in these statues, as also in
the lions which support them, recalling the early French and German
manner. In addition, one finds the usual Lombard grotesques--two
sea-monsters, biting each other; harpy-birds; a dragon with a twisted
tail; little men grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and
angles of the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north are
quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and classical egg-mouldings.
Over the western porch is a Gothic rose window. Altogether this church
must be reckoned one of the most curious specimens of that hybrid
architecture, fusing and appropriating different manners, which
perplexes the student in Central Italy. It seems strangely out of place
in Tuscany. Yet, if what one reads of Toscanella, a village between
Viterbo and Orbetello, be true, there exist examples of a similar
fantastic Lombard style even lower down.

The interior was most disastrously gutted and "restored" in 1731: its
open wooden roof masked by a false stucco vaulting. A few relics, spared
by the eighteenth century Vandals, show that the church was once rich
in antique curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his back, half
hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a dozen rarely
beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and on a large
scale. One design--a man throwing his face back, and singing, while he
plays a mandoline; with long thick hair and fanciful berretta; behind
him a fine line of cypresses and other trees--struck me as singularly
lovely. In another I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves and ripe
fruit, not only drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so modelled
as to stand out with the roundness of reality.

The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was one long
banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, having to take
farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, or _arx_ of the old
city! It is a ruined spot, outside the present walls, upon the southern
slope, where there is now a farm, and a fair space of short
sheep-cropped turf, very green and grassy, and gemmed with little pink
geraniums as in England in such places. The walls of the old castle,
overgrown with ivy, are broken down to their foundations. This may
possibly have been done when Montepulciano was dismantled by the Sienese
in 1232. At that date the Commune succumbed to its more powerful
neighbours. The half of its inhabitants were murdered, and its
f