e vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the
exhaustion of Foligno by internal discord, and its final submission to
the Papal power. Since railways have been carried from Rome through
Narni and Spoleto to Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained
considerably in commercial and military status. It is the point of
intersection for three lines; the Italian government has made it a
great cavalry depot, and there are signs of reviving traffic in its
decayed streets. Whether the presence of a large garrison has already
modified the population, or whether we may ascribe something to the
absence of Roman municipal institutions in the far past, and to the
savagery of the mediaeval period, it is difficult to say. Yet the
impression left by Foligno upon the mind is different from that of
Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are distinguished for a certain
grace and gentleness in their inhabitants.

My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to
Spoleto, with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on
its mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine
Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in
the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is
infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there
with towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in
commotion; for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have
resolved to spend their earnings on a splendid festa--horse-races, and
two nights of fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts
are in full bloom of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal
lights these trees, with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the
most fantastic of artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into
the sky amid that solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony
with nature. I never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion
of fireworks upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up
at so much per head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a
crowd of cockneys staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle.
But where, as here at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a
festival, where there are multitudes of citizens and soldiers and
country-people slowly moving and gravely admiring, with the decency
and order characteristic of an Italian crowd, I have nothing but a
sense of satisfaction.

It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune