capital of the
country, with the ruins of Count Orlando's castle.

The people are charming and refined; the mountains have sheltered them
from wars, and on every side we see the signs of labor, prosperity, a
gentle gayety. At any moment we might fancy ourselves transported into
some valley of the Vivarais or Provence. The vegetation on the borders
of the Arno is thoroughly tropical; the olive and the mulberry marry
with the vine. On the lower hill-slopes are wheat fields divided by
meadows; then come the chestnuts and the oaks, higher still the pine,
the fir, the larch, and above all the bare rock.

Among all the peaks there is one which especially attracts the
attention; instead of a rounded and so to say flattened top, it uplifts
itself slender, proud, isolated; it is the Verna.[2]

One might think it an immense rock fallen from the sky. It is in fact an
erratic block set there, a little like a petrified Noah's ark on the
summit of Mount Ararat. The basaltic mass, perpendicular on all sides,
is crowned with a plateau planted with pines and gigantic beeches, and
accessible only by a footpath.[3]

Such was the solitude which Orlando had given to Francis, and to which
Francis had already many a time come for quiet and contemplation.

Seated upon the few stones of the Penna,[4] he heard only the
whispering of the wind among the trees, but in the splendor of the
sunrise or the sunset he could see nearly all the districts in which he
had sown the seed of the gospel: the Romagna and the March of Ancona,
losing themselves on the horizon in the waves of the Adriatic; Umbria,
and farther away, Tuscany, vanishing in the waters of the Mediterranean.

The impression on this height is not crushing like that which one has in
the Alps: a feeling infinitely calm and sweet flows over you; you are
high enough to judge of men from above, not high enough to forget their
existence.

Besides the wide horizons, Francis found there other objects of delight;
in this forest, one of the noblest in Europe, live legions of birds,
which never having been hunted are surprisingly tame.[5] Subtile
perfumes arise from the ground, and in the midst of borage and lichens
frail and exquisite cyclamens blossom in fantastic variety.

He desired to return thither after the chapter of 1224. This meeting,
held in the beginning of June, was the last at which he was present. The
new Rule was there put into the hands of the ministers, and the mission
to