lately paid it a second visit, in part of a more extended ramble; and I
shall give you the account of both excursions together. We leave Rome by
the Porta San Lorenzo, but I say nothing concerning the antiquities in
the immediate neighbourhood, as I have written enough about them to tire
out your patience. After we had passed the Ponte Mammolo, the soil
continues for some miles to consist of a decomposed tufo, rather sandy,
but one would think not unfitted for vegetation, yet there is little
corn, and the land is mostly sheepwalk, which in a country and climate
too dry for perennial grasses to flourish, cannot be very productive.
The near scenes are dreary enough, and a heavy atmosphere shut out the
distant objects. A little way on the left of the road, about ten miles
from Rome, is an old castle of the Borghese family, which nobody visits,
for antiquities of the middle ages have no interest here. There are many
fragments scattered about over this, and every other part of the
Campagna, but it would require a book to describe them all; and no small
ingenuity, to determine the nature of the edifices of which they have
formed part.[8] About twelve miles from Rome is a little pool among
bushes on the left, called Lago de’ Tartari. It is a mere pond of muddy
yellowish water, with little or no peculiar taste, and neither receiving
nor emitting any stream. The water deposits a copious crust of limestone
upon all substances in it. It varies very much in height at different
seasons, and the whole soil around is formed of its deposits: wherever
the ground is broken we perceive bundles of pipes, and here and there a
bit of reed remaining in the pipe, and proving the mode of its
formation: above these pipes is generally a confused mass, deposited
apparently on decaying fragments of vegetables. This sort of soil
extends for a considerable distance, and as you may suppose, is
incapable of cultivation; yet a few bushes grow on it, and abundance of
the _Senecio leucanthemifolius_, and of some other plants not very
common. On leaving this soil we pass on to another deposit of a
substance less hard, and said to contain sulphur, or sulphuric acid, but
nearly equally barren, and of much greater extent; about the middle, a
stream of sulphureous water crosses the road, slightly warm, pretty
clear, of a blue colour, and exhaling an odour which is perceived at a
considerable distance. The taste is sulphureous, and I should say
saltish, but Mr. P. D. called it acid. We left the carriage and walked
up the stream; and at a little distance from the road, were surprised to
see several branches separating themselves from the principal stream,
and losing themselves in hollows of the ground. All these streams, which
deposit considerable quantities of stony matter, form about them, not a
continuous solid mass, but one full of caverns and hollows, extending in
all directions. Sometimes they are employed in spreading still farther
the barren crusts of their peculiar deposit, and sometimes probably in
filling up the old channels, after which of course the stream has to
find a new one, but as it is rather disposed from the form of the ground
to spread over the surface, than to find its way in a single channel, an
artificial one has been made for it down to the Anio. These swallows are
repeated in different places, so that the stream becomes larger as we
ascend, and perhaps where it issues from the little Lago di Solfatara,
may be not much inferior in quantity to the New River, but running much
faster in a smaller bed. In March I was inclined to call it hot, but I
suppose the temperature does not equal 80° of Fahrenheit. Reeds grow
abundantly on the banks, and one or two species of conferva, especially
an _Oscillatoria_, resembling _C. fontinalis_ of Dillwyn, which is what
the books and the guides call bitumen. The lake is a mere pond, but is
said to be very deep; the water at the edges is not so hot as where the
stream issues from it. Detached bubbles are continually rising in all
parts, and when a stone, or even a clod of earth is thrown in, a violent
ebullition is produced, which lasts several minutes. Almost close to the
lake, there is a ruined building, believed to be the remains of an
ancient bath. There are two other lakes, still smaller, but all very
deep; the size of all of them is continually diminishing, from the
progress of vegetation; and the matted roots of reeds sometimes form
floating islands, and extend over the surface of the water. Here,
according to the antiquaries, Virgil places the scene where Latinus
consulted the oracle of Faunus; but even if we can suppose the plain to
have once abounded with wood, a fact which the nature of the soil
renders highly improbable, how can we place them _sub altâ albuneâ_,
when the country is nearly flat, or how can a spring rising in a deep
pool be said to _resound_? But I leave these difficulties to wiser
heads, and will continue my route towards Tivoli. At sixteen miles from
Rome is the Ponte Lucano, another ancient bridge over the Teverone, but
with some modern patching. Close by this is a fine circular monument,
with several inscriptions belonging to the Plautian family, which is
said to have been originally from Tivoli, but was much distinguished at
Rome in the latter part of the republic, and the early part of the
empire. It is a very fine object, and its strength and solidity have
tempted some of the noble robbers of the lower ages, to convert it into
a fortress, of which there are considerable remains at the top, but I
could not get into it.
