Italian Days and Ways

by Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

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.

We wandered joyously through the streets and squares of the old town this morning, for here one does not set forth to walk to a given point—one simply wanders at will. We generally cross the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with its heroic statue of Italy's soldier king, stroll along the Corso Vanucci, the main street of the town, and then go down steps, many steps, which descend into narrow winding streets and viali with most alluring names, as Via Curiosa, Via Deliziosa, Via Bontempi, and the like. Angela says that the last sounds delightfully convivial and suggests no end of a good time; but it probably means nothing less prosaic than good weather.