also add such projections as I desired, simply by affixing pieces of the same tufa, attached and well secured with the aid of nails and clamps. I thus brought the ceiling to somewhat fairer proportions by means of those stuccoes, which were the first modern works of the kind executed in Naples.[1] On the walls and at the ends of the Refectory I painted six pictures in oil, each seven braccia high, three at each end that is to say. In three of these pictures, those over the entrance namely, are Stories representing the Fall of Manna, with Moses and Aaron, who are gathering it up; and here I took much pains to give variety to the attitudes and vestments of men, women, and children, expressing also the feelings with which they collected that manna, and their gratitude to God for the same. At the upper end of the Refectory is Our Saviour Christ at table in the house of Simon, Mary Magdalen is bathing his feet with her tears, and wiping them with her hair; her attitude, and the expression of her countenance, showing her repentance of the sins she has committed.[2]
This Story is divided into three compartments; in the centre is the supper, and to the right a buttery, with its credenza or beaufet, covered with vases in varied and fanciful forms; to the left is the Seneschal superintending the bringing forward and placing of the dishes. The ceiling was also divided into three parts, in one of which the subject treated of is Faith, in the second it is Religion, and in the third. Eternity: each of these figures, representing those ideas, is in the centre of its compartment; and around them are eight Virtues, intimating to the Monks, who eat in that Refectory, the qualities required for the perfection of their lives. The remaining spaces of the ceiling I enriched with grottesche divided into forty-eight compartments, and serving as a sort of framework or bordering to the fortyeight Celestial Signs. In six divisions, beneath the windows of the place, moreover, which last I enlarged and decorated, I painted six Parables of Christ, the subjects whereof are appropriate to that place. And to all these pictures the richly executed carving of the seats is made to correspond.
