Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Dennis, George
The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 1) — London, 1848

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0218
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116 CIVITA CASTELLANA. [chap. vi.

which cover it, studded here and there with some tower
or spire shooting up from the foliage—stretches to the
foot of the Ciminian Mount. Ronciglione and Capraruola
gleam in sunshine on its slopes, each beneath one of its
black wooded peaks. The towers of Civita Castellana rise
before him. Towns shine out from the distant mountains
of Umbria. The plain on the right is variegated in hue,
and broken in surface. Soracte towers in dark and lonely
majesty in the midst; and the chain of Apennines in grey
or snow-capped masses billows along the horizon. A
shepherd, shaggy with goat-skins, stands leaning on his
staff, watching the passing traveller; and with his flock
and huge baying dogs, occupies the foreground of the
picture. Just so has Dante beautifully drawn it—

" Le capre
Tacite all' orabra mentre che '1 sol ferve
Guardate dal pastor che 'n su la verga
Poggiato s' e, e lor poggiato serve."—Purg. xxvn. 79.

All in the shade
The goats lie silent, 'neath the fervid noon,
Watched hy the goatherd, who upon his staff
Stands leaning; and thus resting, tendeth them.

But the beauty and calm of the scenery seem at variance
with the minds of the inhabitants, for a stone-piled cross
by the way-side records that here

" Some shrieking victim hath
Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife."

To reach Civita Castellana by this road, you are obliged
to cross the wide and deep ravine which forms its southern
boundary. The high-road, however, continues along the
ridge, approaching the town by level ground, and enters it
beneath the walls of the octagonal fortress—the master-
piece of Sangallo, and the political Bastille of Rome in the
nineteenth century.
 
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