rising ground to set it upon. It was a square tower of about twelve yards in breadth, as appears by that part of it which yet remains entire, so that its height must have been very considerable to have preserved a proportion. It is made in the form of the Venetian Campanello, and is probably the high tower mentioned by Pliny, lib. xxxvi. cap. 12.

On the side of the town, where the sea is supposed to have lain formerly, there is now a little church called the Rotonda. At the entrance of it are two stones, the one with an inscription in Gothic characters, that has nothing in it remarkable; the other is a square piece of marble, that by the inscription appears ancient, and by the ornaments about it shows itself to have been a little Pagan monument of two persons who were shipwrecked, perhaps in the place where now their monument stands. The first line and a half, that tells their names and families in prose, is not legible; the rest runs thus: -Rania domus hos produxit alumnos,

Libertatis opus contulit una dies.

Naufraga mors pariter rapuit quos junxerat antè,
Et duplices luctus mors periniqua dedit.

Both with the same indulgent master bless'd,
On the same day their liberty possess'd:

A shipwreck slew whom it had join'd before,

And left their common friends their fun'rals to deplore.

There is a turn in the third verse that we lose by not knowing the circumstances of their story. It was the naufraga mors which destroyed them, as it had formerly united them; what this union was is expressed in the preceding verse, by their both having been made freemen on the same day. If, therefore, we suppose they had been formerly shipwrecked with their master, and that he made them

free at the same time, the epigram is unriddled. Nor is this interpretation perhaps so forced as it may seem at first sight, since it was the custom of the masters, a little before their death, to give their slaves their freedom, if they had deserved it at their hands; and it is natural enough to suppose one, involved in a common shipwreck, would give such of his slaves their liberty, as should have the good luck to save themselves. The chancel of this church is vaulted with a single stone of four foot in thickness, and a hundred and fourteen in circumference. There stood on the outside of this little cupola a great tomb of porphyry, and the statues of the twelve apostles; but in the war that Lewis the twelfth made on Italy, the tomb was broken in pieces by a cannon-ball. It was perhaps the same blow that made the flaw in the cupola, though the inhabitants say it was cracked by thunder that destroyed a son of one of their Gothic princes, who had taken shelter under it, as having been foretold what kind of death he was to die. I asked an abbot that was in the church, what was the name of this Gothic prince, who, after a little recollection, answered me, "That he could not tell precisely, but that he thought it was one Julius Cæsar." There is a convent of Theatins, where they show a little window in the church, through which the Holy Ghost is said to have entered in the shape of a dove, and to have settled on one of the candidates for the bishopric. The dove is represented in the window, and in several places of the church, and is in great reputation all over Italy. I should not, indeed, think it impossible for a pigeon to fly in accidentally through the roof, where they still keep the hole open, and, by its fluttering over such a particular place, to give so superstitious an assembly an

occasion of favouring a competitor, especially if he had many friends among the electors that would make a politic use of such an accident; but they pretend the miracle has happened more than once. Among the pictures of several famous men of their order, there is one with this inscription: P. D. Thomas Gouldvellus Ep. As. Trid. concilio contra Hæreticos, et in Anglia contra Elisabet. Fidei Confessor conspicuus. The statue of Alexander the seventh stands in the large square of the town; it is cast in brass, and has the posture that is always given the figure of a pope; an arm extended, and blessing the people. In another square on a high pillar is set the statue of the blessed virgin, arrayed like a queen, with a sceptre in her hand, and a crown upon her head; for having delivered the town from a raging pestilence. The custom of crowning the holy virgin is so much in vogue among the Italians, that one often sees in their churches a little tinsel crown, or perhaps a circle of stars glued to the canvass over the head of the figure, which sometimes spoils a good picture. In the convent of Benedictines I saw three huge chests of marble, with no inscription on them that I could find, though they are said to contain the ashes of Valentinian, Honorius, and his sister Placidia. From Ravenna I came to Rimini, having passed the Rubicon by the way. This river is not so very contemptible as it is generally represented, and was much increased by the melting of the snows when Cæsar passed it, according to Lucan;

Fonte cadit modico, parvisque impellitur undis
Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit æstas :
Perque imas serpit valles, et Gallica certus
Limes ab Ausoniis disterminat arva colonis:

Tunc vires præbebat hyems, atque auxerat undas
Tertia jam gravido pluvialis Cynthia cornu,
Et madidis Euri resolutæ flatibus Alpes.

While summer lasts, the streams of Rubicon
From their spent source in a small current run,
Hid in the winding vales they gently glide,
And Italy from neighb'ring Gaul divide;

Lib. 1.

But now, with winter storms increas'd, they rose,
By wat'ry moons produc'd, and Alpine snows,
That melting on the hoary mountains lay,
And in warm eastern winds dissolv'd away.

This river is now called Pisatello.

Rimini has nothing modern to boast of. Its antiquities are as follow: a marble bridge of five arches, built by Augustus and Tiberius, for the inscription is still legible, though not rightly transcribed by Gruter. A triumphal arch raised by Augustus, which makes a noble gate to the town, though part of it is ruined. The ruins of an amphitheatre. The suggestum, on which it is said that Julius Cæsar harangued his army after having passed the Rubicon. I must confess I can by no means look on this last as authentic: it is built of hewn stone, like the pedestal of a pillar, but something higher than ordinary, and is but just broad enough for one man to stand upon it. On the contrary, the ancient suggestums, as I have often observed on medals, as well as on Constantine's arch, were made of wood like a little kind of stage, for the heads of the nails are sometimes represented, that are supposed to have fastened the boards together. We often see on them the emperor, and two or three general officers, sometimes sitting, and sometimes standing, as they made speeches, or distributed a congiary to the soldiers or people. They were probably always in

readiness, and carried among the baggage of the army, whereas this at Rimini must have been built on the place, and required some time before it could be finished.

If the observation I have here made is just, it may serve as a confirmation to the learned Fabretti's conjecture on Trajan's pillar; who supposes, I think with a great deal of reason, that the camps, intrenchments, and other works of the same nature, which are cut out as if they had been made of brick or hewn stone, were in reality only of earth, turf, or the like materials; for there are on the pillar some of these suggestums which are figured like those on medals, with only this difference, that they seem built of brick or freestone. At twelve miles' distance from Rimini stands the little republic of St. Marino, which I could not forbear visiting, though it lies out of the common tour of travellers, and has excessively bad ways to it. I shall here give a particular account of it, because I know of nobody else that has done it. One may, at least, have the pleasure of seeing in it something more singular than can be found in great governments, and form from it an idea of Venice in its first beginnings, when it had only a few heaps of earth for its dominions; or of Rome itself, when it had as yet covered but one of its seven hills.

THE REPUBLIC OF ST. MARINO.

THE town and republic of St. Marino stands on the top of a very high and craggy mountain. It is generally hid among the clouds, and lay under snow when I saw it, though it was clear and warm weather in all the country about it. There is not a

VOL. IV.

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