high ground in the neighbourhood of Rieti, and even to the mountains of the Abruzzi. At harvest-time the heat becomes excessive, and the malaria assumes its most virulent form. The peasants from the Volscian hills and from beyond the Neapolitan frontier come down into the plain to earn a few crowns for the ensuing winter: they work in the harvestfield all day under a scorching sun, and at night sleep out of doors. Even the strongest and healthiest are often struck down in a single week; before the harvest is gathered in, hundreds of hardy mountaineers are seized with intermittent fever, and either die, or on their return home bear the mark of the pestilence for life. As soon as the harvest is over, the immense Campagna is utterly deserted; the herdsmen are absent with their cattle, the fattori take refuge in Rome, and the labourers retire to the few scattered villages on the outskirts of the plain, where they are less exposed to the effects of its then pestilential climate. After each harvest the land, in some parts of the Maremma more especially, is generally left to pasture for an indefinite time, the farmer seldom allowing more than one wheat-crop in four years. In all parts of the States the agricultural implements are of the rudest kind; the native manufacture never deviates from the primitive style which has prevailed for ages, and the heavy duties on articles of foreign manufacture have proved great drawbacks to the introduction of the improvements of more advanced countries.

10. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COUNTRY.

It is impossible to travel over Italy without observing the striking difference between its northern and southern provinces. The traveller will discover, on crossing the frontier of the Papal States, that he has entered on a country very different from that which he has left. That portion of Italy which forms the subject of the present volume includes within its limits a field of study and observation almost inexhaustible. Though described for centuries by all classes of writers, there is still no part of Europe which the traveller will find so richly stored with intellectual treasure. From the North it differs mainly in this, that it is pre-eminently the Italy of classical times. It carries the mind back through the history of twenty centuries to the events which laid the foundation of Roman greatness. It presents us with the monuments of nations which either ceased to exist before the origin of Rome, or gradually sunk under her power. Every province is full of associations; every step we take is on ground hallowed by the spirits of the poets, the historians, and the philosophers of Rome. These, however, are not the only objects which command attention. In the darkness which succeeded the fall of Rome, Italy was the first country which burst the trammels in which the world had so long been bound. Political freedom first arose amidst the contests of the popes with the German emperors; and in the republics of Middle Italy the human mind was developed to an extent which Rome, in the plenitude of her power, had never equalled. The light of modern civilization was first kindled on the soil which had witnessed the rise and fall of the Roman empire; and Europe is indebted to the Italy of the middle ages for its first lessons, not only in political wisdom, but in law, in literature, and in art. The history of the Italian republics is

not a mere record of party, or of the struggles of petty princes and rival factions; it is the record of an era in which modern civilization received its earliest impulses. Amidst the extraordinary energy of their citizens, conquest was not the exclusive object, as in the dark ages which had preceded them. Before the end of the thirteenth century the universities of the free cities had opened a new path for literature and science, and sent forth their philosophers and jurists to spread a knowledge of their advancement. The constitutional liberties of Europe derived useful lessons from the municipal institutions of Italy, and the courts of the Italian princes afforded asylums to that genius which has survived the liberties in which it had its origin. The mediæval history of Central Italy has hitherto been less regarded by the traveller, although in many respects it is not less interesting than the history of classical times. The intimate connection of her early institutions with those of England, and the part which many of our countrymen played in the great drama of Italian history, associate us more immediately with this period than with any other in her annals. We may perhaps recognise, in the energy and originality of the Italian character during the middle ages, a prototype of that prodigious activity which our own country has acquired under the influence of the lessons which Italy taught her. We must at least regard with admiration and respect a people who have done so much in the great cause of human amelioration, and admit that the period in which Italy started from her slumber and led the way in the march of European improvement is one of the most brilliant in the history of the world.

The physical characters of Central Italy are not less interesting than her historical associations. To apply our remarks more particularly to the Papal States, we may say that their resources have hitherto been very imperfectly appreciated. Few countries in Europe have been less understood. The traveller who hurries from Bologna to Florence, and from Florence to Rome, neither stopping to explore the objects which present themselves on the road, nor turning aside into less beaten tracts, will form no idea of the treasures of art abundantly placed within his reach. He can have had no opportunity of becoming acquainted with the true character of the people, or of knowing the charms of the provincial cities. In regard to art, it is a mistake to suppose that it can be only studied in the galleries of the great capitals. The filiations of the different schools, the links of the chain which connect together the leading epochs, not merely in painting, but in architecture and sculpture, are to be traced, not in the museums and palaces of Rome, but in the smaller cities, where every branch of art, under the patronage of the local sovereigns or the republics, has left some of its important works.

