between tremendous crags clothed with evergreens, has been a sanctuary to poet and painter.

Hither, four centuries after the time of Nero, when the recollection of his orgies had long passed away, a youth sprung from the noble family of the Anicii, which later on also gave to the Church Gregory the Great, fled from the seductions of Rome, to seek repose for his soul, with God alone for his companion. His name was Benedictus, or 'the blessed.' He was only fourteen when he renounced his fortune, his family, and the world. It was to La Mentorella that he first fled, and thither he was followed by his faithful nurse, Cyrilla, who could not bear to think that the child of her affections was alone and uncared for, who begged for him, and prepared his food. Some neighbour had lent her a stone sieve to make bread, after the manner of the mountain district; she let it fall out of her hands, and it was broken to pieces. Moved by her distress, Benedict prayed over the fragments, and they are said to have been instantly joined together. This was his first miracle. Terrified at the excitement it caused, and at seeing the sieve hung up in the village church as a relic, Benedict evaded the solicitude of his nurse, and escaped unseen by anyone to the gorge of Subiaco, where he found (c. 480) a cave in the rocks above the falls of the Anio, into which not even a ray of the sun could penetrate. Here he lived, his hiding-place unknown to anyone, except to Romanus, a monk who dwelt with a colony of anchorites, founded by S. Clement on the ruins of Nero's villa. By him he was provided with a garment made of the skin of a beast, and each day Romanus let down to him from the top of the rock the half of his daily loaf, giving him notice of its approach by the ringing of a bell suspended to the same rope with the food. It is said that when the devil wished to make himself particularly disagreeable to Benedict he would playfully cut the cord which supplied him. His hiding-place was discovered by a miracle. A village priest seated at a banquet of Easter luxuries had a revelation that while he was thus feasting a certain servant of God was pining with hunger, and his steps were miraculously directed to the hermitage. Benedict refused to eat the delicate food, until convinced that it was indeed the festival of Easter. The priest told what he had seen to the shepherds, who, while following their goats along one of the pathlets still to be seen, had descried a strange creature with unkempt hair, and nails like claws, and taking it for a wild beast, had fled from it in terror. They were now reassured by his gentle words, and from that day, while they watched their flocks, he began to instil into their rude and ignorant minds the light of the Christian faith. Gradually their report became spread abroad, pilgrims flocked from all quarters to the valley, and through the disciples who gathered round Benedict, this desolate ravine became the cradle of monastic life in the West.

The life of Benedict, from infancy to death, is the most perfect illustration of the motives which then worked upon the mind of man. In him meet and

combine together all those influences which almost divided mankind into recluses or coenobites and those who pursued an active life; as well as all the effects-in his case the best effects-produced by this phasis of human thought and feeling. Benedict, it was said, was born at that time, like a sun to dispel the Cimmerian darkness which brooded over Christendom, and to revive the expiring spirit of monasticism. His age acknowledged Benedict as the perfect type of the highest religion, and Benedict impersonated his age.

How perfectly the whole atmosphere was then impregnated with an inexhaustible yearning for the supernatural, appears from the ardour with which the monastic passions were indulged at the earliest age. Children were nursed and trained to expect at every instant more than human interferences their young energies had ever before them examples of asceticism, to which it was the glory, the true felicity of life, to aspire. The thoughtful child had all his mind thus preoccupied; he was early, it might almost seem intuitively, trained to this course of life; wherever there was gentleness, modesty, the timidity of young passion, repugnance to vice, an imaginative temperament, a consciousness of unfitness to wrestle with the rough realities of life-the way lay invitingly open-the difficult, it is true, and painful, but direct and unerring way to heaven. It lay through perils, but was made attractive by perpetual wonders; it was awful, but in its awfulness lay its power over the young mind. It learned to trample down that last bond which united the child to common humanity, filial reverence; the fond and mysterious attachment of the child and the mother, the inborn reverence of the son to the father.'-Milman, ' Latin Christianity.'

