Old Continental TownsGallichan, Walter M. (Walter Matthew)
History
Old Continental Towns
Gallichan, Walter M. (Walter Matthew)
Cities and towns -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel
Shelley was entranced by the arch of Constantine. "It is exquisitely
beautiful and perfect." In March 1819, he writes: "Come to Rome. It is a
scene by which expression is overpowered, which words cannot convey."
The Cathedral scarcely appealed to Shelley; he thought it inferior
externally to St Paul's, though he admired the façade and colonnade.
More satisfying to the poet's æsthetic taste was the Pantheon, with its
handsome fluted columns of yellow marble, and the beauty of the
proportions in the structure.
The Pantheon is generally admitted to be the most noble of the ancient
edifices of the city. It was erected by Agrippa 27 B.C., and sumptuously
adorned with fine marbles. The dome is vast and nobly planned, and the
building truly merits Shelley's designation, "sublime."
Keats was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome, in a tomb bearing
the inscription: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." His loyal
and admiring friend, Shelley, wrote a truer memorial of the young poet:
"Go thou to Rome--at once the paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness;
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of desolation's nakedness
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access,
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread."
In 1850 Robert Browning and his wife were in Rome, and it was then that
Browning wrote the beautiful love poem, "Two in the Campagna," telling
of the joy of roaming in:
"The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace
An everlasting wash of air----"
Poets and painters have through the centuries drawn inspiration from
this wondrous city of splendid monuments and ancient grandeur. How true
was Goethe's statement that wherever you turn in Rome there is an object
of beauty and arresting interest.
The appeal of the city is strong, the variety bewildering, whether you
elect to muse upon the remains of the imperial days, or to study the
Renaissance art of the Christian churches. It is well, if possible, to
make a survey of the antiquities in chronological order, beginning with
an inspection of the ruins of the Romulean wall and the traces of the
oldest gates. Then the Forum should be visited in its valley, and the
art of the temple of Saturn, the Basilica Julia, and the Arch of Fabius
examined. The Temple of Vespasian, the Palace of Caligula, Trajan's
Column, and the numerous arches will all arouse memories of the emperors
and the splendid purple days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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