the royal palace atop of a height with a view that would make a lazarone
of me! I am sure I could do nothing but sit in “rapt ecstasy” and gaze
at the blue sky, through the sycamore branches, or the denser blue sea
from the balustrades that run along the edge of the great square in
front. There is a barrack also. You know Monaco is one of the smallest
kingdoms in the world. Its standing army numbers fifty soldiers! I saw a
number of the fine, amiable-looking fellows. They looked trim,
immaculate and soldierly, and as if they did not enjoy to the fullest
extent their superabundant idleness. I can not attempt to describe the
luxurious and sumptuous magnificence of the royal apartments. A lovely
drive of ten or twelve minutes took us thence to Monte Carlo. We went
into the Casino, the great gambling palace, made the tour of its superb
halls and eight large tables crowded with players of both sexes and all
ages and ranks. It made me heart-sick in a very few minutes, and I sat
apart watching the anomalous and painful spectacle till my companion
wearied, too, which was not till she had tried her luck and like Lady
G----, “come out even.” We had a dream-drive home in the late afternoon.
Next morning, a party of seven of us chartered a kind of coach for the
celebrated Cornichen drive over the old Roman route as far as Mentone.
From there we went to Genoa by train, never out of sight of something
of exquisite beauty. Then Genoa for two nights and a day, a “field day”
of sight-seeing--four palaces, four churches, a drive and shopping! Pisa
for another night and day; saw its incomparable group--Duomo, Campanile,
Baptistery and Campo Santo. How little I had conceived of their
magnificence and beauty! From Pisa to Siena. Such a wonderful old place
as this is! We leave to-morrow for Naples, via Rome, for a day, to “do
it,” and return to Rome for Holy Week and Easter. I set aside three
months for Italy, but Rome and Florence are a world in themselves for
me. It snowed here yesterday; so it is very cold to-day.
I have had views at intervals of snow-covered mountains from Lyons here.
I saw Mont Blanc distinctly--a colossal white specter, towering grandly
in the upper heavens--at one point on the way. They said it was about
ninety miles distant. They are splendid to look at, but not to feel.
This cold on my travels has cut me down so. I am too stupid to write a
decent letter.
L. G. C.
Siena, March 4, 1883.
ROME.
I left Paris four weeks ago this morning. I cannot for the life of me
remember if I have written to you in that time. Seems to me, though, I
wrote from Siena. Anyhow, I will make that my starting point. From there
we--the lady who is traveling with me is an Ohioan from G----
originally, and the sister of H. H. B----, the historian of the tribes
of the Pacific coast--went to Naples via here. We spent a night and a
day driving about in the brilliant sunshine, seeing many points of
interest by way of preparation for my return. Then on to Naples. It was
raining hard and 11 o’clock at night when we reached it. Several days of
promiscuous rain and shine, the former out of all proportion to the
latter, rather disgusted me. I could not get to Capri, to Baja, to the
top of Vesuvius. I had the views between showers of that world-renowned
bay, and went in them to the churches, museums, and the lovely palace,
Capodimonte. It both rained and snowed a little while I was inside the
last. Of course you know it is atop of one of the loftiest points about
N----, and that it is full of pictures and all kinds of lovely things.
But there is one painting there I think you may not have heard
of--Michael Angelo kissing the hand of his dead friend, Vittoria
Colonna. You remember he once afterwards regretted he had not kissed her
brow or lips. This is a grand picture, the figures life-size. Vittoria
lies shrouded in a rich white satin robe, confined about her feet with
laurel branches. The face has a worn look--that of
“long disquiet
Merged in rest.”
Angelo is bending down, with his lips touching her folded hands and his
countenance knotted with grief and the heavy sense of loss. Ah! no
future would ever be to him like the past! I felt his loss like my own;
and the tears sprang quick and blinding. This was the only picture of
them all I brought away with me. At the Museum, the Pompeian frescoes,
the Farnese Hercules Bull, made the deepest impression. One of the
frescoes, a Nereid on the back of a sea panther, I tried to get a
photograph of, but failed. You know Donneker’s Ariadne? I think he must
have got the idea from this, and as I have it in ivory--the most
perfect little gem--I wanted this too. I saw a very curious and
interesting spectacle in one of the churches, St. Dominico, in the
sacristy: the coffin of the Marchese di Pescara, Vittoria Colonna’s
husband. It was one of a number, ten of which contained the remains of
kings and queens, placed around the walls just below the ceiling. They
had faded scarlet covers. On his was an inscription by Aristo; above it,
his portrait; at one end, his banner; and attached to the side, his
sword. Everything concerning that noble woman is of the deepest interest
to me; so I made a pilgrimage to see the portrait and coffin of the
lover-husband she has embalmed in her verses.
