Reveries.--Walls of Padua.--Confused Pile dedicated to Saint
Anthony.--Devotion at his Shrine.--Penitential
Worshippers.--Magnificent Altar.--Sculpture of Sansovino.--Colossal
Chamber like Noah’s Ark.
The splendour of the rising sun, for once in my life, drew little of my
attention. I was too deeply plunged in my reveries, to notice the
landscape which lay before me; and the walls of Padua presented
themselves some time ere I was aware. At any other moment, how sensibly
should I have been affected with their appearance! How many ideas of
Antenor and his Trojans, would have thronged into my memory! but now I
regarded the scene with indifference, and passed many a palace, and many
a woody garden, with my eyes riveted to the ground. The first object
that appeared upon lifting them up, was a confused pile of spires and
cupolas, dedicated to blessed Saint Anthony, one of whose most eloquent
sermons the great Addison has translated _con amore_, and in his very
best manner.
You are too well apprised of the veneration I have always entertained
for this inspired preacher, to doubt that I immediately repaired to his
shrine. Mine was a disturbed spirit, and required all the balm of Saint
Anthony’s kindness to appease it. Perhaps you will say I had better have
gone to bed, and applied myself to my sleepy friend, the pagan divinity.
It is probable that you are in the right; but I could not retire to rest
without first venting some portion of effervescence in sighs and
supplications. The nave was filled with decrepit women and feeble
children, kneeling by baskets of vegetables and other provisions; which,
by good Anthony’s interposition, they hoped to sell advantageously in
the course of the day. Beyond these, nearer the choir, and in a gloomier
part of the edifice, knelt a row of rueful penitents, smiting their
breasts, and lifting their eyes to heaven. Further on, in front of the
dark recess, where the sacred relics are deposited, a few desperate,
melancholy sinners lay prostrate.
To these I joined myself. The sunbeams had not yet penetrated into this
religious quarter; and the only light it received proceeded from the
golden lamps, which hang in clusters round the sanctuary. A lofty altar,
decked with the most lavish magnificence, supports the shrine. Those who
are profoundly touched with its sanctity, may approach, and walking
round, look through the crevices of the tomb, which, it is observed,
exude a balsamic odour. But supposing a traveller ever so heretical, I
would advise him by no means to neglect this pilgrimage; since every
part of the recess he visits is decorated with exquisite sculptures.
Sansovino and other renowned artists have vied with each other in
carving the alto relievos of the arcade, which, for design and
execution, would do honour to the sculptors of antiquity.
Having observed these objects with less exactness than they merited, I
hastened to the inn, luckily hard by, and one of the best I am
acquainted with. Here I soon fell asleep in defiance of sunshine. It is
true my slumbers were not a little agitated. The saint had been deaf to
my prayer, and I still found myself a frail, infatuated mortal.
At five I got up; we dined, and afterwards scarcely knowing, nor much
caring, what became of us, we strolled to the great hall of the town;
an enormous edifice, larger considerably than that of Westminster, but
free from stalls, or shops, or nests of litigation. The roof, one
spacious vault of brown timber, casts a solemn gloom, which was still
increased by the lateness of the hour, and not diminished by the wan
light, admitted through the windows of pale blue glass. The size and
shape of this colossal chamber, the arching of the roof, with enormous
rafters stretching across it, and, above all, the watery gleams that
glanced through the dull casements, possessed my fancy with ideas of
Noah’s ark, and almost persuaded me I beheld that extraordinary vessel.
The representation one sees of it in many an old Dutch Bible, seems to
be formed upon this very model, and for several moments I indulged the
chimera of imagining myself confined within its precincts. Could I but
choose my companions, I should have no great objection to encounter a
deluge, and to float away a few months upon the waves!
We remained till night walking to and fro in the ark; it was then full
time to retire, as the guardian of the place was by no means formed to
divine our diluvian ideas.