SPELLO
The pleasantest and shortest road to the railway is by Porta Eburnea.
I started one day from this gate with a friend, by a steep path which
leaves the road just outside the Porta, and curves along the side of
the hill below the old wall. The bank, this fine morning, was gay with
butterflies and wild flowers, and wreathed with a luxuriant growth of
wild gourd, full of pale blossoms and small furry fruit; all was so
wild, it seemed impossible we had only just left a busy city behind
us.
At the turn of the path we came into a delightful lane, between
bramble-covered banks; on one side was the dry bed of a little rill,
and overhead branches of quaint trees met each other. From the
Italian custom of constantly stripping the leaves to provide fodder,
the foliage was scanty, yet we went down the steep path in cool and
checkered shadow; lizards, darting across the way before us, gleamed
as they passed in and out of the light.
This practice of stripping leaves from the trees for fodder, gives a
quaint appearance to many of them; in this lane the gnarled and
twisted branches looked grotesque. A man high up in one of the trees
sang as gaily as a bird, while he filled with leaves a sack fastened
to one of the branches.
Now and again the rich transparent purple of the shadows was traversed
by a bar of golden light; this sometimes came in irregular flecks from
spaces between the twisted trunks and crossing branches.
A woman coming up from the station, with a heavy basket on her head,
said, "Buon Giorno," and smiled pleasantly as she passed; then a
countryman, a fine, handsome fellow with glowing black eyes, wished us
a good journey. He was going at such a pace that he must have been
bound for the station; usually the easy, leisureful movements of its
people seem to me one of the charms of Italy, so entirely in harmony
with the burning, palpitating blue of its skies and the careless
luxuriance of its vegetation.
[Illustration: THE WAY TO THE STATION, PERUGIA.]
Near the end of the descent is a washing place, and here a woman on
her knees was hard at work, scrubbing and soaping linen. Looking back
up the lane we saw the grey town peeping at us through the trees,--the
tower of a house on the Piazza a prominent feature in the view.
[Illustration: FONTANA BORGHESE
_outside PERUGIA_]
At the foot of the lane we crossed the dusty highroad, and again
followed the short way, here very steep and rugged. At the end we
came out at a cross-road where the Fontana Borghese, at one angle,
made a striking feature; partly shadowed by tall cypresses, it glowed
red in the sunshine. The date is 1615; its basin is green with age,
and from the constant drip, drip of the water. To-day the fountain was
surrounded with wine carts, each drawn by a pair of huge white oxen.
It is fortunate these beautiful creatures are so gentle, for their
wide-spreading, sharply pointed horns make them formidable; indeed,
when the wine season began, during our stay in Perugia, we had
sometimes to take refuge in a shop while they passed, for the horns of
a pair of these splendid beasts stretched from one side of a narrow
street to the other. Inside a little wine-shop opposite the Fontana
Borghese we heard shouts of "Dieci," "otto," "sette," etc., from the
players at morra.
One of the charms of Perugia is the genial courtesy of the people. My
companion on this excursion had stayed several times in the town, and
to-day when she appeared at the station all the officials were at her
service, full of little friendly attentions, especially one giant-like
porter called "Lungo."
The railway takes its course to Foligno through the valley of the
Tiber, with mountain views on each side. Perugia stands grandly on the
top of her hills, while on one side rises like an advanced guard the
spire of San Pietro, and on a spur to the west Santa Giuliana; but the
city is not so picturesque from this point, because one sees the
modern buildings on the great Piazza Vittor Emanuele. On the left we
saw the outside of the famous Etruscan tomb of the Volumnii, and soon
after passed the pretty village of Ponte San Giovanni, getting a
glimpse of the Tiber.
From the railway one has a good view of Assisi, clinging to the side
of Monte Subasio, and the station is close to the church of Santa
Maria degli Angeli; but we were bound for Foligno, and did not stop
here to-day. As the railway circles round it we noted the splendid
mass made by Subasio in this chain of mountains.
We passed by Spello, perched on a spur of the great hill, but it was
disappointing to find that, after this, the valley broadened out into
a plain, so that Foligno stands tamely on level ground. It does not
seem to be much visited, though it is a quaint little town, and has,
we heard, a tolerable inn.
On our arrival we were attacked by vociferous drivers and guides, so
we took one of the dirty little carriages and drove up an avenue past
the huge statue of Niccolo Alunno, a native of Foligno, to the Piazza.
