it had come to pass that the "studio" they had occupied for so many
years, seemed more like some public building than the private
offices of a provincial attorney.

In fact the "Studio Fortini" was a portion of an ancient building
attached to the Cathedral, in which some of the less dignified
members of the Chapter had their residences. The building in
question encircled a small cloistered court, the soil of which was
on a lower level than that of the street outside it; and the
residences, to which a series of little doors around this cloister
gave access, looked as if they must have been miserably damp and
unwholesome. But the "Studio Fortini" was not situated in any part
of this damp lower floor. In the corner of the cloister nearest to
the Cathedral, there was a wide and picturesque old stone staircase,
which led to an upper cloister, as sunny and pleasant looking as the
lower one was the reverse. There, near the head of the stair, was a
round arched deeply sunk stone doorway, closed by a black door,
bearing a bright brass plate on it, conveying the information,
altogether superfluous to every man, woman, and child in Ravenna,
that there was situated the "Studio Fortini."

This black door was never quite closed during the day. It admitted
anybody who chose to push it into a small ante-room, on one side of
which might be seen through a glass door a long low vaulted room, or
gallery rather, running over some half dozen of the inhabited cells
below. And along the whole length of it on either side, up to the
height of the small round arched windows placed high up in the wall,
were ranges of shelves occupied by many hundreds of volumes, all of
the same size, and all bound alike in parchment, with two red bands
of Russian leather running across the backs of them, and all