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The towns of Valmontone, Cave, and Poli, however, although in a great degree dependent upon Praeneste, were, I think, just outside her proper territorial domain.
An hour later there was a discussion anent the episode in the fashionable cafe of Valmontone. A citizen, a well-dressed man, possibly a notary, put the case for United Italy, for intervention against Germany, for military discipline and the shooting of cowardly deserters, into a few phrases so clear, so convincing, that there was a general burst of approval. Then another man said:
Of my sleeping accommodation with certain old ladies, of what happened to their little dog and of other matters trivial to the verge of inanity, I may discourse upon the occasion of some later visit to Valmontone. For this, the second, was by no means the last. Meanwhile, we proceed southwards. Sant' Agata, Sorrento Siren-Land revisited.... Nothing has changed.
"On the 20th July of the year of salvation fourteen hundred and eighty-eight, there were placed for three days in a cage on high in the Campo dei Fiori, Messer Niccolò Filarete, Canon of Sancto Joanne; also Domenico, the Volterran, painter and architect to the magnificent Cardinal Ascanio, and Frate Garofalo of Valmontone, they having been discovered in the act of desecrating the Church of SS. Jervase and Protasius, and stealing for magic purposes the ostensorium and many gold chalices and reliquaries with precious stones; and it was Frate Garofalo who, being versed in witchcraft and treasure finding, was the accomplice of the above, and denounced them on the feast of Corpus Domini.
Beyond doubt Sulla posted himself on the cross road which turns off from the Via Latina, along which the Samnites advanced, at Valmontone towards Palestrina; in this case Sulla communicated with the capital by the Praenestine, and the enemy by the Latin or Labican, road. Hardly any other name can well be concealed under the corrupt reading in Liv. 89 -miam in Samnio-; comp. Strabo, v. 3, 10.
Standing out against the sky, they can be seen at all hours of the day, whereas the dusky palace of Valmontone, midmost on the green plain and rock-like in its proportions, fades out of sight after midday. Hard by, on your right, are the craggy heights of Capranica. Tradition has it that Michael Angelo was in exile up there, after doing something rather risky. What had he done?
Mine host is an improvement even upon him of the Pergola at Valmontone; a man after my own heart, with merry eyes, drooping white moustache and a lordly nose a nose of the right kind, a flame-tinted structure which must have cost years of patient labour to bring to its present state of blossoming. That nose! I felt as though I could dwell for ever beneath its shadow.
None of the lads of Pampinara, Palestrina, or Valmontone had been able to gain any influence over him or even to become his companion. Teresa alone ruled by a look, a word, a gesture, this impetuous character, which yielded beneath the hand of a woman, and which beneath the hand of a man might have broken, but could never have been bended. Teresa was lively and gay, but coquettish to excess.
The extent of this restricted territory was about five by six miles, and took in Zagarolo, Valmontone, Cave, Rocca di Cave, Capranica, Poli, and Gallicano. These towns form a circle around Praeneste and mark very nearly the ancient boundary.
The remains found out along the Valmontone road coincide nearly enough with the provenience of the inscription to settle an amphitheatre here of late imperial date. The tradition of the death of the martyr S. Agapito in an amphitheatre, and the discovery of a Christian church on the Valmontone road, have helped to make pretty sure the identification of these ruins.
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