The Italian sketch book :: :: University of Virginia Library

I proceeded at a similar season forth from the
city, by the spacious and beautiful entrance of the
Piazza del Popolo, towards the Ponte Molle. When
we reached this celebrated bridge, the beauty of the
adjacent country and distant scenery, as well as the
associations of the spot, detained me in long and
delightful contemplation. On the one side rises
Monte Mario, crowned with a verdant line of lofty
cypresses, and on the other, far away, stand the
hoary Apennine hills, while beneath runs the swift
and turbid Tiber. The picturesque, arched, and
heavy bridge on which I stood, still retaining portions
of its ancient material, and the pervading Sabbath
stillness, gave vividness and scope to the grand
scene of action, which memory and imagination
conjured up and arrayed upon its massive surface,
and along the broken banks of the river. But, happily,
in viewing the scene of Constantine's victory
and miraculous vision, we are not left to unaided
fancy in an attempt to renew the view preserved in
history. We have but to recall the almost living
delineation of Raphael, to arrive at a strong conception

of what could otherwise be but vaguely and
variously fancied. It is on such occasions that we
learn to recognize one, among our many obligations,
to genius and art. Gazing, after the lapse of centuries,
upon the renowned battle-ground where tyranny
received a signal overthrow, from a Christian warrior
eminent for victory, and finding nought but
the altered aspect of nature and a few decayed
relics of art, we can yet rehearse the history and the
song, and ponder the picture till they realize the
time-buried events of antiquity.