BOLOGNA AND THE APENNINES.
Road from Ferrara to Bologna--Wayside Oratories--Miserable
Cultivation--Barbarism of People--Aspect of Bologna--Streets,
Galleries, and Churches of its Interior--Decay of Art--San
Petronio--View of Plain from Hill behind Bologna--Tyranny of
Government--Night Arrests--Ruinous Taxation--Departure from
Bologna--Brigands--The Apennines--Storm among these Mountains--Two
Russian Travellers--Dinner at the Tuscan Frontier--Summit of the
Pass--Halt for the Night at a Country Inn--The Hostess and her
Company--Supper--Resume Journey next Morning--First Sight of
Florence.
On the morrow at ten I took my departure for Bologna. It was sweet to
exchange the sickly faces and unnatural silence of the city for the
bright sun and the living trees. The road was good,--so very good, that
it took me by surprise. It was not in keeping with the surrounding
barbarism. Instead of a hard-bottomed, macadamized highway, which
traversed the plain in a straight line, bordered by noble trees, I
should have expected to find in this region of mouldering towns and
neglected fields, a narrow, winding, rutted path, ploughed by torrents
and obstructed by boulders; and so, I am sure, I should have done, had
any of the native governments of Italy had the making of this road. But
it had been designed and executed by Napoleon; and hence its excellence.
His roads alone would have immortalized him. They remain, after all his
victories have perished, to attest his genius. Would that that genius
had been turned to the arts of peace! Conquerors would do well to ponder
the eulogium pronounced on a humble tailor who built a bridge out of his
savings,--that the world owed more to the scissors of that man than to
the sword of some conquerors.
Along the road, at short intervals, were little temples, where good
Catholics who had a mind might perform their devotions. This reminded me
that I was now in Peter's patrimony,--the holy land of Romanism; and
where, it was presumed, the wayfarer would catch the spirit of devotion
from the soil and air. The hour of prayer might be past,--I know not;
but I saw no one in these oratories. Little shrines were perched upon
the trees, formed sometimes of boards, at others simply of the cavity of
the trunk; while the boughs were bent so as to form a canopy over them.
Little images and pictures had been stuck into these shrines; but the
rooks,--these black republicans,--like the "reds" at Rome, had waged a
war for possession, and, pitching overboard the little gods that
occupied them, were inhabiting in their room. The "great powers" were
too busy, or had been so, in the restoration of greater personages, to
take up the quarrel of these minor divinities. A strange silence and
dreariness brooded over the region. The land seemed keeping its
Sabbaths. The fields rested,--the villages were asleep,--the road was
untrodden. Had one been dropt from the clouds, he would have concluded
that it was but a century or so since the Flood, and that these were the
rude primitive great-grandchildren of Noah, who had just found their way
into these parts, and were slowly emerging from barbarism. The fields
around afforded little indication of such an instrument as the plough;
and one would have concluded from the garments of the people, that the
loom was among the yet uninvented arts. The harnessings of the horses
formed a curiously tangled web of thong, and rope, and thread, twisted,
tied, and knotted. It would have puzzled OEdipus himself to discover
how a horse could ever be got into such gear, or, being in, how it ever
could be got out. There seemed a most extraordinary number of beggars
and vagabonds in Peter's patrimony. A little congregation of these
worthies waited our arrival at every village, and whined round us for
alms so long as we remained. Others, not quite so ragged, stood aloof,
regarding us fixedly, as if devising some pretext on which to claim a
paul of us. There were worse characters in the neighbourhood, though
happily we saw none of them. But at certain intervals we met the
Austrian patrol, whose duty it was to clear the road of brigands. Peter,
it appeared to us, kept strange company about him,--idlers, beggars,
vagabonds, and brigands. It must vex the good man much to find his dear
children disgracing him so in the eyes of strangers.
