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Foreign Correspondence

Foreign Correspondence image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
April
Year
1873
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Eome, Doe. 30, 1872. jiiend Poxd: It is ono of the great trials of the traveler that he raust offon tske such early .ruins. It is a cheeik'ss andunsatisfactory thing to get up at flve o'clock and with a " hasty plato of soup " hurry off ;o the always distant d?iot through the chilly morning air. Thus wc leftVeniee; hus, too, did we bid good-by to Florence. As heretofore, we took tue second olass coupe, and found them patronizod as in iorrnany by a rospectablo clasa - faro about 30 francs and timo twolvo houfs to i ome, direct, by Arezzo au dFoligno. - Mie railroad skirts the wliole north and ast sidea of the city, giving a good survey of the environs which aro particulary fine, on account of the beautiful villas with whieh the surrouuding hillsides aro hickly strewn. Fiesole( the anoient rival but long aince completely vanquished neighbor of Florence, peeped down upon us inodorns trom its perch upen the hills, ecalling, of course, Milton and fcGalileo. ?here is m appearance of general barenness upon the hills, while the lower jortions are quito fertile and very generally devotod to the cultivation of the jrape and intermingled agricultural pro.uctions. As the near hills disappeared and the countiy beoame more open and gently rolling the villáges and hamlots assumed a somewhat dirty and unkempt ippeafatice. Many of tho country dwel ings have a nombre look, with thoir ïeavy, square towors, whicb. do not ap)ear either uscful or ornamental as they are constructed. We stopped but a few minutes at Arozzo, which did not present any great atvractions as secn from the cars. This was tho birth-placo of Mecanas, the friend of Horace and Virgil. - ?rom thence to Cortona we passed .hrough a fino, open country, genorally evel, but for some reason the cultivation s rendered very laboriorcs from the method adopted of throwmg the wholo surface uto narrow lands not more than four eet wido, Roparatcd by a vory deop and veil cleaned furrow. It did not appcar ;o bo low or wet, though once the bed of a lake, but no doubt this extra labor is made necessary by the heavy rains and mpervious cbaractor of the soil. Cortona is boautifully situated on an oliveclad hill - a small, but clean-looking oity. .t becamo a very noticeable f act that rom this place onward the towns and cities all presented this peouliarly picturesquo appearance of being placed high ip the hill slopes and often. quite upon he mountainous summita, doubtless io avoid the malarious air of the lower lovels. Nothing could be more charming, and though frequently occurring there were rarely any exceptions in which the suburbs expanded into the plains. Leaving Cortona, in a few minutes we were skirting along the east side of the 'iiinous Lake ïhrasimene, which Plutaroh and Itollin have made familiar to every reader, and whero the vengeful Hannibal notonly braved the legions of Eome on their own goil but completely louted them. It is a fine sheet of water, about eight miles in brcadth and twico that in ength. Three beautiful small Islands were visible, upon the largest of which was a monastery crowning its very top- ;hoso omnipresent deromtions to alinost every lovely spot in Italian scenery. In jroof of which, almost in range with the one on tho island thero is another whose white and long extended walls were reflecting the warm sunlight from the mountain sido beyond. We'glido along noarly the whole length of the lake till we reach Pas Hignano, near its southern oxtroniity, and in olose proximity to the outlet of the deglo in which the wily Carthaginian had entrapped the Roman general, and where the dieastroüs fight ;ock placo. All is quiet there now, and io one woukl see aught that indicates hattbere 15,000 of the Koinan invincibles iad laid down tbeir lives without even ;be doubti'ul glory of success We :rossed tho Sanguinetto, so called from he blood it received tbat day. For maly miles now the Tast, almost endless jlive orchards stretched along the road, overing the lower and fertile portions of ;he hills, and soinetimes extending into ;ho plains, making a charactcristic featire in all the sceuery with its soft, light ihade of green. ïhe treos are set out much like our applo orchards as to distanco apart and are of similar growth ; but the trunks of tho trees, especially when oíd, aro oftun quite gnarled and split into several parts, still growing vigorouslybut ucsightlyi Tho tops, howsver, wero generally regularly shaped and thick, the leaves beiug somowhat like the willow in 6hapc, but of a very light green color. It was the 20th of November and the erop had been pioked, otherwiso the scène would have been still more agreeable. The rounded hills appear deeply gullied by the frequent rains; Near station Maggiore tho ruins of an extensivo fortress eastle were passed, and soon after another castlo that was inhabited. Those structures, like those of Germany, are generally of medieval times. We had the pleasuro of a hurried inspection of severiü tunnels beforo roaching l'erugia, one of tho most pieturesquely situated citiesin