[1] One of the most common explanations of the ship on Etruscan coins is that these people were the first to bring ships to Italy.

[2] Umbria was originally incorporated in the province of Tuscany.

[3] Among the precious objects kept at the Palazzo Pubblico which are described by Frollieri (see Arch. Storico, v. 16 part ii.) are two talons of the griffin, whose capture we read of in Ciatti. These had been given to the general of the Franciscan order by the king of France, and in 1453 he handed the talons over to the city of Perugia.

[4] Dare we presume that the University of Perugia can trace its origin to this period? We certainly are told that the Roman youth were sent here in early days to be instructed in the art of augury.

[5] There is scarcely any trace of the Lombard occupation left in the architecture of Perugia with the exception of the porch over the door of S. Agata, in the Via dei Priori.

[6] The law obliging priests to dress in black was only made after the fourteenth century. In 1203 a certain priest in his will left his clothes to different friends, and among them there was nothing black except his hat. See CantÙ, chap. lxiv.

[7] Lasche—a small fish corresponding to our dace, and abundant in the Lake of Trasimene. The Perugians were celebrated for their greediness in old days, and their strong affection for this particular fish became a by-word throughout all Italy, and is constantly alluded to in Umbrian chronicles. The tabby cats probably alluded to the emblem of the Raspanti: a cat.

[8] Perugia had a close connection with Florence, whom she imitated in many ways. The Florentines were careful to keep upon good terms with Perugia, and many were the embassies exchanged by the two towns. We even hear that, when the Guelph party were exiled from Florence, the Perugians, ever faithful to the Lion of the Guelphs, enabled them to re-enter their city. Yet it must in truth be added, that the two towns had several points of difference, and that they occasionally met on the field of battle as well as in the council chamber.

[9] No cardinal was allowed to enter Perugia’s gates before he had arrived at a distinct understanding with the chancellor that he came as friend and well-wisher to the city, and not as legate with powers to infringe on the rights of the citizens.

[10] For an account of his death, see chap. v. p. 143.

[11] Beccherini: probably derived from beccaio (butcher) or beccheria (slaughter-house), which place Perugia greatly resembled at times.

[12] See page 149.

[13] Some say that the bull was found reposing in the hands of S. Ercolano’s statue, as nobody had courage enough to present it to the citizens.

[14] On all the lower hills and in the plains around Perugia the nobles had their strongholds—great walled citadels of bricks and mortar, like the nests of prehistoric birds. Deruta was one of these, belonging to the Baglioni in early times: Bettona, another (where some descendants of the Baglioni still live in a large red villa). In the Palazzo degli Oddi—Via dei Priori—some well-kept canvasses still show what the nests of the Oddi looked like, and also their position.

[15] Sir John Hawkwood and his English soldiers became a scourge in Umbria at this period.

[16] Pandolfo was the first of the Baglioni who openly attempted to get power in his native town.

[17] His son, Francesco Sforza, was afterwards Duke of Milan.

[18] Paolo Uccello’s splendid picture in our National Gallery is always said to represent the battle of S. Egidio. We have however no proof that the youth with yellow hair is indeed, as hitherto reported, a portrait of Galeazzo Malatesta.

[19] It was believed by some that Braccio’s success depended on a kindly spirit imprisoned in a crystal who gave him good council, and brought him luck.

[20] A poet of Aquila, Ciunillo, points to a more tragic cause of Braccio’s death. We are given to understand that young Francesco Sforza (the son of Braccio’s great rival Attendolo Sforza, who had met his death a few months previously whilst crossing the river Pescara on his way to relieve Aquila) gave the surgeon’s arm a slight nudge as he was cleaning the wound, and drove the sharp instrument straight into Braccio’s brain. Nothing that we know of Francesco Sforza’s character (he was afterwards Duke of Milan) would lead us to suppose him capable of such a deed.

[21] Date of his birth uncertain (1386?).

