William Stanley Haseltine - Morning Light, Roman Campagna, 1871
Beatrice's account says that, after Valperga, "I had returned to Florence; I had passed through Arezzo; I had left Thrasymene to the north; I had passed through Perugio, Foligno, and Terni, and was descending towards the plain surrounding Rome; the Tiber had overflowed. the whole of the low country was under water; but I proceeded, descending thr mountain, until, having passed Narni, I came to the lowest hill which bounds the Campagna di Roma; the sciroco blew; the mists were on the hills, and half concealed the head of the lone Soracte; the white waters, cold and dreary, were spread far, waste and shelterless; on my left was a high dark wall surrounding a ruined town—I looked,—some way beyond I saw on the road a flock of sheep almost lost in the distance,—my brain was troubled, I grew dizzy and sick—when my glazed eyes caught a glance of an old, large dilapidated house islanded in the flood,—the dream flashed across my memory; I uttered a wild shriek, and fell lifeless on the road." (359)
Beatrice faints here because she has seen this place in dreams. She is kidnapped by a man (Tripalda, we later find out) here and brought to a castle where she is held captive and abused by the man and his followers for three years. Eventually, "the Pope's party besieged the castle," the man (as far as Beatrice can tell) is killed, and Beatrice escapes (361). Beatrice later refers to this period as her "strange imprisonment in the Campagna di Roma" (374).
Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages, an important source of historical material for Shelley's Valperga, portrays the Campagna di Roma during this period as something of a lawless wasteland. Sismondi frequently associates Rome's instability with the its proximity to the Campagna, which he describes as "desolate" (72), "a pestilential waste" (171) occupied by "turbulent nobles" (245) and "revengeful barons" (340).