The Roman Campagna 1 



AMONG the capitals of Europe Rome has long had 

 the unique distinction of standing in the midst of a 

 wide solitude. Other cities in their outward growth 

 have incorporated village after village and hamlet after 

 hamlet. As their streets and squares merge insensibly 

 into a succession of villas and gardens, cottages and 

 hedgerows, followed by the farms and fields of the 

 open country, so the noise and stir of causeway and 

 pavement gradually give way to the quieter sounds 

 of rural life. But with the Eternal City this normal 

 arrangement does not hold good. For sixteen cen- 

 turies she has kept herself within her ancient walls 

 which still surround her with their picturesque con- 

 tinuity of rampart and tower. Inside these barriers 

 we still encounter, by day and by night, the * fumum 

 et opes, strepitumque Romae.' But outside the gates 

 we find ourselves on a lonely prairie that sweeps in 

 endless grassy, almost treeless, undulations up to the 

 base of the distant hills. The main roads, indeed, 

 that radiate from the city, are bordered on either side, 

 for the first mile or two, with a strip of suburban osterie^ 



^International Quarterly, June 1904.' 