These dismal scenes accompanied us half the way. We then entered the
Bolognese, and things began to look a little better. Bologna, though
under the Papal Government, has long been famous for nourishing a hardy,
liberty-loving people, though, if report does them justice, extremely
licentious and infidel. Its motto is "_libertas_;" and the air of
liberty is favourable, it would seem, to vegetation; for the fields
looked greener the moment we had crossed the barrier. Soon we were
charmed with the sight of Bologna. Its appearance is indeed imposing,
and gives promise of something like life and industry within its walls.
A noble cluster of summits,--an offshoot of the Apennines,--rises
behind the city, crowned with temples and towers. Within their bosky
declivities, from which tall cypress-trees shoot up, lie embowered
villas and little watch-towers, with their glittering vanes. At the foot
of the hill is spread out the noble city, with its leaning towers and
its tall minaret-looking steeples. The approach to the walls reminded me
that below these ramparts sleeps Ugo Bassi. I afterwards searched for
his resting-place, but could find no one who either would or could show
me his tomb. A more eloquent declaimer than even Gavazzi, I have been
assured by those who knew him, was silenced when Ugo Bassi fell beneath
the murderous fire of the Croat's musket.
After the death-like desertion and silence of Ferrara, the feeble bustle
of Bologna seemed like a return to the world and its ways. Its streets
are lined with covered porticoes, less heavy than those of Padua, but
harbouring after nightfall, says the old traveller ARCHENHOLTZ, robbers
and murderers, of whom the latter are the more numerous. He accounts for
this by saying, that whereas the robber has to make restitution before
receiving absolution, the murderer, whether condemned to die or set at
liberty, receives full pardon, without the "double labour," as Sir John
Falstaff called it, of "paying back." Its hundred churches are vast
museums of sculpture and painting. Its university, which the Bolognese
boast is the oldest in Europe, rivalled Padua in its glory, and now
rivals it in its decay. Its two famous leaning towers,--the rent in the
bottom of one is quite visible,--are bending from age, and will one day
topple over, and pour a deluge of old bricks upon the adjoining
tenements. Its "Academy of the Fine Arts" is, after Rome and Florence,
the finest in Italy. It is filled with the works of the Caracci,
Domenichino, Guido Albani, and others of almost equal celebrity. I am no
judge of such matters; and therefore my reader need lay no stress upon
my criticisms; but it appeared to me, that some paintings placed in the
first rank had not attained that excellence. The highly-praised "Victory
of Sampson over the Philistines," I felt, wanted the grandeur of the
Hebrew Judge on this the greatest occasion of his life; although it gave
you a very excellent representation of a thirsty man drinking, with rows
of prostrate people in the background. Other pieces were disfigured by
glaring anachronisms in time and dress. The artist evidently had drawn
his inspiration, not from the _Bible_, but from the _Cathedral_. The
Apostles in some cases had the faces of monks, and looked as if they had
divided their time betwixt Liguori and the wine-flagon. Several
Scriptural personages were attired in an ecclesiastical dress, which
must have been made by some tailor of the sixteenth century. But there
is one picture in that gallery that impressed me more than any other
picture I ever saw. It is a painting of the Crucifixion by Guido. The
background is a dark thundery mass of cloud, resting angrily above the
dimly-seen roofs and towers of Jerusalem. There is "darkness over all
the land;" and in the foreground, and relieved by the darkness, stands
the cross, with the sufferer. On the left is John, looking up with
undying affection. On the right is Mary,--calm, but with eyes full of
unutterable sorrow. Mary Magdalene embraces the foot of the cross: her
face and upper parts are finely shaded; but her attitude and form are
strongly expressive of reverence, affection, and profound grief. There
are no details: the piece is simple and great. There are no attempts to
produce effect by violent manifestations of grief. Hope is gone, but
love remains; and there before you are the parties standing calm and
silent, with their great sorrow.
