Spring at Florence.--Villas in the vicinity.--Prospects from
the Belvederes.--A popular Tuscan air.--A fig after soup
delicious.--Effect of Church Bells.--The _patois_ of the Peasants.--A
Funeral.--Stroll in a Carthusian Convent.
The season soon became sufficiently advanced to give us a sight of an
Italian spring. The birds of passage had flown, some north and some
south, but all in quest of pleasure. The members of parliament had run
up to London to take their seats, the peers excepted, for they can do
their duty by proxy. As for the Russians and French, they had chiefly
gone to Naples, or taken refuge in the mountains. The poor political
exiles, of whom Florence has a large number, are still seen walking on
the shady sides of the streets, but filled with lassitude and _ennui_.
The town is as hot as Philadelphia.
We left our Palazzo within the walls, and went to a villa, called St.
Illario, just without them.--All the eminences around Florence are
dotted with these retreats, many of which are large and princely. That
we occupy is on a smaller scale; but it has numerous rooms, is near
the town, and has many conveniences. Among other recommendations,
it has two covered belvederes, where one can sit in the breeze and
overlook the groves of olive-trees, with all the crowded objects of an
Italian landscape.
But, to give you some idea of the region in which we dwell: The valley
of the Arno, though sufficiently wide, and cultivated chiefly with the
spade, is broken by many abrupt and irregular heights, the advanced
spurs of the ranges of the Apennines that bound it. On nearly all
of these eminences, stands a stone edifice topped by a belvedere;
sometimes with and sometimes without terraces; here and there a tree,
and with olive-groves beneath. The whole country is intersected by
narrow roads leading up the heights; and these lanes usually run
between high walls. They are commonly paved to prevent the wash
of the rains, and nothing can be less attractive than the objects
they present; though we find the shade of the walls beginning to be
necessary as the season advances. To obtain a view, one is obliged to
ascend to some one of the look-outs on the hills, of which there are
a good many; though the rides and walks on the level land, that lies
above and behind us, occasionally furnish us glorious glimpses. We are
much in the habit of going to one of these places, which is rightly
enough called _Bellosguardo_, for a better bird’s-eye view of a town
is not often had than this affords of Florence. In addition, we get
the panorama of the valley and mountains, and the delicate lights and
shades of the misty Apennines. Some of the latter I rank among the best
things in their way that I have seen. These mountains are generally
to be distinguished from the lower ranges of the Alps, or those whose
elevation comes nearest to their own, by a softer and more sunny hue,
which is often rendered dreamy and indolent by the sleepy haziness of
the atmosphere. Indeed, everything in these regions appears to invite
to contemplation and repose at this particular season. There is an
admixture of the savage and the refined in the ragged ravines of the
hills, the villas, the polished town, the cultivated plain, the distant
and chestnut-covered peaks, the costumes, the songs of the peasants,
the Oriental olive, the monasteries and churches, that keeps the mind
constantly attuned to poetry.
The songs of Tuscany are often remarkable. There is one air in
particular that is heard on every key, used to all sorts of words, and
is in the mouth of all the lower classes of both sexes. The soldier
sings of war to it, the sailor of storms and seas, the gallant of his
adventures, and the young girl of her love. The air is full of melody,
a requisite of all popular music, while it has the science and finish
of a high school, and is altogether superior to anything of the kind
which you might fancy in use by the same classes of society at home. It
is withal a little wild; and has a _la ral lal la_ to it, that just
suits the idea of heartiness, which is perhaps nesessary, for the
simplicity of such a thing may be hurt by too much sophistication.
I first heard this air in the town, at a particular hour every evening.
On inquiry, I found it was a baker’s boy singing it in the streets,
as he dispensed his cakes. I often hear it, as I sit in my belvedere,
rising from among the vines or olives, on different heights: sometimes
it is sung in falsetto, sometimes in deep bass, and now and then in a
rich contr’alto. Walking to Bellosguardo, the other day, I heard it in
a vineyard in the latter key, and getting on a stone that overlooked
the wall, I found it came from a beautiful young _contadina_, who was
singing of love as she trimmed her vines: disturbed by my motions, she
turned, blushed, laughed, hid her face, and ran among the leaves.
This is not the only music I get gratis. One of the narrow lanes
separates my end of the house from the church of St. Illario and the
dwelling of the priest. From the belvedere, which communicates with
my own room, we have frequent passages of civility across the lane
with the good old _curato_, who discusses the weather and the state
of the crops with unction. The old man has some excellent figs, and
our cook having discovered it, lays his trees under contribution.
