31
e Frascati August 21st. Sunday.
A tenth day in Rome.
From Alban this morning we passed by beautiful
mountain paths through native forests to Grotto
Ferrata, a convent of Greek Monks of the
order of St Basilus, the f only one in Europe
founded by St Nilus in the 17th century. The
monks received us kindly and after we
had attended matins in their Church they
showed us its treasures. It has lost the
miraculous image of the virgin which was
in its own estimation its chiefest treasure, but
we found others of greater value in ours.
An entire series of Frescos by the hand of
Domenichino, containing among other figures those
of himself, of his sweetheart whom he was
too poor to win, and of Guido. The hospita-
ble monks invited us to breakfast and
we spent an hour or two in their ancient
library where we found many valuable and
curious manuscripts.
Then we climbed several
hundred feet to the summit of the mountain
and from the chambers of Castel Gandolfo

32
a rural palace of the Pope we looked
down upon the Lake Albano — a quiet
and beautiful lake that rests ^within^ in the
crater of a long extinguished volcano. From
this spot, we cast our eyes upon the
mountain peaks around us and beheld
an enchanting scene. Each one looked ^is surmounted by a monastery^
^that looks^ down upon olive groves covering its sides
and upon Campagna near at hand, in the
distance on Eternal Rome and beyond its
domes and palaces, looks off upon the
blue Mediterranean. I confess to the wonder-
ful character of the Italian sky. Rome
The Campagna ten miles wide shrivels into
a serene plain. Rome fifteen miles distant
seems as ‘if’ it was near, and the Mediterranean
now twenty five miles distant seems almost
beneath your feet.
This town of Frascati is a
summer resort for the citizens of Rome and other
Italian French English and even American persons.
It is rendered very attractive by the Villas of
some of the richer of th persons of this class. The

33
villas of Aldobrandini and Torlonia are surprisingly
beautiful. Their gardens form the models which
the French and the English try to imita copy. It
will be very long before we have such gardens
in America. To make an Italian garden requires
vast labor, and labor is dear the in our country.
It requires moreover the real necessity of a
retreat for a considerable season from the cities on
account of the heat, and in our Northern climates where
only there is to be real wealth, there is no such
necessity. It requires one thing more, faith that
your children will ret take and retain the costly
structures, and our laws and customs allow no
such confidence. I am inclined to think that
villas are seldom valued by their owners even
here except for show, for certainly I have not
seen a Roman noble remaining with his family
in a villa during this intensely hot season
n. Generally they are rented out to English
and American visitors at rents about normal.
But Frascati has historical interest which
you can share with me. It is a modern reprodu-
tion of the ancient Tusculum but is built much
lower down the mountain side. Having prepared
ourselves for ascending its steep declivity we proceeded
to search for the ruins of the City which was the
birthplace of Pompey and of the chosen country

34
residence of Cicero. We found a magnificent villa
which was built by Lucien Bonaparte and which
now belongs to Victor Emanuel King of Sardinia
and which when built was supposed to be ^on^ the side
of Cicero’s villa. The antiquarians have however
exploded. We went higher and higher and still
higher up until we found that the earth was is
every where a mere bed of bricks stone and
mortar. The modern farm walls are built
of stones gathered from the surface, and cap broken
columns pilasters, and architraves of marble
take their place in it as cheaply as any other.
Here we came to an large circular col an-
cient Roman wall enclosing a large elliptical
space which the guides in that region pronounce
to be the Academy of Cicero, but which the
antiquarians say was the basement of a villa
of the Emperor Tiberius. A Passing on we came
to the yet well preserved walls, columns
and ^porticos^ benches, and chambers of an Amphi-
theatre. It might at slight expense be made
to serve as such even now. Like the Ruins
of Rome it has been excavated and recovered
from the embrace of the earth. Beyond this