the suuth. It covers the summit of a lofty hill, and is eonspicuous for miles before the station is reached now far off to the left and not at all like ly to como in our line of conimunication then, as our train winda about the bas of an intervening hill, it is visible quit as much out of our track upon the right until at last we stop and a few scatf erin outposts or advance guards from the "cit set on a hill " meet us at the depot. I appears to be an active center of trade though boasting also of considerable im portance some three or four centurio ago. With about 20,000 inliabitants.anc' perched at an elavation of 1,600 fee above the level of the valley of the Tier, aloug whioh (the valloy) wo had jeen passing for severul miles, U Í3 renlered still moro interesting from its ventful history during tbo entire Chris,im era. Romané and Goths and Lomards and Popes, Austrians and Piedïonteso havo in turn coutrolled its fate. Muoh of the walls of the city etill remain ; indeed all the places of any imortance were walled in, and generally bese defenses have romained booause of beir groat indostiuetibility from the ' inary casualtiea of time. Winding along the range of hilla on ' which Perugia is situated and through evcral tunnels, in about liali' an hour we i ot our iirai sight of the Tiber, a magie amo familiar to all as household woxds, : nd knowu wherevar the fame of Rome . ïerself has extended. Wo orosaed it, and . 'elt as if indeed we were nearing the '. Sternal City. It is a stnall river, not exeoding the Hurou at its a veratro stage, i nd not at all beautiful, notwithstanding ; is so uuquestionably olassio. The ; ey fov üoine distando soomed quita low nd poorly cultivated, and the absence of rass and forosts from the hills gave the andscapi) ita minimum of attractiveness. Jut ere long a ehange suoceoded and a iae fertile plain wrcs crossedbeforereachng Assisi - another of the romantic cites whose looation is so high and beauti'ul that one scarcoly knows to which the jrize of preference should be awarded. - t is so finely sjjread over the eniinence aat it would seom as if every houso ould bo distinctly seen, white tho top is itingly crowned by tho chuvch having ba tallest spire. But beautiful as the )lace is, with its conspicuously large normstery, its convent, and its nncient ,emple of Minerva, its groat celebrity is ue to that brave, earnest, and doubtless incero man, known throughout the vorld as St. Francis of Assisi, i'oundsr of hut order of solf-denying, peace-loving Alouks, the Franoiscans. whoso biown, oarse rmlnticg and hoods, bound about vith a white hempen girdlo knottod at he onds, are evorywliere visible in Italy. lo was born hore in 1182, and founüed ,he order which has oroditably perpotua,od itself, with poverty as one of its leadng tenots, from that day to the present. 'here, too, he died in 122C, and was cannizod, and tho visions aud other scanes f his lii'a havo formeel fruiti'ul themos or urtists of tho highest celobrity, and re to ba found in every gallery and in housands of the churches of Europe. - t des not appear to ba a placo of over ,000 inhabitants, and is still confinod within its ancient wails. Over a üne plain wo reach Spollo, in ess than fifteen minutea, another in the ist of cliarming" sitos, with purhaps ,ú00 population, who aro content with .he narrow aooommodations meted outto hem withiu the walls. A groat imrovement in the appearance of the ountry is mauii'ost, and Foligno, where we stop for refreshments, is a thriving and growing city - though thie regiou ïas been visited with earthquskes of coniderable severity, that of 1831 having occasionod much damago in rnany of the ities aloug the route. Soon after wo nter the valley of tho Clituinnus, whose jraipes Virgil sung. Ou the left at coniderable distanco a range of regularly onical hills exteuds, along the slopes of vhioh aro scattered frequent village9 and villas as high up as the olivo orchards can )e made to thrive, and over the fertile )laiu is spread a continuous. vineyard. - hearing tho hills again wo soo the small mt most boautiful village of Trevi just orowning a hilltop with its only oonspicuou8 stoeple exactly at the highest oint. Accident or design has oertainly exhibited remarkable taste in much that erves to gratify the eye of the traveler over this road. We now arrive at Spoleto, the ancient Spoletum, with ten thousand donizens and a fair, solid -looking old town, with everal ancient towers in and around it. Che exteusive old castle on an eminanco somewhat above that on whioh tho City is ocatod does not appear dilapidatud, hough ereotod by Theodoric the Great, and is used as a prison at the present ;ime. It was at Spoleto that the printer nonk.I'hillippo Lippi, met his fate by xison in 1409. While plying his vocation as an artist he successfully enacted tho part of a lover and carried off his ady-lovo from the convent she had en;ered ; her relativos resorted to poison, and the tragic tale has caused its first ohapter, the wioing, to be often troated by brother artists. A long ascending grado is now bogun, and we reaoh t.he summit Jevel of the road, over 2,000 feet elevation, among tho broken hills of the Abbruzzi Appeninos, near Terni. Before arriving at tliis station a very extensivo monastery