Cathedral at Sienna.--A vaulted Chamber.--Leave Sienna.--Mountains
round Radicofani.--Hunting Palace of the Grand Dukes.--A grim
fraternity of Cats.--Dreary Apartment.
Sienna, October 27th, 1780.
Here my duty of course was to see the cathedral, and I got up much
earlier than I wished, in order to perform it. I wonder that our holy
ancestors did not choose a mountain at once, scrape it into tabernacles,
and chisel it into scripture stories. It would have cost them almost as
little trouble as the building in question, which, by many of the
Italian devotees to a purer style of architecture, is esteemed a
masterpiece of ridiculous taste and elaborate absurdity. The front,
encrusted with alabaster, is worked into a million of fretted arches and
puzzling ornaments. There are statues without number, and relievos
without end or meaning.
The church within is all of black and white marble alternately; the roof
blue and gold, with a profusion of silken banners hanging from it; and
a cornice running above the principal arcade, composed entirely of
bustos representing the whole series of sovereign pontiffs, from the
first Bishop of Rome to Adrian the Fourth. Pope Joan they say figured
amongst them, between Leo the Fourth and Benedict the Third, till the
year 1600, when some authors have asserted she was turned out, at the
instance of Clement the Eighth, to make room for Zacharias the First.
I hardly knew which was the nave, or which the cross aisle, of this
singular edifice, so perfect is the confusion of its parts. The pavement
demands attention, being inlaid so curiously as to represent variety of
histories taken from Holy Writ, and designed somewhat in the style of
that hobgoblin tapestry which used to bestare the walls of our
ancestors. Near the high altar stands the strangest of pulpits,
supported by polished pillars of granite, rising from lions’ backs,
which serve as pedestals. In every corner of the place some glittering
chapel or other offends or astonishes you. That, however, of the Chigi
family, it must be allowed, has infinite merit with respect to design
and execution; but it wants effect, as seeming out of place in this
chaos of caprice and finery.
From the church I entered a vaulted chamber, erected by the
Piccoliminis, filled with missals most exquisitely illuminated. The
paintings in fresco on the walls are rather barbarous, though executed
after the designs of the mighty Raphael; but then we must remember, he
had but just escaped from Pietro Perugino.
Not staying long in the Duomo, we left Sienna in good time; and, after
being shaken and tumbled in the worst roads that ever pretended to be
made use of, found ourselves beneath the rough mountains round
Radicofani, about seven o’clock on a cold and dismal evening. Up we
toiled a steep craggy ascent, and reached at length the inn upon its
summit. My heart sank when I entered a vast range of apartments, with
high black raftered roofs, once intended for a hunting palace of the
Grand Dukes, but now desolate and forlorn. The wind having risen, every
door began to shake, and every board substituted for a window to
clatter, as if the severe power who dwells on the topmost peak of
Radicofani, according to its village mythologists, was about to visit
his abode.
My only spell to keep him at a distance was kindling an enormous fire,
whose charitable gleams cheered my spirits, and gave them a quicker
flow. Yet, for some minutes, I never ceased looking, now to the right,
now to the left, up at the dark beams, and down the long passages, where
the pavement, broken up in several places, and earth newly strewn about,
seemed to indicate that something horrid was concealed below.
A grim fraternity of cats kept whisking backwards and forwards in these
dreary avenues, which I am apt to imagine is the very identical scene of
a sabbath of witches at certain periods. Not venturing to explore them,
I fastened my door, pitched my bed opposite the hearth which glowed with
embers, and crept under the coverlids, hardly venturing to go to sleep
lest I should be suddenly roused from it by I know not what terrible
initiation into the mysteries of the place.
Scarce was I settled, before two or three of the brotherhood just
mentioned stalked in at a little opening under the door. I insisted upon
their moving off faster than they had entered, and was surprised, when
midnight came, to hear nothing more than their doleful mewings echoed by
the hollow walls and arches.