Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(a)
(b)
Figure 7.3
(a) View from the Mount of Temptation (source: Wikimedia). (b) View of Barcelona
from Tibidabo, today topped by the Catholic church of the Sagrat Cor and an amusement park
(photograph by Veronica della Dora)
geographically distant dramatic peaks around the Mediterranean: Mount Athos
looming on the Aegean; Mount Saitani, a steep stony hill abruptly rising from the
bare plateau of Rovolakka in Evrytania, central Greece (Woodhouse, 1973 [1897],
p. 32); and, on the other side of the Mediterranean, Mount Tibidabo the highest
mountain overlooking Barcelona and named after the Latin vulgate bible verse
'
...
et dixit illi haec
tibi
omnia
dabo
si cadens adoraveris me' ('And [Satan] saith
unto [Christ], All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me') (Figure 7.3b).
Latin monks followed their eastern counterparts in the selection of appropriate
sites for their brotherhoods. In the eleventh century the most austere of the Bene-
dictines established abbeys like Montserrat, nested at 1236m asl, the highest point
