ever a carpet of tulips, hyacinths, and anemones, in spring. 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 rock, The modern. Collegiata, a huge mass of building, seems to block the valley, standing almost over the stream of the Anio, and consisting of a church and palace built by Pius VI., when Cardinal Bishop of Subiaco,-being necessary, because the abbots of Santa Scholastica had been bishops also, until the see was united with a cardinalate. The nearer hills are all aglow with the richest vegetation, olives, chestnuts, and corn, and here and there the tall spire of a cypress. The air is scented by the sweet box, which grows upon the cliffs close to the road, and a freshness always rises from the river which dashes wildly through the abyss of green beneath, rejoicing to be freed from its imprisonment in the walls of cliff beneath S. Scholastica. Here a ruined gothic chapel stands amid thickets of flowers, there a gaily painted shrine, very dear to artists, surmounts the tufa rocks.

When we reach the bridge called "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 medieval 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

Subiaco.

L

him to bring them up in the way of Life.

Maurus was

One day (in

then twelve years old and Placidus only five.
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 grandly toned bell of Santa Scholastica, echoing amid the rocks, gives notice of the approach to a great sanctuary. Nothing can exceed the solemn grandeur of its situation, perched upon huge crags, and with the roaring river below. The monastery was founded in the fifth century by the Abbot Honoratus, the sainted successor of Benedict, and though repeatedly attacked and burnt by the Lombards, the Saracens, and by its own neighbours, it always rose again from its ashes more splendid than ever. In 981 it was rebuilt from the ground under Benedict VII., and dedicated to S. Benedict and his holy sister Scholastica. From this time rich donations were constantly made, and lands were added to its territory, till, in 1100, its abbots became princes, possessed of many castles and fortresses, and with a right of supreme jurisdiction over their vassals. They did not hesitate to appear personally in the battle-fields of that troubled time, in which the Bishops of Tivoli, Anagni, and Palestrina were also frequently seen. Many curious records remain of their savage administration of justice. In the time of the Ghibelline

SANTA SCHOLASTICA.

303

Abbot Adhemar (1353) seven monks were hung up by their feet, and fires lighted under their heads. In 1454 their severities led to a rebellion in which the convent was stormed and many of the monks massacred. Calistus III.

made the Abbot a Cardinal Commendatory, and the first who bore this title was the Spanish Torquemada, under whose rule, in 1464, the famous Sweynheim and Pannartz established here the first printing-press in Italy, and published from hence "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.

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 Cæsar 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 the Colonnas, and a memorial of the way in which they 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 convent church.

From the middle of the last century the great power of the abbots of S. Scholastica began to decline, but until the late 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 front 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 a curious sarcophagus with Bacchic ornaments. 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. A basrelief of 981 represents two animals, apparently a wolf and a dog, drinking; on the body of one of the beasts is an inscription relating to the dedication of the church, Dec. 4th, 981, by Benedict VII. 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 beautiful arcade of double pillars like those at the Lateran, and has an inscription in mosaic, the work of the famous Cosmo Cosmati and his two sons, Luca and Jacopo, to whom are due the beautiful decorations in the cloister of the Benedictine convent of S. Paolo at Rome -"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 Giottesque picture and the capital of a Corinthian column attesting the presence of a temple on this site. The interior, though modern, is not unimposing. S. Onorato sleeps beneath