e' Signori. One of them, the
Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It
is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and
Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has
higher architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian
palaces for the combination of massiveness with lightness in a
situation of unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous
substructures mortised into the solid hillside, it rears its vast
rectangular bulk to a giddy height above the town; airy loggias
imposed on great forbidding masses of brown stone, shooting aloft into
a light aerial tower. The empty halls inside are of fair proportions
and a noble size, and the views from the open colonnades in all
directions fascinate. But the final impression made by the building is
one of square, tranquil, massive strength--perpetuity embodied in
masonry--force suggesting facility by daring and successful addition
of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, this pile is not forbidding,
as a similarly weighty structure in the North would be. The fine
quality of the stone and the delicate though simple mouldings of the
windows give it an Italian grace.

These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio
was a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to
play in the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and
Ghibelline. The ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us
of the advent of the despots. It has been stripped of all its
tarsia-work and sculpture. Only here and there a Fe.D., with the
cupping-glass of Federigo di Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio
once became the fairest fief of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave
his name to this duke's son, was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the
cathedral is dedicated--one low enormous vault, like a cellar or
feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a succession of solid Gothic
arches. This strange old church, and the House of Canons, buttressed
on the hill beside it, have suffered less from modernisation than most
buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in particular, helps one to
understand what this city of grave palazzi must have been, and how the
mere opening of old doors and windows would restore it to its
primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in fact, not yet
been given over to the use of middle-class and proletariate.

At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease i