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Art. 5. THE UPPER ANIO.

1. L' Aniene (Italia Artistica, No. 21). By A. Colasanti. Bergamo Instituto Italiano d'Arti grafiche, 1906. 2. I Monasteri di Subiaco. Vol. 1: Notizie Storiche; by P. Egidi. L' Architettura'; by G. Giovannoni. 'Gli Affreschi'; by F. Hermanin. Rome: a cura e spese del Ministro della pubblica Istruzione, 1904.

3. Analisi

Storico-topografico-antiquaria della carta de' dintorni di Roma, vol. III. By A. Nibby. Two vols. Rome: Tipografia delle Belle Arti, 1837.

4. The Country of Horace and Virgil. By Gaston Boissier. Translated by D. H. Fisher. London: Unwin, 1896. 5. The Four Great Aqueducts of Ancient Rome. By Dr Thomas Ashby. Classical Review,' vol. XIV, 1900. RIVERS, like human lives, may hold surprises for those who, reversing nature's order, retrace their course from end to beginning. The Anio as first seen near Rome, say from the Ponte Nomentano, or from the Ponte Salario just before it joins the Tiber, is hardly likely to impress the visitor as a noble and far-famed river. It possesses no amplitude; and the water shows a dirty hue as it moves sluggishly between its slimy banks. It has indeed, for a patient eye, a certain picturesqueness even here; so that a lover of Rome may choose the Ponte Nomentano as a resort for spring evenings, when the dull drabbish green tones of the current are brightened by soft blue reflections, and the warm lights and deep shadows of the grassy banks and the willows, which venture out like half-timid bathers into the edge of the stream, add a richness to the picture. Yet at its best it fails to look fully alive and strong, as we like a river to be. As it meanders languidly from one little promontory to another, it suggests a wounded serpent creeping to its death-hole; and the fanciful idea may easily occur to a spectator that its reluctant advance arises from a dim presentiment that it will presently be taken captive by the stronger current of the Tiber and borne away under the Ponte Molle to Rome and the sea. There is nothing in these lower reaches to hint at a strong fleet current, singing as it goes, up there

in the Sabine mountains, at the foot of Monte Gennaro, whose pyramidal form gleams out on us in the evening light.

Once in the Sabine hills we are face to face with another Anio, a river alive and in swift motion. It is indeed at Tivoli, where the Anio ends its fresh mountain career and is about to lapse into the dull existence of the Campagna, that it reaches the highest pitch of its vivacity, breaking out for a moment into wild freaks of movement, and, as if to show its contempt for the timid circuitous descent of ancient aqueduct and modern railway, hurling itself straight down to the plain of the Campagna. No doubt it may be said that the Falls which we admire to-day are not the spontaneous act of the river, but largely the work of the engineer who bored his tunnels here some eighty years ago. But to this it may be replied that the Anio took its giddy leap here in Horace's day, long before the engineer came upon the scene. The engineering feat, moreover, was rendered necessary by the Anio's own reckless conduct in damming itself up by deposits of the limestone travertine, and so threatening to engulf the ancient city of Tibur.

He who would know the spirit of the Anio in its changing moods will do well to linger at Tivoli. The joyous leaping waters deserve to be seen not only in the midday hours, when the deep-cradled pools below break here and there into sparkling laughter, and when the rising spray transmutes itself into a lovely prismatic veil; but also in the cool hours of early morning, when the dew adds its drops to the lush freshness, and in the hour of approaching sunset, when, strolling out on the Way of the Falls beyond St Antonio, one can look back from the glow which floods the Campagna and beats up against the rocky promontory of the town, and let the eye repose on the long, shady ravine, its sides fretted with streaks of a wan whiteness, suggestive of a lacework veil hanging from Night's robe,

The fascination of the Falls was felt in the Augustan age, when Tibur was visited during the dog-days by the emperor himself, and by Mæcenas and other patricians, who, we may be sure, sought something more than its mountain air. Of the fair temples and villas which were then raised in and near Tivoli, there are still con

siderable remains. The leisurely visitor will find at Tivoli, as in Rome and at Terracina, ancient columns walled up in later buildings. How much of architectural ornament the Roman patricians added to the neighbourhood we may conjecture, not only from these remains, but from the fine examples of sculpture found here, which are now in the Vatican and elsewhere. Nor did the renown of beautiful Tibur pass with the majesty of ancient Rome. In the cinquecento, too, another patron of letters was wont to pass the fevered summer months in a Tivoli villa which still stands close to the site of the villa of Mæcenas. As we wander to-day through the beautiful deserted garden, its terraces unweeded, its grottoes and fountains stricken with decay, and look down between the immemorial cypresses on the Campagna softly shining in pearly gradations of tint, we may find a melancholy pleasure in trying to reconstruct those fêtes champêtres of Ippolito d'Este, the Renaissance Cardinal; in which, amid the glowing colours of fresco and of flowers and music played by water on bronze flutes, high birth paid its tribute to the Muses, and poets and scholars held their academic courts, while mirthful sports added lighter entertainment. The imagined scene completes itself with the delicate pale face of Tasso, wearing one of its rare smiles.†

The visitor who, after inspecting the ancient temples and the Renaissance villa, wishes to ruminate on the vanished scenes, may stroll along the quiet road which passes the railway station and follows the valley of the Anio in an upward direction. Here he will find the river flowing smoothly between green poplars at the foot of the medieval town, and giving no hint of the daring leap it is about to take. Its pleasant murmur, to which the rustling of the poplars adds a blithe accompaniment, sounds like a happy babbling about the proud days of long ago when men held it in honour and brought splendour and gaiety to its banks.

