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Page 46
For a century the friars labored in building their convent to
accommodate the needs of their ever-increasing numbers: the one vast
cloister was not enough, and another was added; the primitive chapel was
enlarged into a stately church, and the abbey walls were extended until,
enclosing the garden, they covered the entire promontory. Then they
ceased from their labors, and began to establish other monasteries and
send out swarms from the mother-hive to fill them, until the executive
and administrative ability to govern a small kingdom had to be supplied
from their numbers, and manual work had to give way to mental.
Another century found the abbey governed by men of culture and lovers of
the fine arts; and the celebrated painted cloister, the intarsia-work,
and the wooden sculptures, which now attract so many visitors, date from
that time. Nearly all the movable works of art, the pictures,
illuminated missals, and precious manuscripts, were confiscated at the
time of the first suppression under Napoleon, in 1810; and whatever else
could be carried off went in 1866, when the religious orders were
suppressed by the Italian government, to embellish the museums. Still,
the empty cloister, with Signorelli's and Sodoma's frescos on the walls,
Fra Giovanni of Verona's intarsia-work in the church, and the solitary
monastery itself, so silent after centuries of activity, have an
inexpressible charm, and travellers who undertake a pilgrimage hither
can never forget their impressions.
On a sunny autumn afternoon three ladies left Siena in a light wagon,
and drove over the gray upland, which was shrouded in a pale blue mist,
through the picturesque hamlet of Buonconvento. Here they changed their
horse and left the Roman highway for the road cut in the rocks five
centuries ago by the monks of Monte Oliveto. These pious men understood
little of engineering, of the art of throwing bridges across ravines.
Their road simply followed the course pointed out by nature, winding in
serpentine folds through the labyrinth of chasms which begin at
Buonconvento.
It was toward evening when the party drove over a narrow bridge across a
half-filled moat, and under the arch of a massive crenellated tower
whose unguarded gates stood wide open. A hundred years ago they would
have found the portcullis drawn, and, being women, if they had attempted
to force an entrance would have been excommunicated, for until the
suppression no woman's foot was allowed across this threshold. The tower
was built as a protection against bandits, and the grated windows which
give it a sinister look to-day lighted the cells of refractory brothers,
placed here to catch the eye of novices as they entered the outer portal
and serve as a silent warning.
The convent was still invisible, and our three visitors were speculating
on what they would find at the end of the grass-grown _all�e_ bordered
with cypresses, when they saw, in a ravine below, a white-robed figure
hastening toward them.
"That must be the Padre Abbate," one of them exclaimed. "I hope he has
received our padre's letter telling of our coming, for it would be worse
than an attack of the bandits of old, our falling upon him at this hour
on a Saturday evening without any warning."
They had alighted in front of the church when the padre arrived quite
out of breath,--a tall, stately old man, with white hair flowing over
the turned-back cowl of his spotless white robe. If they had known
nothing of him before, his courtly manner and easy reception would have
revealed his noble lineage.
"Be welcome, be welcome, my daughters, to the lonely Thebaid. I have
received the padre's letter, and am happy to receive his friends as my
honored guests for a month, if you can support the solitude so long," he
added, smiling. "And, now, which is the signora, and which the Signorina
Giulia and the Signorina Margherita?"
"I am the signora," said one of the three, laughing, the last one would
have suspected of being a matron. She had lost her husband at twenty,
and her four years of European travel had been a seeking after
forgetfulness, until she had grown to be satisfied with the
companionship of two gentle women artists, who, absorbed in their
vocation, walked in God's ways and were blessed with peace and
happiness.
After each had found her place and name in the padre's pure, soft Tuscan
accent, he led the way to the convent door, apologizing for the meagre
hospitality he could offer them. "Would the signore like some bread and
wine before supper?" What could they know of the hours in an abbey,
where it was an almost unheard-of distinction to be received as personal
guests, tourists in general having their own refectory set apart for
them during their stay? and so they declined. They had by this time
reached a low, arched side-door, which grated on its hinges after the
padre had turned the huge key in the rusty lock and opened it. They
entered a wide stone vestibule, and found themselves opposite another
arched door set in arabesque stone carvings: the flags echoed under
their feet as they turned to the right and traversed a low, vaulted
passage that ended in an open cloister. An arched gallery ran round the
four sides, held up by slender, dark stone pillars, above which was a
row of small arched cell windows. The court was paved with flags, and in
the centre was a well, divested of pulley and rope. An impression of
melancholy began to weigh upon the guests, when a great shaggy dog came
springing toward them, barking. The padre quieted him with, "Down, Piro!
down!" adding, "He is very good, though his manner is a little rough: he
is not used to ladies. But he will not be so impolite again, I am sure."
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