a whole which carries the mind most forcibly into the past." The history of the arch of Augustus, or _Porta urbica etrusca_, has been given again and again by local and by foreign guide-books and historians, but we know of no better account than the above by Dennis, and little is left to say on the subject here. In speaking of Etruscan walls in another part of his book, Dennis remarks that one of their most striking features is the apparent newness of the stone. The big blocks of travertine on the Arco d'Augusto are as sharp almost as on the day when the Etruscans brought them up the hill, something like three thousand years ago, the marks of the individual masons are perfectly clear upon their faces, and time has mellowed the light and graceful colonnade of the Renaissance and Roman architecture, as much or more than that of the vanished people. For a vivid first impression of the city one should certainly enter it from its northern side, and pass at once into its grim, dark, mediæval streets, through these splendid early portals. The usual approach from the station, which is certainly no quicker and much more tedious, gives nothing like the same impression of the real Perugia, which we love to read about and study. [Illustration: ARCO D'AUGUSTO] S. AGOSTINO. Many roads meet in the Piazza Grimani, and joining as it were together, pass back to the heart of the town through the arch of Augustus. The whole of the Borgo S. Angelo, which spreads away to the north of the piazza, though enclosed by very early walls, is not part of the first city of Perugia, and is indeed a little city of its own with one main street, the Via Longara, and houses closely packed on either side.[74] To the right as one passes up it is the church of S. Agostino, with its wonderful choir--one of those choirs which, by its exquisite variety of design and transformation of the wood to beasts, delights and fascinates one. The choir was made in 1502, and, as Mariotti, who describes it at length, remarks, it is "indeed worthy of praise." Perugino himself supplied the designs, which were carried out by his Florentine friend Baccio d'Agnolo, and Perugino saw that the payment of the work was good: 1120 florins down at the end of the year when the work was done.[75]