'A rock of tufa hanging above a melancholy valley; a city so silent that it seems empty: the windows are closed, in the grey lanes grass grows; a capuchin crosses a square; a bishop descends from a closed carriage before the gate of a hospital; a tower rises in a white and rainy sky; a clock strikes the hour slowly; all at once at the end of the street a miracle in stone--the Cathedral.'
Is not the city of Luca Signorelli set before you with those few lines? There is here something far beyond dexterity or ingenuity of style; there is the poet's, the painter's, power to embrace a world at a glance, and with a touch set before duller eyes that world in all its varieties and suggestions, all its past and its present, all its secrets of the grave and of the future.
Take again this very different picture:--
'On a tableland the thickly-growing gorse had flowered so densely as to spread a vast golden mantle over all the soil. Five maidens were gathering the flowers and filling with them skips and baskets, singing as they worked. They sang a song of thirds and fives in perfect harmony. When one of them reached a special phrase she lifted her whole bust out of the yellow maze of blossom that the notes might go forth from her throat with fuller liberty, and held it long sustained in air, looking her companions in the eyes whilst they applauded with their hands of flowers.
'When they saw the stranger they stopped and bent again over the gorse. Stifled saucy laughter rippled under the yellow sea. Giorgio asked,--
'A girl, brown as an olive, raised her head in reply, amazed, almost terrified: "It is I, sir."
'"Are you not the finest singer of San Vito?"
'"It is true. It is true!" cried her companions.
'"No, sir, it is not true. I cannot sing."
'She hid herself, laughing, her face all aflame; she twisted her apron whilst the others teased her. She was of short stature but well-formed; her bosom was high and large, swollen with songs. She had curly hair, dark eyebrows, aquiline profile; something in her carriage wild and free. After the first resistance she yielded.
'The others, taking her by the arms, held her in their circle. They were up to their waists in the flowering gorse, whilst round them the bees were humming.