ated as the birthplace of Juvenal.... It
was amidst those noble recollections, this solemn nature, and upon that
predestinated height, that the patriarch of the monks of the West
founded the capital of the monastic order."

In the year 529 a great stronghold of Paganism in these wild regions
gave way to Benedict's faith. Upon the ruins of a temple to Apollo, and
in a grove sacred to Venus, arose the model of Western monasticism,--the
cloister of Monte Cassino, which was to shine resplendent for a thousand
years. The limitations of my purpose will prevent me from following in
detail the fortunes of this renowned retreat, but it may not be out of
place to glance at its subsequent history.

Monte Cassino is located three and a half miles to the northeast of the
town of Cassino, midway between Rome and Naples. About 589 A.D. the
Lombards destroyed the buildings, but the monks escaped to Rome, in
fulfilment, so it is claimed, of a prophecy uttered by Benedict. It lay
in ruins until restored by Gregory II. in 719, only to be burned in 884
by the Saracens; seventy years later it was again rebuilt. It afterwards
passed through a variety of calamities, and was consecrated, for the
third time, by Benedict XII., in 1729. Longfellow quotes a writer for
the _London Daily News_ as saying: "There is scarcely a pope or emperor
of importance who has not been personally connected with its history.
From its mountain crag it has seen Goths, Lombards, Saracens, Normans,
Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, scour and devastate the land which,
through all modern history, has attracted every invader."

It was enriched by popes, emperors and princes. In its palmy days the
abbot was the first baron in the realm, and commanded over four hundred
towns and villages. In 1866, it shared the fate of all the monasteries
of Italy. It still stands upon the summit of the mountain, and can be
seen by the traveler from the railway in the valley. At present it
serves as a Catholic seminary with about two hundred students. It
contains a spacious church, richly ornamented with marble, mosaics and
paintings. It has also a famous library which, in spite of bad usage, is
still immensely valuable. Boccaccio made a visit to the place, and when
he saw the precious books so vilely mutilated, he departed in tears,
exclaiming: "Now, therefore, O scholar, rack thy brains in the making of
books!" The library contains about twenty thousand volumes, and about
thirty-five thous