A sterile region.--Our descent into a milder landscape.--Distant
view of Florence.--Moonlight effect.--Visit the Gallery.--Relics of
ancient credulity.--Paintings.--A Medusa’s head by Leonardo da
Vinci.--Curious picture by Polemberg.--The Venus de
Medicis.--Exquisitely sculptured figure of Morpheus.--Vast
Cathedral.--Garden of Boboli.--Views from different parts of
it.--Its resemblance to an antique Roman garden.
September 14th, 1780.
The sun had not been long above the horizon, before we set forward upon
a craggy pavement hewn out of rough cliffs and precipices. Scarcely a
tree was visible, and the few that presented themselves began already to
shed their leaves. The raw nipping air of this desert with difficulty
spares a blade of vegetation; and in the whole range of these extensive
eminences I could not discover a single corn-field or pasture.
Inhabitants, you may guess, there were none. I would defy even a Scotch
highlander to find means of subsistence in so rude a soil.
Towards mid-day, we had surmounted the dreariest part of our journey,
and began to perceive a milder landscape. The climate improved as well
as the prospect, and after a continual descent of several hours, we saw
groves and villages in the dips of the hills, and met a string of mules
and horses laden with fruit. I purchased some figs and peaches from this
little caravan, and spread my repast upon a bank, in the midst of
lavender bushes in full bloom.
Continuing our route, we bade adieu to the realms of poverty and
barrenness, and entered a cultivated vale, shaded by woody acclivities.
Amongst these we wound along, between groves of poplar and cypress, till
late in the evening. Upon winding a hill we discovered Florence at a
distance surrounded with gardens and terraces rising one above another;
the full moon seemed to shine with a peculiar charm upon this favoured
region. Her serene light on the pale grey of the olive, gave a visionary
and Elysian appearance to the landscape, and I was sorry when I found
myself excluded from it by the gates of Florence.
I slept as well as my impatience would allow, till it was time next
morning (Sept. 15,) to visit the gallery, and worship the Venus de
Medicis. I felt, upon entering this world of refinement, as if I could
have taken up my abode in it for ever, but, confused with the multitude
of objects, I knew not on which first to bend my attention, and ran
childishly by the ample ranks of sculptures, like a butterfly in a
parterre, that skims before it fixes, over ten thousand flowers.
Having taken my course down one side of the gallery, I turned the angle
and discovered another long perspective, equally stored with
master-pieces of bronze and marble. A minute brought me to the extremity
of this range, vast as it was; then, flying down a third, adorned in the
same delightful manner, I paused under the bust of Jupiter Olympius; and
began to reflect a little more maturely upon the company in which I
found myself. Opposite, appeared the majestic features of Minerva,
breathing divinity: and Cybele, the mother of the gods.
Having regarded these powers with due veneration, I next cast my eyes
upon a black figure, whose attitude seemed to announce the deity of
sleep. You know my fondness for this drowsy personage, and that it is
not the first time I have quitted the most splendid society for him. I
found him at present, of touchstone, with the countenance of a towardly
brat, sleeping ill through indigestion. The artist had not conceived
very poetical ideas of the god, or else he never would have represented
him with so little grace and dignity.
Displeased at finding my favourite subject profaned, I perceived the
transports of enthusiasm beginning to subside, and felt myself calm
enough to follow the herd of guides and spectators from chamber to
chamber, cabinet to cabinet, without falling into errors of rapture and
admiration. We were led slowly and moderately through the large rooms,
containing the portraits of painters, good, bad, and indifferent, from
Raphael to Liotard; then into a museum of bronzes, which would afford
both amusement and instruction for years.
When I had rather alarmed than satisfied my curiosity by rapidly running
over a multitude of candelabrums, urns, and sacred utensils, we entered
a small luminous apartment, surrounded with cases richly decorated, and
filled with the most exquisite models of workmanship in bronze and
various metals, classed in exact order. Here are crowds of diminutive
deities and tutelary lars, to whom the superstition of former days
attributed those midnight murmurs which were believed to presage the
misfortunes of a family. Amongst these now neglected images are
preserved a vast number of talismans, cabalistic amulets, and other
grotesque relics of ancient credulity.
In the centre of the room I remarked a table, beautifully formed of
polished gems, and, near it, the statue of a genius with his familiar
serpent, and all his attributes; the guardian of the treasured
antiquities. From this chamber we were conducted into another, which
opens to that part of the gallery where the busts of Adrian and Antinous
are placed. Two pilasters, delicately carved in trophies and clusters of
ancient armour, stand on each side of the entrance; within are several
perfumed cabinets of miniatures, and a single column of oriental
alabaster about ten feet in height,
Lucido e terso, e bianco, più che latte.