[22] While Alexander VI., the Borgia Pope, was staying at Perugia in the summer of 1495, he made an effort to rid the Church of the whole Baglioni family at one stroke, but to gather at once all its members into his net required some diplomacy. With Borgia cunning he called to him Guido, the head of the clan, and expressed a great desire to see, during his stay in the city, a joust or tournament, politely implying that if organised by the illustrious house of Baglioni it must surely be a magnificent success. Guido, as shrewd and crafty as any of his family, replied that he was ready to do anything to gratify the Pope, and that he could think of nothing more likely to be acceptable and pleasing to His Holiness than to see the people of Perugia fully armed and equipped for battle, with the condottieri of the Baglioni house and their retainers ready for instant combat. Guido’s covert threat was taken with a smile, but very soon afterwards Alexander left for Rome, and spoke no more of tournaments.

[23] The well-known scholar, Francesco Matarazzo, was born at Perugia in 1443, studied there, married, and died there in 1518. It has been doubted whether he really was the author of the marvellous chronicle of the deeds of the Baglioni, but there is nothing to disprove this; the dates coincide, and the chronicle is always included in the list of his life-works.

[24] The Baglioni are rarely mentioned without the title of Magnifico being added to their name. “I Magnifici Baglioni” exclaimed a Perugian of the present day, “I Magnifici Birbanti” (The magnificent scoundrels) were for them a fitter title!

[25] See John Addington Symonds, “Sketches in Italy.”

[26] “Both the one and the other appeared to be like two angels of Paradise.”

[27] Two lions had been given to Gianpaolo and Astorre by the Florentines in recognition of services rendered for them against the Pisans. A third was kept by Grifonetto.

[28] “Unhappy Astorre, dying like a poltroon.”

[29] “Have no fear, Gismondo, my brother.”

[30] “Simonetto might have lived,” sighs Matarazzo, “but his great courage killed him, for he scorned to flee.” “Indomitusque Simon” had been written of him, and as the citizens drew near to look the last on these young brothers, they told each other that even now, struck down by so cruel a fate, Simonetto appeared still unvanquished and untamed.

[31] “Now my time is come.” Matarazzo tells us that Guido was a fatalist (“era homo che credeva al destenato sempre,” p. 118).

[32] “Here his lordship received upon his noble person so many wounds that he stretched his graceful limbs upon the earth.”

[33] The scholar, Francesco Matarazzo, went, as a matter of fact, to Greece in his youth in order to copy passages from the Greek classics. It is therefore possible that he acquired his love of the human form actually in Hellas.

[34] “Everything,” he says, “seemed darkened and full of tears; all the servants wept, and the doors and the rooms, and every house of the other members of the Baglioni were all like the palls of the dead. And throughout the city there was no soul who played or sang; and few there were who smiled.”

[35] See Archivio Storico, vol. xvi. part ii. page 437.

[36] John Addington Symonds’ “Sketches in Italy,” p. 83.

[37] John Addington Symonds, “Life of Michelangelo,” vol. i. p. 184-185.

[38] The name is still common in Perugia and owned by some of the best families in the place, and the splendid villas near Bettona, Torgiano, and Bastia are all inhabited by people of the mighty name of Baglioni.

[39] By the treaty concluded with Martin V. (1424) after Fortebraccio’s death, Perugia was absolved from every tax not in force during the time of Boniface IX., and Paul had accepted this treaty on his accession.

[40] The place where this great crucifix stood (the cross itself is hidden by a window) can still be seen on the south side of the Duomo, and every night a lamp is burned above it in commemoration of that fantastic ceremony. How little probably does the custode, who strikes the match, guess for what purpose he does so. No doubt he imagines that he is lighting up to make the street below more clear for passers-by.

[41] This immense and extraordinary building has been fully described in another place (see chap. vi.). Plate, p. 77, and map will explain how powerful was the position that it held, and how well calculated it was to strike terror into the minds of the citizens. But according to one authority the Latin inscription quoted above was never written on its walls.

[42] See “Archivio Storico Italiano,” vol. xvi., part ii. p. 443.

[43] The topographical position of Perugia distinguished her in very early times. “It is believed,” says Mariotti, “that the Via Cassia, which led from Rome to Chiusi, passed by Perugia, or rather the Via Vajentana, which was one of the ancient military roads passing through Tuscany. Other writers have placed Perugia on the Via Aurelia. She had beside the principal military roads, several others which served her for communication with the neighbouring Etruscan cities, and it is most likely that modern roads leading to Chiusi, Orvieto, Gubbio, &c., preserve many parts of the old roads.”—See Mariotti, vol. i. p. 9.

