long, hilly peninsula which parts it from the Mediterranean, but as this
makes only a small angle with the general trend of the coast-line, its
termination is less strongly marked on the opposite side. Of its beauties
we have spoken in an earlier article, but there is a little town at the
southern extremity which, in connection with the coast below, has a
melancholy interest to every lover of English literature. Here, at Lerici,
Shelley spent what proved to be the last months of his life. The town
itself, once strongly fortified by its Pisan owners against their foes of
Genoa on the one side and Lucca on the other, is a picturesque spot. The
old castle crowns a headland, guarding the little harbor and overlooking
the small but busy town. At a short distance to the southeast is the Casa
Magni, once a Jesuit seminary, which was occupied by Shelley. Looking
across the beautiful gulf to the hills on its opposite shore and the
island of Porto Venere, but a few miles from the grand group of the
Carrara mountains, in the middle of the luxuriant scenery of the Eastern
Riviera, the house, though in itself not very attractive, was a fit home
for a lover of nature. But Shelley's residence within its walls was too
soon cut short. There are strange tales (like those told with bated breath
by old nurses by the fireside) that as the closing hour approached the
spirits of the unseen world took bodily form and became visible to the
poet's eye; tales of a dark-robed figure standing by his bedside beckoning
him to follow; of a laughing child rising from the sea as he walked by
moonlight on the terrace, clapping its hands in glee; and of other
warnings that the veil which parted him from the spirit world was
vanishing away. Shelley delighted in the sea. On the 1st of July he left
Lerici for Leghorn in a small sailing vessel. On the 8th he set out to
return, accompanied only by his friend, Mr. Williams, and an English lad.
The afternoon was hot and sultry, and as the sun became low a fearful
squall burst upon the neighboring sea. What happened no one exactly knows,
but they never came back to the shore. Day followed day, and the great sea
kept its secret; but at last, on the 22d, the corpse of Shelley was washed
up near Viareggio and that of Williams near Bocca Lerici, three miles
away. It was not till three weeks afterwards that the body of the sailor
lad came ashore. Probably the felucca had either capsized or had been
swamped at the first break of the storm; but when it was found, some three
months afterwards, men said that it looked as if it had been run down, and
even more ugly rumors got abroad that this was no accident, but the work
of some Italians, done in the hope of plunder, as it was expected that the
party had in charge a considerable sum of money. The bodies were at first
buried in the sand with quicklime; but at that time the Tuscan law
required "any object then cast ashore to be burned, as a precaution
against plague," so, by the help of friends, the body of Shelley was
committed to the flames "with fuel and frankincense, wine, salt, and oil,
the accompaniments of a Greek cremation," in the presence of Byron Leigh
Hunt, and Trelawny. The corpse of Williams had been consumed in like
fashion on the previous day. "It was a glorious day and a splendid
prospect; the cruel and calm sea before, the Appennines behind. A curlew
wheeled close to the pyre, screaming, and would not be driven away; the
flames arose golden and towering." The inurned ashes were entombed, as
everyone knows, in the Protestant burial ground at Rome by the side of
Keats' grave, near the pyramid of Cestius. Much as there was to regret in
Shelley's life, there was more in his death, for such genius as his is
rare, and if the work of springtide was so glorious, what might have been
the summer fruitage?
As the Gulf of Spezzia is left behind, the Magra broadens out into an
estuary as it enters the sea, the river which formed in olden days the
boundary between Liguria and Etruria. Five miles from the coast, and less
than half the distance from the river, is Sarzana, the chief city of the
province, once fortified, and still containing a cathedral of some
interest. It once gave birth to a Pope, Nicholas V., the founder of the
Vatican Library, and in the neighborhood the family of the Buonapartes had
their origin, a branch of it having emigrated to Corsica. Sarzana bore
formerly the name of Luna Nova, as it had replaced another Luna which
stood near to the mouth of the river. This was in ruins even in the days
of Lucan, and now the traveller from Saranza to Pisa sees only "a strip of
low, grassy land intervening between him and the sea. Here stood the
ancient city. There is little enough to see. Beyond a few crumbling tombs
and a fragment or two of Roman ruins, nothing remains of Luna. The fairy
scene described by Rutilus, so appropriate to the spot which bore the name
of the virgin-queen of heaven, the 'fair white walls' shaming with their
brightness the untrodden snow, the smooth, many-tinted rocks overrun with
laughing lilies, if not the pure creation of the poet, have now vanished
from the sight. Vestiges of an amphitheater, of a semicircular building
which may be a theater, of a circus, a _piscina_, and fragments of
columns, pedestals for statues, blocks of pavement and inscriptions, are
all that Luna has now to show."
