abandoned ourselves to the genius of the place; forgot even to ask
what Santa Chiara was sleeping here; and withdrew, toned to a not
unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. Clair, the spiritual sister
of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often asked myself, Who, then,
was this nun? What history had she? And I think now of this girl as of
a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in the wood of time, secluded
from intrusive elements of fact, and folded in the love and faith of
her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows of Arcadia, how many
rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of Hellas, apocryphal,
perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and enduring homage![6]


FOLIGNO


In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di
Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain
at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to
details which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of
subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The
place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is
still the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station
of commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great
Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the
Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber,
and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an easy ascent
beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the
Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level
champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and