Piura

“ Forty-five miles distant from Payta, in a beautiful and fertile neighbourhood, lies the town of Piura with 10,000 inhabitants, which carries on an extensive trade in fruit and vegetables along the coast, and indeed supplies Lima with its excellent produce. ”

“ Sechura is the last town of Piura on the south; it is situated on the banks of the river Piura, a league from the ocean, and 180 miles north-north-west of Truxillo, in 5° 32' 33" south latitude. It contains about 200 houses, with a handsome brick church, and the inhabitants, who are all Indians, compose about 400 families, being chiefly employed in fishing, driving mules, or guiding passengers to Morrope, across the desert of Sechura, which is a waste of sand extending 30 leagues, of difficult and dangerous passage. ”

“ The streets are not paved, and consequently, like those of Truxillo, they are almost ankle deep in sand and dirt. The enormous quantity of bugs in the houses is quite a nuisance. The inhabitants of Piura amount to about nine thousand; they are Spaniards, white creoles, indians, negroes, and mixed breeds.
Piura is noted for the finest breed of mules in Peru; many are taken to Truxillo, Lima and other places, both on the coast and in the interior, for sale; some of them fetch the amazing high price of two hundred and fifty dollars each. The breed of goats is also very extensive in this district ”

“ The difference thus marked in the state of the air appears to influence very materially the character of several diseases, as intermittent fevers or tercianas, which on the [207] northern coast of Peru, or what is called costa de abajo, and more particularly in the eminently dry province of Piura, are of milder type than along the shores of the southern and maritime departments of Peru, known under the name of los intermedios.
The Indian population of Piura are a hardy and healthy race of people, naturally inclined to corpulency ”

“ Goats are raised in Piura and Lambayeque for their skins and fat, and swine-breeding for the production of lard has become important in some of the coast valleys immediately north of Lima. Horses are reared only to a limited extent, although there is demand for them for military purposes. The government is seeking to promote the industry through the importation of breeding mares from Argentina. Mules are bred in Piura and Apurimac, and are highly esteemed for mountain travel. ”

“ Like other coast departments, Piura extends inland to the valleys of the Amazon headwaters, and includes in its territory not only the cotton fields of the coast, but the mines of the sierra, the pastures of the uplands, and the coffee, tobacco, and sugar-cane of the Montaña. The province of Ayabaca has gold mines, forests in which the valuable Peruvian bark is found, pastures for cattle and sheep, and plantations of coffee and sugar-cane. In the district of Frias, every town is a rose garden, and bee-keeping is a flourishing industry. ”

“ With the completion of the proposed railway from Paita to the head of navigation on the Marañon, by which communication will be established between the extensive region of the Montaña and the Pacific coast, this department will become one of the most important highways of traffic in the republic. With its abundant resources and healthful climate, there is every reason to expect great development in wealth and population. At present the population of Piura, which covers a territory of about fifteen thousand square miles, is a little more than two hundred thousand. ”

“ The Peruvian mules are fine, strong animals. The best are reared in Piura, and sent to Lima for sale. The amblers are selected for the saddle, the trotters for harness, and the rest are used as beasts of burthen. The price of a mule of middling quality is one hundred dollars; a better one double or treble that price; and the very best may even cost ten times as much. The endurance of these animals under fatigue and indifferent nurture is extraordinary, and without them the vast sand plains of Peru would present insuperable obstacles to intercourse between one place and another. ”

“ These buildings, though now in ruins, prove that the valley was as populous as the natives describe, and they also show the great estimation in which the Kings Yncas held this place, for here there were royal palaces and other buildings. Time and wars have so entirely obliterated them that nothing can be seen now but vast numbers of great tombs of those dead who once cultivated all the fields in this valley. Two more days’ journey beyond Pocheos bring us to the great and wide valley of Piura, where two or three rivers unite, which is the reason why this valley is so broad. ”