[44] Even after the Perugians had ceased to fight among themselves, their unhappy churches and palaces were battered about. “That wind of the desert,” says Bonazzi, “that simoom of Pontifical dominion did not pass over our city in vain.” Paul III., in building his fortress, did infinite damage to the south of the old town; and the work of destruction, as far as the gems of painting go, was completed by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose raids among the masterpieces of Perugia were quite imperial in their extravagance.

[45] Bonazzi says that the present Via Vecchia was one of the very earliest of the streets, and that people have tramped up and down it for at least twenty-five hundred years.

[46] One historian says that there were as many as a hundred towers, but the more prudent Mariotti will only allow of forty-two. Only one or two remain, yet in old days they, like the city walls, were most carefully preserved, and it appears that Sextus IV. “fulminated excommunications and fined by a fine of fifty ducats any person who dared to pull down a tower.” Of those which remain the Torre degli Scirri at Porta Susanna is the most conspicuous. The bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico is another; and in many of the streets one can trace their mutilated trunks between the house walls.

[47] These graceful arches have been almost everywhere bricked up and replaced by square window posts, perhaps because it was easier to fit glass into a square than into an arch. In Gubbio and some of the smaller Umbrian towns the arched window has in many houses been left untouched.

[48] In old days the Perugians actually kept a caged lion in their public palace, so Ciatti was probably quite correct as far as this first statement is concerned.

[49] Ciatti was neither fair nor true to the women of the town. The Madonnas of Bonfigli and Perugino disprove his testimony in the sixteenth century even as our own eyes contradict it in the nineteenth. We have only to go to mass in S. Lorenzo to realise the simple grace of the young Umbrian peasant girls, and in some of her palaces we may have the happiness of seeing some of the fairest women, and certainly the most elegant, of modern Italy.

[50] This square is one of the most charming points in the city. In old days it was a very disreputable and untidy suburban square or thoroughfare. The last witch burned in Perugia was burned in this place. All the refuse of the city was cast out upon it. In this way, and upheld by the first Etruscan wall, an artificial space of flat land was procured which the houses to the east of the piazza now occupy, but these were always threatened by destruction as the soil below them was constantly giving way, and one of Fortebraccio’s great works was the bolstering up of these houses with strong arches and walls from below. The reason of the name of the square is that its pavement actually covers the Etruscan wall. It is a beautiful and picturesque place, full of fine detail. The buildings of the old University (1483) have almost an echo of Oxford in their square window frames; the palace of the Capitano del Popolo has a grand door in pietra serena with the figure of Justice carved above it.

[51] It is difficult to reconstruct these earlier buildings, which have almost entirely vanished with time and different fires, but they lay more to the west of the piazza, and formed a fine group, with a great flight of steps leading up to them from the square. The church of the MaestÀ delle Volte belonged to them; also the exquisite little arch which is left standing alone at the head of the Via del Verzaro. For an accurate idea of the first plan of the buildings in the piazza it would be well to look at a picture in the Pinacoteca, which hangs in the small room out of the Sala di Mariotto.

[52] All the emblematic heraldry of the city may be followed on this big doorway. The three patron saints of the city, S. Ercolano (Herculanus), S. Costanzo, and S. Louis of Toulouse stand in the centre. The last of these was the son of Charles II. of Naples, and a great grandson of Louis IX. of France. The Perugians, who were always strong Guelphs, chose him as their patron saint when Robert I. King of Naples, and brother of Louis, took arms against the Ghibellines at Genoa. S. Louis was also the particular patron of the Palace of the Priori. The two lions who support the pillars of the doorway are symbols of the Guelph cause.

[53] It is said that Fiorenzo painted this fresco to commemorate the fact that he had been himself a Priore in 1472.

