[Illustration: S. ORESTE, FROM SORACTE.][54]
“From the little deep-blue lake of Vico it is a long ascent, and oh! what Italian scenery, quite unspoilt by the English, who never come here now. The road is generally a dusty hollow in the tufa, which, as we pass, is fringed with broom in full flower, and all the little children we meet have made themselves wreaths and gathered long branches of it, and wave them like golden sceptres. Along the brown ridges of thymy tufa by the wayside, flocks of goats are scrambling, chiefly white, but a few black and dun-coloured creatures are mingled with them, mothers with their little dancing elf-like kids, and old bearded patriarchs who love to clamber to the very end of the most inaccessible places, and to stand there embossed against the clear sky, in triumphant quietude. The handsome shepherd dressed in white linen lets them have their own way, and the great rough white dogs only keep a lazy eye upon them as they themselves lie panting and luxuriating in the sunshine. Deep down below us, it seems as if all Italy were opening out, as the mists roll stealthily away, and range after range of delicate mountain distance is discovered. Volscian, Hernican, Sabine, and Alban hills, Soracte nobly beautiful--rising out of the soft quiet lines of the Campagna, and the Tiber winding out of the rich meadow-lands into the desolate wastes, till it is lost from sight before it reaches where a great mysterious dome rises solemnly through the mist, and reminds one of the times when, years ago, in the old happy _vetturino_ days, we used to stop the carriage on this very spot, to have our first sight of St. Peter’s.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF S. SILVESTRO, SUMMIT OF SORACTE.][55]
“Near a little deserted chapel, a road branches off on the right, a rough stony road enough, which soon descends abruptly through chestnut woods, and then through deep clefts cut in the tufa and overhung by shrubs and flowers, every winding a picture, till in about half-an-hour we arrive at Caprarola. Why do not more people come here? it is so very easy. As we emerge from our rocky way, the wonderful position of the place bursts upon us at once. The grand, tremendous palace stands backed by chestnut woods, which fade into rocky hills, and it looks down from a high-terraced platform upon the little golden-roofed town beneath, and then out upon the whole glorious rainbow-tinted view, in which, as everywhere we have been, lion-like Soracte, couching over the plain, is the most conspicuous feature. The buildings are so vast in themselves, and every line so noble, every architectural idea so stupendous, that one is carried back almost with awe to the recollections of the great-souled Farnese who originated the design, and the grand architect who carried it out. S. Carlo Borromeo, the great patron of idle almsgiving, came hither to see it when it was completed, and complained that so much money had not been given to the poor instead. ‘I have let them have it all little by little,’ said Alessandro Farnese, ‘but I have made them earn it by the sweat of their brows.’