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BAGNOREA.

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of cardinal legates, together with the provinces One of these legates was Cardinal Pole, to Henry the Eighth of England. The town is comd of one long street that runs to the edge of an enorus volcanic basin, perhaps a couple of miles in diameter, .rom the centre of which rises a lofty cone, composed of striated volcanic matter, upon which stands an almost deserted grey medieval town, called Civita Bagnorea, overtopped by a tall square built campanile. Its picturesqueness, both externally and in the rambling windings of its narrow lanes, is wonderful. Many architectural fragments of antique Roman workmanship lie scattered about, or are built into the walls, and several ancient columns are set up in front of the cathedral. The approach to this little town is still more marvellous. It is only accessible by narrow ridges or walls with abrupt sides left in the gradual falling away of the volcanic matter of which the stratum of this district is composed. These traverse the profound gulf from the table-land by which it is surrounded like narrow walls stretched across abysses which make one giddy to look at, much less pass over. The one adjoining Bagnorea furnishes a somewhat nervous pathway; but those on the other side of the basin are much narrower and loftier; so that the groups of peasantry with their donkeys as they follow their course scem suspended in the air. During a high wind these pathways, which I was told are not more than three feet wide in many places, are particularly perilous; cases have been known of persons having been blown from them into the abyss beneath.

It was the day of a festa whilst we were there; all the characteristic finery of the townsfolk and surrounding country being brought out for the occasion. The dress of the women was particularly picturesque. It consisted of a snow-white linen head-dress, a low, coloured, stiff boddice, a gay handkerchief over the shoulders, and a coloured skirt, most commonly blue.

The quaint little town of Civita Bagnorca was the birth

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