ARCO DELLA PACE.
Depressing Effect produced by Sight of Slavery--The Castle of
Milan--Non-intercourse of Italians and Austrians--Arco della
Pace--Contrasted with the Duomo--Evening--Ambrose--Milanese
Inquisition--The Two Symbols.
It was now drawing towards evening; and I must needs see the sun go down
behind the Alps. There are no sights like those which nature has
provided for us. What are embattled cities and aisled cathedrals to the
eternal hills, with their thunder-clouds, and their rising and setting
suns? Making my exit by the northern gate of the city, I soon forgot, in
the presence of the majestic mountains, the narrow streets and clouded
faces amid which I had been wandering. Their peaks seemed to look
serenely down upon the despots and armies at their feet; and at sight of
them, the burden I had carried all day fell off, and my mind mounted at
once to its natural pitch. How crushing must be the endurance of
slavery, if even the sight of it produces such prostration! Day by day
it eats into the soul, weakening its spring, and lowering its tone, till
at last the man becomes incapable of noble thoughts or worthy deeds;
and then we condemn him because he lies down contentedly in his chains,
or breaks them on the heads of his oppressors.
Emerging from the lanes of the city, I found myself on a spacious
esplanade, enclosed on three of its sides by double rows of noble elms,
and bounded on the remaining side by the cafes and wine-shops of the
city, filled with a crowd of loquacious, if not gay, loiterers. In the
middle of the esplanade rose the Castle of Milan,--a gloomy and majestic
pile, of irregular form, but of great strength. It was on the top of
this donjon that the beacon was to be kindled which was to call Lombardy
to arms, in the projected insurrection of 1852. The soft green of the
esplanade was pleasantly dotted by white groupes in the Austrian
uniform, who loitered at the gates, or played games on the sward. But
neither here nor in the cafes, nor anywhere else, did I ever see the
slightest intercourse betwixt the soldiers and the populace. On the
contrary, the two seemed on every occasion to avoid each other, as men,
not only of different nations, but of different eras.
There are two monuments, and only two, in Italy, which redeem its modern
architecture from the reproach of universal degeneracy. One of these is
the Triumphal Arch of Milan, known also as the Arco della Pace. It was
full in view from where I stood, rising on the northern edge of the
esplanade, with the line of road stretching out from it, and running on
and on towards the Alps, over which it climbs, forming the famous
Simplon Pass. I crossed the plain in the direction of the Arco della
Pace, to have a nearer inspection of it. It was more to my taste than
the Duomo. The Cathedral, much as I admired it, had a bewildering and
dissipating effect. It presented a perfect universe of towers,
pinnacles, and statues, flashing in the Italian sun, and in the yet more
dazzling splendour of its own beauty. But, stript of the tracery with
which it is so profusely covered, and the countless statues that nestle
in its niches, it would be a withered, naked, and unsightly thing, like
a tree in winter. Not so the arch to which I was advancing. It rose
before me in simple grandeur. It might be defaced,--it might grow old;
but its beauty could not perish while its form remained. It presents but
one simple and grand idea; and, seen once, it never can be forgotten. It
takes its place as an image of beauty, to dwell in the mind for ever. To
look upon it was to draw in concentration and strength.
I found this arch guarded by a Croat,--beauty in the keeping of
barbarism. Much I wondered what sensations it could produce in such a
mind: of course, I had no means of knowing. I touched the arch with my
palm, to ascertain the quality of its polish and workmanship. The Croat
made a threatening gesture, which I took as a hint not to repeat the
action. I walked under it,--walked round it,--viewed it on all sides;
but why should I describe what the engraver's art has made so familiar
all over Europe? And such is the power of a simple and sublime
idea,--whether the pen or the chisel has given it body,--to transmit
itself, and retain its hold on the mind, that, though I had only now
seen the Arco della Pace for the first time, I felt as if I had been
familiar with it all my life; and so, doubtless, does my reader. The
little squat figure, with the swarthy face, and dull, cold eye, that
kept pacing beside it, watched me all the while my survey was going on.
Sorely must it have puzzled him to discover the cause of the interest I
took in it. Most probably he took me for a necromancer, whose simple
word might transport the arch across the Alps.
The very spirit of peace pervaded the scene around the Arco della Pace.
Peace descended from the summits of the Alps, and peace breathed upon
me from the tops of the elms. It was sweet to see the gathering of the
shadows upon the great plain; it was sweet to see the waggoner come
slowly along the great Simplon road; it was sweet to see the husbandman
unyoke his bullocks, and come wending his way homeward over the rich
ploughed land, beneath the beautiful festoonings of the vine; sweet even
were the city-stirs, as, mellowed by distance, they broke upon the ear;
but sweeter than all was it to mark the sun's departure among the Alps.
