There are two or three other very interesting excursions which may be made in the neighbourhood of Rome. One of these is to Veii, where I have just been in company with my friends Scott and Pardini. The situation of this city has been, as you know, long a subject of dispute, but it is now determined with so much certainty, that one wonders how it could ever have been doubted. It is only very lately that the Roman antiquaries have suspected that a careful examination of the localities might help to determine questions of this sort. We leave the road to Florence just beyond the tenth mile-stone, and a practicable carriage-way conducts us to Isola Farnese, a small village with a baronial palace, and various excavations in the precipitous and almost insulated rock of tufo on which it stands. At the foot of this rock runs a little stream, and an extensive platform at the top of the opposite steep ascent is the site of the ancient Veii. The bank is steep all round, and the boundary of the city followed the sinuosities of the hill. Parts of the ancient walls remain. They are of squared masonry, about eight or nine feet thick, and the blocks not very large. There are a few fragments of Roman times scattered about; and in a rock above the Cremera, (another little brook which afterwards unites with that below Isola Farnese) there are remains of sepulchres, which perhaps belonged to the ancient city. Yet we find here the usual sepulchral niche, with the cinerary urn at bottom, and some remains of the stucco, and of the red paint which adorned it. One of them has a recess within the niche to receive a tablet with the inscription, and part of the iron nails by which this tablet was attached to the rock may still be distinguished. At a little distance are other rocks cut in a similar manner. All of them are on the steep irregular bank between the city and the stream. Ascending by the banks of this little brook, we come to the Ponte Sodo, where the rivulet has been turned from its natural bed, and passes through a subterranean channel under a spur of the hill of Veii. I suspect this to be a Roman, not an Etruscan work, but I cannot explain why it was done. Just where the water enters, this perforation divides another channel obliquely, the two parts of which are seen at an elevation of about ten feet above the bottom of the present opening. At the other end is a small niche for a tablet.
Another of our excursions was to Gabii. We passed round the north end of its little lake, and found a few fragments of what was probably the wall of the ancient city, but the Roman town stood at some distance near the southern end of the lake. Here, some years ago, excavations were made, which it is said exhibited the plan of the forum; but after the marbles, which were the object of search, had been obtained, the place was filled up again, and no memorial preserved of any particulars. In this part are the remains of what has been supposed to be the temple of Juno of the ancient Gabii, but it has no evidence of such high antiquity. It appears to have had columns round three sides, but no posticum. The walls are thin, composed of squared blocks of Gabian stone, which is of the nature of peperino, but harder, and of a coarser grain, and abounds with large fragments of a compact lava. Within the temple, at three or four feet from the end, appears to have been an inclosure of metal with three openings, two of which had gates, but the central one was entirely free. The pavement is partly of a plain white mosaic, partly of stucco, and in one place both, the stucco lying over the mosaic. The external columns had deep flutes with a fillet between, and I think with an Attic base. They were therefore not Doric, but I could not find the least portion of a capital to determine what was the order employed. They have been covered at one time with a thick stucco. The court had small chambers on each side, and a semicircular flight of steps opposite to the front of the temple: just without the inclosure are the remains of a small edifice of large squared blocks of masonry. The whole hill is cut up by extensive quarries.