It so happened that the exhibition of the works of living artists was
open at the time, and I had a good opportunity of comparing the present
with the past race of Italian painters. I soon found that the race of
Guidos was extinct, and that the pencil of the masters had fallen into
the hands of but poor copyists. The present artists of Italy have given
over painting saints and Scripture-pieces, and work mostly in portraits
and landscapes. They paint, of course, what will sell; and the public
taste appears decidedly to have changed. There was a great dearth of
good historical, imaginative, and allegorical subjects; too often an
attempt was visible to give interest to a piece by an appeal to the
baser passions. But the living artists of that country fall below not
only their great predecessors, but even the artists of Scotland. This
exhibition in Bologna did not by any means equal in excellence or
interest the similar exhibition opened every spring in Edinburgh. The
statuary displayed only beauty and voluptuousness of form: it wanted the
simple energy and the chastened grandeur of expression which
characterize the statuary of the ancients, and which have made it the
admiration of all ages.
The only god whom the Bolognese worship is San Petronio. His temple, in
which Charles V. was crowned by Clement VII., stands in the Piazza
Maggiore, the forum of Bologna in the middle ages, and rivals the
"Academy" itself in its paintings and sculptures. Though the facade is
not finished, nor likely soon to be, it is one of the largest churches
in Italy, and is a fine specimen of the Italian Gothic. In a little side
chapel is the head of San Petronius himself, certified by Benedict XIV.
On the forms on the cathedral floor lie little framed pictures of the
saint, with a prayer addressed to him. I saw a country girl enter the
church, drop on her knees, kiss the picture, and recite the prayer. I
afterwards read this prayer, though not on bended knee; and can certify
that a grosser piece of idolatry never polluted human lips. Petronio
was addressed by the same titles in which the Almighty is usually
approached; as, "the most glorious," "the most merciful."
"Towards him they bend
With awful reverence prone; and as a god
Extol him equal to the Highest in heaven."
Higher blessings, whether for time or for eternity, than those for which
the devotee was directed to supplicate San Petronio, man needs not, and
God has not to bestow. Daily bread, protection from danger, grace to
love San Petronio, grace to serve San Petronio, pardon, a happy death,
deliverance from hell, and eternal felicity in Paradise,--all who
offered this prayer,--and other prayer was unheard beneath that
roof,--supplicated of San Petronio. The Church of Rome affirms that she
does not pray _to the_ saints, but _through_ them,--namely, as
intercessors with Christ and God. This is no justification of the
practice, though it were the fact; but it is not the fact. In protestant
countries she may insert the name of God at the end of her prayers; but
in popish countries she does not deem it needful to observe this
formality. The name of Christ and of God rarely occurs in her popular
formulas. In the Duomo of Bologna, the only god supplicated,--the only
god known,--is San Petronio. The tendency of the worship of the Church
of Rome is to efface God from the knowledge and the love of her members.
And so completely has this result been realized, that, as one said, "You
might steal God from them without their knowing it." Indeed, that "Great
and Dreadful Name" might be blotted out from the few prayers of that
Church in which it is still retained, and its worship would go on as
before. What possible change would take place in the Duomo of San
Petronio at Bologna, and in thousands of other churches in Italy,
though Rome was to decree in _words_, as she does in _deeds_, that
"_there is no God_?"
On the second day of my stay at Bologna I ascended the fine hill on the
north of the city. A noble pillared arcade of marble, three miles in
length, leads up to the summit. At every twelve yards or so is an
alcove, with a florid painting of some saint; and at each station sits a
poor old woman, who begs an alms of you, in the name of the saint
beneath whose picture she spins her thread,--her own thread being nearly
ended. There met me here a regiment of little priests, of about an
hundred in number, none of whom seemed more than ten years of age, and
all of whom wore shoes with buckles, silk stockings, breeches, a loose
flowing robe, a white-edged stock, and shovel hat,--in short, miniature
priests in dress, in figure, and in everything save their greater
sportiveness. On the summit is a magnificent church, containing one of
those black madonnas ascribed to Luke, and said to have been brought
hither by a hermit from Constantinople in the twelfth century. Be this
as it may, the black image serves the Bolognese for an occasion of an
annual festival, kept with fully as much hilarity as devotion.
