saic, composed of little pieces of clay half vitrified, and prepared at the glass-houses, which the Italians call Smalte. These are much in use at present, and may be made of what colour and figure the workman pleases, which is a modern improvement of the art, and enables those who are employed in it to make much finer pieces of Mosaic than they did formerly. In our excursion to Albano we went as far as Nemi, that takes its name from the Nemus Dianæ. The whole country thereabouts is still overrun with woods and thickets. The lake of Nemi lies in a very deep bottom, so surrounded on all sides with mountains and groves, that the surface of it is never ruffled with the least breath of wind, which, perhaps, together with the clearness of its waters, gave it formerly the name of Diana's looking-glass. Prince Cæsarini has a palace at Jensano, very near Nemi, in a pleasant situation, and set off with many beautiful walks. In our return from Jensano to Albano, we passed through La Ricca, the Aricia of the ancients, Horace's first stage from Rome to Brundisi. There is nothing at Albano so remarkable as the prospect from the Capuchin's garden, which for the extent and variety of pleasing incidents is, I think, the most delightful one that I ever saw. It takes in the whole Campania, and terminates in a full view of the Mediterranean. You have a sight at the same time of the Alban lake, which lies just by in an oval figure of about seven miles round, and, by reason of the continued circuit of high mountains that encompass it, looks like the area of some vast amphitheatre. This, together with the several green hills and naked rocks within the neighbourhood, makes the most agreeable confusion imaginable. Albano keeps up its credit still for wine, which, perhaps, would be as good as it was anciently, did they preserve it to as great an age; but as for olives there are now few here, though they are in great plenty at Ti very voli. VOL. II. L' Albani pretiosa senectus. Cras bibet Albanis aliquid de montibus aut de Perhaps to-morrow he may change his wine, Juy. Sat. 13. Idem. Sat. 5. Whose title, and whose age, with mould o'ergrown, Albana Bowles. Palladia seu collibus uteris Albæ. MAR. lib. 5. ep. 1. Oliva. The places mentioned in this chapter were all of them formerly the cool retirements of the Romans, where they used to hide themselves among the woods and mountains, during the excessive heats of their summer; as Baja was the general winter rendezvous. Jam terras volucremque polum fuga veris aquosi Albanos quoque Tusculosque colles All shun the raging dog-star's sultry heat, SIL. 4. 1. MAR. lib. e. 123. And from the half-unpeopled town retreat : Or in moist Tivoli's retirements find A cooling shade, and a refreshing wind. On the contrary, at present, Rome is never fuller of nobility than in summer time; for the country towns are so infested with unwholesome vapours, that they dare not trust themselves in them while the heats last. There is no question but the air of the Campania would be now as healthful as it was formerly, were there as many fires burning in it, and as many inhabitants to manure the soil. Leaving Rome about the latter end of October, in my way to Sienna. I lay the first night at a little village in the territories of the ancient Veii. Hæc tum nomina erant, nunc sunt sine nomine Campi. The ruins of their capital city are at present so far lost, that the geographers are not able to determine exactly the place where they once stood: so literally is that noble prophecy of Lucan fulfilled, of this and other places of Latium. Gentes Mars iste futuras Obruet, et populos ævi venientis in orbem Fabula nomen erit: Gabios, Veiosque, Coramque, Rus vacuum, quod non habitet nisi nocte coactâ Succeeding nations by the sword shall die, Lib. 7. We here saw the lake Bacca, that gives rise to the Cremera, on whose banks the Fabii were slain. Tercentum numerabat avos, quos turbine Martis, Fabius a num'rous ancestry could tell, SIL. IT. lib. 1. We saw afterwards, in the progress of our voyage, the lakes of Vico and Bolsena. The last is reckoned one and twenty miles in circuit, and is plentifully stocked with fish and fowl. There are in it a couple of islands, that are perhaps the two floating isles mentioned by Pliny, with that improbable circumstance of their appearing sometimes like a circle, sometimes like a triangle, but never like a quadrangle. It is easy enough to conceive how they might become fixed, though they once floated; and it is not very credible, that the naturalist could be deceived in his account of a place that lay, as it were, in the neighbourhood of Rome. At one end of this lake stands Montefiascone, the habitation of Virgil's Æqui Falisci, Æn. 7. and on the side of it the town of the Volsinians, now called Bolsena. Aut positis nemorosa inter juga Volsiniis. -Volsinium stood Cover'd with mountains, and inclos'd with wood. Juv. SAT. 3. I saw in the church-yard of Bolsena an antique funeral monument (of that kind which they called a sarcophagus) very entire, and what is particular, engraven on all sides with a curious representation of a bacchanal. Had the inhabitants observed a couple of lewd figures at one end of it, they would not have thought it a proper ornament for the place where it now stands. After having travelled hence to Aquapendente, that stands in a wonderful pleasant situation, we came to the little brook which separates the pope's dominions from the great duke's. The frontier castle of Radicofani is seated on the highest mountain in the country, and is as well fortified as the situation of the place will permit. We here found the natural face of the country quite changed from what we had been entertained with in the pope's dominions. For instead of the many beautiful scenes of green mountains and fruitful vallies, that we had been presented with for some days before, we saw now nothing but a wild naked prospect of rocks and hills, worn on all sides with gutters and channels, and not a tree or shrub to be met with in a vast circuit of several miles. This savage prospect put me in mind of the Italian proverb, that the pope has the flesh, and the great duke the bones of Italy. Among a large extent of these barren mountains I saw but a single spot that was cultivated, on which there stood a convent. SIENNA, LEGHORN, PISA. Sienna stands high, and is adorned with a great many towers of brick, which in the time of the commonwealth were erected to such of the members as had done any considerable service to their country. These towers gave us a sight of the town a great while before we entered it. There is nothing in this city so extraordinary as the cathedral, which a man may view with pleasure after he has seen St. Peter's, though it is quite of another make, and can only be looked upon as one of the master-pieces of gothic architecture. When a man sees the prodigious pains and expense, that our forefathers have been at in these barbarous buildings, one cannot but fancy to himself what miracles of architecture they would have left us, had they been only instructed in the right way; for when the devotion of those ages was much warmer than that of the present, and the riches of the people much more at the disposal of the priests, there was so much money consumed on these gothic cathedrals, as would have finished a greater variety of noble buildings, than have been raised either before or since that time. One would wonder to see the vast labour that has been laid out on this single cathedral. The very spouts are loaden with ornaments; the windows are formed like so many scenes of perspective, with a multitude of little pillars retiring one behind another; the great columns are finely engraven with fruits and foliage that run twisting about them from the very top to the bottom; the whole body of the church is chequered with different lays of white and black marble; the pavement curiously cut out in designs and scripture-stories; and the front covered with such a variety of figures, and over-run with so many little mazes and labyrinths of sculpture, that nothing in the world can make a prettier show to those who prefer false beauties, and affected ornaments, to a noble and majestic simplicity. |