[54] We would point out that, as far as prisons are concerned, the nineteenth century has certainly improved in cleanliness and decency upon its predecessors. We visited the dungeons in the Via della Gabbia, one bitter winter afternoon, and left them shuddering. The following day we were taken through the wards of the unromantic modern building which stands—a veritable eyesore to the artist—on the southern slope of the city. Civilisation has brought great good in certain things, if not more beauty for humanity. The modern prisons of Perugia are given over to the care of Belgian nuns. There seemed to be a scent of freshest lavender in the long cool rooms where the prisoners sleep and work, and we left them we may almost say with comfort, or, at least, with far happier feelings than those which had saddened us the night before in the gruesome cells of the Palazzo Pubblico.

[55] Fra Bevignate was a Sylvestrian monk. Pascoli says that he died in 1350, at the age of ninety-five, in which case he was but a youth when he designed the fountain.

[56] For full account of the fountain, see Mariotti, “Lettere Pittoriche,” and Gio. Battista Vermiglioli’s admirable work on the subject. The latter is splendidly illustrated.

[57] Some years ago a gentleman of Perugia bought from a grocer in the town for the sum of twenty-five centimes the original drawing of Baroccio’s “Deposition.” (See No. 9, Gabinetto della Torre, Pinacoteca.)

[58] See model in the Museum of the University.

[59] The stone is probably some rare form of agate. It is transparent and takes many lights; the colour is a faint yellowish blue. The people of the place have strange fancies about its colour. Before we had seen it we asked of others what it looked like. “Ah,” answered the small son of the sacristan, “it is white, and it is not white. It has no given colour. It is impossible to describe it, for nothing else is like it.” Goldoni, in his memoirs, gives the following description of it:—“The ring with which St Joseph wedded the Virgin Mary is made of a transparent blue stone, and is a circle of some thickness; thus it appeared to me, but they say that the ring changes its colour and form miraculously, according to the various persons who approach it.”

[60] A picture capable of working miracles.

[61] To those who only search for art, its picture by Perugino will seem the chief attraction. This is, however, a poor bit of the master’s work with many of his later affectations.

[62] This fact is uncertain, and many people ascribe the work to Ducci.

[63] A note to Gregorovius’ “Tombs of the Popes” says that Innocent’s bones have been carried to Rome by Leo XIII. and buried in S. John Lateran.

[64] See “Lenten Journey in Umbria, 1862.”

[65] The word Marzia naturally suggests a temple to Mars, and indeed certain half-legendary records point to the fact that such a temple formerly existed on this same spot.

[66] In Bonfigli’s fresco of the siege of Perugia by Totila at the Pinacoteca (see chapter x.), we have an admirable portrait of the square of S. Ercolano, and on one of the house walls, under a small pent roof, there is a minute copy of a fresco: a madonna and saints with angels. It is not at all improbable that this fresco is really the one by Buffalmacco (now destroyed) described in the above passage by Vasari.

[67] This last fact is interesting for several reasons. It shows that even some of the Perugian priests took part against the Pope on this memorable 20th of June. The Benedictine monks at S. Pietro opened their convent to the citizens to use as a fortress on that day, and themselves joined in the fighting. Their loyalty to the city has never been forgotten. When in 1860 all the convents of Perugia were broken up the government spared the monks of S. Pietro. They left the pictures in the church, which was turned into a “national monument”; and they left the monks in their cells with the understanding that when their number should be at last reduced to two the convent with its vast lands was to be turned into an agricultural school, but in no ways to be divided up, sold, or desecrated. Hence the comparatively perfect condition of S. Pietro.

[68] The Garden of Gethsemane. The picture has been struck by lightning, and the strong slanting line which crosses it from end to end adds a certain mysterious charm to the group of the sleeping Apostles.

[69] Sometimes called Piazza Danti.

[70] There are many people still living in Perugia who remember the time when those who wanted to converse over a glass of good wine would give each other rendezvous at “Il Papa.” In Hawthorne’s “Transformation” some of the principal characters keep a tryst under this same statue.

[71] It must, however, be remembered that Julius’ policy was only on the surface, and that the yoke of Rome was not by any means lifted from the city.

[72] Lancie: stands in old Italian for three horsemen.

