“This singular convent, which stands on the cliffs of a lofty Apennine, was built by

St.

Francis himself, and is celebrated for the miracle which the motto records. Here reigns all the terrible of nature⁠—a rocky mountain, a ruin of the elements, broken, sawn, and piled in sublime confusion⁠—precipices crowned with old, gloomy, visionary woods⁠—black chasms in the rock where curiosity shudders to look down⁠—haunted caverns, sanctified by miraculous crosses⁠—long excavated stairs that restore you to daylight.⁠ ⁠… On entering the Chapel of the Stigmata, we caught the religion of the place; we knelt round the rail, and gazed with a kind of local devotion at the holy spot where