I will add to these an account of an excursion to Nettuno, and the ancient Antium, made with two Italian friends. One of the party had to stop at Albano, which took us a little out of our way and occasioned us to miss Boville. The road from Albano runs along the edge of the ancient crater below Aricia, and the descent thence into the regular road was hardly passable. We procured bread, wine, and eggs, at Carrocelli; in a miserable hovel inhabited only half the year. Here we entered the Sylva Sacra, where numberless tracks are marked in the deep sandy soil, and make a guide necessary. We found few traces of antiquity on the shore at Nettuno, but there are numerous foundations in the sea, and particularly a large, and symmetrical building, which we contemplated at leisure from the window of our bed-room. The shore between this and Porto d’ Anzo is edged with a low cliff, chiefly composed of agglutinated shells. Fragments of Roman buildings abound both on the shore and in the water. The cliffs are much broken, and being fringed with shrubs, have a very picturesque appearance. The great mass of antiquities is beyond the present village of Porto d’ Anzo. Here we trace the piers of the ancient harbour of Antium, and the quantity of substructions is immense: all is imperial, and full of reticulated work. The more ancient city was perhaps on the hill behind, which seems to be artificially separated from the rest of the range. We lost our way in the sacred wood, which between Nettuno and Ardea abounds with noble trees of cork, ilex, oak and cerro. Sometimes filled up with underwood, at others almost clear, and now and then exhibiting open spaces of pasture. Before reaching Ardea, the volcanic points of the hills form perpendicular crests, which frequently appear to have been cut, and caves are numerous. The present Ardea occupies a small detached rock; and where nature has denied the perpendicular crest, it is supplied by walls. About two thirds of a mile from the present circuit are two long artificial mounds; and in the hollow between them, the remains of a gateway. About a mile further are two more aggeres. In both these places the hollow from which the earth has been taken to form the mounds, is on the side farthest from the city. Everywhere else the long, tongue-shaped hill furnishes a natural defence. Great part of our way back to Rome lay along the ancient Via Ardeatina.
LETTER XXXVIII.
JOURNEY TO FLORENCE.
Florence, 10th July, 1817.
I heard so much at Rome of various objects in the north of Italy which I had omitted, that I determined to appropriate a couple of months to supply the deficiency, and to form a judgment at least, whether these things were worth seeing or no. I therefore set off with a Vetturino on the 25th of June. My companions were an Italian country gentleman and his son, and a priest who was tutor in a gentleman’s family at Narni; all very pleasant people. A man of small landed property in this country, generally I believe, attends to the cultivation of his own estate. The rich employ something between bailiffs and tenants, the proprietor finding capital and stock, and receiving a certain portion of the gross produce, varying according to the nature of the crop, and of the soil; but a class of tenants working on their own capitals, for their own advantage, on ground belonging to another man, but of which the use is for a time secured to them, and paying only a fixed annual rent, is a character very scarce, or entirely wanting in Italy. The young gentleman had been drawn for the conscription during the authority of the French; and he gave me an account of the various methods put in practice by himself and his companions, to escape the journey. He also amused me with an account of part of the contest between the Romans, under the French government, and the Neapolitans, who at one time occupied a very strong position at Cavi, near Cività Castellana. A detachment of about 200 French were posted in the latter town, and they had raised about 800 inhabitants of the Roman states; the Neapolitans were about 5,000. When the Romans were drawn up in the square at Cività Castellana, a report was spread that the enemy was coming, and they all fell flat upon their faces. By reproaches, threats, and encouragements, and by reminding them of the ancient celebrity of the Roman name, the French at last persuaded them to rise, and to march out of the town. When the Neapolitans saw the Roman troops advancing, they thought it best to run away in time, lest they should lose the opportunity. A small body of Calabrians declared that it was a shame to decline the contest, and that let the Neapolitan commander do what he would, they should maintain their post; but they were not in sufficient number to effect anything.
As far as Monte Rosi we followed the same road as that by which I had entered Rome, over the desolate Campagna. A church there, at the entrance of the village, is of a pleasing form; it is a little whitewashed thing, so that it wants the process of an artist’s mind in separating the good from the bad, to discover that the form is beautiful. The world in general is exceedingly unwilling to acknowledge beauty of form when the material is bad, and on the other hand, where the materials are good, it is very ready to praise the form also, if that be anything tolerable; the one is a much more obvious and indisputable merit than the other. In what the beauty of form in the present case consists, I have not been able to determine. It is an octagonal dome, with four projections below, forming a Greek cross, with a little tower on each side of the entrance, inferior in height to the dome. I call them towers and not turrets because they are continued down to the ground, and turrets might be understood as only elevations raised upon the front. Some lower buildings fill up the square, and at each angle is a paltry little obelisk, not at all well shaped, yet certainly contributing to the general beauty of the composition.
