aught men again the love of
God, and then the love of man and the love of nature; who had lifted
the people out of their misery and degradation, and awakened the church
out of its stiffness and worldliness; it was he, too, who inspired, who
may at most be said to have created, Italian art,--the great St.
Francis! Such are the deep, such are the penetrating, such are the
far-reaching effects of sanctity. If a soul is, by divine grace, given
wholly to God, it is impossible for us to say to what heights it may
attain, or what good, in every region of human effort, it may do."

[Illustration: BAIAE AND ISCHIA, FROM CAMALDOLI
_Page 382_]

Perugia, the neighboring city only fifteen miles from Assisi, is the
metropolis of all this Umbrian region. Like Assisi, it is a "hill town,"
built on an acropolis of rock, its foundations laid by the Etruscans
more than three thousand years before the Christian era, and its
atmosphere is freighted with the records of artists and scholars. The
Perugians were the forerunners. They held the secret of artifice in
metals and gems; they were architects and sculptors. The only traces of
their painting that have come down to us are their works on sarcophagi,
on vases or funeral urns,--traces that indicate their gifts for line and
form. It was about 310 B.C. that all Umbria became a Roman province.
The colossal porta of Augustus--a gateway apparently designed for the
Cyclops--still retains its inscription, "Augustus Perusia." The
imperishable impress of the great Roman conqueror is still seen in many
places. Perugia was a firm citadel, as is attested by the fact that
Totila and his army of Goths spent seven years in besieging it. The
centuries from the thirteenth to the fifteenth inclusive, when it was
under the sway of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, were years of tragic
violence. Even the cathedral became the scene of riot, and its interior
was entirely washed with wine, and it was reconsecrated before it could
be again used for holy offices. The little piazza in front of the
cathedral, now dreaming in the sun, has been the scene of strange and
contrasting crises of life. Strife and warfare have desolated it; the
footsteps of Bernardino of Siena have consecrated it, as he passed
within the great portals to preach the gospel of peace. He was one of
the most potent of the Francescan disciples, and Bernardino (born of the
noble family of the Albizzeschi, in 1380, in Siena, the y