But all the while the grand group of the Carrara hills is in view,
towering above a lowland region which rolls down towards the coast. A
branch line now leads from Avenza, a small seaport town from which the
marble is shipped, to the town of Carrara, through scenery of singular
beauty. The shelving banks and winding slopes of the foreground hills are
clothed with olives and oaks and other trees; here and there groups of
houses, white and grey and pink, cluster around a campanile tower on some
coign of vantage, while at the back rises the great mountain wall of the
Apuan Alps, with its gleaming crags, scarred, it must be admitted, rather
rudely and crudely by its marble quarries, though the long slopes of
screes beneath these gashes in the more distant views almost resemble the
Alpine snows. The situation of the town is delightful, for it stands at
the entrance of a rapidly narrowing valley, in a sufficiently elevated
position to command a view of this exquisitely rich lowland as it shelves
and rolls down to the gleaming sea. Nor is the place itself devoid of
interest. One of its churches at least, S. Andrea, is a really handsome
specimen of the architecture of this part of Italy in the thirteenth
century, but the quarries dominate, and their products are everywhere.
Here are the studios of sculptors and the ateliers of workmen. The fair
white marble here, like silver in the days of Solomon, is of little
account; it paves the street, builds the houses, serves even for the
basest uses, and is to be seen strewn or piled up everywhere to await
dispersal by the trains to more distant regions. Beyond the streets of
Carrara, in the direction of the mountains, carriage roads no longer
exist. Lanes wind up the hills here and there in rather bewildering
intricacy, among vines and olive groves, to hamlets and quarries; one,
indeed, of rather larger size and more fixity of direction, keeps for a
time near the river, if indeed the stream which flows by Carrara be worthy
of that name, except when the storms are breaking or the snows are melting
upon the mountains. But all these lanes alike terminate in a quarry, are
riven with deep ruts, ploughed up like a field by the wheels of the heavy
wagons that bring down the great blocks of marble. One meets these
grinding and groaning on their way, drawn by yokes of dove-colored oxen
(longer than that with which Elisha was ploughing when the older prophet
cast his mantle upon his shoulders), big, meek-looking beasts, mild-eyed
and melancholy as the lotus-eaters. To meet them is not always an unmixed
pleasure, for the lanes are narrow, and there is often no room to spare;
how the traffic is regulated in some parts is a problem which I have not
yet solved.
Carrara would come near to being an earthly paradise were it not for the
mosquitos, which are said to be such that they would have made even the
Garden of Eden untenable, especially to its first inhabitants. Of them,
however, I cannot speak, for I have never slept in the town, or even
visited it at the season when this curse of the earth is at its worst; but
I have no hesitation in asserting that the mountains of Carrara are not
less beautiful in outline than those of any part of the main chain of the
Alps of like elevation, while they are unequalled in color and variety of
verdure.
To Avenza succeeds Massa, a considerable town, beautifully situated among
olive-clad heights, which are spotted with villas and densely covered with
foliage. Like Carrara, it is close to the mountains, and disputes with
Carrara for the reputation of its quarries. This town was once the capital
of a duchy, Massa-Carrara, and the title was borne by a sister of Napoleon
I. Her large palace still remains; her memory should endure, though not
precisely in honor, for according to Mr. Hare, she pulled down the old
cathedral to improve the view from her windows. But if Massa is beautiful,
so is Pietra Santa, a much smaller town enclosed by old walls and
singularly picturesque in outline. It has a fine old church, with a
picturesque campanile, which, though slightly more modern than the church
itself, has seen more than four centuries. The piazza, with the Town Hall,
this church and another one, is a very characteristic feature. In the
baptistry of one of the churches are some bronzes by Donatello. About half
a dozen miles away, reached by a road which passes through beautiful
scenery, are the marble quarries of Seravezza, which were first opened by
Michael Angelo, and are still in full work. There is only one drawback to
travelling by railway in this region; the train goes too fast. Let it be
as slow as it will, and it can be very slow, we can never succeed in
coming to a decision as to which is the most picturesquely situated place
or the most lovely view. Comparisons notoriously are odious, but
delightful, as undoubtedly is the Riviera di Ponenta to me, the Riviera di
Levante seems even more lovely.