Apart from the one reckless act to which I have

*For an account of the remains near Tivoli, see a paper by Dr Thomas Ashby, The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna' (II), in 'Papers of the British School at Rome,' vol. iii.

See the vivid description of these reunions in Dr W. Boulting's recent volume, 'Tasso and his Times,' chap. vi.

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referred, the Anio has been a useful servant to man. The same habit of depositing travertine which threatened the security of Tivoli has supplied the Roman architect with what Lanciani calls the king of building materials'; and at various points in the course of the Upper Ani where travertine is deposited, it is quarried for building purposes, the spongy variety (cardellino) being said to be specially valued in the erection of lighter structures. A still more precious gift of the Anio valley has been the cool water flowing from its limestone beds, which formed the main supply of ancient Rome. It was conveyed thither by four aqueducts, a few ruins of which add a touch of architectural picturesqueness to the valley. A walk of about a mile outside Tivoli along the road to Ciciliano on the left bank of the Anio brings us to a bridge called the Ponte degli Arci, spanning a brook which here flows into the river. Near this one can see remains of all the four aqueducts; a portion of the lofty structure of the Anio Novus, a small arch of the Marcia, the channel of the Anio Vetus, and (higher up the road) a long line of arches belonging to the Claudia.

The beautiful valley of the Anio can be explored by taking, as far as Vicovaro, either the road or the railway, both of which keep pretty close to the river and to the ancient Via Valeria. The Sabine mountains present from this point of view a pleasant wavy contour. In May the soft silvery grey of their limestone slopes is varied with greens and browns. Below in the valley are orchards, the brightness of their late bloom being reinforced by huge white irises that light up the hedges. The river itself is of a bluish green tint and sparkles in the sunshine. It flows blithely between its green banks, edged with alders and willows, above which we can spy familiar northern growths, the hawthorn, the honeysuckle, and the wild rose, and higher still, among limestone boulders, a wealth of green bracken. One can easily imagine oneself in some limestone valley of Derbyshire, save when a heavy wave of acacia perfume passes, or a nightingale embroiders the monotonous hum of the stream with tiny figures of its liquid melody.

The valley, which grows narrower and more pictur esque, is but thinly populated. Higher up however, on the steep slopes to our right, we pass Castel Madama, the

first of a series of fortified towns which, stained dark with the weathering of centuries, scowl down on the passer-by with something of their old threatening aspect. On our side of the river we notice stretches of white masonry-part of the restored Aqua Marcia - which emerge here and there, and are carried on arches across the gullies that run down to the Anio. At Vicovaro, the ancient Varia, we cross the Anio by a bridge, the further end of which shows masses of conglomerate, marking the site of the ancient Roman bridge. Climbing to the town, we pass, outside the medieval gate, a fine fragment of the ancient wall built of rectangular blocks. Another reminder of the days when Varia was still an oppidum and had not sunk to be a mere vicus, confronts us in the classical columns of the church of St Antonio within the gate. When Pius II visited the town (about 1460) he found several statues not wholly disfigured by time.* To-day Vicovaro is as shabby and squalid as many another famous old Italian town; though the meanness of its aspect is redeemed, not only by a fine situation, but by one architectural treasure, the little octagonal chapel or oratory of San Giacomo. About the portal of its façade are tiers of carved niches, each with its figure, a joy for the lover of the dainty intricacies of ecclesiastical sculpture. The whole composition, as often happens, lacks harmony, the lower portions of the façade, which are more Gothic in style, being plainly older as well as more finely chiselled than the upper stages.

Vicovaro is the starting-point for the valley of the Lenza, a stream which flows from the north into the Amo at a point a little above the town. In the time of Augustus the valley was called Utica, and the river Digentia. The beauty of the valley, and still more its endearing associations as the site of Horace's farm, make the excursion a notable one. It can easily be made on foot, though on a hot day the rough vehicle obtainable at Vicovaro is not to be summarily rejected. Having selected the latter alternative, we drive out of the town by one of its old gates and soon perceive the Licenza below us to the right, its reduced current threading its way over a wide pebbly bed. Beyond it looms, high up,

* 'Commentarii Pii II' (Frankfort edition, 1614), p. 167. Vol. 211.-No. 421.

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