More modoque,
Grata carpentis thyma per laborem
Plurimum, circa nemus uvidique
Tiburis ripas, operosa parvus
Carmina fingo.
If you ever come to Tivoli, let it not be with a numerous party; come alone, or with a single friend, and be sure to put your Horace in your pocket. You will read him here with more enthusiasm than elsewhere; you will imagine you see the philosophic poet wandering among the groves, sometimes calmly meditating his moral precepts, and sometimes his eye in a fine frenzy rolling with all the fire of poetic enthusiasm. If Tivoli had nothing else to recommend it but its being so often sung by the most elegant of the poets, and its having been the residence of so many illustrious men, these circumstances alone would render it worthy the attention of travellers; but it will also be interesting to many on account of its cascade, the Sibyl’s Temple, and the Villa Estense.
The river Anio, deriving its source from a part of the Apennines, fifty miles above Tivoli, glides through a plain till it comes near that town, when it is confined for a short space between two hills, covered with groves. These were supposed to have been the residence of the Sibyl Albunea, to whom the temple was dedicated. The river, moving with augmented rapidity as its channel is confined, at length rushes headlong over a lofty precipice; the noise of its fall resounds through the hills and groves of Tivoli; a liquid cloud arises from the foaming water, which afterwards divides into numberless small cascades, waters several orchards, and, having gained the plain, flows quietly for the rest of its course, till it loses itself in the Tiber. It is not surprising that the following lines have been so often quoted by those who visit the Sibyl’s Temple, because they delineate, in the most expressive manner, some of the principal features of the country around it,
Me nec tam patiens Lacedæmon,
Nec tam Larissæ percussit campus opimæ,
Quam domus Albuneæ resonantis,