From the summit one looks far and wide over Italy. Below is spread out
the plain of Lombardy, level as the sea, and as thickly studded with
white villas as the heavens with stars. On the north, the cities of
Mantua and Verona, and numerous other towns and villages, are visible.
On the east, the towers and cathedral roofs of Ferrara are seen rising
above the woods that cover the plain; and the view is bounded by the
Adriatic, which, like a thin line of blue, runs along the horizon. On
the south and west is the hill country of the Apennines, among whose
serrated peaks and cleft sides is many a lovely dell, rich in waters,
and vines, and olive trees. The distant country towards the
Mediterranean lay engulphed in a white mist. A violent electrical action
was going on in it, which, like a strong wind moving upon its surface,
raised it into billows, which appeared to sweep onward, tossing and
tumbling like the waves of ocean.
I had taken up my abode at the Il Pellegrino, one of the best
recommended hotels in Bologna,--not knowing that the Austrian officers
had made it their head-quarters, and that not a Bolognese would enter
it. At dinner-time I saw only the Austrian uniform around the table.
This was a matter of no great moment. Not so what followed. When I went
to bed, there commenced overhead a heavy shuffling of feet, and an
incessant going and coming, with slamming of doors, and jolting of
tables, which lasted all night long. A sad tragedy was enacting above
me. The political apprehensions are made over-night in the Italian
towns; and I little doubt that the soldiers were all night busily
engaged in bringing in prisoners, and sending them off to jail. The
persons so arrested are subjected to moral and physical tortures, which
speedily prostrate both mind and body, and sometimes terminate in death.
Loaded with chains, they are shut up in stinking holes, where they can
neither stand upright nor lie down at their length. The heat of the
weather and the foul air breed diseases of the skin, and cover them with
pustules. The food, too, is scanty, often consisting of only bread and
water. The Government strive to keep their cruel condition a secret from
their relatives, who, notwithstanding, are able at times to penetrate
the mystery that surrounds them, but only to have their feelings
lacerated by the thought of the dreadful sufferings undergone by those
who are the objects of their tenderest affection. And what agony can be
more dreadful than to know that a father, a husband, a son, is rotting
in a putrid cell, or being beaten to death by blows, while neither
relief nor sympathy from you can reach the sufferer? The case of a young
man of the name of Neri, formerly healthy and handsome, found its way to
the public prints. Broken down by blows, he was carried to the military
hospital in an almost dying condition, where an English physician, in
company with an Austrian surgeon, found him with lacerated skin, and the
vertebral bones uncovered. He was enduring at the same time so acute
pain from inflammation of the bowels, that he was unable, but by hints,
to express his misery. It was here that the atrocities of the Papal
Nuncio BEDINI were perpetrated,--the same man who was afterwards chased
from the soil of America by a storm of execration evoked against him by
the friends and countrymen of the victims who had been tortured and shot
during his sway in Bologna. In short, the acts of the Holy Office are
imitated and renewed; so that numbers, distracted and maddened by the
torments which they endure, avow offences which they never committed,
and name accomplices whom they never had; and the retractations of these
unhappy beings are of no avail to prevent new arrests. The Bolognese are
permitted to weep their complicated evils only in secret; to do so
openly would be charged as a crime.
The fiscal oppression is nearly as unbearable as the political and
social. The taxation, both as regards its amount and the mode of
enforcing it, is ruinous to the individual, and operates as a fatal
check to the progress of industry. The country is eaten up with foreign
soldiers. The great hotels in all the principal towns resemble casernes.
The reader may judge of my surprise on opening my bed-room door one
morning, to find that a couple of Croats had slept on the mat outside of
it all night. It might be a special mark of honour to myself; but I
rather think that they are accustomed to bivouac in the passages and
lobbies. The eternal drumming in the streets is enough to deafen one for
life. To the traveller it is sufficiently annoying; how much more so to
the Bolognese, who knows that that is music for which he must pay dear!
