The padre came soon to escort them about the church, and “to show them what little had been left,” he said, pointing to the empty chapels.  They found enough, however, to fill them with admiration in dear, good Fra Giovanni of Verona’s marqueterie-work in the backs of the stalls, which extended the whole length of the long church, as is customary in monasteries where the monks are the sole participants at the holy offices.  “While Fra Giovanni was here as one of our order,” the padre explained, “he finished the stalls which are now in the cathedral of Siena.  They were taken from us in 1813.  After we were allowed to come back, we asked to have our stalls replaced by those in a monastery in Siena which was being torn down, and so these stalls were sent us:  they are by Fra Giovanni’s own hand.  He has never been equalled in this kind of work, for which he invented the staining of the woods to produce light and shade, and perfected the perspective which Brunelleschi invented while resting from his labors on the Florentine dome.  The different Italian cities on the hill-sides, the vistas down the long streets, with palaces and churches on either side, half-open missals, Biblical musical instruments, rolls of manuscript music, birds in gay plumage, all perfectly represented in minute pieces of wood, excite the wonder of every one whose privilege it is to examine them at leisure.”

As on their way to the cloister they passed through the sacristy, once heaped with vessels of gold and silver, embroidered vestures, ivory and ebony sculptures, and splendid illuminated missals, now bare and empty, the padre said sorrowfully, “Only the walls are left to the guardianship of these feeble hands, which must soon give up their trust.”  When, however, they emerged into the cloister he brightened up, saying, “Here you will have enough to occupy you the whole month;” and the two artists of the party drew a breath of satisfaction at finding themselves at last before the object of their pilgrimage,—­the frescos of Signorelli and Sodoma, representing scenes in the life of St. Benedict, which they were going to copy.  They walked slowly found the four sides, lingering where Signorelli’s deeper sentiment gave them cause for study.  He was called to Monte Oliveto first, and painted only one wall.  It was only after three years that the young unknown Bazzi was summoned, and in an incredibly short time he completed the other three with his fanciful creations, as graceful and airy as his character was light and frivolous.  His beautiful faces and figures came from his heart; his brain had little to do with his work, as, without the evidence of sight of it, the name given to him by the public—­Sodoma, meaning arch-fool—­would indicate.  Signorelli, on the contrary, had his ideal in his brain, and labored to reproduce it; and his efforts are graver and more elevated.  It is to be lamented that his mineral paints have changed their colors in many places from white to black, and that his green trees have become blue.