Cathedral Cities of Italy

by W. W. Collins

One of the finest Domestic Gothic façades in Italy is that of the Palazzo Pubblico. A grand doorway of clustered and twisted columns ornamented with arabesques gives on to the Corso Vannucci. Above the portal are the city's three protectors, SS. Lorenzo, Ercolano, and Costanza. By their sides and overhanging the pavement, on brackets, are two huge gryphons holding a sheep and a calf. Within the building are the Municipal Offices, and on the third floor the pinacoteca, on the walls of which hang some of Perugino's best work. The façade, which faces the Piazza del Duomo, has a fine flight of steps leading to an entrance on the first floor. Above this are two more gryphons in bronze and a lion. Depending from the gryphons is the great chain and bar which were captured from the Sienese. Three fine arches support a loggia, outside which is a pulpit, removed hither from the demolished church of S. Salvatore. This side of the Palazzo is the oldest part of the building, preceding in construction that which is in the Corso Vanucci by fifty years. A third part, that was added in 1429 for the Bankers' Guild, is known as the Collegio del Cambio. The great hall inside is decorated with very good examples of Perugino's brush, and has a marvellous ceiling covered with arabesques and medallions by his pupils. Carved stalls and benches of walnut wood with intarsia work, and fine doors, complete an ensemble which is one of the best examples of an early Renaissance interior.

The old Piazza del Sopra Mura, so called because the buildings on one side were erected on the Etruscan walls, has been renamed the Piazza Garibaldi. A statue of the hero may be seen in the illustration. On the right of the sketch, built on the walls, is the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, at present the Assize Court. Its Gothic façade has a good porch and a ringheria, or balcony. The piazza is one of the best "bits" in this quaint old city, and when filled with market folk haggling over bargains under their umbrellas is a typical Italian scene in a typical Italian setting.

There are not many places in Italy that boast so fine a view as Perugia can from the garden where once stood the Baglioni's palace. In winding lines directly beneath one a road, buttressed up by great blocks of masonry, now leads downhill to the station. To our left is a mat of grey-brown roofs, out of which rise hundreds of curiously shaped chimneys. Heavy stones keep some of the roof tiles in place. A necessary precaution, for, although these are laid three deep, a storm of extra violence is apt to whisk them away by scores. Glimpses of delicious walled-in gardens and old conventual courtyards nestling behind high walls break the colour of our brown mat with relieving patches of green. Bell towers and a spire or two rear themselves out of the harmoniously coloured network and catch the early sun like beacons. Tortuous alleys appear and disappear amidst this delightful chaos, and little figures like ants may be seen labouring up the steep slopes. A sudden jump in colour from brown to green and the eye has leapt a thousand feet or more to the vast and fertile plain beyond. Shadows thrown by fleecy clouds, with which from our height, we seem to be on a level, chase one another over the emerald carpet. Little hills, covered with trees, appear as flat as the plain below. Dark cypresses and pines cluster round the farms and homesteads that punctuate the landscape with white dots. Long thin ribbons of the same colour tell where the main roads run to Assisi, to Foligno, to Rome or Orvieto. As the eye travels on, the emerald merges imperceptibly into green of a blueish tinge. Hills twenty miles away rise in a purple mass under the shadow of the clouds above. But what a perfect canopy the sky is! The sun pierces the well-ordered battalions that are moving across it from the west, and with long, straight rays strikes the windings of the river that runs on to the Eternal City and flows out to sea. Far away, through the yellow haze that throws the purple hills into such bold relief, are shadowed forms rising tier above tier in the mystery of distant sunlight. The snowy crests of Italy's central chain toss themselves up to heaven, hardly distinguishable from the farthest mass of the marching hosts of the sky. Yes, truly an unforgettable view, and one which the Baglioni of old, from their castle windows, must have drunk in with pride. Well nigh as far as their eye reached the country owed them allegiance.

ASSISI

OF all the wonderful hill towns of Italy, Assisi can claim a kind of pre-eminence in saintship and monasticism. The delicate finger of time has touched lightly and lovingly the little mediæval fortress which gave to the world S. Francis and S. Chiara. One might say that every stone in the place is saturated with the memory of the former and sweetened by the recollection of the saintly woman who outlived him many years. The life of S. Francis of Assisi is one of the most enthralling tales in the history of the saints. He, who was the son of a rich cloth merchant, and up to the age of twenty-four had led a gay and vicious life, has left to humanity one of the greatest examples of charity, humility and chastity that the world has ever seen.

As one approaches the quiet little place, the first thing to attract is the great church of S. Maria degli Angeli, built over the Porziuncula. This, a small chapel, was presented to S. Francis by the Benedictines of Mte Subacio, and is the scene of the closing years of his life and his death. A fine altarpiece by Andrea della Robbia in the north transept shows the saint receiving the stigmata, or wounds of our Lord's Passion. Pope Pius V. raised the cupola that is directly over the spot where S. Francis expired. The charming little garden where the saint cultivated his plants and medicinal herbs adjoins the sacristy; and there still flourish in it the thornless roses of the legend. Two years after the death of S. Francis, the immense building that rises on a massive substructure was commenced by Gregory IX. The great convent and two churches, one above the other, that seem from below as solid as the rocks beyond, were erected over the saint's grave. S. Francis, when dying, expressed a wish to be interred outside the city walls; but his disciples, so we are led to believe, carried his body up secretly two years later, and placed it in a sarcophagus, which was found imbedded in the rock in the year 1818. It had lain there inviolate for six hundred years.

The lower church, which one enters by a Gothic porch, is very dark. This is emphasised if the sun happens to be very brilliant. By degrees, however, the wonderful ultramarine used in the decoration of the groined roof asserts itself, and what at first seemed utter blackness unfolds imperceptibly into an extraordinary scheme of colour. The costly blue was presented by Hecuba, Queen of Cyprus, whose tomb is in the church. The great porphyry vase in which it was brought thither is there too. Chapels raised six steps above the floor of the nave take the place of aisles; and their windows, filled with stained glass, do not help to mitigate the darkness. The High Altar stands at the inter-section of the nave and transepts. Immediately beneath is the rock containing the saint's remains. The altar itself is a huge slab of stone brought from Constantinople. It rests on twenty slender columns that form a sort of arcade with trefoils and mosaic spandrils. The tour compartments of the vault above are adorned with some of the finest of Giotto's work. They are known as the Poverty series, and Chastity, Obedience, and S. Francis in Glory.

A fine vestibule at the west end of the nave fronts the Piazza Superiore, and carries the façade of the upper church. This is smaller than the lower church by the width of the side chapels, and consists of a nave, short transepts, and apse. The nave is decorated by a once noble series of frescoes by Giotto of the life of S. Francis. They are much damaged by injudicious restoration, and comparing them with other works by the same master-hand, it is open to question whether much of the colour from his brush is now on the walls. Above them is the almost ruined work of Cimabue. Alas! that such masterpieces should have been so neglected.

On the way to the upper town one passes through the old Roman Forum, now the Piazza Grande. In the square stands the Palazzo del Capitano, to which a fine tower is attached. Further on, as one climbs the ascent, the street opens out into the Piazza Rufino, at the end of which the cathedral is situated. Dedicated to the first bishop of Assisi, who suffered martyrdom in the year 286, the building was commenced in 1140. The fine façade has three portals, elaborately carved in low relief, and three very good round windows. Grotesque figures of birds and beasts are set on brackets near the centre window, and occupy other places on the façade. The interior was restored and altered at the end of the sixteenth century, and is in no way remarkable. It contains, however, the font in which S. Francis was baptized, and two good statues of white marble, one of S. Francis, the other of S. Chiara.