The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1914-10-24

OF. refers, a ENIzZZSC
tn .s'y mass in the r. GaZaz q
lar distance, brood. /1S1oN0zA1
Ing DIS IL were, over the civ which
feet. uisnaoie at III
me Campagna of Rome" saic
uiesorovius. lis nothing else than
.ne iand of Latium, which is separa
,ed from Tuscany by The Tiber
from the time OF Constantine the
eat the name of Latium has fallen
n'o dlsuse. and that of Campania
las oeen used in its place: and in
Tue middle ages this name indicated
z great part Of the so-called Ducatus
nomanus. Since the middle ages
the district has been divided into two
parts. the Campagna. which COM
prises the inland district, and the Mari
una, which extends along the sea
coast as far as Terracina Nature
nerself has divided 1t by mountain and
pain into distinct compartments. 1t
Is divided into three plains. First.
the Campagna around the city, watered
Dy the Tiber and the Anio. and
hemmed in by the Alban and the Sa-
bine mountains, the hills about Ron
ciglione, and the sea-coast; secondly.
the great plain in which the POntine
Marshes are situated, bounded on the
one side by the Alban and Volscian
Hills and on the other by the sea;
and, lastly, the valley Of the Sacco,
which runs down between the Vols
clan and the EQuian and Herman
hills.
A glance at any good map, such, |
for instance, as even the one given |
by Baedeker in his Central Italy |
and Rome" (page $500, will help us
to follow out the geographical divi-
sions given as above by the great |
historian. We shall see there Brac-
ciano with its lake on the northwest,
Subiaco to the far east, on the west
the sea line, and in the very GEN.
ter Rome herself with the Tiber
winding down to her from the UNI
brian uplands. And the same identi-
fication of the Campagna with the old
Latium, the Latina Tellus ("Latin
Land"), extending along the front of
the Mediterranean for 120 miles, as
with a superficial area of 1,245 square
miles, has been followed by ,Signor
Cervesaro in his work on The Roman
though he uses the Argo
and the Palude (the cultivable land
and the marshes) as expressing two
and very important divisions
Of this vast area
THE general color OF the Cam. ,
pagna," says this writer, "is a tawny .
red, paler where it undulates over
he terraces of the slopes, greener in >
he fats where it expands into broad /;
meadows, and the whole wide plain :
rom one horizon to another is bathed .
n a glorious sea Of light. 1t is that .
mysterious light, the color J,
I the air Of Rome Of which foreign =
1riters speak: overhead. depths of =
apphire blue which towards the r
ORION melt into limpid opalescent a
axe, where every color. every vapor h
etherealized and transmitted by the !,
reamy transparency OF this fairy =,
ght. Under 1t the silent plain, starred =,
? asphodels, to the Greek emb. ems
Hades. and flooded by pearly re-
actions. seems an Elysian field Ia
here time is naught. and where eyery pr
ality becomes only the fleeing as IN
,ct Of an ever-vanishing illusion.
be sapphire light that enfolds It, a.
mobiles 1t indescribably, seeming tie
widen the horizon. and to omen ru
mysterious. unfathomable distances III
hind its transparent veil. Dreams ne
Re shape and grow in this air." III
Chateaubriand, too, had written or n,
ID Campagna- From its barren soil -.
es the shadow Of the great city. be-
!. !. It is more than dificult II IN.
impossible to describe what one do,