A HILL-TOP STRONGHOLD. 265 



the best of the little city. Fiesole looks biggest seen 

 from afar. All that is vital in it is the ecclesiastic- ! 

 establishment, which still clings, with true ecclesiastical 

 conservatism, to the hill-top city, and the trade of the 

 straw plaiters, who make Leghorn straw goods and 

 pester the visitor with their flimsy wares, taking no 

 answer to all their importunities save one in solid coin of 

 good King Umberto. 



One last question. How does it come that in these 

 southern climates the hill-top town has survived so much 

 more generally to our own day than in Northern Europe ? 

 The obvious answer seems at first sight to be that in the 

 warmer climates life can be carried on comfortably, and 

 agriculture can yield good results, at a greater height 

 than in a cold climate. Olives, vines, chestnuts, maize 

 will grow far up on Italian hill sides, and that, no doubt, 

 counts for something ; but I do not believe it covers all 

 the ground. Two other points seem to me at least 

 equally important, especially when we remember that 

 the hill-top town was once as common in the north as in 

 the south, and that what we have really to account for 

 in Italy is not its existence merely, but rather its late 

 survival into newer epochs. One point is that in 

 Southern Europe the state of perpetual internal warfare 

 lasted much longer than in the feudal north. The other 

 point is that each little patch of country in the south is 

 still far more self-supporting, has had its economic 

 conditions far less disturbed by modern rearrangements 

 and commercial necessities, than in Northern Europe. 

 In England every town and village stands upon some 

 high road ; the larger stand almost invariably upon some 