After passing the bridge, at a little distance from the road, there are
two monuments, called the Sepolcri de’ Sereni, each of which has
consisted of a basement of squared blocks of travertine, with an arched
recess in front and behind, and a small doorway in the arch, opening
into a little chamber. The upper part consisted of a pedestal adorned
with a bas-relief; one of them has been removed or destroyed, but the
other still exists, though damaged more by violence than by time. These
monuments are supposed by some persons (Nibby says, _bizzarramente_) to
have adorned the entrance to Hadrian’s villa; and their perfect
correspondence of form and position, with the direction of their sides
towards the villa, incline me to subscribe to this opinion. The prince
Borghese has imitated them in the entrance to his villa, by the Porta
del Popolo, at Rome.
Beyond these, on a hill nearly detached, amidst tall cypresses,
magnificent stone pines, and other products of a luxurious vegetation,
appear the ruins of the Villa Adriana. The extent is immense. We walked
for above a mile among arches, great semi-domed recesses, long walls and
corridors, and spacious courts; through an immense number of small
apartments, and some large halls. In many places the painted stucco
remains, with the ornaments upon it in relief. The rich marbles and
porphyries which encrusted the walls, the marble columns and cornices,
and the numerous statues which once adorned the spacious porticos, are
all gone; much has been taken to Rome, much has been burnt to lime; and
a great deal has been carelessly or wantonly destroyed. The varied forms
of the remaining masses, the pines, the cypresses, the olives, the
ilices, and the deciduous trees, with the different shrubs growing on
the ruins themselves, and by which they are more or less shaded, and
whose colouring contrasts admirably with the warm brown of the
buildings, together with the advantages of the natural situation, form a
succession of the most beautiful and picturesque scenery. All the
magnificence of this spot does not however seem to have been merely for
one individual. Besides the imperial apartments, and the habitations of
the officers and guards, there were apartments provided for men of
science, and everything necessary for study and instruction, as well as
for amusement. Here were three theatres, besides a circular building,
which is called, on account of some figures of seamonsters found there,
a maritime theatre. Nibby pronounces it a bath for swimming; to me it
seems a little amphitheatre, and I saw no indication that it had ever
contained water. There were also a stadium, baths, public libraries, and
places of exercise, an academy, and I will not pretend to tell you how
many temples; at least, you are shewn ruins which go by these names, and
there is no deficiency of room, or of fragments of masonry, to be
assigned to each. You must add to these a _canopus_, which as nobody
knows what it was, I hope you will imagine to be something of the utmost
magnificence. From what still exists, it seems to have been a temple,
partly subterraneous, at the end of a valley in some degree artificial,
and with constructions on each side of it, and spacious and highly
ornamented subterraneous chambers. You will imagine apartments for the
emperor, his attendants, and his guards; but there is another thing
which you will not imagine, which is a subterraneous gallery, said to be
for exercise on horseback, but which are perhaps the _inferi_ mentioned
by Spartian; they form a square, of which the circuit exceeds half a
mile.
Beyond all these, are various foundations, and the remains of aqueducts,
and further still some other considerable remains, which perhaps did not
belong to this villa. Including these, the whole extent is about two
miles in a straight line. All the existing buildings are of rubble, with
brick or reticulated facings; and this is I believe, the last instance
of any considerable quantity of reticulated work. The baths of Caracalla
have it not. We may conclude from Vitruvius that the practice began in
the age of Augustus, and that it must therefore have lasted one hundred
and eighty years. Even the bricks here have been taken away for modern
use, at the evident risk of occasioning the fall of the edifice to which
they belonged. Much as has been discovered among these ruins, it does
not appear that any settled plan was ever pursued in the excavations;
and perhaps much may yet remain to be discovered in point of valuable
objects, and certainly much to determine the disposition of the
buildings, of which no good plan, even as to the remains above-ground,
has ever been published. Thus much however is certain, that no one
symmetrical design prevailed throughout the whole. The buildings were
disposed either as the convenience of situation, or the shape of the
ground suggested. It has been said, and is repeated by every writer on
the subject, that Hadrian had here collected imitations of all the
buildings which he had seen in different parts of his empire; but of all
the fragments which remain, there is not one, of which the plan does not
shew it to have been entirely Roman. There is not a single morsel, that
could by any possibility have belonged to an ancient edifice of Greece
or Egypt; not one to which parallel remains may not be found in the
neighbourhood of Rome, where no suspicion was ever entertained of such
an imitation. We may imagine the representation was not very exact, when
we find a little flat valley between sandy slopes of 40 or 50 feet high,
and watered by a brook of the smallest size, dignified by the name of
the magnificent mountain pass, through which the Peneus pours its waters
to the sea. It is _possible_ that all these imitations were of solid
stone or marble, and have tempted spoliation by the value of the
material, but then we should expect to find at Rome vestiges of the
architecture as well as of the sculpture of this villa.