Since 1848, the aggregate of taxation between Leghorn and Ancona has
been increased about 40 per cent.; and the taxes are levied upon a
principle of arbitrary assessment which compels the rich to simulate
poverty, as in Turkey, lest they should be stripped of their last
farthing. In Bologna, the payments of the house and land tax, which used
to be made every two months, are now collected for the same sums every
seven weeks; and a per centage is added at the pleasure of the
Government, of which no one knows the amount till the collector calls
with his demand. In other towns an income-tax is levied upon trades and
professions, framed upon no rule but the supposed capabilities of the
individual assessed to pay. Bologna, I may note, although in the Papal
States, is now quite an Austrian town. The Austrians have there
six-and-twenty pieces of artillery, and are building extensive barracks
for cavalry and infantry. Bologna belongs to that part of the Papal
States called the Four Legations, where, whether it pleases the Pope to
be so protected or not, it is now quite understood that the Austrians
have come to stay. The officer in command at Bologna styles himself its
civil as well as military governor.
On the third day after my arrival, I started at four of the morning for
Florence. It was dark as we rode through the streets of Bologna; and our
_diligence_, piled a-top with luggage, smashed several of the oil-lamps,
which dangled on cords at a dangerous proximity to the causeway. I don't
know that the Bolognese would miss them, for we left the street very
little, if at all, darker than we found it. I looked forward with no
little interest to the day's ride, which was to lie among the dells of
the Apennines, and to terminate at eve with the fair sight of the Queen
of the Arno. How unlike the reality, will appear in the sequel. In half
an hour we came in the dim light to a little valley, where the village
bell was sweetly chiming the matins. I note the spot because I narrowly
missed being an actor in a tragedy which took place here the very next
morning. I may tell the story now, though I anticipate somewhat. I was
sitting at the table d'hote in Florence three days after, when the
gentleman on my right began to tell the company how he had travelled
from Bologna on the Saturday previous, and how he and all his
fellow-passengers had been robbed on the way. They had got to the spot I
have indicated, when suddenly a little band of brigands, which lay in
ambush by the wayside, rushed on the _diligence_. Some mounted on the
front, and attended to the outside passengers; others took charge of
those in the _interieur_. Now it was, when the passengers saw into what
hands they had fallen, that nothing was heard but groaning in all parts
of the _diligence_. Our informant, who sat next the window in the
_interieur_, was seized by the collar, a long knife was held to his
breast, and he was admonished to use all diligence in making over to his
new acquaintance any worldly goods he had about him. He had to part with
his gold watch and chain, his breast-pin, and sundry other articles of
jewellery; but his purse and sovereigns he contrived to drop among the
straw at the bottom of the vehicle. All the rest fared as he did, and
some of them worse, for they lost their money as well as jewels. These
grave proceedings were diversified by a somewhat humorous incident. The
coachman had providently put his dinner in the form of a sausage, rolled
in brown paper, under his seat. This is the form in which Austrian
zwanzigers are commonly made up; and the brigands, fancying the
coachman's sausage to be a roll of silver zwanzigers, seized on it with
avidity, and bore it off in triumph. They were proceeding to rifle the
baggage, when, hearing the horse-patrol approaching, they plunged into
the thicket as suddenly as they had appeared. The morning chimes were
sounding, as on the previous day, while this operation was going on. But
what is not a little extraordinary is, that all this took place within
two miles of the city gates of Bologna, where there could not be fewer
than twelve thousand Austrian soldiers. But these, I presume, were too
much engaged on this, as on previous nights, in apprehending and
imprisoning the citizens in the Pope's behalf, to think of looking after
brigands. In Peter's privileged patrimony one may rob, murder, and break
every command of the decalogue, and defy the police, provided he obey
the Church. Were I to travel that road again, I would provide myself
with a tinsel watch and appendages, and a sausage carefully rolled up in
paper, to avoid the unpleasantness of meeting such wellwishers
empty-handed.
