When I Approached Viterbo I First Saw An Astonishing Wall,
Perpendicular To My Road, Untouched, The Bones Of The Middle Ages.
It
stood up straight before one like a range of cliffs, seeming much
higher than it should; its hundred feet or so were exaggerated by the
severity of its stones and by their sheer fall.
For they had no
ornament whatever, and few marks of decay, though many of age. Tall
towers, exactly square and equally bare of carving or machicolation,
stood at intervals along this forbidding defence and flanked its
curtain. Then nearer by, one saw that it was not a huge castle, but
the wall of a city, for at a corner it went sharp round to contain the
town, and through one uneven place I saw houses. Many men were walking
in the roads alongside these walls, and there were gates pierced in
them whereby the citizens went in and out of the city as bees go in
and out of the little opening in a hive.
But my main road to Rome did not go through Viterbo, it ran alongside
of the eastern wall, and I debated a little with myself whether I
would go in or no. It was out of my way, and I had not entered
Montefiascone for that reason. On the other hand, Viterbo was a famous
place. It is all very well to neglect Florence and Pisa because they
are some miles off the straight way, but Viterbo right under one's
hand it is a pity to miss.
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