GENOA.--Streets of palaces, dingy and dirty with the mould of ages, but
with interiors adorned with all the lavish luxury of the East, such is
Genoa to the cursory view. The tourist, rushing through the Cathedral
and the Cemetery, his Murray in hand; hastily conning the names of old
masters and then going away satisfied, does not begin to know his Genoa.
It is a city to linger in, to study slowly and lovingly, to muse over,
in its deserted squares and sleepy parks. Certainly it is a famous
introduction to Italian art. Every one knows it was called La Superba
in the old days, so there is no need for me to do anything but jot
down a few random memories of the place. Genoa, of course, is chiefly
interesting on account of its past, not its present, but it may be as
well to say that its capacious harbour accommodates steamers sailing
daily to nearly every port in the Mediterranean and that in 1888 the
total tonnage entered amounted to 3,000,000 tons. The lanterna or
lighthouse in the harbour is old enough to be a curiosity, for it was
built in 1547, and is apparently good for another couple of centuries.
Near its foot are the dockyard and arsenal, which were established in
1276. But since 1860 the Italian government has made Spezia its chief
dockyard, to the disgust of the Genoese.
The one wide modern street in Genoa is the Via Vittorio Emanuele, on
which are all the good hotels. In every Italian city and village one
meets this name, and a certain degree of monotony attaches to it after
one has shopped in fifty or sixty such streets in as many towns; but
it shows the popularity of the late king, _Il Re Galant'uomo_, as they
still call him. The shops in this street in Genoa are Parisian in every
way, and there is an indescribable air of cheerfulness and gayety as
one moves along past crowds of handsome black-browed Italian women.
This word comes involuntarily to one in thinking of Italian women or
girls. They could never be called pretty, or even beautiful, with
their dark, glowing skins, large, warm eyes, thick, perfectly-curved
eyebrows, and a more or less faint down on the upper lip; but they are
undeniably handsome.
Then, too, their way of walking out in afternoon or evening in full
toilette and with perfectly-arranged coiffures, but without hat or
bonnet, is attractive and gives a cosy air to the open street. Behind
our hotel is a long, glass-covered arcade about the length of two city
blocks, always filled with a gay, chattering crowd of both sexes, who
promenade up and down, now stopping to look at the brilliantly-lighted
window of some shop rich in statues and statuettes of Parian and
Carrara marble, or to sit at small tables in front of some smart café
to eat ices, or the Italian equivalent, _granita_.
This arcade is one of the sights of the city and forms one of the
most attractive features of Genoa. One often thinks of the gay scenes
enacted there nightly, when far away.
A walk about the town is delightful, provided one is unfettered by that
abomination, a _valet-de-place_, or local guide. Such narrow streets
running in all directions past grim palaces and squalid houses (but
all of stone, for wood has no part in the internal economy of Genoese
building) ending frequently in some odourous _cul de sac_, or doubling
on themselves, to bring the helpless wanderer back to his starting
point, after an hour's walk!
The Cathedral must form the objective point of a first walk in Genoa.
Indeed, it would be hard to miss it, for it is built of squares of
black and white marble and resembles an immense chess board on end. But
there is a pathetic dignity about it, for it is very old.
It was begun in the twelfth century, and it is most probable that
Columbus said his _Aves_ and _Paters_ under its vaulted roof, for he
was a native of the erst-while republic of Genoa, when that power
ruled the Mediterranean and boasted, like Venice, of a Doge. There is
a curious inscription above the arches which part the nave from the
aisles, near the Doge's gallery, to the effect that the great-grandson
of Noah founded Genoa and that the nave was restored in 1307.
But this is only one of the curious things about this curious
Cathedral, for the verger who was gorgeous in his cocked hat and
wand-of-office, showed us two huge pictures on either side of the
high altar, which had been taken by the great Napoleon from Genoa to
Paris when he conquered Italy; which had gone thence to Vienna and
had finally returned to their former resting place. They showed the
effect of travel, but were wonderfully well preserved. One represented
the martyrdom of St. Sebastian--that ever-present product of Italian
galleries, but in this case the arrows were happily absent. We saw,
too, the picture of the Madonna, painted by St. Luke and alluded to by
Mark Twain. It had not grown at all clearer since he saw it twenty odd
years ago.
