Romagna

“ If ever the possession of Romagna was necessary it is so now, considering the action of the Council towards His Sanctity; although from what I hear it will not lead to much, still it unsettles the minds of the people, and Italy is altogether in a disturbed condition, as you see. The establishment of Romagna as a barrier would be a great boon to the State of His Holiness, to the Church, and to yourselves; if we do not strike when we can, when we wish to do so it will be too late. Remember that the last time we fell out with the Lord of Foligno he obtained help from troops in Romagna ”

“ Tuscany.♦ It took in Æmilia south of the Po—the district of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, and Modena—also Tuscany, a name, which, as it no longer reaches to the Tiber, answers pretty nearly to its modern use. ♦Romagna.♦ The Tuscan name has lived on; the Exarchate and Pentapolis, as having been the chief seat of the later Imperial power in Italy, got the name of Romania, Romandiola, or Romagna. This name also lives on; but the Lombard Neustria and Austria soon vanish from the map. ”

“ In Ravenna, that most ancient city of Romagna, there dwelt of yore noblemen and gentlemen not a few, among whom was a young man, Nastagio degli Onesti by name, who by the death of his father and one of his uncles inherited immense wealth. ”

“ The flat strip of rich alluvial soil at the foot of the hills, and on the sea-shore, which makes the wealth and prosperity of the province of Romagna, is not specially interesting in other than agricultural eyes, save for its numerous and storied cities. The higher Apennine range, which hedges in this district from the rest of the peninsula, is a bleak and barren region for the most part, from which its clothing of forest has, to the great injury of the country in many respects, been stripped in the course of many greedily consuming and improvidently unproducing generations. ”

“ The employment of Roman terms need cause little surprise when we remember that the study of elementary Roman law, as well as of rhetoric,84 the ars dictandi then formed part of the Trivium, and was therefore widely taught in Italy. In the first half of the eleventh century a still more advanced study of law already flourished at the school of Ravenna, and as its influence increased, extended through Romagna into Tuscany. ”

“ Forli and Imola were the principal towns of Romagna, the patrimony of Catherine Sforza and Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. When the new married pair first came to their little State from Rome the Renaissance was at its height, and the ambitious bride sought, so far as possible, to surround herself with its splendours. ”

“ These two valleys—the hearts of Lombardy and Etruria—virtually contain the life of Italy. They are entirely different in character: Lombardy, essentially luxurious and worldly, at this time rude in art, but active; Etruria, religious, intensely imaginative, and inheriting refined forms of art from before the days of Porsenna.
49. South of these, in mid-Italy, you have Romagna,—the valley of the Tiber. In that valley, decayed Rome, with her lust of empire inextinguishable;—no inheritance of imaginative art, nor power of it ”

“ In this state of imminent peril it is imperative that the Honourable Signoria of Florence should send me in all haste as [Pg 247] many men-at-arms as possible, particularly from Romagna and Valle de Lamone, who are nearer, and being better trained men are more useful than any others. As soon as the Illustrious Duke of Milan sends me the foot and horse I have asked for, I shall advance into the Ferrara territory to keep the enemy in check. ”

“ The brigand of Romagna is, or was, a poor creature, very easily disposed of; his cousin in Calabria or Sicily is quite a different kind of person, a [141] resolute, unscrupulous gentleman whom it is not at all pleasant to meet.
In one of his Roman books Mr. Hare speaks of the unearthly beauty of the Campagna and its surrounding hills in the first moments of the dawn, and deplores the fact that so many travellers come and go away again without ever having risen early enough to see it. ”

“ The capture of Faenza had brought Caesar the title of Duke of Romagna, which was first bestowed on him by the pope in full consistory, and afterwards ratified by the King of Hungary, the republic of Venice, and the Kings of Castile and Portugal. The news of the ratification arrived at Rome on the eve of the day on which the people are accustomed to keep the anniversary of the foundation of the Eternal City ”

“ Genoa to those from Liguria; the inhabitants of La Romagna, between Rimini and Ancona, retired to the cities of the Pentapolis; Pisa, Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, and all the maritime towns of the south of Italy were peopled at the same time by crowds of fugitives." J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 11 (volume 1) . "From the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. ... One city, which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new invader ”

“ ROME It was in Foligno, seeing that fair white road which threads the rich valley of Spoleto, now skirting the Hill of Trevi, now leading through the olive gardens of Le Vene to the crystal springs of Clitumnus, that we first began to think of Rome. Up to that time we had not raised our eyes to the horizon. The beauty of the road itself had led us on, but now, though she was still far off, we felt once more the magnetism of the great Mother of Cities. Truly in Italy every road must lead to Rome. ”

“ Far back in time as it was when this took place, Italy seems to have already possessed numerous cities, many of which were to become enemies of Rome in later days. The most civilized of the Italian peoples were the Etruscans, a nation dwelling north of the Tiber, and whose many cities [Pg 12] displayed a higher degree of civilization than those around them. From these the Romans in later days borrowed many of their religious customs, and to them Romulus sent to learn what were the proper ceremonies to use in founding a city. ”

“ The picturesque dwellings that lined the banks of Rome's famous river have disappeared, and the yellow waters of the historic Tiber rush along between massive walls of stone.
Is it possible amid all these rapid changes to realise what Rome has been and is still? No, not on any of her seven hills, not in her streets, nor on her river embankments, not even in her churches, can this now be done. No: to realise the power and majesty of Ancient Rome one must go out into the Campagna, that desolate plain in which she lies. ”

“ These little white hamlets and towns of Italy glisten all over her long, low, mountain sides, their church towers red-roofed with tiles, or brown with wooden belfry, or pointed with the air-perched statue of a saint in their midst, and not seldom around them the circle of broken walls which tells the tale of their ancientness and of their bygone wars. Oftentimes they are old as Rome itself ”

