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 17th 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 
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