at this time rude in art, but active; Etruria, religious, intensely imaginative, and inheriting refined forms of art from before the da3fs of Porsenna.
49. South of these, in mid-Italy, you have Romagna,—the valley of the Tiber. In that valley, decayed Rome, with her lust of empire inextinguishable;—no inheritance of imaginative art, nor power of it; dragging her own ruins hourly into more fantastic ruin, and defiling her faith hourly with more fantastic guilt.
South of Romagna, you have the kingdoms of Calabria and Sicily,—Magna Graecia, and Syracuse, in decay;—strange spiritual fire from the Saracenic east still lighting the volcanic land, itself laid all in ashes.
50. Conceive Italy then always in these four masses: Lombardy, Etruria, Romagna, Calabria.
Now she has three great external powers to deal with: the western, France—the northern, Germany—the eastern, Arabia. On her right the Frank; and on her left the Saracen; above her, the Teuton. And roughly, the French are a religious chivalry; the Germans a profane chivalry; the Saracens an infidel chivalry. What
