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the long upland valley called Val del Paradiso, which is exceedingly beautiful, covered in spring with primroses, crocuses, heartsease, and many of the mountain flowers of Switzerland. Here herds of cattle feed under the shade of the ilexes. The last part of the ascent is very steep and entirely over rock. The view from the top, 3,965 feet above the sea, is magnificent, though many will doubt whether it is sufficiently finer than that from Monte Cavo, to repay the fatigue of an excursion which is certainly very long and tiring, though it is exaggerated by the hotel-keepers at Tivoli, and though the start at 3 A. M., which is urged by them, is altogether unnecessary: 6 or 7 A. M. being quite early enough.

It is best to descend by the almost perpendicular staircase called La Scarpellata, but the steps are very rugged and of course can only be traversed on foot. There is a pleasant ride through meadows from S. Francesco, ascending afterwards by the olive-woods, and coming up to Tivoli by the Madonna del Quintiliolo. We leave a little to the right the low isolated hills called Montes Corniculani (which may be made the object of a separate excursion from Tivoli). Their southern height is occupied by the village of Monticelli, . the next by Colle Cesi, the northern by S. Angelo in Cappoccio. All the villages are ruinous, but contain many picturesque bits. S. Angelo is supposed to occupy the site of Corniculum, which was burnt by Tarquin. The widow of its slain chieftain, Ocrisia, was taken, after the siege, to Rome, where she was delivered of a boy, who was educated in the house of Tarquin, and became King Servius Tullius. Some ancient walls of Cyclopean masonry remain: the interstices between the large stones are filled in with smaller ones.

CHAPTER XIV.

VELLETRI.

(Velletri is a station on the Naples line of railway, one hour and 20 minutes from Rome. The Locanda del Gallo is a comfortable and reasonable hotel. The vetturino Roberto Tasselli, 116 Strada Vittorio Emmanuele, is an honest man, and lets out capital carriages for excursions. A carriage for the day to Cora costs 25 francs, to Ninfa 22 francs, but the price must be settled beforehand.)

ELLETRI is in many respects a much better centre

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for excursions than Albano, being situated on the railway itself, so that tourists are saved the long drive down to the station, which makes excursions from the latter town so fatiguing. Its streets are wide and clean, and the air healthy and invigorating. Like Albano, it has no costumes of its own, but on festas the people flock in from the neighbouring villages, and enliven it with their white panni and brilliant red and blue bodices. Of the old Volscian city of Velitræ, which once occupied this site and which was so long at war with Rome, there are many scattered traces, and vestiges may be discovered of the vallum and fosse with which the place was surrounded by Coriolanus. But the inhabitants of the Volscian city were removed to Rome, where they became the forefathers of the Trasteverini, and though in imperial times the place had again a certain importance, and though Augustus himself is declared by the

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natives to have been born there (in contradiction to the account of Suetonius, who expressly states that he was born at Rome, at the sign of the Ox-heads, in the Palatium), the principal existing remains are all medieval.

From the station a gradual ascent leads into the town, fringed with trees, and with beautiful views of the Volscian range, over the hill-side slopes so rich in the vines which produce the famous wine of Velletri. The extraordinary folly which has affected almost every town in Italy since the change of government, has changed all the old historical appellations of the streets to the meaningless "Corso Cavour, Via Vittorio Emmanuele, Via Garibaldi," &c. One whole side of the principal square is occupied by the façade of the Palazzo Lancellotti, built by Martino Longhi. The exterior gives no idea of the extreme beauty of the interior, which is one of the most remarkable in Italy. On the first floor is an open gallery of immense length, the arcades divided by pillars richly decorated with caryatides. A marble staircase, with open loggias on every landing, ascends to the top of the palace, whence there is a glorious view, and beneath are beautiful gardens extending to the open country. Near the top of the staircase is a very fine statue of Minerva Pudicitia (with its own head, that at the Vatican being an addition) found at Velletri. The palace is now inhabited by Prince Gianetti, who kindly allows it to be shown to strangers, and it is well worth visiting.

Opposite the palace rises the beautiful tall detached campanile of Santa Maria in Trivio, raised to commemorate the deliverance of the city from the plague in 1348, whilst it was being besieged by Nicola Gaetani, Lord of Fondi. Other old palaces of impoverished nobles abound in the

smaller streets, the most remarkable being the Palazzo Filippi,

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which is really magnificent, in spite of its desertion and decay. The old palace of the popes, now called Palazzo Communale, built by Giacomo della Porta, occupies the highest part of the town, the citadel of old Velitræ, and beside it stands the palace of the Cardinal-Archbishop, with a bas-relief on its front commemorating the opening of the Via Appia Nuova by Pius IX., and an inscription rather inconsistent with present ideas

"Papalis et imperialis est mihi libertas." Close to these palaces are two little churches, San Michaele and Il Santissimi Sangue. Over the door of the latter is an ancient sun-dial"Horologium Beronianum"-found in the neighbouring ruins. In the interior is an inscription recording a miraculous appearance of the Virgin, and an altar to an early Christian who has been canonized on the belief that she was a martyr-"Temporalem

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mortem S. Tertura Victorina contemnens coronam vitæ æternæ possidet in pace." By the side is the catacomb inscription:

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In the lower part of the town is the Cathedral, dedicated

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