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.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141