But it is not possible to describe all the details of a place which, like all fair things, should be explored to be enjoyed. The discovery of its hidden lanes, its little wayside villas, and its churches must be left as it was left to the present writers, who never will forget the tramps they took in the brown winter twilight, the drives on warm spring afternoons when honeysuckle scented all the hedges, and the strange excited feelings which possessed them when they found the hidden wayside house or chapel, which had no written record to tell them who had built it, and nothing but its own Perugian charm to endear it to them, and to give it history. CHAPTER V _Palazzo Pubblico, The Fountain, and the Duomo_ In Professor Freeman's small sketch of Perugia he says very truly that the most striking points of the city--that is to say, of the Mediæval and Renaissance period--are those which are gathered together in the _Piazza di San Lorenzo_. The whole atmosphere of the square is unique and impressive: individual as are the piazzas of the largest and the smallest towns in Italy which have battled for their independence throughout the course of centuries. The buildings have been changed about, burnt, battered and rebuilt, but the spirit of the middle ages has never really left them. Sitting on the steps of the Duomo we seem to feel it creep up round our feet telling us stories of a past which is immortal. It was here that the people of Perugia fought and judged, preached and repented, loved maybe, and most certainly hated. It was in this little pulpit above our heads that S. Bernardino preached, and saw the books of necromancy and the false hair of the ladies burned; here that the _Podestà_ and the people received ambassadors with deeds of submission from terrified neighbour towns. On the spikes of the railing round the fountain one set of nobles stuck the heads of others whom they hated, whom they slaughtered; and down those steps of the palazzo opposite, the great procession of the _Priori_ came on days of solemn ceremony, and up through the dark gateway of the Canonica the Pope and all his cardinals passed in when they arrived from Rome. Truly the spirit of the past history is not dead. It is painfully and supremely living. The Piazza di S. Lorenzo on a December night with windstorms hurrying the sleet across its great grim walls is more absolutely filled with the _terribilità_ of humanity than anything we ever realised.