Part 9

We intended to come here directly from Rome, a journey of only a few hours; a detour to Montefiascone and Viterbo was decided upon, on the spur of the moment, just before leaving Rome. Zelphine came across some notes about Montefiascone in her Baedeker that reminded her of Mr. Longfellow's description of his visit to the tomb of Johannes Fugger of Augsburg, upon which she insisted that we linger a day and night on our journey hither, in order to visit the sacred city of the Etruscans.

You probably recall the story in "Outre-Mer," and will be laughing at us for going many miles to do honor to the memory of a wine-loving old bishop; but I was glad that we had listened to Zelphine's words of wisdom, as the place itself, quite aside from the strange tomb, is so interesting--a little gray town towering above the green plain, with narrow streets and high stone houses, plastered, to be sure, but still ancient and impressive. Just outside the gate is a small inn, the Aquila Nera, which is said to occupy the site of the shrine of Voltumna, the tutelary goddess of the Etruscans, where the princes of the nation once gathered in council. Here we discharged our _vetturino_, as this hill town is not adapted to the luxuries of modern transportation, and made our way on foot to the Church of San Flaviano.

We did not, like Mr. Longfellow, make a midnight pilgrimage to Bishop Fugger's tomb; our visit was at high noon. The eleventh-century Church of San Flaviano is unique and imposing, with its huge Romanesque columns, Gothic doorways, and upper and lower buildings. Here before the high altar is a well-worn gravestone with a relief of a bishop in his robes, a goblet on each side of his head, and at his feet the cabalistic words "Est, Est, Est." The remainder of the inscription we could not decipher, but we afterwards learned that it ran thus:

"EST. EST. EST. PR(OPTER) NIM(IUM)--EST. HIC IO(ANNES) DE VC DO(MINUS)--MEUS MORTUUS EST."

The strange inscription and the two goblets confirmed the story of the convivial bishop, who, in order to secure good wine at each inn, while travelling through Etruria, sent his servant a day's journey in advance of him, instructing him to write "Est" in some agreed place if he found the wine good. When the taster came to Montefiascone, he was so charmed with the native wine that he wrote "Est, Est, Est," on the wall. Bishop Fugger arrived in due time, thoroughly endorsed the opinion of his servant, and drank of the "Est" wine so freely that in a short time he himself was _non est_. With his last breath the bishop dictated a will, by which he bequeathed a considerable sum of money to the town upon condition that a cask of the "Est" wine be annually poured over his grave. This, they tell us, was actually done until within a few years, when the wine became too precious to be poured forth in libations so generous. Now you will surely come to Montefiascone--"mountain of the flask," as everything has a vinous association here--and drink to the peace of his soul who drank "not wisely but too well."

From San Flaviano we strolled back to the Aquila Nera, where, if the bread was of the color and consistency of leather, the eggs were fresh and the fried artichokes delicious, while the wine--well, the wine, like dear Charles Lamb's sublimated roast pig and many other delectable things, must be tasted to be understood. No words of mine can convey to you any idea of its sweetness and fragrance and general deliciousness, cooled as it is with snow from the surrounding mountains, after the fashion of the ancient Romans. After tasting of the "Est, Est, Est," we were more ready to shed a tear over the tomb of the bishop than we had been before luncheon, and we can also better understand how the peasants of this region live on their poor fare when it is accompanied by nectar of the gods--a wine which does not seem to intoxicate, as they drink it, but is an article of diet like coffee or tea or cocoa or oil. Another characteristic of the "Est, Est, Est," is that it must be drunk here, as it will not bear transportation even to Rome.

After luncheon we climbed up the steep street which leads to the cathedral. This great building, with its gigantic dome, richly colored marbles, and its many statues and frescoes, in a little out-of-the-way town whose history is all over and done with, affords one of the striking contrasts that add so much to the charm of Italy. A brilliant gem in a dull setting is this old church, and yet with its many points of light the jewel irradiates the sombre setting, instead of making it seem darker by contrast. We left the beautiful cathedral reluctantly to take an afternoon train to Viterbo, where we were told that we should find a much more comfortable inn than at Montefiascone.

