Also, a figure reposing under a slab, which strikes the
spectator with the idea that it is really a dead person enveloped in a
shroud. There are windows of painted glass in some of the chapels; and
the gloom of the dimly lighted interior, especially beneath the broad,
low arches, is very impressive.
While we were there some women assembled at one of the altars, and went
through their acts of devotion without the help of a priest; one and
another of them alternately repeating prayers, to which the rest
responded. The murmur of their voices took a musical tone, which was
reverberated by the vaulted arches.
U---- and I now came out; and, under the porch, we found an old woman
selling rosaries, little religious books, and other holy things. We
bought two little medals of the Immaculate Virgin, one purporting to be
of silver, the other of gold; but as both together cost only two or three
sous, the genuineness of the material may well be doubted. We sat down
on the steps, of a crucifix which is placed in front of the church, and
the children began to draw the porch, of which I hardly know whether to
call the architecture classic or Gothic (as I said before); at all events
it has a venerable aspect, and there are frescos within its arches by
Simone Memmi.
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