high upon the mountain slope is seen, which in its prosporous days has doubtless had its well-fed inmates ; but tho day ol theso powerful religious corporations has passed, all have boen suppressed as such outside of the city of Home, and a heavy blow is soon to fall upon a majority ot these. Wo enter amid the wildest scouery that we havo soen since orossing tho Appennin'iS at Pistoja, tho hills lose thoii gentío contour aud becomo mountainoub and brokon ; lofty, jagged oliiïs scnin toimpend over the road and the inevitable tunnel again yawned beforo us oftener than was agroeablo. Upon the side o the hill at our left, and quite near tht road, was a small village in ruins and wholly dopopulated, probably tho effect of an oarthquako ; and but a little furthor on on the lei't wo looked downupon the roots of anothcr more foTttín&tS fil lage. Terni is but a small place( though anoient, and claims to bo tho birthplace of Xaeitus. Passing Torni the wide plain of tho Nero spreads out several milas in widtb, with the mountuia rango bounding the viaw eastward, showing their summits covercd with snow. High hills í1so extend along at the right, upon ■which the pretty villrage of Cesi is -risible. ', Narni, another old Koman town, whoro i the Emperor Nerva was born, L ly looated high upcm and among tho l rooks, with a grand old fortress castlo i and wild surroundings, loohing t wttrd ovar tho luxurious valley and down t upon the now noisy river Xera. And to t complete its romantic attractions, only a s few niinutea walk distant is a beautiful t ruin, one entire arca 64 feet in height, t ane pier and the shoro buttress of the a Bridgn of Augustus, ns it is oalled, c jtructed for the Crossing of the s iau way at thia poiui trtèt tho riTor, B. C. t J20. A fine viow of this nobls relio of o ihe past ia had i'rom the ears. We had c evoral times caught glimp ses of this ] portant road, which was built by i üiuiua aome years befora hia defeat by 1 tlannibal, and extended froin Rome to e Bolcgna iu an irregular course, reaching t Himini, on the Adriatic. Our route took t j.a down the atill luxuriant valley, i i'ully garlanded at times with long t tations of a species of evergreen oak, aud t lust before the Nera aiapties into the g ber we crossed tho lat ter on a chain t bridge, and soon arcived at the little old f village oí' Orto, occupying a loíty nnd beautiful site, but of sinall importance. t The vttlley at this point does not appear 1 is fertile as before, though the ancicnt name of the place, Horta, would seem to i indícate that it once had the appearaiice j :.f a garden. From this the roadjfollowed j the Tiber down its right bank lor a I siderable distance, and ere long,the triple í head of the lofty Soracte, not now (. ' 'lidum nive, as Horace sings, nor yet any i longer saored to Apollo, carne into view c and stood out against the olear blue sky 1 with a woll-defined, upturncd frice, a it' t of soine giant god of old. The country 1 now became broken, as wo cross to the i left bank, and in the thickening twilight ] Borghetta is but diinly seen and tho fine i bridge (Ponto Pelice) restorcd from its i pvedecessor of the same iip.iuo, erected by í Augustus, can scarcely bo recalled i'rom ' uy vivid imprpssions of the liour. Tho i Sabine Lilis and occasional lights frora i ho villages which lie upon their slopes ] t our left are still recognizable, and ong after oyorything else h;id beoome ] ïazy and confused wo could still trace i he outliue of old Soraoto limned against ' he lighter background of tho western ' ky. Per forco wo now retigned í elves to darknesa and its droaniy nces: we wero alinost in tho great i Dagna and were in a brief hour more to 1 )e in Rome. Who could not enjoy ono ] ilont hour in thought under suuh i u uistan ces? At last, having made a wide detour bout the outlying hills, we come into ' Ue depot frorn the south nndjthe officers of the train unlock our coupes and csill out, " Roma." Fortunately an acquaintaneo was at the depot, and without any ifficulty we disposed of our baggage ind were seated en route for the Hotel Hilan. Late as was the hour, tho weird pirits of the olden time aroae at our bidiing, and almost the first eight that jreeted our oyes in the gaalight were tho jray ruins of the batha of Diocletian ; hon we went over the Quironal, one of ,ho fainous 8even hills, and descending croased tho Pi.izzLi Rotunda dïrectly iu 'rout of the Pantheon,recognizable at tho irst glauoe as our familiar aoquaintance of college days. Really this was Rome, and it was pleasant thus to have eeen omothiug in the very hour of our arrival which made us feel that we were not o be disappointed, for of all tho notable )lacsa in tho wido world it is questionablo f there be any about which tho trayoler las proviously formed such numerous and decided irapressions. Our first excursión was that same evening to the lostoffice, and this gave us anofcher and jetter chance to see this bost preserved of the ancient buildings - tho Pantheon. ;t has in our day a most unfortunato position in the very bottom of a basin 'ormed by tho higher ground surroundïng it. It is not easy to teil how for this unfavorablo situation was similar at the :ime its poTtioo was erected, B. C. 27, for :ho accumulations oí dobris