The celebrated Cascata delle marmore is about five miles from Terni, (7,447 metres, to be very exact); the name is said to be owing to the rapid deposition of the water “quia ibi Marmor et Saxum crescit,” and you have the authority of Pliny for this etymology. For nearly three miles the road continues along the valley of the Nar, in one part of which, by the side of the road, pozzuolana is said to be found; and this is supposed to be connected with a shower of milk, which according to Livy, fell at Terni in the year of Rome 194. After this we ascend to Papigno, whence there are two roads, the upper leading to the top, and the lower to the bottom of the fall. I first took the upper, which ascends very rapidly on the slope of a limestone hill, commanding a view up a valley, deeper and bolder than that at Narni, with less wood on its slopes, but with more trees and more cultivation at the bottom. After this the ascent is trifling, and we pass for the last three quarters of a mile nearly on a plain, which sounds hollow to the tread; bearing everywhere traces of the course of the water, and formed indeed from its concretions. The traveller is first conducted to the channel in which the water runs above the fall; the width of this is fifty-one feet and a quarter;[[11]] the descent one foot in twenty; and the rapidity of the current ten feet and a half[[12]] per second, or about seven miles per hour. If you are not in the secret, you will wonder at these precise dimensions, but in fact this is an artificial channel. The Velino, like the Anio, instead of continually wearing for itself a deeper channel, fills up its bed with a calcareous rock, not very hard indeed, but still a rock, and not an earthy sediment which might be displaced by the first heavy rains; and we find it very early blocking up its own course, and subjecting the valley above, to frequent inundations. In the year of Rome 481, (271 before Christ) a channel was cut by Marcus Curius Dentatus for the discharge of its waters into the Nar. In the year of Rome 700, some quarrels arose, but we know not precisely on what ground, between the inhabitants of Reati above the fall, and those of Terni below; and in the time of Tiberius a great flood happening in the Tiber, which did much mischief at Rome, commissioners were appointed to examine into the causes of this injury, and to consider the means of obviating such irregularities in future. These wiseheads reported, that in order to attain this object, it would be expedient to stop up all the rivers by which the Tiber is fed. I need not tell you that this scheme was never executed. After this the channel continued to perform its duty, till about the year 1400; that is, for the space of 1,680 years from the period of its first execution; but it appears at that time to have become so much choked up, that the superior valley was again subject to frequent inundations. The Reatines began to open a new canal, but the inhabitants of Terni opposed it, and a war between the two cities was the consequence. Braccio di Montone, tyrant of Perugia (that name is well applied in every sense to the Italian Reguli of the fifteenth century) interfered, and a new channel was made; but probably on a small scale, as it was soon filled up again, and in 1546, we find Sangallo appointed by Paul the Third to make a sufficient opening. Terni and the cities below the fall, including Rome itself, raised a great outcry against this undertaking, on the plea that they should be subject to frequent inundations, if an outlet were given to these waters. The channel was however made, but it was soon found that it had not been cut sufficiently deep, and in 1596, under the direction of Giovanni Fontana, a new work was undertaken. This architect, or rather as we should call him engineer, appears to have contented himself with re-opening for the greatest part of the way, the old channel of M. C. Dentatus, but as that made a very obtuse angle towards the fall, Fontana abandoned it there, and continued his work in a straight line to the valley of the Nar. Owing to this change the Velino joined that river at right angles, at the foot of a rock called Pennarosa, in a part where its bed was very much confined; and moreover it brought down with it some considerable fragments of rock. These causes combined forced back the Nar, and occasioned considerable inundations in the upper part of that river; new quarrels were the consequence, and numerous inconsistencies were written. Father Gaudio, on the part of the inhabitants of Terni, undertook to prove that a larger river rushing with the utmost violence into a smaller one, at right angles with the course of the latter, could not possibly occasion any rise of its waters above the junction, but on the contrary must give them an impulse which would tend to drain the superior valley. These disputes were not settled till the year 