[23] Potthast, 7108.--The work of this bull was completed by that of December 18, 1223. (The original of the _Sacro Convento_ bears _Datum Laterani XV. Kal. jan._) _Fratrem Minorum_: Potthast, 7123. [24] 2 Cel., 3, 19; Bon., 95; _Spec._, 18b; _Conform._, 171a, 1. [25] 2 Cel., 3, 61 and 62. Cf. Eccl., 6, the account of Rod. de Rosa. [26] _Spec._, 47b ff.; 2 Cel., 3, 61; Bon., 84 and 85. [27] 1 Cel., 84-87; Bon., 149. [28] This little poem was published entire by M. Ozanam in vol. v. of his works, p. 184. * * * * * CHAPTER XVII THE STIGMATA 1224 The upper valley of the Arno forms in the very centre of Italy a country apart, the Casentino, which through centuries had its own life, somewhat like an island in the midst of the ocean. The river flows out from it by a narrow defile at the south, and on all other sides the Apennines encircle it with a girdle of inaccessible mountains.[1] This plain, some ten leagues in diameter, is enlivened with picturesque villages, finely posted on hillocks at the base of which flows the stream; here are Bibbiena, Poppi, the antique Romena sung by Dante, the Camaldoli, and up there on the crest Chiusi, long ago the 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.