of sky-blue Apennines, circumscribing
landscapes of refined loveliness in detail, always varied, always
marked by objects of peculiar interest where the eye or memory may
linger. Next in importance to this immensity of space, so powerfully
affecting the imagination by its mere extent, and by the breadth of
atmosphere attuning all varieties of form and colour to one harmony
beneath illimitable heaven, may be reckoned the episodes of rivers,
lakes, hills, cities, with old historic names. For there spreads the
lordly length of Thrasymene, islanded and citadelled, in hazy
morning mist, still dreaming of the shock of Roman hosts with
Carthaginian legions. There is the lake of Chiusi, set like a jewel
underneath the copse-clad hills which hide the dust of a dead Tuscan
nation. The streams of Arno start far far away, where Arezzo lies
enfolded in bare uplands. And there at our feet rolls Tiber's
largest affluent, the Chiana. And there is the canal which joins
their fountains in the marsh that Lionardo would have drained. Monte
Cetona is yonder height which rears its bristling ridge defiantly
from neighbouring Chiusi. And there springs Radicofani, the eagle's
eyrie of a brigand brood. Next, Monte Amiata stretches the long
lines of her antique volcano; the swelling mountain flanks,
descending gently from her cloud-capped top, are russet with
autumnal oak and chestnut woods. On them our eyes rest lovingly;
imagination wanders for a moment through those mossy glades, where
cyclamens are growing now, and primroses in spring will peep amid
anemones from rustling foliage strewn by winter's winds. The heights
of Casentino, the Perugian highlands, Volterra, far withdrawn amid a
wilderness of rolling hills, and solemn snow-touched ranges of the
Spolentino, Sibyl-haunted fastnesses of Norcia, form the most
distant horizon-lines of this unending panorama. And then there are
the cities placed each upon a point of vantage: Siena; olive-mantled
Chiusi; Cortona, white upon her spreading throne; poetic Montalcino,
lifted aloft against the vaporous sky; San Quirico, nestling in
pastoral tranquillity; Pienza, where AEneas Sylvius built palaces and
called his birthplace after his own Papal name. Still closer to the
town itself of Montepulciano, stretching along the irregular ridge
which gave it building ground, and trending out on spurs above deep
orchards, come the lovely details of oak-copses, blending with grey
tilth and fields rich with oliv