Gigantic oaks begin to clothe the stony hillsides, and little by little a fertile mountain district of chestnut-woods and vineyards expands before our eyes, equal in charm to those aerial hills and vales above Pontremoli.

Caprese has no central commune or head-village.

It is an aggregate of scattered hamlets and farmhouses, deeply embosomed in a sea of greenery.

Where the valley contracts and the infant Tiber breaks into a gorge, rises a wooded rock crowned with the ruins of an ancient castle.

It was here, then, that Michelangelo first saw the light.