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It was S. Romolo who first brought the gospel to Pistoja, and the tradition is that he converted a temple built by the Romans to the God Mars into a church, on the spot where now the Duomo stands, and indeed in 1599 certain inscriptions were found, and the capitals of some Roman columns. It is generally thought that a church was built here in the early part of the fifth century, dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, on whose day Stilicho, that Roman general who was by birth a Vandal, gained a victory over Radaugasius and his army of some 400,000 Goths, who had ravaged the country as far as Florence in 406. However this may be, in 589 the church was finally rebuilt, and certainly re-dedicated to S. Zenone, the Bishop of Verona, who, so it was said, had saved the Pistojese from the floods by breaking through the Gonfolina Pass, that narrow defile beyond Signa through which the Arno flows, with the Ombrone in her bosom, into the Empolese. After being dedicated at various times to many saints, in 1443 it was given to S. Zenone, whose name it still bears. The present church is for the most part a work of the twelfth century, and certainly not the work of Niccolò Pisano. The façade, like the rest of the church, has suffered an unfortunate restoration. The marble loggia is a work of the fifteenth century, and the two statues are, one of S. Jacopo, by Scarpellino, the other of S. Zenone, by Andrea Vacc
Whatever religious revolutions may await us, we are not likely to see St. Paul's Cathedral solemnly re-dedicated to the worship of John Bull. He and his sister divinity, Mrs. Grundy, have never lacked adorers in that basilica; but their cult is probably not on the increase. The Invisible King, on the other hand, is a personage to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
The Madeleine is another of these hybrid churches, begun by D'Ivry as a church, completed as a temple to victory by Napoleon, and on second thoughts, re-dedicated to God. After strolling about a while, the sexton, or some official of the church, asked us if we did not want to go down into the vaults below.
Why had she pressed just all those matters home on him which he had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget? It was a little cruel, surely, that temptation should assail him thus, and the white road towards Perfection be made so difficult to tread, just when he had re-dedicated himself and renewed his vows? He looked after her.
He remained only six years. He was a great builder. It was during his time that the minster was solemnly re-dedicated. This abbot made no less than three visits to Rome.
On learning that I was an American, he asked me to accompany him to his village, saying that Kirmes had come, the great jubilee season of the year when all the churches were being re-dedicated, after which ceremony the people would go to the public houses and keep up dancing and drinking wine and beer from Sunday noon till Monday night, and that I could therefore see a great many Palatinates together in his town I asked him what hotel accommodations their town had; to which he replied that there were several hotels and he would conduct me to a good one.
The church at Knoxville has been enlarged and is practically new. It will soon be re-dedicated. The church at Pine Mountain is a year old; is already the center of four Sunday-schools, with an attendance of 415 children, only 10 of whom had ever been in a Sunday-school before.
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