remains of frescoes by some pupil of Ambrogio Lorenzetti. San Bernardino commenced his religious life as a member of this confraternity of Our Lady's Disciplinati. When the pestilence broke out anew in 1400, and the Spedale was overwhelmed with the sick and the dying, Bernardino collected a band of young men to aid the Rector in his task, and devoted himself to the plague-stricken for four months, while his cousin, Tobia, attended to the women. From the back of the Spedale the Via di Valle Piatta leads to the little church of San Sebastiano, the oratory of the Contrada della Selva. Its interior is in the form of a Greek cross. It was built by Girolamo di Domenico Ponsi, at the end of the fifteenth century, and its sacristy contains Madonnas by Matteo di Giovanni and Benvenuto. The adjoining convent, originally of the Gesuate, has since 1818 been the Foundling Hospital--Ospizio dei Gettatelli. From the Via di Valle Piatta the steep Via del Costone winds down the side of the hill upon which the Duomo and Spedale stand, to the Fontebranda. Let us take this way into the valley--for we shall be [Illustration: FONTEBRANDA] treading in the steps of St Catherine. Here, in her sixth year, she was returning with her brother from a visit to their sister Bonaventura, whose husband had a house near the Tower of St Ansanus, and had reached the turning at which the great red brick mass of San Domenico first becomes fully visible--rising up grandly on the brow of the opposite hill, over the humble valley of the tanners and dyers. A shrine and a faded fresco on the left at the corner still mark the spot of her first vision. "She saw in the air, above the church of the Friars Preachers of Siena, our Saviour seated on a wondrous throne, robed as Sovereign Pontiff, accompanied by the Holy Apostles. He gazed lovingly and smilingly upon her, and with His holy hand making the sign towards her of the most holy Cross, He blessed her."[105]