We
Are On A Hill - A Mere Wave Of Ground; A Kind Of Spur, Rather, Rising Up
From, The South - Quite An Absurd Little Hill, But Sufficiently High To
Dominate The Wide Apulian Plain.
And the nakedness of the land
stimulates this aerial sense.
There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or
public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a
fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a
few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished
walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic
appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the
way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and
yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those
yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more
dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a
pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the
favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks,
which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent
taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the
deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green
content; the content, respectively, of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso.
So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade
of cypress - roses and gleaming marble monuments in between - is a
charming retreat, not only for the dead.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 2 of 488
Words from 259 to 521
of 131203
