fferent from those of most Italian villages,
except that there is little gaiety about them. Like Assisi or Siena,
Orvieto is too large for its population, and merriment flows better
from close crowding than from spacious accommodation. Very dark, and
big, and dirty, and deserted, is the judgment we pronounce upon the
houses; very filthy and malodorous each passage; very long this
central street; very few and sad and sullen the inhabitants; and
where, we wonder, is the promised inn? In search of this one walks
nearly through the city, until one enters the Piazza, where there is
more liveliness. Here cafes may be found; soldiers, strong and
sturdy, from the north, lounge at the corners; the shops present
more show; and a huge hotel, not bad for such a place, and
appropriately dedicated to the Belle Arti, standing in a courtyard
of its own, receives the traveller weary with his climb. As soon as
he has taken rooms, his first desire is to go forth and visit the
Cathedral.

The great Duomo was erected at the end of the thirteenth century to
commemorate the Miracle of Bolsena. The value of this miracle
consisted in its establishing unmistakably the truth of
transubstantiation. The story runs that a young Bohemian priest who
doubted the dogma was performing the office of the mass in a church
at Bolsena, when, at the moment of consecration, blood issued from
five gashes in the wafer, which resembled the five wounds of Christ.
The fact was evident to all the worshippers, who saw blood falling
on the linen of the altar; and the young priest no longer doubted,
but confessed the miracle, and journeyed straightway with the
evidence thereof to Pope Urban IV. The Pope, who was then at
Orvieto, came out with all his retinue to meet the convert and do
honour to the magic-working relics. The circumstances of this
miracle are well known to students of art through Raphael's
celebrated fresco in the Stanze of the Vatican. And it will be
remembered by the readers of ecclesiastical history that Urban had
in 1264 promulgated by a bull the strict observance of the Corpus
Christi festival in connection with his strong desire to
re-establish the doctrine of Christ's presence in the elements. Nor
was it without reason that, while seeking miraculous support for
this dogma, he should have treated the affair of Bolsena so
seriously as to celebrate it by the erection of one of the most
splendid cathedrals in Italy; for the peace of the Church had
r