We were hardly out of our vehicle when up rushed a wretched-looking
man, his bare chest showing red and hairy through the opening of his
dirty shirt, while a huge piece of green oilskin covered his
shoulders. "Ecco, Ecco, it is not possible the Signorine can find
their way," he shouted. "I only can show them Foligno."
As he continued to persecute us, and our time was short, we submitted,
and followed his guidance.
The outside of the cathedral fronting the Piazza is curious. Two
monsters, lions in red granite, guard the portal; one of these
creatures has an eagle in its mouth. Above the doorway is a curious
sort of arcade; the door-heading itself has been recently restored
with the emblems of the evangelists. There is nothing to see inside
this church. Opposite it is a quaint old building, and on the right is
the Tribunale del Commune.
We had to wait some time here while the keys were fetched; we then
followed the custode up an old stone staircase to an ante-chapel to
see the frescoes of Ottaviano Nelli. We went on into the little
chapel; here the frescoes have been restored. They represent the life
of the Blessed Virgin, from her birth to her Assumption, and are full
of interest.
Coming out, we followed our ragged, repulsive-looking guide down a
street close by, and saw the Palazzo Deli, a handsome building,
designed, it is said, by Baccio d'Agnolo. There are three other
churches; in one of them, San Niccolo, is a Nativity by Alunno; the
figure of San Joseph is very fine. One of the statues in front of the
choir, a female saint, has her feet bound with brass; the sacristan
told us that this had been done to preserve them from the devotion of
worshippers who had already kissed away the ends of the saint's toes.
The frescoes in Santa Maria infra Portas, a very old church, are
mostly ancient, but completely faded. Raphael's beautiful Madonna di
Foligno, now in the Vatican, was once in the church of Santa Anna in
this town.
We greatly regretted that we could not drive on to Montefalco, a
picturesquely placed little town, with many good pictures by Umbrian
painters; there are several also said to be by Benozzo Gozzoli.
We took another little carriage, standing in a side street, and had a
very pleasant drive back to Spello, between vineyards and olive
groves, eating our luncheon on the way. Spello looked very attractive
as we approached it, its white houses gleaming in the sunlight against
the green hill on the side of which it stands.
We entered the town under a quaint and ancient gateway, the Porta
Veneris of Hispellum, for Spello is an old Roman town, and the ancient
walls and some of the gates have been preserved. This gate has three
figures outside it, a picturesque fountain stands near, and to-day
beside it sat a group of handsome peasants, eating and drinking in the
sunshine.
[Illustration: PORTA VENERIS, SPELLO.]
We thought the steep old street was full of pictures for a sketcher as
we drove up to the Piazza, on which is the Cathedral Santa Maria
Maggiore. Entering, we were at once struck with the remarkable early
fifteenth-century canopy, the work of an Umbrian sculptor, Rocca di
Vicenza; it is made of the stone of the country called Cacciolfo, and
has a polished surface. The four pillars are in pairs; in front of two
of them the artist has introduced portraits of himself and his wife;
beyond, right and left, are Madonnas by Perugino. The sacristan told
us that there is a still finer specimen of the sculptor Rocca di
Vicenza's work at Trevi. On the opposite side of the church is the
Capella del Sacramento, the work of Pinturicchio; three of the walls
and the ceiling here are covered with beautiful frescoes in delightful
harmony of colour. On one side is the Annunciation, with the name and
portrait of the painter, on the other walls are the Adoration and the
Disputa; this last is a very interesting picture, and is also signed.
On the ceiling are painted the sibyls, and the spaces between are
filled with rich, harmonious colour.
[Illustration: PINTURICCHIO, SPELLO.]
We could gladly have stayed much longer in this chapel, for the
frescoes seemed to us finer specimens of Pinturicchio's work than
anything we had seen at Perugia. In the sacristy is a beautiful
Madonna by this painter. The mortuary chapel has a quaint pair of
doors in perforated wood-work; near the west door we saw a curious
square bas-relief of ancient work, on two sides of it is carved an
olive-tree, and on another side a man on horseback. It looked like an
old burial urn.
The way was so steep for driving, that from the cathedral we walked on
in search of the woman who had the keys of the church of San Andrea.
She, however, being busy, handed us over to a young fellow with a face
as lovely as Raffaelle's, and with those wonderful blue eyes, which
have in them the glow of an Italian sky, not to be seen in more
northern regions.
