ITALIAN GARDENS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
Bibbiena doctor, who had ridden up that morning to 
see a sick monk, and had brought his little girl with 
him on her first visit to La Vernia. It was touching 
to see the delight and amusement with which the 
monks gathered round the child, asking her name, 
patting her curly head, and feeding and petting her 
in the fondest manner. Naturally enough, they 
seemed to hail gladly any communication with the 
outer world, and a venerable-looking old brother who 
had weathered the snows and frosts of more than 
eighty winters in this desolate abode, amused us by 
the eagerness with which he asked our friend the 
doctor, “ What news in Bibbiena ? ” Although so 
remote a place to us, the little mountain town was 
evidently to him the centre of life and business. 
Later in the day we ascended the highest point 
of the mountain, a rock called La Penna. Passing 
under an arched gateway behind the church, and 
leaving the long low building which contains the 
friars’ cells on our left, we crossed a woodyard, where 
two brothers were sawing planks of timber, and came 
out into the bosco of fine beech-trees and tall pines, 
where the birds of old sang to Francis, while Orlando’s 
men-at-arms cut down logs to build his first rude 
huts. The view from the chapel on the summit is 
magnificent. On the one side we looked down upon 
Tuscany, on the other on Umbria and the March of 
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