we delayed visiting tivoli, frescati, and albano, till our return from naples.
the campagna is an uninhabited plain, surrounding the city of rome, bounded on one side by the sea, and on the other by an amphitheatre of hills, crowned with towns, villages, and villas, which form the finest landscapes that can be imagined. the ancient romans were wont to seek shelter from the scorching heats of summer, among the woods and lakes of those hills; and the cardinals and roman princes, at the same season, retire to their villas; while many of the wealthier sort of citizens take lodgings in the villages, during the season of gathering the vines.
on the road from rome to tivoli, about three miles from the latter, strangers are desired to visit a kind of lake called solfatara formerly lakus albulus, and there shown certain substances, to which they give the name of floating islands. they are nothing else than bunches of bullrushes, springing from a thin soil, formed by dust and sand blown from the adjacent ground, and glued together by the bitumen which swims on the surface of this lake, and the sulphur with which its waters are impregnated. some of these islands are twelve or fifteen yards in length; the soil is sufficiently strong to bear five or six people, who, by the means of a pole, may move to different parts of the lake, as if they were in a boat. this lake empties itself, by a whitish, muddy stream, into the teverone, the ancient anio; a vapour, of a sulphureous smell, arising from it as it flows. the ground near this rivulet, as also around the borders of the lake, resounds, as if it were hollow, when a horse gallops[320] over it. the water of this lake has the singular quality of covering every substance which it touches with a hard, white, stoney matter. on throwing a bundle of small sticks or shrubs into it, they will, in a few days, be covered with a white crust; but, what seems still more extraordinary, this encrustating quality is not so strong in the lake itself, as in the canal, or little rivulet that runs from it; and the farther the water has flowed from the lake, till it is quite lost in the anio, the stronger this quality is. those small, round encrustations, which cover the sand and pebbles, resembling sugar-plums, are called confetti di tivoli. fishes are found in the anio, both above and below tivoli, till it receives the albula; after which, during the rest of its course to the tiber, there are none. the waters of this lake had a high medical reputation anciently, but they are in no esteem at present.
near the bottom of the eminence on which tivoli stands, are the ruins of the[321] vast and magnificent villa built by the emperor adrian. in this were comprehended an amphitheatre, several temples, a library, a circus, a naumachia. the emperor also gave to the buildings and gardens of this famous villa the names of the most celebrated places; as the academia, the lyc?um, the prytaneum of athens, the tempe of thessaly, and the elysian fields and infernal regions of the poets. there were also commodious apartments for a vast number of guests, all admirably distributed with baths, and every conveniency. every quarter of the world contributed to ornament this famous villa, whose spoils have since formed the principal ornaments of the campidoglio, the vatican, and the palaces of the roman princes. it is said to have been three miles in length, and above a mile in breadth. some antiquarians make it much larger; but the ruins, now remaining, do not mark a surface of a quarter of that extent.
at no great distance, they shew the place to which the eastern queen zenobia was confined, after she was brought in triumph to rome by the emperor aurelian.
the town of tivoli is now wretchedly poor; it boasts however greater antiquity than rome itself, being the ancient tibur, which, horace informs us, was founded by a grecian colony.
tibur arg?o positum colono
sit me? sedes utinam senect?.
ovid gives it the same origin, in the fourth book of the fasti.
——jam m?nia tiburis udi
stabant; argolic? quod posuere manus.
