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Taddeo di Bartolo placed the Death of the Virgin among the curious undulations of pale clay and sandy marl that stretch to the southernmost gates of Siena; Signorelli was amused and fascinated by the odd cliffs and overhanging crags, unnatural and grotesque like some Druidic monument, of the valleys of the Paglia and the Chiana; and Pier della Francesca has left, in the allegorical triumphs of Frederick of Urbino and his duchess, studies most exquisite and correct, of what meets the traveller's eyes on the watersheds of the central Apennine, sharp-toothed lines of mountain peaks pale against the sky, dim distant whiteness of sea, and valleys and roads and torrents twisting intricately as on a map.

We walked till noon to-day, over the Val di Chiana to Camuscia, the last post-station in the Tuscan dominions. On a mountain near it is the city of Cortona, still enclosed within its Cyclopean walls, built long before the foundation of Rome. Here our patience gave way, melted down by the unremitting rains, and while eating dinner we made a bargain for a vehicle to bring us to this city.

John, and Montreal lavished upon him the most courteous attentions. "Pledge me in this it is from the Vale of Chiana, near Monte Pulciano," said Montreal. In truth, the wine hath a racy flavour." "What! the Senator is turned wine-bibber!" said Montreal, quaffing a vast goblet full; "that must unfit him for business 'tis a pity."

Higher still is Narni, looking over her embattled walls. It is one of the most striking positions on the way from Florence to Rome, and the next half hour, through savage gorges and black tunnels, ever beside the tormented waters of the Nar until they meet the Tiber, swollen by the tributes of the Paglia and Chiana, is singularly fine.

Battle on the Trasimene Lake No plan was ever more successful. In haste, the consul followed the line of march of the enemy, who passed by Arezzo and moved slowly through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia.

And the sentence which they then pronounced should be a pattern for all rulers, and ought to have been followed by the Florentines when, in the year 1502, Arezzo and all the Val di Chiana rose in revolt.

Battle on the Trasimene Lake No plan was ever more successful. In haste, the consul followed the line of march of the enemy, who passed by Arezzo and moved slowly through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia.

The depression of the bed of the Arno, and the raising of that of the valley by the deposits of the lateral torrents, finally cut off the branch of the river which had flowed to the Tiber, and all its waters were turned into its present channel, though the drainage of the principal part of the Val di Chiana appears to have been in a south-eastwardly direction until within a comparatively recent period.

This opinion once adopted, the swallow would become a sacred bird, and in process of time fables and legends would be invented to give additional sanction to the prejudices which protected it. The bed of the Arno near Arezzo and that of the Paglia at the southern extremity of the Val di Chiana did not differ much in level.

These facts, together with the testimony of ancient geographers which scarcely admits of any other explanation, are thought to prove that all the waters of the Upper Arno were originally discharged through the Val di Chiana into the Tiber, and that a part of them still continued to flow, at least occasionally, in that direction down to the days of the Roman empire, and perhaps for some time later.