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same buildings Sir Thomas Jackson says, “Like their coevals of Palmyra and Baalbec, they mark the era of a fresh departure in architecture which began by relaxing the rules of the styles of antiquity and ended by the development of the styles of modern Europe.” Rivoira is in substantial agreement, though he cites the mausoleum of S. Costanza, in Rome, as a contemporary example of even more striking confidence in the single, isolated column. These, however, are questions rather for the architectural expert than for the ordinary traveller, who will probably feel a certain dislike for the portico of the vestibule while heartily assenting to the colonnade of the peristyle.
   Through the arches of the peristyle is seen the octagonal mausoleum with its own octagonal peristyle. On earlier visits it was not easy to get a clear view of the mausoleum ; houses crowded it out; but a recent fire, in January of 1924, has swept away many of these, and the design of the building is now revealed, though the blackened walls bear witness to the danger of such liberation The interior of the church is very impressive. a mausoleum it naturally had little light, and even now, after the opening of an ugly square-hea e window, it still remains sombre and mysten°u>