Identifier: daysnearrome01hare (find matches)
Title: Days near Rome
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Hare, Augustus J. C. (Augustus John Cuthbert), 1834-1903
Subjects: Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : Daldy, Isbister & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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s may be discovered. Andwhat is chiefly remarkable is that almost all the remainsbelong to one building, the gigantic Temple of Fortune, built PALAZZO BARBERINI, PALESTRINA. 275 by Sylla, which rose upon terraces, tier above tier, occupying the whole space now filled by the town, and perhaps the largest building in Italy. Behind Palestrina the mountain rises abruptly, bare and arid, and the town itself stands very high. Virgil alludes to the cool climate of Praeneste :— Quique altum Prseneste viri, quique arva GabinasJunonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivisHernica saxa colunt:— There is not much to be seen in the lower town. In thepiazza are some pillars of the Temple of Fortune built intoa wall, and the small ugly Cathedral^ which has a low butgraceful gothic campanile. In the highest part of the townis the Palazzo Barbermi, of which the wing is used as a bar-rack, but which is for the most part as deserted and forlorna specimen of an old Itahan palace, once exceedingly mag-
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The Barberini Well, Palestrina. nificent, as can well be found. Its front was built in avast semi-circle, so as to follow the plan of the temple of 276 DA YS NEAR ROME. Sylla, and is approached by curved staircases enclosing anold well. The halls on the ground-floor are painted by theZuccheri, but Apollo with his dove-chariot, and Juno withher peacocks, are fading with the damp which streams fromthe walls. We asked the old housekeeper if she did notsuffer from it. Ah, yes, she said, all my hair has comeoff, and all my teeth have fallen out; for even when out ofdoors it is a caldofcroce, here within it \% fresco assai. She saidshe was z.forestiera, for she came from Frescati, and thoughshe had been here forty years, she could not accustom her-self to the wickedness of the people,—II mondo e bello,ma se fosse buono sarebbe meglio. On the upper flooris the famous mosaic, found amid the ruins of the Temple ofFortune, representing the joy of the people and the beastsof Eg)-pt in the annu

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