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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original
document have been preserved.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The book consistently refers to "El Poverello", perhaps
a typographical error for "Il Poverello".
PICTURES IN UMBRIA
* * * * *
TRAVEL BOOKS BY
THE SAME WRITER.
THROUGH NORMANDY.
THROUGH BRITTANY.
PICTURES AND LEGENDS FROM
NORMANDY AND BRITTANY.
IN THE ARDENNES.
ABOUT YORKSHIRE.
IN THE VOLCANIC EIFEL WITH
GILBERT S. MACQUOID.
IN PARIS WITH GILBERT S.
MACQUOID.
ILLUSTRATED BY
THOMAS R. MACQUOID, R.I.
* * * * *
[Illustration: VIA APPIA
Frontispiece.]
PICTURES IN UMBRIA
by
KATHARINE S. MACQUOID
With Fifty Original Illustrations by Thomas R. Macquoid, R.I.
[Illustration]
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
London: T. Werner Laurie
MDCCCCV
Fertile costa d'alto monte pende,
Onde Perugia sente freddo e caldo
Da Porta Sole, ...
Di quella costa là, dov'ella frange
Più sua rattezza, nacque al mondo un Sole,
Come fa questo tal volta di Gange.
Però chi d'esso loco fa parole,
Non dica Ascesi, chè direbbe corto,
Ma Oriente, se proprio dir vuole.
Non era ancor molto lontan dall'orto,
Chè cominciò a far sentir la terra
Della sua gran virtude alcun conforto.
"Del Paradiso," Canto XI.
To
ARCHIBALD EARL OF ROSEBERY, K.G.
WHO HAS KINDLY PERMITTED US
TO OFFER HIM THE DEDICATION
OF THIS BOOK
THOMAS R. AND KATHARINE S. MACQUOID
April 1905
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. AN ANCIENT HILL-CITY 1
II. MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA 13
III. FONTE DI PERUGIA 32
IV. COLLEGIO DEL CAMBIO AND THE PINACOTECA 69
V. SPELLO 76
VI. THE HEAVENLY CHOIR OF PERUGIA 97
VII. SAN PIETRO DE' CASINENSI 119
VIII. THE SEPULCHRE OF THE VOLUMNII 130
IX. THE VIA APPIA 138
X. THE WAY TO ASSISI 165
XI. SAN FRANCESCO 179
XII. IN THE TOWN, ASSISI 230
XIII. SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI 260
XIV. ADDIO PERUGIA 295
XV. LAKE THRASYMENE AND CORTONA 299
INDEX 317
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THOMAS R. MACQUOID, R.I.
PAGE
VIA APPIA Frontispiece
ALOES IN BLOOM 12
INITIAL--RAFFAELLE 13
SAN DOMENICO Facing 16
SAN DOMENICO FOUNTAIN 21
PIAZZA SOPRA MURA 25
THE GREAT FOUNTAIN Facing 32
INITIAL--NICOLO PISANO 32
STATUE OF POPE JULIUS III 36
INITIAL--PERUGINO 69
DOORWAY OF PALAZZO PUBBLICO Facing 70
A BYEWAY TO THE STATION 78
FONTANA BORGHESE Facing 78
PORTA VENERIS--SPELLO 85
HEAD OF PINTURICCHIO 88
PORTA AUGUSTA--SPELLO 93
INITIAL--POTS IN BANDS AT WINDOW 97
VIA SANT' AGATA 99
MADONNA DI LUCE 103
FAÇADE OF SAN BERNARDINO 105
FLOATING ANGEL 106
HEADS OF CHERUBIM 107
ANGELS PLAYING ON INSTRUMENT 109
ANGEL PLAYING 110
LA VEDUTA 121
INITIAL--GIRL'S HEAD 130
PORTA SUSANNA Facing 138
PORTA EBURNEA " 142
OUTSIDE PERUGIA 143
VIA APPIA AND THE TOWN 145
ARCO DELLA CONCA 149
PORTA AUGUSTA--PERUGIA 153
PORTA BULIGAIA 156
PORTA SAN ANGELO 159
INITIAL--GIOTTO 165
CONVENT AND CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO 172
ENTRANCE TO ASSISI 177
STATUE OF ST. FRANCIS 179
CHURCH TOWER 181
ENTRANCE TO LOWER CHURCH 185
THE SMALL CLOISTER 199
THE GARDEN OF CLOISTER 203
THE UPPER CHURCH, SAN FRANCESCO 227
OUTSIDE SAN FRANCESCO Facing 224
INITIAL 260
INITIAL--OLIVE BRANCH 299
LAKE THRASYMENE 301
PALAZZO COMUNALE, CORTONA 305
ETRUSCAN CANDELABRUM 308
NOTE
Our book treats of a few of the Hill-cities of Umbria, but it does
not attempt exhaustive detail in regard to Perugia, Assisi, or any
other.