The rain continuing, we “broke up camp,” and went to Pompeii. It poured
for a day and a half there; and then the sun burst forth and I spent all
Sunday in that exhumed city. Impossible to convey the slightest idea of
the fascination of it. Come and try it for yourself. At night Vesuvius
added the strange and rather terror-inspiring charm of its glowing
crater, slow-flowing lava and brilliant column of smoke rising far
aloft. It kept me going to my window all night. I’ll tell you about it
some day. Next to La Cava, a beautiful town in a vale surrounded by
chains of the most picturesque mountain peaks. There it rained and
snowed again--snowed heavily on the mountain tops. All the vale was
dressed in the “living green” of mid-spring. The snow in it was a March
flurry. From there we had a lovely drive--a Cornichean drive--around the
headlands of the sea to Amalfi. Read Longfellow’s poem “Amalfi.” I
clambered to the Convent (now a hotel) for the view and lunch. Both were
incomparable. Read the poem copied in the Guest-book and shown with
great pride, and left as Eve left Paradise, “with reluctant steps and
slow.” Next day, Paestum! Oh! those inexpressible ruins! What an element
_worship_ has been in the life of our race. I never realized this more
deeply than in those majestic old temples. I gathered _acanthus_ from
crevices in the crumbling columns and stones of the floors. Next day
Castellamare and Sorrento, with another ideal drive between them. At the
latter, I went to the finest orange grove in that district, and gathered
oranges from the trees for myself. Ah! that was fruit fit for the gods.
Naples again and rain. I waited two more days for Capri in vain. Spent
them at the Museum, where I fell in love again--and this time with
youth and beauty, a bronze statuette of Narcissus listening to Echo. If
I gave myself leave how _I_ could _rave_ about _it_. I got every
photograph I could find and mean to have a copy if I can find one. It
was found in Pompeii. What lovers of beauty peopled that ill-fated city.
I have been here since Saturday. Sunday was Palm Sunday at St. Peter’s.
I went. The grand edifice did not disappoint. The ceremonies and music
did. Shall I send you a leaf of the consecrated palm? Monday was spent
in getting settled. Tuesday, the Albani Villa. To-day, the Sistine
Chapel and Raphael’s Transfiguration at the Vatican; and Guido’s Aurora
at the Rospigliosi Palace.
Have I ever told you how I wished with a passionate intensity to spend a
full winter in Rome? and now I am having the fulfillment. Almost I can
believe Goethe, “Time brings the fulfillment of what is passionately
longed for when we are young.” Those are not his words perhaps, but they
convey his idea. When I first read them twenty or twenty-five years ago,
I did not agree with him. Curious that the flight of time which has made
me reject faith in the principle of compensation, should make me a
believer in that.
“Whoever,” says Chateaubriand, “has nothing else left in life should
come to Rome to live; there he will find for society a land which will
nourish his reflections, walks which will always tell him something
new.” Read again what Hawthorne says in “The Marble Faun,” that after
one has lived in Rome and talked it and left it, he is astonished to
find his “heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to” it “and
are drawing him thitherward again, as if it were more familiar--more
intimately his home than even the spot where he was born.” Do you know I
feel every word of this! If you want to have a touch of this Roman fever
read, stopping to make pictures to your mind’s eye as you read “The
Marble Faun,” Hans Andersen’s “Improvisatore,” Storey’s “Robe di Roma,”
and Ouida’s “Ariadne.” This last you must give me your opinion of. I
have been to all the places she names; almost to all each names. The
weather is mild, generally sunshine to make one think the worship of
that luminary not the worst the world has ever known.
Spring flowers are thick everywhere. Yesterday brought such a clever
letter from Miss D----. I think I must quote a bit or two to give you
“a taste of her quality.”
I had sent some Xmas souvenirs to her and her sisters. Of the younger
two--very young--she said: “You should have seen D---- and M---- when
they told their friends, ‘My cousin in Paris sent me this,’ with the air
of being thankful that they were not as other little girls that had no
cousin in Paris.”
