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:
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