Ariosto Has Given A Celebrity To This Wretched Place Baccano In His Poem Of
The Orlando Furioso, In The Story
Of Giocondo in the 28th Canto, as being
the identical place where Fausto, the brother of Giocondo, remained to
await
The return of his brother from Rome, to which place he had gone back,
when half way between Baccano and Rome, to fetch the monile which he had
left behind him, and found his wife not alone and dying with grief as
he apprehended, but sotto la coltre with a servant of the family.
The country between Baccano and Rome is as unpleasing and even worse than
that between the former place and Ronciglione. It is hilly, but not a tree,
nor a house, nor a sign of cultivation to be seen except the two or three
wretched hovels at La Storta. There is nothing at all that announces the
approach to a capital city; and in addition to the dismal landscape there
is a sight still more dismal that salutes the eye of the traveller at
intervals of two or three miles and which does not tend to inspire pleasing
ideas; and this is the sight of arms and legs of malefactors and murderers
suspended on large poles on the road side; for it is the custom here to cut
off the arms and legs of murderers after decapitation, and to suspend them
in terrorem on poles, erected on the very spot where they committed the
murder. The sight of these limbs dangling in the wind is not a very
comfortable one towards the close of the evening.
We left the Sepolero di Nerone, an ancient tomb so called, on the right
of our road and half a mile beyond it crossed the Tiber at the Ponte Molle
(Pons Milvius), where there is a gate, bridge and military post. From this
post to the Porta del Popolo, the entrance into the city for those coming
from the North, the distance is one mile; there is a white wall on each
side of the road the whole way, and some farm houses and villas. Near the
Ponte Molle is the field of battle where Maxentius was defeated by
Constantine.
We entered the Porta del Popolo, crossed the Piazza of the same name,
where three streets present themselves to view. In the centre is the street
called the Corso, running in a direct line from the Porta across the
Piazza. We drove along the Corso till we arrived at a Piazza on our
right hand, which Piazza is called della Colonna from the Column of
Antoninus, which stands on it. We then crossed the Piazza which is very
large and soon reached the Dogana or Custom house, formerly the temple of
Antoninus Pius, where vile modern walls are built to fill up the intervals
between eleven columns of Grecian marble. Here our baggage underwent a
rigorous research; this rigour is not so much directed against the
fraudulent introduction of contraband or duty-bearing merchandise, as
against books, which undergo a severe scrutiny. Against Voltaire and
Rousseau implacable war is waged, and their works are immediately
confiscated. Other authors too are sometimes examined, to see whether they
contain anything against Mother Church. As the people employed in
inspecting books are not much versed in any litterature or language but
their own, except perhaps a little French, it is not easy for them to find
out the contents of books in other languages. I had Schiller's works with
me, a volume of which one of the douaniers took up and looked at; on
seeing the Gothic letter he seemed as much astonished as if he had got hold
of a book of Cabbala or Magic. He detained the whole work, but it was
sent to me the next day, on my declaring that there was nothing damnable or
heretical in it; for there was no person belonging to the department who
could read German. When the douaniers proceeded to the examination of the
books belonging to one of my fellow travellers, the Neapolitan lady, she
expressed great repugnance to the procedure; the douaniers however
insisted and, behold! there were several livres galants with plates
somewhat lubriques, the discovery of which excited blushes on her part
and considerable laughter on the part of the byestanders. These books,
however, not being contraband, were immediately returned to her, as was an
edition of Baffo, belonging to my other fellow traveller, returned to him.
Now this Baffo was a Venetian poet and his works are the most profligate
that ever were penned or imagined by mortal man. Martial and Petronius
Arbiter must hide their diminished heads before Baffo. The owner of this
book chose to read out loud, quite unsolicited, several choice sonnets of
this poet for our edification during the journey; and this branch of
litterature seemed to be the only one with which he was acquainted.
When the examination was over I took leave of my fellow travellers, and
repaired to the German Hotel in the Via de' Condotti, where I engaged
an apartment, and sat down to dinner at an excellent table d'hote at five
o'clock. There was a profusion of everything, particularly of fish and
game. Mullets and wild boar are constant dishes at a Roman table. The
mullets at Rome are small but delicious, and this was a fish highly prized
by the ancient Romans. Game of all kinds is very cheap here, from the
abundance of it that is to be met with in wild uninhabited wastes of Latium
and in the Pontine marshes. Every peasant is a sportsman and goes
constantly armed with fire-arms, not only to kill game, but to defend
himself against robbers, who infest the environs of Rome, and who sometimes
carry their audacity so far as to push their reconnaissances close to the
very walls of the city. At the German Hotel the price of the dinner at
table d'hote, including wine at discretion, is six paoli, about three
franks.
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