A wonderfully beautiful Byzantine tomb was shown us in John the
Baptist's chapel, and was declared to contain the ashes of that saint.
Certainly it must have been old, and the carving was exquisitely done.
The original chains worn by John the Baptist were also shown. They
were very rusty! No woman but the Queen is allowed in this little
side chapel, erected to commemorate the crime of Herodias, but why
Her Majesty should be excepted from the rule is not quite clear,
unless we accept the theory of the divine right of Kings which Kaiser
Wilhelm holds so strongly. There they also show the _sacro catina_,
supposed to be made of a single emerald given by the Queen of Sheba
to Solomon. This vessel formed part of the spoils of the Genoese at
Cæsarea in 1101. It is brought out of the treasury three times a year
for the veneration of the faithful, but no one is allowed to touch
it under severe penalties. But as I was admiring this and preparing
to enthuse over its associations, the verger asked if I understood
Latin and immediately launched forth into the original text of the
Excommunication pronounced against any female who should dare to enter
that _sanctum sanctorum_ where John the Baptist reposed. But, alas, if
his accent was not that I had learned at Oxford, it was still less that
of Yale; and I could only guess at the meaning of most of his sonorous
periods. We left the Church with this avalanche of mediæval Latin
ringing in our ears. The interior, taken as a whole, is impressive.
The nave and two aisles are unusually long, and standing at one end a
semi-gloomy vista of respectable length is opened up. There are other
Churches in Genoa, but none so rich in tradition or saintly relics. The
Via Balbi is worth a visit, for there stand the famous Palazzo Rosso or
Red Palace, built entirely of dark red stone; and the Galliera Palace
with its magnificent collection of paintings. The Galliera family has
done much for Genoa as well as for Paris. The late Duke gave £80,000
to the harbour works a few years ago, and now the city of Genoa owns
the fine gallery of paintings. The Duchess, who has been dead only a
short time, left her splendid house in Paris to the Austrian Emperor
to be used as the permanent house of his Embassy in Paris and (as she
was childless) willed her large private fortune to the clever Empress
Frederick, Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, in trust for deeds of
charity.
A description of one of these immense palace galleries may stand for
all. Always there is a grand hall supported in part on columns leading
to an arcade-surrounded court. Beyond comes the great staircase, in two
ascents. All this is open to the public view, and the long perspective
of halls, courts, columns and arcades is magnificent in the extreme. In
a splendid suite of rooms on the second floor of this Palazzo Rosso is
the largest collection of pictures in Genoa.
The Palazzo Reale or Royal Palace is interesting, having been
splendidly fitted up by King Charles Albert in 1842. There are palaces
innumerable in Genoa, many rich in historical interest and full of
pictures by the old masters, and if one were compiling a guide book one
could write quires of description about gilding that cost a million
francs in one, and mosaic floors worth several fortunes in another.
But the crowning glory of Genoa is its Campo Santo or Holy Field, where
the noble families of Genoa bury their dead. Imagine vast arcades
surrounding an open space of several acres and these arcades crowded
with wonderfully beautiful statues. Each family pays a sum (no small
one) for a niche in one of these arcades with the accompanying vault
beneath and then erects a life-size statue of the departed, or some
symbolical figure. Some are pathetic and tender--the fairy-like child
dancing on roses, for example, or the full-sized sailing boat crossing
the Styx, every rope and sail wrought with wondrous grace in snowy
marble. Others succeed in being only grotesque. One huge figure of
Father Time sitting cross-legged on a coffin with his knee cocked up,
for instance; or an unpleasantly realistic model of an old man with one
foot in an open grave with his face turned over his shoulder. This was
erected by an old Count, still living, when his wife died. And so on
_ad infinitum_. This is a place to muse, to think grave thoughts and to
reflect upon sudden death, but not a place to get up an appetite.
Genoa is an attractive city, although they say that, unlike Florence
and Pisa, it is not an economical town for strangers of limited means
and that lodgings are scarce.
The character of the inhabitants betrays little of the fiery valour
that gave Genoa its proud position in the Middle Ages. Now its people
are quiet, hard-working and practical; they take little interest in
politics and are well content to live under a constitutional Monarchy,
without showing any disturbing tendency toward an anarchistic Republic.
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