ROME

During the Lombard invasions, aqueducts had been destroyed, churches had been looted,
and catacombs had been broken into and bones and sacred relics carried off. Several
times the Tiber had burst its banks and the swirling waters had flooded over the fields
and into the streets. Pope Hadrian I, a Roman aristocrat by birth, had raised a large
labour force in the countryside and had set about repairing the damage, restoring
Rome's water supply, extending the city's welfare system, rebuilding the Aurelian Walls
and their fortified towers, improving agriculture on the large estates of the Church
beyond them, and clearing the debris out of the catacombs from which cartloads of
bones and relics were drawn into Rome to be re-buried in consecrated ground.
Numerous churches were renovated and several were adorned with rich furnishings,
curtains and candelabra; silver paving was installed at St Peter's, together with a
chandelier with over a thousand lights.