After the canonisation of the holy St Francis many miracles happened in Italy. In the church of his name in Assisi, when the Bishop of Ostia was preaching, a huge stone fell on the head of a devout woman. It was thought that she was dead, but being before the altar of St Francis, and having "committed herself in faith" to him, she escaped without any hurt. Many persons were cured of disease by calling upon the blessed name of the Saint of Assisi, and mariners were often saved from wrecks through his intervention. St Francis lived when the fourth Lateran Council gave a new impetus to persecution, by increasing the scope and power of the inquisition. This gentlest of all the saints was surrounded by a host of influences that made for religious rancour, and yet he preached a doctrine of love, and was, so far as we can learn, quite untouched by the persecuting zeal that characterised so many of his sainted contemporaries. It is with relief, after the contemplation of the cruelty of his age, that we greet the tattered ascetic of Assisi, as, in imagination, we see him pass up the steps of the house wherein Brother Bernard was a witness of his ecstasy. The little city of Assisi stands on a hill; a mediæval town of a somewhat stern character meets the eye as we approach it. Outside the town is a sixteenth-century church, Santa Maria degli Angeli, which will interest by reason of the Portinucula, a little chapel repaired by St Francis. It was around this church that the first followers of the saint lived in hovels with wattled roofs. Here was the garden in which the holy brother delighted to wander, and to watch his kindred the birds, and here are the rose bushes without thorns, that grew from the saint's blood. Entering Assisi, we soon reach the Church of San Francisco, in which is the reputed tomb of St Francis. This is not a striking edifice, but its charm is in the pictures of Giotto. Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience are the subjects of these frescoes. Ruskin copied the Poverty, and made a long study of these works. The picture symbolises the Lady of Poverty, the bride of St Francis, who is given to him by Christ. This is one of Giotto's chief pictures. Chastity is a young woman in a castle; she is worshipped by angels, and the walls of the fortress are surrounded by men in armour. In another fresco St Francis is dressed in canonical garb, attended by angels, who sing praise to him. It is said that Dante suggested this subject to Giotto. The frescoes of Simone, in a chapel of the lower church, are of much interest to the art student. They are richly coloured and very decorative, and have been considered by some authorities as equal to the works of Giotto at Assisi. Simone was a painter of the Sienese School, and according to Vasari, he was taught by Giotto. His "Annunciation" is a rich work, preserved in the Uffizi Palace at Florence.