There still stands to-day, on a secluded hillock of the Monte Pincio a small church, whose façade is adorned with the statues of St. Isidore, the patron of husbandmen, and of St. Patrick, apostle of Ireland. A court with weather-beaten cloisters and an old well separates the church from the monastery which lies behind it, where the cells of the monks, Irish and Italian Franciscans, are placed. Above, on the terrace of the house, one has a charming view of Rome and the Campagna, of Monte Cavo and the heights of Tusculum. Below stretch the gardens of the Capucin Convent, and farther back the grounds and avenues of the Villa Ludovisi. On the first floor is a large hall, the walls of which have been decorated by the hand of some old monk with frescoes, and which, formerly a refectory, is used to-day as a theological lecture-room. This was the room where Overbeck and his friends in the first period after their arrival stood for one another as models. Lethière, the director of the French Academy, had obtained permission for them to install themselves in the deserted rooms of the monastery of San Isidoro, which had been spared by Napoleon, for which they paid the small sum of three scudi monthly. [Illustration: JOSEPH FÜHRICH. _Graphische Kunst._] "We led a truly monastic life," relates Overbeck; "held ourselves aloof from all, and lived only for art. In the morning we marketed together; at midday we took it in turns to cook our dinner, which was composed of nothing but a soup and a pudding, or some tasty vegetable, and was seasoned only by earnest conversation on art." Overbeck, as a good housekeeper, kept accounts; the principal items of the daily outlay occurred for polenta and risotto, oranges and lemons; every now and then oil, too, was noted down. The afternoons were dedicated to the study of the creations of art in Rome. With "beating hearts and holy awe" they passed over the threshold of the _Stanze_. In the chapel of San Lorenzo they became "familiar with the seraphic Fiesole, whose frescoes transcend everything in purity of conception." They shunned the paganism of St. Peter's, and marvelled with all the more intimate devotion at the old Christian monuments. The churches of San Lorenzo and San Clemente, the cloisters of St. John Lateran and St. Paul's-without-the-Walls, made an ineffaceable impression upon the young men. At the twilight hour they wandered up on to Monte Cavo. "And of evenings we drew studies of drapery--glorious folds!--from Pforr's big Venetian mantle, in which we took turns to pose for one another." Their whole hearts, however, first swelled when they undertook a journey to Tuscany. In Orvieto, Luca Signorelli awaited them, whose frescoes especially impressed Cornelius mightily. At Sienna they found teachers who were still more sympathetic to them, Duccio and Simone Martino, those masters of a tender, intimate spirit and a charming sweetness of expression. In the Campo Santo at