Twelve monasteries speedily arose amid these peaks and gorges, each only containing twelve monks, for it was an idea of Benedict that a large number led to idleness and neglect. The names of several of these institutions recall their romantic situations, and they were the scenes of the miracles attributed to the founder and his disciples. S. Clemente della Vigna was the place whither Maurus and Placidus were brought to Benedict by their parents. It was situated near one of the lakes, and it was there that the sickle of a Gothic monk, which he dropped into the water while cutting weeds upon the bank, swam in answer to the prayers of Maurus, who summoned it by holding the wooden handle over the waves. This monastery was entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1216. SS. Cosma and Damiano (the physician-saints of the Forum) was the next to be built, the monastery which was afterwards dedicated to Scholastica. S. Biagio (S. Blaise) was the home of the monk Romanus, the friend of Benedict. Its church was consecrated in 1100 by Manfred, Bishop of Tivoli. S. Giovanni dell' Acqua was so called because there, as well as in two other houses, water is said to have burst forth from the arid rock to supply the thirsting monks, in answer to the prayers of Benedict.1 S. Maria di Marebotta was afterwards called S. Lorenzo in honour of the holy monk S. Lorenzo Loricato who lived there as a hermit, in the most severe austerity, from 1209 to 1243. At S. Angelo, Benedict saw the devil, in the form of a black boy, leading away a monk, who had neglected to attend properly the services of the Church. In S. Victor at the foot of the Mountain lived the monk who brought the Easter food to Benedict when he was starving in the cave. S. Andrew, or Eternal

1 This subject is represented in the frescoes of Spinello at San Miniato.

Life, was ruined in a Lombard invasion. S. Michael the Archangel was built by Benedict beneath the Sacro Speco, but has long since disappeared. S. Angelo di Trevi stood near S. Scholastica and was incorporated with it. S. Girolamo was rebuilt as late as 1387 in accordance with a bull of Urban VI. S. Donato has entirely disappeared. Gradually all these societies became incorporated in the great monastery dedicated to Scholastica, the holy sister of Benedict, which may be regarded as the mother-house of the whole Order, and which was governed by an abbot chosen by the General Chapter.

The visits of the numerous Pontiffs who have come hither form landmarks in the story of the place. In 853 Leo IV., summoned by the Abbot Peter, came to consecrate the altars of the Sacro Speco. In 981 Benedict VII. came to consecrate S. Scholastica. In 1052 Leo IX. was summoned to turn out a monk who had unlawfully seized the abbacy — and issued a bull appointing S. Scholastica Caput omnium monasteriorum per Italiam constitutorum.' In the XIII. c. the privileges of the monastery were greatly augmented by Alexander IV. who had lived there as a monk, and who declared in his diploma that other Benedictine communities had only to look to S. Scholastica to receive a perfect model to imitate. The same affection for the place was evinced by Urban V., who had also been a French Benedictine, and who colonised the monastery with German monks, to amend the morals of the brethren, which had then grievous need of it. The last of a long series of papal visits was that of Pius IX. in the first year of his pontificate.

The road which leads from the town to the monasteries (S. Benedetto is about two and a half miles distant) is beautiful-often bordered by ilexes and olives, beneath which in spring there is a carpet of tulips, hyacinths, and anemones Gorgeous are the views looking back amid the mountain rifts, between which Subiaco rises house above house, with the great archiepiscopal castle at the top of its pyramidal rock. The modern Collegiata, a huge mass of building, almost seems to block the valley, standing over the Anio, and consisting of a church and palace built by Pius VI., when Cardinal Bishop of Subiaco-being necessary, because the abbots of S. Scholastica had been bishops also, until the see was united with a cardinalate. The nearer hills are covered with olives, chestnuts, and corn, and here and there the tall spire of a cypress. The air is scented with box, and a freshness always rises from the river which dashes wildly through the abyss of green beneath, rejoicing to be freed from the stern walls of cliff beneath S. Scholastica. Here a ruined Gothic chapel stands amid thickets of flowers, there a gaily painted shrine, dear to artists, surmounts the rocks.

When we reach the modern' Ponte S. Mauro,' by which the road from Olevano crosses the Anio at a great height, a carriage can go no further, and the footpath which ascends to the great monasteries turns off up the gorge to the left. Little chapels at intervals mark the rocky way, which is overhung by wild laburnum and coronilla,

and fringed with saxifrage and cyclamen. The first of these chapels commemorates an interesting mediaeval story in which Benedict bore a share. Amongst those who came hither from Rome to share his teaching, were two Roman senators of high rank, Anicius and Tertullus, who brought with them their sons Maurus and Placidus, entreating him to bring them up in the way of Life. Maurus was then twelve years old, and Placidus only five. One day (in 528) the child Placidus fell into the Anio below this cliff. Benedict, seeing him fall, called to Maurus to assist him, and he walking upon the water, caught the drowning boy by the hair, and dragged him out. His safety was followed by a contest of humility between the pupil and master. Maurus attributed it to the holiness of Benedict, Benedict to the self-devotion of Maurus; Placidus decided the question by saying that he had seen the sheepskin-coat of Benedict hovering over him in the water.

