r example. This
relatively early disappearance of the hill-top fortress from our own
midst is in part due, no doubt, to the early growth of the industrial
spirit in England, and our long-continued freedom from domestic
warfare. But all over Southern Europe, as everybody must have noticed,
the hill-top town, perched, like Eza, on the very summit of a pointed
pinnacle, still remains everywhere in evidence as a common object of
the country in our own day.

I said above that Fiesole was the mother of Florence, and, in spite of
formal objections to the contrary, I venture to defend that now
somewhat obsolete and heretical opinion. For why does Fiesole stand
just where it does? What made them build a city up there, anyway? Well,
a town always exists just where it does exist for some good and amply
sufficient reason. Even if, like Fiesole, it is mainly a survival
(though at Fiesole there are, indeed, olives in plenty and other live
trades to keep a town going), it yet exists there in virtue of facts
which once upon a time were quite sufficient to bring the world to the
spot, and it goes on existing, partly by mere conservative use and
wont, no doubt, but partly also because there are houses, churches,
mills, and roads all ready built there. Now, a town must always, from a
very early period, have existed upon the exact site of Fiesole. And
why? To answer that question you have only to look at the view from the
platform. I do not mean to suggest that the ancient Etruscans came
there to enjoy the prospect as we go nowadays to the hotels on the Rigi
or to the summit of Mount Washington. The ancient Etruscan was a
practical man, and his views about views were probably rudimentary. But
gaze down for a moment from the cathedral platform upon the valley of
the Arno, spread like a glowing picture at your feet, and see how
immediately it resolves the doubt. Not, indeed, the valley of the Arno
as it stands at present, thick set with tower and spire and palace. In
order to arrive at the _raison d'etre_ of Fiesole you must blot out
mentally Arnolfo's vast pile, and Brunelleschi's dome, and Giotto's
campanile, and Savonarola's monastery, and the tall and slender tower
of the Palazzo Vecchio, rising like a shaft sheer into the air far, far
below--you must blot out, in short, all that makes the world now
congregate at Florence, and all Florence itself into the bargain.
Nowhere on earth do I know a more peopled plain than that plain of Arno
i