But at San Andrea, while we were looking at the Pinturicchio behind the high altar, a very courteous and intelligent priest came into the church. Seeing us, he kindly removed the cross which obstructed our view of the best part of the altar picture, the child San John the Baptist, who sits writing on his scroll at the feet of the Blessed Virgin. This figure is supposed to be Raffaelle's work. St. Francis and St. Lawrence are on one side, St. Andrew and St. Gregory on the other; the embroidery on St. Lawrence's vestments is wonderfully painted, but as a whole this picture is not nearly so good as the frescoes by the same master in the cathedral.
The priest pointed out to us a graceful arcade surrounding the front and ends of an altar. This was discovered some years ago, concealed beneath a much larger altar which had been placed above the chest containing the bones of San Andrea; he told as that when the bones were sought for, in order to remove them, the arcade was brought to light. The priest also showed us a fresco on the wall of the nave, and graphically related how he himself, only a few months before, had discovered it under the whitewash when the church was being cleaned for a festa. Who knows how many treasures still lie concealed on the church walls of these out-of-the-way towns; it must be owned, however, that the newly found fresco at Spello is not artistically a treasure, nor nearly as interesting as was the story of its discovery owing to its graphic telling.
From San Andrea our blue-eyed, gentle-spoken young guide led us to the top of the town, crowned by the deserted Capuchin convent. "They have sent all the brothers away," he said sadly; "there is but one left, and he may not live in the convent, he may only come up in the afternoon, and see the schoolboys play in the garden." There is a pathetic look about the deserted, peaceful old place. From the platform in front of it we enjoyed a splendid view; before us on one side was the ever-present Subasio, towering over all, and on the top of the hill behind stood Perugia, looking at this distance like some giant castle.
At our feet in the green valley was the amphitheatre of Spello; not so perfect as that at Fiesole, but with clearly defined tiers of grassed seats rising one above another.
Porta Augusta is another interesting gateway. We came slowly down the steep street, getting constant peeps, between tall, grey houses, of the blue mountains around us. At one of these breaks in the wall a group of peasants sat, some spinning, some idling, beneath a vine that stretched on a trellis from house to house, the light filtering through the leaves became a golden green before it fell on the merry souls in the by-street below. The men of Spello look fine, robust fellows, and the women are very tall and erect.
One handsome grey-haired dame met us as we came down the ladder-like street; she was spinning from a distaff in her hand. "Dio," she held it out to my companion, "che brutta lavoro!"
"Would that I could do it," was the prompt answer, and the old dame went off chuckling with delight.
PORTA AUGUSTA, SPELLO.