(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.
From Cortona I proceeded to Arezzo, where there are the remains of an
amphitheatre, but not of much consequence. The cathedral, and the church
of the Pieve, interested me much more. The latter is a very singular
building. The front has four stories of ornament, and the tower which
arises from it at one angle, has five stories more, each of which has
two double windows. The upper story of the front presents a range of
thirty-three openings, and thirty-two little columns with fancy
capitals; most of them are octangular, but some are cylindrical, and one
is a statue, some of them have zigzag, and others spiral flutes. They
stand on plinths of different sizes, and support a horizontal
architrave. The next story is a series of twenty-five arches on
twenty-four columns, very little, if at all, bigger than those above.
There is equal or greater variety in their forms, for in addition to
those above mentioned, we find one fasciculated shaft, and one covered
with ascending leaves. Below this, is a range of thirteen larger arches,
also on columns, with the same irregularity of shape; some standing on
bases, with plinths, some without plinths, and some with neither. In
this story there is a small wheel window. The lower range is of five
arches only, of which the middle is the highest; there is a corbel over
each spandril, which perhaps has supported a statue; and some
unconnected, and irregularly disposed portions of ornament. You see from
this account that the whole has amazingly the air of being made up of
fragments, but it is difficult to imagine where such a multitude of
different things in so small a scale could have been found. The Aretines
say, that the building as it stands, was an ancient temple, which it
certainly was not.
Internally, the vaulting is composed of a mixture of semicircular, and
of very obtusely pointed arches, like some of that at the church of St.
Mark at Venice, and probably it is nearly of the date of the front
galleries of that edifice (about 1100). The nave is not vaulted. The
back of the choir shows the beautiful effect sometimes produced by a
range of small columns placed over a high wall, either plain, or
slightly recessed. I would not engage that in many cases, this strong
contrast should not be disagreeable, but I think it succeeds best when,
as in this instance, the plan is circular.
The cathedral is a fine Gothic building; that is, fine as an edifice of
the Italian Gothic, but not to be compared with the best examples of
that style in France and England. It is very dark, but that darkness,
the first time I visited it, set off to great advantage a side chapel of
this form,
[Illustration: Illustration of side chapel]
producing the effect of a Greek cross with shallow recesses; it was
evening, but the candles at the altar were bright points, which could
hardly yet be said to give any light; behind the altar there were
crimson hangings, which hid the windows of the little recesses behind
them, and the external daylight had no other effect than to give
brilliancy to their colour. The only light diffused through the chapel
proceeded from the upper part. The richness of the altar increased by
the candles, and by the hangings; the light and elegant proportions of
the chapel sufficiently illuminated, but not glaring; and its contrast
with the gloomy magnificence of the cathedral, whose bounds were totally
lost among the clustered columns, produced an effect quite magical. Seen
by full daylight, however, the architecture of the chapel, of a mixed
style, did not please me so well, and it then appeared too gaudily
painted. Still the justness of its general proportions may claim for it
the praise of an elegant building, though quite out of all acknowledged
rules.
The cloisters of the convent at the Badia, consist of a range of arches
supported on columns; and over these there is a range of small columns,
very wide apart, supporting the roof. It is, I believe, an advantage
that these supports are so far asunder, as they thereby assist the idea
of lightness attributed to the roof. Where the slenderness and wide
separation of the supports below can persuade the spectator that the
parts above are very light, it is a beauty; one indeed not to be sought
on every occasion, but admirable in its proper place. But where this
persuasion is not accomplished, and the upper parts are manifestly
heavy, the slenderness of the lower is a very great defect. Where
columns stand over arches, it is absolutely necessary to have a
considerable space over the latter; otherwise the effect is poor and
meagre.
