e facts of the case go farther than one
would wish to believe toward bearing out the severe critic's judgment.
Assuredly, the arts if not fast asleep, are but beginning to arouse
themselves from a very long and lethargic nap in their classic
cradle-land. But I think that signs are not wanting that they _are_
beginning to shake off their slumber, and that when they shall have
effectually done so, it will once again become evident to the world that
this Italian race is very specially endowed with those gifts and
qualities which go to make up the artistic temperament and to fit eye
and head for artistic creation. A recent visit to an Italian
country-town, one of the secondary centres of population in the
Peninsula, has done much to confirm the correctness of these views, and
has at the same time introduced me to some circumstances and scenes so
interesting, and lying so far out of the path of the experiences and
ideas of our ordinary nineteenth-century world, that I cannot but think
some account of them will be acceptable to the general reader, and
especially worthy of the attention of lovers of art.

The town in question is Perugia, where I spent a week in the early part
of last February, and which boasts the best inn in all Central Italy,
ruled by a clever and notable English landlady, who has entirely
un-Italian notions of a good fire and warm rooms. Let travelers, whether
in winter or in summer, ask for the "Hotel Brufani," disregarding the
fact that, being recently established, it is not mentioned in some of
the guidebooks, and they will, I am very sure, thank me for the
recommendation.

There is an immense wealth of fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth
century Umbrian art to be seen in Perugia, besides some of the most
interesting extant remains of Etruscan antiquity. But I am not going to
trespass on the domain of the guidebooks, though, truth to say, the best
of them are very defective in completeness as well as accuracy of
information. Nor are the professional local _ciceroni_ much more to be
trusted. They will indeed probably show the traveler all or almost all
that there is to be seen. But he must guard himself against accepting
their statements in the matter of names and dates, and such like
archaeological particulars. If the stranger can have the good fortune to
make the acquaintance of Signor Adamo Rossi, the accomplished and
learned archivist and librarian of the municipal library, he will hardly
fail to br