Statuary
Such As Frequently Gives Names To Streets In Italy, Witness The "Street
Of The Faun" In Ouida's Novel, Or That Of The "Giant" In Naples (Which
Has Now Been Re-Christened).
It strikes me as a humble but quite
scholarly speculation to infer that, the chief decorative uses of Sirens
being
That of fountain deities, this obscure roadway keeps alive the
tradition of the old "Fontana Grande" - ornamented, we may suppose, with
marble Sirens - whose site is now forgotten, and whose very name has
faded from the memory of the countryfolk.
What, then, does my ramble of two hours at San Gervasio amount to? It
shows that there is a possibility, at least, of a now vanished fountain
having existed on the heights where it might fulfil more accurately the
conditions of Horace's ode. If Ughelli's church "at the Bandusian Fount"
stood on this eminence - well, I shall be glad to corroborate, for once
in the way, old Ughelli, whose book contains a deal of dire nonsense.
And if the Abbe Chaupy's suggestion that the village lay at the foot of
the hill should ever prove to be wrong - well, his amiable ghost may be
pleased to think that even this does not necessitate the sacrifice of
his Venosa theory in favour of that of the scholiast Akron; there is
still a way out of the difficulty.
But whether this at San Gervasio is the actual fountain hymned by
Horace - ah, that is quite another affair! Few poets, to be sure, have
clung more tenaciously to the memories of their childhood than did he
and Virgil.
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