DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0325
308 SATURNIA. [chap. xlix.
The modern Saturnia is the representative of the ancient
merely in name. It occupies but a fractional part of the
original area, and is a miserable "luoghettaccio" with a
church and some score of hovels, and only one decent
house—that of the Marchese Panciatichi Ximenes, a noble
of Aragonese blood, whose family has possessed this manor
for the last two hundred and fifty years. It were folly to
expect an inn in such a hamlet. There is indeed what is
called an osteria, but a peep within it confirmed all I had
heard of its horrors, and determined me to effect a lodge-
ment in the palace. This was no difficult matter. The
fattore, or agent of the Marchese, readily agreed to accom-
modate me ; and the heifer being offered, as Sancho would
say, I was not long in fetching a rope—
Quando se diere la vaquilla
Corre con la soguilla.
Moreover he furnished me with a guide to the antiquities
—one Domenico Lepri, whom I can recommend to future
visitors.
The form of the ancient city is an irregular rhomboid,
the angles facing the cardinal points. It may be rather
more than two miles in circuit,2 its extent being deter-
mined by the character of the ground, which breaks into
cliffs at the top of the cone. In this respect also Saturnia
resembles Orvieto, and differs from Cosa and Rusellse,
which have no cliffs. The existing fortifications were
erected on the ruins of the ancient in the fifteenth cen-
tury, and are evidently prior to the use of artillery.3
2 Sir E,. C. Hoare calls the circuit never seen a plan of Saturnia, and regret
three miles (Classical Tour, I. p. 52), that I did not measure it myself,
but that is certainly an overstatement. 'In a few parts are remains of
It can scarcely be the two miles and a Roman work—opus incertum and reti-
half which Santi ascribes to it. Viaggio, culatum—the repairs of the still earlier
p. 88, cited by Muller, I. 3, 3. I have fortifications.
The modern Saturnia is the representative of the ancient
merely in name. It occupies but a fractional part of the
original area, and is a miserable "luoghettaccio" with a
church and some score of hovels, and only one decent
house—that of the Marchese Panciatichi Ximenes, a noble
of Aragonese blood, whose family has possessed this manor
for the last two hundred and fifty years. It were folly to
expect an inn in such a hamlet. There is indeed what is
called an osteria, but a peep within it confirmed all I had
heard of its horrors, and determined me to effect a lodge-
ment in the palace. This was no difficult matter. The
fattore, or agent of the Marchese, readily agreed to accom-
modate me ; and the heifer being offered, as Sancho would
say, I was not long in fetching a rope—
Quando se diere la vaquilla
Corre con la soguilla.
Moreover he furnished me with a guide to the antiquities
—one Domenico Lepri, whom I can recommend to future
visitors.
The form of the ancient city is an irregular rhomboid,
the angles facing the cardinal points. It may be rather
more than two miles in circuit,2 its extent being deter-
mined by the character of the ground, which breaks into
cliffs at the top of the cone. In this respect also Saturnia
resembles Orvieto, and differs from Cosa and Rusellse,
which have no cliffs. The existing fortifications were
erected on the ruins of the ancient in the fifteenth cen-
tury, and are evidently prior to the use of artillery.3
2 Sir E,. C. Hoare calls the circuit never seen a plan of Saturnia, and regret
three miles (Classical Tour, I. p. 52), that I did not measure it myself,
but that is certainly an overstatement. 'In a few parts are remains of
It can scarcely be the two miles and a Roman work—opus incertum and reti-
half which Santi ascribes to it. Viaggio, culatum—the repairs of the still earlier
p. 88, cited by Muller, I. 3, 3. I have fortifications.