“ We cannot stay long in Perugia without getting its surrounding landscape stamped upon our minds. That circle of small cities so distinctly seen: Assisi,{291} Spello, Foligno to the east, Montefalco, Trevi, Bettona, and Torgiano to the south, and Città della Pieve westwards, all of them perched upon their separate hill-top around the bed of the now vanished lake (see chapter i.) , excite one’s fancy and one’s longing, at first perhaps unconsciously, and later with an irresistible persistence. Finally we are driven to pack our trunks and wander out amongst them. ”

“ It is one of those odd pathetic bits of bad taste which somehow charm us. The Saint is dressed in tawdry armour, but his face and limbs are exquisitely fine, his expression pure and very peaceful. His hair is long, the skin of his face waxen, he seems to be merely sleeping. One of the very earliest Umbrian frescoes of Perugia, “La Madonna del Verde,” is painted in a chapel to the right. The whole building is a remarkable mixture of early pagan, of Roman, and of Christian art, and we can only regret that the last should have been added later, and in its worst and most degraded era. ”

“ The earliest Origins of Perugia and growth of the City SOMETIMES in a street or in a country road we meet an unknown person who seems to us wonderfully and inexplicably attractive. Perhaps we only catch a passing vision; the face, the figure passes us, oftener than not we never meet again, and even the memory of the vision which seemed so full of life, so strong, and so enduring, passes with the years, and we forget. ”

“ But from the Age of Darkness men awoke both in their manners and in their buildings. Perugia of the Middle Ages shook the sleep from off her heavy eyelids, and with that passionate impulse towards Light which was perhaps the secret of the Renaissance, she too strove toward the Beautiful, and in a hurried, fevered fashion, she too decked herself with fairer things than castle towers and hovels. ”

“ Away to the southwest of Perugia, above the lakes of Trasimene and Chiusi, with a wide view southwards towards Rome, and northwards to Cortona, is the little Umbrian hill-town of Città della Pieve. It is so deeply buried in its oak woods that one can barely see it from the hills and plains around it. The town is very old and very sleepy, built of red bricks with hardly any stones, and scarcely any buildings of importance. The streets seem fallen dead asleep. ”

“ We have only the relics of their patient industry. An inexhaustible store of arrow-heads and other barbarous stone implements is found in all the hills around Perugia, and splendid hatchet heads of jade upon the shores of Trasimene. No doubt these men lived in holes and caves, perhaps at the foot of this hill where the present city of Perugia stands, or a little to the west of it, but their history is dark and very far away. ”

“ Perugia (17) , Italian walled city on the right bank of the Tiber, 127 m. by rail N. of Rome, with a cathedral of the 15th century, some noteworthy churches, a Gothic municipal palace, picture gallery, university, and library; is rich in art treasures and antiquarian remains; it has silk and woollen industries; it was anciently called Perusia, and one of the cities of ancient Etruria, and in its day has experienced very varied fortunes; it was the centre of the Umbrian school of painting. ”

“ HAVING glanced thus rapidly over the history of Perugia we turn with fresh interest to examine the city itself, and to trace through what remains of its earliest walls and houses, the character of those same fascinating, if pugnacious persons, who built those walls, fought over them, lived and died within them. ”

“ The Grand Duke very unwillingly allowed Piero to settle once more in Florence. His house in the Via Larga—it had been occupied by the scapegrace assassin, Lorenzino—again was a nursery of immorality, as well as the headquarters of the enemies of his brother. Piero became the ally of the scheming Cardinal Ferdinando, but his depraved and evil life was to the end given over to the basest uses of human nature, and he died miserably, as he well deserved, in 1604, having outlived his second wife—Beatrice, daughter of the Spanish Duke of Meneses—two years. ”

