DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55699#0293
TIVOLI.
237
these form a succession of landscapes, superior in the
delight produced to the richest cabinet of Claude’s. Ti-
voli cannot be described : no true portrait of it exists :
all views alter and embellish it: they are poetical trans-
lations of the matchless original.”
Amongst the antiquities of Tivoli are some extensive
ruins near the town, which have received the name of
the villa of Maecenas. They are beautifully situated on
the highest ridge of the heights, and present, on the one
side, a view of Rome in the distance, and on the other
the Teverone with its magnificent rocks and falls. The
ruins are remarkable for the range of lofty doric arcades
which they display, and which add greatly to the beauty
of a scene which attracted the admiration and employed
the pencil of Wilson. All the remains of the Tiburtine
villas have been appropriated, by the ingenuity of an-
tiquarians and guides, to various classical owners, and
the traveller is conducted to the villas of Lepidus, of
Archias, and of Propertius, without the expression of a
doubt with regard to the proprietorship. A few of the
ancient edifices have a better title to the names which
they enjoy, as the villa of Quintilius Varus, still called
Quintiliana, and celebrated in the verse of Horace :
Nullam, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem
Circa mite solum Tiberis, et maenia Catili.
Tradition has assigned to the poet himself a villa at
his favourite Tibur, in a site worthy of a poet’s habita-
tion. The frequent passages in which the beautiful
scenery of Tivoli is referred to by him, and his assertion
237
these form a succession of landscapes, superior in the
delight produced to the richest cabinet of Claude’s. Ti-
voli cannot be described : no true portrait of it exists :
all views alter and embellish it: they are poetical trans-
lations of the matchless original.”
Amongst the antiquities of Tivoli are some extensive
ruins near the town, which have received the name of
the villa of Maecenas. They are beautifully situated on
the highest ridge of the heights, and present, on the one
side, a view of Rome in the distance, and on the other
the Teverone with its magnificent rocks and falls. The
ruins are remarkable for the range of lofty doric arcades
which they display, and which add greatly to the beauty
of a scene which attracted the admiration and employed
the pencil of Wilson. All the remains of the Tiburtine
villas have been appropriated, by the ingenuity of an-
tiquarians and guides, to various classical owners, and
the traveller is conducted to the villas of Lepidus, of
Archias, and of Propertius, without the expression of a
doubt with regard to the proprietorship. A few of the
ancient edifices have a better title to the names which
they enjoy, as the villa of Quintilius Varus, still called
Quintiliana, and celebrated in the verse of Horace :
Nullam, Vare, sacra vite prius severis arborem
Circa mite solum Tiberis, et maenia Catili.
Tradition has assigned to the poet himself a villa at
his favourite Tibur, in a site worthy of a poet’s habita-
tion. The frequent passages in which the beautiful
scenery of Tivoli is referred to by him, and his assertion