Some also subsisted on the lucky possession of a fetish, an idol compassionate to human sufferings.
Santa Maria in Ara Coeli possessed the miraculous little Jesus, the "Bambino," who healed sick children, and Sant' Agostino had the "Madonna del Parto," who grants a happy delivery to mothers.

Then others were renowned for the holy water of their fonts, the oil of their lamps, the power of some wooden saint or marble virgin.

Others again seemed forsaken, given up to tourists and the perquisites of beadles, like mere museums peopled with dead gods: Finally others disturbed one's faith by the suggestiveness of their aspects, as, for instance, that Santa Maria Rotonda, which is located in the Pantheon, a circular hall recalling a circus, where the Virgin remains the evident tenant of the Olympian deities.
Pierre took no little interest in the churches of the poor districts, but did not find there the keen faith and the throngs he had hoped for.

One afternoon, at Santa Maria in Trastevere, he heard the choir in full song, but the church was quite empty, and the chant had a most lugubrious sound in such a desert.

Then, another day, on entering San Crisogono, he found it draped, probably in readiness for some festival on the morrow.