We were shown over the church by a white-robed monk, who readily talked of the smaller interests of life--of the severity of the winter, the daily routine, and the relics and pictures of the different chapels. But he did not respond when I expressed regret at the severance of intercourse between the different existing settlements of the Order of Camaldoli, a severance which is inevitably leading to the collapse of the whole organisation. It may be part of these men’s attitude of mind, or it may be a self-imposed limitation, that any allusion to change is met by cheerful and unquestioning acceptance of things as they are. Is it that the future of their order has become a matter of indifference to them, or is it that a tacit agreement among them prevents them from discussing their own affairs with outsiders? The monk also showed us over the cell of St Romuald, which is unchanged, they say, except that the piety of a later age has covered the inside of its rough walls with panelling. On occasions this cell has been offered to distinguished visitors. It was so offered to St Francis, but he felt the honour too great to accept. Many visitors in the course of centuries have visited this hermitage. Popes, emperors, men of piety and men of learning have prayed in its chapel. And up here in the shade of these huge pines those conversations took place which the learned Cristofero Landini has described, when some of the ablest scholars of the Early Italian Renaissance stayed here together in the summer of 1468, and whiled away several days in learned philosophical discussion. The _Conversations of Camaldoli_ are remarkable chiefly for their learned interest, but their setting is attractive, as they enable us to realise the friendly relations of some of the most distinguished men of the Medicean circle--men to whom the revival of learning and modern scholarship owes a debt of gratitude. For these conversations take us back to the time when the Republic of Florence, following the example of the Republic of Venice, had become the home of several learned Greeks. The spirit of a new era was stirring in every department of human knowledge, and those who studied the works of Plato and of his expositors at first hand and with some thoroughness, showed a renewed interest in Virgil and Horace, Dante and Petrarch. The Greek writers were translated into Latin, and many of them in a Latin garb first saw the daylight of print. But the works of Latin and Italian authors likewise engrossed attention, and Italian itself once more was looked upon as a language capable of expressing the great thoughts of great men.