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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of the absentpriest underwent a most unseemly rummaging on myaccount by an assiduous peasant who in spite of remon-strance insisted on obliging me by a search for concealedcanvases. He did produce from certain crannies andcupboards one or two small pictures which had the meritof apparent antiquity but no other. Strangers seldom call at Montefollonico, yet their ap-pearance evokes no ill-mannered curiosity; on the con-trary, a pleasant friendliness, and the air of the place isthat of a pastoral people accidentally lodged in the sceneof a martial past whose resounding echoes died centuriesago. It is hard to convey the charm of it, but it is thereto reward the wanderer who cares for its beauty and itsmemories. From Montefollonico it is not far to Montisi, lying In agarden-like nest among the hilltops, surrounded by silveryoHves here and there broken by the dark column of acypress. Montisi may be small but it is entered betweenbig, dignified buildings, a pillared loggia on the left, a 224
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BYWAYS IN SOUTHERN TUSCANY stately entrance to the castle court on the right, with aglimpse of an arched facade, and, still farther, a high butmuch restored tower. Beyond these it climbs a littlehill and has its own view of all the loveliness of the sur-rounding mountains and valleys. Like the other towns among these hills it has its rootsin a profound antiquity, for all this ground is sown withrelics of ancient Etruria. In later times it belonged, aswe have said, to that branch of the fierce Berardengastock that bore such warlike names as Cacciaconti, Caccia-guerra, Spadalonga, Spadacorta, etc. These families virtually ruled supreme in their variouscastles in different parts of the neighboring hills, holdingthat they owed allegiance to no man save the distant em-peror, while Siena, still a bishopric, was striving towardliberty and the communal form of government, and claim-ing authority over the territory they occupied. Thisclaim the Cacciaconti, who had encastled her borders,vigorou

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