this was a populous and flourishing town in remoter antiquity; but it appears to have been thinly inhabited in the reign of augustus. horace, in an epistle to m?cenas, says,
parvum parva decent. mihi jam non regia roma,
sed vacuum tibur placet——
though the town itself was not populous, the beauty of the situation, and wholesomeness of the air, prompted great numbers of illustrious romans, both before the final destruction of the republic, and afterwards in augustus’s time, to build country-houses in the neighbourhood. julius c?sar had a villa here, which he was under the necessity of selling to defray the expence of the public shews and games he exhibited to the people during his ?dileship. plutarch says, that his liberality and magnificence, on this occasion, obscured the glory of all who had preceded him in the office, and gained the hearts of the people to such a degree, that they were ready to invent new offices and new honours for him. he then laid the foundation of that power and popularity, which enabled him, in the end, to overturn the constitution of his country. caius cassius had also a country house here; where marcus brutus and he are said to have had frequent meetings, and to have formed the plan which terminated[324] the ambition of c?sar, and again offered to rome that freedom which she had not the virtue to accept. here, also, was the villa of augustus, whose success in life arose at the field of philippi from which he fled, was confirmed by the death of the most virtuous citizens of rome, and who, without the talents, reaped the fruits of the labours and vast projects of julius. lepidus the triumvir, c?cilius metellus, quintilius varus, the poets catullus and propertius, and other distinguished romans, had villas in this town or its environs; and you are shewn the spots on which they stood; but nothing renders tibur so interesting, as the frequent mention which horace makes of it in his writings. his great patron and friend m?cenas had a villa here, the ruins of which are to be seen on the south bank of the anio; and it was pretty generally supposed, that the poet’s own house and farm were very near it, and immediately without the walls of tibur; but it has been of late asserted,[325] with great probability, that horace’s farm was situated nine miles above that of m?cenas’s, at the side of a stream called licenza, formerly digentia, near the hill lucretilis, in the country of the ancient sabines. those who hold this opinion say, that when horace talks of tibur, he alludes to the villa of m?cenas; but when he mentions digentia, or lucretilis, his own house and farm are to be understood; as in the eighteenth epistle of the first book,
me quoties resicit gelidus digentia rivus,
quem mandela bibit, rugosus frigore pagus;
quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice, precari?
the seventeenth ode of the first book,
velox am?num s?pe lucretilem
mutat lyc?o faunus;——
and in other passages. but whether the poet’s house and farm were near the town of tibur, or at a distance from it, his writings sufficiently show that he spent much of his time there; and it is probable that he composed great part of his works in that[326] favourite retreat. this he himself in some measure declares, in that fine ode addressed to julius antonius, son of mark antony, by fulvia; the same whom augustus first pardoned, and afterwards put privately to death, on account of an intrigue into which antonius was seduced by the abandoned julia, daughter of augustus.
——ego, apis matin?
more modoque,
grata carpentis thyma per laborem
plurimum, circa nemus uvidique
tiburis ripas, operosa parvus
carmina fingo.
if you ever come to tivoli, let it not be with a numerous party; come alone, or with a single friend, and be sure to put your horace in your pocket. you will read him here with more enthusiasm than elsewhere; you will imagine you see the philosophic poet wandering among the groves, sometimes calmly meditating his moral precepts, and sometimes his eye in a fine frenzy rolling with all the fire of poetic[327] enthusiasm. if tivoli had nothing else to recommend it but its being so often sung by the most elegant of the poets, and its having been the residence of so many illustrious men, these circumstances alone would render it worthy the attention of travellers; but it will also be interesting to many on account of its cascade, the sibyl’s temple, and the villa estense.
the river anio, deriving its source from a part of the apennines, fifty miles above tivoli, glides through a plain till it comes near that town, when it is confined for a short space between two hills, covered with groves. these were supposed to have been the residence of the sibyl albunea, to whom the temple was dedicated. the river, moving with augmented rapidity as its channel is confined, at length rushes headlong over a lofty precipice; the noise of its fall resounds through the hills and groves of tivoli; a liquid cloud arises from the foaming water, which afterwards divides[328] into numberless small cascades, waters several orchards, and, having gained the plain, flows quietly for the rest of its course, till it loses itself in the tiber. it is not surprising that the following lines have been so often quoted by those who visit the sibyl’s temple, because they delineate, in the most expressive manner, some of the principal features of the country around it,
me nec tam patiens laced?mon,
nec tam lariss? percussit campus opim?,
quam domus albune? resonantis,
et pr?ceps anio, et tiburni lucus, et uda
mobilibus pomaria rivis.
the elegant and graceful form of the beautiful little temple i have so often mentioned, indicates its having been built when the arts were in the highest state of perfection at rome. its proportions are not more happy than its situation, on a point of the mountain fronting the great cascade.
before they take their leave of tivoli, strangers usually visit the villa estense, belonging to the duke of modena. it was[329] built by hippolitus of este, cardinal of ferrara, and brother to the duke of that name; but more distinguished by being the person to whom ariosto addressed his poem of orlando furioso. the house itself is not in the finest style of architecture. there are many whimsical waterworks in the gardens. those who do not approve of the taste of their construction, still owe them some degree of respect, on account of their being the first grand waterworks in europe; much more ancient than those of versailles. the situation is noble, the terraces lofty, the trees large and venerable; and though the ground is not laid out to the greatest advantage, yet the whole has a striking air of magnificence and grandeur.