The scenery of Central Italy is another charm which will appeal probably to a larger class. Whatever may be the beauties of particular districts traversed by the high road, the finest characters of Italian scenery must be sought, like the people, beyond the beaten track. The fertility of the March of Ancona, the rich cultivation of Romagna, the beautiful country intersected by the Velino, the Metauro, the Anio, and the Sacco, have each an interest of a different character. Nothing can be grander than the forms of the Sabine and Umbrian mountains, or more picturesque than the valleys which descend from

them. Nature there appears in a richness of colouring to which the eye has not been before accustomed. In the southern provinces the purity of atmosphere is combined with an harmonious repose of nature, the costumes of the people are in the highest degree picturesque, and the buildings have the rare merit of being perfectly in keeping with the scenery by which they are surrounded.

Among the first objects which will be presented to the traveller, the monuments of antiquity are the most important. We shall therefore state, as concisely as possible, such general facts in reference to their archæological characters, as may be necessary to prepare the traveller for their study.

11. PELASGIC ARCHITECTURE.

No circumstance is so much calculated to mislead the stranger who travels into Italy as the frequent misapplication of the terms Pelasgic, Cyclopean, and Etruscan. Every specimen of ancient architecture in Central Italy has been called by one or other of these names, merely because the style is colossal compared to the later works of Roman construction.

The Pelasgic remains, of which the Papal States contain so many specimens, confirm the history of the migrations of that ancient people. Whether the Pelasgi were originally a people from Thrace, or from a country still more northward, as some authors contend, there can be no doubt that they were the great original colonists of Southern Europe. They may be traced from Thessaly to Asia Minor, through the greater part of Greece, and through many islands of the Egean. We know that they united with the Hellenes to form the Greek nation, that they built Argos and Lycosura (B. c. 1820), which Pausanias calls "the most ancient, and the model from which all other cities were built." According to history, two distinct colonies emigrated to Central Italy, then occupied by the Umbri, a race probably of Celtic origin. The first came direct from Lycosura and settled in Umbria. The second Pelasgic colony invaded Italy from Dodona, and brought with them many arts unknown to their predecessors. They settled in the upper valley of the Velinus, near Rieti. The first, or Umbrian colony, seems to have lost its Greek language at an early period, if we may judge from one of the most ancient written monuments, the Eugubian tables. It is not the least interesting circumstance arising out of the history of this colony, that the Latin language, in its present form, is considered to derive its Greek element from the Pelasgi, and its Latin from the Umbrians. The Pelasgi were subdued in their turn by a race called Tyrrheni by the Greeks, and Etrusci by the Romans, about fifty years before the Trojan war; and in the time of Tarquinius Priscus the whole race seems to have disappeared as one of the leading nations of Italy.

This historical sketch is confirmed by the ruins the Pelasgi have left behind them. The first colony does not appear to have founded any cities for themselves, but to have occupied those already inhabited by the Umbri; the second settled in the valley of the Velinus, and thence spread over a large portion of the country to the south of it. Accordingly, in the neighbourhood of Rieti, we find a large cluster of ancient towns, many of which are still to be identified by the descriptions and

