The present church and convent of Santa Maria del Carmine were built early in the sixteenth century, possibly from Peruzzi's designs; the cloisters are particularly graceful. The convent itself is of very ancient origin, and in the further cloister is the famous Pozzo della Diana--which, however, may possibly have no connection, save by name, with Dante's cut at the vain hopes and foolish expenditure of the Sienese.[140] The church contains some good pictures: the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin by Bazzi; the Ascension of Christ by Pacchiarotti; the Adoration of the Shepherds, begun by Il Riccio and finished by Arcangiolo Salimbeni. But finer than any of these is Beccafumi's St Michael casting down the rebellious Angels, over the altar opposite the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, a work of much beauty and great imaginative power, enthusiastically--but hardly excessively--praised by Vasari. Baldassare Peruzzi, Messer Giorgio tells us, was never tired of praising it; "and one day that I saw it with him, uncovered, as I was passing through Siena, I was struck dumb with admiration." The sacristy contains a statue of St Sigismund, ascribed to Giacomo Cozzarelli. The Palazzo Celsi opposite is ascribed to Peruzzi and contains three ceiling paintings attributed to him, ruined by repainting. From the Via Baldassare Peruzzi, the Via della Diana and the Via di San Marco lead to the most picturesquely placed of Sienese gates--the Porta San Marco, outside which is a pleasant and shady piazzale with a view over the sweeping country to the distant hills, the Monastery of Sant' Eugenio standing out conspicuously on its eminence in the foreground. The picturesque Via delle Sperandie leads to the same gate, past a large abandoned convent--the cloisters of which have been deserted even by the [Illustration: VIA DELLE SPERANDIE] soldiers, a frescoed Crucifixion alone remaining to show that it was once a religious place.