Zelphine, living over again the glorious past of the great Etruscan city which we were about to visit, scorned all thought of creature comfort, yet Angela and I noticed that she seemed to enjoy the unexpected luxuries of the really good hotel in Viterbo as much as we more mundane beings. Angela was in her element in a brilliantly lighted hotel, with a large, bright dining-room and well-appointed tables, and began at once to wish that we had better gowns in which to grace the festive scene than the light silk waists which we had brought with us to wear with our travelling-skirts. And yet, this very morning, we had all been congratulating ourselves upon our small amount of luggage, declaring that we were only free women when we had sent our trunks in advance of us and could hold our worldly goods in our two hands. Zelphine and I still rejoice in our freedom; but we are not Angelas, with youth and all its possibilities.

Viterbo is the oldest-looking place that we have seen except Pompeii. In the most ancient portions of the city, in the little dark streets with their high walls, tunnels, and archways, one may go back a thousand years to the ninth and tenth centuries. Here are many towers for defence, and massive fortified dwellings with richly carved porticos, balustrades, and balconies; and in keeping with the antique architecture are the peasants, in their wide-brimmed hats and sheepskin breeches with the hair outside, still wearing their cloaks like the ancient Romans, one end thrown over the left shoulder. The storm-cloaks of the peasants of this region are heirlooms, descending from father to son, often more than a hundred years old. The walls of Viterbo are almost as perfect as in the twelfth century, when, like Troy of old, it stood a long siege for the sake of a woman's beauty and charm. Galiana, for whose possession two powerful families of Rome and Viterbo waged war, must have been a far nobler creature than the lady of Trojan fame. When the Romans outside the walls promised to end the war if Galiana would but grant them a sight of her fair face upon the town walls, she promptly yielded to the request, and appeared upon a tower which still bears her name. Here Galiana fell, pierced by the arrow of a treacherous Roman. We saw the tomb and an inscription to the heroic Galiana on the façade of the Church of St. Angelo, which stands on the Piazza del Plebiscito.

"I wonder if women are beautiful enough nowadays to lead men to war for their sakes," said Angela. As she stood there, her perfect outline silhouetted against the gray background of Galiana's old tower, the slanting sunbeams lighting up her fair hair, I wondered whether Helen of Troy or Galiana of Viterbo had either of them been more beautiful than our American Angela. Then, suddenly recalling the little scene at the railroad station in Rome, I answered so emphatically, "I hope not," that Zelphine started, and came back from the past long enough to look at me questioningly.

"How seriously you take it all, Margaret," said Angela, with her light laugh. "Even if we are not as beautiful as those old-time ladies, we are certainly much happier, travelling about to please ourselves, as we are doing, instead of being carried off to some castle to please somebody else, and then having a long war about it all. I do wonder, though, that some great poem has not been written about Galiana on her tower."

"No doubt Italian poets have written about her again and again," said Zelphine.

"Oh yes, of course, but I mean in some language that people can understand. Mr. Browning, for instance, could have written a great poem about Galiana."

I doubt if Mr. Browning ever found his way here; few English-speaking people came to Viterbo before the railroad from Rome was built. But was not Angela's explanation sufficiently original to please you or Zelphine or any other ardent admirer of Mr. Browning?

Zelphine was delighted, and said, as she linked her arm in mine to descend the narrow, steep street that leads towards the hotel, that under her tutelage and mine Angela was really beginning to develop some sentiment. Angela's sentiment did not impress me as much as her linguistic perspective, which made me think of the Scotchwoman who said that the Lord would not listen to the prayers of the French, because they were "sic jabberin budies."--You remember the story; was it before the battle of Agincourt? How one forgets English history, here in towns that so long antedate the Norman conquest!