I put my guide’s patience to the proof, by lingering to admire the
column and cabinets. At last, the musk with which they are impregnated,
obliged me to desist, and I moved on to a suite of saloons, with low
arched roofs, glittering with arabesque, in azure and gold. Several
medallions appear amongst the wreaths of foliage, tolerably well
painted, with representations of splendid feasts and tournaments for
which Florence was once so famous.
A vast collection of small pictures, most of them Flemish, covers the
walls of these apartments. But nothing struck me more than a Medusa’s
head by Leonardo da Vinci. It appears just severed from the body and
cast on the damp pavement of a cavern: a deadly paleness covers the
countenance, and the mouth exhales a pestilential vapour; the snakes,
which fill almost the whole picture, beginning to untwist their folds;
one or two seemed already crept away, and crawling up the rock in
company with toads and other venomous reptiles.
Here are a great many Polembergs: one in particular, the strangest I
ever beheld. Instead of those soft scenes of woods and waterfalls he is
in general so fond of representing, he has chosen for his subject Virgil
ushering Dante into the regions of eternal punishment, amidst the ruins
of flaming edifices that glare across the infernal waters. These
mournful towers harbour innumerable shapes, all busy in preying upon the
damned. One capital devil, in the form of an enormous lobster, seems
very strenuously employed in mumbling a miserable mortal, who sprawls,
though in vain, to escape from his claws. This performance, whimsical as
it is, retains all that softness of tint and delicacy of pencil for
which Polemberg is so renowned.
Had not the subject so palpably contradicted the painter’s choice, I
should have passed over this picture, like a thousand more, and have
brought you immediately to the tribune. Need I say I was spell-bound the
moment I set my feet within it, and saw full before me the Venus de
Medicis? The warm ivory hue of the original marble is a beauty no copy
has ever imitated, and the softness of the limbs exceeded the liveliest
idea I had formed to myself of their perfection.
When I had taken my eyes reluctantly away from this beautiful object, I
cast them upon a Morpheus of white marble, which lies slumbering at the
feet of the goddess in the form of a graceful child. A dormant lion
serves him for a pillow; two ample wings, carved with the utmost
delicacy, are gathered under him; two others, budding from his temples,
half-concealed by a flow of lovely ringlets. His languid hands scarcely
hold a bunch of poppies: near him creeps a lizard, just yielding to his
influence. Nothing can be more just than the expression of sleep in the
countenance of the little divinity. His lion too is perfectly lulled,
and rests his muzzle upon his fore paws as quiet as a domestic spaniel.
My ill-humour at seeing this deity so grossly sculptured in the gallery,
was dissipated by the gracefulness of his appearance in the tribune. I
was now contented, for the artist had realized my ideas; and, if I may
venture my opinion, sculpture never arrived to higher perfection, and,
at the same time, kept more justly within its province. Sleeping figures
with me always produce the finest illusion; but when I see an archer in
the very act of discharging his arrow, a dancer with one foot in the
air, or a gladiator extending his fist to all eternity, I grow tired,
and view such wearisome attitudes with infinitely more admiration than
pleasure.
The morning was gone before I could snatch myself from the tribune. In
my way home, I looked into the cathedral, an enormous fabric, inlaid
with the richest marbles, and covered with stars and chequered work,
like an old-fashioned cabinet. The architect seems to have turned his
building inside out; nothing in art being more ornamented than the
exterior, and few churches so simple within. The nave is vast and
solemn, the dome amazingly spacious, with the high altar in its centre,
inclosed by a circular arcade near two hundred feet in diameter. There
is something imposing in this decoration, as it suggests the idea of a
sanctuary, into which none but the holy ought to penetrate. However
profane I might feel myself, I took the liberty of entering, and sat
down in a niche. Not a ray of light reaches this sacred inclosure, but
through the medium of narrow windows, high in the dome, and richly
painted. A sort of yellow tint predominates, which gives additional
solemnity to the altar, and paleness to the votary before it. I was
sensible of the effect, and obtained at least the colour of sanctity.