I left Arezzo on Tuesday, and slept at Monte Varco, travelling through a
country of clay hills, singularly intersected by deep ravines. Where the
soil is not held together by the roots of trees, broom, &c. the lower
part of the bank seems to get washed away by the torrent at the bottom,
and the earth falls, so as to leave perpendicular precipices, and broken
and detached points. My vetturino was very unwilling to proceed so far,
yet we got in by nine o’clock, which at this time of year is not late.
In the morning he came to me with the tale of a man who had been
murdered in the night, in going from here to Florence. I thought at
first that he only wanted to alarm me, as a punishment for having urged
him to go on in the dusk, the evening before, but I found afterwards
that his tale was too true. A young man going alone in a sort of one
horse chaise, from San Giovanni to Florence, in order to make some
purchases there, for which he carried the money with him, was attacked,
about one o’clock in the morning, by some robbers, who appear to have
been aware of the circumstances. They broke his skull with the blow of
some blunt instrument, and had taken the key, and inserted it in the
lock of the box which contained the money, but something must have
alarmed them, as they proceeded no farther. The horse returned home with
his master, who lived a few hours afterwards, but unable to speak, and
nearly insensible. We learned these particulars in passing through San
Giovanni. The attack took place at a bridge close by a picture of the
Madonna, as was judged by the blood found on that spot. We saw the
bridge and the Madonna, but no blood; and I confess I do not understand
the feelings of my driver, who kissed the little chapel with great
emotion, and put some money into the box. If the poor fellow’s life had
been saved I should have comprehended him better. We reached Florence
about three o’clock that afternoon, and I dismissed my driver, whom I
had found very civil and attentive, and I believe very honest, and now I
shall dismiss my letter.
LETTER XXXIX.
MODENA—PARMA—MANTUA—FERRARA.
_Ravenna, 5th August, 1817._
I HAVE already given you an account of the buildings of Florence, and
shall not repeat my criticisms, but rather confine myself to such
subjects as were not suited to the time of year when I was there before.
The Boboli gardens are very beautiful, rather for their external views
than for their interior distribution. They present, I think, the very
finest views of the country about Florence. My visits there in July
were, as you will suppose, much more pleasant than they could have been
in December. The Cascine, the _dairy-farm_ of the grand duke, is also a
very pleasant place; a mixture of grove, thicket, and meadow, extending
along the banks of the Arno. Fiesole I had seen before, and I repeated
my visit more leisurely on this occasion, but the scenery of Tuscany
will bear no comparison with the finer parts of the Roman Apennines. The
little hills, almost all of the same form, are everywhere covered with
olive bushes rather than trees; and though perhaps the country about
Florence is more productive, yet considered as scenery, it is inferior
in richness, in magnificence, and in variety. With regard to Roman
antiquities, the difference, or rather the contrast, is still greater.
The remains of Tusculum are more considerable than all that is seen in
the neighbourhood of Florence, and those form but a small portion of the
objects of that nature about Frescati, which again is poor, compared
with Tivoli, Palestrina, or Albano. Even their boasted Etruscan walls
have by no means the singularity, or the character of antiquity, which
we find in those of Latium. The appearance of the modern city, though
certainly very fine, shrinks before the magnificence of Rome; and when
you view the whitewash and macigno of the churches, you must not recall
to mind the solidity of appearance, and the splendid display of marble,
painting, and gilding, which adorns those of the ancient capital of
Europe. Nothing holds its importance, except the collections of the
Public Gallery, and of the Pitti palace. One of the charms of Rome seems
to consist in its possessing a peculiar expression, from the greatest
and most important particulars, even to the most trifling details.
Everything there is striking and characteristic. The desolate Campagna;
the large uninhabited tract within its walls; and even the large pale
gray oxen, whose horns might almost match those of the Abyssinian
cattle, all contribute to the general effect; and in spite of the
surrounding desolation, there is probably no city in the world which
presents so great a variety of picturesque scenery in its immediate
neighbourhood as Rome; and then every spot belongs to history, and to a
wonderful and interesting history with which we are all acquainted. We
never feel the value of Rome so strongly as in returning to what we
admired before.