Riccardi speaks of the admirable effect in winter from the ice formed at the bottom. The valley of Terni, measured I suppose at the city itself, is 346 feet above the sea, and the bottom of the fall may be 100 or 150 feet more, but this is not a height to account for any material difference of climate, and we certainly should not have expected much effect from the frost. As I have not seen it in that state, I will copy his description. “The appearance of the fall in winter does not deserve less attention. The ice accumulating at the bottom of the precipice, forms itself into enormous masses, which appear to be the disproportioned columns of some huge pile of building; while the icicles hanging from above, seem as if they would lengthen themselves to the bottom of the gulf. The river itself, increased in volume, brings down various substances of different colours, which unite the beautiful, to the sublime effect produced by the vast rush of water, and masses of ice; and this is farther heightened by the vertical rainbows of more than a semicircle, which exhibit themselves in the spray, and by a number of other horizontal rainbows.” What these horizontal rainbows may be, I cannot pretend to explain.
In the afternoon I hired a caratella to Spoleto. The road winds over a branch of the Apennines, and is here called the _Somma_; it passes in fact through a very winding opening in the mountain, which is very pleasant, but has no striking feature, and no extensive view from the upper part. Spoleto itself is situated on a rocky hill almost insulated, or I might say quite insulated, as the neck is so low that we hardly observe it. A magnificent aqueduct, said to be a Roman work, but which in fact is the work of a Roman cardinal in the fifteenth century, supplies the town with water. This passes the deep and narrow valley which separates the hill from the general mass of mountain, supported on a single range of arches near 250 feet high. Some of the arches are however divided into two in height, and others have been so, which are not so now, but I am at a loss to conceive the motive of the alteration. The water is collected from two or three springs among the mountains, and falls 30 or 40 feet before passing the aqueduct. Advantage of this fall has been taken to build a mill; and the same stream which furnishes a supply of water to the town, also grinds its corn. There are several fragments of Roman antiquity at Spoleto, one of which is a bridge lately discovered. The torrent has changed its bed, and the bridge was in consequence buried for many centuries. An ancient arch within the town is called Porta Fuga, from a tradition that Hannibal attacked the town on that side, and was obliged to retreat with great loss. If you believe all the stories told about this general in Italy, it would seem as if he had entered the country to beat the Romans, and to be beaten by every little city in the land. There is also another Roman arch within the city, and some foundations of uncertain purpose, which appear to be connected with it; and in the upper part of the town are other remains, said to have been part of a palace of Theodoric; and about the citadel we may observe some portions of Cyclopean masonry.