[41] Celano, a learned nobleman from Celano in the Abruzzi, joined the Order in 1215, and gives by far the most charming and vivid account of St Francis, for besides knowing him well he had the gift of writing in no ordinary degree. [42] _Vita_ I. cap. xxvii. [43] _Vita di S. Francesco_, da S. Bonaventura, p. 148, Edizione Amoni. [44] This was a small chapel built for St. Francis by Count Orlando, and must not be confounded with the church of the same name near Assisi. [45] The earnest wishes of the saint are to this day carried out by faithful friars who, even through the terrible winter months, live at La Vernia, suffering privation and cold with cheerfulness. At midnight a bell calls them to sing matins in the chapel of the Stigmata connected with the convent by an open colonnade, down which the procession files, following a crucifix and lanterns. When the service has ceased, the monks flit like ghosts behind the altar while the lights are extinguished and in the gloom comes the sound of clashing chains. For an hour they chastise themselves: then the torches are relit, the chanting is resumed, and calmly they pass down the corridor towards their cells. Moonlight may stream into the colonnade across the dark forms, or gusts of wind drive the snow in heaps before them, but the chanting is to be heard, and the monotonous cries of _ora pro nobis_ break the awful solitude of night throughout the year upon the mountain of La Vernia. [46] Here reference is made to the Portiuncula, near Assisi. [47] The Sasso Spicco, which still can be seen at La Vernia, is a block of rock rising high above the mountain ridge, and seems to hang suspended in the air. It forms a roof over dark and cavernous places where St. Francis loved to pray, often spending his nights there with stones for his bed. [48] The _Fioretti_ relates that once while St. Francis was praying on the edge of a precipice, not far from the spot where he had received the Stigmata, suddenly the devil appeared in terrible form amidst the loud roar of a furious tempest. St. Francis, unable to flee or to endure the ferocious aspect of the devil, turned his face and whole body to the rock to which he clung; and the rock, as though it had been soft wax, received the impress of the saint and sheltered him. Thus by the aid of God he escaped. [49] _Speculum Perfectionis_, cap. c., edited by Paul Sabatier. [50] St. Francis composed this verse later on the occasion of a quarrel which arose between the Bishop of Assisi and the Podestà. The last couplet was added at the Portiuncula while he was on his death-bed. CHAPTER III _The Carceri, Rivo-Torto and Life at the Portiuncula_ "O beata solitudo, O sola beatudine."