tters of subordinate
importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The place has not
materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth century. Indeed
relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is still the same as in
the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station of commanding interest
between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great Flaminian Way. At Foligno
the passes of the Apennines debouch into the Umbrian plain, which slopes
gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, and from it the valley of the
Nera is reached by an easy ascent beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army
advancing from the north by the Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find
itself at Foligno; and the level champaign round the city is well
adapted to the maintenance and exercises of a garrison. In the days of
the Republic and the Empire, the value of this position was well
understood; but Foligno's importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way,
was eclipsed by two flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity,
Hispellum and Mevania, the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a
conjecture that the Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto,
following their usual policy of opposing new military centres to the
ancient Roman municipia, encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two
neighbours. But of this there is no certainty to build upon. All that
can be affirmed with accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello
and Bevagna declined into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno
grew in power and became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It
was famous during the last centuries of struggle between the Italian
burghers and their native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil
strife. Some of the bloodiest pages in mediaeval Italian history are
those which relate the 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 mediaev