these parts harvesting grain, or threshing, or sewing, or spinning on
a Sunday. Second, to see the peasants with lutes in their hands, and
even the pastoral songs of Ariosto on their lips--which thing indeed
may be observed all through Italy. Third, to see how these people will
leave the grain lying in the fields for ten or fifteen days after it is
cut--or even longer--without fear of being robbed by the neighbours. We
travelled in the evening dusk for twenty miles as far as Scala.
Here we could only get lodging, which was very good. I took no supper,
as I was troubled with toothache on the right side, an ailment which
often comes with my headaches. I felt it especially when I was eating,
as every bite caused me the sharpest pain. On the morning of Monday,
July 3, we followed the level road beside the Arno, which led us to a
fertile plain, covered with corn, and at midday, after riding twenty
miles, came to Pisa.
XII
PISA
This city is under the Grand Duke of Florence, and stands on the plain
of the Arno, which runs through the middle of it and enters the sea
six miles farther on. By it ships of divers sorts can reach Pisa. The
University was now closed, as it always is during the three hot months,
but we found there a company of very good players, the Disiosi. The
hotel was not to my liking, wherefore I hired a house with four rooms
and one _salle_. The landlord did the cooking and provided furniture;
an excellent house and all for eight crowns a month. But because the
provision of table linen which he promised to make was very scanty (and
in Italy they hardly ever change the napkins save when they change the
tablecloth, which is done twice a week), we let our servants buy some
more. At the inn we had paid four julli a day.[72]
This house was in a most pleasant situation, commanding a delightful
prospect right over the channel through which the Arno flows. This
channel is very wide and more than five hundred paces in length,
slightly curved, and offering a charming object to the view, the
bend aforesaid allowing the spectator to see easily both ends of the
channel, full of merchant shipping and crossed by three bridges. The
quays on either side are of fine masonry, with supports to the very
top, like those on the Quai des Augustines at Paris, with wide streets,
at the side of which are rows of houses, one of which is the one I
hired.
On Wednesday, July 5th, I visited the cathedral, built on the site of
the palace of the Emperor Hadrian. Here are columns of various marbles,
infinite in number and differing in form and workmanship, and most
beautiful doors of metal. It is enriched by various trophies brought
from Greece and Egypt, and itself is constructed out of ancient ruins,
so that here may be seen inscriptions upside down, and there divided in
the middle.[73] In some places are to be seen indecipherable characters
said to be written by the Etruscans.[74] I saw the Campanile, which
is marvellous in appearance, being inclined seven cubits out of the
perpendicular. At Bologna and other places there are leaning towers.
Pillars and open colonnades are set round it from top to bottom. Also
the church of Saint John near thereto, which is very richly adorned
with painting and sculpture.[75] Amongst other rarities is a marble
pulpit set very thickly with statues, which are so beautiful that
Lorenzo, the same who slew Duke Alexander dei Medici, is said to have
carried off the heads of certain of them,[76] and presented them to the
queen. In shape this church resembles the Rotonda at Rome.[77]
The natural son of the duke aforesaid lives at Pisa.[78] He is an old
man, and I chanced to see him. He lives at his ease on the bounty of
the present duke, and takes no part in public affairs, being content
to amuse himself with the excellent hunting and fishing to be enjoyed
in the neighbourhood. In no other city of Italy is to be found such
vast store of holy relics and exquisite works, and stone and marble
work of such rarity, grandeur, and marvellous workmanship. I was
immensely pleased with the cemetery, which they call the Campo Santo.
It is of extraordinary size, and rectangular, three hundred paces long
and one hundred wide, and surrounded by a corridor forty paces wide,
covered with lead and paved with marble. The walls are covered with old
paintings, and amongst them is a portrait of the Florentine Gondi, by
whom the family of that name was founded.
The nobles of the city have their burial-places under this covered
corridor. Here are to be seen the names and armorial devices of some
four hundred families, of whom not more than four now dwell in Pisa,
the survivors of the wars and destruction which have fallen upon this
ancient city. The population is now very scanty, the place being
chiefly taken up by strangers. Many persons of rank belonging to
the noble families referred to are still living in other parts of
Christendom whither they have betaken themselves. In the midst of this
enclosure is an open space where the dead are still buried. I was
told positively by every one that any corpse interred there swells
so greatly some eight hours afterwards that the ground may be seen
to rise; in the next eight it subsides, and in eight hours more the
flesh is entirely consumed, so that four-and-twenty hours after burial
nothing is left but bare bones.[79] This strange fact resembles another
told of that cemetery at Rome which rejects immediately the body of
any Roman buried therein. This enclosure is paved, like the corridor,
with marble, upon which is laid earth one or two cubits deep, which
earth, they declare, was brought from Jerusalem, the Pisans having
sent a great expedition for the carrying out of this purpose. With
the bishop’s consent a little of this earth may be taken and mixed
with that of other graves, the belief being that the corpses within
will thereby consume away rapidly; and this belief is a plausible
one, because in this particular cemetery bones are very rarely seen,
scarcely any indeed, neither is there any place where they are
collected and reinterred, as in other cities.
