without fufpicion, especially if he had a party in the town, disguised like Pilgrims, to fecure a gate for him; for there have been fometimes to the number of 100000 in a day's time, as it is generally reported. But 'tis probable the veneration for the Holy House, and the horror of an action that would be resented by all the Catholick Princes of Europe, will be as great a fecurity to the place as the strongest fortification. It is indeed an amazing thing to fee fuch a prodigious quantity of riches lye dead, and untouched in the midft of fo much poverty and mifery, as reign on all fides of them. There is no queftion, however, but the Pope would make use of these treasures in cafe of any great calamity that fhould endanger the Holy See; as an unfortunate war with the Turk, or a powerful league among the Proteftants. For I cannot but look on thofe vast heaps of wealth, that are amaffed together in fo many religious places of Italy, as the hidden referves and magazines of the Church, that The would open on any prefling occafion for her laft defence and prefervation. If these riches were all turned into current coin, and employed in commerce, they would make Italy the most flourishing country in Europe. The Cafe of the Holy Houfe is nobly defigned, and executed by the great Masters of Italy, that flourished about a hundred years ago. The Statues of the Sibyls are very finely wrought, each of them in a different air and pofture, as are likewife thofe of the Prophets underneath them. The roof of the treasury is painted with the fame kind of device. There stands at the upper end of it a large Crucifix very much efteemed; the figure of our Saviour reprefents him in his laft agonies of death, and amidst all the ghaftlinefs of the vifage has fomething in it very amiable. The gates of the church are faid to be of Corinthian brafs, with many scripture ftories rifing on them in Baffo Relievo. The Pope's statue, and the fountain by it, would make a noble fhow in a place less beautified with fo many other productions of art. The fpicery, the cellar and its furniture, the great revenues of the convent, with the flory of the Holy House, are too well known to be here infifled upon. Whoever were the first inventors of this Imposture, they feem to have taken the hint of it from the veneration that the old Romans paid to the cottage of Romulus, which stood on mount Capitol, and was repaired from time to time as it fell to decay. Virgil has given a pretty image of this little thatched palace, that reprefents it ftanding in Manlius's time, 327 years after the death of Romulus. In fummo cuftos Tarpeia Manlius arcis High on a rock heroick Manlius stood Æn. L &. Dryden. From Loretto, in my way to Rome, I paffed through Recanati, Macerata, Tolentino, and Foligni. In the laft there is a convent of Nuns called la Contessa, that has in the church an incomparable Madonna of Raphael. At Spoletto, the next town on the road, are fome antiquities. The most remarkable is an Aquæduct of a Gothic structure, that conveys the water from mount St. Francis to Spoletto, which is not to be equalled for its height by any other in Europe. They reckon from the foundation of the loweft arch to the top of it 230 yards. In my way hence to Terni I faw the river Clitumnus, celebrated by fo many of the Poets for a particular quality in its waters of making cattle white that drink of it. The inhabitants of that country have still the fame opinion of it, as I found upon enquiry, and have a great many oxen of a whitish colour to confirm them in it. It is probable this breed was first fettled in the country, and continuing ftill the fame fpecies, has made the inhabitants impute it to a wrong caufe; though they may as well fancy their hogs turn black for fome reason of the fame nature, because there are none in Italy of any other breed. The river Clitumnus, and Mevania that stood on the banks of it, are famous for the herds of victims with which they furnished all Italy. Qua formofa fuo Clitumnus flumina luco There flows Clitumnus through the flow'ry plain; -Patulis Clitumnus in arvis Candentes gelido profundit flumine tauros. Prop. L. 2. Geor. 2. Virg. Sil. Ital. L. 2. Projecta in campis nebulas exhalat inertes, Nec fi vacuet Mevania valles, Pinguior Hifpullâ traheretur taurus et ipfâ A Bull high fed fhould fall the facrifice, Luc. L. I. Id. L. 6. Stat. Syl. L. 1. Juv. Sat. 12. Mr. Congreve, I fhall afterwards have occafion to quote Claudian. Terni is the next