Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 3): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

320

CLASSICAL TOUR

Ch. VIII.

The Sanguineto, when we passed it, was the dry
bed of a torrent, lined with vines above the
road; and below it, toward the lake, shaded with
poplars.
About two miles farther we turned from the
lake, and began to ascend the bold wooded hill
of Gualandro. From its summit we enjoyed a
beautiful and extensive view; behind, of the
lake, its islands, and its wooded borders; and
before, of the plain of Arezzo, the Valle de
Chiana, and the hills of Viterbo, with the trun-
cated cone of Monte Pulciano. This wide and
varied view was lighted by the richest and softest
tints of an Italian summer’s evening. Descend-
ing the declivity we passed through the village
of Ossaia, said, like the Fossa del Sanguine, to
take its name from the slaughter of the battle,
and from the bones dug up by the» peasantry in
the neighboring fields. An inscription over the
door of a house announces the*’origin of the name
in the following lines, not very classical but in-
telligible enough.
Nomen habet locus hie Ossaia, ab ossibus illis
Quae dolus Annibalis fudit ethasta simul.
On entering the Tuscan territory we were
stopped for a minute by an officer of the customs,
the most polite and most disinterested of the pro-