1785, when a new cut brought off the waters of the Velino obliquely into the Nar, and all complaints ceased. We are conducted to different points to look down on this tremendous fall, but the best view is from a little summerhouse, on a projecting point considerably below the brow, which is said to have been built for the accommodation of Napoleon. The lower part of the cataract is not however visible at this point, but we contemplate a most tremendous fall, rushing among rocks, and over a precipice so perpendicular, that the water is detached from it for a considerable distance, and loses itself in thunder among the foam and spray of the gulf below. The first fall takes place where the stream is yet confined among the rocks of the channel, here much broken; and may perhaps have an elevation of 40 or 50 feet. The second, or perpendicular part, has a descent of 598[[13]] feet; if in fact this measure do not include also the first fall. Afterwards it strikes against a rock, and rushes down repeated falls, so close as to form one almost continued sheet of foam, for 240[[14]] feet more, into the Nar, so that the whole height is 838[[15]] feet. The Itinerario d’Italia, not content with this height, great as it is, assigns a fall of 1,063 French feet. I know not on what authority. Mine is a little book by Joseph Riccardi, printed at Spoleto in 1818, entitled, Ricerche istoriche e fisiche sulla caduta delle marmore, &c. a very distinct and well-written account, which bears internal marks of authenticity and correctness, though I confess that if I had to guess the height, I should not have said more than between 400 and 500 feet, including every thing; but in these great elevations the judgment gets lost for want of sufficient objects of comparison. According to the same author, the supply of water, when the river was lowest in the year 1807, was 4,640 cubic metres per minute, i. e. above 160,000 English cubic feet; the greatest quantity per minute in the same year, was 19,310 cubic metres, or 675,000 English cubic feet. The New River, I believe, yields about 3,000 cubic feet in the same time. The Thames at Laleham, after a very dry summer, was found to yield 1,155 cubic feet in a second, or 69,300 in a minute; the comparison is rather startling, and one cannot help suspecting some mistake in the measures. The width and rapidity, as before given, do not at all exceed probability; but with these, an average depth of above four feet and a half, would be required to supply the given quantity of water in dry weather. This I had no means of estimating. It is however a considerable river. After seeing the upper part of the cascade, I returned to the lower road, which conducts us along the valley to the foot of it. This approach is delightful, and is perhaps better worth seeing than the cascade itself. After the roads divide at Papigno, we descend into the bottom, cross the river, and pass a house, forming a very picturesque object in the landscape, which, as the boy told me, belonged to a milordo of the city of Terni. Thence we pass among vineyards and lofty trees, and afterwards through groves of full grown ilex, between impending rocks. We see here more of the lower part of the fall, and find that even after all we have contemplated from the upper part, the river still bounds from rock to rock, before it unites with the Nar, but the direction of the different parts is so various, that it is impossible to catch the whole at one view. The fall itself may be rivalled by those of Tivoli, though here is more water, and greater height, but nothing at Tivoli, or at any other place that I have seen, can afford a parallel to the valley by which we approach it.
Riccardi speaks of the admirable effect in winter from the ice formed at the bottom. The valley of Terni, measured I suppose at the city itself, is 346 feet above the sea, and the bottom of the fall may be 100 or 150 feet more, but this is not a height to account for any material difference of climate, and we certainly should not have expected much effect from the frost. As I have not seen it in that state, I will copy his description. “The appearance of the fall in winter does not deserve less attention. The ice accumulating at the bottom of the precipice, forms itself into enormous masses, which appear to be the disproportioned columns of some huge pile of building; while the icicles hanging from above, seem as if they would lengthen themselves to the bottom of the gulf. The river itself, increased in volume, brings down various substances of different colours, which unite the beautiful, to the sublime effect produced by the vast rush of water, and masses of ice; and this is farther heightened by the vertical rainbows of more than a semicircle, which exhibit themselves in the spray, and by a number of other horizontal rainbows.” What these horizontal rainbows may be, I cannot pretend to explain.