This morning we drove to Bagnaja, only a short distance north-east of Viterbo and built upon one of the slopes of the Ciminian Hills. From an eminence near Bagnaja we had a noble view of Montefiascone ten miles away, a little, gray town dominated by the dome of the vast cathedral, while much nearer lay Viterbo, with its lofty campanile and one hundred towers, dark, formidable, and majestic. We stopped at Bagnaja to see the great mediæval castle, with its huge machicolated tower; and then driving to the south of the main piazza over a fine macadamized road, if one may venture to use a term so modern in describing this land of the ancients, we were soon face to face with one of the most beautiful of the Italian villas, that of the Duca di Lante. We were admitted to fairyland by a very conventional method, the presentation of visiting-cards, and were then conducted by a most obsequious servant, evidently with generous expectations, who unlocked gates that led to the more secluded precincts of this garden of delight. Rest and refreshment for body and spirit we found in the loveliness and harmony of our surroundings. Surely the queen of the fairies, Titania herself, must have presided over the laying out of these grounds. Zelphine and I ignored the lore of guides and guide-books, not caring to learn that any mortal man had had a hand in producing such beauty as this. The great basin in front of the house, with its central fountain bordered by blooming plants, glittered in the sunshine. Beyond were the terraces, with their tiers of fairy cascades and fountains, where ilexes as large as those in the Borghese Gardens cast a shade so deep that nymphs and sprites might dance under them, as freely as in Corot's pictures, unseen by loiterers on the adjacent parterres.

Sitting under the shade of a huge ilex, while a bird sang to us from its sheltering branches, we all breathed a deep sigh of content, and congratulated ourselves, in Jeffersonian phrase, upon life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, after our own vagrant fashion. We might suffer from cold and even from hunger in some wretched inn to-night, but to-day we drank from a full cup of delight; the largess of the gods was ours, in a wealth of Italian sunshine and an air as intoxicating as the muscatel wine for which this region is famous. For the moment we possessed all the glories of the dead and gone Dukes of Lante, with neither their sorrows nor their crimes to deepen the shadows upon those gay parterres and sparkling fountains.

"It matters little whether or not we lunch to-day," said Zelphine, "for we

"'on honey-dew have fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.'"

"Speak for yourself, Zelphine," said Angela. "Honey-dew and the milk of Paradise may satisfy your delicate appetite, but mine needs something more substantial to feed upon. A good slice of American roast beef would be more to my taste."

"Oh, Angela!" exclaimed Zelphine. "And in such a spot as this!"

Evidently Angela's sentiment was not developing as rapidly as Zelphine could wish.

"Yes," continued our practical youngest, "I would not turn away from a slice of roast beef and a baked potato, even in this enchanting spot. I really am almost hungry enough this moment to share with our driver the crust of leathery bread that he is probably enjoying while he waits for us."

"Poor child," said Zelphine, compassionately, delving into "Mrs. Lecks," from which convenient receptacle she produced a cake of chocolate.

"Zelphine, you certainly are a dear, and have a human heart," said Angela, as she contentedly munched the chocolate, "even if you are as romantic as--as----"

"As her own great-grandmother's portrait by Stuart," said I, helping out Angela, who is not strong in the line of similes, "a beautiful lady, chiefly composed of fine eyes and hair, with a marvellous complexion and no anatomy to speak of."

Laughing and talking we sauntered on toward the entrance gate, near which we found our _vetturino_. As Angela had predicted, he was eating his dry crust, flavored, we were glad to notice, by a crisp bit of fennel, which they use here as we do celery.

When we returned to Viterbo, it looked like a deserted village; the picturesque peasants in their sheepskin suits were nowhere to be seen on the streets, and shops and windows were closed. It appeared as if some public calamity had befallen the beautiful old city. We afterwards learned that the inhabitants of Viterbo, adhering to a time-honored custom, retire for a siesta at mid-day, from which they emerge at three or four in the afternoon to spend the evening gaily on the Corso, thronging the shops, which are brilliantly lighted. Fortunately for us, the employees of the hotel do not demand a mid-day rest, and a luncheon was served us sufficiently substantial to satisfy appetites sharpened by a long morning in this bracing mountain air.

