* * * * * In Narni, however, we did not look for art. We came there almost unexpectedly, and unexpectedly we stayed, wandering through its streets, discovering with delight the rare and lovely bits of Lombard tracery on house and church door, and passing in and out between the Roman gateways.[125] At night we sat in the quiet rooms [Illustration: NARNI (WITH ANGELO INN IN FOREGROUND)] of the Angelo inn, and listened to the nightingales which sang with their habitual vehemence deep in the ilex woods across the river Nar. They had sung, no doubt, in just this fashion hundreds of years ago, when the Bourbons broke into the town and half destroyed her people. ORVIETO. In the dull light of coming rain we turned our backs on Narni and took the train for Orte. We left the sun at the same time as we left the green and wooded hills and valleys. The rain came down in sheets at Orte; and we found ourselves in the deadly land--the land of grey volcanic strata, bare like a bone, in the valley of the Paglia. Dreary enough was the outlook when we came to Orvieto. The city seemed as though it had been drenched in the ink of a wounded sepia; the streets were black and foul, the houses low and closely packed; walls without towers, dwindled and decayed rather than bombarded, and people with fever-stricken faces huddled in the square. * * * * * Heavy drenching rain of spring. Under the darkness of the clouds, soaring high as a glorious vision above the miserable houses--a peacock in a hen-coop, a miracle of marbles and mosaics--the Duomo of Orvieto!... No one who has ever seen the building can forget it, for it is like a great surprise; it startles and astounds one in the midst of the decay around it. Here, if anywhere in Umbria, the power of the Pope or of the Church was sealed on the rebellious souls of its inhabitants; here to commemorate a dubious miracle men made a dream in stone.[126] To describe its splendours were in this small sketch a mere impertinence. But if we wish to see what is perhaps the finest bit of Gothic work in Italy, if we wish to learn the power of Signorelli's painting, it is certain that we must come hither and study at Orvieto. * * * * * As we turned our back on the cathedral we wondered what it was about her people which had allowed them to foster such a mighty piece of purest art throughout a turbulent history. Certainly the popes had power in the city.[127] They made it a mighty church, they made for it an almost mightier well! When Clement VII. fled from Rome in 1527 he took refuge in Orvieto, and, haunted by the fear of drought in case of siege, conceived the extraordinary idea of building a colossal well, for which purpose he employed the same architect as Paul III. employed to build his fortress at Perugia.