town in courfe, formerly called Interamna, for the same reason that a part of Asia was named Mefopotamia. We enter at the gate of the three monuments, fo called, because there stood near it a monument erected to Tacitus the hiftorian, with two others to the Emperors Tacitus and Florianus, all of them natives of the place. These were a few years ago demolished by thunder, and the fragments of them are in the hands of fome Gentlemen of the town. Near the dome I was fhown a fquare marble, inserted in the wall, with the following Infcription. Saluti perpetuæ Augufta Libertatique Publica Populi Romani Genio municipi Anno poft D. CC. IV. Ad Coff Ad Cnejum Domitium Ahenobarbum. providentia Ti. Cæfaris Augufti nati ad Æternitatem Romam nominis fublato hofte perniciofiffimo P. R. Fauftus Titius Liberalis VI. vir iterum. P. S. F. C. that is, pecunia fua fieri curavit. This ftone was probably fet up on occafion of the fall of Sejanus. After the name of Ahenobarbus there is a little furrow in the marble, but fo smooth and well polished, that I should not have taken notice of it had not I feen Coff. at the end of it, by which it is plain there was once the name of another conful, which has been induftriously razed out. Lucius Aruncius Camillus Scribonianus was conful under the reign of * Tiberius, and was afterwards put to death for a confpiracy that he had formed against the Emperor Claudius; at which time is was ordered that his name and confulate fhould be effaced out of all publick registers and infcriptions. It is not therefore improbable, that it was this long name which filled up the gap I am now mentioning. There are near this monument the ruines of an ancient Theatre, with fome of the caves entire. I faw among the ruines an old heathen altar, with this particularity in it, that it is hollowed, like a difh, at one end; but it was not this end on which the facrifice was laid, as one may guefs from the make of the feftoon, that runs round the altar, and is inverted when the hollow ftands uppermoft. In the fame yard, among the rubbish of the Theatre, lye two pillars, the one of granate, and the other of a very beautiful marble. I went out of my way to fee the famous Cafcade about three miles from Terni. It is formed by the fall of the river Velino, which Virgil mentions in the feventh Eneid-Rofea rura Velini. The channel of this river lyes very high, and is shaded on all fides by a green forest, made up of feveral kinds of trees that preferve their verdure all the year. The neighbouring mountains are covered with them, and, by reafon of their height, are more expofed to the dews and drizzling rains than any of the adjacent parts, which gives occafion to Virgil's Rofea rura, (dewy countries.) The river runs extremely rapid before its fall, and rushes down a precipice of a hundred yards high. It throws it felf into the hollow of a rock, which has probably been worn by fuch a conflant fall of water. It is impoffible to fee the bottom on which it breaks for the thickness of the mift that rifes from it, which looks at a distance like clouds of fmoak ascending from fome vaft furnace, and diftils in Vid. Faft. Conful. Sicul. #perpetual perpetual rains on all the places that lye near it. I think there is fomething more aftonishing in this Cafcade, than in all the water-works of Verfailles, and could not but wonder when I first saw it, that I had never met with it in any of the old Poets, especially in Claudian, who makes his Emperor Honorius go out of his way to fee the river Nar which runs just below it, and yet does not mention what would have been so great an embelishment to his Poem. But at present I do not in the leaft queftion, notwithstanding the opinion of fome learned men to the contrary, that this is the gulf through which Virgil's Alecto fhoots her felf into Hell: For the very place, the great reputation of it, the fall of waters, the woods that encompass it, with the fmoke and noife that arife from it, are all pointed at in the defcription. Perhaps he would not mention the name of the river, because he has done it in the verses that precede. We may add to this, that the Cascade is not far off that part of Italy, which has been call'd Italia Meditullium. Eft locus Italia medio, fub montibus altis, An arm arifeth of the Stygian flood; Which falling from on high, with bellowing found Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell, Æn. 7. Here hides her hated head, and frees the lab'ring skies. Dryden. |