VENICE, BOLOGNA, FLORENCE AND PISA.
_December 8, 1902._
Though still cool, the weather was milder in Venice, so we remained a
week or so, yielding ourselves to the pensive charm of that--
"White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky."
[Sidenote: The Queen of the Adriatic.]
Of the palaces that we visited, the one in which the poet Browning
lived, and in which his son now lives, is the best preserved, and
illustrates better than any other the almost regal state in which the
wealthy Venetians lived in the day of their commercial supremacy. One
of these old palaces on the Grand Canal is now used as a bank. Some
are used as warehouses, and others are put to still meaner uses. The
Doge's Palace is, of course, the largest and finest, but it is more
like a public building than a residence. Next to this stands the chief
architectural glory of Venice, the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Mark,
with its unequalled profusion of costly materials, and its ominously
uneven stone floor, suggesting the painful possibility that it, too,
may some day share the fate of the great Campanile, which till last
summer lifted its head three hundred and seventy-five feet in the air
from the pavement of the square in front. We found the ruins of this
graceful structure, up the winding incline of which Napoleon Bonaparte
is said to have ridden his horse to the belfry, lying in a heap on the
square surrounded by a temporary unpainted board fence. Workmen within
were making preparations for the erection of the new bell tower which
is to take the place of the old one. On the first Sunday after our
arrival we heard the Rev. Dr. Robertson, at the Presbyterian Church,
make felicitous use of the fate of the old Campanile in a sermon on
the text, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which
is Jesus Christ." Nowhere are foundations of more importance than in
Venice. The whole city is built upon piles. The Rialto Bridge, a great
marble arch of a single span, rests upon twelve thousand of these
piles, which are driven deep into the mud.
The interior of the Church of the Jesuits made more impression upon
us than any other Venetian church except St. Marks. It looks at first
view like it was lined throughout with chintz, through which runs a
green pattern; but on closer inspection you find that it is all white
marble--the pulpit and its heavy curtains, the altar steps, the walls
from floor to ceiling, are all of white marble, and the green pattern
is nothing less than verd antique.
Some of our young people, who had already wearied of the miles of
picture galleries in Europe, manifested but little interest in the
rich collection of art at Venice, but I think that all brought away
an indelible impression of Titian's splendid "Assumption of the
Virgin." They felt a much keener interest in the marvellous skill of
the Venetian glass-makers at Murano. But their special delight was the
gondolas. They soon had their favorites among the gondoliers, and,
with Marco and Pedro propelling them, threaded the innumerable canals
in every direction, visited the outlying islands, drifted hither and
thither on the broad lagoons, and enjoyed the distant views of this
strangely beautiful city, sometimes looming through the mist, at
other times standing out sharp and clear against the red sky of a
flaming sunset.
[Illustration: DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE.]
[Sidenote: The Greatest of the Venetians.]
Nothing in all the strange history of Venice interested us so much
as the career of Fra Paolo Sarpi, "the greatest of the Venetians,"
as Dr. Alexander Robertson well calls him in his striking biography
of that illustrious thinker and man of action. An ecclesiastic whom
Gibbon calls "the incomparable historian of the Council of Trent";
a mathematician of whom Galileo said, "No man in Europe surpasses
Master Paolo Sarpi in his knowledge of the science of mathematics"; an
anatomist whom Acquapendente, the famous surgeon of Padua, calls "the
oracle of this century"; a metaphysician who, as Lord Macaulay says,
anticipated "Locke on the Human Understanding"; and a statesman who
saved Venice from the domination of the papacy--it is no wonder that
Dr. Bedell, chaplain of the English Ambassador to Venice, should have
said that he was "holden for a miracle in all manner of knowledge,
divine and human." "As a statesman, the great Republic of Venice
committed all its interests to his guidance, and he made its history,
while he lived, an unbroken series of triumphs; in an age when the
papacy lifted high its head, and rode roughshod over the rights of
kings and peoples, he forced Pope Paul V., one of the haughtiest of
Rome's Pontiffs, to his knees, and so shattered in his hands the weapon
of interdict and excommunication that never again has it served the
interest of a wearer of the tiara. Constitutional government everywhere
owes something to Fra Paolo; and modern Italian history is the outcome
and embodiment of the principles he laid down in his voluminous State
papers. He was stronger than the papacy, for, in spite of the hatred,
persecution and protest of Pope and Curia, he lived and died within the
pale of the church, enjoying the esteem and affection of its clergy,
performing all his priestly duties, and receiving, as the Senate wrote
in its circular announcing his death to the courts of Europe, '_Li
santissimi sagramenti con ogni maggior pieta_.' And he was stronger
than the Republic, for immediately after his death it began to succumb
to papal domination, and to totter to its fall."
