St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1894-03-29
CARToNA AND PERUGIA.


gia and Feligno, possess fascinat-
ing interest for all who are fond of
history and picturesque scenery.
This road traverses the fairest por-
ton of Italy, and every mile of it has
its attractions.
The traveller speeds up the Val
d'Arno, and passes, near its head, the
city of Arezzo prominent in old
days as the birthplace of Marcenas,
the friend of Horace and Virgil and
the minister of Augustus Caesar.
After crossing the intervale con-
Meeting the valley of Arno with the
valley of Chiena, if he so elects, he
will halt at Cortona picturesquely
browning, after the manner of an
Gent times, the summit of a high
hill. Centuries before the founda-
ton of Rome the Pelasgians wander
ing westward around the head of
the Adriatic, established a colony on
the site of this city, and later settled
all the country afterwards controlled
by the twelve Etruscan republics.
On the lower or western side of the
towns wall of huge stones of Etrus-
can origin surmounted by construc-
tons of Roman and medieval times,
lends a manifold interest to the
unusual character of this ancient
city.
In the fields near the walls of Cor
tona, huge blocks of hewn stone, the
remains of an ancient sepulchre, of
dimensions rivalling the massive
work of the Egyptians, are silent
witnesses to the infinite care with
which some Etruscan sought to per-
petuate the last long home of him
self and family. Alas for his hopes,
his tomb, like those on the Via APP
pia at Rome, is roofess and desolate,
and his ashes are scattered to the
winds.
LII LIZ Sh OSlWONh
the east shore of the Lake Tharsi-
meme and the adjacent hills, few
miles beyond Cortona, the willy
Carthaginian warrior Hannibal, on
a foggy morning 217 years before
Christ, entrapped and annihilated
Roman army. The entire command
of an inca utious Roman consul, had
defled upon the Hateful meadow,
when Hannibal closed upon their
rear with his calvary, and let loose
upon them his infantry. Only a
remnant escaped to carry the dread
ful news and CONSERVATION to Rome.
The placid lake today bears no
token of the frightful drama enacted
on its shore; while the rumble of the
modern railway train alone disturbs
the silence of this field of slaughter.
At Perugia, gracefully seated upon
an outlying spur of the Apennines,
overlooking almost the whole course,
and the broad valley of the upper
Tiber, the supreme interest of our
recital centers.
The origin of this city antedates
the foundation of Rome. Fabius
it B. c. 800, and Augustus
beseiged Lucius Antonius, brother
of Mark Antony, within it's walls.
Fire and famine supplemented the
horrors of war and the city was
destroyed. Augustus rebuilt it as a
Roman colony. At the beginning of
the 9th century Charlemagne gave
it with the province of Perugia to
the Roman pontiff, and including
Ravenna and Spoleto, founded the
power of the Romish
church
In the middle ages incessant feuds
were here as everywhere the fruitful
source of massacre and assassina ton.
The entire history of one powerful
noble and his kindred is one of
crime and bloodshed. After one of
their street combats, so runs the
story, the bodies of twenty-seven
members of this family and it's
branches lay grimly silent in death.
The master of Raphael, Perugine,
lived at Perugia; and to him in 1895
The twelve-year-old Raphael came for
In the Marble Fawn, Hawthorne
has given US charming picture of
the public square, the cathedral, the
building, the,bronze statue
Of a pope, and the old palaces, of
this queen of Italian hill-towns. In
The outlook over hill and low
and she may rightly claim pre-
eminence. Southwark and eastward
the eye sweeps over the wide valley
Of the Tiber to Assist and Spoleto on
the slopes of the Apennines. The
Tiber lies along the plain like silver
thread. There on the hillside at
Assist St. Francis saw his bea ti6c
visions and walked humhlv in the