Having remained some time in this pious hue, I returned home and feasted
upon grapes and ortolans with great edification; then walked to one of
the bridges across the Arno, and from thence to the garden of Boboli,
which lies behind the Grand Duke’s palace, stretched out on the side of
a mountain. I ascended terrace after terrace, robed by a thick underwood
of bay and myrtle, above which rise several nodding towers, and a long
sweep of venerable wall, almost entirely concealed by ivy. You would
have been enraptured with the broad masses of shade and dusky alleys
that opened as I advanced, with white statues of fauns and sylvans
glimmering amongst them; some of which pour water into sarcophagi of the
purest marble, covered with antique relievos. The capitals of columns
and ancient friezes are scattered about as seats.
On these I reposed myself, and looked up to the cypress groves which
spring above the thickets; then, plunging into their retirements, I
followed a winding path, which led me by a series of steep ascents to a
green platform overlooking the whole extent of wood, with Florence deep
beneath, and the tops of the hills which encircle it jagged with pines;
here and there a convent, or villa, whitening in the sun. This scene
extends as far as the eye can reach.
Still ascending I attained the brow of the eminence, and had nothing but
the fortress of Belvedere, and two or three open porticos above me. On
this elevated situation, I found several walks of trellis-work, clothed
with luxuriant vines. A colossal statue of Ceres, her hands extended in
the act of scattering fertility over the country, crowns the summit.
Descending alley after alley, and bank after bank, I came to the
orangery in front of the palace, disposed in a grand amphitheatre, with
marble niches relieved by dark foliage, out of which spring cedars and
tall aërial cypresses. This spot brought the scenery of an antique Roman
garden so vividly into my mind, that, lost in the train of recollections
this idea excited, I expected every instant to be called to the table of
Lucullus hard by, in one of the porticos, and to stretch myself on his
purple triclinias; but waiting in vain for a summons till the approach
of night, I returned delighted with a ramble that had led my imagination
so far into antiquity.
Friday, Sept. 16.--My impatience to hear Pacchierotti called me up with
the sun. I blessed a day which was to give me the greatest of musical
pleasures, and travelled gaily towards Lucca, along a fertile plain,
bounded by rocky hills, and scattered over with towns and villages. We
passed Pistoia in haste, and about three in the afternoon entered the
Lucchese territory, by a clean paved road, which runs through chestnut
copses bordered with broom in blossom, and an immense variety of heaths;
a red soil peeping forth from the vegetation, adds to the richness of
the landscape, which swells all the way into gentle acclivities: and at
about seven or eight miles from the city spreads all round into
mountains, green to their very summits, and diversified with gardens and
palaces. More pleasing scenery can with difficulty be imagined: I was
quite charmed with beholding it, as I knew very well that the opera
would keep me a long while chained down in its neighbourhood.
Happy for me that the environs of Lucca were so beautiful; since I defy
almost any city to contain more ugliness within its walls. Narrow
streets and dismal alleys; wide gutters and cracked pavements; everybody
in black, according with the gloom of their habitations, which however
are large and lofty enough of conscience; but having all grated windows,
they convey none but dark and dungeon-like ideas. My spirits fell many
degrees upon entering this sable capital; and when I found Friday was
meagre day, in every sense of the word, with its inhabitants, and no
opera to be performed, I grew wofully out of humour. Instead of a
delightful symphony, I heard nothing for some time but the clatter of
plates and the swearing of waiters.
Amongst the number of my tormentors was a whole Genoese family of
distinction; very fat and sleek, and terribly addicted to the violin.
Overhearing my sad complaint for want of music, they most generously
determined I should have my fill of it, and, getting together a few
scrapers, began such an academia as drove me to the further end of a
very spacious apartment, whilst they possessed the other. The hopes and
heir of the family--a chubby dolt of between eighteen and nineteen, his
uncle, a thickset smiling personage, and a brace of innocent-looking
younger brothers, plied their fiddles with a hearty good will, waggled
their double chins, and played out of tune with the most happy
unconsciousness, as amateurs are apt to do ninety-nine times in a
hundred.
Pacchierotti, whom they all worshipped in their heavy way, sat silent
the while in a corner; the second soprano warbled, not absolutely ill,
at the harpsichord; whilst the old lady, young lady, and attendant
females, kept ogling him with great perseverance. Those who could not
get in, squinted through the crevices of the door. Abbates and
greyhounds were fidgetting continually without. In short, I was so
persecuted with questions, criticisms, and concertos, that, pleading
headache and indisposition, I escaped about ten o’clock, and shook
myself when I got safe to my apartment like a worried spaniel.