or nearly the same time there was a dominant party which in with some wealthy known as the built what is now known as the or in what is now known as the which i think is perfect it is not a fortress like the or the at but it is a perfect thing the charm of which remains with me fresh and keen it is a beautiful structure � one that serves the uses to which it is put � that of a public for officials and a picture gallery it was in one of these rooms devoted to a collection of art that i found a collection of the work of the one really important painter who ever lived or worked in � and the little city now makes much of him if i felt like the long art of comparatively trivial things the charm and variety of the town and its present day life was in no wise lost upon me the things the things which the do not talk about are sometimes so charming i found it to descend of a morning by lovely cool stone passages from the of to the of the army and watch the soldiers principally cavalry their ground was a space about five acres in extent as flat as a table set high above the plain with deep descending on either hand and the quaint houses and public institutions of looking down from above to the left as you looked out over the plain across the intervening was another spur of the town built also on a flat ridge with the graceful church of st peter and its beautiful italian tower and the whole road that swept along the edge of the cliff making a delightful way for carriages and i took delight in seeing how wonderfully the deep green separate one section of the town from another and in watching the soldiers italy then being at war with you could stand your arms resting upon some old green wall and look out over intervening fields a at forty to distant of mountains or tower like and the variety of the of the plain below was never this italian valley was so beautiful that i should like to say one more word about the skies and the wonderful landscape effects north of here in and they do not occur so persistently and with such glorious warmth at this season of the year at this height the nights were not cold but cool and the mornings burst with such a blaze of color as to defy the art of all save the greatest painters they were not so much lurid as richly being shot through with a strange electric radiance this did not mean as it would so often in america that a cloudy day was to follow rather the radiance slowly gave place to a glittering field of light that brought out every slope and olive orchard and distant and pine with amazing clearness the bells of the churches in and in the valley below were like calling to each other from their praying towers as the day closed the features of the landscape seemed to be set in crystal and the and and to have at times a quality outside the walls in the distance were churches and always with a or two sometimes with many which stood out with great distinctness and from distant you would hear singing in the bright sun well might they sing for i know of no place where life would present to them a fairer aspect chapter the makers of all the treasures of my historic reading in mind from the lives of the and to that of and the school of artists i was keen to see what would be like mrs q had described it as the most individual of all the italian cities that she had seen she had over its narrow dark shaded streets its fortress like palaces its highly individual churches and the way the drivers of the little open plied their until she said it sounded like a fourth of july in i was keen to see how large the dome of the cathedral would look and whether it would really tower over the remaining buildings of the city and whether the would look as picturesque as it did in all the photographs the air was so soft and the sun so bright although sinking low in the west as the train entered the city that i was pleased to accept instead of the ancient atmosphere which i had anticipated the wide streets and rows of f six family apartment houses which all the sections they have the rich and of the earlier portion of but they are very different in their suggestion of the distant hills as i could see from the car windows were dotted with houses and occupying delightful positions above the town suddenly i saw the and although i knew it only from photographs i recognized it in an instant it spoke for itself in a large dignified way over the it like a great a at forty and some flying in the air gave it the last touch of beauty we wound around the city in a circle � i could tell this by the shifting position of the sun � through great yards of railway tracks with scores of engines and lines of small box cars and then i saw a small stream and a bridge � nothing like the of course � a canal and the next thing we were rolling into a long crowded railway station the guards calling i got up gathered my overcoat and bags into my arms a and gave them to him and then i sought a vehicle that would convey me to the hotel for which i was bound � the hotel de on the i sat behind a fat driver while he cracked his 