Studies of Travel: ItalyFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Studies of Travel: Italy
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Italy -- Description and travel
The city of Mæcenas, and of a whole crowd of famous men of later times,
shows no outward signs of being much frequented by travellers. There
is some difficulty there in getting so much as an Italian newspaper,
and, though excellent photographs have been taken of some of the chief
buildings, they must be sought for at Florence; they are not to be
bought at Arezzo. Yet the old Etruscan city has many attractions, among
them surely the singular cleanness of its streets, and, above all, that
clear and pure air which is thought to have had something to do with
nourishing the genius of so many of its citizens in so many different
ways. Perhaps, on the whole, Arezzo does not suffer from not having
yet put on the cosmopolitan character of some of its neighbours. And if
the city does not, either as Arretium or as Arezzo, stand forth in the
first rank of Italian cities, still it has a long history under both
forms of its name. If, again, its buildings do not rank with those of
Pisa or Lucca, still there is quite enough both in the general aspect
of the city, and in some particular objects within its walls, to claim
a day or two's sojourn from any one who is not eager to rush from
Florence to Rome as fast as the so-called express train can carry him.
Arezzo, as to its physical site, holds a middle position between cities
which sit perched on a high hill-top like Fiesole, and cities which,
like Florence, lie flat or nearly so on the banks of a great river.
It has its river, if we may give that name to the mere brook which
presently loses itself in the Chiana, as the Chiana soon loses itself
in the Arno. The river too has a bridge, but both river and bridge have
to be sought for; they form no important points in the general aspect
of the city. The bridge at Arezzo is not one of those to which we
instinctively go the first thing to take a general view of the city as
a whole. The hill is a more real thing, as any one will say who climbs
some of its steeper streets. Still it is one of those hills which seem
to borrow height and steepness from the fact of being built upon. If it
were covered with green grass, it would simply pass as one of several
small hills which break the flat of the rich plain, girded in on all
sides by higher mountains, which rise, in February at least, into vast
snowy heights in the further distance. Still Arezzo has distinctly the
character of a hill city, not of a river city; the hill counts for a
good deal, while the river counts for nothing. The best points for a
general view from below will be found on the town wall, a little way to
the left of the railway station; while to look down on Arezzo we must
climb to the castle in the eastern corner of the city, whose Medicean
fortifications look strong enough without, but which, within, has
gardens and fig trees level with the walls, and rabbits running about
at large among them. The castle therefore forms no special object in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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