open, by its gateway, to the public square; and several of the neighbors,
women as well as men, were loitering within its precincts. The convent,
however, has another and larger cloister, which I suppose is kept free
from interlopers. The Chiostro Verde is a walk round the four sides of a
square, beneath an arched and groined roof. One side of the walk looks
upon an enclosed green space with a fountain or a tomb (I forget which)
in the centre; the other side is ornamented all along with a succession
of ancient frescos, representing subjects of Scripture history. In the
days when the designs were more distinct than now, it must have been a
very effective way for a monk to read Bible history, to see its
personages and events thus passing visibly beside him in his morning and
evening walks. Beneath the frescos on one side of the cloistered walk,
and along the low stone parapet that separates it from the grass-plat on
the other, are inscriptions to the memory of the dead who are buried
underneath the pavement. The most of these were modern, and recorded the
names of persons of no particular note. Other monumental slabs were
inlaid with the pavement itself. Two or three Dominican monks, belonging
to the convent, passed in and out, while we were there, in their white
habits.

After going round three sides, we came to the fourth, formed by the wall
of the church, and heard the voice of a priest behind a curtain that fell
down before a door. Lifting it aside, we went in, and found ourselves in
the ancient chapter-house, a large interior formed by two great pointed
arches crossing one another in a groined roof. The broad spaces of the
walls were entirely covered with frescos that are rich even now, and must
have glowed with an inexpressible splendor, when fresh from the artists'
hands, five hundred years ago. There is a long period, during which
frescos illuminate a church or a hall in a way that no other adornment
can; when this epoch of brightness is past, they become the dreariest