eBooks Base 2000

On the right hand, as
you approach, is a long colonnade of arches, extending on a line with the
facade, and having a tomb beneath every arch. This colonnade forms one
of the enclosing walls of a cloister. We found none of the front
entrances open, but on our left, in a wall at right angles with the
church, there was an open gateway, approaching which, we saw, within the
four-sided colonnade, an enclosed green space of a cloister. This is
what is called the Chiostro Verde, so named from the prevailing color of
the frescos with which the walls beneath the arches are adorned.
This cloister is the reality of what I used to imagine when I saw the
half-ruinous colonnades connected with English cathedrals, or endeavored
to trace out the lines along the broken wall of some old abbey. Not that
this extant cloister, still perfect and in daily use for its original
purposes, is nearly so beautiful as the crumbling ruin which has ceased
to be trodden by monkish feet for more than three centuries.


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