One strange fact to trace in the square is the splendid preservation of the municipal buildings as compared to the almost ruinous condition of those of the church. The strife between the people and the papacy is carved as it were upon the very hearts of the monuments, and whereas the palace of the people has remained comparatively perfect--a beautiful finished building which delights the eye--the palace of the popes has been battered and abused almost to destruction at the hand of man, of fires and of time. Almost the only lovely detail which still clings to the face of the cathedral is the small pulpit whence the saint of Siena preached to the people; and this in itself is a symbolical fact, for it was the power of a single human _soul_ which, for an instant tamed, if it could not quell, the passion of the Perugians. The power of the church, as church, never really mastered them. Paul III. mastered them, but he did so in the character of a warrior and tyrant.
As far as position goes the cathedral entirely dominates the municipal palace. It stands so high that in any distant view of the city it seems to soar above the other buildings. As we have seen before, the Perugians had but little patience with architectural or æsthetic matters. "They always preferred Mars to the Muse," says Bonazzi. Some grim and enduring respect kept their hands off their municipal palace when once it had been completed to their satisfaction, they
[Illustration: PIAZZA DI S. LORENZO, SEEN FROM UNDER THE ARCHES OF THE PALAZZO PUBBLICO]
took the precaution of putting a large iron fence round their fountain, but their cathedral suffered. They were zealous during the time of their prosperity to have a large and splendid church, but they never found time to finish or adorn it. They left the brickwork naked, hoping for some chance fight to furnish them with marbles for it, and in 1385 they were able to secure those which had been prepared for the cathedral of Arezzo. But they did not keep them. Pellini gives a weird account of the bringing of these marbles. "These things being accomplished," he says, referring to a very inhuman siege and conquest over the unfortunate Arezzo, "some outward sign of the acknowledged victory was necessary; so many marble stones were brought back to Perugia with some paintings upon them which had been formerly in the cathedral of the city; and the oxen and carts which brought them hither, with all the men who worked to bring them, were dressed out by our city with red cloth; but of those said stones, although they were certainly put up outside the walls of our cathedral, no sign at all remains." A little later Pellini explains their loss, for the people of Arezzo got back their marbles. "They started on their journey back to Arezzo," says the faithful historian, who will acknowledge no possible conquest of his own city, "and were put up on a part of their church where they may now be seen, white and red in colour, and very lovely to behold."