TERNI. O qui me gelidis in vallibus sistat, Et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra ! VIRGIL. Del monte corsero i ruscelli Mormorando, e la florida riviera Lambir freschi e scherzosi i venticelli. MONTI. THERE are few places in Italy more deserving the admiration, or more calculated to rivet the attention, of the tourist than Terni and its romantic neighbourhood. Situated in the centre of a plain, to which the wild, murmuring, and picturesque Nera imparts fertility and beauty, encompassed by mountains clothed to the summit in continual verdure, and abounding in objects rendered interesting by their antiquity or beauty, the environs of Terni may justly be allowed pre-eminence, even in a country so renowned for its magnificent scenery, and the surpassing interest created by its monumental remains. The inhabitants of Terni claim for their city the distinction of high antiquity, dating its foundation from the latter end of the reign of Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome. The Romans sent a colony thither in the year U. C. 441, and called the city Interamna, from the circumstance of its being situated between two branches of the Nera or Nar, a river of considerable beauty and importance, which rises in the Apennine mountains, and discharges itself into the Tibur a little above Rome. It must have been originally a place of some importance, if an opinion may be formed from the appearance of its ruins, and the mention made of it by the earlier historians. There are now, however, but few traces of its former splendour. Its extent and situation are alone marked by a few mouldering remains which time has yet spared from destruction. In one part of the town there are some old walls and a few arches, which are partly stopped up, forming part of what is supposed to have been an ancient temple to Hercules. Among these ruins may be still. distinctly traced in very large characters the following inscription: Domus Herculi Sacra, a house consecrated to Hercules. In other parts of the town there are various antique marbles, let into the walls to preserve them from farther injury, bearing curious inscriptions, one of which is the basis of a statue erected by L. Licinius, in honour of Aulus Pompeius, for his having extricated this municipal city from some pressing danger. There is also a fine pedestal, which anciently supported a statue of Titus Flaminius. Near the cathedral is an antique marble, with a mutilated inscription, from which may be gathered that the inhabitants of Terni, wishing to compliment Tiberius, caused this inscription to be set up after he had destroyed his insolent favourite Sejanus. The ruins of the amphitheatre are still shown in the gardens of the episcopal palace; they only consist of some vaults and other trifling remains, from which not enough can be traced of its former proportions to convey the slightest interest. Terni, insignificant as it now assuredly is, has the honour of being the birth-place of the Emperors Tacitus and Florian, and likewise of Tacitus the historian. Their names are inscribed over the gate known by the name of Spoleto. We are assured, by the guides of Terni, that, formerly, three monuments attested the claims of the city to the honour of having produced such illustrious citizens, but that during a violent storm they were destroyed by lightning, and the fragments having, from time to time, been purloined by travelling virtuosi, nothing now remains but faith in the traditionary intelligence of the natives to determine the exact site, or whether indeed they ever existed. The city, however, shorn as it is of grandeur, still boasts of some handsome palaces, and, still better, of what time cannot deprive it-a most enchanting situation. The necessaries, and even luxuries of life, are likewise abundant; the wines are good; and the fertility of its soil was so remarkable, in ancient times, that Pliny boasts of the turnips of Interamna weighing be tween thirty and forty pounds! He adds, likewise, that the meadows were so luxuriant that four crops of grass could be obtained from them within the year. But the object from which Terni derives its principal reputation, and to which the visits of travellers are chiefly directed, is the beautiful and celebrated cascade in its vicinity. Though generally known by the name of the Cascade of Terni, its more classical appellation is that of "La cascata delle marmore," so called from the mountain and rock over which the water is precipitated being chiefly composed of a kind of yellow marble. The river Velino, whose course is thus so abruptly yet magnificently terminated, rises at some distance-an insignificant brook in the Apennine mountains. It flows quietly along till it reach the lake of Lugo, whence it emerges with increased force, and continuing its course along the plain of Rieti, and gathering a deeper stream in its descent, it becomes at last a resistless torrent, bearing away every thing opposed to its progress, until arriving at the brink, it is precipitated to the depth of three hundred feet, and forms a cascade, which, by the combination of its own sublimity, with the picturesque beauty by which it is surrounded, can hardly be said to be equalled in the world. The cascade is about three miles from Terni, although the guides aver it to be considerably more, merely to increase their hire; and there are three situations to which tourists are directed as the principal points from which it is seen to the greatest advantage. The way to the cascade lies through the valley of Nar. Sometimes overshadowed by the mountains, clothed to the summit with evergreen groves of pine and ilex, and then emerging into an open space, whence may be descried all the varieties of a richly featured landscape, with its beautiful characteristics of rocks, woods, and waters. The first view of the cascade is obtained by climbing the opposite hill, whence the second fall is more distinctly seen. The water emerging from the time-worn cavities occasioned by its first precipitation, tumbles over a ridge of jagged rocks, indistinctly seen through a continual misty spray by which it is enveloped, and then pursues its way, in foaming agitation, to join the Nar. The upper road to the cascade is also eminently beautiful. Having surmounted some slight difficulties in the passage, the eye is regaled with a prospect of which no description can convey more than a faint idea. The loud flowing Nar foaming along through the valley," suffurea albus aquâ," as described of old-the ruined village of Papignia rising in the centre, the city of Terni and its plain—the Velino bursting from its umbrageous concealment over the precipice upon the rocks below, forms a picture which cannot be contemplated without wonder and admiration. Addison supposes this to be the spot represented by Virgil as the gulf into which the fury Alecto is received on her passage back to the infernal regions, and founds his conjecture on the following passage in the seventh book of the Æneid : Est locus Italiæ in medio sub montibus altis In midst of Italy, well known to fame, Which falling from on high, with bellowing sound, And opens wide the grinning jaws of Hell. |