In the year 1854 a
gang of navvies who were excavating a dock between the railway station
and the Corsini Canal, some two hundred yards perhaps from the
mausoleum, and on the site of an old cemetery, came upon a skeleton
"armed with a golden cuirass, a sword by its side, and a golden helmet
upon its head. In the hilt of the sword and in the helmet large jewels
were blazing." Most of this booty they disposed of, but a few pieces
were recovered and these are now in the Museo. It might seem that this
can have been none other than the body of the great Gothic king.
Indeed Dr. Ricci finds the ornament upon the armour to be similar to
the decoration upon the cornice of the mausoleum. If this be so it
puts the matter almost beyond doubt.
Theodoric was not allowed to rest in the mighty tomb that Latin genius
had built for him; but for ages many, famous and distinguished in
their day, sought to lie under a monument so splendid. The place
became a sort of pantheon. Long before then, however, it had been
consecrated as a church, S. Maria della Rotonda, and a Benedictine
monastery had been founded close by whose monks served it.
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