they are
used, and to that only" (Fergusson, _Hist. of Arch._ i. p. 610). As
examples of this description of cloister, we may refer to the exquisite
cloisters of St John Lateran, and St Paul's without the walls, at Rome,
where the coupled shafts and arches are richly ornamented with ribbons
of mosaic, and those of the convent of St Scholastica at Subiaco, all of
the 13th century, and to the beautiful cloisters at Arles, in southern
France; those of Aix, Fontfroide, Elne, &c., are of the same type; as
also the Romanesque cloisters at Zurich, where the design suffers from
the deep abacus having only a single slender shaft to support it, and at
Laach, where the quadrangle occupies the place of the "atrium" of the
early basilicas at the west end, as at St Clement's at Rome, and St
Ambrose at Milan. Spain also presents some magnificent cloisters of both
types, of which that of the royal convent of Huelgas, near Burgos, of
the arcaded form, is, according to Fergusson, "unrivalled for beauty
both of detail and design, and is perhaps unsurpassed by anything in its
age and style in any part of Europe." Few cloisters are more beautiful
than those of Monreale and Cefalu in Sicily, where the arrangement is
the same, of slender columns in pairs with capitals of elaborate foliage
supporting pointed arches of great elegance of form.

All other cloisters are surpassed in dimensions and in sumptuousness of
decoration by the "Campo Santo" at Pisa. This magnificent cloister
consists of four ambulatories as wide and lofty as the nave of a church,
erected in 1278 by Giovanni Pisano round a cemetery composed of soil
brought from Palestine by Archbishop Lanfranchi in the middle of the
12th century. The window-openings are semicircular, filled with
elaborate tracery in the latter half of the 15th century. The inner
walls are covered with frescoes invaluable in the history of art by
Orcagna, Simone Memmi, Buffalmacco, Benozzo Gozzoli, and other early
painters of the Florentine school. The ambulatories now serve as a
museum of sculpture. The internal dimensions are 415 ft. 6. in. in
length, 137 ft. 10 in. in breadth, while each ambulatory is 34 ft. 6.
in. wide by 46 ft. high.

The cloister of a religious house was the scene of a large part of the
life of the inmates of a monastery. It was the place of education for
the younger members, and of study for the elders. A canon of the Roman
council held under Eugenius II., in 826, enjoins the erectio