In another half hour we came to the spurs of the Apennines. The day was
breaking, and its light, I hoped, would lay open many a sweet dell and
many a romantic peak, before evening. These hopes, as, alas! too often
happens in the longer journey of life, were to be suddenly dashed. I
felt a warm, suffocating current of air breathing over the valley, and
looked up to see the furnace whence, as I supposed, it proceeded. This
was the sirocco, the herald of the tempest that soon thereafter burst
upon us. Masses of whitish cloud came rolling over the summits of the
hills; furious gusts came down upon us from the heights; and in a few
minutes we found ourselves contending with a hurricane such as I have
never seen equalled save on one other occasion. The cloud became
fearfully black, and made the lightning the more awful as it touched
with fire the peaks around us, and bathed in an ocean of flame the vines
and hamlets on the hill-side. Terrible peals of thunder broke over us;
and these were followed by torrents of rain, which the furious winds
dashed against our vehicle with the force and noise of a cataract.
We had to make our way up the mountain's side in the face of this
tempest. At times more than a dozen animals were yoked to our
_diligence_,--horses, oxen, and beasts of every kind which we could
press into the service; while half-a-dozen postilions, shouting and
cracking their whips, strove to urge the motley cavalcade onward. Still
we crept up only by inches. The road in most cases wound over the very
peak of the mountain; and there the tempest, rushing upon us from all
sides at once, threatened to lay our vehicle, which shook and quivered
in the blast, flat on its side, or toss it into the valley below. The
storm continued to rage with unabated violence from day-break till
mid-day; and, by favour of horses, bullocks, and postilions, we kept
moving on at the rate of two miles an hour, now climbing, now
descending, well knowing that at every summit a fresh buffeting awaited
us.
I had as my companions on this journey, two Russian gentlemen, with whom
afterwards, at several points of my tour, I came into contact. They were
urbane and intelligent men, full of their own country and of the Czar,
yet professing great respect for England, which they had just visited,
and looking down with a contempt they were at little pains to conceal,
upon the Frenchmen and Italians among whom they were moving. They
possessed the sobriety of mind, the turn for quiet, shrewd observation,
in short, much of the physical and intellectual stamina, of Englishmen,
with just a shade less of the exquisite polish which marks the latter
wherever they are met with. These, no doubt, were favourable specimens
of the Russian nation; but it is such men who give the tone to a State,
while the masses below execute their designs. I have ever since felt
that, should we ever meet that people on the field of battle, the
contest would be no ordinary one. I recollect one of these gentlemen
meeting me on the streets of Rome some weeks afterwards, and informing
me that he had been the day before to visit the ball on the top of St
Peter's, and that he had been delighted at seeing his Emperor's name, in
his Emperor's own handwriting, inside the ball, with a few lines beneath
the signature, stating that he had stood in that ball, and had there
prayed for Mother Holy Russia,--a fact full of significance.
About mid-day we came, wet, and weary, and cold, to the Duana on the
Tuscan frontier, where was a poor inn, at which, after our passports had
been viseed, and our trunks and carpet-bags plumbed, we dined. There
were some twenty of us at table; a priest taking the top, and the
_conducteur_ the bottom. I remember that two persons of the party kept
their hats on at table, and that these were the priest and a poor
country lad,--the priest because he presided perhaps, and the countryman
because, not knowing the etiquette of the point, he wisely determined to
follow in that, as in greater matters, the priest. Our dinner consisted
of coarse broth, black bread, buffalo beef, and wine of not the sweetest
flavour; but what helped us was an excellent appetite, for we had not
breakfasted beyond a few chestnuts and grapes picked up at the poor
villages through which we passed. We obtained, however, an hour's
shelter from the elements.
