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been corrected.
PILGRIMAGE FROM THE ALPS TO THE TIBER.
Or
The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge.
by
REV. J.A. WYLIE, LL.D.
Author of "The Papacy," &c. &.c.
Edinburgh
Shepherd & Elliot, 15, Princes Street.
London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co.
MDCCCLV.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE INTRODUCTION, 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PASSAGE OF THE ALPS, 8
CHAPTER III.
RISE AND PROGRESS OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN PIEDMONT, 23
CHAPTER IV.
STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS, 43
CHAPTER V.
STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE VAUDOIS CHURCH, 62
CHAPTER VI.
FROM TURIN TO NOVARA--PLAIN OF LOMBARDY, 83
CHAPTER VII.
FROM NOVARA TO MILAN--DOGANA--CHAIN OF THE ALPS, 94
CHAPTER VIII.
CITY AND PEOPLE OF MILAN, 105
CHAPTER IX.
ARCO DELLA PACE--ST AMBROSE, 119
CHAPTER X.
THE DUOMO OF MILAN, 126
CHAPTER XI.
MILAN TO BRESCIA--THE REFORMERS, 137
CHAPTER XII.
THE PRESENT THE IMAGE OF THE PAST, 152
CHAPTER XIII.
SCENERY OF LAKE GARDA--PESCHIERA--VERONA, 158
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM VERONA TO VENICE--THE TYROLESE ALPS, 168
CHAPTER XV.
VENICE--DEATH OF NATIONS, 178
CHAPTER XVI.
PADUA--ST ANTONY--THE PO--ARREST, 198
CHAPTER XVII.
FERRARA--RENEE AND OLYMPIA MORATA, 209
CHAPTER XVIII.
BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES, 216
CHAPTER XIX.
FLORENCE AND ITS YOUNG EVANGELISM, 237
CHAPTER XX.
FROM LEGHORN TO ROME--CIVITA VECCHIA, 262
CHAPTER XXI.
MODERN ROME, 276
CHAPTER XXII.
ANCIENT ROME--THE SEVEN HILLS, 289
CHAPTER XXIII.
SIGHTS IN ROME--CATACOMBS--PILATE'S STAIRS--PIO NONO, &C., 302
CHAPTER XXIV.
INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE, 333
CHAPTER XXV.
INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE--(CONTINUED), 352
CHAPTER XXVI.
JUSTICE AND LIBERTY IN THE PAPAL STATES, 366
CHAPTER XXVII.
EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE PAPAL STATES, 401
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MENTAL STATE OF THE PRIESTHOOD IN ITALY, 415
CHAPTER XXIX.
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC CUSTOMS OF THE ROMANS, 430
CHAPTER XXX.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE WHOLE, OR, ROME HER OWN WITNESS, 447
ROME,
AND
THE WORKINGS OF ROMANISM
IN ITALY.
CHAPTER I.
THE INTRODUCTION.
I did not go to Rome to seek for condemnatory matter against the Pope's
government. Had this been my only object, I should not have deemed it
necessary to undertake so long a journey. I could have found materials
on which to construct a charge in but too great abundance nearer home.
The cry of the Papal States had waxed great, and there was no need to go
down into those unhappy regions to satisfy one's self that the
oppression was "altogether according to the cry of it." I had other
objects to serve by my journey.
There is one other country which has still more deeply influenced the
condition of the race, and towards which one is even more powerfully
drawn, namely, Judea. But Italy is entitled to the next place, as
respects the desire which one must naturally feel to visit it, and the
instruction one may expect to reap from so doing. Some of the greatest
minds which the pagan world has produced have appeared in Italy. In that
land those events were accomplished which have given to modern history
its form and colour; and those ideas elaborated, the impress of which
may still be traced upon the opinions, the institutions, and the creeds
of Europe. In Italy, too, empire has left her ineffaceable traces, and
art her glorious footsteps. There is, all will admit, a peculiar and
exquisite pleasure in visiting such spots: nor is there pleasure only,
but profit also. One's taste may be corrected, and his judgment
strengthened, by seeing the masterpieces of ancient genius. New trains
of thought may be suggested, and new sources of information opened, by
the sight of men and of manners wholly new. But more than this,--I
believed that there were lessons to be learned there, which it was
emphatically worth one's while going there to learn, touching the
working of that politico-religious system of which Italy has so long
been the seat and centre. I had previously been at some little pains to
make myself acquainted with this system in its principles, and wished to
have an opportunity of studying it in its effects upon the government of
the country, and the condition of the people, as respects their trade,
industry, knowledge, liberty, religion, and general happiness. All I
shall say in the following pages will have a bearing, more or less
direct, upon this main point.
