f hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in
the choir are half a dozen rarely beautiful panels of tarsia,
executed in a bold style and on a large scale. One design--a man
throwing his face back, and singing, while he plays a mandoline;
with long thick hair and fanciful beretta; behind him a fine line of
cypress and other trees--struck me as singularly lovely. In another
I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves and ripe fruit, not only
drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so modelled as to stand
out with the roundness of reality.

The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was one long
banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, having to take
farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, or _arx_ of the
old city! It is a ruined spot, outside the present walls, upon the
southern slope, where there is now a farm, and a fair space of short
sheep-cropped turf, very green and grassy, and gemmed with little
pink geraniums as in England in such places. The walls of the old
castle, overgrown with ivy, are broken down to their foundations.
This may possibly have been done when Montepulciano was dismantled
by the Sienese in 1232. At that date the Commune succumbed to its
more powerful neighbours. The half of its inhabitants were murdered,
and its fortifications were destroyed. Such episodes are common
enough in the history of that internecine struggle for existence
between the Italian municipalities, which preceded the more famous
strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines. Stretched upon the smooth turf of
the Castello, we bade adieu to the divine landscape bathed in light
and mountain air--to Thrasymene and Chiusi and Cetona; to Amiata,
Pienza, and S. Quirico; to Montalcino and the mountains of Volterra;
to Siena and Cortona; and, closer, to Monte Fallonica, Madonna di
Biagio, the house-roofs and the Palazzo tower of Montepulciano.

_PERUGIA_

Perugia is the empress of hill-set Italian cities. Southward from
her high-built battlements and church towers the eye can sweep a
circuit of the Apennines unrivalled in its width. From cloudlike
Radicofani, above Siena in the west, to snow-capped Monte Catria,
beneath whose summit Dante spent those saddest months of solitude in
1313, the mountains curve continuously in lines of austere dignity
and tempered sweetness. Assisi, Spoleto, Todi, Trevi, crown lesser
heights within the range of vision. Here and there the glimpse of
distant rivers lights a silver spark