Narni.
Leaving Trevi and its cataracts to the left we passed in the train to Narni. We came there for an hour, we stayed a whole day and a night, fascinated by the marvellous view which met us from the windows of the inn.[123] Part of the city of Narni is built immediately upon the steep crags which overhang the gorge of the Nar. From this side the position of the city may be practically called inaccessible, and over it our windows looked. We had seen the Umbrian plains and valleys, we had seen Spoleto; Narni again was a fresh surprise, it seemed to represent to us the Umbrian Alps. The place has a tempestuous history. There is a certain beaten look about its walls which reminded us of Perugia, and, indeed, the cities are alike in many ways. Both were practically in the power of the Popes whilst considering themselves as independent republics, both fostering perpetual feuds between the neighbouring cities.[124] But whereas Perugia has kept an ample record of her past, that of Narni is almost obliterated. Through a piece of misguided policy she laid herself open to a horrible siege in 1527 (see pamphlet by Giuseppe Terrenzi). The Bourbons entered the town, sacked the houses, butchered her inhabitants, destroyed her considerable treasures of art, and finally, made an end of nearly all her archives.
In Narni, however, we did not look for art. We came there almost unexpectedly, and unexpectedly we stayed, wandering through its streets, discovering with delight the rare and lovely bits of Lombard tracery on house and church door, and passing in and out between the Roman gateways.[125] At night we sat in the quiet rooms
of the Angelo inn, and listened to the nightingales which sang with their habitual vehemence deep in the ilex woods across the river Nar. They had sung, no doubt, in just this fashion hundreds of years ago, when the Bourbons broke into the town and half destroyed her people.