It is impossible to disjoin the present of these countries from the
past; nor can the solemn and painful enigma which they exhibit be
unriddled but by a reference to the past, and that not the immediate,
but the remote past. There is truth, no doubt, in the saying of the old
moralist, that nations lose in moments what they had acquired in years;
but the remark is applicable rather to the accelerated speed with which
the last stages of a nation's ruin are accomplished, than to the slow
and imperceptible progress which usually marks its commencement. Unless
when cut off by the sudden stroke of war, it requires five centuries at
least to consummate the fall of a great people. One must pass,
therefore, over those hideous abuses which are the immediate harbingers
of national disaster, and which exclusively engross the attention of
ordinary inquirers, and go back to those remote ages, and those minute
and apparently insignificant causes, amid which national declension,
unsuspected often by the nation itself, takes its rise. The destiny of
modern Europe was sealed so long ago as A.D. 606, when the Bishop of
Rome was made head of the universal Church by the edict of a man stained
with the double guilt of usurpation and murder. Religion is the parent
of liberty. The rise of tyrants can be prevented in no other way but by
maintaining the supremacy of God and conscience; and in the early
corruptions of the gospel, the seeds were sown of those frightful
despotisms which have since arisen, and of those tremendous convulsions
which are now rending society. The evil principle implanted in the
European commonwealth in the seventh century appeared to lie dormant for
ages; but all the while it was busily at work beneath those imposing
imperial structures which arose in the middle ages. It had not been cast
out of the body politic; it was still there, operating with noiseless
but resistless energy and terrible strength; and while monarchs were
busily engaged founding empires and consolidating their rule, it was
preparing to signalize, at a future day, the superiority of its own
power by the sudden and irretrievable overthrow of theirs. Thus society
had come to resemble the lofty mountain, whose crown of white snows and
robe of fresh verdure but conceal those hidden fires which are
smouldering within its bowels. Under the appearance of robust health, a
moral cancer was all the while preying upon the vitals of society,
eating out by slow degrees the faith, the virtue, the obedience of the
world. The ground at last gave way, and thrones and hierarchies came
tumbling down. Look at the Europe of our day. What is the Papacy, but an
enormous cancer, of most deadly virulency, which has now run its course,
and done its work upon the nations of the Continent. The European
community, from head to foot, is one festering sore. Soundness in it
there is none. The Papal world is a wriggling mass of corruption and
suffering. It is a compound of tyrannies and perjuries,--of lies and
blood-red murders,--of crimes abominable and unnatural,--of priestly
maledictions, socialist ravings, and atheistic blasphemies. The whine of
mendicants, the curses, groans, and shrieks of victims, and the demoniac
laughter of tyrants, commingle in one hoarse roar. Faugh! the spectacle
is too horrible to be looked at; its effluvia is too fetid to be
endured. What is to be done with the carcase? We cannot dwell in its
neighbourhood. It would be impossible long to inhabit the same globe
with it: its stench were enough to pollute and poison the atmosphere of
our planet. It must be buried or burned. It cannot be allowed to remain
on the surface of the earth: it would breed a plague, which would
infect, not a world only, but a universe. It is in this direction that
we are to seek for instruction; and here, if we are able to receive it,
thirty generations are willing to impart to us their dear-bought
experience. Lessons which have cost the world so much are surely worth
learning.