But at San Andrea, while we were looking at the Pinturicchio behind
the high altar, a very courteous and intelligent priest came into the
church. Seeing us, he kindly removed the cross which obstructed our
view of the best part of the altar picture, the child San John the
Baptist, who sits writing on his scroll at the feet of the Blessed
Virgin. This figure is supposed to be Raffaelle's work. St. Francis
and St. Lawrence are on one side, St. Andrew and St. Gregory on the
other; the embroidery on St. Lawrence's vestments is wonderfully
painted, but as a whole this picture is not nearly so good as the
frescoes by the same master in the cathedral.
The priest pointed out to us a graceful arcade surrounding the front
and ends of an altar. This was discovered some years ago, concealed
beneath a much larger altar which had been placed above the chest
containing the bones of San Andrea; he told as that when the bones
were sought for, in order to remove them, the arcade was brought to
light. The priest also showed us a fresco on the wall of the nave, and
graphically related how he himself, only a few months before, had
discovered it under the whitewash when the church was being cleaned
for a festa. Who knows how many treasures still lie concealed on the
church walls of these out-of-the-way towns; it must be owned, however,
that the newly found fresco at Spello is not artistically a treasure,
nor nearly as interesting as was the story of its discovery owing to
its graphic telling.
From San Andrea our blue-eyed, gentle-spoken young guide led us to the
top of the town, crowned by the deserted Capuchin convent. "They have
sent all the brothers away," he said sadly; "there is but one left,
and he may not live in the convent, he may only come up in the
afternoon, and see the schoolboys play in the garden." There is a
pathetic look about the deserted, peaceful old place. From the
platform in front of it we enjoyed a splendid view; before us on one
side was the ever-present Subasio, towering over all, and on the top
of the hill behind stood Perugia, looking at this distance like some
giant castle.
At our feet in the green valley was the amphitheatre of Spello; not so
perfect as that at Fiesole, but with clearly defined tiers of grassed
seats rising one above another.
Porta Augusta is another interesting gateway. We came slowly down the
steep street, getting constant peeps, between tall, grey houses, of
the blue mountains around us. At one of these breaks in the wall a
group of peasants sat, some spinning, some idling, beneath a vine that
stretched on a trellis from house to house, the light filtering
through the leaves became a golden green before it fell on the merry
souls in the by-street below. The men of Spello look fine, robust
fellows, and the women are very tall and erect.
One handsome grey-haired dame met us as we came down the ladder-like
street; she was spinning from a distaff in her hand. "Dio," she held
it out to my companion, "che brutta lavoro!"
"Would that I could do it," was the prompt answer, and the old dame
went off chuckling with delight.
[Illustration: PORTA AUGUSTA, SPELLO.]
The little town is like an eyrie high up in the air, the houses
nestling here and there for shelter behind the grey walls.
We saw so many bits by the way in Spello, that it seemed as if one
might spend some pleasant days in such an exquisitely placed spot; but
we could not spy out any possible lodging; and, after all, it is an
easy distance by rail or carriage from Assisi or Foligno.
Coming home by train to Perugia, we travelled with a pleasant-looking
Italian lady and her sad-faced husband. She also seemed sad, and
constantly put her handkerchief to her eyes; we fancied she was
affected by some deep sorrow, and felt sympathy for her. The train
presently stopped at a station; her distress increased, she clasped
her hands, and entreated her husband to get out of the carriage and
see after the poor little "angiolo."
He gently refused, and at this she sobbed, and almost howled with
anguish; then, burying her face in her handkerchief, she leaned back
and refused to be comforted.
At the next station we heard the sharp yelping of a little dog, and
then she cried out so loudly for the "povera bestia" that we began to
understand. Seeing we were interested, she sat up, pocketed her
handkerchief, and explained. "The officials have taken my dog from me,
and have shut it up. Dio! the sweet angel would not hurt a soul," she
said, with a fresh flow of tears; "its cries break my heart. It is a
cruelty beyond belief."
At this her husband left the carriage, looking much ashamed of
himself. When he came back he tried to pacify his still weeping wife.
"The dog is all right, cara mia," he said.
"Cara mia," however, would not listen, and she actually sobbed and
cried all the way to Perugia, where we left her on the platform with
her pocket-handkerchief rolled into a ball, and pressed close to her
eyes.