A VISIT TO LA VERNIA 
great convent church. As we entered, two monks 
were officiating at the high altar, while another played 
the organ, and from the choir at the easternmost end 
of the church came the rich, full voices of the Brothers 
Minor chanting the office. 
Immediately service was over, a courteous and 
intelligent friar advanced to greet us, and finding we 
could not accept his offer to spend the night at La 
Vernia, conducted us at once over the convent in 
company with the peasants who had arrived that 
morning. 
The chief conventual buildings are grouped round 
a paved courtyard which we enter by a narrow gate¬ 
way. Near this spot is the chapel of S. Maria degli 
Angeli, the first church raised on the mountain, and 
begun in the days of Francis, from whom it received 
the name of his own beloved Porziuncula at Assisi. 
The ancient wooden desks at which the monks recited 
their offices are still to be seen here, and a Della 
Robbia relief representing the Virgin when she ap¬ 
peared to St. Bonaventura and gave him the measure 
of the chapel which was built in exact accordance 
with her directions, and has to this day remained 
unaltered. 
When the community became too numerous to 
worship in this small chapel, another Count of Chiusi 
began the great church, which was completed in 1445 
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