er were the chapter-house of the friars, the side-door of
entrance into the church, and the stairs that ascended to the
dormitory and other rooms for the use of the friars. On the farther
side of this cloister, in a straight line with the principal door of
the convent, was a passage as long as the chapter-house and the
steward's room put together, leading into another cloister larger
and more beautiful than the first; and the whole of this straight
line--that is, the forty braccia of the loggia of the first
cloister, the passage, and the line of the second cloister--made a
very long enfilade, more beautiful than words can tell, and the
rather as from that farther cloister, in the same straight line,
there issued a garden-walk two hundred braccia in length; and all
this, as one came from the principal door of the convent, made a
marvellous view. In the said second cloister was a refectory, sixty
braccia long and eighteen wide, with all those well-appointed rooms,
and, as the friars call them, offices, which were required in such a
convent. Over this was a dormitory in the shape of a =T=, one part
of which--namely, the principal part in the direct line, which was
sixty braccia long--was double--that is to say, it had cells on
either side, and at the upper end, in a space of fifteen braccia,
was an oratory, over the altar of which there was a panel by the
hand of Pietro Perugino; and over the door of this oratory was
another work by the same man's hand, in fresco, as will be told. And
on the same floor, above the chapter-house, was a large room where
those fathers worked at making glass windows, with the little
furnaces and other conveniences that were necessary for such an
industry; and since while Pietro lived he made the cartoons for many
of their works, those that they executed in his time were all
excellent. Then the garden of this convent was so beautiful and so
well kept, and the vines were trained round the cloister and in
every place with such good order, that nothing better could be seen
in the neighbourhood of Florence. In like manner the room wherein
they distilled scented waters and medicines, as was their custom,
had all the best conveniences that could possibly be imagined. In
short, that convent was one of the most beautiful and best appointed
that there were in the State of Florence; and it is for this reason
that I have wished to make this record of it, and the rather as the
greater part of the pictures t