DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68272#0210
192
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
spray. The morning sun, rising from behind the massive block of the palace, streams down with
silvery magic. Hours might pass before, with reluctant steps, the visitor found his way down
the line of the main axis and out on to the narrow side street, characteristic of Tivoli, the rough
road that will lead down to the great Imperial Villa in the plain, which was both a quarry
of artistic ideas as well as of materials to the men of the Renaissance. A. T. B.
The story of the fallen condition of Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, and its revival in the sixteenth
century, are proclaimed in a Latin oration of the poet Mureto, which runs almost literally :
Years came and went, that joy of other days,
Tibur, lay ruined, lost her old-world praise.
Gone were her streams and orchards, gone the last,
The stately footprints of her buried past.
Those scenes so oft the theme of classic lay,
Mouldered, unkempt, unsightly in decay,
Weeping their vanish’d joys, her sylvan daughters,
Wandered by mourning Anio’s fainting waters.
A wayfarer in Tibur’s heart might stand,
And, “where is Tibur ? ” cry; so marr’d the land.
That godlike soul, the sacred choir’s delight,
Hypolytus brooked not so sad a sight.
He bade the woodlands dress once more in green,
With far-flung leafage, wandering o’er the scene.
He bade fresh well-springs ooze from out the hills,
And in a breath, forth leapt the new-born rills.
Saved from the wreck of Time, hail the escape
Of marbles fair, to Phidias owing shape.
Brow bound with olive wan, joyful once more,
Anio pours wealth into the common store.
Well may those hallowed rills, these woodlands vie,
In wafting one great name into the sky-
List to the breezes, murmuring along,
“ Hypolytus ” is still their tuneful song.
The classics are full of the fame and prosperity of Tivoli in the days when Augustus held
summer court in the mountains and Horace entertained at his villa ; but all these glories
200.—THE TEMPLE OF VESTA AT TIVOLI.
THE GARDENS OF ITALY.
spray. The morning sun, rising from behind the massive block of the palace, streams down with
silvery magic. Hours might pass before, with reluctant steps, the visitor found his way down
the line of the main axis and out on to the narrow side street, characteristic of Tivoli, the rough
road that will lead down to the great Imperial Villa in the plain, which was both a quarry
of artistic ideas as well as of materials to the men of the Renaissance. A. T. B.
The story of the fallen condition of Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, and its revival in the sixteenth
century, are proclaimed in a Latin oration of the poet Mureto, which runs almost literally :
Years came and went, that joy of other days,
Tibur, lay ruined, lost her old-world praise.
Gone were her streams and orchards, gone the last,
The stately footprints of her buried past.
Those scenes so oft the theme of classic lay,
Mouldered, unkempt, unsightly in decay,
Weeping their vanish’d joys, her sylvan daughters,
Wandered by mourning Anio’s fainting waters.
A wayfarer in Tibur’s heart might stand,
And, “where is Tibur ? ” cry; so marr’d the land.
That godlike soul, the sacred choir’s delight,
Hypolytus brooked not so sad a sight.
He bade the woodlands dress once more in green,
With far-flung leafage, wandering o’er the scene.
He bade fresh well-springs ooze from out the hills,
And in a breath, forth leapt the new-born rills.
Saved from the wreck of Time, hail the escape
Of marbles fair, to Phidias owing shape.
Brow bound with olive wan, joyful once more,
Anio pours wealth into the common store.
Well may those hallowed rills, these woodlands vie,
In wafting one great name into the sky-
List to the breezes, murmuring along,
“ Hypolytus ” is still their tuneful song.
The classics are full of the fame and prosperity of Tivoli in the days when Augustus held
summer court in the mountains and Horace entertained at his villa ; but all these glories
200.—THE TEMPLE OF VESTA AT TIVOLI.