365
we found the ruins of a baths, vast and indefinite
in form, and strange to be told we found far
below it on the mountain side a fountain yet
pouring forth refreshing waters drawn through
the conduits of that ancient fountain. From
there we turned aside and on the brow of the
mountain overlooking a pl a valley of wide
extent and covered with the trees and shrubbery
of this tropical clime — with, Rome and the
Mediterranean in the distance we a plain
in which history locates the camps of Hanni-
bal and many other subsequent invaders of
Rome, as well as the scene of heroic achieve-
ments of Rienzi, in the midst of the circuit
of the confederated Latin states we found
the now verified ruins of the Tusculum of
Cicero. Alas it is only a ruin. Broad
and deep and dark though high vaults
of masonry ^are^ still standing having resisted
the forces of the elements on that high eleva-
tion for near two thousand years, but of Hall
salon, chamber, library Cl or other
apartment or corridor, where the philosopher
orator and statesman lived there is not one
that can be traced. Still this is the ruin of
his home. The Antiquarians have begun to excavate
and they have found and removed to safe places

376
statues ruins and other works of art. They have
left ^some of^ the marble relics they have found there in
heaps upon the marble slabs. The metallic
ones are so far covered by rust that their
original forms of use or uses can not be discovered —
but graceful earthen and porcelain and glass
vessels, (in broken fragments abound, with
shattered mosaic pavements and frescoed
ceilings and oyster shells enough are there to
tell that this was the home of a man of
taste who was not ^altogether,^ disdainful of the Epicurean
philosophty. And this is all that this his
greatest material monument tells us of Cicero.
Happily for him and mankind he left less perisha-
ble monuments.
Reluctantly leaving this the chief object
of my pilgrimage I climbed to the very summit
of the mountain and then at a height of 2250
feet (higher than any peak of the Alleganies, I found
the citadel and the wall of the ancient Tusculum
a great and strong city. Built of by the Telegonus
a thousand years before there Rome was trodden
by Romulus, those walls built of stones so
massive that the Romans attributed them
to the Cr race of Cyclopean race, a hum race
combined with of men descended directly from the
Gods. Those walls are yet in many places

37
standing firmly, although the wonders of Rome
in the middle ages captured and desolated
and the Romans persons abandoned the city. I
^thought^ could trace around me the movements of the
armies which had made this now ruined
the city the object of their fervent assaults of
their noblest defenses. I paused to tread leisurely
on the pavement excavated for large distances
through the city of that old “Latin Way” which
has been traced from Jerusalem in the
East through the eternal city of Italy to
York in England on the West, thus traversing
the whole breadth of the ancient empire.
Hard and flinty as its unshapen stone
floor is the curb still preserves its place
and the ha floor itself is furrowed ^into ruts^ with
the wear of chariot wheels. I What is there
of virtue, of ambition of heroism ^or^ of crime
and treason and shame in the history of Rome
that these stones would not confirm if stones
h were books, could preach, what that we
could not read if these were indeed books
in the yet flowing fountains which break forth
under my feet.

38
Alas my dear Frances, there is no satisfying
the appetite of a traveler in this wonderful land.
I descended from Tusculum only to look up
to the point where the Latin way would have
led me of a yet higher mountain where
Monte Cavo than to and to wish, but wish
in vain to climb its ascent and find there
the seat of the Temple of Jupiter maintained
by the whole Latin Race. to which ^ Julius Cesar

x

Julius Caesar

and^ other
triumphant generals of Rome were wont to
ascend t in solemn pomp with their thousands
of slaves including Kings and Priests of conquered
states to pray their vows and return their
thanks for the victories which the God of
Nations had vouchsafed to them.
Here ends the tenth day in Rome.
Just at this moment I receive your supplemental
letter of 26th July, and learn from it how ill
you have been, and also Fannys absence. God
keep you till my return, the scene for which
begins to seem near. Yes let Harriet Weed
see any letters of mine, she will be discreet.
Her father certainly will.
Ever your own
Henry.

Mrs. William H Seward
Auburn, State of New York.
United States of
America.


PAID
NEW YORK
SEP 1
hJourney
to Rome
Aug
8 to 11

PARIS A CALAIS 20

AOUT