So perfect is the harmony of the castle from wherever it is seen, that it is difficult to realise how many hands have formed it, how many times its walls have been battered down and rebuilt at different periods by popes, cardinals, and passing _condottieri_, who have nearly all left their arms upon its walls as a record of their munificence. After Albornoz had built the principal mass of fortifications little was done until 1458, when Jacopo Piccinino, the son of the great general, entered Assisi as master, and obtained immediate possession of the Rocca. His reign was short, but with the quick eye of a soldier he soon discovered the weakness of the western slope, and seeing that it might be carried by assault from Porta San Giacomo, he laid the foundations of a polygonal tower and a long wall connecting it with the main building. The Comacine builders established in Assisi were employed and left their sign, the rose between the compass and the mason's square, upon its lower walls. But long before the work was half completed Piccinino sold the city to the Pope, and it was Æneas Piccolomini, Pius II, who, when he visited Assisi in 1459, ordered it to be brought to a termination; within a year the wall was raised to its full height, the tower received its battlements and the arms of the Piccolomini were placed above those of Piccinino. The covered gallery, running along the top of the wall from the castle, still leads the visitor to the giddy heights of the tower whence he obtains truly a bird's-eye view of all the country round, from Spoleto to Perugia, across range upon range of hills towards Tuscany, and from Bettona to the wild tract of mountainous country leading to Nocera, Gualdo and Gubbio.