Dio ti salvi, O Maria, piena di grazia! Il Signore è teco! tu sei
benedetta fra le donne, e benedetto è il frutto del tuo seno, GESU!
Santa Maria! madre di Dio! Prega per noi peccatori, adesso, e nell
'ora della nostra morte! e cosi sia.[G]
* * * * *
_Sunday._--Attended divine service at the English ambassador's, in the
morning, and in the evening, not being well enough to go to the
Cascine, I remained at home. I sat down at the window and read
Foscolo's beautiful poem, "I sepoleri:" the subject of my book, and
the sight of Alfieri's house meeting my eye whenever I looked up,
inspired the idea of visiting the Santa Croce again, and I ventured
out unattended. The streets, and particularly the Lung' Arno, were
crowded with gay people in their holiday costumes. Not even our Hyde
Park, on a summer Sunday, ever presented a more lively spectacle or a
better dressed mob. I was often tempted to turn back rather than
encounter this moving multitude; but at length I found my way to the
Santa Croce, which presented a very different scene. The service was
over; and a few persons were walking up and down the aisles, or
kneeling at different altars. In a chapel on the other side of the
cloisters, they were chanting the Via Crucis; and the blended voices
swelled and floated round, then died away, then rose again, and at
length sunk into silence. The evening was closing fast, the shadows of
the heavy pillars grew darker and darker, the tapers round the high
altar twinkled in the distance like dots of light, and the tombs of
Michel Angelo, of Galileo, of Machiavelli, and Alfieri, were projected
from the deep shadow in indistinct formless masses: but I needed not
to see them to image them before me; for with each and all my fancy
was familiar. I spent about an hour walking up and down--abandoned to
thoughts which were melancholy, but not bitter. All memory, all
feeling, all grief, all pain were swallowed up in the sublime
tranquillity which was within me and around me. How could I think of
myself, and of the sorrow which swells at my impatient heart, while
all of genius that could die, was sleeping round me; and the spirits
of the glorious dead--they who rose above their fellow men by the
might of intellect--whose aim was excellence, the noble end "that made
ambition virtue," were, or seemed to me, present?--and if those tombs
could have opened their ponderous and marble jaws, what histories of
sufferings and persecution, wrongs and wretchedness, might they not
reveal! Galileo--
"chi vide
Sotto l'etereo padiglion rotarsi
Piu mondi, e il sole iradiarli immoto."
pining in the dungeons of the inquisition; Machiavelli,
"quel grande,
Che temprando lo scettro a'regnatori,
Gil allor ne sfronda----"
tortured and proscribed; Michel Angelo, persecuted by envy; and
Alfieri perpetually torn, as he describes himself, by two furies--"Ira
e Malinconia"--
"La mente e il cor in perpetua lite."
But they fulfilled their destinies: inexorable Fate will be avenged
upon the favourites of Heaven and nature. I can remember but one
instance in which the greatly gifted spirit was not also the
conspicuously wretched mortal--our own divine Shakspeare--and of him
we know but little.
In some books of travels I have met with, Boccaccio, Aretino, and
Guicciardini, are mentioned among the illustrious dead of the Santa
Croce. The second, if his biographers say true, was a wretch, whose
ashes ought to have been scattered in the air. He was buried I
believe at Venice--or no matter where. Boccaccio's tomb _is_, or
_was_, at Certaldo; and Guicciardini's--I forget the name of the
church honoured by his remains--but it is not the Santa Croce.
The finest figure on the tomb of Michel Angelo is architecture. It
should be contemplated from the left, to be seen to advantage. The
effect of Alfieri's monument depends much on the position of the
spectator: when viewed in front, the figure of Italy is very heavy and
clumsy; and in no point of view has it the grace and delicacy which
Canova's statues generally possess.
There is a most extraordinary picture in this church representing God
the Father supporting a dead Christ, by Cigoli, a painter little known
in England, though I have seen some admirable pictures of his in the
collections here: his style reminds me of Spagnoletto's.
* * * * *
Our departure is fixed for Wednesday next: and though I know that
change and motion are good for me, yet I dread the fatigue and
excitement of travelling; and I shall leave Florence with regret. For
a melancholy invalid like myself, there cannot be a more delightful
residence: it is gay without tumult--quiet, yet not dull. I have not
mingled in society; therefore cannot judge of the manners of the
people. I trust they are not exactly what Forsyth describes: with all
his taste he sometimes writes like a caustic old bachelor; and on the
Florentines he is peculiarly severe.
We leave our friend L. behind for a few days, and our Venice
acquaintance V. will be our _compagnon de voyage_ to Rome. Of these
two young men, the first amuses me by his follies, the latter rather
fatigues _de trop de raison_. The first talks too much, the latter too
little: the first speaks, and speaks egregious nonsense; the latter
never says any thing beyond common-place: the former always makes
himself ridiculous, and the latter never makes himself particularly
agreeable: the first is (_con rispetto parlando_) a great fool, and
the latter would be pleasanter were he less wise. Between these two
_opposites_, I was standing this evening on the banks of the Arno,
contemplating a sunset of unequalled splendour. L. finding that
enthusiasm was his cue, played off various sentimental antics, peeped
through his fingers, threw his head on one side, exclaiming,
"Magnificent, by Jove! grand! grandissimo! It just reminds me of what
Shakspeare says: 'Fair Aurora'--I forget the rest."
