lance still remained at S. John’s in Constantinople, as Buondelmount, who saw it, bears witness.  When Mahomet subdued Costantinople, he preserved all the relics, as Theodore cited by Benedict XIV relates in his history of the Turks, and his son Bajazet sent an ambassador with the relics of the lance to Pope Innocent VIII, in order to induce his Holiness not to protect Zizimus, who disputed with him the succession to the Turkish throne.  The Pope received it with great reverence, and placed it in the Vatican.  As some suspicion was entertained about the veracity of the Turkish ambassador, Benedict XIV, as he mentions in his very learned work on the Canonisation of the Saints, from which I have extracted this account, sent for an exact cast of the point preserved at Paris, which perfectly corresponded with the piece preserved in the Vatican; and thus were confirmed the assertion of the Turk[107].

[Sidenote:  3. Volto Santo.]

3.  As for the Volto Santo, or image of our Saviour it was placed in an Oratory of the Vatican Basilica by John VII as long ago as 707, as may be seen in Marlinetti, Dei pregii della Basilica Vat.  Who S. Veronica or Berenice was, who is said to have wiped our Saviour’s face with the handkerchief is another question, as Benedict XIV observes, to whom and to Marlinetti I shall content myself with referring.  It appears that this ancient likeness of our Saviour was afterwards kept at S. Spirito:  six Roman noblemen had the care of it; and to each of them was confided on of the six keys, with which it was locked up.  They enjoyed various privileges, and among others, says an ancient MS. Chronicle quoted by Cancellieri, “havevano questi sei ogni anno, da Santo Spirito, due vacche in die S. Spiritus le quali se magnavano li con gran festa”.  In 1410 the Volto Santo was carried back to S. Peter’s, where it has ever since remained[108].

[Sidenote:  Reflections.]

The Council of Trent, in the 25th Session, teaches that veneration and honour are due to relics of the Saints, and that they and other sacred monuments are honoured by the faithful not without utility.  We all honour the memorials of the great, of the wise and of the brave; who has not venerated the oak of a Tasso or the house of a Shakespeare?  While We revere the relics of a Borromeo at Milan, of a Francois de Sales at Annecy, of a Luigi Gonzaga, a Filippo Neri, a Camillo de Lellis at Rome, others respect the chair and table of Wickliffe at Lutterworth, or the room of Luther at Eisenach.  If infidels unite in paying homage to the house of the impious philosopher of Ferney, let all Christians, however they may be otherwise unhappily divided, join in shewing their respect for the image of their Saviour, and for those instruments which touched his sacred body, and were sanctified by his precious blood.  O let them gaze with reverential awe on that lance which entering into his adorable side drew from it