Giotto, covered these 

 walls wit h pictures 

 that had far more than 

 mere decorative signi- 

 ficance. For the first 

 time in the story of 

 Christian art the 

 whole Christian be- 

 lief was summarized 

 in such a lifelike, nat- 

 ural way upon these 

 acres of Avails that it 

 sufficed for both the 

 spiritual and material 

 education of the age, 

 and indeed even for 

 ourselves. 



Far nearer to the 

 Franciscan ideal is the 

 desolate hermitage of 

 Le Carceri, far out 

 beyond the town in a 

 bleak, wild gorge, 

 where the eye can 

 hardly distinguish 

 man-made walls from 

 natural rock. St. 

 Francis loved to retire 

 to this barren solitude 

 for meditation when 

 the battle he fought 

 against worldliness 

 and sin impaired his 

 physical and spiritual 

 vigor. About the 

 Carceri grow somber 

 ilex trees, beneath 

 which he preached his 

 sermon to the birds, 

 and above all rises the jagged peak of 

 Subasio, gray as the monkish habit. It 

 is the abode of silence and of peace and 

 memory. Indeed, that is Assisi — mem- 

 ory, silence, peace ! 



THE QUEEN CITY OF TUSCANY 



Northwest of Umbria, Tuscany unrolls 

 a panorama of surpassing beauty and 

 contrast, from the grim Apennine crags 

 on the east, downward in a gentle slope 

 dotted with hills, watered by innumerable 

 streams on every side, to the blue Tyr- 

 rhenian Sea. It is a region sharply 

 marked and richly diversified, the dry 

 beds of prehistoric lakes near certain of 

 its cities and toward the coast forming 

 little plains that serve to intensify the 



THE PIAZZA DI SAN MARTlNO AND THE HOUSE (iN CENTER) 

 WHERE DANTE WAS BORN : FLORENCE 



more rugged charm of its hilliness. Tus- 

 cany's three great cities — Florence, Siena, 

 and Pisa — stand opposed in every re- 

 spect : in character, appearance, history, 

 and interest today. 



The story of Florence is the story of 

 humanity : the broad, deep, moving epic 

 of the awakening of man to his own di- 

 vine power ; the story of wonderful self- 

 made men who had but one idea in com- 

 mon — the thirst for free activity of soul. 

 So the tale of the Xew Birth, the Renais- 

 sance, is the record of individual spirit so 

 free, so subtle and elastic, so profoundly 

 penetrating to the springs of human pur- 

 pose, that it has furnished the motive 

 power of the world ever since; and Flor- 

 ence, as its source and focus, because of 



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