the
transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in broken squadrons
from the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just the weather in which
Tuscan landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey
undulating uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the
colour added by cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising
vapours, to rob them of a certain awful grimness. The main street of
Montepulciano goes straight uphill for a considerable distance
between brown palaces; then mounts by a staircase-zigzag under huge
impending masses of masonry; until it ends in a piazza. On the
ascent, at intervals, the eye is fascinated by prospects to the
north and east over Val di Chiana, Cortona, Thrasymene, Chiusi; to
south and west over Monte Cetona, Radicofani, Monte Amiata, the Val
d' Ombrone, and the Sienese Contado. Grey walls overgrown with ivy,
arcades of time-toned brick, and the forbidding bulk of houses hewn
from solid travertine, frame these glimpses of aerial space. The
piazza is the top of all things. Here are the Duomo; the Palazzo del
Comune, closely resembling that of Florence, with the Marzocco on
its front; the fountain, between two quaintly sculptured columns;
and the vast palace Del Monte, of heavy Renaissance architecture,
said to be the work of Antonio di San Gallo.

We climbed the tower of the Palazzo del Comune, and stood at the
altitude of 2000 feet above the sea. The view is finer in its kind
than I have elsewhere seen, even in Tuscany, that land of panoramic
prospects over memorable tracts of world-historic country. Such
landscape cannot be described in words. But the worst is that, even
while we gaze, we know that nothing but the faintest memory of our
enjoyment will be carried home with us. The atmospheric conditions
were perfect that morning. The sun was still young; the sky sparkled
after the night's thunderstorm; the whole immensity of earth around
lay lucid, smiling, newly washed in baths of moisture. Masses of
storm-cloud kept rolling from the west, where we seemed to feel the
sea behind those intervening hills. But they did not form in heavy
blocks or hang upon the mountain summits. They hurried and dispersed
and changed and flung their shadows on the world below.

II

The charm of this view is composed of so many different elements, so
subtly blent, appealing to so many separate sensibilities; the sense
of grandeur, the sense of space, the sense of natural beauty, and
the sen