If on reaching the Guglia, or sign-post, beyond Monterosi, instead of taking the road to Ronciglione and “Firenze,” the traveller follow the more holy track of “Loreto,” three short miles will carry him to Nepi. Let him remark the scenery on the road. He has left the open wastes of the Campagna and entered a wooded district. It is one of the few portions of central Italy that will remind him, if an Englishman, of home. Those sweeps of bright green sward—those stately wide-armed oaks scattered over it, singly, or in clumps—those cattle feeding in the shade—those neat hedge-rows, made up of maples, hawthorns, and brambles, with fern below, and clematis, dog-roses, and honeysuckles above; they are the very brothers of those in Merry England. The whole forms a lively imitation of—what is most rare on the Continent—English park-scenery; and it requires no stretch of fancy to conceive himself journeying through Surrey or Devonshire.

The first view of Nepi dispels the illusion. It is a quaint-looking town. A line of crumbling wall, laden with machicolated battlements, and a massive castle within rising high above it, would give it the appearance of a fortress, were it not for the square red tower of the cathedral with its white pyramid of a spire, shooting high and bright into the deep blue sky. Behind it soars Soracte, its serrated mass blued by distance; and far away in the horizon is the range of snow-capt Apennines.