DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55699#0258
THE TEMPLE OF PALLAS.
Quivi teinpio sublime
Sacro all’ eternita con aurea chiave
Vertu gli aprio; quindi spiegd le penne
E luogo in ciel fra gli altri numi ottenne.
Fulvio Testi.
The same doubts have been started by antiquaries re-
specting the proper designation of this temple as of most
others in the eternal city—a title to which, were it not
for the immortality of her people, and the unfading lustre
which memory casts upon the spot, would be less properly
applied to Rome than to any other city of the earth for
where has ruin so wrought her perfect work ? where is
time seen the conqueror and man the victim so clearly
and so awfully as there ? The death of a strong man
fills us with a deeper sense of human frailty than that of
a weaker being; and Rome in ruins—the mightiest and
the proudest monument of the earth crumbled into dust-
makes us feel as if the pillars of the round world itself
were unloosened. The image of eternity seems to have
been raised of adamant to be dissipated in air, and dream-
ing of Rome as clothed in her bridal garments and the
spouse of hundred-throned victory, we wake to tread
upon her ashes, her name only remaining immortal.
Of the almost infinite number of temples which adorned
this city, not a dozen can be said to exist even in ruins;
Quivi teinpio sublime
Sacro all’ eternita con aurea chiave
Vertu gli aprio; quindi spiegd le penne
E luogo in ciel fra gli altri numi ottenne.
Fulvio Testi.
The same doubts have been started by antiquaries re-
specting the proper designation of this temple as of most
others in the eternal city—a title to which, were it not
for the immortality of her people, and the unfading lustre
which memory casts upon the spot, would be less properly
applied to Rome than to any other city of the earth for
where has ruin so wrought her perfect work ? where is
time seen the conqueror and man the victim so clearly
and so awfully as there ? The death of a strong man
fills us with a deeper sense of human frailty than that of
a weaker being; and Rome in ruins—the mightiest and
the proudest monument of the earth crumbled into dust-
makes us feel as if the pillars of the round world itself
were unloosened. The image of eternity seems to have
been raised of adamant to be dissipated in air, and dream-
ing of Rome as clothed in her bridal garments and the
spouse of hundred-throned victory, we wake to tread
upon her ashes, her name only remaining immortal.
Of the almost infinite number of temples which adorned
this city, not a dozen can be said to exist even in ruins;