On the main road there is little interest, till the tiny rivulet Arrone, an outlet of the lake of Bracciano, crosses the road, and tumbles in a waterfall over a cliff into one of those deep glens which suggest the sites of so many Etruscan cities, and which here encircles that of the forgotten Etruscan fortress of Galeria, afterwards occupied by the medieval town of Galera. Those who pass along the high road catch glimpses of its tall tower and ivy-grown walls, but they must cross the fields, and descend into its ravine (leaving their carriage at the farm-house called Santa Maria di Galera) to realize that the whole place is absolutely deserted except by bats and serpents, and that it is one of the most striking of "the lost cities of the Campagna."

The situation is wonderfully picturesque, the walls rising from the very edge of a steep lava precipice, round which

low the citadel. In the eleventh century Galera belonged to the Counts Tosco, troublesome barons of the Campagna, against whom in 1058 Pope Benedict X. called in the assistance of the Normans, who were only too happy to ravage and plunder the town. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the place became an important stronghold of the Orsini, who held it by tenure of an annual payment of three pounds of wax to the Pope. Their arms are over the gateway, and they built the tall handsome tower of the church, which was dedicated to S. Nicholas; but they were unable to defend the town against their deadly enemies the Colonnas, who took it and utterly sacked it in July, 1485. The last historical association of the place is that Charles V. slept there, the day he left Rome, April 18, 1536.

Only a short time ago Galera had ninety inhabitants. Now

it has none.

Castle of Galera.

There is no one to live in the houses, no one

to pray in the church. Malaria reigns triumphant here,

and keeps all human creatures at bay. Even the shepherd who comes down in the day to watch the goats who are scrambling about the broken walls, would pay with his life for passing the night here. It is a bewitched solitude, with the ghosts of the past in full possession. All is fast decaying the town walls, some of which date from the eleventh century, are sliding over into the thickets of brambles. Above them rise the remains of the fine old Orsini castle, from which there is an unspeakably desolate view, the effect of the scene being enhanced by the knowledge that the strength of Galera has fallen beneath no human foe, but that a more powerful and invincible enemy has been found in the mysterious "scourge of the Campagna." The only bright point about the ruins is the old washing-place of the town in the glen, where the waters of the Arrone, ever bright and sparkling, are drawn off into stone basons overhung with fern and creepers.

Beyond Galera, leaving the Convent of Santa Maria in Celsano to the east, the road to Bracciano enters a more fertile district. On the left is passed a marsh, once a lake, called the Lago Morto. Green corn now covers the hill-sides, and here and there is an olive garden. Soon, upon the right, the beautiful Lake of Bracciano, 20 miles in circumference, and six miles across in its widest part, is seen sleeping in its still bason surrounded by green wooded hills. Then the huge Castle of the Odescalchi, built of black lava, and fringed by deeply-machicolated towers, rises before us, crowning the yellow lichen-gilded roofs of the town. We rattle into the ill-paved street, and, between the dull whitewashed houses, we see the huge towers frowning down upon us. At last the carriage can go no further and stops

ASCENT TO BRACCIANO.

147

in a little piazza. The steep ascent to the fortress can only be surmounted on mule-back or on foot, and is cut out of the solid rock. On and in this rock the castle was built by the Orsini in the fifteenth century, just after their normal enemies, the Colonnas, had destroyed a former fortress of theirs. So they were determined to make it strong enough. As we enter beneath the gateway surmounted by the arms of the Orsini, we see that the rock still forms the pavement, and reaches half-way up the walls around us. The rest of these grim walls is of black lava, plundered, it is said, from the paving-blocks of the Via Cassia. Gloomy passages, also cut out of the solid rocks, lead into profundities suggestive

of the most romantic adventures and escapes. One does not wonder that Sir Walter Scott was more anxious to see Bracciano than anything else in Italy, and set off thither almost immediately after his arrival in Rome.

The inner court of the castle is much more cheerful. It

has a gothic loggia and a curious outside staircase, at once descending and ascending, and adorned with frescoes. As we were sitting here to draw, the old housekeeper came out to welcome us. She had been the German nurse of the young Prince Odescalchi, to whom the castle now belongs; we brought her a letter from the Princess-mother, and she was delighted to have the break in the monotony of her life. She had "told the Princess she wished for repose she wished to have time to think in her old age-and here she found it, but sometimes the repose was almost too much. The wind whistled through the long galleries louder than was pleasant, when there was no voice to enliven it; and last week in the earthquake-when the castle went crick-crack, and the plaster fell from the walls, and the tiles rattled upon the roof-oh, then it was roba da spaventare."

Of the few medieval castles in Italy which are still inhabited Bracciano is one of the largest. The Odescalchi