Several old contemporary writers have greatly helped the book,
notably the delightful chronicler Matarazzo, and some of his fellows;
besides the "Legend of the Three Companions," and the very quaint
"Fioretti di San Francesco."
"The Life of San Bernardino of Siena," by Pierre Clément, was also
very useful. In the book itself I speak of the great enjoyment I found
in Monsieur Paul Sabatier's thoughtful "Vie de Saint François
d'Assisi," and in Miss Lina Duff Gordon's charming "Story of Assisi."
KATHARINE S. MACQUOID.
THE EDGE, TOOTING COMMON
April 1905
PICTURES IN UMBRIA
CHAPTER I
AN ANCIENT HILL-CITY
It has been said that the face which exercises most permanent charm is
the face whose attractions defy analysis; one in which beauty is
subtle, compounded of many and varied qualities, so that, gazing at
the harmonious whole, it is impossible to specialise its fascination.
Such a face will not, at first, reveal its charm, for much of this
does not lie only in regularity of feature, or in beauty of colouring,
nor even in the trick of a smile; the spell is so potent, that when
one at last tries to find out its secret, the mind refuses to dispel
the sweet illusion by any such work-a-day process, and agrees with the
hasheesh smoker, "to enjoy the sweet dream while it lasts."
Places, as well as faces, exert this undefined attraction, but in the
former, association often intrudes itself, a conscious ingredient in
the witchery they possess for us.
I am just now thinking of a city where much of the historic
association is repulsive, even horrible; looking at the old grey walls
of Perugia, the mind strays backward, to times when these ancient
palaces with barred lower windows were gloomy fortresses, in which
ghastly tragedies were acted over and over again.
In some of the old houses dissolute sons plotted how to murder their
fathers and brothers, how to commit every sort of crime; blood has run
like water in the grass-grown streets and piazzas,--and not only with
the blood of an Oddi, shed by a fierce Baglione, the two leading
families always fighting for power in their city: the one party being
Guelph, and the other Ghibelline.
There was even worse strife than this: at times near and dear kinsmen
fought hand to hand in the constant brawls of Perugia; murder was done
in the churches, even before the high altar of the cathedral.
Softer, quainter memories, however, linger in this hill-throned and
hill-girdled city, and permeate the atmosphere, in spite of the "reek
of blood" which, a poet once told me, "taints Perugia."
Up the brick-stepped way, beneath a tall dark arch, came, even in
those years of rapine and murder, the grave Urbino painter, Giovanni
Sanzio, with his fair-haired son, Raffaelle. Giovanni came to Perugia
to place the lad with the illiterate genius of Città del Pieve, Pietro
Vannucci, whose praise was in every one's mouth, and who had already
set up a school and was ranked a great painter. The Perugians still
fondly call him "il nostro Perugino." It is said that Pietro was born
in the ancient hill-city.
One feels sure that Raffaelle must have been petted and tenderly
loved. The father and son made a striking picture as they came from
the dark archway into the sunlight,--Raffaelle mounted on his mule,
his dainty locks falling over his shoulders in glossy waves of
brightness.
Years before he came, the sun saw a very different picture, when poor,
roughly clad, coarse-featured Cristoforo Vannucci came trudging along
on foot from Città del Pieve, holding the red fist of his little son,
Pietro. The square-faced, square-headed boy was only eleven years old,
yet his father already firmly believed in his genius, and had brought
him all the way from Città del Pieve to present him to the great
Umbrian master, Benedetto Bonfigli, who was then at work on the
famous frescoes still to be seen in the Palazzo Pubblico of Perugia.
There are, both in the Sala del Cambio and elsewhere in the city,
proofs that Raffaelle actually worked here, and that he studied under
Perugino with Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna, Eusebio di San Giorgio, and the
great master's other pupils.
One learns in Perugia how the student from Città del Pieve raised the
tone and widened the scope of the existing Umbrian school, and gave to
it a grace and ease, to say nothing of higher qualities, which have
rarely been excelled. Yet, except in the frescoes of the beautiful
Sala del Cambio, much of Perugino's best work is to be found
elsewhere, rather than in the town wherein he established his academy,
and from which he took his name as a painter.
The southern side of the city holds a still more absorbing association
in the gate near the old church and convent of San Pietro de
Casinensi; for by this gate is the way to Assisi, and it has often
been trodden by Francesco Bernardone and his disciples.
But I am straying from my text: the mysterious fascination which the
grey old city on the hill has for those who linger in it.
