Accompanied by a professor of the college, we went over that part of the building not appropriated to the monks. It is a little town in itself, and has something of the variety and contrasts of a town. To go from the vast refectory to that upper part of the building called the Ghetto, with its interminable low and narrow corridor and lines of little chambers, is to see the two extremes of which building is capable.
Without intending to write a statistical article, I may give a few of the dimensions we took note of. The refectory is one hundred and ninety feet long and forty wide, and is capable of seating at table five hundred persons. The tables run around the room, with a single row of seats against the wall, and are served from the centre of the hall. Quite across one end extends a painting of the Last Supper. At one side is a tiny pulpit, from which in the old time one would read aloud while the monks ate.
The infirmary and rooms used for storing articles in ordinary use occupy twenty large chambers. The five elementary school-rooms are each fifty feet square, the kitchen is eighty-three feet square, and the fencing-hall and garden adjoining contain together over sixty-six hundred square feet. The cistern under the cloister is of nearly the same size.
There is water in profusion—in the court, the kitchen, the boys' wash-rooms, wherever it can be needed. In the entry from the principal court is an odd fourteenth-century fountain which is a perfect calendar. It is set against the wall, and is in twelve compartments, answering to the twelve months of the year. In the frieze above are carved roses, red stone on a white ground—in some compartments thirty, in others thirty-one, answering to the days of the month. All the fountains are made of the crimson-and-white stone of Asisi, which is seen everywhere about the city—in vases for holy water, in pavements, in garden-walls, in the foundations of houses. The stone, a red sandstone, is found in plenty in the adjoining mountains, and has a rich, soft crimson hue with irregular lines of white. But it is very hard to work, and could scarcely be made to pay the expense of the necessary machinery.
"For what I should have to pay for a bath of red marble, about one hundred lire (twenty dollars)," said the Count B—— to me, "I could buy a bath of Carrara."
"Baths of crimson marble and of Carrara!" I thought, and remembered with an involuntary shudder my dear native zinc.
But to return to the Sacro Collegio. In one of the immense labyrinthine cellars is a botte for wine capable of containing five thousand litri. There, it is said—I know not how truly—once a year, when the botte was emptied, came four of the spiritual fathers of the college above, with a table and chairs, and played a certain game of cards, which was one of their simple amusements. Whether this meeting was intended as an exorcism of any evil influences which might threaten the new must about to be put in, or a mild bacchanalian tribute to the empty space from which they had drawn so much comfort and cheerfulness during the year, or whether the wine left some fine perfume behind it which they wished to inhale, tradition saith not. Maybe the fathers never went there, and the story is merely ben trovato.
In the school of design we admired a copy of some of the carving of the choir of the cathedral of Asisi. The leaves were remarkably crisp and all the lines full of life. My guide told me that this choir and the famous one of St. Peter's in Perugia were designed by the same artist, but that of Perugia was executed by another and more timid hand, while this of Asisi was carved by the artist himself.
Our last visit in the college was to the grand loggia—finer than anything of the kind I have seen in Italy except the Loggia del Paradiso of Monte Casino, which is open, while this of San Francesco is closed. The grandeur of this loggia, with its lofty arches and long perspective, is in harmony with the magnificence of the view to be seen from it. Seated there, on the stone divan that runs the whole length of the colonnade, I listened a while to the very interesting talk of my companion. This gentleman, Professor Cristofani, is said to be one of the most learned men in Umbria, and has studied so thoroughly his native province as to be an authority on all that concerns its history and antiquities. A native of Asisi, he has devoted himself especially to that city, and his Storia di Asisi and Guida di Asisi are monuments of learned and patient research. He has written also a history of San Damiano which has lately been translated in England.
The government took possession of this church and convent of San Damiano, the first home of St. Clara and her companions, and proposed establishing there a school of arts and trades; but Lord Ripon persuaded them to sell the property to him, and in his turn presented it to the frati from whom it had been taken. It is a rough place, but interesting in memories.