From Hadrian’s villa we continued our way to Tivoli, a dirty
disagreeable town in a noble situation. It is seated on a spur of land,
which separates the valley of the Anio or Teverone, from the open
Campagna; on one side is a descent of 30 or 40 feet to the upper part of
the river; on the other, a slope of some hundreds to the part of it
below the falls. This spur seems quite to divert the river from its
general line of course, and forces it to bend round in a semicircular
form. The upper part of it is formed from a deposition from the water
itself, the lower appears to consist of volcanic substances.
There are two inns at Tivoli. In the yard of one of these is the Sybil’s
temple, or rather the circular temple of Vesta, which has so long gone
by that name; the Sybil’s temple is more probably a small edifice just
by. On my first visit to Tivoli, which as I have said, was in the
beginning of March, we hastily made the usual round, and returned to
Rome, having been out two days and one night. The second visit has been
made more at leisure. I went up in a sort of stage which goes every day
to Tivoli; one of the party was a Tivolese woman, who had been
purchasing trinkets and sweetmeats at Rome, for herself and her
children. In her dress, she wore her stays outside, as is usual with her
countrywomen, and instead of a cap had a handkerchief, or napkin, folded
up into an oblong strip, pinned on the head, and hanging down the back.
I suppose this was once the fashion in our island, since the term
kerchief indicates a covering for the head. She anxiously called my
attention to a picture of our Saviour, in one of the little chapels on
the road, which had performed miracles. Whether the picture, or the
Saviour performed the miracles, she did not seem clearly to comprehend.
The ancient Italians had very confused ideas on the identity of their
different deities, and while in general they acknowledged only one
Jupiter _optimus maximus_, seemed still to have a separate Jupiter to
every temple. Suetonius tells us a story of Augustus, to whom Jupiter
Capitolinus appeared in a dream, complaining that he had deprived him of
his accustomed votaries, by building a temple to Jupiter Tonans; yet the
Jupiter of the Capitol was certainly the god reputed to hold the
thunder. If the place of worship was indifferent to the deity, it was
not so to the priests. A similar confusion exists in modern Italy, and
perhaps may be traced to a similar source. There is only one Saviour,
and one Virgin Mary, yet to address our prayers to the Saviour or
Madonna of such a chapel, is not exactly the same thing as to adore
those of another, and there are churches dedicated to our Lady of
Loreto, as if this were not the Virgin Mary. Misson gives a curious
account of a conversation he had with a monk on this subject.
To return to the Temple of Vesta, which is always the first object at
Tivoli. I shall not attempt to describe the beauties of the ruin,
because it has been so often done before, and because no description can
do justice to the reality; but I will point out a few particulars in the
construction, with which perhaps you are not so familiar. The cell is
formed of _opus incertum_, which has been described by Vitruvius as a
masonry of small pieces of irregular shape, fitted together, and united
by mortar. Some writers have supposed that by this term he meant the
Cyclopean walls, which are constructed of large pieces without mortar,
(of these I shall tell you more hereafter) but his description is
sufficiently precise to leave no doubt of his meaning. Of this _opus
incertum_ we have reason to think that it was in use in the time of
Sylla, and probably much before; and the complaint of Vitruvius, that it
was in his time giving way to the _opus reticulatum_, which though
neater, was less strong; together with the want of existing remains
which are known to be of later date; will justify us in concluding that
it was discontinued in the reign of Augustus. There are some letters on
the architrave, the remains of an inscription, but all that exists is L.
GELLIUS, L. F. There was, I believe, a Lucius Gellius in the time of
Sylla, but I cannot now recollect where I met with the name. Now the
construction of the walls, and the forms of the capital very much
resemble some fragments remaining at Palestrina, belonging to the temple
of Fortune, which we know to have been restored and greatly enlarged by
Sylla; and at Pompei there are capitals of a similar taste, but
evidently much prior to the earthquake which preceded its final
calamity; and putting all these circumstances together we may, with some
probability, assign this building to the time of Sylla. These capitals
are not ornamented with the leaves, either of the acanthus or the olive,
but with some which rather resemble those of the _Verbascum sinuatum_;
and neither they, nor any part of the building, offer the least trace of
Greek taste, as distinguished from that of Rome. We do not find at Rome
any examples of similar capitals, except an unappropriated fragment or
two of peperino, which may have belonged to the same period. Within the
cell is a recess, which seems to have been the work of later ages. It
has a large doorway, and a window, both of which are considerably
smaller upwards. The material of the _opus incertum_ is a sort of tufo,
but the dressings which surround the door and window, together with the
external order, and the continued pedestal on which it stands, are of a
coarse, calcareous, fresh-water deposit, much resembling travertine.
