Identifier: bywaysinsouthern00hook (find matches)
Title: Byways in southern Tuscany
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Hooker, Katharine, 1849-1934
Subjects: Tuscany (Italy) -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : T.F. Unwin
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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. You pity the poor, he said, but what is that to usif you take away our hving? The people no longer buy mywares. The saint looked at him smiling, and presently traced forhim the letters I. H. S., bidding him cast aside his wickedtrade and, instead, inscribe the holy letters upon smallpanels and sell them in place of those incitements to anevil life by which he had hitherto made his living. This theman did and prospered thereby. There are two ways of ascending to the upper town ofMassa; the more direct one is of greater steepness, butthere is a second, mounting by a gradual slope on the westside. At the top is the vast fortress, built in 1337 by Sienato secure her sovereignty over the city. In spite of the factthat in the eighteenth century a large part of it was torndown, the castle is still a great and impressive one. Itswidespread remains both frame and crown the height.The long, irregular lines of wall with their corbelledarchetti are shadowed at intervals by shrubs that spring 10
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u BYWAYS IN SOUTHERN TUSCANY luxuriantly from their foundations, the high arched gate-ways, the massive towers, show time-abraded surfaceswhere small plants spring from crevices or ivy drops averdant curtain, and the whole forms a picturesque andbeautiful survival of the mediaeval time. Two things thatbelong to a much earlier period remain. A tower of quiteincredible height once rose from this summit, the pride ofthe people, who called it the Candlestick. This belongedto the days when their warlike bishops ruled them, andthe castle of these bishops stood there also. Both are nowmere remnants, for the Sienese cut down the tower to suitthe plan of their fortress, and the Bishops Palace is soreduced as to be quite insignificant; and now the greatenclosure holds the upper town with its streets and itsmore modern houses, and I fancy the thoughts of the busypopulation seldom dwell upon what happened in thoseearly centuries of siege and slaughter. It is hard to assign a date for the founding

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