One might have fancied the mountains a wall of sapphire inclosing some
terrestrial paradise,--some blessed clime, where hunger, and thirst, and
pain, and sorrow, were unknown. Alas! if such were Lombardy, what meant
the Croat beside me, and the black eagle blazoned on the flag, that I
saw floating on the Castle of Milan? The sight of these symbols of
foreign oppression recalled the haggard faces and toil-bent frames I had
seen on my journey to Milan. I thought of the rich harvests which the
sun of Lombardy ripens only that the Austrian may reap them, and the
fertile vines which the Lombard plants only that the Croat may gather
them. I thought of the sixty thousand expatriated citizens whose lands
the Government had confiscated, and of the victims that pined in the
fortresses and dungeons of Lombardy; and I felt that truly this was no
paradise. To me, who could demand my passport and re-cross the Alps
whenever I pleased, these mountains were a superb sight; but what could
the poor Lombard, whom Radetzky might order to prison or to execution on
the instant, see in them, but the walls of a vast prison?
The light was fast fading, and I re-crossed the esplanade, on my way
back to the city. High above its roofs, rose the spires and turrets of
the Duomo, looking palely in the twilight, and reminding one of a
cluster of Norwegian pines, covered with the snows of winter. As I
slowly and musingly pursued my way, my mind went back to the better days
of Milan. Here Ambrose had lived; and how oft, at even-tide, had his
feet traversed this very plain, musing, the while, on the future
prospects of the Church. Ah! little did he think, that what he believed
to be the opening day was but a brief twilight, dividing the pagan
darkness now past from the papal night then fast descending. But to the
Churches of Lombardy it was longer light than to those of southern
Italy. Ambrose went to the grave; but the spirit of the man who had
closed the Cathedral gates in the face of the Goths of Justina, and
exacted a public repentance of the Emperor Theodosius, lived after him.
From him, doubtless, the Milanese caught that love of independence in
spiritual matters which long afterwards so honourably distinguished
them. They fought a hard battle with Rome for their religious freedom,
but the battle proved a losing one. It was not, however, till towards
the twelfth century, when every other Church in Christendom almost had
acknowledged the claims of Rome, and an Innocent was about to mount the
throne of the Vatican, that the complete subjugation of the Churches of
Lombardy was effected. When the sixteenth century, like the breath of
heaven, opened on the world, the Reformation began to take root in
Lombardy. But, alas! the ancient spirit of the Milanese revived for but
a moment, only to be crushed by the Inquisition. The arts by which this
terrible tribunal was introduced into the duchy finely illustrate the
policy of Rome, which knows so well how to temporize without
relinquishing her claims. Philip II. proposed to establish this tribunal
in Milan after the Spanish fashion; and Pope Pius IV. at first favoured
his design. But finding that the Milanese were determined to resist, the
pontiff espoused their cause, and told them, in effect, that it was not
without reason that they dreaded the Spanish Inquisition. It was, he
said, a harsh, cruel, inexorable Court--(he forgot that he had
sanctioned it by a bull)--which condemned men without trial; but he had
an Inquisition of his own, which never did any one any harm, and which
his subjects in Rome were exceedingly fond of. This he would send to
them. The Milanese were caught in the trap. In the hope of getting rid
of the Spanish Inquisition, they accepted the Roman one, which proved
equally fatal in the end. The degradation of Lombardy dates from that
day. The Inquisition paved the way for Austrian domination. The
familiars of the Holy Office were the avant couriers of the black eagles
and Croats of the house of Hapsburg.
In the arch behind me, so simple withal, and yet so noble in its design,
and whose beauty, dependent on no adventitious helps or meretricious
ornaments, but inherent in itself, was seen and felt by all, I saw, I
thought, a type of the Gospel; while the many-pinnacled and
richly-fretted Cathedral before me seemed the representative of the
Papacy. As stands this arch, in simple but eternal beauty, beside the
inflated glories of the Duomo, so stands the gospel amid the spurious
systems of the world. They, like the Cathedral, are elaborate and
artificial piles. The stones of which they are built are absurd
doctrines, burdensome rites, and meaningless ceremonies. In beautiful
contrast to their complexity and inconsistency, the Gospel presents to
the world one simple and grand idea. They perplex and weary their
votaries, who lose themselves amid the tangled paths and intricate
labyrinths with which they abound. The Gospel, on the other hand, offers
a plain and straight path to the enquirer, which, once found, can never
be lost. These systems grow old, and, having lived their day, return to
the earth, out of which they arose. The Gospel never dies,--never grows
old. Fixed on an immoveable basis, it stands sublimely forth amid the
lapse of ages and the decay of systems, charming all minds by its
simplicity, and subduing all minds by its power. It says nothing of
penances, nothing of pilgrimages, nothing of tradition, nor of works of
supererogation, nor of efficacious sacraments dispensed by the hands of
an apostolically descended clergy: its one simple and sublime
announcement is, that _Eternal Life is the Free Gift of God through the
Death of his Son_.