Of The City Of Viterbo I Shall Say
Nothing, But That It Is The Capital Of That Country Which
Mathilda Gave To The Roman See.
The place is well built, adorned
with public fountains, and a great number of churches and
convents; yet far from being populous, the whole number of
inhabitants, not exceeding fifteen thousand.
The post-house is
one of the worst inns I ever entered.
After having passed this mountain, the Cyminus of the antients,
we skirted part of the lake, which is now called de Vico, and
whose banks afford the most agreeable rural prospects of hill and
vale, wood, glade and water, shade and sun-shine. A few other
very inconsiderable places we passed, and descended into the
Campania of Rome, which is almost a desert. The view of this
country in its present situation, cannot but produce emotions of
pity and indignation in the mind of every person who retains any
idea of its antient cultivation and fertility. It is nothing but
a naked withered down, desolate and dreary, almost without
inclosure, corn-field, hedge, tree, shrub, house, hut, or
habitation; exhibiting here and there the ruins of an antient
castellum, tomb, or temple, and in some places the remains of a
Roman via. I had heard much of these antient pavements, and was
greatly disappointed when I saw them. The Via Cassia or Cymina is
paved with broad, solid, flint-stones, which must have greatly
incommoded the feet of horses that travelled upon it as well as
endangered the lives of the riders from the slipperiness of the
pavement: besides, it is so narrow that two modern carriages
could not pass one another upon it, without the most imminent
hazard of being overturned. I am still of opinion that we excel
the ancient Romans in understanding the conveniences of life.
The Grand Tour says, that within four miles of Rome you see a
tomb on the roadside, said to be that of Nero, with sculpture in
basso-relievo at both ends. I did see such a thing more like a
common grave-stone, than the tomb of an emperor. But we are
informed by Suetonius, that the dead body of Nero, who slew
himself at the villa of his freedman, was by the care of his two
nurses and his concubine Atta, removed to the sepulchre of the
Gens Domitia, immediately within the Porta del Popolo, on your
left hand as you enter Rome, precisely on the spot where now
stands the church of S. Maria del Popolo. His tomb was even
distinguished by an epitaph, which has been preserved by
Gruterus. Giacomo Alberici tells us very gravely in his History
of the Church, that a great number of devils, who guarded the
bones of this wicked emperor, took possession, in the shape of
black ravens, of a walnut-tree, which grew upon the spot;
from whence they insulted every passenger, until pope Paschal II.,
in consequence of a solemn fast and a revelation, went thither
in procession with his court and cardinals, cut down the tree,
and burned it to ashes, which, with the bones of Nero, were
thrown into the Tyber:
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