We visited the Servite Monastery, where he lived, the bridge where he
was set upon and stabbed by the Pope's hired assassins, and where his
statue now stands, and the grave in the island cemetery of Venice where
his body rests at last after all the strange adventures and removals
made necessary by the ghoulish malice of his foes.
_December 10, 1902._
[Sidenote: Bologna, the Fat.]
The business activity of Bologna is in sharp contrast with the
stagnation and decay of Venice. It is a brisk and handsome city, with
well-paved streets, flanked by arcades like those along the Rue de
Rivoli in Paris. Bologna has an unequalled number of these colonnades.
They are so continuous, indeed, and afford such perfect protection
from the sun in summer and the rain in winter, that it is more nearly
possible to dispense with umbrellas here than in any other city in the
world. The greatest of these covered ways is the portico which winds
up the mountain just outside the city, by an easy gradation, to the
costly church of the Madonna di S. Lucca, which, as its name indicates,
possesses an image of the Virgin said to have been the work of Saint
Luke. There are no fewer than six hundred and thirty-five arches in
this colonnade, and they command lovely views on either side, as one
ascends; but the view from the church, at the top of the mountain,
caps the climax, combining, as it does, Alps, Appennines, Adriatic,
plains and cities. It is from the arches of this long colonnade up the
mountain that one gets the best impression of Bologna's towers. They
are very numerous, and many of them are out of the perpendicular. In
fact, there are more leaning towers here than in any other city in the
world. But, unlike "Pisa's leaning miracle," these are not beautiful.
They are imposing only in the grouping of a distant view, being nothing
but quadrangular masses of ugly brown brick, with no ornaments, no
windows, and indeed no known uses, the object for which they were
erected being now an insoluble mystery.
Bologna has important manufactures of silk goods, velvet, crape,
chemicals, paper, musical instruments, soap and sausages. We made full
trial of the last two mentioned commodities, and found them excellent.
But Bologna, while vital and modern, is not lacking in the matter of
antiquity and literary and historical interest. It boasts the oldest
university in the world, founded in 425 A. D. In the thirteenth century
it had ten thousand students, and it still has over a thousand. In
front of the University stands a statue of Galvani, holding a tablet
on which he is exhibiting the famous frog legs. But it is said that
"his wife was the real discoverer of galvanism, having laid some
frogs, which she was preparing for soup, beside a charged electrical
machine; and it was she who observed the convulsion in the frogs which
she touched with the scalpel, and communicated the discovery to her
husband, who repeated the experiment at the University."
_December 15, 1902._
[Sidenote: The Flower of Fair Cities.]
Florence! "City of fair flowers, and flower of fair cities!" Second
only to Rome itself in variety and wealth of historical, artistic and
literary interest, home of Dante and Boccacio, Machiavelli and the
Medici, Galileo and Amerigo Vespucci, Savonarola and Fra Angelico,
Cimabue, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Michelangelo and
Benvenuto Cellini--what can one do in a letter like this but merely
name them and pass on, hoping for a time of larger leisure to say at
least a word concerning the most illustrious of them?
In the Uffizi Gallery, which is "a complete exemplification of the
progress and development of art," there is an octagonal room, called
the Tribune, which contains perhaps the richest aggregation of
masterpieces in the world. Sculpture is represented by the Venus de
Medici, the Young Apollo, The Wrestlers, The Grinder, and The Dancing
Faun; and painting by no less remarkable pictures. In addition to
these, the things that stand out in one's memory in connection with
Florence are Cellini's "Perseus," Ghiberti's "Doors," Michael Angelo's
"David" and his "Lorenzo de Medici," Brunelleschi's "Dome," and last,
but not least, Giotto's "Tower," "the model and mirror of perfect
architecture," of which John Ruskin says: "The characteristics of Power
and Beauty occur more or less in different buildings--some in one
and some in another. But all together, all in their highest possible
relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building
in the world--the Campanile of Giotto at Florence." For the proper
appreciation of almost any other great production of art some education
in art is necessary, but any one can see the transcendant beauty of
Giotto's "Tower." Untutored as we are in these matters, we never
wearied of looking at it.
