One of the most amusing of the charms was a heart-shaped agate with a hole through the top. This was found in a house not far from Perugia, where from time immemorial it had been held in reverence, and in which its influence was supposed to have maintained perfect harmony among the inmates of the house. Professor Bellucci did not tell us why its possessors were willing to give it up: did they want a little change from this perpetual harmony?
Belief in witches is still very prevalent in Umbria. They are said to haunt cross-roads persistently at night-time, it is also said that he who walks late in the environs of Perugia will do well to carry a few small coins in his pocket, and to fling them abroad as an offering when he comes near to a cross-road, for assuredly a witch lies there in ambush, ready to work him harm. Also, when the traveller sees in some unfrequented by-road a heap of stones beside the way, he must at once add another stone to this cairn, so that he may keep down the phantom of the murdered traveller, whose unblessed body has been hastily put underground in the lonely spot.
FOUNTAIN OUTSIDE SAN DOMENICO.
Among these ciottoli, however, I did not see any of the charming little coral hands to be found farther south, with the forefinger and little finger, the other fingers closed, pointed in defence against "mal occhio." It is possible that this belief in the virtue of coral may have originated the custom of the long coral necklace so frequently worn by the peasant women of Umbria.
San Domenico is near the Professor's house; a flight of steps leads up to the church, and before it is a fountain bearing on its side the Griffin of Perugia. The lofty campanile makes this church conspicuous from every part of the city. It must have been tall, indeed, before the tyrannical Pope ordered its two upper storeys to be demolished. The original church is said to have been built early in the fourteenth century, from the designs of Giovanni Pisano; it was, however, almost all rebuilt three centuries later. The very large and richly coloured east window, and the beautiful tomb with its remarkable canopy, were both in the first church. The tomb, that of Pope Benedict XI., who died in Perugia from eating poisoned figs, is the work of Giovanni Pisano. Some intarsia work in the choir stalls is very good, but with this exception, and the Pope's monument, San Domenico is not nearly so interesting as San Pietro de' Casinensi.
Past the little Gothic church of San Ercolano, and a line of acacias with exquisite yellow-green foliage, the tender greys of the city seemed suddenly galvanised into vivacious colour, for Piazza Sopra Mura was thronged with merry chattering crowds of market buyers and sellers; many of the handsome peasant women standing or sitting behind their wares wore a necklace of coral beads.
