The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-26

l-lne AnnuncldIlOn m Wllcn she SldnQs
 so surprised. so agitated that she twists
 her fingers together and is not sure
 what to answer; the Nativity a magni-
 ficent fresco, now but a shadow, and
 the Death of the Virgin where Christ
 Himself with a tenderness-but with a
 tenderness and love-carrfes His Moth
 CT to heaven are much overpainted and by lesser hand. And yet we catch
 some shadow of F1lippo in them all, so
 that even in their run they are not the
 least among the precious things at
 spoletc..
 In quiet and sunny chapel of the
 great church the dust of Fra FfIippo,
 that vagabond and joyous mortal, was
 laid by the jealous people of Spoleto in
 14S9. Lorenzo de Medici who seems to
 have loved him. tried in vain to secure
 his ashes so that they might lie in Flor ience. But Spoleto, proud and poor with but little that was very percious in her possession, would not have it so. You
 are rich and we are poor, she seems to have said, excuse us then if we keep
 the bones of this one great man which
 you can well afford to leave in our
 keeping. Lorenzo would seem to have consented, perhaps. little reluctantly, ieontenting himself with a noble tomb for the painter in St. Maria Assunta, land with composing a long Latin in scription.
 The strangely adventurous life that came to an end here in Spoleto is very typical of one aspect of the Renais-
 sdnce; its profound passion for liberty, Tits experiment in romance and senti- lment. it's desire above everything for
 passion. And it is curious and not in- significant that it is not in, the exciting
 and creative earth of Tuscany that Fil- ippo Lippi, the fatal and erring son of the greatest of modern cities, is laid to Irest. but among the quiet and bless ed hills Of Umbria. that mystical land that produced no great intelligence, on | ly spirit, that to how large an ex- tent has influenced the world.
 It is. however, a mood the very op- posite to this that overwhelms us in the Chiesa del Crocefisso, which has been built from the ruins of a Roman tenn Iple. To-day it's facade guards the Cam Ipo Santo with its hard white crosses land bcady flowers and all the finnery |of modern death. Magnificent pillars, Roman and pagan. group themselves lround the choir and chancel. and the lnave Is ennobled by the remains of the shafts. now ruinous. that once bore the weight of some splendid roof. Pa- gan prayers of pagan gods not dead but living in exile-perhaps in the Hex woods that crown the city, and seem from here to envelop her in their som bre mantle-creep piteously into the warm sunshine that floods the church srom the open door. They seem to knock at our hearts and gazing at the
 feeble and terrible decoration of the Christian alter loaded with hard and crude artificial flowers and candlesticks covered with silver paper. it is rather of the nobility of that past that is pres cut everywhere in Italy, of it beauty and its sufficiency that we think than lcf its superstition and decay, in which lit would sometimes appear to be close lily followed by it's Christian successor. And yet that is perhaps over-empha- sized. Who, here in Spoleto can resist llLE lOuCiiilS dQUcdi Ol tldL illllC uSly shrine that greets the traveller on his lway to $. Paolo, that old thirtheenth- century church? It is a picture of S. Maria Immaculate, and bears the mar lvellous and lovely legend. "Et Macula lvirginalis non est in te.'' As I passed by at evening some children were decking the shrine with wild flowers
 gathered on the Umbria hills. The lhideous cage that guarded Our Lady, perhaps from the stones of the unbe- Elievers, was starred with buttercups as lovely in their tender yellow as those which doubtless in old days sprang up beneath the footsteps of Persephone as she crossed the rivers of Sicily on her way to Demeter after her unwilling ex- file from our world.
 The Convent of St. Paolo Is now nsed as a poorhouse round whose walls lare pictured not inappropriately per- lhaps, the Way of the Cross. In so peaceful a spot amid. the expresses and olives those who have been little de- Heated in wonderful world contem- lplate the way to heaven. But what ever it may be that attracts us so strongly ill Spoleto, she remains per- fleet city of light and joy. St. Pietro that magnificent fragrant of RoTnanes- Ique architecture, overlooking the ra- lvine is but another example of her and piety. Behind the church Irises the wooded Monte Luco, and on Ia platform reached by a series of anti lque steps this church, perhaps the most striking Romanesque building in Italy |has stood for more than a thousand years. It's facade is sculptured in re- lief with moral fables penitenceNin or |der to capture the lamb, the fox lies on This back to ali appearance dead in or |der to seize, the more surely, the fool ish doves.s But it is only in this splen- |did and simple facade that the aesthet- lis critic will find delight; the church Itself is but the mediocre whitewashed barn we grow so accustomed to in the South; with nothing really to recom- mend it, existing as it does without the mysticism and beauty of the Go |this building or the sense of space and light to be found in the building of the
 Renaissance.- London Saturday Re- view.
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