Close to the end of this street, built into the wall of a house in the Via di Marforio, is one of the few relics of republican times in the city,--a Doric _Tomb_, bearing an inscription which states that it was erected by order of the people on land granted by the Senate to Caius Publicius Bibulus, the plebeian ædile, and his posterity. Petrarch mentions in one of his letters that he wrote one of his sonnets leaning against the tomb of Bibulus.
This tomb has a secondary interest as marking the commencement of the Via Flaminia, as it stood just outside the Porta Ratumena from whence that road issued. There are some obscure remains of another tomb on the other side of the street. The Via Flaminia, like the Via Appia, was once fringed with tombs.
From the Ripresa dei Barberi, a street passing under an arch on the right, leads to the back of the Venetian Palace, where is the _Church of S. Marco_, originally founded in the time of Constantine, but rebuilt in 833, and modernized by Cardinal Quirini in 1744. Its portico, which is lined with early Christian inscriptions, contains a fine fifteenth century doorway, surmounted by a figure of St. Mark. The interior is in the form of a basilica, its naves and aisles separated by twenty columns, and ending in an apse. The best pictures are S. Marco, "a pope enthroned, by _Carlo Crivelli_, resembling in sharpness of finish and individuality the works of Bartolomeo Viviani,"[18] and a Resurrection by _Palma Giovane_.
"The mosaics of S. Marco, executed under Pope Gregory IV. (A.D. 827--844), with all their splendour, exhibit the utmost poverty of expression. Above the tribune, in circular compartments, is the portrait of Christ between the symbols of the Evangelists, and further below SS. Peter and Paul (or two prophets) with scrolls; within the tribune, beneath a hand extended with a wreath, is the standing figure of Christ with an open book, and on either side, S. Angelo and Pope Gregory IV. Further on, but still belonging to the dome, are the thirteen lambs, forming a second and quite uneven circle round the figures. The execution is here especially rude, and of true Byzantine rigidity, while, as if the artist knew that his long lean figures were anything but secure upon their feet, he has given them each a separate little pedestal. The lines of the drapery are chiefly straight and parallel, while, with all this rudeness, a certain play of colour has been contrived by the introduction of high lights of another colour."--_Kugler._