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Slumbering on his pillow of stone, Jacob, the Biblical patriarch, dreams of “a stairway … set on the ground, and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it” (Genesis 28:12). Although much of the painting has faded from view, a remnant of Jacob’s dream can be seen in the sandaled feet of an angel on the ladder, which appears to ascend a pier that supports the ceiling of the monastery’s church.