“ Ancient Roma and the remains of her past greatness [148] will ever be impressed upon our memories. An empire once so mighty, the Mistress of the World; then for so long desolate and entombed, a city of ruins; and now, phœnix-like, rising rapidly from her ashes, and preparing as "Young Italy" to take her place as a power among the other nations of Europe, many of whom have already welcomed her as a sister.
On the morning of the 26th of January we left Rome for Naples, some 163 miles by railway. ”

“ There is the Tiber rolling its yellow floods at your feet; and there, spread out in funereal gloom between the mountains and the sea, is the Campagna di Roma. The spectacle is sublime, despite its desolation. There is but one object in the vast expanse, but that is truly a majestic one. Alone, on the silent plain, judgment-stricken and sackcloth-clad, occupying the same spot where she "glorified herself and lived deliciously," and said in her heart, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow," is Rome. ”

“ The plains of Lombardy are eternally covered with flowers and fruit. The valleys of Tuscany still boast the olive, the orange, and the vine. The wide waste of the Campagna di Roma is of the richest soil, and, spread out beneath the warm sun, might mingle on its surface the fruits of the torrid with those of the temperate zones. Instead of this, Italy presents to the traveller's eye a deplorable spectacle of wretched cabins, untilled fields, and a population oppressed by sloth and covered with rags. The towns are filled mostly with idlers and beggars. ”

“ Stacks of mouldering brickwork attract the eye by the wayside,—the remains of temples and monuments when the land was in its prime. You scarce take note of the scattered and stunted olives which are dying through age. The fields are wretchedly tilled, where tilled at all. The country appears to grow only the more desolate, and the silence the more dreary and unsupportable, as you advance. "Roma! Roma!" is chanted forth in melancholy tones by the postilion. "Roma" is graven on the milestones; but you cannot persuade yourself that Rome you shall find in the heart of a desert like this. ”

“ A meadow near the Tiber, of grass and daisies, tufted with yellow-hearted jonquils. Larks and sun and wind overhead; in the distance the pale mountains, patched with snow. All round, the pale green embosomings of the soft earth hills. If the Umbrians got their love of circular hill lines at home, they learned in Rome the real existence of the green grass valleys and hills unbroken by cultivation, like those behind Perugino's Crucifixion and Spagna's Muses. ”

“ The life of Rome is outdoor; folk loiter and congregate in the streets; there is much traffic of vehicles used for pleasure. Over the city stretches “the Italian sky,” ardently blue—the sky that we know from paintings before we have visited Rome—and upon the white buildings shines a hot sun from which we shrink in midsummer noons. ”

“ They were defeated, and the Senate of Rome decreed the annexation of all the territory from the Rhone to the Alps, to constitute thereof a province. Thenceforth the cities and slopes of the coast became places of residence for wealthy Romans, who had there villas and gardens. The towns were supplied with amphitheatres and baths, Theatres they possessed before, under the Greeks; but the brutal pleasures of the slaughter of men was an introduction by the Romans. ”

“ Factories are but slowly built, and the land is almost everywhere tilled in the same primitive manner as it was two thousand years ago. And then, too, take Rome—Rome, which didn’t make Italy, but which Italy made its capital to satisfy an ardent, overpowering desire—Rome, which is still but a splendid bit of scenery, picturing the glory of the centuries, and which, apart from its historical splendour, has only given us its degenerate papal population, swollen with ignorance and pride! ”

“ The air of Rome inspires lassitude, and renders the inhabitants inert. The Romans who live in the healthy parts of the city are all inclined to grow fat; their language, unidiomatic, and, so to speak, long-winded in its expressions, is pronounced with a grace of accent, a slow and melodious emphasis, that renders it more agreeable than any other Italian to the ears of strangers, and is strangely in harmony with the dreamy contentment of their minds. ”

“ The germ of the old Roman race which civilized the world is still alive, and is quickly rising to a new life—lifting itself, after twenty centuries of burial, from the tomb of ignorance and oppression. Here is the centre of art and of the world's past recollections; here is spoken in its purity the most beautiful of languages; here are a fine climate and a fine country; and here are being strengthened the power and the splendour of united Italy.
THE WALLS OF ROME. FIRST WALL—ROMA QUADRATA.
The city of Romulus, upon the Palatine Hill, was called from its shape Roma Quadrata. ”

“ When centuries of great plundering barons have impressed on a race the haughty and rapacious profile of a bird of prey, the metal may change, but the imprint remains the same. Many of the faces that seemed the most pronouncedly Italian, with a Luini smile, or the voluptuous, calm gaze of a Titian, flowers of the Adriatic, or the plains of Lombardy, had blossomed on the shrubs of the North transplanted to the old Latin soil. Whatever colors be spread on the palette of Rome, the color which stands out is always Roman. ”

“ The clear and brilliant moonlight of Italy now pervades every district of the glorious city, and bathes in its pure effulgence the groves and palaces on the Pincian Mount. From the garden of Numerian the irregular buildings of the great suburbs of Rome, the rich undulating country beyond, and the long ranges of mountains in the distance, are now all visible in the soft and luxurious light. Near the spot which commands this view, not a living creature is to be seen on a first examination ”

“ A short ride from this lake, brought us to Ronciglione; a little town like a large pig-sty, where we passed the night. Next morning at seven o'clock, we started for Rome.
As soon as we were out of the pig-sty, we entered on the Campagna Romana; an undulating flat (as you know) where few people can live; and where, for miles and miles, there is nothing to relieve the terrible monotony and gloom. Of all kinds of county that could, by possibility, lie outside the gates of Rome, this is the aptest and fittest burial-ground for the Dead City. ”