He met the murderer in a narrow lane on Good Friday and was about to slay him, but when the man threw himself upon the ground with arms outstretched in the form of a cross and begged mercy for the love of Christ, John forgave him.

[1] A popular legend holds that on his way home, John entered the Benedictine church at San Miniato to pray, and the figure on the crucifix bowed its head to him in recognition of his generosity.

This story forms the subject of Burne-Jones's picture The Merciful Knight, and has been adapted by Joseph Henry Shorthouse in John Inglesant.

The church was consecrated by Rotho, Bishop of Paderborn, in 1038, and Itta, the abbess of the neighbouring monastery of Sant' Ellero, donated the site of the new foundation in 1039.

The abbess retained the privilege of nominating the superiors, but this right was granted to the monks by Pope Victor II, who confirmed the order in 1056.

[1] The holy lives of the first monks at Vallombrosa attracted considerable attention and brought many requests for new foundations, but there were few postulants, since few could endure the extraordinary austerity of the way of life.

St. John's choir monks were to be pure contemplatives and to this end, he introduced the system of lay-brothers who were to attend to the secular business.

The term conversi (lay brothers) occurs for the first time in Abbot Andrew of Strumi's Life of St. John, written at the beginning of the twelfth century.

The early Vallombrosans took a considerable part in the struggle of the popes against simony, of which the most famous incident was the ordeal by fire undertaken successfully by St. Peter Igneus in 1068.

[1] About 1087 Andrew of Vallombrosa (d. 1112) founded the monastery of Cornilly in the Diocese of Orléans, and in 1093 the Abbey of Chezal-Benoît, which later became the head of a considerable Benedictine congregation.

There are no grounds for the legend given by some writers of the order of a great Vallombrosan congregation in France with an abbey near Paris, founded by King St.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, an attempt was made by Abbot-General Milanesi to found a house of studies on university lines at Vallombrosa; but in 1527 the monastery was burned by the troops of Emperor Charles V. It was rebuilt by Abbot Nicolini in 1637, and in 1634 an observatory was established.

A few monks still remain to look after the church and meteorological station, but the abbey buildings have become a school of forestry that was founded in 1870 on the German model, the only one of its kind in Italy.

[1] The decline of the order may be ascribed to the hard fate of the motherhouse, to the system of commendatory abbots, and to the constant wars which ravaged Italy.

The Abbot of Vallombrosa, the superior of the whole order, had formerly a seat in the Florentine Senate and bore the additional title of Count of Monte Verde and Gualdo.

[1] The shield of the order shows the founder's arm in a tawny-coloured cowl grasping a golden crutch-shaped crozier on a blue ground.

Among the Vallumbrosan saints may be mentioned: Veridiana, anchoress (1208–42); Giovanni Dalle Celle (feast, 10 March); the lay brother Melior (1 August).