I have been told that some travellers "do" Perugia in six hours, or
between trains; I have heard the Via Appia compared with the Holborn
Viaduct; but these travellers do not come under the spell of the
place; they see only an old city, part Etruscan, part Roman, chiefly
mediæval, perched on top of a hill, girt with massive walls which look
down thirteen hundred feet and more, to the fertile valley of the
Tiber.
The steep slopes as they descend are in summer-time silver with
olive-groves, golden with plots of maize; later on they are studies of
golden-green and yellow, with richly festooned vines laden with
fruit.
These rapid travellers may, perhaps, admire the triple ranges of
purple Apennines that on every side form a varied background to this
picturesque fertility, and to the lesser hills below them, spurs
projecting boldly forward into the deep valley, above which the old
city shows her towers and massive walls; they will, perhaps, notice,
as they go downhill again, how quaintly the wall is carried in and
out, starwise, as it follows the indentations of the hills, and how
boldly at each projecting angle a warmly tinted tower stands out
against the sky. They can hardly fail to observe these salient
features; but they will not have time to study the varied form of each
hill, or to watch the sun set opposite grand old Monte Subasio.
That is a sight worth going far to see; the intense glow dyes the
white houses of Assisi as they cling to the mountain-side, a pale
rose against the flame-like orange tint that seems to burn in the very
heart of Subasio, rather than to be reflected from the opposite side
of the horizon.
And the hurrying travellers will not have time to enjoy the charming
drives among the olives in the valley, or to visit the many places of
interest which can be reached from Perugia. They go home, and say, "Oh
yes, we saw Perugia,--a dull old city, without a shop worth looking
into."
A part of the indescribable fascination of the place is felt in long
wanderings through the narrow streets, often deeply shadowed by tall
palaces with grated windows and bricked-up doorways.
Come with me under a lofty archway, made with uncemented stones on
either side, so huge that surely giants must have placed them in
position. Now we are in a vaulted way, beneath ancient houses built
over the street; these archways are frequent, sometimes low-browed
and round-headed, mere tunnels through which one almost gropes one's
way, and finds at the farther end a sudden descent down a flight of
half-ruined brick steps, which turn so quickly that a keen interest
insists they must be followed to the end. Sometimes the arch is
Etruscan, tall and pointed, and instead of a descent, steps go upwards
to another lofty archway with a darkness beyond it that still beckons
on the explorer.
Day after day I have wandered up and down those twisting, hilly
streets, often losing my way, and as often stumbling upon some fresh
interest; some portion of Etruscan wall, or some exquisite point of
view; a vista at the far-off end of a street, and often when this is
arrived at, a grander and more varied picture, with part of Perugia
for foreground.
One may easily lose one's way in Perugia. At first the city seemed to
us a hopeless maze of twisting streets; but after a little we
succeeded in realising the peculiarity of its form. It is said to be
that of a star; but it is more like a lobster, with its head on one
side, and outstretched tail and claws; or it is like a comet with
star-shaped sides, the head on its long neck inclined westward, and a
longer tail pointing south-east.
A great charm for those who stay in this city is the comfortable,
home-like resting-place to be found in the Hotel Brufani. On our first
visit this hotel was in progress of erection, but its predecessor
existed in the house on the spur of the hill, outside the city gates.
We have been told that the Albergo di Belle Arti is both very
comfortable and moderate.
I shall not soon forget the delight of that first arrival.
The heat was so intense in Tuscany that we could not travel in
daytime, so we left Florence at night, and had a dull, sleepy
journey, arriving at Perugia towards morning.
As we came into the hall and the long corridor of the hotel, the dim
light fell mysteriously on plants and flowers, showing curios on the
wall behind them; to our joy, when we reached our charming cool room
and opened the persiennes, we saw the exquisite light of early morning
crowning the dim, far-off hills.
The day dawned golden with sunshine, the air breathed a delightful
freshness. We strolled into the garden, which had at one end two
majestic aloes in full bloom and a group of sun-flowers. Oleanders,
covered with rosy blossoms, stood at the garden entrance; beyond was a
bower of golden-green acacias, wreathed to their topmost branches with
blue and white morning glories; below us we saw a varied landscape,
the distant hills tinted with delicate morning light.
We found our quarters delightful, and our host and hostess full of
attentive kindness. This was continued when the hotel removed to its
present quarters in the large house at the beginning of the city. The
views from the Brufani Hotel terrace and windows are superb; they
command both the Val di Tevere and several points of the town itself.
Alas! both our good hosts, Signor and Madame Brufani, have passed
away, but the well-arranged house remains, and is said to be very
comfortable still.
[Illustration: ALOES IN BLOOM.]