The
interest of the old town would soon be exhausted for the traveller, but I
can conceive that a thoughtful and shy man might settle down here with
the view of making the place a home, and spend many years in a sombre
kind of happiness. I should prefer it to Florence as a residence, but it
would be terrible without an independent life in one's own mind.
U---- and I walked out in the afternoon, and went into the Piazza del
Campo, the principal place of the city, and a very noble and peculiar
one. It is much in the form of an amphitheatre, and the surface of the
ground seems to be slightly scooped out, so that it resembles the shallow
basin of a shell. It is thus a much better site for an assemblage of the
populace than if it were a perfect level. A semicircle or truncated
ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, with arches
opening beneath them, through which streets converge hitherward. One
side of the piazza is a straight line, and is occupied by the Palazzo
Publico, which is a most noble and impressive Gothic structure.
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