DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0211
109
CHAPTER V.
NEPL—NEPETE.
" Remnants of things that have passed away."—Bybon.
If on reaching the Guglia, or sign-post, beyond Monte-
rosi, instead of taking the road to Ronciglione and "Firenze,"
the traveller follow the more holy track of "Loreto," three
short miles will carry him to Nepi. Let him remark the
scenery on the road. He has left the open wastes of
the Campagna and entered a wooded district. It is one of
the few portions of central Italy that will remind him, if an
Englishman, of home. Those sweeps of bright green sward
—those stately wide-armed oaks scattered over it, singly,
or in clumps—those cattle feeding in the shade—those
neat hedge-rows, made up of maples, hawthorns, and
brambles, with fern below, and clematis, dog-roses, and
honeysuckles above ; they are the very brothers of those in
Merry England. The whole forms a lively imitation of—
what is most rare on the Continent—English park-scenery;
and it requires no stretch of fancy to conceive himself
journeying through Surrey or Devonshire.
The first view of Nepi dispels the illusion. It is a quaint-
looking town. A line of crumbling wall, laden with machi-
colated battlements, and a massive castle within rising high
above it, would give it the appearance of a fortress, were
it not for the square red tower of the cathedral with its
white pyramid of a spire, shooting high and bright into
the deep blue sky. Behind it soars Soracte, its serrated
CHAPTER V.
NEPL—NEPETE.
" Remnants of things that have passed away."—Bybon.
If on reaching the Guglia, or sign-post, beyond Monte-
rosi, instead of taking the road to Ronciglione and "Firenze,"
the traveller follow the more holy track of "Loreto," three
short miles will carry him to Nepi. Let him remark the
scenery on the road. He has left the open wastes of
the Campagna and entered a wooded district. It is one of
the few portions of central Italy that will remind him, if an
Englishman, of home. Those sweeps of bright green sward
—those stately wide-armed oaks scattered over it, singly,
or in clumps—those cattle feeding in the shade—those
neat hedge-rows, made up of maples, hawthorns, and
brambles, with fern below, and clematis, dog-roses, and
honeysuckles above ; they are the very brothers of those in
Merry England. The whole forms a lively imitation of—
what is most rare on the Continent—English park-scenery;
and it requires no stretch of fancy to conceive himself
journeying through Surrey or Devonshire.
The first view of Nepi dispels the illusion. It is a quaint-
looking town. A line of crumbling wall, laden with machi-
colated battlements, and a massive castle within rising high
above it, would give it the appearance of a fortress, were
it not for the square red tower of the cathedral with its
white pyramid of a spire, shooting high and bright into
the deep blue sky. Behind it soars Soracte, its serrated