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swung by the bacchanalian roses. From the walls, or perhaps from an ivyhung tribune, some old fresco paintings still look down. They represent early Christians with palms in their hands, and instruments of martyrdom by their side. With faded nimbi on their pale foreheads, in golden dalmatica, with stole upon their shoulders, they look down morosely from behind their veils of flowers, and seem shocked by the heathen rites which the children of Flora are daring to celebrate in these deserted churches.

The beetle hums continually his romance of summer, and the cricket chirps incessantly her Anacreontic love-songs. The flowers and beetles yield up these temples no more. A complaint was once brought to S. Bernard that countless swarms of flies had taken possession of a church which was just about to be consecrated, and would not leave it: "I excommunicate them," said he; and behold, when the messengers returned to the church all the flies lay dead. But a saintly exorcist would hardly succeed in excommunicating the flowers from the churches of Ninfa, and though the painted martyrs look angry, the ivy is already creeping up and will soon have entirely veiled and walled them in. Of many there is now nothing more visible than the hem of a robe, and the name in old Roman characters-S. Xystus or S. Cesarius and S. Laurentius. I went into the last of these churches-what a sight! The original mosaic of the pavement with its arabesques and circles or squares seemed now to be imitated by living flowers, and from the shrine where the bones of the saint once lay the Indian vine waves joyously with its bluish-red berries.

Here also the counterpart of Pompeii is not wanting. As there the classic age expresses itself decidedly in the bright frescoes, so in Ninfa the Christian epoch of humanity speaks from the paintings on the walls of the ruins. There they are the attractive forms of life and pleasure: Cupids fishing in the pool, dancing satyrs, crickets driving a little chariot, hovering Bacchantes clashing cymbals, or holding in their hands a mysterious casket, or bearing juicy figs upon a dish; but in the Pompeii of the middle ages the frescoes only represent death and woe. Instead of those cheerful pictures, we find here the melancholy figures of the catacombs, the mythic gods of suffering and martyrdom, in the flames, on the cross, or kneeling with folded hands before the executioner who stands with uplifted sword.

'Is it not time that all these martyrs, saints, and decaying crucifixes were buried in flowers? Here Nature strews them plentifully on the graves of the unfortunate penitents and monks, and of all those who in the time of dark superstition scourged and tortured themselves-would that catholic humanity might imitate her, and give to the dead peace and a grave of flowers!

At the entrance to Ninfa still stands the castle, once the seat of the barons in whose dungeons the victims of feudalism languished. High rises the square tower, built as strongly of bricks as the Torre delle Milizie in Rome, and it seems to belong to the same period. It stands close to a pool, which lies here like a Stygian marsh at the entrance to the city of the dead. Tall reeds surround it. It is a mythic spot, as if from the shadow-world of Aeneas or Ulysses. The gloomy tower and other ruins fling their trembling reflection across the still water of the marsh. The reeds rustle sadly. Sometimes the sobbing voice of a water-hen is heard, like the souls of the departed, who dwell in this Hades and yearn after the upper existence. I sit on ruins and look into this green spirit world, then up to the blue entrancing mountains, on which stand the cyclopean stones of Norba and its citadel, then over the Pontine marshes to the sea in the sunshine of evening, whence rises the glittering Circean mount. Can the enchantress Circe have left her castle there? Does she now dwell in Ninfa ? Has she become the ivy-queen ? There is so much ivy here, it seemed to me as if this Ninfa must be the ivystore-house of Italy, and as if the ivy spirits of history supplied all the ruins of this noble country with creepers from this place.

One must sit here when the evening floods every ruin of these ivy halls first with purple, and then with gold, and steeps mountains, and sea, and the Cape of Circe in unspeakable richness of colour-but I will not speak of it, or describe how this fairy land appears, so soon as the moon shines on it.

'Out of the pool rushes the spring Nymphaeus. It appears to take its rise here, and suddenly brings a startling contrast of young, noisy life into this green grave-world. For with the stormy force of a mountain torrent it dashes

past the ruins, as if urged on by demons, as if winged, as if trying to escape from the deathly grasp of the ivy, and it looks like a living creature, as, sparkling and foaming, it flees across the Pontine marsh towards the sea.

Near the pool it turns a mill, which has been erected in a building of the middle ages, for part of this house keeps still its pillared gothic-roman windows. They say that there stood in olden times, by the spring and the lake, a temple of the Nymphs, from which the town took its name, and on the site of that Nymphaeum the church of S. Michael was built. In the year 1216 Ugolino Conti founded here the church of S. Maria del Mirteto-of the myrtle-grove.