“ So, without compunction, Piero had taken the needful, sure that when he returned Marina's husband or her father would repay it.
Could he return—after helping a patrician to escape from Venice into the heart of the country with which the Republic was at war? It looked doubtful even to Piero, with his indomitable temperament, but he wasted no sentiment upon this question; for if he might not return there were other countries in which a man could live. Or, should he be pursued and lighted upon by the far-seeing eye of the Ten, he could die but once and get into trouble no more! ”

“ In winter, when the lake is frozen over, the people bring their hay from the farther Lake of Cadagno in sledges across the Lake Ritom. Here, again, winter must be worth seeing, but on a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place. There are a few stunted pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are for the most part bare and green. Piora in fact is a fine breezy open upland valley of singular beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it; it is rich in rhododendrons, and all manner of Alpine flowers, just a trifle bleak, but as bracing as the Engadine itself. ”

“ Before them there were around Perugia only phantoms: stiff saints on panels and on parchment, without dates, ghosts of unattained, though dimly felt, ideals—a scattered flock of “primitives,” left here and there on chapel walls or psalters. Then gradually, all through Umbria and her border lands, in a steady circle of glory, like the stars on a summer night, the lights arose and burned. At Gubbio, Camerino, Foligno, Gualdo, Fabriano, and Urbino we trace their steady progress through the work of men like Nelli, Piero della Francesca, Gentile da Fabriano, Niccolò Alunno, and many others. ”

“ Piero said: “Why ‘the devil’? did you wish him to live more years than a life? He must have been eighty.” [Pg 273] We laughed all the way to Piazza Madonna. I thought he had heard this and only repeated it, but looking at him I saw by his laughing face that he had said it of himself and on purpose.
Lorenzo declares (and it makes me laugh) that he will not have Piero bothered, &c.; the poor lad cannot go outside the door without all Florence running after him; it is the same at home, they all try to make him shine, though with decorum, on which he insists. ”

“ The Abbot sat at his window, and with no kindly eye he watched the entry of the young bride, close by the monastery walls. Madonna Contessa Orsini came in escorted by the Florentine and Venetian ambassadors. Her dress was made of cloth of gold, she wore a garland of wild asparagus around her head, and jewels sparkled in her hair. The Abbot noted all these things, he saw the women of Perugia running out to meet her, he saw them throw flowers in her path, and then he returned to his cell to brood upon his horrid plans of vengeance. ”

“ Little cities which had been hidden in the folds of the valley grew into our horizon—Torgiano, towering on our left, Deruta and Ripa Bianca. Our road, which had run in a straight line across the plain from the foot of Perugia's hill, crossed the Tiber on a bridge with a fifteenth-century gate-tower, and turned along the banks of the river. Tall Lombard poplars lingered on its brink, and peasant women in gay kerchiefs were [48] washing linen in its green water. Across the valley we could see Perugia, most beautiful of all hill-cities, smiling in the sunshine, already far away ”

“ Even to-day there are few monks or nuns in Perugia; it is the military who are in evidence, and not a few churches and cloisters have been despoiled to house them. In fact Perugia, notwithstanding her mediaeval monuments, is a gay and much begarrisoned city, not provincial like Siena, but really the capital of a state. I have never seen so many smart and pretty women in any Italian town of the size as I found at Perugia in high summer, nor so many soldiers. ”

“ Like all Italian cities, Perugia has a strongly marked character of its own. This local character of her cities is one of Italy’s richest possessions. Genoa, brilliant in white, salmon-pink, and buff, the colouring of her palaces, and scintillating in the sun as it beats upon her pearl-grey roofs; Florence, sombre with the brown of her local pietra serena and roofed with the richer brown of her Tuscan tiles ”

“ The elegant pile of marbles, the thing that the Podestà, the priests and the people all combined in literally doting on, was for ever running dry, and growing lifeless. In this nineteenth century the Prefect of Perugia is about to send some forty miles instead of three to fetch his people water, but the great fountain will be there to hold it when it comes, and the first aqueduct will remain to break with exquisite lines the little copses and the fields away to the north of the city. ”