and deposita everywhere over tho ancient city is perfectly amazing. Standing in the fine squre in front we seem now to look down as it were into its splondid colonnudo and it loses halfits noblo effect. That this was not so bad in former times is apparent when we step nearer and look down about eight feet, where tlio original pavcment of the streot is oxposcd, and seo the series of five marble steps which once extended about the entire front and formod a consistent ascent into this temple whoso perfect architecture has been the admiration of the world for nearly two thousand years. Of oourse an edifice once covered externally with fine marble suitably seulptured, as this would undoubtedly havo boen, must appear not only vory naked and unadornod but in the present instanoe increases tho apparently great discropancy botween the rectilinoar style of the noble pórtico and that of tho circular but even more wondrous portion of tho structuro in the rear. They together constitute ono building, and yet as it now appears the two portions .iustit'y a belief th.at thoy were not cotemporaneously constructed, or at leaat may not have boon the result of a single original plan. But wo have not designed to make thoso hurried sketches take tho shape of archeological disquisitions, p.nd, avoiding the legión of knotty questions -vith whieh nearly every atttiquity in Rome has boen eonnectel, símil i'iidoavor to notico these intoresting ruins as we havo seen them - as they now are. Buffico it thon to sny that each portion is aiiko wonderfully perfect in harmonious proportions, simplicity and grand effect ; and ere the band of time or of barbarism despoiled both of so much that tended to their v.nited completeness tho whole must have boen nearly faultless in spito of all that now seetHa incongruous. The pórtico, 110 feet in lengtb and 44 in depth, is composed of i three' rows of columns eight in front and throe at eacli ond, of corinthian order, and four intermedíate, each coluinn being forty-six feot in height, each. formed from u singlo block of gray and somo ot' Egyptian red granitè, and next tho rotunda are corresponding pilasters of fluted white marble. Two largo nichos, ono on oach sido of tho entranoo, are reoessed in the walls, in whioh it has boen suppo9ed tho statues of Augustus and of Agrippa may have been placed. The fine vaulting which onco spanned these columns bas entiroly disappeared, and we gaze upward to sea no fitting deccraüon abovs the capitals, but instoad a crude array of naked beaias and tho ragged inner surfuce of the roofing. Tho heavy corniee continued around tho pediment, and thoagh much broken and disfigured by time, still shows its fermer power in tolrrablo preservation, but none of tho reMéfa with -which tho pediment was íilled can naw be traced. Passing into the streot wo soe about one half of the circular portion of th-j temple, tho remainin; part being so corapletely embraced by the adjoining buildings, "which, like it, are constructed of brick, that but for ita shape none would conjecture its relatiou to thfi Piiutheon. By this ssacrilegious contact with oommon edifices the great effect of the temple as a wholo ia lost. - Passing down into the pórtico and entering the massivo bronzo portal which: the haathenisni of Eonian orthodoxy has spared (though the bronze roofiüg waa torn off and molted into cannon and columns to support the grand altar canopy in lat. Peter's), wo stand within ono oL the most pleasing and impressive structures W8 have anywhere seen. The splendid domo springs upward and abovo us so easily, as it wero, in tho vcry perfeetion of areh and curve ; tho ligliting is EO complete, all dropping in through the single opening at tho center overhead ; tlie grand swoep of tho circular walls, embracing sevon largo recesaed niches with flutcd Corin BHan columns of giallo antique ; and its unbroken soa oL polislied marble pavement make a combined effect wliich tawdry ornaments about tho modern altars scarcely affocts. What its appearaneo raust have been when all this paunoled ceiling was covered with brouzo, or more probably richly decorated stucco, can scarcoly bo conceived. Happily thore have been no material alterations or injuries to the interior, and we can seo to-day a perfect temple 2,000 years oíd, wanting only its many gods and The interior has a diameter of 142 foet, and the height above the üoor 1 13 fept, just ono-half of wliich is made by the vaulting of tha dome. Tho central opening for lighfc ovoihoad is forty i'eetin diameter and has no covering. As above indicated, this anciont temple by th more transformation of its ebIiculee uid niches into altan has been converted into a cliurch - S. Haria Eotunda. This was done in A. D. 610, and may possibly bavo subserved the valuablo purpose of its better preservation. "SVithin one of its ancient niches benenlh one of its altars, lie the mortal remains of Itaphael - his only memorial a simple marble tablet immured at one side. He died whon exactly 37 years old, and his last great picture, " Tho Transiiguration," scarcely yet dry, was carried in the procession to thia temple, thus doubly sacred. Yours evor,

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Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus