hes Mt. Argentarius.'

In the plains the plague was raging; the sight of the people
appealing to him as to a god, moved him to tears as he thought how
few of the children would survive in the heat. He travelled to a
castle charmingly placed on the lake of Bolsena, where 'there is a
shady circular walk in the vineyard under the big grapes; stone steps
shaded by the vine leaves lead down to the bank, where ilex oaks,
alive with the songs of blackbirds, stand among the crags.' Halfway
up the mountain, in the monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court
took up their quarters.

'The most lovely scenery met the eye. As you look to the west from
the higher houses, the view reaches beyond Ilcinum and Siena as far
as the Pistorian Alps. To the north a variety of hills and the
pleasant green of woods presents itself, stretching a distance of
five miles; if your sight is good, your eye will travel as far as the
Apennine range and can see Cortona.'

There he passed the time, shooting birds, fishing, and rowing.

'In the cool air of the hills, among the old oaks and chestnuts, on
the green meadows where there were no thorns to wound the feet, and
no snakes or insects to hurt or annoy, the Pope passed days of
unclouded happiness.'

This is thoroughly modern: 'Silvarum amator,' as he calls himself, he
includes both the details of the near and the general effect of the
far-distant landscape.

And with age his appreciation of it only seemed to increase; for
instance, he says of Todi:

'A most lovely view meets the eye wherever you turn; you can see
Perusia and all the valley that lies between, full of wide--spreading
forts and fertile fields, and honoured by the river Tiber, which,
drawing its coils along like a snake, divides Tuscia from Umbria,
and, close to the city itself, enters many a mountain, passing
through which it descends to the plain, murmuring as it goes, as
though constrained against its will.'

This is his description of a lake storm, during an excursion to the
Albanian Mountains:

As far as Ostia 'he had a delightful voyage; at night the sea began
to be most unwontedly troubled, and a severe storm arose. The east
wind rolled up the waters from their lowest depths, huge waves beat
the shore; you could have heard the sea, as it were, groaning and
wailing. So great was the force of the winds, that nothing seemed
able to resist it; they raged and alternately fled and put one
another to rout, they overturned wo