Julia was buried secretly and at night by his direction, and naught remained in the Capitol but her empty marble coffin.

The tale, as told by Infessura, is repeated in Matarazzo and in Nantiporto with slight variations.

One says that the girl's hair was yellow, another that it was of the glossiest black.

What foundation for the legend may really have existed need not here be questioned.

Let us rather use the mythus as a parable of the ecstatic devotion which prompted the men of that age to discover a form of unimaginable beauty in the tomb of the classic world.[1] [1] The most remarkable document regarding the body of Julia which has yet been published is a Latin letter, written by Bartholomaeus Fontius to his friend Franciscus Saxethus, minutely describing her, with details which appear to prove that he had not only seen but handled the corpse.