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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



at its feet, and two great Roman roads. 

 Today it sprawls about its hilltops, for all 

 the world like some uncouth sea monster 

 with thick, wavy legs and arms flung out 

 in groping search for prey, bolstered up 

 here, braced there, underlaid yonder by 

 tremendous masses of masonry. 



The old towers and donjon keeps, once 

 the most distinctive features of its nar- 

 row, tortuous streets, have most of them 

 vanished ; others have been beheaded ; but 

 the whole aspect of the town is even to- 

 day military and despotic ; and many a 

 house still shows traces of the heavy 

 chains that barred the dangerous streets 

 after nightfall, when, if a man forgot his 

 steel undershirt, he came home in a 

 shroud ! Even the quaint and beautiful 

 friezes above some of the doors, with 

 Latin inscriptions and mottoes, cannot 

 abate its severity. Here one reads Pitl- 

 chra janua ubi honesta domus (Beautiful 

 the door of an honest house), there So- 

 licitude) mater divitarum (Carefulness is 

 the mother of riches), and ove£ a church 

 lintel the pious Janua Coeli (Door of 

 Heaven). 



The old, joyous life of the city centered 

 in the Piazza del Duomo. Here the gentle 

 Perugians played at their game of hurling 

 stones at one another until often a dozen 

 were killed and scores wounded. But 

 that was Perugia ! And what of the in- 

 nocent looking iron fence about the cen- 

 tral fountain? Many a time its spikes 

 have borne the bloodied heads of nobles, 

 stuck there by other nobles whose turn 

 was yet to come. No wonder Perugia 

 needed portc del mortuccio — special 

 "doors of the dead" — tall, arched, nar- 

 row ; walled up now and easily passed 

 unseen. 



At one side of the Piazza is the big, 

 unfinished Gothic Cathedral of San Lo- 

 renzo, with its beautifully carven choir 

 stalls and that graceful little open-air 

 pulpit, leaning slightly toward the sun. 

 where St. Bernard preached to an unre- 

 generate people and watched the books 

 on necromancy and the ladies' false hair 

 burned. 



THE HOLY CITY OF ASSISI 



Across the fertile vale softly colored 

 Assisi, the Holy City, the town of the 

 Saints, the mystic heart of Lnibria, 



stands upon its hills, and high above all, 

 like a Titan smitten by the thunder, rises 

 the grim, austere old ruin of the Rocca, 

 that castle the Assisans regretted as bit- 

 terly as they had longed fervently for its 

 protection. In the plain below, the little 

 river Tescio winds and twists in bur- 

 nished zigzags that flash the golden sun- 

 light up against the oak and vine, corn 

 and olive clad slopes of the hills. 



There is hardly a more medieval city 

 in Italy in aspect than Assisi, and this 

 quaint idea is intensified by the burrows 

 that run in a perfect labyrinth beneath 

 the level of the twisty, narrow, shut-in 

 streets — hiding places into which, before 

 the city was fortified, the frightened citi- 

 zens could pop at the first sign of an ap- 

 proaching enemy. 



It is a city of churches and confra- 

 ternity buildings, held even yet in the 

 spell of St. Francis. And not of St. 

 Francis alone. His ideals and work so 

 moved the rich and lovely Clara Scifi 

 that she forsook everything in life to be 

 his co-worker and inspirer. Like him, she 

 founded an Order — the Poor Clares — 

 and lies today in the simple church that 

 bears her saintly name, embayed among 

 the soft gray olives on the hillside. 



THE PREACHER OP POVERTY'S MAGNIFI- 

 CENT CHURCH 



It was the glorification rather than the 

 spell of St. Francis that inspired the 

 genius who, at the very tip of the wedge- 

 shaped town, gave his mighty vision play 

 in the amazingly strong and beautiful 

 Church of San Francesco, the first Gothic 

 church in Italy — a vast double pile, one 

 church above another — with a magnifi- 

 cent monastery sweeping down its side. 

 It stands solidly upon massive substruc- 

 tures among the gnarled old olive trees 

 of the slope, so perfect in design and lo- 

 cation that from every vantage point and 

 in every light it is new and different. 



But what a church, what a monastery 

 for the preacher of poverty! Within, 

 from floor to arches, Italian painting was 

 reborn in wondrous frescoes that "spoke 

 to men who could not read . . . but 

 whose hearts received . . . teaching 

 through the eye." Cimabue. Gaddo 

 Gaddi, Giunta, and the greatest of all, 



