The site of the chapel itself is so picturesque, and the views from the hill of Mezzaratta are so full of beauty, that no traveller should leave Bologna without making a pilgrimage to this shrine. A steep ascent along a path lined with acacias leads from the gate of San Mammolo to the garden of Villa Minghetti, and on a summer’s day, when nightingales are singing in the acacia thicket and the air is sweet with myrtle and orange-blossom, there is not a pleasanter spot in all Bologna. Below, the domes and spires of the ancient city rise above its arcaded streets, and the eye is at once arrested by the quaint forms of the twin leaning towers, Garisenda and Asinelli, which were already old in Dante’s lifetime. All around the plains stretch their vast expanse, softly shadowed by passing clouds, far away towards Ferrara and Modena, excepting where some rocky spur descends from the Apennines, and looking up an opening valley we catch a glimpse of a jagged peak crowned with snow. Mezzaratta itself has an additional claim on our interest from having been the favourite resort of the Franciscan monk, Bernardino da Siena, whose religious revival at Bologna was one of the most important events in the early part of the fourteenth century, and who frequently preached in this humble sanctuary, which could scarcely hold the crowds that flocked to hear him. Bernardino’s preaching and his affection for the spot may have been one cause of the celebrity which the church of Mezzaratta acquired in those days, but the oldest painting on the walls takes us back a whole century before his time. It is a large “Nativity” painted over the door by Vitale and signed with his name. The composition chiefly adheres to the Byzantine type, with a few variations, as in the action of Joseph, who is represented pouring water into the bowl for the washing of the Child. Its execution is feeble, as is the case with most early Bolognese paintings, but in the graceful type of the Virgin’s head and in the kneeling angels we recognise Vitale’s striving after a more ideal form. On the southern wall an artist named Cristofano, whose style as far as it is possible to judge more resembles that of the Ferrara school, painted scenes from the book of Genesis. Below these we have a series of subjects from the history of Joseph, Moses, and the Life of Christ, all painted by the same hand, and bearing in one corner the name of Jacobus, and the date 1404.