After Pietra Santa, however, the scenery becomes less attractive, the
Apuan Alps begin to be left behind, and a wider strip of plain parts the
Apennines from the sea. This, which is traversed by the railway, is in
itself flat, stale, though perhaps not unprofitable to the husbandman.
Viareggio, mentioned on a previous page, nestles among its woods of oaks
and pines, a place of some little note as a health resort; and then the
railway after emerging from the forest strikes away from the sea, and
crosses the marshy plains of the Serchio, towards the banks of the Arno.
[Illustration]
It now approaches the grand group of ecclesiastical buildings which rise
above the walls of Pisa. As this town lies well inland, being six miles
from the sea, we must content ourselves with a brief mention. But a long
description is needless, for who does not know of its cathedral and its
Campo Santo, of its baptistry and its leaning tower? There is no more
marvelous or complete group of ecclesiastical buildings in Europe, all
built of the white marble of Carrara, now changed by age into a delicate
cream color, but still almost dazzling in the glory of the mid-day sun,
yet never so beautiful as when walls, arches, and pinnacles are aglow at
its rising, or flushed at its setting. In the cloisters of the Campo Santo
you may see monuments which range over nearly five centuries, and
contrast ancient and modern art; the frescoes on their walls, though often
ill preserved, and not seldom of little merit, possess no small interest
as illustrating medieval notions of a gospel of love and peace. Beneath
their roof at the present time are sheltered a few relics of Roman and
Etruscan days which will repay examination. The very soil also of this
God's acre is not without an interest, for when the Holy Land was lost to
the Christians, fifty-and-three shiploads of earth were brought hither
from Jerusalem that the dead of Pisa might rest in ground which had been
sanctified by the visible presence of their Redeemer. The cathedral is a
grand example of the severe but stately style which was in favor about the
end of the eleventh century, for it was consecrated in the year 1118. It
commemorates a great naval victory won by the Pisans, three years before
the battle of Hastings, and the columns which support the arches of the
interior were at once the spoils of classic buildings and the memorials of
Pisan victories. The famous leaning tower, though later in date,
harmonizes well in general style with the cathedral. Its position, no
doubt, attracts most attention, for to the eye it seems remarkably
insecure, but one cannot help wishing that the settlement had never
occurred, for the slope is sufficient to interfere seriously with the
harmony of the group. The baptistry also harmonizes with the cathedral,
though it was not begun till some forty years after the latter was
completed, and not only was more than a century in building, but also
received some ornamental additions in the fourteenth century. But though
this cathedral group is the glory and the crown of Pisa, the best monument
of its proudest days, there are other buildings of interest in the town
itself; and the broad quays which flank the Arno on each side, the
Lungarno by name, which form a continuous passage from one end of the town
to the other, together with the four bridges which link its older and
newer part, are well worthy of more than a passing notice.
The land bordering the Arno between Pisa and its junction with the
Mediterranean has no charm for the traveller, however it may commend
itself to the farmer. A few miles south of the river's mouth is Leghorn,
and on the eleven miles' journey by rail from it to Pisa the traveller
sees as much, and perhaps more, than he could wish of the delta of the
Arno. It is a vast alluvial plain, always low-lying, in places marshy;
sometimes meadow land, sometimes arable. Here and there are slight and
inconspicuous lines of dunes, very probably the records of old sea margins
as the river slowly encroached upon the Mediterranean, which are covered
sometimes with a grove of pines.