But I do not mean to treat my readers to lectures on history, instead of
chapters on travel. It is not an abstract disquisition on the influence
of religion and government, such as one might compose without stirring
from his own fire-side, which I intend to write. It is a real journey we
are about to undertake. You shall have facts as well as
reflections,--incidents as well as disquisitions. I shall be grave,--as
who would not at the sight of fallen nations?--but "when time shall
serve there shall be smiles." You shall climb the Alps; and when their
tops begin to burn at sunrise, you shall join heart and song with the
music of the shepherd's horn, and the thunder of a thousand torrents, as
they rush headlong down amid crags and pine-forests from the icy
summits. You shall enter, with pilgrim feet, the gates of proud
capitals, where puissant kings once reigned, but have passed away, and
have left no memorial on earth, save a handful of dust in a
stone-coffin, or a half-legible name on some mouldering arch. The solemn
and stirring voice of Monte Viso, speaking from the midst of the Cottian
Alps, will call you from afar to the martyr-land of Europe. You shall
worship with the Waldenses beneath their own Castelluzzo, which covers
with its mighty shadow the ashes of their martyred forefathers, and the
humble sanctuary of their living descendants. You shall count the towns
and campaniles on the broad Lombardy. You shall pass glorious days on
the top of renowned cathedrals, and sit and muse in the face of the
eternal Alps, as the clouds now veil, now reveal, their never-trodden
snows. You shall cross the Lagunes, and see the winged lion of St Mark
soaring serenely amid the bright domes and the ever calm seas of Venice,
where you may list
"The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
Mellowed by distance, o'er the waters sweep."
You shall travel long sleepless nights in the _diligence_, and be
ferried at day-break over "ancient rivers." You shall tread the
grass-grown streets of Ferrara, and the deserted halls of Bologna, where
the wisdom-loving youth of Europe erst assembled, but whose solitude now
is undisturbed, save by the clank of the Croat's sabre, or the
wine-flagon of the friar. You shall visit cells dim and dank, around
which genius has thrown a halo which draws thither the pilgrim, who
would rather muse in the twilight of the naked vault, than wander amid
the marble glories of the palace that rises proudly in its
neighbourhood. You shall go with me, at the hour of vespers, to aisled
cathedrals, which were ages a-building, and the erection of which
swallowed up the revenues of provinces,--beneath whose roof, ample
enough to cover thousands and tens of thousands, you may see a solitary
priest, singing a solemn dirge over a "Religion" fallen as a dominant
belief, and existing only as a military organization; while statues,
mute and solemn, of mailed warriors, grim saints, angels and winged
cherubs, ranged along the walls, are the only companions of the
surpliced man, if we except a few beggars pressing with naked knees the
stony floor. You shall see Florence,--
"The brightest star of star-bright Italy."
You shall be stirred by the craggy grandeur of the Apennines, and
soothed by the living green of the Tuscan vales, with their hoar
castles, their olives, their dark cypresses, and their forests,--
"Where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn,
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn."
You shall taste the vine of Italy, and drink the waters of the Arno. You
shall wander over ancient battle-fields, encounter the fierce Apennine
blast, and be rocked on the Mediterranean wave, which the sirocco heaps
up, huge and dark, and pours in a foaming cataract upon the strand of
Italy. Finally, we shall tread together the sackcloth plain on which
Rome sits, with the leaves of her torn laurel and the fragments of her
shivered sceptre strewn around her, waiting with discrowned and
downcast head the bolt of doom. Entering the gates of the "seven-hilled
city," we shall climb the Capitol, and survey a scene which has its
equal nowhere on the earth. Mouldering arches, fallen columns, buried
palaces, empty tombs, and slaves treading on the dust of the conquerors
of the world, are all that now remain of Imperial Rome. What a scene of
ruin and woe! When the twilight falls, and the moon begins to climb the
eastern arch, mark how the Coliseum projects, as if in pity, its mighty
shadow across the Forum, and covers with its kindly folds the mouldering
trophies of the past, and draws its mantle around the nakedness of the
Caesars' palace, as if to screen it from the too curious eye of the
visitor. Rome, what a history is thine! One other tragedy, terrible as
befits the drama it closes, and the curtain will drop in solemn, and, it
may be, eternal silence.