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.

398/430 (page 352)

absurd shapes. The paths were shut in by walls of box or laurel, with windows, doors, and niches imitating the architecture of palaces. Nero, first and last among the Roman rulers, conceived the notion of the English park. He selected a wild gorge of the Apennines above Subiaco, through which the river Anio forced its way, leaping by three graceful falls into the valley below. By damming it thrice with dams two hundred feet high, he created three mountain lakes, in the manner of the Virginia Water at Windsor, the upper one being over a mile long. The lakes were shadowed by oaks and beeches and overhanging rocks, in the interstices of which grew arborescent ferns. Two fishing lodges, one on either side of the glen, were connected by a bridge spanning the abyss at a prodigious height. One of these lodges, discovered in my presence in 1886, under the monastery of St. Benedict, makes us wonder at its sim¬ plicity. But what perfection in that simplicity! What exquisite wall-paintings, mosaic pavements, and marble incrustrations! We found in the course of the excava¬ tion only one marble statue; but this statue was the first original Greek masterpiece with which I came in contact in my experience as an archaeological explorer. It represents one of the sons of Niobe, struck in the back by the arrow of Apollo, falling on his left knee, and raising his arms as if to shield himself from an¬ other deadly missile. This beautiful figure did not stand alone, but formed part of a vast composition, of twenty or twenty-four, including Niobe, her husband, her sons and daughters with their tutors and governesses, grouped in a picturesque scene, like the compositions one sees in the chapels of the Sacro Monte at Varallo or at Varese. As I have already remarked in Chapter IV, none but