Just after leaving Monte Rosi we quitted the Siena road, and keeping to the right, passed through fine groves of oak to Nepi, a town situated on the edge of a deep ravine, and slept at Cività Castellana, which stands on a point of land between two such ravines, deeper than that at Nepi, and very wild and picturesque. The country here is intersected by several of these inaccessible valleys, and the strength of the situation gave birth to a conjecture that this must be the position of the ancient Veii, which cost the Romans a ten years siege. There is a cathedral, with a portico of small columns of granite and marble, and a mosaic frieze something in the style of San Lorenzo fuori delle mura, at Rome. The middle doorway is of the Lombard architecture, with two columns on each side, the outermost of which are supported on two lions: the inside has been modernized. At Cività Castellana I left two of my companions: the next morning was very foggy, but I set out on foot before the carriage, and crossed a bridge which must be at least 120 feet high, over one of the ravines. It consists of two ranges of arches, and there was to have been a third, which would have kept the road up to a level with the banks, but this has never been executed. A little beyond I entered into conversation with a labourer going to reap for some friends of his, as he told me, on land belonging to a convent just by; he had first been a monk, then a soldier, and was now going to labour for the love he bore to religion. He assured me that he possessed a very fine picture by Giotto, but it was then at Viterbo; repeated some verses of his own composition in praise of the English, and concluded with asking me for charity. After leaving Cività Castellana I saw no more of these ravines. The road follows the valley of the Tiber, first on one side of the stream, and afterwards on the other. The scenery seems very pleasant, but it was obscured by the fogs. We passed by some Roman fragments, and afterwards by the ruins of Otriculum, but I could not stop to examine them. From the modern town of Otricoli, which stands considerably higher than the old one, the road lies among mountains and forests famous for game. Narni is near the extremity of this elevated road, on the edge of a deep limestone valley, which put me in mind of Dovedale, but it is more woody. It presents quite a different character from the deep ravines we crossed the preceding day, which are more like Shanklin Chine very much magnified. At Narni, or rather below it, are the remains of a Roman bridge, in which, besides the destruction of the arches, one of the piers has sunk perpendicularly, which breaks the ideal connexion between the different parts.
The road from here to Terni lies in a cultivated valley, but I believe not in general of a very good soil. At Terni I had a young guide who assured me that he was well acquainted with all the “meraviglie” in the neighbourhood; and we walked round the town to see the few antiquities it contains. There is an amphitheatre, or at least a few vaults of what has once been one, some walls of reticulated work, and a temple of the Sun, or if you wish to give it any other name, I will not dispute the point with you. It is a small circular building, the under part of which is probably of the lower empire, and the upper still later. Tacitus is said to have been a citizen of Terni, but there are no memorials of him existing. The modern buildings are hardly worth much attention. There is an unfinished elliptical church; every example of this form serves to show the superiority of the circle. I was also conducted to see a splendid altar in this church, which cost 18,000 crowns; it is rich in marbles, not handsome, yet not without something agreeable. The next morning we went to see the famous cascade. My attendant called the Nero (the “sulfureâ Nar albus aquâ” of Virgil) “un Tevere,” as if he understood that to be the general name of a river. The proper name of that at Terni he conceived to be Negro, but as he saw the waters were white, he invented a Bianco to communicate its colour. This boy gave me a good specimen of the facility with which in these parts the l, following a vowel and preceding a consonant, is turned into r, arbero for albero seems natural enough, but I was rather puzzled at first by his using morto for molto. He told me moreover, that Napoleon was a great man, it was a pity he turned out the friars, but the boy could not be persuaded that he had done anything else wrong. Under his government they used to have plenty of olives, but since that time their crops have been small, and he heartily wished him back, that they might again have abundance. You may conceive from this that he was as ignorant as possible; but he was not stupid, and probably reflected the opinions of those about him. After all, he seems to have had a most philosophical idea of causation. His sentiments may serve as proof that the common people here are not averse to the French. We do not readily associate the idea of benefits with the persons we dislike.