Leghorn is not an old town, and has little attraction for the antiquarian
or the artist. In fact, I think it, for its size, the most uninteresting
town, whether on the sea or inland, that I have entered in Italy. Brindisi
is a dreary hole, but it has one or two objects of interest. Bari is not
very attractive, but it has two churches, the architecture of which will
repay long study; but Leghorn is almost a miracle of commonplace
architecture and of dullness. Of course there is a harbor, of course there
are ships, of course there is the sea, and all these possess a certain
charm; but really this is about as small as it can be under the
circumstances. The town was a creation of the Medici, "the masterpiece of
that dynasty." In the middle of the sixteenth century it was an
insignificant place, with between seven and eight hundred inhabitants.
But it increased rapidly when the princes of that family took the town in
hand and made it a cave of Adullam, whither the discontented or oppressed
from other lands might resort: Jews and Moors from Spain and Portugal,
escaping from persecution; Roman Catholics from England, oppressed by the
retaliatory laws of Elizabeth; merchants from Marseilles, seeking refuge
from civil war. Thus fostered, it was soon thronged by men of talent and
energy; it rapidly grew into an important center of commerce, and now the
town with its suburbs contains nearly a hundred thousand souls.
Leghorn is intersected by canals, sufficiently so to have been sometimes
called a "Little Venice," and has been fortified, but as the defenses
belong to the system of Vauban, they add little to either the interest or
the picturesqueness of the place. Parts of the walls and the citadel
remain, the latter being enclosed by a broad water-ditch. The principal
street has some good shops, and there are two fairly large piazzas; in
one, bearing the name of Carlo Alberto, are statues of heroic size to the
last Grand Duke and to his predecessor. The inscription on the latter is
highly flattering; but that on the former states that the citizens had
come to the conclusion that the continuance of the Austro-Lorenese dynasty
was incompatible with the good order and happiness of Tuscany, and had
accordingly voted union with Italy. The other piazza now bears Victor
Emmanuel's name; in it are a building which formerly was a royal palace,
the town hall, and the cathedral; the last a fair-sized church, but a
rather plain specimen of the Renaissance style, with some handsome columns
of real marble and a large amount of imitation, painted to match. There
are also some remains of the old fortifications, though they are not so
very old, by the side of the inner or original harbor. As this in course
of time proved too shallow for vessels of modern bulk, the Porto Nuovo, or
outer harbor, was begun nearly fifty years since, and is protected from
the waves by a semicircular mole. Among the other lions of the place, and
they are all very small, is a statue of Duke Ferdinand I., one of the
founders of Leghorn, with four Turkish slaves about the pedestal. The
commerce of Leghorn chiefly consists of grain, cotton, wool, and silk, and
is carried on mainly with the eastern ports of the Mediterranean. There is
also an important shipbuilding establishment. It has, however, one link of
interest with English literature, for in the Protestant cemetery was
buried Tobias Smollet. There is a pleasant public walk by the sea margin
outside the town, from where distant views of Elba and other islands are
obtained.
The hilly ground south of the broad valley of the Arno is of little
interest, and for a considerable distance a broad strip of land, a level
plain of cornfields and meadow, intervenes between the sea and the foot of
the hills. Here and there long lines of pine woods seem almost to border
the former; the rounded spurs of the latter are thickly wooded, but are
capped here and there by grey villages, seemingly surrounded by old walls,
and are backed by the bolder outlines of the more distant Apennines. For
many a long mile this kind of scenery will continue, this flat, marshy,
dyke-intersected plain, almost without a dwelling upon it, though village
after village is seen perched like epaulettes on the low shoulders of the
hills. It is easy to understand why they are placed in this apparently
inconvenient position, for we are at the beginning of the Tuscan Maremma,
a district scourged by malaria during the summer months, and none too
healthy, if one may judge by the looks of the peasants, during any time of
the year. But one cannot fail to observe that towards the northern
extremity houses have become fairly common on this plain, and many of them
are new, so that the efforts which have been made to improve the district
by draining seem to have met with success. For some time the seaward views
are very fine; comparatively near to the coast a hilly island rises
steeply from the water and is crowned with a low round tower. Behind this
lies Elba, a long, bold, hilly ridge, and far away, on a clear day, the
great mountain mass of Corsica looms blue in the distance.
