Our train left Empoli at 2.25 and did not reach Orvieto till nearly 10. During the first part of the journey I was well employed making sketches from the windows of the carriage of Certaldo, S. Gemignano, etc. We caught some beautiful glimpses of Siena as we dashed by, and then as we passed through the wretched country just to the south of it, we gradually lost the daylight, and slept away the hours till Orvieto was reached. Here the station by daylight looks just under the town, but it took us forty minutes to drive up.
I was out before breakfast and spent a long, busy, and happy day here. The town is perched on the top of a rock which is on most sides a precipice at first and then a long slope carries the eye on to the river and valleys at the bottom. Beyond on all sides are distant hills to be seen, one of them very picturesque in outline. In summer it must be a perfect view, but now the olives are the only trees in leaf, and their colour is so sad that it does not do much for the landscape.
The old walls exist round much of the town. They are generally set back a few feet from the edge of the rock so as to leave a passage outside, which in its turn is defended by battlements built on the cliff. The lay of the ground reminds one of Toledo, but the country is more open, and the river is not a Tagus and does not produce much effect on the landscape. The views which may be had from various points of the rocks and walls are, however, superb, and I have seldom seen anything more striking. On the other hand there is no building of sufficient importance in the town to give the best effect to the views. The cathedral, not having any tower, produces but little general effect, and the only towers are some of the plain square family fortress towers like these sketched at S. Gemignano.
[Illustration: MASTER MATTHEW’S PORCH AT SANTIAGO]
The cathedral more than fulfilled my expectations. The west front is in its way very beautiful, delicate and refined--perhaps over-refined everywhere, and beautiful in the symmetry of its arrangement. But it is still not a great success. My great interest here is in the sculpture of the piers between and at the sides of the doors. First of all, I must say that they strike me as too small and delicate for their place. This is their one fault. If they were to be there they ought to be, as they are, small and in low relief so as not to interfere with the flatness and look of strength in the walls. The sculpture in the northern pier--the days of creation--is perhaps the most beautiful of the four. Nothing can be much more refined in feeling or treatment. The heads are a little exaggerated. The next pier which contains the succession of the seed of Abraham seems to me to be altogether inferior to the others. The third and fourth (from the north) are equal, or nearly, to the first, though a little more crowded. In the last the figure of our Lord surrounded by an aureole of angels, in the Last Judgement, is beautifully designed. The foliage decorations of all this work are very natural in their treatment and extraordinarily skilful. The play of relief in leaves, whose extreme projection from the face of the marble is often not more than an eighth of an inch, is of the most delicate, subtle and artistic description. Contrast the skill with which it is treated with the workmanship in the south door, and the difference of power will be seen.