Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . e(the district around Verona) to the highest pitch of prosperity. The best people in theland reposed their hopes on Can Grande ; Dante sang of him that he would make theGhibelline cause triumphant ; but the higher the flight, the deeper the fall. As in mostof the great Italian families, the passions of certain individuals were fatal to the and lust raged unchecked among the members of this race; three times, brotherwas slain by brother, until at length the thirst for undivided power led to the extinction ofthe family. Antonio was the last of his
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . e(the district around Verona) to the highest pitch of prosperity. The best people in theland reposed their hopes on Can Grande ; Dante sang of him that he would make theGhibelline cause triumphant ; but the higher the flight, the deeper the fall. As in mostof the great Italian families, the passions of certain individuals were fatal to the and lust raged unchecked among the members of this race; three times, brotherwas slain by brother, until at length the thirst for undivided power led to the extinction ofthe family. Antonio was the last of his race. After one hundred and thirty years ofbrilliancy, the star of the Scaligers set at last :—one of the brightest that Italy has everseen. Even their tomb bears witness that it was so. The monument of Can Grande is placed above the portal of the church; a heroicequestrian figure. On either side of him are the sarcophagi of Mastino and another sarcophagus rises a Gothic spire, enriched with numberless pinnacles and. DRAW-WELL. 4o ITALY. figures, and surmounted by a horse and rider, all so magnificent that one almost overlooksthe exquisite little sarcophagi niched in among them. It is perhaps the finest tomb thatany Italian ruler ever had ; but the activity of life, and not the peace of death, reignshere ; in their graves they are still lords of the city, and their corpses are throned highabove the heads of the living generation. No other church of the city, therefore, is so rich in historical associations as SantaMaria Antica. Still in many of the others are to be found traces of an eloquent past—as indeed is the case with nearly every inch of Veronas soil. There is a tradition thatthe old cathedral was erected on the ruins of a temple to Minerva, and the figureswhich adorn the great door date from the time of the Carlovingians. Among them standRoland the Brave, and Queen Bertha the mother of Charlemagne. But he who passesthrough the long cloister to the lear
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcavagnasangiulianidig, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870
