We left San Quirico at two o'clock, and followed an ascending road till
we got into the region above the clouds; the landscape was very wide, but
very dreary and barren, and grew more and more so till we began to climb
the mountain of Radicofani, the peak of which had been blackening itself
on the horizon almost the whole day. When we had come into a pretty high
region we were assailed by a real mountain tempest of wind, rain, and
hail, which pelted down upon us in good earnest, and cooled the air a
little below comfort. As we toiled up the mountain its upper region
presented a very striking aspect, looking as if a precipice had been
smoothed and squared for the purpose of rendering the old castle on its
summit more inaccessible than it was by nature. This is the castle of
the robber-knight, Ghino di Tacco, whom Boccaccio introduces into the
Decameron. A freebooter of those days must have set a higher value on
such a rock as this than if it had been one mass of diamond, for no art
of mediaeval warfare could endanger him in such a fortress.
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