V. with his hands in his pockets, contemplated the superb
spectacle--the mountains, the valley, the city flooded with a crimson
glory, and the river flowing at our feet like molten gold--he gazed on
it all with a look of placid satisfaction, and then broke out--"Well!
this does one's heart good!"
L. (I owe him this justice) is not the author of the famous blunder
which is now repeated in every circle. I am assured it was our
neighbour, Lord G. though I scarce believe it, who on being presented
with the Countess of Albany's card, exclaimed--"The Countess of
Albany! Ah!--true--I remember: wasn't she the widow of Charles the
Second, who married Ariosto?" There is in this celebrated _beveu_, a
glorious confusion of times and persons, beyond even my friend L.'s
capacity.
* * * * *
The whole party are gone to the Countess of Albany's to-night to take
leave: that being, as L. says, "the correct thing." Our notions of
correctness vary with country and climate. What Englishwoman at
Florence would not be _au désespoir_, to be shut from the Countess of
Albany's parties--though it is a known and indisputable fact, that she
was never married to Alfieri? A propos d'Alfieri--I have just been
reading a selection of his tragedies--his Filippo, the Pazzi,
Virginia, Mirra; and when I have finished Saul, I will read no more of
them for some time. There is a superabundance of harsh energy, and a
want of simplicity, tenderness, and repose throughout, which fatigues
me, until admiration becomes an effort instead of a pleasurable
feeling. Marochesi, a celebrated tragedian, who, Minutti says,
understood "_la vera filosofia della comica_," used to recite
Alfieri's tragedies with him or to him. Alfieri was himself a bad
actor and declaimer. I am surprised that the tragedy of Mirra should
be a great favourite on the stage here. A very young actress, who made
her debût in this character, enchanted the whole city by the admirable
manner in which she performed it; and the piece was played for
eighteen nights successively; a singular triumph for an actress,
though not uncommon for a singer. In spite of its many beauties and
the artful management of the story; it would, I think, be as
impossible to make an English audience endure the Mirra, as to find an
English actress who would exhibit herself in so revolting a part.
* * * * *
_Tuesday._--Our last day at Florence. I walked down to the San Lorenzo
this morning early, and made a sketch of the sarcophagus of Lorenzo
de' Medici. Afterwards we spent an hour in the gallery, and bid adieu
to the Venus--
"O bella Venere!
Che sola sei,
Piacer degli uomini
E degli dei!"
When I went to take a last look of Titian's Flora, I found it removed
from its station, and an artist employed in copying it. I could have
envied the lady for whom this copy was intended; but comforted myself
with the conviction that no hireling dauber in water-colours could do
justice to the heavenly original, which only wants motion and speech
to live indeed. We then spent nearly two hours in the Pitti Palace;
and the court having lately removed to Pisa, we had an opportunity of
seeing Canova's Venus, which is placed in one of the Grand Duke's
private apartments. She stands in the centre of a small cabinet,
pannelled with mirrors, which reflect her at once in every possible
point of view. This statue was placed on the pedestal of the Venus de'
Medicis during her forced residence at Paris; and is justly considered
as the triumph of modern art: but though a most beautiful creature,
she is not a goddess. I looked in vain for that full divinity, that
ethereal _something_ which breathes round the Venus of the Tribune. In
another private room are two magnificent landscapes by Salvator Rosa.
Every good catholic has a portrait of the Virgin hung at the head of
his bed; partly as an object of devotion, and partly to scare away the
powers of evil: and for this purpose the Grand Duke has suspended by
his bed-side one of the most beautiful of Raffaelle's Madonnas. Truly,
I admire the good taste of his piety, though it is rather selfish thus
to appropriate such a gem, when the merest daub would answer the same
purpose. It was only by secret bribery I obtained a peep at this
picture, as the room is not publicly shown.
The lower classes at Florence are in general ill-looking; nor have I
seen one handsome woman since I came here. Their costume too is
singularly unbecoming; but there is an airy cheerfulness and vivacity
in their countenances, and a civility in their manners which is
pleasing to a stranger. I was surprised to see the women, even the
servant girls, decorated with necklaces of real pearl of considerable
beauty and value. On expressing my surprise at this to a shopkeeper's
wife, she informed me that these necklaces are handed down as a kind
of heir-loom from mother to daughter; and a young woman is considered
as dowered who possesses a handsome chain of pearl. If she has no hope
of one in reversion, she buys out of her little earnings a pearl at a
time, till she has completed a necklace.
The style of swearing at Florence is peculiarly elegant and classical;
I hear the vagabonds in the street adjuring Venus and Bacchus; and my
shoemaker swore "by the aspect of Diana," that he would not take less
than ten pauls for what was worth about three;--yet was the knave
forsworn.
* * * * *