"Ascoli Piceno [...] is one of the most beautiful small towns in Italy, and I don't see any other that resembles it. Gide preferred it [...] as beautiful as some cities in southern France, not so much for this or that monument in a special way, but for its whole, for its anthological quality, for an enchantment that comes from nothing and everything. More than any other, it must be defended from stupid disembowelment. You must have walked through it, starting from Piazza del Popolo, the Italian square that together with that of San Marco in Venice gives more of an impression of a hall, surrounded by arcades, closed by the stupendous apse of San Francesco; or along the Baptistery of the Duomo; or along the steep banks of the Tronto; and in the narrow streets, called "rue," where the palaces are countless; and that spread out into small squares [...] Ascoli is a city of towers, anthological as we have said, because there are many styles, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance, the Baroque. But the Romanesque remains the constant background, the color; stone-walled, windowless churches; a travertine of a warm, uniform grey, without plaster [...] That grey marble is all ornamented, worked, engraved [...] here, on every door and window, you see fruit, foliage, female caryatids, flowers, animals, stars, or even simply proverbs and carved sentences. (p. 534)"