United States or Botswana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Of these the Toledan blade is the most common; and travellers curious in antique arms have noted one possessing the genuine silvery lustre, and engraved with the picture of a Spanish cavalier, together with the motto, Ad majorem gloriam Dei; another which was dedicated to God, and marked, Anno domini 1664; another showing on one side an imperial crown, encircled by a wreath of laurel, and on the other a globe surmounted by a cross, with the inscription underneath in old English characters, Viva Espagna; and others, finally, inlaid with gold, and having the head of the Saviour, or some saint engraved over such inscriptions as, Par my Dey y par my Rey, or, Ne me tire pas sans raison et ne me remets pas sans honneur.
In the Piazza d' Espagna, at the foot of the famous steps, was that great, boat-shaped fountain whose affluent waters cool the air which broods over the wide, white stairway; and not far away is the mighty Trevi, with its turmoil of obstreperous figures swarming round bragging Neptune, and its cataract of innumerable rills welling forth and plunging downward by devious ways to meet at last in the great basin, forever agitated with baby waves lapping against the margins.
The Spaniards were come from Nueva Espagna, or Mexico, for the conquest of the Moluccas, in the name of the emperor Charles the Fifth, as they pretended; but their enterprise succeeded not.
They were pretty, faultless paintings, for which they used as models a manikin, or the families of ciociari whom they hired every morning in the Piazza di Espagna beside the Sealinata of the Trinity; the everlasting country-woman, swarthy and black-eyed, with great hoops in her ears and wearing a green skirt, a black waist and a white head-dress caught up on her hair with large pins; the usual old man with sandals, a woolen cloak and a pointed hat with spiral bands on his snowy head that was a fitting model for the Eternal Father.
It is in this better phase of his Roman sojourn that I picture my father; he trudges tranquilly and happily to and fro, with no programme and no obligations, absorbing all things with that quiet, omnivorous glance of his; pausing whenever he takes the fancy, and contemplating for moments or minutes whatever strikes his fancy; often turning aside from egregious spectacles and giving his attention to apparent trifles, to the mere passing show; pondering on the tuft of flowers in a cranny of the Coliseum wall, on the azure silhouette of the Alban Mountains, on the moss collected on the pavement beneath the aperture in the roof of the Pantheon, on the picturesque deformity of old, begging Beppo on the steps of the Piazza, d' Espagna.
After a day or two at Spillman's Hotel, we moved into lodgings in the Via Porta Pinciana, the Palazzo Larazani. The street extended just below the ridge of the Pincian Hill, and was not far from the broad flight of steps mounting upward from the Piazza d' Espagna, on the left as you go up. In spite of its resounding name, our new dwelling had not a palatial aspect.
Word Of The Day