tood so low in a lonely glen.

The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This was in 1313,
the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s death at Buonconvento, which
is a little walled town between Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether
Bernardo's retirement was in any way due to the extinction of immediate
hope for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from his
legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to the operation
of divine grace. Yet we may remember how a more illustrious refugee, the
singer of the Divine Comedy, betook himself upon the same occasion to
the lonely convent of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of Catria, and
meditated there the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo Tolomei was
founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his letter to the
cardinals of Italy: _Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo: facta est
quasi vidua domino gentium._

Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands grottos in the
rock, and strewed their stone beds with withered chestnut-leaves. For S.
Scolastica, the sister of S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. Their
food was wild fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. Through the
day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the wilderness into a
land of plenty. By night they meditated on eternal truth. The contrast
between their rude life and the delicate nurture of Sienese nobles, in
an age when Siena had become a by-word for luxury, must have been cruel.
But it fascinated the mediaeval imagination, and the three anchorites
were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. As yet the new-born
order had no rules; for Bernardo, when he renounced the world, embraced
humility. The brethren were bound together only by the ties of charity.
They lived in common; and under their sustained efforts Accona soon
became a garden.

The society could not, however, hold together without further
organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch as vulgar minds can
recognise no good except in what is formed upon a pattern they are
familiar with. Then Bernardo had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder
of light ascending to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in
white raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were attired in
white. Up the ladder, led by angels, climbed men in vesture of dazzling
white; and among these Bernardo recognised his own companions. Soon
after this dream, he called Ambrogio Piccolomini, an