United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


It is true the wave of culture which, thanks to the humanists, was sweeping over Italy did reach Pesaro. The manufacture of majolica, which, in its perfection, was not an unworthy successor of the pottery of Greece and Etruria, flourished there and in the neighboring cities on the Adriatic, and as far as Umbria. It had reached a considerable development in the time of the Sforza.

In general, the economic and social condition of Italy was not primarily dependent on political distinctions; there were allied districts, such as Umbria and Etruria, in which the class of free farmers had mostly disappeared, while in others, such as the valleys of the Abruzzi, the same class had still maintained a tolerable footing or remained almost unaffected just as a similar diversity could be pointed out in the different Roman burgess-districts.

Perplexed Europe will anxiously seek some means of destruction, but God will have Luther ready to aid in the solution of the problem. Francis Bernardone, 1182-1226 A.D.. Saint Francis, the founder of the Franciscan Order, was born at Assisi, a walled town of Umbria, in Italy. His father, Peter Bernardone, or Bernardo, was in France on business when his son was born and named.

They were slaves who held the plough, and tilled the land, and tended the flocks, equally in Lybia, in Campania, in Egypt, as in Umbria.

But he added, “it is an acknowledged fact, and which I have personally verified, that in those provinces which, lately, were so unmanageable and dissatisfied with the court of Rome, the ministers of worship are actually respected and protected, and the temples of God more frequented than ever.” Victor Emmanuel surely now thought that the Pope would never think of disturbing this happiness and self-satisfaction. “The interests of religion required it not.” He even hoped that the Holy Father, not satisfied with refraining from a renewal of his claim on Romagna, would also hand over to him the marches and Umbria, in order that they might enjoy the same prosperity.

By whom this plan was invented is not clear, but simultaneous operations in different parts of the peninsula had been always a favourite design of the more extreme members of the Party of Action, and Garibaldi probably yielded to their advice. All that came of it was the entry into Umbria of Zambianchi's small band of volunteers, which was promptly repulsed over the frontier.

Without obstruction he crossed the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of Umbria, and reached the city, which for four hundred years had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. The walls were then twenty-five miles in circuit, and contained so large a population that it affected indifference.

Caesar made an expedition against Nursia, among the Sabini, and routed the garrison encamped before it but was repulsed from the city by Tisienus Gallus. Accordingly, he went over into Umbria and laid siege to Sentinum, but failed to capture it.

"Wherefore not?" she replied, meeting his eye with a furtive sidelong glance. "Because I, for one, had rather watch till midnight fifty times, in the hope only of clasping Lucia, once, in my embrace; than once until dawn, to kill fifty boars of Umbria."

Ah! that old land of Italy, ought one to leave it all as a dusty museum for the pleasure of artistic souls, leave it to crumble away, even as its little towns of Magna Graecia, Umbria, and Tuscany are already crumbling, like exquisite bibelots which one dares not repair for fear that one might spoil their character.