FROM ACRE TO NAZARETH. 149 
remarkable, as it was certainly one of the state- chap. 
liest edifices in the Holij Land. Quaresmiusy ■»■ - y ^ 
who published in the seventeenth century a 
copious and elaborate description of the Holy 
Land", has afforded all the information we can 
obtain concerning the form of this building; 
but even his account is avowedly derived from 
a survey of its ruins. Speaking of the city, he 
expresses himself to the following effect^ : " It 
now exhibits a scene of ruin and desolation, 
consisting only of peasants' habitations, and 
sufficiently manifests, in its remains, the 
splendour of the antient city. Considered as 
the native place of Joachim and Anna, the 
parents of the Firgin, it is renowTied, and 
worthy of being visited. Upon the spot where 
(2) This work is very little known. It was printed at Jntuerp in 
1639, in two large folio volumes, containing some excellent engrav- 
ings, under the title of /' Historia Theologicn et Mornlis Terra Sanctce 
Elucidatio." Qlaresmius was a Franciscan friar of Lodi in Jtali/, and 
once Apostolic Commissary and Prases of the Holy Land. He had 
therefore every opportunity, from his situation, as well as his own actual 
observation, to illustrate the ecclesiastical antiquities of the country, 
(3) " Nunc diruta et desolata jacet, rusticanas dumtaxat continens 
domos, et multas objiciens oculis ruinas; quibus intelligitur quam eximia 
olim extiterit urbs. Celebris est, et digna ut visitetur, quod credatur patria 
Joachim et Annce, sanctorum Dei Genitricis parentum. Et in loco ubi 
Joachim domus erat fuit postea illustris cedificata Ecclesia ex quadratis 
lapidibus : duos habebat ordines columnarum, quibus triplicis navis testudo 
fulciebatur : in capite tres habebat capellas, in prsesentia in ^fnllrorum 
domunculas accommodatas." Quaresmii Elucid. Terr. Sanct. lib, vii. 
eo}), 5. torn. W.p. 852. 