Elba has its interests for the geologist, its beauties for the lover of
scenery. It has quarries of granite and serpentine, but its fame rests on
its iron mines, which have been noted from very early times and from which
fine groups of crystals of hematite are still obtained. So famed was it in
the days of the Roman Empire as to call forth from Virgil the well-known
line, "Insula inexhaustis chalybum generosa metallis." When these, its
masters, had long passed away, it belonged in turn to Pisa, to Genoa, to
Lucca, and, after others, to the Grand Duke Cosimo of Florence. Then it
became Neapolitan, and at last French. As everyone knows, it was assigned
to Napoleon after his abdication, and from May, 1814, to February, 1815,
he enjoyed the title of King of Elba. Then, while discontent was deepening
in France, and ambassadors were disputing round the Congress-table at
Vienna, he suddenly gave the slip to the vessels which were watching the
coast and landed in France to march in triumph to Paris, to be defeated at
Waterloo, and to die at St. Helena.
The island is for the most part hilly, indeed almost mountainous, for it
rises at one place nearly three thousand feet above the sea. The valleys
and lower slopes are rich and fertile, producing good fruit and fair wine,
and the views are often of great beauty. The fisheries are of some
importance, especially that of the tunny. Porto Ferrajo, the chief town,
is a picturesquely situated place, on the northern side, which still
retains the forts built by Cosimo I. to defend his newly obtained
territory, and the mansion, a very modest palace, inhabited by Napoleon.
"It must be confessed my isle is very little," was Napoleon's remark when
for the first time he looked around over his kingdom from a mountain
summit above Porto Ferrajo. Little it is in reality, for the island is not
much more than fifteen miles long, and at the widest part ten miles
across; and truly little it must have seemed to the man who had dreamed of
Europe for his empire, and had half realized his vision. Nevertheless, as
one of his historians remarks, "If an empire could be supposed to exist
within such a brief space, Elba possesses so much both of beauty and
variety as might constitute the scene of a summer night's dream of
sovereignty."
At first he professed to be "perfectly resigned to his fate, often spoke
of himself as a man politically dead, and claimed credit for what he said
on public affairs, as having no remaining interest in them." A comment on
himself in connection with Elba is amusing. He had been exploring his new
domain in the company of Sir Niel Campbell, and had visited, as a matter
of course, the iron mines. On being informed that they were valuable, and
brought in a revenue of about twenty thousand pounds per annum, "These
then," he said, "are mine." But being reminded that he had conferred that
revenue on the Legion of Honor, he exclaimed, "Where was my head when I
made such a grant? But I have made many foolish decrees of that sort!"
He set to work at once to explore every corner of the island, and then to
design a number of improvements and alterations on a scale which, had they
been carried into execution with the means which he possessed, would have
perhaps taken his lifetime to execute. The instinct of the conqueror was
by no means dead within him; for "one of his first, and perhaps most
characteristic, proposals was to aggrandize and extend his Lilliputian
dominions by the occupation of an uninhabited island called Pianosa, which
had been left desolate on account of the frequent descents of the
corsairs. He sent thirty of his guards, with ten of the independent
company belonging to the island, upon this expedition (what a contrast to
those which he had formerly directed!), sketched out a plan of
fortification, and remarked with complacency, 'Europe will say that I have
already made a conquest.'"
He was after a short time joined on the island by his mother and his
sister Pauline, and not a few of those who had once fought under his flag
drifted gradually to Elba and took service in his guards. A plot was
organized in France, and when all was ready Napoleon availed himself of
the temporary absence of Sir Neil Campbell and of an English cruiser and
set sail from Elba.
At four in the afternoon of Sunday, the 26th of February, "a signal gun
was fired, the drums beat to arms, the officers tumbled what they could of
their effects into flour-sacks, the men arranged their knapsacks, the
embarkation began, and at eight in the evening they were under weigh." He
had more than one narrow escape on his voyage; for he was hailed by a
French frigate. His soldiers, however, had concealed themselves, and his
captain was acquainted with the commander of the frigate, so no suspicions
were excited. Sir Niel Campbell also, as soon as he found out what had
happened, gave chase in a sloop of war, but only arrived in time to obtain
a distant view of Napoleon's flotilla as its passengers landed.