L. G. C.
Rome, March 19, 1883.
[Illustration]
ROME.
We spent a day at Amalfi. From La Cava, a pretty town in an extensive
vale shut in with the most picturesque chains of mountains, we took an
open carriage for the three hours’ drive. It soon struck the seacoast
and wound all the rest of the way around its headlands, doubling its
promontories, retreating into its bays and inlets and dropping almost to
the water’s edge, and presently mounting upward into almost Alpine
heights. The headlands and cliffs were frequently broken into every
imaginable form of rock sculpture--columns, cones, pyramids, grottoes
and castellated walls of defense and fantastic ruins. The sea beat the
shore, here, a sheer precipice, and there a white sanded beach, then
rolled away a tangled mass of the most exquisite and innumerable shades
of blue, green, purple, black, gold and silver. The coast stretched
around in a vast semi-circle of silver till it lost itself in the misty
horizon. Little villages lay at our feet, ran up the hill-sides with
their terraces of orange-groves, or clung to the cliffs far overhead
like martins’ nests in winter. A long range of snow-capped mountains
reared themselves above Salerno, and sent us an icy blast now and then.
There had been quite a snow the day before. We rattled up to our
“albergo” at eleven. This was at the foot of the hill; our destination
was an old monastery of the Capucins, now a hotel, of which this was the
porter’s lodge. The same proprietor conducts both. He met us with the
welcome accorded to favored guests, and gave us a guide, and we were off
at once.
The practical should not be neglected entirely for the picturesque, so,
we “took in” on our way, a macaroni factory. We saw the flour, then the
kneading, last the moulding. The kneading is quite peculiar, and a long
and fatiguing part. There is a flat, round table with a beam that works
on and around it, the dough being placed between. Six youths of eighteen
or twenty were on the end and worked it up and down and back and forth.
The whole had a joint resemblance to a grist-mill and the game of
see-sawing. The boys were bare-legged and looked very clean and cool.
When the dough is sufficiently kneaded, it is transferred to the mould.
This is a cylindrical-shaped machine, filled with the small cylinders
through which the dough is forced to convert it into the little tubes
with which we are so familiar. The dough is placed on one end and the
pressure applied, which forces it through. The several squads of workmen
are very eager to show off at their best, their palms tingling, no
doubt, in expectation of the accustomed fee.
Leaving this factory, we began climbing steps. The monastery is the
hollow of a rock, which rises abruptly from the sea, has cloisters, a
veranda, a “terrace-walk,” a kind of collonade, and from innumerable
points the most charming views. Longfellow had been there ahead of me,
for which I “returned thanks” on finding in the guest-book his poem
“Amalfi.” As I read it my eyes went wandering over all therein so
felicitously described. The salon was the refectory of the monks, and
each window, glazed to the floor, opened on a veranda. I shut myself out
on one, and, leaning on its solid stone balustrade, gave myself up to
the dreamy fascination of the “enchanted land.” Do read the poem, and
try to picture each feature with your mind’s eye. The description is
perfect. After lingering till the very last moment, we found our guide,
and took another route to the albergo, where we had left our carriage.
Whether the descent to Avernus is easy or not depends upon the grade of
descent. That was not many degrees removed from “sheer.” Believe me, it
was not “easy.” It dropped us on the beach, and the “white-caps” gave us
close chase here and there. Nothing to compare, though, to that of a
battalion of little beggars who became so importunate, we had to turn
our umbrellas into weapons of both defense and attack, whereupon they
yelled and shouted with laughter. So we parted “merry foes,” if neither
side could boast a triumph.
The earth never saw a more perfect morning than the following. That was
to be our Paestum day. Our host, a number of countrymen and
countrywomen, even the station porter who carried our lunch basket to a
carriage on the train which was to take us part of the way--one and all
exclaimed: “How fortunate you are! You could not have a more splendid
day to see the ruins.” Fourteen miles by rail and then a carriage again
for a drive of two and a half hours. The sea was “radiantly beautiful,”
a wide expanse of flashing wavelets. Leaving it, the route crossed
marshy plains, occasionally dotted with small herds of buffaloes and
other cattle. The mountains kept along with us, gradually diminishing in
height until they sank into the low coast. After awhile the first
glimpse of the temples. That was a sensation! It is said of these
temples that they were built in the ancient Greek style, and are, with
the exception of those at Athens, the finest existing monuments of the
kind. The temple of Neptune is the largest and most beautiful of the
three. Its magnitude, massiveness and grandeur, added to the purpose for
which it was erected--the worship of a deity--make it the most imposing
ruin I have seen. This last makes the wide difference between it and the
Coliseum, for which, had it that consecration, there would be no words.