We resumed our journey, and in about an hour's ride we gained the
central chain of the Apennines. Happily the tempest had moderated
somewhat; for this, lying midway between the two seas, is ordinarily the
stormiest point of the pass. We crossed it, however, with less
inconvenience than we had looked for. The summits, which had hitherto
been conical, with vines straggling up their sides, now became rounded,
or ran off in serrated lines, with sides scarred with tempests and
strewn with stones. The scenery was bleak and desolate, as that of the
Grampian pass leading by Spittal of Glenshee to Dee-side. But as we
continued our descent, the richly wooded glens returned; the clouds
rose; and at one time I ventured to hope that I should yet have my first
sight of Florence under a golden sky, and that Milton's description
might, after all, be applicable to this day of storms:--
"As when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds
Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread
Heaven's cheerful face, the low'ring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landskip snow or shower;
If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,
Extend his evening beam, the fields revive,
The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings."
But the hope was short-lived: no Florence was I to see that night; nor
was note of bird to gladden the dells. The mists again fell, and hid in
premature night those fine valleys, so famous in Florentine history,
which we were now approaching. We wound round hills, traversed deep
ravines, heard on every side the thunder of the swollen torrents, and,
when the parting vapour permitted, had glimpses of the luxuriant woods
of myrtle and laurel that clothe these valleys,--
"Where round some mouldering tower pale ivy creeps,
And low-brow'd rocks hang nodding o'er the deeps."
At last we found ourselves on the banks of a broad and swollen
river,--the Save,--with no means of transit save a dismantled bridge,
so sorely shattered by the flood, that it was an even question whether
our vehicle might not, like the last straw on the dromedary's back, sink
the structure outright.
We dismounted, and, by the help of lights, measured first the bridge,
and next the _diligence_, and found that the breadth of the former
exceeded that of the latter by just two inches. The passengers passed on
foot; the _diligence_, with the baggage, came after; and so all arrived
safely on the other side. Our first care was to assemble a council of
war in the poor inn which stood on the spot, and deliberate what next to
do.
The _conducteur_ opened the debate. "We had," he said, "twenty miles of
road still before us; the way lay through deep ravines, and over
torrents which the rains must have rendered impassable: it would be long
past midnight till we should reach Florence,--if we should ever reach
it: his opinion was, therefore, that we ought to stay where we were;
nevertheless, if we insisted, he would go on at all risks." So
counselled our leader; and if we wanted an argument on the other side,
we had only to look around. The walls of the inn were naked and black;
the floor was covered inch-deep with slime, the deposit of the flood
which had that day broke into the dwelling; and the place was evidently
unequal to the "entertainment" of such a number of "men and horses" as
had thus unexpectedly been thrown upon it. It is not wonderful, in these
circumstances, that a small opposition party sprung up, headed by an
English lady, whose delicate slippers were never made for such a floor
as that on which she now stood. She could see no danger in going on, and
urged us to set forward. Better counsels prevailed, however; and we
resolved to endure the evils we knew, rather than adventure on those we
knew not.
The next matter to be negotiated was supper, of which the aspect of the
place gave no great promise. The landlady was a thin, wiry, black,
voluble Tuscan. "Have you beef?--Have you cheese?--Have you
macaroni?"--inquired several voices in succession. "Oh, she had all
these, and a great many dainties besides, in the morning; but the
flood,--the flood!" The same flood, however, which had swept off our
hostess's larder, had swept in a great deal of good company, and she was
evidently resolved on setting the one evil over against the other. She
now showered upon us a long, rapid, and vehement address; and he who has
not heard the Tuscan discourse does not know what volubility is. "What
does she say?" I inquired at one of my two Russian friends. "She says
very many words," he replied, "but the meaning is moneys, moneys." "Have
you any coffee?" I asked. "Oh, coffee! delightful coffee; but it had
gone sailing down the flood." "And it carried off the eggs too, I
suppose?" "No; I have eggs." We resolved to sup on eggs. A fire of logs
was kindled up stairs, and a table was extemporized out of some deals.
