There were other sights to be seen at La Verna: the rocky chasm where St Francis hurled aside the devil, and the Luoghi Santi, a number of grottoes and rock-hewn chambers where the saint once lived. Visitors from all parts of the world come to La Verna, and on Sundays they say there are crowds of country people all eager for the sights. For myself, I was content with what I had seen and glad to rest in the convent, where an old friar gave us wine and water to drink. He chatted about the convent and about himself. How long had he stayed there--forty years? Yes, quite that. Fifty? Quite likely, it came to much the same thing. I had recently been reading the _Life of St Francis_ by Sabatier, a charming writer, who makes the joyful side of the saint’s nature very real. The old friar remembered his stay at La Verna, but he would not say much about him.
Then we sat outside under the huge beeches, as yet bare of foliage, listening to the birds, which seemed as numerous and as tuneful as they were seven hundred years ago. With the sun shining brilliantly we started homewards to Bibbiena. The ascent of the Penna, and a walk over to Chiusi, which lay below in a streak of blue mist, are expeditions I should wish to make if I ever again visit the district.
“Qui è Romualdo Qui son’ li frati miei che dentro il chiostro Fermar li piedi e tennero il cuor saldo.” (_Par._ 22, 49 ff.)
A day’s walking and we were removed to a very different atmosphere, and to associations widely separated from those connected with the high retreat of La Verna. A wide gulf divides the temper of a man like St Francis from that of a St Romuald. Both are accepted saints of the Church, but while the one taught men how to be guided by love through the example of his own gentleness and forbearance, the other emphatically denounced those who interpreted the religious life differently from himself. St Francis is the gentle soul of the thirteenth century, that yields that it may conquer; St Romuald is the rough-and-ready champion of the tenth century, ever ready to start up in defence of Mother Church.
Camaldoli is a pearl among the many pearls of the Casentino. I have seen it in spring-time only; the Italians tell you that it is even more beautiful in summer, when its shady chestnut groves and dark pine forest give a sense of restored energy and renewed vigour to those who come here from the arid plains of Tuscany and the blinding heat of the streets of Florence. Camaldoli may be conveniently reached by a good driving road or by paths from the east or the west. We decided on striking into the former of these two paths, and on a genial day we bid adieu to Bibbiena, descending first and then mounting with the driving road which afterwards followed an even ridge for several miles.