The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, and inserted in its outer walls—­Peruzzi, Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, among the more ancient—­de’ Medici at a later epoch.  The revolutions in the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them.

The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with sense of breadth and beauty.  From S. Margherita above the town the prospect is immense and wonderful and wild—­up into those brown, forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities of Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano.  The jewel of the view is Trasimeno, a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate contemplation.  There is something in the singularity and circumscribed completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci’s pencil, had he seen it.

Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable.  One little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining ’Signore Padrone!’ It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us.  Sitting later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind boy taken by his brother to play.  The game consists, in the little creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and running round and round it, clasping it.  This seemed to make him quite inexpressibly happy.  His face lit up and beamed with that inner beatitude blind people show—­a kind of rapture shining over it, as though nothing could be more altogether delightful.  This little boy had the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see since.  He looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age—­doomed always, is that possible, to beg?

CHIUSI

What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat’s cheese in the inn of the Leone d’Oro at Chiusi?  The windows are open, and the sun is setting.  Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded hills of Citta della Pieve to the left.  The deep green dimpled valley goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte!  The near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine olives and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its crowning villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture.  The breadth and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space of lucid sky, the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all are here.  The evening is beautiful—­golden light streaming softly from behind us on this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue with stars above.