[73] There are one or two other points of interest in this square, which are dwarfed, of course, by the splendid Etruscan relic. In the big block of late Renaissance building (Palazzo Galenga) to the left, Goldoni acted as a child, and in the same square the composer, Francesco Morlacchi, was born. Morlacchi was the author of much music, sacred and profane, and the Perugians, who cannot truly be called a musical race, are very proud of, and have named their biggest theatre after him. Morlacchi died in 1841, and the great Requiem which he had composed for the funeral of his patron, Frederic Augustus I. of Saxony, was sung in the Duomo of Perugia, “to obtain eternal peace for the soul of this her valiant son.”

[74] The borgo of S. Angelo was always reported in old days to be inhabited by the most wicked people in Perugia, and, indeed, during the turmoils of the centuries the first rumble of revolution and of discord could usually be traced to this quarter.

[75] Perugino seems to have taken a particular pleasure in work of this sort; his designs for the Cambio stalls are a good illustration of the ingenuity he expended on them.

[76] In one of the loveliest of the old houses as one passes down to the left, Madame Alinda Brunamonte lives: a poetess of whose talent Perugia is most justly proud; and a little lower down is the Palazzo degli Oddi with its exquisite copy, said to be by Pinturicchio, of Raphael’s Madonna del Libro, and the strange charts of the Oddi palaces upon the plain, decorating its walls.

[77] It is fair to say that many other towns dispute this strange honour with Perugia, and probably with far better claims.

[78] Ducci did other excellent work in Perugia, namely, the gate of S. Pietro, the beautiful altar in S. Domenico, and a Madonna and child which is now in the University Museum, but which was originally made for a niche on the faÇade of S. Francesco al Prato. It was the Florentine sculptor, too, who is said to have founded the pottery works at Deruta.

[79] See plate.

[80] See poem of “Viola,” by Alinda Brunamonte.

[81] See “History of the Papacy during the Reformation,” vol. i. p. 146.

[82] In Bonfigli’s great gonfalone now at the Pinacoteca, but originally painted for the Oratory of S. Bernardino, we see a meeting of the Confraternities, and an admirable portrait of their chapel and their square.

[83] This Gonfalone is one of the loveliest of the series mentioned on p. 238. Like the one in the Duomo it is covered with a gauze veil, but can easily be seen with a little patient inspection.

[84] Siepi says that he cannot even imagine how old S. Martino is, but he knows that it is built upon the top of the Etruscan wall.

[85] See note p. 229.

[86] The town, like every other small Italian town, has had its complicated and tempestuous history. Its walls, many of which are very early, have suffered siege (see pp. 19, 20); and its hills are honeycombed in places with Etruscan tombs.

[87] It is curious to note that it was Paul III. who ordered Michelangelo’s Last Judgment to be painted over Perugino’s altar-piece, and that it was also Paul III. who built his fortress on the ruins of the Baglioni palaces at Perugia.

[88] “That stupendous thief Napoleon Bonaparte.” This magnificent title was conferred on the dead Emperor by a poor little withered custodian of an Umbrian church.

[89] Since writing the above, we have been shown a very early MS., which shows that Pietro’s bones were taken from the ditch by a priest and buried under the walls of his church at Fontignano.

[90] L’Ingegno is a mysterious figure in the school of Perugino. Our National Gallery has a picture signed A. A. P. (Andreas Aloysii Pinxit) which is believed to be an authentic work of his. We have no distinct records of the man, though the pictures ascribed to him are very numerous. The best known of these are at Assisi. His work and his personality are a sort of shadow of Perugino. Vasari felt no sort of doubts about l’Ingegno; indeed he pronounced him to be the best master of Perugino’s school, and vying with Raphael in his studio. He also tells us that l’Ingegno’s glory was early withered by the curse of blindness; this fact has, however, been disproved by Rumohr, who has made very careful research upon the subject. Whatever l’Ingegno was, or whatever he did, one cannot ignore his existence in a survey of the Umbrian school, and the very fact of the mystery in which he is shrouded attracts and draws one to him.

[91] There is a beautiful bit of his work in the little old church of S. Martino at Perugia. (See p. 215.)

