[59] The stone is probably some rare form of agate. It is transparent and takes many lights; the colour is a faint yellowish blue. The people of the place have strange fancies about its colour. Before we had seen it we asked of others what it looked like. "Ah," answered the small son of the sacristan, "it is white, and it is not white. It has no given colour. It is impossible to describe it, for nothing else is like it." Goldoni, in his memoirs, gives the following description of it:--"The ring with which St Joseph wedded the Virgin Mary is made of a transparent blue stone, and is a circle of some thickness; thus it appeared to me, but they say that the ring changes its colour and form miraculously, according to the various persons who approach it." [60] A picture capable of working miracles. [61] To those who only search for art, its picture by Perugino will seem the chief attraction. This is, however, a poor bit of the master's work with many of his later affectations. [62] This fact is uncertain, and many people ascribe the work to Ducci. [63] A note to Gregorovius' "Tombs of the Popes" says that Innocent's bones have been carried to Rome by Leo XIII. and buried in S. John Lateran. [64] See "Lenten Journey in Umbria, 1862." [65] The word Marzia naturally suggests a temple to Mars, and indeed certain half-legendary records point to the fact that such a temple formerly existed on this same spot. [66] In Bonfigli's fresco of the siege of Perugia by Totila at the Pinacoteca (see chapter x.), we have an admirable portrait of the square of S. Ercolano, and on one of the house walls, under a small pent roof, there is a minute copy of a fresco: a madonna and saints with angels. It is not at all improbable that this fresco is really the one by Buffalmacco (now destroyed) described in the above passage by Vasari. [67] This last fact is interesting for several reasons. It shows that even some of the Perugian priests took part against the Pope on this memorable 20th of June. The Benedictine monks at S. Pietro opened their convent to the citizens to use as a fortress on that day, and themselves joined in the fighting. Their loyalty to the city has never been forgotten. When in 1860 all the convents of Perugia were broken up the government spared the monks of S. Pietro. They left the pictures in the church, which was turned into a "national monument"; and they left the monks in their cells with the understanding that when their number should be at last reduced to two the convent with its vast lands was to be turned into an agricultural school, but in no ways to be divided up, sold, or desecrated. Hence the comparatively perfect condition of S. Pietro. [68] The _Garden of Gethsemane_. The picture has been struck by lightning, and the strong slanting line which crosses it from end to end adds a certain mysterious charm to the group of the sleeping Apostles. [69] Sometimes called Piazza Danti.