I wandered round, through it, gathered wild acanthus from crevices in
its columns and clefts in its floor; gazed at the near sea at one end,
passing an arm round one of its mighty symmetrical columns, not
encircling it, you may be sure, as the diameter is seven and a half
feet; followed the slow grazing of sheep on those once-sacred grounds;
sat down on the broken and half-buried steps inside, and looked up at
[Illustration: Pantheon, Rome.]
the intense blue of Italy’s noon-day sky; went to different points
around it to get every aspect of
“That noble wreck of ruinous perfection,”
and felt it impossible to sufficiently admire it. The Basilica near by
is also of great magnitude, but less and not so majestic in its
proportions. The third is the Temple of Ceres. It is comparatively
small, but full of simple majesty. As I looked at these wonderful ruins,
what most strangely moved me was an appreciation of the power and glory
of man, and the recognition of what an element worship has been in the
history of our race.
Another was my Sorrento day, which meant one of those ideal drives
called “Cornichean,” because of the road’s projecting like a cornice
from the headlands and precipitous hill-sides. In some places, the road
is cut out of the solid rock; in others, it pierces it, forming
beautiful arches, but always keeping the sea in view. This kept also
Ischia, Capri and Vesuvius before the charmed gaze. No other point
commands such fine and complete outlines of Vesuvius--its perfect
gradual upward sweep and swell from the water’s edge to its cone, with
the ever-rising column of smoke. Part of this drive takes its way
through orange and olive groves and mulberry trees, figs, pomegranates
and aloes, mingled in delicious suggestiveness. The town itself is
small, and situated amid these delightful groves, rather orchards, on
rocks rising abruptly from the sea, with deep ravines on the other side.
It was the birthplace of Tasso; and it is said, the house in which he
was born and the rock on which it stood have been swallowed up by the
sea, and that the ruins are still visible beneath its clear blue waters.
Nearly the entire sea-front is occupied by hotels, situated in gardens,
with steps descending to the sea; and bathing establishments commanding
magnificent views. We visited its shops, celebrated for their inlaid and
carved wooden work and silks.
My second trial of Naples was as unsatisfactory as the first. It rained
in torrents, and then I “gave up in despair.” The trip from Naples back
to Rome almost made me forget my grievance. It was full of historic
interest and association. We passed “ancient Capua,” where Spartacus led
in the war of the gladiators. Just this side of it is a district so
productive it yields two crops of grain and one of hay in the same
season. We had a splendid view of the celebrated monastery of Monte
Casino, situated on the top of a lofty hill. It is founded on the site
of an ancient temple of Apollo, to which Dante alludes in his
“Paradiso.” Thomas Aquinas was educated there. Varro’s villa was near,
and it is to one of its abbots that the world is indebted for the
preservation of his works. Its library is celebrated for its
manuscripts, and some of them suggested to Dante his great works. In
sight was Aquino, the birthplace of both Thomas Aquinas and Juvenal.
Rome. Here, in the “Eternal City.” Every day is one to be chronicled.
The day after I came was Palm Sunday. I went to St. Peter’s to see both
it and the ceremonies of the distribution of consecrated palms. I will
not describe St. Peter’s. Had I not already seen Westminster Abbey, St.
Paul’s and all the other most celebrated English cathedrals, no doubt
the impression would have been overwhelming. The ceremonies were very
unimposing; the music was not extraordinary; high mass was performed in
one of the chapels, which dwarfed it to a very commonplace performance;
and the distribution of palms was done by children, poor,
forlorn-looking friars and licensed peddlers, the consecration having
been previously done by one of the cardinals.