[92] The Cambio is in the same block of buildings as the Palazzo Pubblico, though separated from these by the Via dei Priori. It is the hall in which the members of the Exchange met in old days to settle their affairs. For full account of the history of the Exchange at Perugia, and of its meeting-room, see Storia Artistica del Cambio di Perugia—Adamo Rossi.

[93] The pictures of Perugia were formerly stored in the museum of the University. In 1871 they were removed to the top storey of the Palazzo Pubblico, and here, since they may never again return to church or convent, they have found a permanent and fitting home.

[94] Two fine portraits in the Palazzo Baldeschi are attributed to Velasquez, but there is no proof that the Spanish painter really came to paint them. Another beautiful picture—the property of Count Meniconi Braceschi, at Perugia—is attributed to Filippo Lippi, but is more probably the work of Neri di Bicci.

[95] The frieze round the top of the same room clashes hopelessly with the calm pre-Raphaelite figures beneath it. It was painted by Tommaso d’Arcangelo, a pupil of Giulio Romano, and represents some of the events in the life of Braccio Fortebraccio.

[96] There is another picture of exactly the same type in the Church of the Carmine. It has hitherto been given an earlier date than Bonfigli—1130—and it is one of the so-called miraculous Madonnas. We have made careful search, both in the documents of the church and in other books upon the pictures of Perugia, but can get no certain information about it; yet we feel nearly convinced that it is the work of Bonfigli. Some of the gonfaloni—those in S. Francesco al Prato and S. Lorenzo—are covered with a thin gauze veil. The one of the Carmine was also thus covered originally, but the veil caught fire and burnt to cinders. Not a flame even so much as touched the faces of our Lady and her angels.

[97] The picture is a curious record of the times. Two excommunicated women kneel in the right hand corner; one of them is huddled in a veil, but the other, fair and soulless as Greek Helen, turns aside and smiles.

[98] The four panels of saints and angels round the Madonna are attributed to Caporali.

[99] In Matarazzo’s chronicles of the sixteenth century we find an accurate account of the different costumes worn by the nobles of Perugia (see p. 99). It has been suggested to us by a learned gentleman of Perugia, that Fiorenzo was simply copying the costumes of his period, and that in his group of young men in the miracles of S. Bernardino he did but portray the most important actors of the day, whose armorial bearings were shown in their apparel, namely, the “most magnificent gentlemen, Oddi and Baglioni.”

[100] The hole it filled may still be seen in No. 16, Room XIII., but the big picture is torn from its frame and its place filled up with a good bit of Eusebio’s work.

[101] Eusebio was a favourite pupil of Perugino. There is something pathetic in his life. Men seemed better friends to him than fortune. Pinturicchio loved him and took him with him to Siena to help him with his work there. He was a great friend of Manni, too, and a passionate admirer of Raphael, whose work he imitated. When very young he married a beautiful girl of Perugia whom he loved deeply. By her he had many children and his life became a struggle to support them, so that he was often hampered and distracted in his work and died early and in misery.

[102] That Perugia had great Raphaels not very long ago everyone knows. The exquisite Madonna del Libro is now in S. Petersburg, and the British nation paid a memorable sum for the Ansidei Madonna which used to hang in S. Fiorenzo.

[103] It will perhaps be objected by some readers that the above pages contain too few facts and dates about the painters of the Umbrian school and the manner in which they were influenced by the Florentines. For these, we add the following list of authorities whose works contain full store of information on the subject:

Crowe & Cavalcaselle—History of Painting in Italy, vol. iii.

Alinda Brunamonti—Pietro Perugino e l’Arte Umbra.

Angelo Lupatelli—Storia della Pittura in Perugia and Pinacoteca Vannucci.

Bernhard Berenson—The Central Painters of the Renaissance.

[104] The Museum is kept in the upper story of the University at Perugia, and a delightful street, or rather aqueduct, called the Via Appia, leads down to it from the back of the Canonica.

[105] At first these collections were kept in their owners’ private palaces, later on they sold or gave them to their native town. Early in this century the objects thus collected were moved from their original home in the Palazzo Pubblico, and placed in the corridors and upper storey of the university. Thanks to the indefatigable care and energy of such men as Vermiglioli and Conestabile, who devoted their lives to the study, explanation, and history of these relics, we now have a splendid answer to many of our questions, both in the carefully arranged collection of the University and in the books concerning them.

