The chief street is called Strada Romana, in which Pius II. has built a most stately palace of square stone, with an incomparable portico joining near to it. The town is commanded by a castle which hath four bastions and a garrison of soldiers. Near it is a list to ride horses in, much frequented by the gallants in summer.
Not far from hence is the Church and Convent of the Dominicans, where in the chapel of St. Catherine of Sienna they show her head, the rest of her body being translated to Rome. The Duomo, or Cathedral, both without and within, is of large square stones of black and white marble polished, of inexpressible beauty, as is the front adorned with sculpture and rare statues. In the middle is a stately cupola and two columns of sundry streaked colored marble. About the body of the church, on a cornice within, are inserted the heads of all the Popes. The pulpit is beautified with marble figures, a piece of exquisite work; but what exceeds all description is the pavement, where (besides the various emblems and other figures in the nave) the choir is wrought with the history of the Bible, so artificially expressed in the natural colors of the marbles, that few pictures exceed it. Here stands a Christo, rarely cut in marble, and on the large high altar is a brazen vessel of admirable invention and art. The organs are exceeding sweet and well tuned. On the left side of the altar is the library, where are painted the acts of Æneas Sylvius, and others by Raphael. They showed us an arm of St. John the Baptist, wherewith, they say, he baptized our Savior in Jordan; it was given by the King of Peloponnesus to one of the Popes, as an inscription testifies. They have also St. Peter's sword, with which he smote off the ear of Malchus.
Just against the cathedral, we went into the Hospital, where they entertain and refresh for three or four days, gratis, such pilgrims as go to Rome. In the chapel belonging to it lies the body of St. Susorius, their founder, as yet uncorrupted, though dead many hundreds of years. They show one of the nails which pierced our Savior, and Saint Chrysostom's "Comment on the Gospel," written by his own hand. Below the hill stands the pool called Fonte Brande, where fish are fed for pleasure more than food.
St. Francis's Church is a large pile, near which, yet a little without the city, grows a tree which they report in their legend grew from the Saint's staff, which, on going to sleep, he fixed in the ground, and at his waking found it had grown a large tree. They affirm that the wood of it in decoction cures sundry diseases.
2d November, 1644. We went from Sienna, desirous of being present at the cavalcade of the new Pope, Innocent X.,[21] who had not yet made the grand procession to St. John di Laterano. We set out by Porto Romano, the country all about the town being rare for hunting and game. Wild boar and venison are frequently sold in the shops in many of the towns about it. We passed near Monte Oliveto, where the monastery of that Order is pleasantly situated, and worth seeing. Passing over a bridge, which, by the inscription, appears to have been built by Prince Matthias, we went through Buon-Convento, famous for the death of the Emperor, Henry VII., who was here poisoned with the Holy Eucharist. TORRINIERIThence, we came to Torrinieri, where we dined. This village is in a sweet valley, in view of Montalcino, famous for the rare Muscatello.[22] After three miles more, we go by St. Quirico, and lay at a private osteria near it, where, after we were provided of lodging, came in Cardinal Donghi, a Genoese by birth, now come from Rome; he was so civil as to entertain us with great respect, hearing we were English, for that, he told us he had been once in our country. Among other discourse, he related how a dove had been seen to sit on the chair in the Conclave at the election of Pope Innocent, which he magnified as a great good omen, with other particulars which we inquired of him, till our suppers parted us. He came in great state with his own bedstead and all the furniture, yet would by no means suffer us to resign the room we had taken up in the lodging before his arrival. Next morning, we rode by Monte Pientio, or, as vulgarly called, Monte Mantumiato, which is of an excessive height, ever and anon peeping above any clouds with its snowy head, till we had climbed to the inn at Radicofani, built by Ferdinand, the great Duke, for the necessary refreshment of travelers in so inhospitable a place. As we ascended, we entered a very thick, solid, and dark body of clouds, looking like rocks at a little distance, which lasted near a mile in going up; they were dry misty vapors, hanging undissolved for a vast thickness, and obscuring both the sun and earth, so that we seemed to be in the sea rather than in the clouds, till, having pierced through it, we came into a most serene heaven, as if we had been above all human conversation, the mountain appearing more like a great island than joined to any other hills; for we could perceive nothing but a sea of thick clouds rolling under our feet like huge waves, every now and then suffering the top of some other mountain to peep through, which we could discover many miles off: and between some breaches of the clouds we could see landscapes and villages of the subjacent country. This was one of the most pleasant, new, and altogether surprising objects that I had ever beheld.
On the summit of this horrid rock (for so it is) is built a very strong fort, garrisoned, and somewhat beneath it is a small town; the provisions are drawn up with ropes and engines, the precipice being otherwise inaccessible. At one end of the town lie heaps of rocks so strangely broken off from the ragged mountain, as would affright one with their horror and menacing postures. Just opposite to the inn gushed out a plentiful and most useful fountain which falls into a great trough of stone, bearing the Duke of Tuscany's arms. Here we dined, and I with my black lead pen took the prospect. It is one of the utmost confines of the Etrurian State toward St. Peter's Patrimony, since the gift of Matilda to Gregory VII., as is pretended.
Here we pass a stone bridge, built by Pope Gregory XIV., and thence immediately to Acquapendente, a town situated on a very ragged rock, down which precipitates an entire river (which gives it the denomination), with a most horrid roaring noise. We lay at the posthouse, on which is this inscription:
"L'Insegna della Posta, é posta a posta,
In questa posta, fin che habbia à sua posta
Ogn'un Cavallo a Vetturi in Posta."
Before it was dark, we went to see the Monastery of the Franciscans, famous for six learned Popes, and sundry other great scholars, especially the renowned physician and anatomist, Fabricius de Acquapendente, who was bred and born there.
4th November, 1644. After a little riding, we descended toward the Lake of Bolsena, which being above twenty miles in circuit, yields from hence a most incomparable prospect. Near the middle of it are two small islands, in one of which is a convent of melancholy Capuchins, where those of the Farnesian family are interred. Pliny calls it Tarquiniensis Lacus, and talks of divers floating islands about it, but they did not appear to us. The lake is environed with mountains, at one of whose sides we passed toward the town Bolsena, anciently Volsinium, famous in those times, as is testified by divers rare sculptures in the court of St. Christiana's church, the urn, altar, and jasper columns.