arose in amphitheatrical fashion, showing whitely on a knoll below Monte
Cavo, which was crowned by lofty and ancient trees. And from this point
of the road, on looking back towards Frascati, one saw high up, on the
verge of a pine wood the ruins of Tusculum, large ruddy ruins, baked by
centuries of sunshine, and whence the boundless panorama must have been
superb. Next one passed through Marino, with its sloping streets, its
large cathedral, and its black decaying palace belonging to the Colonnas.
Then, beyond a wood of ilex-trees, the lake of Albano was skirted with
scenery which has no parallel in the world. In front, beyond the clear
mirror of motionless water, were the ruins of Alba Longa; on the left
rose Monte Cavo with Rocca di Papa and Palazzuolo; whilst on the right
Castel Gandolfo overlooked the lake as from the summit of a cliff. Down
below in the extinct crater, as in the depths of a gigantic cup of
verdure, the lake slept heavy and lifeless: a sheet of molten metal,
which the sun on one side streaked with gold, whilst the other was black
with shade. And the road then ascended all the way to Castel Gandolfo,
which was perched on its rock, like a white bird betwixt the lake and the
sea. Ever refreshed by breezes, even in the most burning hours of summer,
the little place was once famous for its papal villa, where Pius IX loved
to spend hours of indolence, and whither Leo XIII has never come. And
next the road dipped down, and the ilex-trees appeared again, ilex-trees
famous for their size, a double row of monsters with twisted limbs, two
and three hundred years old. Then one at last reached Albano, a small
town less modernised and less cleansed than Frascati, a patch of the old
land which has retained some of its ancient wildness; and afterwards
there was Ariccia with the Palazzo Chigi, and hills covered with forests
and viaducts spanning ravines which overflowed with foliage; and there
was yet Genzano, and yet Nemi, growing still wilder and more remote, lost
in the midst of rocks and trees.