rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_7f93dcb3-554e-5f20-b5cc-a9b2931acc17.jpg" alt="enlarge-image"/> “Rome, April 28.—I parted with my kind Miss Wright at Tivoli, and next day returned to Rome in the public omnibus.”[50]
A few days later I left Rome again with Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot Feilden and the Misses Crawford (daughters of Mrs. Terry, and sisters of Marion Crawford) for a tour in the Ciminian Hills, which always comes back to me as a dream of transcendent loveliness.
We left the railway at Civita Castellana, an unspeakably beautiful place, which I drew in the early dewy morning, sitting on the edge of its tremendous rocky gorge, above which Soracte, steeped in violet shadows, rises out of the tender green of the plain. On May-day we ascended Soracte, queen of lovely mountains, mounting gradually from the rich lower slopes into the excelsior of olives, and thence to steeps of bare grey rock, crowned—in the most sublime position—by the ruined monastery of S. Silvestro. It is the most exquisite drive from Civita Castellana, by Nepi, with a great machicolated castle overhanging a foaming waterfall, and Sutri—“the key of Etruria”—with its solemn Roman amphitheatre surrounded by some of the grandest ilexes in the world, to Ronciglione. Hence we visited Caprarola, and I will insert a little extract from “Days near Rome” about this expedition, it reminds me of so wondrously beautiful and delightful a day.
“From the little deep-blue lake of Vico it is a long ascent, and oh! what Italian scenery, quite unspoilt by the English, who never come here now. The road is generally a dusty hollow in the tufa, which, as we pass, is fringed with broom in full flower, and all the little children we meet have made themselves wreaths and gathered long branches of it, and wave them like golden sceptres. Along the brown ridges of thymy tufa by the wayside, flocks of goats are scrambling, chiefly white, but a few black and dun-coloured creatures are mingled with them, mothers with their little dancing elf-like kids, and old bearded patriarchs who love to clamber to the very end of the most inaccessible places, and to stand there embossed against the clear sky, in triumphant quietude. The handsome shepherd dressed in white linen lets them have their own way, and the great rough white dogs only keep a lazy eye upon them as they themselves lie panting and luxuriating in the sunshine. Deep down below us, it seems as if all Italy were opening out, as the mists roll stealthily away, and range after range of delicate mountain distance is discovered. Volscian, Hernican, Sabine, and Alban hills, Soracte nobly beautiful—rising out of the soft quiet lines of the Campagna, and the Tiber winding out of the rich meadow-lands into the desolate wastes, till it is lost from sight before it reaches where a great mysterious dome rises solemnly through the mist, and reminds one of the times when, years ago, in the old happy vetturino days, we used to stop the carriage on this very spot, to have our first sight of St. Peter’s.
“Near a little deserted chapel, a road branches off on the right, a rough stony road enough, which soon descends abruptly through chestnut woods, and then through deep clefts cut in the tufa and overhung by shrubs and flowers, every winding a picture, till in about half-an-hour we arrive at Caprarola. Why do not more people come here? it is so very easy. As we emerge from our rocky way, the wonderful position of the place bursts upon us at once. The grand, tremendous palace stands backed by chestnut woods, which fade into rocky hills, and it looks down from a high-terraced platform upon the little golden-roofed town beneath, and then out upon the whole glorious rainbow-tinted view, in which, as everywhere we have been, lion-like Soracte, couching over the plain, is the most conspicuous feature. The buildings are so vast in themselves, and every line so noble, every architectural idea so stupendous, that one is carried back almost with awe to the recollections of the great-souled Farnese who originated the design, and the grand architect who carried it out. S. Carlo Borromeo, the great patron of idle almsgiving, came hither to see it when it was completed, and complained that so much money had not been given to the poor instead. ‘I have let them have it all little by little,’ said Alessandro Farnese, ‘but I have made them earn it by the sweat of their brows.’
“Are we really in Arcadia, when the old steward opens the door from the dark halls where the Titanic forms of the frescoed figures loom upon us through the gloom, to the garden where the brilliant sunshine is lighting up long grass walks between clipped hedges, adding to the splendour of the flame-coloured marigolds upon the old walls, and even gilding the edges of the dark spires of the cypresses which were planted three hundred years ago? From the upper terraces we enter an ancient wood, carpeted with flowers—yellow orchis, iris, lilies, saxifrage, cyclamen, and Solomon’s seal. And then we pause, for at the end of the avenue we meet with a huge figure of Silence, with his finger on his lips.
“Here an artificial cascade tumbles sparkling down the middle of the hillside path, through a succession of stone basins, and between a number of stone animals, who are sprinkled with its spray, and so we reach an upper garden before the fairy-like casino which was also built by Vignola. Here the turfy solitudes are encircled with a concourse of stone figures in every variety of attitude, a perfect population. Some are standing quietly gazing down upon us, others are playing upon different musical instruments, others are listening. Two Dryads are whispering important secrets to one another in a corner; one impertinent Faun is blowing his horn so loudly into his companion’s ears that he stops them with both his hands. A nymph is about to step down from her pedestal, and will probably take a bath as soon as we are gone, though certainly she need not be shy about it, as drapery is not much the fashion in these sylvan gardens. Above, behind the Casino, is yet another water-sparkling staircase guarded by a vast number of huge lions and griffins, and beyond this all is tangled wood and rocky mountain-side. How we pity the poor King and Queen of Naples, the actual possessors, but who can never come here now. The whole place is like a dream which you wish may never end, and as one gazes through the stony crowd across the green glades to the rosy-hued mountains, one dreads