While the services were being performed in the chapel, people were
walking and rambling all over the rest of the vast temple, and unless
quite close to it, might have been quite unaware that anything was going
on within. As no seats were provided, I went out and joined the
ramblers. Presently I came upon the bronze statue of St. Peter, the toes
of which are being worn away by the kisses of the devout. I found a seat
and sat down to look on. Every class and grade was represented, from
prince and princess to pauper and villain, the former using their dainty
perfumed handkerchiefs to wipe a spot before touching their lips to it;
the latter, their ragged and tainted sleeves. One young priest wiped the
side of the foot and kissed it, instead of the much-imposed-upon toes.
To the end of “Holy Week,” I devoted myself to seeing its various
services. Each church has its special services. In that of St.
Apollonari, the washing and kissing the feet of the disciples is done by
a cardinal. I waited through a prolonged service of nearly four hours to
witness it. There were thirteen youthful priests seated in a row on a
bench raised two steps above the floor for the greater convenience of
the rather too fat father. Each in succession thrust out a bare foot as
he knelt, then washed, wiped, and, so far as I could see, gave an honest
kiss. There was a crimson satin cushion for him to kneel on, which,
however, the attending priests forgot to move along for him, so he had
to use the bare floor. I was suspicious enough to think the omission was
intentional. All his gorgeous vestments were removed while he was doing
this, and he looked a very plain, humble creature indeed.
In another was high mass and the showing of part of the cross to which
Christ was bound to be scourged. This church is opened but the once in
the year, and then only to ladies. No man can enter under pain of
excommunication. The other part of the cross is in Jerusalem. I urged a
very agreeable elderly English lady to go to see it. For reply, she
looked at me with a twinkle in her shrewd eyes, and said: “I am not
going to spend my time in any such tomfoolery as that.” What a homelike
sound her unvarnished English had!
In yet another there was a grand ceremony of showing the heads of St.
Peter and St. Paul--a ghastly spectacle at best. But the glory has
departed from Catholicism in Rome. “Holy Week” is a very tame period
now-a-days. One could be here and not hear of it. Indeed, it was with
great difficulty that we could get any accurate information of its
program. In only one church was there a jam. The pope never shows
himself; his seclusion is said to be absolute. All of the grandest
spectacles and ceremonies are omitted, so “Holy Week” is rapidly ceasing
to be an attraction.
We had a delightful drive on the Via Appia, that old Roman road, built
three hundred and twelve years before Christ, that even to-day, is
called the “queen of roads.” This is the finest of the near excursions
in the Campagna, the ruins of the aquaducts, mountains and villages,
while the remains of ancient tombs on each side of the road are a unique
and singularly fascinating feature. We took it in to visit the catacombs
of St. Callistus; the tomb of Caecillia Metella; the grotto and grove of
Egeria. Stopping at the Catacombs, we were provided with wax tapers and
guides and plunged down a precipitous stairway, and in a moment would
have been plunged in Plutonian darkness but for these little lights that
only served “to make darkness more visible.” Next came threading our way
through narrow, tortuous passages,
[Illustration: Strada dei Sepolcri (Street of Tombs), Pompeii.]
single file, coming occasionally to tombs of some extent, containing the
bodies of popes, saints and “other people.” In several of these were
paintings, the subjects of which were still quite easily made out. Some
of the decorative inscriptions date as far back as the fourth century,
and the frescoes to the seventh and eighth. In one chamber are two
sarcophagi still containing the skeletons of the deceased, which are
seen through a glass cover; one looking like a mummy, the other very
much crumbled. The guide hurried us, so the visit was rather confusing,
and I came out. The tomb of Caecillia Metella was a fascination to me I
was scarcely prepared for, notwithstanding my remembrance of Childe
Harold’s famous description. To reach the Grotto of Egeria, we had to
take a walk through some fields, and descend a hill into a ravine
through which a little brook, the Almo, flows in an artificial channel.
The Grotto is not large, but very beautiful, draped with ivy over the
entire arch of the opening. On the wall facing the entrance is a
mutilated statue. The fountain bursts from the wall to the right of it
about four or five feet from the floor. A peasant was filling his
vessels from it and he gave us a drink. It was clear, cool and of
pleasant flavor. Thence a further walk along the brook and the ascent of
not a very high hill, led to a grove of thick and striking ilex trees.
They are of great size and evergreen. I went under every tree to be sure
I did not miss that at whose roots Numa learned his lessons of wisdom.
“Egeria, sweet creation,
Whatsoever thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.”
L. G. C.
Rome, April 4, 1883.
[Illustration]
ROME.