This, in the columns at least, and perhaps everywhere else, was covered
with a very thin coat of fine, hard stucco, and the _opus reticulatum_
was probably covered with stucco also, but it must have had more
substance, or it would not have concealed the little inequalities of the
work below. The cornice has no modillions, and the dentil band is uncut;
otherwise it would have been a regular Ionic entablature, as directed by
Vitruvius. The columns have settled a little outwards, as is evident
from the openings in the entablature. Here are sufficient vestiges of
steps, to prove that they descended laterally, and were not brought
straight out, as they are usually published, but there is not enough
remaining to make out distinctly all the particulars. After the temple
of Vesta, to which I paid not one, but many visits, I noticed the little
square edifice just by, now the church of St. George. Little remains but
the back of the temple, and a portion of one flank, with Ionic
half-columns very much decayed; showing it to have been a tetrastyle,
pseudo-peripteral temple, of the most ancient, and simplest form. It has
no beauty in itself, and in some points of view is very much in the way
of the other temple, which it almost touches. I should tell you that
Lord Bristol bought the circular temple. The bargain was completed, and
the owner was just preparing to pull it down and ship it for England,
when an order from the government put a stop to the proceeding. This
temple, or at least the columns and entablature, has been closely
imitated at the N. W. corner of the bank of England, and a portion of
its circular form is also adopted.
The next objects were the Waterfall and the Grotto of Neptune. Fontana
built a wall to preserve a head of water for the forges, and the use of
the city, and the water now tumbles over this, and the rocks upon which
it is built, for the height of about sixty feet, and after dashing and
foaming for some yards among broken masses, loses itself in a dark and
deep recess. A winding path descends by the Ionic temple, presenting a
succession of the most romantic views, to the grotto of Neptune. We are
astonished to see scenery so wild in the midst of cultivation, and close
to, nay almost within the circuit of a town of considerable size. Near
the path we are shown the impression of a wheel, which having been
buried in the rock deposited from the water, and since decayed, has left
the exact mould of a considerable portion of the circumference, and of
some of the spokes. All around you, from the top to the bottom of the
deep chasm, rather than valley, to which you are descending; a depth I
suppose, of not less than 250 feet, you see nothing but the rock thus
formed by the river. The water, which had disappeared after its leap
down the great cascade, rushes out of the grotto of Neptune in another
fall, and when standing to look at it at the distance of 50 or 60 yards,
the spray descends like a heavy shower, which a strong wind drives
against the face. On the other side, another portion of the river falls
from an opening in the rock in the upper part of the chasm, and our
position between the two, produces a strange undefined confusion in the
head, which it is impossible to describe. The streams unite below us,
and after tumbling a little way among rocks, they are lost in another
cavern, called the grotto of the Syren; but all these names are modern
fancies, which merely serve to distinguish the different places. You may
cross the stream over the last-mentioned grotto, and descending on the
opposite side, enter into its mouth and look down the abyss. All these
caverns are very much inclined in their direction, and the water falls,
rather than flows through them. The inequality of the ground renders it
necessary to make a long circuit in order to reach the lower part of the
river; and in so doing you may observe, or fancy you observe, some
remains of the ancient bridge, which stood nearly where is now the
grotto of the Syren, deeply encrusted in this universal deposit. Looking
upwards, you see the temple, the city, the rocks, the falls, combined in
the most magical manner. It is a scene however, which it is difficult to
characterize. It might be called sublime, if the objects of beauty were
not so numerous; and if its sublimity and beauty were less impressive,
you would pronounce it the most picturesque view that was ever beheld.
Some parts of the rocks are covered with aloes; their tall flower-stalks
rising above the olive groves; and some with the Indian fig; both of
which give a singularity to the scene which renders it more attractive.
The river after its second disappearance, bubbles up with great force at
the foot of a high rock, in a most delightful sequestered spot. It is
said to deposit about one inch and a half per annum of its solid tartar;
if so it ought to be continually elevating its bed, yet there is a hole
thirty or forty feet above its present level, through which it has
evidently run, and still higher, another passage; indeed, as I said
before, the whole rock to the very summit, is of the same nature, and
its formation has forced the water through partial channels at different
elevations, instead of always keeping the lowest part of the valley.
This deposit only takes place where the water is disturbed, and above
the town there is none of it.