The arts of peace, such as the manufacture of wool and silken stuffs, were known in the middle ages in spite of the want of water (the hand and foot looms of Perugia are almost prehistoric in their simplicity), and in 1297 we hear of the magistrates of Perugia sending an embassy into Lombardy to fetch two friars thence who should teach their townsfolk the secrets of weaving. This art was zealously kept up for many years, but finally it fell into decay. A branch of it has lately been revived by a Milanese lady, and thanks to her efforts we are again able to buy the strange flame-patterned carpets which we find on the altars of so many of the older Umbrian churches.
Except in the Corso, life seems very quiet in Perugia. Yet though there is poverty, there is none of that feeling of decayed splendour, of arrested magnificence and luxury which we feel in so many cities of Italy. The Perugians were probably never very luxurious. There are one or two beautiful old palaces, but they are plain to look at, and the palaces of the nobles had a bad time of it and were constantly pulled to bits as their different owners were driven into the country. The town is a town of a strong people; it is dignified and peaceful. When the wind is not battering about its roofs and howling through its narrow streets one becomes aware of an extraordinary silence.
And in that silence the questions rise--one cannot stifle them: Where are the _Beccherini_ and where are the _Raspanti_? Are the Baglioni really dead, and the Oddi, where are they? And the Flagellants and the _Penitenti_--have even their ghosts departed? Will not a pope ride in at the gates with his nephews and his cardinals and take up peaceful quarters in the grim Canonica? Will not some warlike Abbot come and batter down the church towers to build himself a palace? Will no procession pass us with a banner of Bonfigli, and women wailing that the plague should be removed?...
The snow falls silently upon the roads in winter. No blood of nobles stains it. In May all Umbria is green with crops. No _condottiere_ comes to trample down the corn. But high upon her hill-top Perugia stands as she stood then, and in her silence seems to wait for something yet to come.