many a building in Verona may not have been enriched with stones, or capitals, or columns from this mighty ruin! It is interesting to see among the recent excavations some of the seats where the spectators once sat in rows, together with what is said to have been the box with the name over its entrance of a private family, and part of the stage, and to wander among the ruins of what must certainly have been one of the finest theatres of antiquity.
At no distance from the “Teatro Antico” rises the little church of SS. Siro and Libera, built over a part of the theatre, and deriving a legendary interest from the tradition that Christianity was introduced into Verona by S. Siro, and that the first time mass was ever celebrated in the town it was celebrated by the saint in the church now dedicated to him and to Sta. Libera.
The ground around and about here is replete with associations of Roman and Gothic times, and with the very earliest existence of Verona as a town; for the hills above this left bank of the Adige—the hills of S. Pietro and S. Felice—are the sites where the first inhabitants of the city had their dwelling. On the “colle di S. Pietro” stood the castle of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, of whom Carlo Cipolla (the most trustworthy of Verona’s modern historians) says: “He embellished Verona with baths, with palaces, with covered ways; he fortified it with new walls, and renewed the aqueduct thereof. Considerable traces of his palace on St Peter’s hill still remain in the walls which encircle the summit, and which are built on the Roman system.... Less numerous and less evident are the vestiges of his real and own palace which stood on the part of the hill overlooking the river, and it is not always easy to distinguish between what actually belonged to the palace of Theodoric and what were fragments appertaining to the theatre that stood below.” On a previous page speaking of Theodoric the same writer says: “In the poetic legends of Germany the king is called Theodoric of Verona, Dietrich von Bern! The last chapters of the Nibelungenlied are filled with tales of his heroic deeds and with those of his warriors. Likewise in Germany up to the time of Frederick II. of Swabia, and maybe even after Verona was known as ‘Dietrich’s Bern.’ The mountaineers of Giazza to this day never speak of Verona save as ‘Bearn,’ which is nothing after all but the Latin name turned into German.”[58]
The king of the Ostrogoths, as has been said, spent his time gladly in Verona; but little remains of his buildings or fortifications, imposing as they must have been. The walls he set up have been built over by Cangrande, who erected those with forked battlements which remain to this day, a token of picturesque strength to the town, stamping it for ever as a city whose bulwarks can defy every foe, and laugh to scorn every invader.
The Castel di S. Pietro is now a fortress, so too is the Castel di S. Felice, which stands on the hill above it; and from both these forts magnificent views can be had over the city.