[Illustration: THE DUOMO, FLORENCE, FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS]
In the vicinity of Perugia many remains of Etruscan civilisation have come to light, and part of the old Etruscan city walls still stand. On top of the huge blocks of stone of which they are composed one may also see the defensive superstructure added by the Romans, and above this the red brick of a later date. Wandering in the older parts of the city, where the houses are terraced on the steep hill-slopes and the narrow streets, often burrowing under them, wind sinuously in and out, one is carried right back without an effort into mediæval times. Neither does it require any effort to picture the sanguinary faction fights between the great Perugian families, the Oddi and Baglioni. Niccolò Pisano's last work, the figures on the fountain by the steps of the Cathedral, and the unfinished wall of the building itself, are to-day just as they were in the fifteenth century when these same steps ran red with blood in the accomplishment of the diabolical plot which wiped out a whole family, save one. So tired of these conflicts were the more law-abiding Perugians after this deed, or so surfeited with blood, that the might of the Church Militant was called in to put an end to all distracting feuds. The advent of Pope Paul III. was looked upon at the time as a real deliverance; but the crafty Pontiff, knowing the hornet's nest he came into, was sagacious enough to build for himself a fortress-palace in an impregnable position. This, the Rocca Paolina, stood partly on the ground at the end of the Corso Vannucci where a big hotel is now, and on the garden space in front of it. The visitor to Perugia can never forget the incomparable view from the wall of this garden; nor wonder, when he looks over the veritable precipice beneath it, that the Baglioni, whose palace was demolished to make way for Paul's fortress, could hold in terror the rest of Perugia from the security afforded by their own walls. Perugia is like an octopus, with a central hill on which the Cathedral is situated, and from which long feelers stretch out in all directions. A statue in a public garden at the end of one of these feelers, or, more correctly speaking, promontories, commemorates the expulsion of the Swiss Papal Guard by General Fanti in 1860. The city then joined the newly formed kingdom of Italy and made an end of the Church's supremacy by demolishing the Rocca Paolina.