Lithic forms, their uneven surfaces accentuated by dense cross-hatching, surge upward as they vie for attention on a page of a tall printed book (Fig. 6.1). A dark outcrop on the left is obstructed by a luminous slab that tilts back, as if from the force of tussling with the large tree whose roots probe its crevices. Resembling fossilised limbs, the extremities of the slab reverberate in the animated branches and trunks of trees, as slow geological forces quicken into arboreal foliage. At the bottom of the sheet, serrated rocks impede access to the mountain, rendering viewers uncertain about their location. Honed edges of stone in the foreground gesture toward the left where the corner of a small building appears, its human artifice easily overlooked in this isolated setting. And yet, the masonry wall contrasts purposefully with surrounding rocks, some of which have been cut out from paper and can be manipulated. Pulling down a boulder near the building exposes a pilgrim and his guide navigating a path (Fig. 6.2). Turning another large overslip to the right reveals the stone bed of St Francis of Assisi (Fig. 6.3). The challenging landscape slows the journey through the saint's retreat at La Verna, amplifying its difficulties, and accordingly also its rewards.

The location of the stone bed and Francis’ oratory is ‘very remote and obscured’, according to Lino Moroni's title for the image in his Descrizione del Sacro Monte della Vernia (Description of the Sacred Mountain of La Verna, 1612). The engraving is the eighteenth of twenty-three images in this ambitious volume, 45 cm in height, in which bespoke printing, the mountain,

and miracles ascribed to the saint are intertwined. La Verna, in the valley of Casentino in the province of Arezzo, had been donated to Francis to use as a retreat in 1213. He was believed to have received the stigmata there, which led to a swift canonisation in 1228, only two years after his death. Remaking the monastic complex in the format of a book nearly 400 years later was intended to reignite interest in the Franciscan cult and the site, which had fallen into a state of disrepair from damage caused by a fire and the appropriation of its buildings to house troops.