[106] In our quotation from M. LefÈvre’s work (see p. 268) we find what is at least a very plausible explanation of this dearth of their language.

[107] Send a card through Madame Brufani, Grand Hotel, or through the custodes at the University Museum.

[108] The discovery was a great point for students, and everybody will be glad to hear that the unconscious discoverer did not suffer through it, but lived to plough the surface of the land, the caverns of which antiquarians from distant countries hurried at once to investigate.

[109] For a full description of the Tomb of the Volumnii, see Gio. Battista Vermiglioli’s work: Il Sepolcro dei Volumni. Vermiglioli has made the most elaborate investigations, and transcribes the inscription on the door post thus:

which he translates after infinite labour, to mean roughly Aruns Lars Volumnius (son of) Arunia or Aronia dedicated (the monument, and ordered) the annual sacrifices.

Vermiglioli has also traced the origins of the Volumnian family who, it seems, were well known in the Roman times, and constantly mentioned by the Roman writers. One of the Volumnii is known to have been the writer of tragedies (these were probably written in Latin). There was an Etruscan divinity called Volumnus or Volumna. The family was important throughout Etruria. It may have started in Perugia certainly its chief necropolis seems to have been here.

[110] The group of sarcophagi in this chamber has apparently never been touched.

[111] The sarcophagi do not belong to the early period of Etruscan art, but to the times of the Roman occupation 200 or 300 B.C.

[112] The Medusa was used by the Etruscans as a sort of spell to keep off evil influences and bad people from their dead. The dead, it seems, never left their graves but hovered always round the place where their ashes were preserved.

[113] In 1155 Frederick Barbarossa besieged Gubbio, but the Bishop of the city—Ubaldo—pleaded in such passionate terms for her deliverance, that the Emperor renounced the siege. Since then the holy Bishop is worshipped with almost barbaric rites in the city. On his feast-day (May 15) his image, and those of the two other patron Saints of the town, are carried in a weird and almost horrible procession from midday until night-fall through the streets. They are mounted on immense candelabra—ceri—of extraordinary shape, and weighing each several tons. The young men of the town, dressed in white shirts and trousers and coloured caps, and staggering, half mad with wine and weariness, bear them upon their shoulders at a half trot. At nightfall they make a final rush with these Umbrian juggernauts up the mountain side to the chapel of the Saint, and there the ceri remain in peace for the remainder of the year, till fetched for the same barbaric performance the following May. For a full and most interesting account of this ceremony we must refer the reader to Mr Bower’s delightful book on the “Ceri of Gubbio.”

[114] Ottaviano Nelli, born sometime towards the end of the fourteenth century, son of Martino Nelli and a native of Gubbio. He was one of the very earliest masters of the Umbrian school of painting, following close and copying without ambition the work of the Sienese. The fresco in S. Maria Nuova at Gubbio is considered his masterpiece. It strives towards beautiful colouring and sentiment rather than correct drawing.

[115] Spello was at one time a Roman colony. The Roman gate Porta Veneris is well preserved. A little to the left of the town, outside its present walls, are the remains of its old theatre. The town is also connected with the mythical history of Orlando, and a long inscription on the walls records the facts minutely.

[116] Albergo della Posta—a really admirable inn.

[117] Melanzio, the delightful painter of Montefalco, had noted this blue-green light of spring, he had caught it in his very soul, and put it back into his landscapes, into his Virgin’s gown, yes, and even into the shadows on the faces of his saints. “Fourth-rate” a critic called him, but we, who have no wish or power to criticise, loved him for the harmony which we found between his native landscape and his pictures.

[118] This airy old church has been converted into the Pinacoteca of Montefalco. It is one of the few local picture galleries which ever really pleased us. The pictures and frescoes taken from their altars in the neighbouring churches have found a home and not a prison on its wide walls; their dignity and sentiment have not been taken from them in the change of their position.

