“And if you are still melancholy, we will leave you there.”
THE ABBEY
The next day, after lunch, Kennedy and Cæsar went to visit the abbey of Sant’ Anselmo on the Aventine. The abbot, Hildebrand, was a friend of Kennedy’s, and like him an Englishman.
They took a carriage and Kennedy told it to stop at the church of Santa Sabina.
“It is still too early to go to the abbey. Let us look at this church, which is the best preserved of all the old Roman ones.”
They entered the church; but it was so cold there that Cæsar went out again directly and waited in the porch. There was a man there selling rosaries and photographs who spoke scarcely any Italian or French, but did speak Spanish. Probably he was a Jew.
Cæsar asked him where they manufactured those religious toys, and the pedlar told him in Westphalia.
Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sassoferrato, which is in one of the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed the church door to Cæsar and explained the different bas-reliefs, cut in cypress wood by Greek artists of the V Century, and representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments.
Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and they drove to the Benedictine abbey.
“Is the abbot Hildebrandus here?” asked Kennedy.