And here I will record what I conceive to be the very perfection of
epicurism, or rather of taste, in the matter of eating. A single
fresh fig, as a corrective after the soup, I hold to be one of those
sublime touches of art, that are oftener discovered by accident, than
by the investigations of knowledge. I do not mean that I have even
the equivocal merit of this accidental discovery, for I was told the
secret, and I believed French ingenuity had got pretty near it already,
in the way of the melons. But no melon is like a fig; nor will a French
fig, certainly not a Paris fig, answer the purpose at all. It must be
such a fig as one gets in Italy. At Paris you are always offered a
glass of Madeira after the soup, the only one taken at table; but it is
a pitiful substitute for the fig. After communicating this improvement
on human happiness, let me add that it is almost destructive of the
pleasure derived from the first, to take a second. _One_ small,
greencoated, fresh fig, is the precise point of gastronomic felicity in
this respect.
But the good _curato_, besides his figs, has a pair of uneasy bells
in his church tower, which are exactly forty-three feet from my ears,
and which invariably ring in pairs six or eight times daily. There
are matins, noon-tide, angelus, vespers, and heaven knows what,
regularly; to say nothing of extra-masses, christenings, funerals and
weddings. The effect of the bells is often delightful when, heard in
the distance, for they are ringing all over the valley and on the
heights, morning, noon, and night; but these are too near. Still, I
get, now and then, rare touches of the picturesque from this proximity
to the church. The _contadini_ assemble in their costumes beneath my
belvedere, and I have an excellent opportunity of overlooking, and
overhearing them too.
The _Lingua Toscana_ applies rather to the people of the towns than to
the rural population, I fancy; for these worthy peasants speak a harsh
_patois_. Walking in sight of the _duomo_, lately, with a gentleman of
Florence, I desired him to put a question to a group of peasants; and I
found that, while he was perfectly understood, he had great difficulty
in understanding them. The aspirated words of Florence itself are well
known to all who have been in Italy. We had a droll proof of this
just before we left the town; for desiring my man to give our address
to a shopkeeper, he gave, “Il Signor ----, _Hasa Rihasole, via del
Hohomero_.”[3]
One of the most picturesque of our relations with the church arises
from the funerals. Lounging in the clerical belvedere lately, we
saw torches gleaming in a distant lane. Presently the sounds of the
funeral song reached us; and these gradually deepened, until we had the
imposing and solemn chant for the dead echoing between our own walls,
as if in the nave of a church. It is necessary to witness such a scene
to appreciate its beauty, on a still and dark night, beneath an Italian
sky.
In one of the dreamy walks that I take in company with a Florentine, I
strolled near a league along the road to Rome. The country is broken;
the road winding among naked and abrupt hills, that constantly remind
me of the scenery that one usually finds attached to subjects painted
from Holy Writ. On a small bit of table-land, that rises in one of the
valleys, is a Carthusian convent; and finding ourselves beneath its
walls, my companion proposed entering.
The ascent was easy, and the outer gate open. We saw no one, but,
following a carriage way that resembled the approach to an ancient
castle, we soon reached the door that communicates with the cloister.
Here we accidentally met with a lay brother, who amused himself with
cooking for the worthy fathers, and our application for admission was
favourably, but silently received. The place was the image of solitude
and silence; not a soul besides the lay brother was visible, and even
he soon disappeared.
You may imagine the effect of strolling through vast, tenantless,
echoing, monastic cloisters, corridors and halls, on a sleepy Italian
day, grateful for the shade and coolness, but wondering for whom
these vast edifices were constructed. We positively entered, remained
an hour, and left this structure without seeing a soul but the lay
brother. The gates were open, apparently, for all who chose to enter;
the chapel, sacristy, and cloisters were all accessible, not a door or
a gate requiring the hand, and yet no one was visible. We departed as
we had come; and the only evidence we had that there was a fraternity
within, was to be found in a list of the fathers who were to perform
certain masses, which was suspended in the chapel, and on which
the priests were all designated by the Latin abbreviation _Dom._ or
_Dominus_. As we returned along the highway, however, a Carthusian,
dressed in his white robe, was seen mending a pen at a window of his
small tenement: for each father has a tiny house to himself, with a
garden and yard; the rules requiring that they shall live separately,
and deny themselves, as much as may be, the comforts and solace of
speech. These habitations form a court all opening on the cloisters, of
which they compose, in fact, the several sides. A covered gallery makes
the usual means of intercourse within, while the distinct character of
the structures is only apparent from without. The gardens lie between
the small houses, or apartments.