In the afternoon I hired a caratella to Spoleto. The road winds over a branch of the Apennines, and is here called the Somma; it passes in fact through a very winding opening in the mountain, which is very pleasant, but has no striking feature, and no extensive view from the upper part. Spoleto itself is situated on a rocky hill almost insulated, or I might say quite insulated, as the neck is so low that we hardly observe it. A magnificent aqueduct, said to be a Roman work, but which in fact is the work of a Roman cardinal in the fifteenth century, supplies the town with water. This passes the deep and narrow valley which separates the hill from the general mass of mountain, supported on a single range of arches near 250 feet high. Some of the arches are however divided into two in height, and others have been so, which are not so now, but I am at a loss to conceive the motive of the alteration. The water is collected from two or three springs among the mountains, and falls 30 or 40 feet before passing the aqueduct. Advantage of this fall has been taken to build a mill; and the same stream which furnishes a supply of water to the town, also grinds its corn. There are several fragments of Roman antiquity at Spoleto, one of which is a bridge lately discovered. The torrent has changed its bed, and the bridge was in consequence buried for many centuries. An ancient arch within the town is called Porta Fuga, from a tradition that Hannibal attacked the town on that side, and was obliged to retreat with great loss. If you believe all the stories told about this general in Italy, it would seem as if he had entered the country to beat the Romans, and to be beaten by every little city in the land. There is also another Roman arch within the city, and some foundations of uncertain purpose, which appear to be connected with it; and in the upper part of the town are other remains, said to have been part of a palace of Theodoric; and about the citadel we may observe some portions of Cyclopean masonry.
Among the erections of a later period is a Gothic cathedral, modernized internally, and partially so on the outside. These alterations in the style and character of a building never produce a good effect. A little out of the town there are some remains of an ancient temple, now included in a convent. The plan seems to have been of a very complicated form, but the Romans did not preserve the Grecian simplicity of design in their sacred edifices; and this has not been an edifice of the good time of Roman taste. There are several columns, but all misplaced.
The Temple of Clitumnus by the road side, a few miles beyond Spoleto, is likewise a building of a late style, probably not much more ancient than Constantine. I might have known what it was from the prints which have been published, yet I expected a prettier thing, both in itself and its situation. There seems no deficiency in the number of columns externally, and I do not understand to what the story, related by Hobhouse in his Notes to Childe Harolde, alludes. He tells us that a certain brother Hilarion, with the approbation of the bishop of Spoleto, demolished great part of the porticos, and sold four of the columns for eighteen crowns. Four small shafts have indeed been removed from the inside, but these could only have been about nine inches in diameter, and had nothing to do with any portico. The outer columns are covered with leaves slightly waved, and marked with a mid-rib, and not with fish scales, as has been supposed. The lowest range is raffled. The bases of the pilasters have no projection towards the column. The entrances must have been on the sides, and not in the front. The walls of the cella are thicker than the width of the pilasters. The parts unite badly together, and the workmanship is as bad as the design. The country however is rich and beautiful, though the situation of the temple commands no view of it; the road passes by the edge of a fine plain, bounded by mountains, which are partly cultivated, and partly covered with wood.
At Foligno there is a cathedral whose outside is Gothic, but the interior is modernized as usual. I could not however enter, for an epidemic fever was very prevalent, and owing to the practice of burying the dead very slightly in the churches, the cathedral and some others had become so offensive, that it was thought proper to shut them up.[[16]] At Narni they had found a saint (San Rocco) who had power over the disease; (you might doubt whether they were talking of a magician, or a quack medicine) and by making a few processions in his honour, they had speedily got rid of it. At Terni, the first rains had washed it away, but at Foligno it was still raging with considerable violence.
