INEXHAUSTIBLE ITALY 



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argent glory bathes the scene. Again 

 the river awakens. Lights twinkle gaily 

 throughout the city and gem the bridges 

 with diamond sparklets of fire. Florence 

 that lived and died is alive again, the city 

 of unforgettable glories, the city of art 

 transcendent, the city that gave so much 

 to make life worth while today. 



ox the; slopes beyond 



Everywhere about Florence milk-white 

 roads wind out through gardens along 

 undulating slopes dotted with cypresses, 

 up through olive groves that glisten a 

 gray green in the sun, past white villas, 

 where bright-eyed lizards bask on the 

 shimmering walls. 



One of the most attractive is the great 

 Palmieri Villa, where Boccaccio and his 

 companions are said to have fled when 

 the Black Plague of 1348 swept Europe, 

 and, to pass the weary hours, told those 

 stories which took permanent shape in 

 the Decameron. Farther out, on the 

 slopes of Fiesole, Lorenzo the Magnifi- 

 cent built his favorite villa of Careggi, 

 in whose spacious halls and gardens he 

 gathered a court of artists and poets, ma- 

 gicians and sculptors. 



On these same lovely green and white 

 slopes, where Nature has so lavished her 

 floral gifts, the peasant lads are still the 

 same simple, unaffected children of the 

 sun and the soil that Giotto was when 

 Cimabue found him sketching his sheep ; 

 and the great milk-white Tuscan oxen, 

 mild and patient, toil steadily through the 

 powdery white dust with their primitive, 

 lumbering carts, probably the same as the 

 ones used in his day. 



DREAMING IX THE SUXSHIXE 



High among the rich vines and olives 

 of the farthest slope Etruscan Faesulee, or 

 Fiesole, that gave Fra Angelico to the 

 world, dreams in the mild sunshine. It is 

 not much of a town today, this little set- 

 tlement of straw-weavers, with its houses 

 so tightly shuttered against both heat and 

 cold they look like robber strongholds. 

 But Fiesole was old and important before 

 the shining city beside the Arno was born. 

 Bits of its cyclopean Etruscan walls still 

 stand, and one may sit on the grass-grown 

 steps of the Roman amphitheater on the 



slope below the medieval cathedral with 

 its stalwart campanile. 



Velathri, or Volterra, of magnificent 

 views, on a commanding, olive-clad emi- 

 nence in the province of Pisa, was an- 

 other great Etruscan city — one of the 

 most powerful of the Twelve Confeder- 

 ated Cities of Etruria. It is medieval to- 

 day, with picturesque towers and houses, 

 and a beautiful thirteenth century cathe- 

 dral and babtistery of black and white 

 marble. 



But the everlasting megalithic Etrus- 

 can walls, 40 feet high and 13 feet thick, 

 are still largely standing along their 

 4^2 miles of teapot-shaped circumfer- 

 ence, their most important feature the 

 Porta dell' Arco, an archway of dark- 

 gray stone 20 feet high, with corbels on 

 which are still dimly visible chiseled 

 heads, possibly the stern gods this van- 

 ished people worshiped. 



We have learned much of the life and 

 customs of the Etruscans from their 

 tomb-paintings and the articles that now 

 fill the museums — we know the ladies 

 used mirrors and curling-irons ; we have 

 seen the children's toys — but though we 

 have found long inscriptions, no one has 

 as yet been able to decipher more than 

 their letters ; the words still veil the story 

 in them. 



THE "FRIVOLOUS GENTRY" OE SIENA 



As in the cases of Rome and Perugia. 

 Nature provided for Siena a position that 

 was the commanding center of all her re- 

 gion : a lofty tripart ridge, dividing the 

 network of streams that flow to both 

 north and west ; but she withheld the one 

 further thing needed — water. Not only 

 were the near-by streams mere brooks, 

 affording no means of communication 

 with the surrounding country, but there 

 was not even enough water for the city's 

 supply. 



Patiently engineers searched the hills 

 for any trace of the precious fluid, 

 and with remarkable skill brought the 

 flow of every available spring into sub- 

 terranean conduits that still move us to 

 admiration by their cleverness. Once, 

 when they found an extra drop — enough 

 to furnish a thin stream for a new and 

 lovely fountain — the whole city carni- 