Here at Orvieto we are lodged in a modern hotel, something of a surprise in this ancient, isolated city, which is built upon a rock, like the habitation of the wise man of the Scriptures. This morning we spent some time in the Necropolis, which is under the precipitous cliffs of red tufa that seem to buttress this old town. In the Campo Santo, which is all that is left of the Etruscan city of Orvieto, we found avenues lined with tomb chambers. The streets are like those of a city, except that the houses are without windows, and no eager eyes look forth from the doors that open upon the silent street. Within is a square chamber containing stone couches at its sides for the repose of the dead, all of the other furniture of an Etruscan tomb, vases, bronzes, terra-cotta portrait busts and statues, having been carried off for the enrichment of various museums. From the Necropolis we made our way to the famous Well of San Patrizio, with its curious corkscrew stairway leading down into the huge basin below.

We would gladly spend another day in Orvieto, in order to view the cathedral's matchless façade once more by morning light, and at noon, and again at sunset, and so allow its beauty to print itself upon our minds, and also to study the Signorelli frescoes in the interior, the Fate of the Wicked and the Saints in Heaven, which, with their muscular devils and saints, are strangely suggestive of Michael Angelo.

"Why do you not stop another day?" I hear you ask. Because if we tarry here longer, we shall be obliged to cut off a day in Perugia or Assisi or some ancient city quite as interesting as Orvieto, and Katharine Clarke is writing to us urging us to get to Florence early in May, if we wish to see the City of Flowers in the exquisite freshness of its spring beauty. The roses on the hillside garden near San Miniato are budding and blowing, and she tells us that we must be there soon if we would see them in their prime. No matter how charming a spot we may be in, there is always some other delightful place beckoning us on and on!

We quite agree with the traveller, whose name I forget, but whose advice is, "Whatever towns you neglect between Rome and Florence, do not fail to see Orvieto." And yet we are filled with regret because we must pass by so many of the interesting towns of this region, Terni with its rushing waters, "rapid as the light," Bolsena on its lovely lake, and Orte. Of this latter town we saw little from the window of the railway carriage, except a line of hungry tourists struggling to reach the buffet during the short stop at the station, a scene so suggestive of our own land of rapid transit and hurried luncheons that, for a moment, we almost felt that we were travelling in America.

XII

AN UMBRIAN IDYL

PERUGIA, April 28th.

The journey from Orvieto to Perugia is a short one, and we had our first sight of this fine old town in the brilliancy of a spring afternoon. We were fortunate in finding a cab at the station, and a _vetturino_ who welcomed us to his coach with great cordiality, we being the only arrivals by the afternoon train. Having with many ejaculations disposed of us and our various pieces of hand-luggage, large and small, he hospitably invited a comely peasant woman to a seat by his side. Her luxuriant black hair was fashionably dressed and guiltless of hat or kerchief; her black dress was coarse but tidy, while a pair of kid gloves, which had evidently seen service, gave a touch of elegance to the simple costume. A large kerchief, which is the favorite shopping receptacle, marketing bag, and portmanteau of the Italian peasant--this one as full as the proverbial horn of plenty--occupied one gloved hand, while with the other she gesticulated and accentuated her animated conversation, to the evident interest and amusement of her host. With their heads close together, deep in conversation, one talking, the other listening and occasionally interjecting a comment, we wondered whether the pair were lovers or only _bons camarades_ discussing the last bit of home news or village gossip, for village gossip is said to flourish under the shadow of the shrine of St. Francis, just as here the cheerful and apparently honest _vetturino_ will cheat you out of a franc as cleverly as a cabby of Naples or any other Sodom of the plain.

A cheerful town Perugia seemed to us, as we drove up the long hill and saw the old fortress, with its weed-grown ramparts and many towers, basking in the April sunshine. Like all of these hill towns Perugia is gray, and yet with a difference: a dash of chrome in its stones gives a warmer tone to the old palaces and walls, which seem to be all of a piece with the rock from which they were hewn. This rock forms the foundation, and was once the strength, of this "empress of hillside Italian cities."

