A VISIT TO LA VERNIA 



with a train of armed servants, made for him out of 

 the branches of trees, which they cut down with their 

 swords. When the fame of the Stigmata had made 

 La Vernia sacred, and the three monks who had 

 originally accompanied Francis were daily joined by 

 new brethren who came in ever increasing numbers, 

 it was found necessary to erect a more substantial 

 building, and twenty-six years after the death of the 

 Patriarch, the convent itself, a solid structure of stone 

 capable of receiving ninety monks, was raised by the 

 alms of the faithful. 



The massive walls which, with their narrow loop- 

 holes, look like some mediaeval fortress crowning the 

 precipitous heights and seem to form part of the rock 

 itself, are said to belong to the original building, but 

 the greater portion of the first convent was destroyed 

 by fire in the fifteenth century, and rebuilt on the same 

 ground by the Florentine Guild of Cloth Merchants. 

 This august company took the convent under its 

 especial protection, and the municipality of Florence 

 have continued to exercise the same beneficent in- 

 fluence on behalf of the present Franciscan community. 



Each year the Gonfaloniere or a specially elected 

 deputy visits La Vernia on the iyth of September 

 when the festival of the Stigmata is held, and plants 

 the standard of Florence at the convent gates. It 

 is partly owing to this protection and partly to the 



