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CHAPTER XXX.

SORA, AND THE LAND OF CICERO.

(An uncomfortable and frequently crowded diligence-soo soon to be superseded by the railway—leaves Avezzano at 8 P.M., arriving at Sora about I A. M.

Sora is easily reached from Rome, by the station of Rocca-Secca, from which it is a pleasant drive of about three hours, and a railway will shortly bring it within the range of an even easier excursion from the capital.

The Albergo di Roma at Sora is an admirable country inn, with exceedingly moderate prices. Carriages may be obtained at Sora for the day. To Arpino and Isola with S. Domenico, twelve francs to Isola alone, two and a half francs to S. Germano, staying some hours at Atina, twenty francs: to Rocca-Secca, from twelve to fifteen francs.)

O

N leaving Avezzano the road immediately begins the ascent of the Monte Salviano, so called from the wild sage with which it is covered. The views are beautiful, of the valley, and the opposite heights of Monte Velino. Crossing the mountain, we reach, in a savage situation on the right, Capistrello, beneath which is the mouth of the Emissary of the Lago Fucino. About three miles beyond the village of Civita di Roveto, a road on the left leads (two miles) to Civita d'Antino, cresting a hill, and occupying the site of the ancient Antinum of which some polygonal walls remain. Near this is the waterfall of Lo Schioppo, a beautiful cascade of the river Romito.

On the left, four miles before reaching Sora, we pass

VOL. II.

beneath the town of Balzorano, crowned by a grand old castle of the Piccolomini. It is a glorious subject for an artist.

Sora, a bright well-paved town on the river Liris, was originally a Volscian city colonised by the Romans. In modern times it was the birthplace of Cardinal Baronius. It has a ruined castle, which, after having passed through the hands of the Cantelmi and Tomacelli, now gives a ducal title to the Buoncompagni.

'During the earlier portion of the middle ages Sora is often mentioned as a frontier town, which the Lombard dukes of Benevento attacked and plundered. It may have been then Byzantine. From time to time governed by counts of Lombard race (for the whole region near the Liris was once filled with Lombards), it fell into the hands of the emperor Frederick II., who destroyed it. Afterwards it belonged to the powerful counts of Aquino, who possessed almost all the land between the Vulturnus and the Liris. Then Charles of Anjou made the Cantelmi, relations of the Stuarts, counts of Sora, and Alfonso of Arragon raised Sora to a duchy, of which Nicolo Cantelmi was the first duke. The Popes had long coveted the possession of the beautiful border-land, and they obtained it under Pius II., whose captain Napoleone Orsini conquered Sora. Ferdinand I. of Naples confirmed the possession; but Sixtus IV. separated it from the Church in 1471, when he married his nephew Leonardo della Rovere to the king's niece, who received the duchy of Sora as a dowry. Afterwards Gregory XIII. bought Sora, in 1580, from the duke of Urbino for his son Don Giacomo Buoncompagni, and seldom has a Roman "nipote " had a more charming possession. This property remained in the hands of the Buoncompagni-Ludovisi till the end of the eighteenth century, when it returned to Naples, and of the splendour of that Roman nepotism there only remains in Rome the Palazzo di Sora and the title of Duke of Sora, which is now borne by the eldest son of Prince LudovisiPiombino.'-Gregorovius.

The present interest of Sora arises entirely from the fact that here Italian costume reaches its climax. The dress is surely Greek, and so are the ornaments, and so, indeed, is

The best peasant

the wonderful beauty of the women. jewels, of designs such as are seen in Greek sculpture, are all bought and sold here. Owing to the factories of the Liris and the great care which their owner, M. Lefebvre, bestows upon his workmen, the people are all most thriving and prosperous, and the valley of the Liris may be regarded as 'the Happy Valley' of Central Italy.

'The modern factories, mostly paper-mills, on a large scale and on the newest system, owe their rise chiefly to Frenchmen of the time of

Murat, among them M. Lefebvre. This man arrived poor, but the banks of the Liris became to him an Eldorado, for he drew pure gold from the power of water. He left to his son manufactures and millions. The King of Naples, I think Ferdinand II., ennobled his family; they richly deserved this honour, for a hitherto scarcely cultivated region owes to the inventive genius of this one man an abundant life which will not disappear but increase. The creative action of a man in a certain circle of industry belongs to those manifestations of human activity which we may contemplate with the purest interest; if such (action) is frequent in England, Germany, or France, and rare in Naples, we may easily imagine how highly merit of this kind is to be esteemed.’— Gregorovius.

As in the days of Juvenal, Sora may be looked upon as a pleasant retreat for respectable old age :

'Si potes avelli Circensibus, optima Sorae,
Aut Fabrateriae domus, aut Frusinone paratur,
Quanti nunc tenebras unum conducis in annum.'

Sat. iii. 223.

It is only two miles from Sora, descending the valley of the Liris, to the old conventual church of S. Domenico Abate. It stands on an island in the Fibreno, close to its junction with the Liris. The nave is of very good and pure Gothic. In the adjoining convent S. Domenico Abate died. These buildings occupy the site, and are built from the remains of the beloved villa of Cicero. In Cicero 'de Legibus'1 Atticus asks why Cicero is so much attached to this Villa, and Cicero answers:

'Why, to tell the truth, this is the real home of myself, and my brother here. Our family, a most ancient one, had its rise here, our household-gods are here, our clan, and many a relic of our ancestors. Well, and you see this Villa, it was enlarged to its present form by my father, who, as his health failed, spent his latter years here in study, and in this very spot, my grandfather being still alive, and the Villa

1 II. I. 3.

still small and old-fashioned, like the one at Cures on my Sabine estate, I was born. So that deep down in my heart I cherish a singular feeling and affection for the place: just as we read of that most cunning hero, who to see his Ithaca renounced immortality.'

'Silius haec magni celebrat monumenta Maronis,

Jugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet.

As we enter the plot of garden ground behind the convent, we cannot wonder at the affection which the great orator entertained for the place. On all sides it is surrounded