CHAPTER I

THE VIGIL OF SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA On the summit of a conical hill, rising above the great amphitheatre of forests that skirt the sunny Apulian plains, upon the ruins of a temple to Apollo and in a grove sacred to Venus here, in the sixth century had arisen the model of western monasticism, the cloisters of Monte Cassino. From its sun-kissed heights the view extended on one side towards Arpinum where the Prince of Roman orators was born, on the other, towards Aquinum, already famous as the birth-place of Juvenal. Sca…