We had no hotel addresses for Perugia except the Brufani, and, as we often find it more enlightening to our minds as well as more advantageous to our purses to stop in small hotels or pensions, we asked the driver if he knew of a good stopping-place. He seemed to understand, shook his head as if in deep thought, then consulted his companion; upon which they both looked us all over as if taking our measure, and, evidently being agreed as to our status, he exclaimed, reassuringly, "_Ecco, ecco_, we know the _albergo_ that will suit the _società_!" Whipping his horse as we drew near the Porta Nuova, he rattled through the gate, across the wide piazza, and down a long hill, to a house on a narrow street, where we are comfortably lodged.

This pleasant little pension is kept by an English lady, with whom we have already established relations, as some of our friends stopped here last year, and we are all now basking in the genial atmosphere of good will created by them.

April 29th.

This morning we found our way to the little Piazza delle Prome, on the verge of the cliff, below which is a sheer fall of one hundred feet to the ancient city wall of the Etruscans. Below us, as we stood in the garden of the Prefettura, were the remains of Etruscan buildings, above them massive blocks laid by the Romans, and spread before us was the wide valley bordered by near and distant mountains. This marvellous view from the Prefettura is second to none that we have seen, always excepting the vast sweep of the green and fertile plain at Grenada as we saw it from the heights of the Alhambra.

We afterwards wandered from street to street, across piazzas and under arches, until we found ourselves in the Via Vecchia. Well named indeed is this ancient street, for the Via Vecchia has been trodden by the foot of man for three thousand years! This street, with its high buildings of heavy Roman workmanship, more like fortresses than dwelling-houses, leads to the great Arch of Augustus. The arch, constructed of solid blocks of travertine and sustained by huge buttresses, is adorned by a graceful pavilion and loggia, a noble monument to the Roman Emperor who rebuilt Perugia and inscribed upon its gateway "Augusta Perusia."

After we had revelled for a couple of hours in the delight of strolling about in the open, we retraced our steps to the Via Vanucci, and entered the Collegio del Cambio, in whose audience-chamber are many Perugino frescoes, all lovely save a horribly realistic Beheading of John the Baptist, from which we were glad to turn to a Nativity and a Transfiguration and to the noble Sibyls and Prophets. The head of Daniel is said to be a portrait of Perugino's greater pupil, Raphael. Even if Perugino was lacking in breadth and sometimes in grace, there is a depth and delicacy of color in his work and so much sweetness and tenderness in the faces of the women and children that, as we stood before these charming groups, we could well believe that this Umbrian artist was, as his chronicler said, "possessed of a stainless purity of soul," and that Raphael owed much to his early master.

Perugino was named after the town, not of his birth, but of his fame; _mais, de grace_, monsieur, I do not intend to give you a disquisition upon the Umbrian school of painting, of which there are many notable examples in the churches here and in the Pinacoteca. This last, let me explain, is the name, unpronounceable by English-speaking people, which is given to the picture-galleries in some of these old towns. There are really treasures of art in Perugia, with whose beauties I might fill many letters, interesting paintings by Manni, by Bonfigli, the great forerunner of Perugino, by Pinturicchio, his associate, and by many of his pupils; and in the Sala del Fra Angelico are some of the exquisite works of the idealist whose name it bears.

The Pinacoteca Vanucci is on the third floor of the Palazzo del Municipio. The doorway of this palace, with its mediæval lions and griffins--the emblem of Perugia--in exquisite Gothic carving all dominated by three saints, presents a much more harmonious whole than this confused grouping would lead one to suppose.

This afternoon we drove to Lake Thrasymene, passing the tower of San Manno, with its Etruscan inscription, and castles and battle-grounds of long ago, until we reached that most ancient one on the shores of the beautiful lake where Hannibal and Flaminius fought until the little stream ran red with blood, and so ever after has been named "Sanguinetto." A grewsome association this, with a fair stream of running water, and yet how much more euphonious, especially with the soft Italian lingering over syllables, than our American equivalent "Bloody Run!"

April 30th.