In the freshness of its undimmed splendor, there is nothing in Florence
to compare with the Medici Chapel. It is still unfinished, but has cost
up to the present time three million five hundred thousand dollars.
It is probably the most magnificent mausoleum in the world. "The
walls are covered with costly marbles, inlaid with precious stones--a
gorgeous mosaic of the richest material."
[Sidenote: The Reformer before the Reformation.]
But, after all, the thing that lays deepest hold of us in Florence
is the story of Savonarola, Harbinger of the Reformation and Martyr
for the Truth. That little cell in the Monastery of San Marco, where
he once lived, and where his manuscript sermons, his annotated books
and his wooden crucifix are still shown; those fearful dungeons in
the Palazzo Vecchio, where the greatest man of his age endured his
forty days' imprisonment, and lay during the intervals of torture, and
spent his last hours on earth; and the bustling Piazza Della Signoria,
which witnessed the triumphant tragedy of May 23, 1498--Florence has
nothing else so impressive as these. We visit them with subdued hearts
and reverent spirits. "On the 22nd of May, 1498, it was announced to
Savonarola and his friends, Domenico and Maruffi, that they were to be
executed by five the next morning; our heroic preacher was thoroughly
resigned to his share of the doom, saying to Domenico, 'Knowest
thou not it is not permitted to a man to choose the mode of his own
death?' The three friends partook of the sacrament of the Holy Supper,
administered by Savonarola. He said, 'We shall soon be there, where
we can sing with David, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity!"' They were then taken to the
tribunal, where they were divested of all their priestly decorations,
during which the bishop took Savonarola by the hand, saying, 'Thus
I exclude thee from the church militant and triumphant.' 'From the
church militant thou mayest,' exclaimed Savonarola, 'but from the
church triumphant thou canst not; that does not belong to thee.'... The
last that was beheld of him was his hand uplifted as if to bless the
people; the last that was heard of him, 'My Saviour, though innocent,
willingly died for my sins, and should I not willingly give up this
poor body out of love to him?' The cinders of the bodies of the
martyred friars were carted away, and thrown into the river Arno." But--
"The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be."
What the principles of Wycliffe have done for England, the principles
of Savonarola may yet do for Italy. At any rate, his work for Italy is
not done yet.
_December 19, 1902._
[Sidenote: Pisa's Four Monuments.]
The four chief objects of interest at Pisa are all in a group at the
northern end of the town, and a wonderfully effective group it is: the
cloistered cemetery, or Camp Santo, with its fifty-five shiploads of
earth from the Holy Land; the Baptistery, with its remarkable echo;
the Cathedral, with the pendent lamp in the nave which suggested to
Galileo the idea of the pendulum; and that wonder of the world, the
white marble Tower, which leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular.
We all tried in vain to stand with heels and back to the inside of the
north wall on the ground floor--it cannot be done; one falls forward
at once. From the top there is a magnificent view of the city and the
surrounding plain, of the mountains on the east and the sea on the
west, of the city of Leghorn and the island of Elba.
From the windows of our hotel at Pisa we saw for the first time the
red gold of ripe oranges shining amid their dark green leaves in the
gardens, and rejoiced to think that at last we had reached a somewhat
milder climate, and were now leaving rigorous winter behind us.
The journey from Pisa to Rome is a long one, and the schedule was such
that we did not arrive till late at night. From the car windows we had
some impressive views of the Mediterranean by moonlight, and of the
solemn campagna, and, thus prepared, we crossed the Tiber at midnight,
and passed through the breach in the walls which has been made for the
railway, feeling, perhaps even more deeply than is usual, the thrill
with which all travellers except those who are utterly devoid of
imagination first enter the Eternal City.