[119] There are one or two pictures by Lo Spagna in Trevi, the best one in the church of the Lagrime, to the south of the town.

[120] There is considerable doubt felt nowadays as to whether the exquisite little temple once dedicated to the river god Clitumnus which we now see standing above the river, is really the same as that early one described by Pliny. The work on it is certainly very late Roman, if, indeed, it be Roman at all: the emblems are, many of them, purely those of Christian art. But as the temple was turned into a Christian chapel (dedicated to S. Salvadore), it may, perhaps, be that its detail was altered to suit the altered creed. However these things be, the tiny building remains one of the most charming and romantic points in Umbria—one of the sweetest tributes that man’s mind ever paid to the spirits of Nature. Before leaving the spot one should walk on to the place below the road, where the river springs straight from the foot of the hills—a limpid stream, rising almost invisibly through the grass and trees which overshadow its mysterious source.

[121] Spoleto, like nearly every other important Umbrian city, was at one time a Roman colony (512). Later she and Benevento were the first of the Italian cities to form themselves into duchies under the Lombards; and the dukes of Spoleto form an important point in Umbrian history, as at one time they ruled over the whole of Umbria. (Later, as we have seen, Perugia got the ascendency.) Spoleto was Ghibelline in spirit, made incessant wars with neighbouring towns which favoured the Pope, and quarrelled constantly with the popes themselves. The extraordinary position of the town, serving, so to speak, as an inland harbour off the Flaminian Way, exposed her to constant attacks from passing hordes and armies, and one of the most dramatic points in her early history is that of the repulse of Hannibal: “Alone, in the midst of universal dismay, the youthful colony of Spoleto lost not its courage,” says a local historian, “and after a period of less than twenty-four years from its foundation made its name illustrious, by associating it with one of the most memorable events of antiquity.” By resisting the army of the African, Spoleto, of course, was of great assistance to Rome, as the repulse was the first solid check in his advance.

[122] Albergo Luccini, a rambling old palace belonging in old days to a Cardinal, and now to Signor Luccini. An interesting inn, which should be better known and more frequented. Its landlord has made a beautiful collection of the old furniture, pottery, etc. of the neighbourhood, and the vast rooms of his house are filled with these fine things. We can imagine no more fascinating abode for any person bitten with a love of history and (alas for its landlord) solitude.

[123] Albergo dell’ Angelo, a thoroughly delightful house, clean, well-kept, miraculously cheap, and hospitable, with airy rooms (no luxuries), and one of the most surprising views in Umbria.

[124] The history of Narni is full of one long conflict with Trevi.

[125] The Duomo is almost perfect still, and dates from the thirteenth century. A beautiful basilica, with unspoiled columns, a fine pulpit, and one or two good pictures.

[126] The cathedral was begun at the end of the thirteenth century. Nicholas IV. laid the first stone in 1290. It was built to commemorate a miracle which happened to a priest at Bolsena (near Orvieto), who, disbelieving in the sacraments, beheld them turned to actual flesh and blood. The napkin with the blood stains is kept in a marvellously beautiful shrine in the Duomo—a thing of rare and exquisite workmanship in silver and enamels.

[127] The popes were always flying from Rome to Orvieto for safety. Thirty-two of them are recorded to have stayed in the town.

[128] The road from Chiusi to CittÀ della Pieve is marvellously beautiful, winding up through one of those virgin forests of oaks which still are scattered through various tracts of central Italy.

[129] It must be remembered that the only wealth of these hill-set Umbrian cities, or rather the only source of life, comes from the fields outside them. There is no commerce or manufacturing of any sort in a town like CittÀ della Pieve.

[130] Descent from the Cross by Perugino. A door was at one time driven through the fresco, thus exactly cutting away the principal figure—that of our Saviour. The picture has been spoilt in other ways; but it is full of Pietro’s graceful sentiment, and the group of the Marys at the foot of the cross is one of the most touching things that we remember of the Master.

[131] See PÉlÉrinages Ombriens, p. 265. M. Broussole had been staying at CittÀ della Pieve, and, carried away by the excessive charm of the place, he revolted a little from the learned dissertations of a local historian, and broke into the sentiments which we quote above.