DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0144
128 FIESOLE. [chap, xxxviii.
the name of "the Etruscan Palace;" but to the Ciceroni
on these sites no more credit should be given than to the
"drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania." In the garden
above the house, attached to the ground in which the
Theatre lies, are some fragments of masonry, running at
right angles with the city-walls below, and probably of the
same origin ; and hard by is an underground vault lined
with small masonry, and covered with horizontal flags.
In the Borgo Unto is a curious fountain, called " Fonte
Sotterra." You enter a Gothic archway, and descend a
vaulted passage by a long flight of steps to a cave cut in
the rock, bearing marks of the chisel on its walls. Here
I was stopped by the water; but when this is at a
lower level, you reach a long shapeless gallery, hewn
in the rock, and ending in a little reservoir, similarly
hollowed, but for what purpose is hard to say.8 Inghirami,
indeed, imagined it might have been formed to catch the
waters which, percolating through the ground, descended
" in an eternal shower of gentle rain" into the reservoir.9
But who ever heard of such a fountain ? and cui bono,
when there is manifestly a spring on the spot % The water
is extremely pure, supplying the whole neighbourhood, and
evidently wells up from below, as its height varies at
different times, little affected by rain or drought. I have
found it even higher in summer than in winter, after the
melting of snow and the fall of heavy rains. It very rarely
happens that it sinks low enough to permit a descent to
the bottom of the passage. Such an event, however,
8 You first reach, says Inghirami, a mount. Its length is ISO French feet,
large hollow like a quarry, the floor of if the plans given of it be correct, and
which slopes in two ways towards an- its entire inclination from the threshold
other entrance, in which commences a of the entrance to the bottom of the
gallery of great length, but not regular steep passage is about 50 feet,
throughout, and sinking from north to 9 Guida di Fiesole, p. 56.
south, following the upper slope of the
the name of "the Etruscan Palace;" but to the Ciceroni
on these sites no more credit should be given than to the
"drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania." In the garden
above the house, attached to the ground in which the
Theatre lies, are some fragments of masonry, running at
right angles with the city-walls below, and probably of the
same origin ; and hard by is an underground vault lined
with small masonry, and covered with horizontal flags.
In the Borgo Unto is a curious fountain, called " Fonte
Sotterra." You enter a Gothic archway, and descend a
vaulted passage by a long flight of steps to a cave cut in
the rock, bearing marks of the chisel on its walls. Here
I was stopped by the water; but when this is at a
lower level, you reach a long shapeless gallery, hewn
in the rock, and ending in a little reservoir, similarly
hollowed, but for what purpose is hard to say.8 Inghirami,
indeed, imagined it might have been formed to catch the
waters which, percolating through the ground, descended
" in an eternal shower of gentle rain" into the reservoir.9
But who ever heard of such a fountain ? and cui bono,
when there is manifestly a spring on the spot % The water
is extremely pure, supplying the whole neighbourhood, and
evidently wells up from below, as its height varies at
different times, little affected by rain or drought. I have
found it even higher in summer than in winter, after the
melting of snow and the fall of heavy rains. It very rarely
happens that it sinks low enough to permit a descent to
the bottom of the passage. Such an event, however,
8 You first reach, says Inghirami, a mount. Its length is ISO French feet,
large hollow like a quarry, the floor of if the plans given of it be correct, and
which slopes in two ways towards an- its entire inclination from the threshold
other entrance, in which commences a of the entrance to the bottom of the
gallery of great length, but not regular steep passage is about 50 feet,
throughout, and sinking from north to 9 Guida di Fiesole, p. 56.
south, following the upper slope of the