[Illustration: 35. DUOMO. AQUILEJA. p. 244.]
to be owing to the large amount of white in the panels. Near the west end of the north aisle is a singular circular erection, which is said by the cicerone to be the receptacle for the holy oil, but which without this information I should have taken for the baptistery. It is a perfectly plain circular mass of stonework about fifteen feet across, with a doorway on the west side, a moulded base and cornice, and above the latter a series of detached shafts carrying a second cornice of marble. A square projection on the north side abuts against the aisle wall, and seems to have been the special receptacle for the vessel which held the oil. At present it seems to be as little used and understood by the people of Aquileja as it would probably be if it were in some country beyond the Roman pale; a remark by the way on old church arrangements which one finds oneself making almost everywhere, when one contrasts the intentions of the old builders with the uses to which more modern ideas--reformed or deformed, whichever they may be--are in the habit of applying them.
At Aquileja the appropriation of pagan fragments was carried so far that we found Classic capitals doing service as holy-water stoups.
The interior of the eastern part of the church is more interesting than that of the nave. It is all probably of the original foundation, and retains most of the old arrangements. The floor of the choir is raised some ten or twelve steps, with two flights of steps on each side of the centre. At the top of these steps, projecting sideways into the transepts, are tribunes with open balustrades which seem to have served as ambons. The apse has two rows of seats, with the patriarch's seat raised in the centre, and the altar stands in front of this on the chord of the apse. It is curious that this, which is an apse internally, is a square projection from the transept externally.
A descent on each side under the tribunes leads to the crypt under the raised choir. This is very small, but is divided into three aisles in width, and four bays in length. The central space is screened round jealously with close grilles reaching from floor to vault, so as to protect the shrine of S. Hermacora, which occupies the centre. But little light steals into this crypt, and that little has to find its way between rank weeds which grow up round the windows; but there is quite enough to reveal vaults covered with paintings of subjects, and to show as picturesque and beautiful an _ensemble_ as one need wish to see. Kneeling desks were placed round the shrine, but the cultus of S. Hermacora seems to be no longer popular, and the only pilgrims are curious visitors like ourselves. The paintings on the groining appeared to me to be of not earlier date than the fourteenth century, and are very cleverly contrived to suit the early vaults.