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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



very cheerful and sociable in the way 

 these Veronese tombs are set about in 

 busy places; one feels that the sleepers 

 could not be lonely there (see page 560). 



The fagade of Sant' Anastasia is in- 

 complete, but the doorway is perfect, 

 while within, the church is a jewel-box, 

 as indeed are most of Verona's shrines. 



The cathedral is perhaps the least at- 

 tractive, but not uninteresting. It was 

 erected upon the site of a temple to 

 Minerva very early in Christian days, but 

 in its present form belongs to the twelfth 

 century. Hidden behind the columns of 

 the door — columns that rest, like San 

 Zeno's and many another Lombard 

 church, upo,n what I presumed were 

 lions, but more scholarly folk call grif- 

 fins — are two small figures in rough relief 

 of Roland and Oliver — the paladins of 

 Charlemagne. Were they done in Char- 

 lemagne's own time? How near they 

 bring us to him ! And for Verona they 

 are not old ; in the eight hundreds she 

 was long past youth (see page 559). 



vErona's arena 



It is the Arena which speaks of that, 

 the Arena whose three-storied outer wall 

 is all gone but for four arcades, whose 

 two-story inner wall, whose oval of stone 

 seats served so often as a quarry, whose 

 adornments all are gone. Baedeker gives 

 its date positively as 290 A. D., but that 

 is disputed. It was there, then, most cer- 

 tainly, but may be much older. In Ger- 

 man ballads it is known as the "Home of 

 Dietrich of Bern," but Theodoric treated 

 it rudely, using its stones to strengthen 

 his fortress upon that far-away hill 

 across the Adige which Avas Verona's 

 birthplace and citadel. 



Originally serving for the combats of 

 wild beasts, it was next used by gladi- 

 ators, then by those awful slaughters of 

 man by beast that marked the coming of 

 Christianity, and fell slowly into disuse 

 as the faith gained power. Neglected for 

 centuries, since the sixteenth it has been 

 gradually repaired and restored ; the in- 

 terior looks almost new — too much so to 

 inspire imagination or awaken memory. 

 It is now used frequently for small cir- 

 cuses, vaudeville, moving-picture shows, 

 and gives pleasure to many humble resi- 

 dents of Verona (pages 570-571). 



Besides the arena, the most noted Ro- 

 man remain is the theater at the foot of 

 the hill of San Pietro. Here we are in 

 the most ancient part of Verona, but so 

 overlaid with centuries of building that 

 one does not readily find trace of the 

 earliest. Part of Theodoric's palace cov- 

 ered the theater, and after that many 

 houses and churches in succession. It is 

 only within very recent years that it has 

 come again into the light of day. 



THK ADIGE'S bridges 



That it is beautiful, I will not say, but 

 it is interesting: and if you want beauty, 

 look about you at the cypresses on the 

 hill by the castle, at the bridge spanning 

 the swift foaming Adige. Two arches 

 of that bridge are Roman, while the oth- 

 ers and the tower were built by Alberto 

 della Scala in 1298. The Adige is no re- 

 specter of bridges ; more than one has 

 gone down in its floods. It speaks well, 

 then, for the masonry of those that re- 

 main through centuries. 



The river is somewhat tamed now 

 by the great containing walls recently 

 erected. Its banks are not so picturesque, 

 perhaps, but more secure. And the 

 washer-women spread their suds and 

 spill their voices just as merrily upon its 

 waves and winds as before. Go down by 

 the Ponte della Pietra and watch and 

 listen a moment. 



To San Zeno you must go and to San 

 Fermo, and to many more old churches 

 and ancient palaces. You must walk in 

 the Giardino Giusti by sunset and "watch 

 the colors fade in the far-away Apen- 

 nines. You must saunter some night in 

 midsummer through the narrow, dusky 

 streets, feeling the throbbing life of 

 them. Perhaps a flower will fall to you 

 from a far-away balcony; you may hear 

 the soft call of a serenade; you will cer- 

 tainly catch the odor of patchouli, the 

 fragrance of jessamine and roses; you 

 will sit for a time in the piazza, with your 

 frozen fruit or a tall, beady glass in 

 which ice rattles, and watch the gay-col- 

 ored, soft-voiced throng shift to and fro; 

 and then you will stand on the bridge in 

 the moonlight or starlight listening to the 

 ripple of the waters, cool with the breath 

 of the mountains ; listening to the breath- 

 ing of the city, the great, hot, passionate 