In a quarter of an hour in came our supper,--black bread, fried eggs,
and a skein of wine. We fell to; but, alack! what from the smut of the
chimney and the dust of the pan, the eggs were done in the _chiaro
scuro_ style; the wine had so villanous a twang, that a few sips of it
contented me; and the bread, black as it was, was the only thing
palatable. I got the landlady persuaded to boil me an egg; and though
the Italian peasants only dip their eggs in hot water, and serve them up
raw, it was preferable to the conglomerate of the pan. We made merry,
however, over our poor meal and the grateful warmth of the fire; and
somewhere towards midnight we entertained the question of going to bed.
We had avoided the topic as long as possible, from a foreboding that our
hostess would present us with some rueful tale of blankets lost in the
flood. Besides, we were not without misgivings that, should the clouds
return and the river rise as before, house and all might follow the
other things down the stream, and no one could tell where we might find
ourselves on awakening. On broaching the subject, however, we found to
our delight, that cribs, couches, shakedowns, and all sorts of
contrivances, with store of cloaks, garments, and blankets, had been got
ready for our use.
We were told off into parties; and the first to be sorted were the two
Russians, an Italian, and myself. We four were shown into a room, which,
to our great surprise, contained two excellent four-posted beds, one of
which was allotted to the two Russian gentlemen, and the other to the
Italian and myself. Our mode of turning in was somewhat novel. The
Russians put away simply their greatcoats, and lay down beneath the
coverlet. My bed-fellow the Italian took up a position for the night by
throwing himself, as he was, on the top of the bed-clothes. Not
approving of either mode, I slipped off both greatcoat and coat, and,
covering myself with the blankets, soon forgot in sleep all the mishaps
of the day.
The voice of the _conducteur_ shouting at the door of our apartment
awakened us before day-break. Our company mustered with what haste they
could, and we again betook us to the road,
"While the still morn went out with sandals gray."
The path lay along the banks of the torrent Carza, and the valley we
found frightfully scarred by the flood of the former day. Fierce
torrents rushing from the hills had torn the fences, ploughed up the
road, piled up hillocks of mud among the vineyards, and covered with
barren sand, or strewn with stones, many an acre of fine meadow. Had we
attempted the path in the darkness, our course must have found a speedy
termination. At length, ascending a steep hill, we found ourselves
overlooking the valley of the Arno.
Every traveller taxes his descriptive powers to the utmost to paint the
view from this hill-top; and I verily believe that, seen under a
cloudless sky, it is one of the most enchanting landscapes in the world.
The numberless conical hills,--the white villas and villages, which lie
as thick as if the soil had produced them,--the silvery stream of the
Arno,--the rich chestnut and olive woods,--the domes of the Italian
Athens,--the songs,--the fragrance,--and the great wall of the Apennines
bounding all,--must present a picture of rare magnificence. But I saw it
under different conditions, and must needs describe it as it appeared.
Sub-Apennine Italy was before me, and it seemed the Italy I had dreamed
of, could I only see it; but, alas! it was blotted with mists, and
overshadowed by a black canopy of cloud. Outspread, far as the eye could
extend southward, was a landscape of ridges and conical tops, separated
by winding wreaths of white mist, giving to the country the aspect of an
ocean broken up into creeks, and bays, and channels, with no end of
islands. The hills were covered to their very summits with the richest
vegetation; and the multitude of villages sprinkled over them lent them
an air of great animation. The great chain of the Apennines, with
rolling masses of cloud on its summits, ran along on the east, and
formed the bounding wall of the prospect. Below us there floated on the
surface of the mist an immense dome, looking like a balloon of huge size
about to ascend into the air. It did not ascend, however; but,
surrounded by several tall shafts and towers which rose silently out of
the mist, it remained suspended over the same spot. Like a buoy at sea
affixed to the place where some noble vessel lies entombed, this dome
told us that engulphed in this ocean of vapour lay FLORENCE, with her
rich treasures of art, and her many stirring recollections and
traditions.