Studies of Travel: ItalyFreeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
History
Studies of Travel: Italy
Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus)
Italy -- Description and travel
At Spello we have reached an Italian town which is not a bishop's see;
even in Italy it was not likely to be so, with Assisi so close on one
hand and Foligno on the other. There is therefore no _duomo_, nor is
there any other church of much architectural importance. The best are
two small forsaken Romanesque churches outside the walls, one on each
side of the town. One of them, that of St. Claudius, forms one building
of a group by which we pass on the road from Assisi to Spello, a group
lying in the plain, with Spello on its height rising above them. There
is a large modern villa which seems to be built on Roman foundations;
by its side lies the little Romanesque church; nearly opposite is the
amphitheatre of Hispellum, keeping some fragments of its walls and with
its marked shape deeply impressed on the ground. Here the amphitheatre
is down in the plain; at Assisi it stands in the higher part of the
present city; in both it lies, according to rule, outside the original
Roman enclosure. It shows the passionate love for these sports wherever
the influence of Rome spread, that two amphitheatres could be needed
with so small a distance between them as that which parts Assisi from
Spello. More nearly opposite to the villa are other Roman fragments
which are said to have been part of a theatre; but the form of the
building is certainly not so clearly stamped on the ground as that of
its bloodier neighbour. Indeed we are in a region of Roman remains;
other fragments lie by the roadside between Assisi and Spello, and when
we reach the latter town, we find that, next to its general effect, it
is its Roman remains which form its chief attraction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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