DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0149
chap, xxxvih.] LA BADIA—INGHIRAMI. 133
and divided its territory among his officers.5 Still later it
was made the head-quarters of Catiline's conspirators, and
actively espoused his cause.6 We learn from a statement
of Pliny, that it must have retained the right of Roman
citizenship in the reign of Augustus.7 It was besieged and
taken by the troops of Belisarius, A.D. 539. At what
period it gave birth to Florence, which, rather than the
paltry village on the hill, must be regarded as the repre-
sentative of the ancient Fsesulae, is a matter of dispute;
some thinking it as early as the time of Sylla, and that his
colonists removed from the steep and inconvenient height
to the fertile plain ;8 others regarding it to have been at a
later date. It is certain, however, that Florence existed
as a colony under the Romans. The principal emigration
from Fsesulae to Florence seems to have taken place in the
middle ages.
One of the attractions of Fiesole was, till of late, La
Badia, a quaint old abbey at the foot of the hill, long the
residence of the Cavalier Francesco Inghirami, the patri-
arch of Etruscan antiquaries, whose profound learning and
untiring research had won him an European renown.
When I had the honour of making his acquaintance he was
suffering from that illness from which he never recovered;
yet his mind was active as ever; even then his pen was
not idle, or he relaxed it only to exchange it for the pencil.
He was not only the author; he was also the printer, the
publisher, and even the illustrator of his own works. It
may not be generally known, that he drew with his own
hand the numerous plates of all the voluminous works he
s Cicero, in Catil. II. 9 ; III. 6; pro " Plin. VII. 11. Pliny (III. 8) and
Murena, 24. Ptolemy (Geog. p. 72) mention Fsesute
6 Sallust. Bell. Cat. 24, 27, 30, 43. among the inland colonies of Etruria.
Appian. Bell. Cir. II. 3. Cicero, pro 8 Inghirami, Guida di Fiesole, p. 24.
Murena, 24.
and divided its territory among his officers.5 Still later it
was made the head-quarters of Catiline's conspirators, and
actively espoused his cause.6 We learn from a statement
of Pliny, that it must have retained the right of Roman
citizenship in the reign of Augustus.7 It was besieged and
taken by the troops of Belisarius, A.D. 539. At what
period it gave birth to Florence, which, rather than the
paltry village on the hill, must be regarded as the repre-
sentative of the ancient Fsesulae, is a matter of dispute;
some thinking it as early as the time of Sylla, and that his
colonists removed from the steep and inconvenient height
to the fertile plain ;8 others regarding it to have been at a
later date. It is certain, however, that Florence existed
as a colony under the Romans. The principal emigration
from Fsesulae to Florence seems to have taken place in the
middle ages.
One of the attractions of Fiesole was, till of late, La
Badia, a quaint old abbey at the foot of the hill, long the
residence of the Cavalier Francesco Inghirami, the patri-
arch of Etruscan antiquaries, whose profound learning and
untiring research had won him an European renown.
When I had the honour of making his acquaintance he was
suffering from that illness from which he never recovered;
yet his mind was active as ever; even then his pen was
not idle, or he relaxed it only to exchange it for the pencil.
He was not only the author; he was also the printer, the
publisher, and even the illustrator of his own works. It
may not be generally known, that he drew with his own
hand the numerous plates of all the voluminous works he
s Cicero, in Catil. II. 9 ; III. 6; pro " Plin. VII. 11. Pliny (III. 8) and
Murena, 24. Ptolemy (Geog. p. 72) mention Fsesute
6 Sallust. Bell. Cat. 24, 27, 30, 43. among the inland colonies of Etruria.
Appian. Bell. Cir. II. 3. Cicero, pro 8 Inghirami, Guida di Fiesole, p. 24.
Murena, 24.