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But when spring comes, a light and beauty break upon this gloomy soil; the whole is covered with a delicate green veil of rising crops and fresh foliage, and the immense distances which may be seen from every height are blue with cloud-shadows, or rosy in the light of sunset. Of all the towns of Lower Tuscany, none is more celebrated than Siena. It stands in the very centre of the district which I have attempted to describe, crowning one of its most considerable heights, and commanding one of its most extensive plains. As a city it is a typical representative of those numerous Italian towns, whose origin is buried in remote antiquity, which have formed the seat of three civilisations, and which still maintain a vigorous vitality upon their ancient soil. Its site is Etruscan, its name is Roman, but the town itself owes all its interest and beauty to the artists and the statesmen and the warriors of the middle ages. A single glance at Siena from one of the slopes on the northern side, will show how truly mediaeval is its character. A city wall follows the outline of the hill, from which the towers of the cathedral and the palace, with other cupolas and red-brick campanili, spring; while cypresses and olive-gardens stretch downwards to the plain. There is not a single Palladian facade or Renaissance portico to interrupt the unity of the effect. Over all, in the distance, rises Monte Amiata melting imperceptibly into sky and plain. The three most striking objects of interest in Siena maintain the character of mediaeval individuality by which the town is marked. They are the public palace, the cathedral, and the house of S. Catherine. The civil life, the arts, and the religious tendencies of Italy during the ascendency of mediaeval ideas, are strongly set before us here. High above every other building in the town soars the straight brick tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, the house of the republic, the hearth of civil life within the State. It guards an irregular Gothic building in which the old government of Siena used to be assembled, but which has now for a long time been converted into prisons, courts of law, and showrooms. Let us enter one chamber of the Palazzo--the Sala della Pace, where Ambrogio Lorenzetti, the greatest, perhaps, of Sienese painters, represented the evils of lawlessness and tyranny, and the benefits of peace and justice, in three noble allegories. They were executed early in the fourteenth century,
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