SIENA: BANNER-HOLDER.
We left at dawn, in the clear pale light which floods the Umbrian plain when the world is yet a little grey, and Perugia is nothing but a lovely outline on the crest of her hill. This is the light that Perugino loved, the shadowless herald of the day, full of the mystery of the morning. The world woke slowly from her pale slumber in the arms of night; the sky deepened from beryl to gold. We found Thrasymene illumined with rosy morning fires, her hills empurpled, and the towers of her little cities aflame with sunrise. It seemed as though immortal memories, great desires, and burnt-out passions struggled for utterance there. How Hannibal's tired eyes must have ached to possess so fair a land! Yet it is likely that he never saw the passionate dawn wooing the lake with plumes of rose and gold, as we did; for we know that on the fateful day when he waited to give battle to Flaminius by the shore of Thrasymene, the mists which did him such signal service filled up the hollow like a curtain hung from one range of mountains to the other.
So we came through Tuscany to Siena, and found her all agog with excitement for the Palio, with pennons flying and music echoing down her streets, and her inns already full to overflowing.
Ah, Siena, with your gaunt red palaces and your lily tower, and your ineffectual walls which thread the vineyards like old men dreaming life away in memories, it is you who are the heart of Tuscany! You are not pale and beautiful like Florence, not such a great lady; nor have you the silent grace of Pisa, but how lovable, how intimate you are! Their dignity would ill become you with your stormy and undignified past, of which De Commines said: 'La Ville est de tout temps en partialité, et se gouverne plus follement qu'aucune Ville d'Italie.'
Siena: Torre del Mangia.
But in no other place is the traveller welcomed with such song and laughter as in Siena, when she holds high festival. I, who have only seen her in her Palio days, cannot think that life is ever dull or languid in her streets and piazze. I have peopled her with mediaeval ghosts since that day in mid-August when I woke and found them in possession. At every sound of music I look round for silken banners, and pretty boys in doublet and hose escorting steel-clad warriors, or the gay spendthrifts of whom Folgore of San Gimignano sang. For on that day I caught a glimpse of the Middle Ages, with their knights and pages and their companies of men-at-arms. I heard the brave music of their drums, and saw the old Siena, ruddy and black-browed, clamouring loud-voiced in the Piazza del Campo—a happy child one moment, and the next a bundle of conflicting passions, remembering century-old grievances, and raking up dead feuds to make a Tuscan holiday.