Perugia is at the top of a very high hill, where the vetturini usually employ the additional strength of a pair of bullocks, but my light caratella did not require that assistance, especially since I as usual, walked up myself. It commands noble views over two rich and extensive valleys, watered by the Clitumnus and the Tiber. I stayed there all Sunday, and had the opportunity of seeing some very fine paintings, especially of Pietro Perugino, who has left many admirable works in his native city; and some very curious architecture. There is a Roman arch said to have been built by Augustus, but we can hardly acknowledge this, since the frieze of its entablature is ornamented with pilasters, instead of triglyphs; a licence which cannot be supposed to have taken place so early, though the Roman architects indulged themselves in a good deal of whim and caprice, especially in these provincial cities. A circular building, covered by a wooden roof, like that of the church of San Stefano rotondo at Rome, and not by a dome, is said to have been an ancient temple, and is doubtless a Roman building, but of late times. The columns have been taken from buildings still more ancient; they are sixteen in number, of granite, cipollino, bigio antico, and marmo greco; differing in their sizes, and in their capitals. The cathedral is Gothic; the vault of the side aisles springing at the same height as that of the nave. The piers are round, and very slender, and all the arches are tied with iron; yet it would be beautiful, if it were not so party-coloured. The Palazzo pubblico may also deserve notice, as an example of Italian Gothic; but it is not handsome. At the church of San Domenico I had the pleasure of seeing a continued vault, uninterrupted even by a window. These experiments in design are invaluable to an architect; and here, in spite of the disadvantages arising from the building never having been terminated, and from the whitewash which covers what is finished, the effect is very fine. Behind the altar were crimson hangings which shut out the choir, and the scene was certainly improved by them; in such a case the interruption of the transept between the nave and the altar is not objectionable, and at times, when the transept is lighter than the nave, even produces an uncommonly beautiful effect; but then the altar should only be in a slight recess, and receive the full effect of the light of the transept, and the architecture of the nave must by no means be resumed. The front of the church of San Francesco is an interesting, and very handsome specimen of the early Italian architecture. A simple rectangular front, surmounted by a pediment, includes the large arch; and this simplicity of design, and apparent correspondence with the construction and internal disposition, is very pleasing. There is here indeed too much ornament, but it is well disposed and well executed.
There is at Perugia a most capital ground for playing at pallone, but it is never used. This game consists in driving backwards and forwards a large leather ball, filled with compressed air, and made as tight as possible; but it soon wants re-filling. The blow is given by the wrist or lower part of the arm, which is armed for this purpose with a large wooden cylinder, covered with knobs externally, that the ball may not slip upon it.
On Monday morning I quitted Perugia, again in a caratella, which is a four-wheeled chaise, with a head, and a seat in front for the driver. The whole ride to Cortona is very pleasant, but the descent to the lake of Perugia, the ancient Thrasymene, and the ascent again from it, are exquisitely beautiful. The lake itself is a large irregular piece of water, of which the general outline is roundish; the hills slope gently towards it, gradually rising as they recede into mountains, neither very bold, nor very high, yet you would not call them tame. They are well varied in their forms, and almost everywhere covered by wood or cultivation.
Soon after leaving the lake, we enter Tuscany, and the advantage here both in cultivation and picturesque beauty, is in favour of the papal states. Cortona is on the top of a high hill, and commands a view of an extensive valley, but its situation is not to be compared to that of Perugia. I expected to have found more interest at Cortona than was really the case; the principal antiquities are the walls of the city, of Cyclopean masonry, not of the earliest style, but of that where the stones lie for the most part in courses nearly horizontal; and a small sepulchral chamber, a little below the town, called the grotto of Pythagoras. It is built of large blocks of sandstone; the doorway remains, and the rebate for the door, and two holes in the sill and lintel for the pivot on which it turned. It is arched over, the arch being composed of four, or perhaps five stones, each of which is the whole length of the edifice, and rests upon a rudely semicircular stone at each end. These arch-stones are really wedge-shaped in the section, though in this case such a form would not be necessary for their support; but the builders, whoever they were, were without doubt acquainted with the principle of the arch, though perhaps afraid to confide much to it. The room is internally about seven feet square, and has had small square recesses at the sides, perhaps for cinerary urns. I had been taught to expect a good museum of antiquities, but it had been dispersed in order to save it from the Neapolitans, and seemed not likely to be ever restored. The fever had driven the gentlemen of the place to their country residences, and I could not gain admission to the private collections.