Astolfo, a later king, was an equally liberal patron of the arts; he gave the revenues of the church of S. Pietro at Pavia to Auripert, a painter whom he greatly esteemed. Astolfo built the monastery of Nonantola, of which some parts still remain, proving its fine architecture. He seems to have been very unscrupulous in his avidity for relics; an anonymous MS. at Salerno, speaking of his fierceness and audacity, says that, "having taken many bodies of saints from the neighbourhood of Rome, he had them removed to Pavia."[43] The same old chronicler does him the justice to say that "he built both churches and monasteries which he very largely endowed." Next followed Ratchis, who on his brother Astolfo's death came out of the convent to which he had retired on abdicating in 749. His reign was of the shortest; he soon went back to his convent, for Pope Stephen III. wrote commanding him not to oppose the election of Desiderius, who had been Duke of Friuli and was high in favour with the Pope. Desiderius was a liberal patron to the Comacine Guild, and built monasteries, churches, and palaces. Of the first we may record the convent for nuns near Milan, known as La Maggiore, or the Greater. Its foundation by Desiderius is mentioned in a diploma dated A.D. 1002 in favour of the Abbot of S. Ambrogio, who was in that year appointed spiritual guardian to the nuns. At Brescia, of which town Desiderius was a native, he built the monastery near Leno, known as the _Monasterio Leonense_, and the still more famous one of Santa Giulia for nuns, which he founded in 766. Desiderius and his wife Ansa endowed this convent with landed property which spread over all the Lombard kingdom. It was first called S. Salvatore, but when the remains of Santa Giulia were brought from Corsica and placed here, it was re-dedicated to her. Its first Abbess was Desiderius' own daughter, Anselberga, who took the vows here. Says the old chronicler--"its opulence and the number of holy virgins who have lived within its walls render it one of the most illustrious convents in Italy." Signor Odorici has exemplified the church in its Lombard form to have been quadrilateral, divided by two peristyles of eight columns each, into a nave and two aisles (or three naves, as Italian architects say). The arches are _a tutto sesto_ (semi-circular), and support walls bordered with a simple string course. There was originally a semi-circular apse or tribune, which was probably flanked by two smaller ones. The white marble columns are, or were, of different proportions, the capitals being sculptured, some in marble and some in _arenaria_.[44]