57-2 ITALY. 



The entrance of the church is adorned with columns forty-eight feet 

 high, and ihe architrave is formed of a single piece of granite. On 

 the left hand, on entering the portico, is a large antique vase of Nu- 

 midian marble ; and in the area before the church is a fountain with 

 an antique of porphyry. The pillars of Trajan and Antonine, the 

 former 175 feet high, and the latter covered with instructive sculp- 

 tures, are still remaining. A traveller forgets the devastations of the 

 northern barbarians, when he sees the rostrated column erected by 

 Duilius in commemoration of the first naval victory the Romans gain- 

 ed over the Carthaginians ; the statue of the wolf giving suck to 

 Romulus and Remus, with visible marks of the strokes of lightning, 

 mentioned by Cicero ; and the original brass plates containing the 

 laws of the twelve tables; and a thousand other iodentical antiquities, 

 some of them transmitted unhurt to the present times ; not to men- 

 tion medals, and the infinite variety of seals and engraved stones 

 which abound in the cabinets of the curious. Many palaces, through- 

 out Italy, are furnished with busts and statues fabricated in the times 

 of the republic and the higher empire. 



The Appian, Flaminian, and iEmilian roads, the first 200 miles, the 

 second 130, and the third 50 miles in length, are in many places 

 still entire ; and magnificent ruins of villas, reservoirs, bridges, and 

 the like, present themselves in every part of Italy. 



The subterraneous constructions of Italy are as stupendous as those 

 above ground : such are the cloacae, and the catacombs, or reposito- 

 ries for dead bodies, in the neighbourhood of Rome and Naples. It is 

 not above 50 years since a painter's apprentice discovered the ancient 

 city of Psestum or Posidonia, in the kingdom of Naples, still standing ; 

 for so indifferent are the country people of Italy about objects of an- 

 tiquity, that it was a new discovery to the learned. An inexhaustible 

 mine of curiosities exists in the ruins of Herculaneum, a city lying 

 between Naples and Vesuvius, which in the reign of Nero, was al- 

 most destroyed by an earthquake, and afterwards, in the first year 

 of the reign of Titus, overwhelmed by a stream of the lava of Vesu- 

 vius. The melted lava in its course filled up the streets and houses 

 in some places to the height of sixty-eight feet above the tops of the 

 latter, and in others one hundred and ten feet. This lava is now of 

 a consistency which renders it extremely difficult to be removed or 

 cleared away : it is composed of bituminous particles, mixed with 

 cinders, minerals, metallic and vitrified sandy substances, which alto- 

 gether form a close and heavy mass. In the revolution of so many 

 ages, the spot it stood upon was entirely forgotten ; but in the year 

 1713, upon digging into these parts, some remains of this unfortunate 

 city were discovered, and many antiquities were dug out ; but the 

 search was afterwards discontinued, till the year 1736, when the king 

 of Naples employed men to dig perpendicularly eighty feet deep, 

 whereupon not only the city made its appearance, but also the bed of 

 the river which ran through it. The temple of Jupiter was then dis- 

 closed, and the whole of the theatre. In the temple was found a 

 statue of gold, and the inscription that decorated the great doors of 

 entrance. In the theatre, the fragments of a gilt chariot of bronze, 

 with horses of the same metal, likewise gilt; this had been placed 

 over the principal door of entrance. There were likewise found 

 anions the ruins of this city, multitudes of statues, busts, pillars, 

 paintings, manuscripts, furniture, and various utensils. The streets 

 «f the town appear to have been quite straight and regular, the houses 



