ambition, and lawlessness in the fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who
began life as a baker's boy at Narni and ended it with a bronze statue
by Donatello on the public square in Padua, was of this breed. Like
this were the Trinci and their bands of murderers. Like this were the
bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to death at Venice. Like this was Pietro
Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he
could not succeed in being 'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but
inhuman; passionate, but cold; powerful, but rendered impotent for
firm and lofty deeds by immorality and treason; how many centuries of
men like this once wasted Italy and plunged her into servitude! Yet
what material is here, under sterner discipline, and with a nobler
national ideal, for the formation of heroic armies. Of such stuff,
doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. When will the Italians learn to
use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, not as the Vitelli and the Trinci
used them? In such meditations, deeply stirred by the meeting of my
own reflections with one who seemed to represent for me in life and
blood the spirit of the place which had provoked them, I said farewell
to Cavallucci, and returned to my bedroom on the city wall. The last
rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had thundered ere I fell
asleep.


SPELLO


Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a
Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman
leaning over it, and some fragments of Roman sculpture scattered
through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore
and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio.