo, and derives its name from the cavalry barracks close by.

A short distance from the lower end of the Colonnade is the _Church of S. Michaele in Sassia_, whose handsome tower is a relic of the church founded by Leo IV., who built the walls of the Borgo, especially for funeral masses for the souls of those who fell in its defence against the Saracens. Raphael Mengs is buried in the modern church.

The name of this church commemorates the Saxon settlement "called Burgus Saxonum, Vicus Saxonum, Schola Saxonum, and simply Saxia or Sassia,"[342] founded _c._ 727 by Ina, king of Wessex, and enlarged in 794 by Offa, king of Mercia, when he made a pilgrimage to Rome in penance for the murder of Ethelbert, king of East-Anglia. Ina founded here a church, "Sta. Maria quæ vocatur Schola Saxorum," which is mentioned as late as 854. Dyer (Hist. of the City of Rome) says that "when Leo IV. enclosed this part of the city, it obtained the name of Borgo, from the Burgus Saxonum, and one of the gates was called Saxonum Posterula. The 'Schola Francorum' was also in the Borgo."