Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . eturns to Rome with arichly filled sketch-book, and passes the winter in reproducing on canvas the sacred sun-shine of these vales to gladden the eyes of the foreigners. But many great and serious talents have visited distant Subiaco, and honour to allwho come hither with earnestness and dignity, bringing the full Olympic enthusiasm ofthe genuine artist into this grand landscape! To such the scenes around the Anio will MOUNTAIN MONASTERIES AND A PAINTERS PARADISE. 337 ever, and in all times, reveal their innermost secrets. A path well known to paintersleads
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . eturns to Rome with arichly filled sketch-book, and passes the winter in reproducing on canvas the sacred sun-shine of these vales to gladden the eyes of the foreigners. But many great and serious talents have visited distant Subiaco, and honour to allwho come hither with earnestness and dignity, bringing the full Olympic enthusiasm ofthe genuine artist into this grand landscape! To such the scenes around the Anio will MOUNTAIN MONASTERIES AND A PAINTERS PARADISE. 337 ever, and in all times, reveal their innermost secrets. A path well known to paintersleads out of this monastic valley up the mountain to Civitella, that ancient eagles eyrie inthe Sabine Hills. The path leads through thorns and thistles, over stones and weeds,past trees, and jagged roots, but the heart rejoices in the virgin beauty all around, whichinspires it with many a fairy-like sylvan dream. This is not the Italy we imagine to our-selves in a lyric mood : the Italy of golden oranges and softly whispering myrtle, of. SAN GERMANO AND MONTE CASSINO. palaces whose rooftree is upheld by marble pillars carved in likeness of the gods. No ;this is the stern, epic Italy, that we picture to ourselves in meditating on far past times,when men first began to forge iron with fire stolen from the gods,—when castles toweredhigh on the mountains in Titanic defiance. The huge fragments of them, stared on by thepeople as mysterious Cyclopean walls, are still scattered about among the brambles, andbeneath dark garlands of ivy. We might believe that History, weary of her wild game atdice down there in the populous plains, from the foot of the mountains to the headland ofCirce, had retired hither as into a solitary hermitage; and one can scarcely help expectingto meet the ancient inhabitants of these hills at every moment. But only poor mountaineers cross our path, with grave and gloomy, or weary andsickly countenances, and wearing the rude costume of the district. Stern, epic Ita
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
