Note 2 — Chapter IV · POPE DAMASUS AND THE BEGINNING OF RHYME.

See Dr. Dollinger’s Fables respecting the Popes in the Middle Ages (New York, 1872), pp. 183-209. In 1582 Gregory XIII. was on the point of expunging his name from the Roman Martyrology, as Baronius had proven that he was neither a pope nor a martyr, but had died peaceably on his own estate near Rome. But the discovery of a stone with an inscription asserting his martyrdom turned the scale the other way. Modern scholarship stigmatizes the inscription as a fraud, and it is notable that the stone has disappeared.