DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.846#0071
68 Gotirbillon's Travels in Sicily, in 1819.
cydides suppose them to be artificial excavations formed for the
purposes of prisons. Diodorus, and others, think that although
they iniiiiit afterwards be applied to those purposes, they were
originally formed by excavating the stone with which the four
divisions of the city were constructed.
. Steep rocks, worked by the hand of man, of an extraordi-
nary height, enormous pillars, supporting vaulted roofs of an
equal magnitude; bridges and arches suspended in the air;
aqueducts, subterraneous passages, canals, wells, grottos, and
deep caverns, into which the day never penetrates, and into
which the air with difficulty insinuates itself; masses of shapes
less rock cast one above another, like the ruins of primitive
chaos; walls eaten by time, and swelling waters, such is the
first view of the quarries of Syracuse!
These quarries, of various sizes, and more or less curious,
are distributed through the towns, or, rather, through the soil
which the three towns of Achradina, Tyche, and Neapolis oc^
cupied. They are twelve in number. In one of these I)iony-
sius imprisoned Philoxenus, the author of a certain satirical
poem called the Cyclope, of which it was supposed the prince
was the hero.
The Great Quarry of Achradina, or of the Wood of the
Capuchins.
Several writers speak of this excavation with an air of dis*
dain, and Capodieci himself only mentions it to inform poster
rity that, in 1548, the pretended prison of Dionysius was given
by the university of Syracuse to a set of capuchins, who had
fallen, I know not how, into the city. Yet this quarry, so des-
pised by the ungrateful natives, is precisely the one which
Brydone* admires the most, and of which he has painted the
most rare, the most beautiful, the most unheard-of, and the
longest picture a-la-Radcliffe. It is not my object to describe
places after him ; he has done the thing so completely, that
lie has left nothing for others to say, except the truth. He
has taken the quarry into bis own hands; he has kneaded it
to his own shape ; he has placed there such rare curiosities and
such admirably beautiful things—such splendid and unheard-
of objects—that, once transported into his book, the situation
has absolutely changed its nature, and the garden of the Capu-
chins becomes the gardens of Armida ! Not being able, like
him, to deal in poetic amplification, I can only represent
things as they actually appeared to my eyes.
$ A Tour through Sicily, Letter vn.
cydides suppose them to be artificial excavations formed for the
purposes of prisons. Diodorus, and others, think that although
they iniiiiit afterwards be applied to those purposes, they were
originally formed by excavating the stone with which the four
divisions of the city were constructed.
. Steep rocks, worked by the hand of man, of an extraordi-
nary height, enormous pillars, supporting vaulted roofs of an
equal magnitude; bridges and arches suspended in the air;
aqueducts, subterraneous passages, canals, wells, grottos, and
deep caverns, into which the day never penetrates, and into
which the air with difficulty insinuates itself; masses of shapes
less rock cast one above another, like the ruins of primitive
chaos; walls eaten by time, and swelling waters, such is the
first view of the quarries of Syracuse!
These quarries, of various sizes, and more or less curious,
are distributed through the towns, or, rather, through the soil
which the three towns of Achradina, Tyche, and Neapolis oc^
cupied. They are twelve in number. In one of these I)iony-
sius imprisoned Philoxenus, the author of a certain satirical
poem called the Cyclope, of which it was supposed the prince
was the hero.
The Great Quarry of Achradina, or of the Wood of the
Capuchins.
Several writers speak of this excavation with an air of dis*
dain, and Capodieci himself only mentions it to inform poster
rity that, in 1548, the pretended prison of Dionysius was given
by the university of Syracuse to a set of capuchins, who had
fallen, I know not how, into the city. Yet this quarry, so des-
pised by the ungrateful natives, is precisely the one which
Brydone* admires the most, and of which he has painted the
most rare, the most beautiful, the most unheard-of, and the
longest picture a-la-Radcliffe. It is not my object to describe
places after him ; he has done the thing so completely, that
lie has left nothing for others to say, except the truth. He
has taken the quarry into bis own hands; he has kneaded it
to his own shape ; he has placed there such rare curiosities and
such admirably beautiful things—such splendid and unheard-
of objects—that, once transported into his book, the situation
has absolutely changed its nature, and the garden of the Capu-
chins becomes the gardens of Armida ! Not being able, like
him, to deal in poetic amplification, I can only represent
things as they actually appeared to my eyes.
$ A Tour through Sicily, Letter vn.