distances handed down to us by the Greek and Roman historians. We find, in the precise locality indicated by Dionysius, the walls of Palatium, from which Evander and his Arcadian colonists emigrated to Rome forty years before the Trojan war. We recognise the sites of other cities of equal interest, and in some instances discover that their names have undergone but little change. We trace the Pelasgi from this spot in their course southwards, along the western slopes of the Sabine mountains, and mark their progress in civilization by the more massive constructions which they adopted. Their cities were now generally placed upon hills, and fortified by walls of such colossal structure, that they still astonish us by their solidity. The progressive improvement of their military architecture becomes more apparent as we approach their southern limits. Hence the very finest specimens of Pelasgic construction in Europe are to be found between the Sabine and Volscian chains, at Alatri, Arpino, Segni, and other towns in the valleys of the Sacco and Liris, and which are described in the Handbook for Southern Italy. The style of their construction was in most instances polygonal, consisting of enormous blocks of stone, the angles of one exactly corresponding with those of the adjoining masses. They were put together without cement, and so accurately as to leave no interstices whatever. This style may be traced throughout Greece, Asia Minor, and all the countries which history describes as colonised by the Pelasgic tribes. The exceptions to the polygonal style are where the geological formation of the country presented rocks, such as sandstones, occurring naturally in parallel strata, which obviously suggested the horizontal mode of construction, and afforded naturally masses more of a paralellipipedal than of a polygonal shape to the builder. Another variety was produced by local circumstances in the neighbourhood of Rome, where tufa is the prevailing stone. At Tusculum, for example, the softness and quality of the rock pointed out the horizontal style; and thus, in the instances in which the Pelasgi were compelled to adopt tufa as their material, the blocks incline to parallelograms. Even here, however, where the style was evidently controlled by circumstances, the taste for the national custom may still be recognised; and we often find that the blocks have been shaped so as to deviate in many places from regular squares. In the ruins of Ampiglione, near Tivoli, the supposed site of Empulum, we have a very ancient example of the Pelasgic style in tufa. It is entirely polygonal, but the blocks were apparently found broken into irregular masses by their fall from the mountains, and therefore afforded peculiar facilities for this construction. Instances of this are not wanting farther south. In the wild mountain-pass leading from the valley of Sulmona to the Piano di Cinquemiglia, in the second province of Abruzzo Ultra, the precipitous ravines present frequent examples of limestone so fissured and broken that they might almost be called natural Pelasgic walls. We may therefore assume as a general rule, that, whenever the materials which the Pelasgi employed were of hard rock, such as limestone, breaking naturally into polygonal masses, the polygonal construction was adopted in its utmost purity; and whenever the geological formation of the country presented volcanic tufa or sandstone, occurring in horizontal strata, their style was parallelipipedal. The Romans imitated the polygonal style in all cases under similar

circumstances, and hence we find polygonal walls in many towns of Latium which are known to date from the kingly and even republican period.

12. CYCLOPEAN ARCHITECTURE.

The difference of style between the Pelasgic and Cyclopean is difficult to define with accuracy. We have already seen that the Pelasgi built the walls of Lycosura eighteen centuries before Christ, and that Pausanias describes it as the most ancient of all such cities. The walls of Tiryns and Mycena were built about four centuries later, and, according to the same authority, by a different people, the Cyclopes. As these two cities, though upwards of 3000 years old, are nearly as perfect as when Pausanias visited them sixteen centuries ago, we may regard them as the type of all similar structures which we shall meet with either in Greece or Italy. That the Cyclopean style is really the work of a people different from the Pelasgi is probable from numerous circumstances. Euripides describes the walls of Mycena as built in the Phoenician method; and Pausanias found the style so peculiar that he thought it necessary to describe it. His description, from personal observation, applies at this day, not only to the Greek cities, but to every other example of the style which we shall meet with elsewhere. "The walls," he says, "the only portion which remains, are built of rough stones (íbwv ägywv), so large that the smallest of them could not be moved from their position by a pair of mules. Smaller stones have been inserted between them, in order that the larger blocks might be more firmly held together.' Homer, in the second book of the Iliad, characterises Tiryns as the walled city (Tiguda Te Teixiósoσav), and mentions Mycenae as remarkable for the excellence of its buildings (Μυκήνας ἐϋκτίμενον πτολίεθρον). To these facts we shall only add, that the Cyclopean style, wherever it is found, is composed, as stated by Pausanias, of irregular polygonal masses, with small stones filling up the interstices. It occurs very rarely in Italy; the constructions that approach nearest to it are the massive walls on Monte St. Angelo, the probable site of the ancient Corniculum, and at Artena, the modern Monte Fortino. It is remarkable that the extraordinary Cyclopean work, the great gallery of Tiryns, formed by cutting away the superincumbent blocks in the form of an arched roof, has its counterpart in the triangular gateway of the Pelasgic fortress of Arpino.

13. THE ETRUSCANS.

The inhabitants of Etruria were a people altogether distinct from the Pelasgic colonists, though probably descended from the same great family. The Greek historians, as we have already remarked, invariably called them Tyrrheni, while the Romans call them Etrusci. Herodotus, Strabo, Cicero, and Plutarch say that they were of Lydian origin, that they left their native land on account of a protracted famine, sailed from Smyrna, and settled in Umbria. Dionysius of Halicarnassus dissents altogether from this statement, and regards them as an indigenous race of Italy; but in spite of the objections of so weighty an authority, it is impossible, with our extended knowledge of the domestic life and habits of the Etruscans as developed in their tombs, not to come to the con