Reluctantly we turn from rock-throned Barga, "Half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot," and as we slip down into the valley through purpling shadows shot with crimson and gold we marvel at these people, who with one hand took their part fiercely in the cruel wars of despotism and with the other adorned churches and shrines with Della Robbia reliefs, representing a form of art so pure and cool and tranquil and, above all, infused with the deepest religious feeling. Then we suddenly remember that hereabouts is the region of the Pistojese Apennines, the favoured home of the highest Tuscan imagination, poetry and song, where the people--peasants, shepherds, and mountaineers--are not only hardy, handsome, and industrious as a class, but noted for gentleness and courtesy, love of home, and the native elegance of their common speech. It is said that "the dialect that most faithfully represents the pure Tuscan of Boccaccio's day is that of peasants of the Pistojese Apennines. It is here, round about San Marcello and Cutigliano, that the purest Tuscan is spoken--pure in its language, pure in its accent; and it is here that Manzoni and d'Azelio came--comparative foreigners both of them, the one a Lombard, the other a Piedmontese--to acquire the pure language for those romances which have delighted all Italy and all the world."[10] It is in the Pistojese mountains that we hear those "charming folk songs, in which traditions of true gentleness and elevated feeling are so well exhibited, and account for the high romantic qualities of the impassioned verse."[11] Shepherds often improvise songs, called _rispetti_ and _stornelli_, as they tend their flocks alone on the hills, and if their cadence chance to catch the popular ear they are sown on a hundred hills and meadows far and wide. Tigri records by name a little girl called Cherubina who made _rispetti_ by the dozen as she watched her sheep, and the poetry of Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani was famous through the mountains of Pistoja.[12] [Illustration: _Alinari_ _Della Robbia School_ TABERNACLE FOR SACRED OIL CATHEDRAL, BARGA] Miss Alexander, in her "Road Songs of Tuscany," has given an appreciative and loving tribute to this pastoral singer, whom she calls "one of the most wonderful women" she ever saw. The daughter of a stone-mason who worked during the winter in the Maremma, Beatrice became his companion and helper, carrying on her head stones for the walls and bridges he was building. She had no education, never learning the alphabet even, but possessed a remarkable memory, and could recite long poems that she had heard. _YOU ASK ME FOR A SONG_