But anyone may step out into the small and charming garden of St. Clare which is on a level with her oratory. Walls rising on either side leave only a narrow vista of the valley where Bevagna, and Montefalco on her hill, can just be seen. Within this small enclosed space the saint is said to have taken her daily exercise and carefully attended to the flowers, and the friars to this day keep a row of flowers there in memory of her. It will be well on leaving the chapel of San Damiano to look at the open chapel in the courtyard where Tiberio d'Assisi has painted one of his most pleasing compositions. The Madonna is seated in an Umbrian valley, low lines of hills fade away in the distance, and franciscan saints, among whom St. Jerome with his lion seems curiously out of place, surround her, while at her feet is placed the kneeling figure of the nun who succeeded St. Clare as abbess. It is signed and dated 1517, while the fresco on the side-wall of St. Sebastian and St. Roch was painted five years later. In another corner of the courtyard, near the entrance, is a painting in a niche of the Madonna and saints by some Umbrian artist who felt the influence of both Giotto and Simone Martini, so that we have a curious, if pleasing result. SANTA CHIARA St. Clare was no sooner dead than the people, as they had done with St. Francis, sought to honour her memory, but in this case, Innocent IV, being in Assisi for the consecration of the Franciscan Basilica, the funeral service was conducted by the Pope and cardinals. Such a gathering of church dignitaries, Assisan nobles, priors and people had certainly never been seen in the humble convent of San Damiano; their presence, though honouring the saint, filled the hearts of the nuns with sorrow for they knew they had come to take the body of St. Clare to Assisi. With tears they consented to its being placed in safety in San Giorgio, but only on the condition that they might eventually be allowed to live near her tomb in some humble shelter. San Damiano without her, alive or dead, meant little to them, and they were ready to abandon a home of so many memories to go where they and their successors could guard her body to the end of time. Devotion to her memory and belief in her sanctity was not solely confined to them; when the friars rose to intone the service of the dead, Pope Innocent signified that there should be silence, and to the wonder of all ordered high mass to be sung and the funeral service to be changed into one of triumph, in honour of her who he believed was already with the Virgins in heaven. It was a kind of canonisation, but could not be regarded as valid without the usual preliminaries being performed, and the cardinals, more cautious and less enthusiastic than His Holiness, persuaded him to wait and in the meanwhile allow the ordinary service to proceed. To this he consented, and then amidst music and singing the Pope led the people up the hill where years before another saint