to Naples. TELESE. 13. Route. 17|
is of bronze, adorned with basreliefs of New Testament subjects.
It is said to have been executed at Constantinople in 1150.
The interior is in the form of a basilica, supported by 60 co¬
lumns.
Descending to the r. of the church, the visitor reaches the
Palace of the Cardinal Legate, now a barrack. The court con¬
tains a few antiquities. A street descends from this piazza to
the r. and leads through an ancient gateway to the site of the
ancient theatre, now concealed by other buildings. The visitor
may now continue his route along the bank of the Sabato, plan¬
ted with poplars, to the old Ponte Lebroso, by which the Via
Appia once led to the town. It is now the site of a mill. Near
it, to the W. , lie the ruins of Santi Quaranta, an extensive
structure of brick with a "cryptoporticus" and colonnades, once
probably appertaining to a bath-establishment. Outside the town,
at the W. entrance, is an Apis, a remnant of the ancient worship
of Isis, interpreted by the local savants as the emblem of the
Samnite League.
The Calore is crossed by a handsome bridge, near which
according to tradition, was the temporary burial place of the
youthful and heroic king Manfred, who on Feb. 26th, 1266, in
a battle against Charles I. of Anjou on the neighbouring plains,
had lost his throne and his life through the treachery of the
Barons of Apulia and the counts of Caserta and Acerra. Shortly
afterwards, however, the body of the ill-fated prince was exhumed
by order of Bartolommeo Pignatelli, Archbishop of Cosenza , con¬
veyed beyond the limits of the kingdom, and exposed unburied
on the bank of the Rio Verde. Dante records this in his Purga-
torio (III. 134).
The railway proceeds on the 1. bank of the Calore. A tunnel
is passed: then stat. Vitulano and another tunnel. The valley-
expands; to the 1. on the mountain-slope Torrecuso. Before stat.
T'onte di Benevento is reached, the Calore is crossed by an iron
bridge. Another tunnel is traversed; then stat. S Lorenzo
Maggiore, whence a high-road leads to Campobasso and Termoli
(comp. p. 160). Solopaca, next stat.; '/-2 hr. to tDe L the small
town of the same name (4500 inhab.), prettily situated at the
foot of Monte Taburno. Before the next stat. Telese is reached,
to the 1. the Lago di Telese, a sulphurous pool, whose unhealthy-
exhalations infect the neighbourhood. Telese is a poor village
on the slope of the hills to the r. , in summer visited for its
mineral springs by the inhabitants of the district. Near it are a
few remnants of the ancient Telesia, a town of the Samnites,
taken by Hannibal and afterwards destroyed by the Romans and
finally by the Saracens.
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