As it stands at present the retreat of La Verna is distinguished chiefly by the large number of its altar-pieces in glazed terra cotta by the della Robbias. Except in the museum at Florence there are nowhere so many fine examples of their work to be found together. They are gifts for the most part from distinguished Florentine families. They include a large altar-piece, on which the Virgin is seen handing her girdle to St Thomas; a Transfiguration, on a large scale, with the figures of the twelve Apostles standing below in beautiful grouping and the most varied expression. There is a Nativity with the figures of St Francis and St Anthony of Padua behind the Virgin and St Joseph, and an Annunciation; both of these are of exquisite grace. All these altar-pieces and other single figures, such as St Francis, are in the usual style of blue and white. I find them variously attributed to Luca and to Andrea della Robbia. In the gallery on the way to the chapel there is a large Pietà in polychrome. The most beautiful, however, of all is a large altar-piece of the Crucifixion, the sole decoration of the Chapel of the Stigmata. Slowly we ascended the steep path which led up to the convent. We passed under an archway and found ourselves before the entrance to the main church. The site of La Verna was granted to St Francis by Count Orlando of Chiusi in the year 1213; it was the only gift of a site ever accepted by the saint, who held himself betrothed to poverty. Probably a small church was erected under his direction; but when the fame spread of his having here received the impress of the stigmata, a special interest attached to the site. Pope Alexander IV. took the “Mons Alvernus” under his protection; in 1260 a church was consecrated in the presence of Bonaventura and six bishops; and a few years later the Chapel of the Stigmata was built through the munificence of Count Simone of Battifolle. The chief church is now a large one; it was begun in 1348, but it was not completed till some time in the fifteenth century, when the whole settlement of La Verna, the “Seraphicus Mons,” as it was called, had passed under the protectorate of the Signory of Florence.