Long before we reach it, the bell of S. Scholastica, echoing amid the rocks, gives notice of the approach to a great sanctuary. Nothing can exceed the grandeur of its situation, perched upon huge crags, and with the river roaring far below. The monastery was founded in the fifth century by the Abbot Honoratus, the successor of Benedict, and though successively attacked and burned by Lombards, Saracens, and by its own neighbours, it always rose again from its ashes more splendid than ever. In 981 it was entirely rebuilt under Benedict VII., and dedicated to S. Benedict and his sister S. Scholastica. From this time rich donations were constantly made, and lands were added to its territory, until, in 1100, its abbots having become princes, possessed many castles and fortresses, with a right of supreme jurisdiction over their vassals. They did not hesitate to appear personally in the battlefields of that troubled time, in which the Bishops of Tivoli, Anagni, and Palestrina were also frequently seen. Many curious records remain of of their crude administration of justice. In the time of the Ghibelline Abbot Adhemar (1353) seven monks were hung up by their feet, and fires were lighted under their heads. In 1454 similar severities led to a rebellion in which the convent was stormed and many of the monks slain. Calistus III. made the Abbot a Cardinal Commendatory, and the first who bore this title was the Spanish Cardinal Torquemada (Turrecremata), under whose rule, in 1464, Sweynheim and Pannartz established here the first printing-press in Italy, and published Donatus,' 'Lactantius de Divinis Institutionibus,' 'Cicero de Oratore,' and, in 1467, Augustinus de Civitate Dei.' In the same year, however, a quarrel with the monks drove them to Rome, where they established themselves in the Massimo Palace. It is interesting to remember that the first printing-press in England was also established in a Benedictine Abbey-that of Westminster. The convent is now a

national monument.

6

Torquemada was succeeded as abbot by Rodrigo Borgia, afterwards Pope Alexander VI., and in his time Lucrezia Borgia often resided in the castle-palace, and Caesar came hither to hunt.

Under the Abbot Pompeo Colonna, Julius II. united the abbacy with that of Farfa; in 1514, Leo X. joined it to that of Monte Cassino. After this it remained for 116 years in the hands of Colonna, and a memorial of the way in which that family held their own against the Popes may be seen in the papal banner which fell into their hands in battle, and which still hangs in the conventchurch.

From the middle of the eighteenth century the great power of the abbots of S. Scholastica began to decline, but, until the recent suppression, the monastery remained one of the richest and most influential in Italy, and it continued to own no less than sixteen towns and villages, viz. Subiaco, Trevi, Jenna, Cervara, Camerata, Marano, Agosta, Rocca di Canterano, Canterano, Rocca di Mezzo, Cerreto, Rocca di Santo Stefano, Civitella, Rojate, Asile, and Ponza. The façade of S. Scholastica is modern, but its tower dates from 1053, when it was built by the Abbot Humbert. The most interesting parts of the building are its three cloisters. The first, which only dates from the seventeenth century, has its arcades decorated with frescoes of papal and royal benefactors, amongst which is a full-length portrait of James III., king of England.' Here is an ancient sarcophagus with Bacchic ornaments, and a column of giallo antico. The second cloister, which dates from 1052, contains many beautiful fragments of Gothic decoration, but its chief feature is a richly-decorated arch adorned with small figures and spiral columns. It is one of the earliest examples of Gothic. A bas-relief of A.D. 981, under the arcade, represents two animals, apparently a wolf and a dog, drinking: on the body of one of the beasts is an inscription relating to the erection of the tower, December 4, 981, by Benedict VII., and recording the possessions of the convent. To the right of the church, we enter the third and smallest cloister'Il chiostro dell' Abbate Lando'-built early in the thirteenth century. It is surrounded by a graceful arcade of coupled columns, resembling those of S. Paola f. le Mura, bearing an inscription in mosaic (A.D. 1235), the work of Cosmo Cosmati and his two sons, Luca and Jacopo :

'Cosmus et Filii Lucas et Jacobus alter

Romani Cives in Marmoris arte periti

Hoc opus explerunt Abbatis tempore Landi.'

In the porch of the church is an interesting old Giottesquepicture and the capital of a Corinthian column attesting the former presence of a temple near this site. The interior, though modern, is not unimposing. S. Onorato rests beneath the high altar. Under his statue is an inscription which recalls the legend that the translation of his beloved master Benedict into the better world was miraculously revealed to him:

'Scandentem hic alter Benedictum vidit in astra;
Primus et has aedes illo abeunte regit.'

As the path from S. Scholastica to the Sacro Speco is steep and fatiguing, a small chapel has been erected at a short distance