But the history of Ninfa is all very obscure. In the twelfth century the Frangipani possessed this town. At the end of the thirteenth century the race of Caëtani got possession of Ninfa, and the descendants of that famous house retain it to this day. The archives of the family in Rome preserve many records which show how Pietro Caëtani, nephew of Boniface VIII., Lateran Count Palatine and Count of Caserta, gradually bought up the houses and possessions of Ninfa. I found there no deeds of the fifteenth century. But an old record of February 22, 1349, is inscribed on the now ruined baronial castle. It runs thus: "Actum Nimphe in scalis palatii Rocce Nimphe presente Nicolao Cillone Vicario Sculcule."'-Gregorovius.

Evening closed in upon us at Ninfa; the low houses glowed crimson in the sunset, and the lake became like molten gold. We hurried away. It was too late to ascend the mountain way again with its unguarded precipices, but another path led us along the foot of the hills through the low-lying moorlands-parched and ugly at mid-day, but beautiful in the soft twilight, when each arum and thistle, thickly diamonded with dew, sparkled and glittered in the last gleams, and the figures of our party on their mules stood out dark against the soft after-glow. And then, as the bells of Cori were ringing the last strokes of Ave Maria-the summons for the peasants to save themselves from the malaria in their high mountain homes-we wound up to the town through the stilled olive-groves, the most solemn thing in nature, and looked down through the gnarled stems over the wide marsh and woodland to the great Circean promontory engraven in purple-black upon a crimson sky.

From Cori a very beautiful mountain road leads through the Volscian forests to Segni (2190 ft.). We, however, took the railway thither from Ferentino. The station is at the bottom of the mountain called Monte Lepini, while the town is nearly at the top. The ascent to Segni is wild and rugged, and the road wound along the mountain edge without any parapet save a fringe of Judas bushes just bursting into bloom as it were to be ready for Good Friday, between us and tremendous precipices. Segni was the ancient Signia, colonised by Tarquinius Superbus as a restraint upon the inhabitants of the Volscian and Hernican hills, and it is said that the name is derived from the number of standards which he saw raised by the inhabitants in his behalf against the people of Gabii. The town (which occupies the lower half of the ancient site) is mentioned in the 'Captives' of Plautus, where the parasite and epicure Ergasilus swears in turn by Cora, Praeneste, Signia, Phrysinone, and Alatrium, and explains, when asked by his host Hegio why he swears by foreign cities, that they are just as disagreeable as the dinner he is about to receive from him. Strabo

and Pliny, as well as several of the poets, mention the peculiar wine of Signia :

'Quos Cora, quos spumans immiti Signia musto,
Et quos pestifera Pomptini uligine campi.'

-Sil. Ital. viii. 380.

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In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the popes sought safety from the Romans in the strongest towns of the Campagna, Segni was frequently their residence. Eugenius III. fled hither in 1145 from the Senate, and built a papal palace; and here Alexander III., Lucius III., and Innocent III. passed a considerable portion of their reigns in security. Segni was long a fief of the great family of Conti, to which so many of the popes belonged, and it disputes with Anagni the honour of having been the birthplace of Innocent III. In 1353 the head of the house of Conti was Podestà, and afterwards Vicar in the name of the Pope. After the Conti had died out, and Segni had passed into the hands of Mario Sforza, Sixtus V. created it a duchy. On August 13, 1557, the place was taken and almost totally destroyed by the Duke of Alva, and it is owing to this that so few gothic buildings remain. The town was rebuilt, and was given as a duchy by Urban VIII. to his nephew, Cardinal Antonio Barberini. A long lawsuit which followed between the Barberini and the Sforza, the former lords of Segni, was only decided at the end of the last century in favour of the Sforza-Cesarini, who are still Dukes of Segni.

The town is surrounded on all sides by steep rocks, except where a passeggiata bordered by trees, with splendid views of valley and mountains, leads to the Porta Maggiore. This gate rests against the polygonal walls, and over it are the remains of the baronial castle of the Conti. The houses, which climb over one another, with here and there a tower, are built of courses of limestone stone and brick.

All those who visit Segni should turn at once to the left after entering the gate (there is a poor Locanda (Colagiacomo) where a tolerable meal may be obtained), and mount to the Porta Saracinesca, on the north side, and thence make the circuit of the wonderful walls which give the place its chief interest. This is best done by turning eastward and reaching another but smaller gate. They are formed by irregular masses of smoothed rock fitted to one another, and though of no great height, almost surround the existing town, and are among the most extensive of their kind in Italy. In some places they are extremely picturesque, especially where a tall cross crowns the huge pile of stones, and stands relieved against the distant background; for you look across the great depths to billow upon billow of purple Hernican hills, and beyond and above these to the ranges of the central Abruzzi, still, in April, covered with snow. The church of S. Pietro, close to what was a fifth gate,

[graphic]

WALLS OF ANAGNI (S. SIDE)

[F. F. Tuckett, Esq.

PORTA SARACINESCA.

SEGNI

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