DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0589
chap, xxvi.] ITALY AN UNKNOWN LAND. 481
world. Yet the truth is, that vast districts of the
Peninsula, especially in the Tuscan, Roman, and Neapolitan
States, are to the archseologist a terra incognita. Every
monument on the high-roads is familiar, even to the fire-
side traveller; hut how little is known of the bye-ways!
Of the swarms of foreigners who yearly traverse the
country between Florence and Rome, not one in a hundred
leaves the beaten track to visit objects of antiquity ; still
fewer make a journey into the intervening districts
expressly for such a purpose. JSTow and then an excur-
sion is made to Chiusi; or a few may run from Civita
Vecchia to Corneto to visit the painted tombs, but not a
tithe of that small number continue their route to Vulci
or Toscanella—-still fewer to Cosa. Parties occasionally
make a pic-nic to the site of Veii; but considering the
proximity to Rome, the convenience of transit, and the
intense interest of the spot, the number is very limited.
That wide district on the frontiers of the Tuscan and
Roman States, which has been the subject of the last two
chapters, is so rarely trodden by the foot of a traveller,
even of an antiquary, that it can be no matter of surprise
that relics of ancient art should exist there, and be utterly
unknown to the world—gazed at only with stupid astonish-
ment by the peasantry, or else more stupidly unheeded.
In a country almost depopulated by malaria, inhabited
only by shepherds and husbandmen, and never traversed
by the educated and intelligent, the most striking monu-
ments may remain for ages unnoticed. So it was with
the magnificent temples of Paestum. Though they had
reared their mighty columns to the sunbeams for at least
three and twenty centuries, isolated in an open plain
where they were visible for many a league, and standing
on the sea-shore, where they must have served for ages as
a landmark to the mariner ; yet their very existence had
VOL. I. II
world. Yet the truth is, that vast districts of the
Peninsula, especially in the Tuscan, Roman, and Neapolitan
States, are to the archseologist a terra incognita. Every
monument on the high-roads is familiar, even to the fire-
side traveller; hut how little is known of the bye-ways!
Of the swarms of foreigners who yearly traverse the
country between Florence and Rome, not one in a hundred
leaves the beaten track to visit objects of antiquity ; still
fewer make a journey into the intervening districts
expressly for such a purpose. JSTow and then an excur-
sion is made to Chiusi; or a few may run from Civita
Vecchia to Corneto to visit the painted tombs, but not a
tithe of that small number continue their route to Vulci
or Toscanella—-still fewer to Cosa. Parties occasionally
make a pic-nic to the site of Veii; but considering the
proximity to Rome, the convenience of transit, and the
intense interest of the spot, the number is very limited.
That wide district on the frontiers of the Tuscan and
Roman States, which has been the subject of the last two
chapters, is so rarely trodden by the foot of a traveller,
even of an antiquary, that it can be no matter of surprise
that relics of ancient art should exist there, and be utterly
unknown to the world—gazed at only with stupid astonish-
ment by the peasantry, or else more stupidly unheeded.
In a country almost depopulated by malaria, inhabited
only by shepherds and husbandmen, and never traversed
by the educated and intelligent, the most striking monu-
ments may remain for ages unnoticed. So it was with
the magnificent temples of Paestum. Though they had
reared their mighty columns to the sunbeams for at least
three and twenty centuries, isolated in an open plain
where they were visible for many a league, and standing
on the sea-shore, where they must have served for ages as
a landmark to the mariner ; yet their very existence had
VOL. I. II