Wanderings in the Roman Campagna / by Rodolfo Lanciani.

  • Rodolfo Lanciani
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wanderings in the Roman Campagna / by Rodolfo Lanciani. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    376/430 (page 330)
    Terracina, east of the mouth of the Tiber, and from Porto to Palo westward, until lately were considered as highly beneficial to Rome. Hence their name of “ Boschi saeri del Lazio, ” and hence the vigilant care with which the government of the Popes watched over their welfare. This popular belief in the anti-malarious properties of the Boschi saeri is thus upheld by an English lover of the Campagna at the beginning of last century: “As most of the winds blow at no considerable height, and pass the woods of Ariano, La Fajola, Astura, Nettuno, Ostia, and Monterano, they leave on their passage a great portion of the noxious exhalations and malignant vapors and become much more pure before they arrive at Rome. . . . On this account, though, as is well known, the cypress, oak, chestnut, and some other trees exhale vapors which are not esteemed salubrious (!), there are many plants, shrubs, and trees, native of this soil, which contribute greatly by their effluvia to the purification of the atmosphere, and even those above mentioned inter¬ cept and absorb much of the mephitic air, on account of their high and thick foliage. ” 1 The same author thus speaks of the winds and breezes prevailing on this coast: “For a considerable part of the year the pre¬ dominating winds are the Sirocco and the Tramontana; the first oppressive and relaxing, the other delicious to people of good health. Its elastic quality animates all nature and clears the sky from every cloud and vapor, and brings the minutest and farthest details of the land¬ scape into clear relief; but in winter it is rather danger¬ ous. Saliceti, the physician to Pope Pius VI, used to say, ‘ Scirocco e un amico noioso; tramontana e nemica micidiale.’ The ponente or west wind, which rises about 10 or 11 a. M. in the late spring and summer months, and 1 Description of Latium, p. 5.