From the neighbouring mountains they quarry the finest marble, which
is here worked by divers distinguished craftsmen. At this time they
were preparing for the King of Fez, in Barbary, materials for a
theatre of the richest design, the plan being drawn to include fifty
most sumptuous marble columns. The arms of France are to be seen in
countless places all about this city,[80] besides a column which King
Charles VIII. gave to the Duomo. On the wall of a certain house looking
upon the street the king aforesaid is represented, life-size, kneeling
before the Virgin, who seems to be giving him counsel. An inscription
set thereupon declares that the king, after supping in this house, was
seized with the determination to give the Pisans their ancient freedom,
and that by this act he surpassed the greatness of Alexander. He is
there described as King of Jerusalem, Sicily, &c.[81] The words which
refer to the grant of liberty have been designedly defaced and are
half-erased. Many private houses still exhibit these arms as badges of
honour, the king having granted the same to the owners.
Here are a few remains of ancient buildings. One is the fine brick
ruin, which stands near the site of Nero’s palace, the name of which
it still retains,[82] and another the church of Saint Michael, formerly
a temple of Mars.[83] Thursday was the Feast of Saint Peter, and report
says it was formerly the custom for the bishop to go in procession on
this day to the church of Saint Peter,[84] which stands four miles
outside the city, and thence on to the sea, into which he would cast a
ring as a token of espousal, this city being a great maritime power.
Now they simply send one of the University teachers to perform this
ceremony. The priests go in procession only as far as the church, where
they hold a great sale of pardons. A papal bull, dating back some four
hundred years (taking as its authority a book more than twelve hundred
years old), declares that this church was built by Saint Peter himself,
and that one day when Saint Clement was performing the office on a
marble altar, three drops of blood from the Saint’s nose fell down
upon this altar, where the stain made by them still remains as plain as
if they had fallen three days ago. The Genoese mutilated this table and
carried away one of the drops aforesaid, wherefore the Pisans removed
what remained from the church into the city. But every year, on Saint
Peter’s Day, it is carried back in procession to its original place,
and all night long people are passing hither and thither in boats.
On Friday, June 7th, I went early to see the dairy farm of Don Piero
de’ Medici,[85] about two miles distant. This prince has vast estates,
which he cultivates on his own account, engaging every five years a
fresh set of labourers, who receive as wages half the produce of the
soil, which is here very fertile in grain. In the pastures animals of
all sorts are kept. I dismounted in order to inspect more minutely the
farmstead, where a vast number of people were at work making curd and
butter and cheese, and using divers implements made for the purpose.
Onward from thence over the plain I went as far as the beach of the
Tyrrhenian Sea, getting a sight of Lerici on the right, and on the
left of Leghorn, a town with a castle close to the sea and nearer than
Lerici. From here I could also see the island of Gorgona, beyond this
Capraia,[86] and Corsica beyond all. I turned to the left and followed
the shore as far as the mouth of the Arno, which is of ill-fame amongst
sailors because the many small streams which fall into it bring down
great quantities of earth and mud and form a bar at the mouth. Here I
bought some fish, which I despatched as a present to the ladies of the
theatre. Along the river are many thickets of tamarisk. On Saturday
I bought, for six giulios, a small barrel made of this wood, which I
caused to be hooped with silver, paying the silversmith three crowns
for the work. Besides this, I spent six giulios on a walking-stick of
Indian cane, and eight more on a small vessel and a cup made of Indian
nut, which is quite as efficacious against spleen and the gravel as
tamarisk.
The man who made these wares, an artist of great talent and famous as
a maker of fine mathematical instruments, informed me, that all trees,
when cut through, show as many rings as they have years, and he gave me
demonstration of this from all the different sorts of wood he had in
his shop, he being a carpenter. The part of the tree which faces the
north is always of closer grain and with circles nearer together than
the other parts. Wherefore, he boasts that, whatever specimen of wood
may be brought to him, he can always determine how old was the tree
from which it was cut, and the aspect towards which it faced.[87]
Only a short time ago this city bore an evil name for its unhealthy
air, but this is vastly improved since Duke Cosimo has drained the
marshes by which it is surrounded. Formerly the place was so unhealthy
that when the government wanted to banish any one, and at the same time
get rid of him, they always banished him to Pisa, where in a few months
the job was done. There are no partridges here, though the Duke has
taken great pains to foster them.
I received several visits at my lodging from Girolamo Borro,[88] a
physician and doctor of philosophy, and when I went to see him on July
14, he made me a present of his book on the flux and reflux of the sea,
written in Italian. At the same time he showed me another book he had
written in Latin on the diseases of the body.
On this same day, twenty-one Turkish slaves escaped from the arsenal
near my house and fled the place, having taken possession of a bark,
with full equipment, which the Signor Alessandro di Piombini had left
there while he went fishing. Except the Arno itself, and the navigable
channel so admirably contrived, and the churches and ancient buildings
and others of particular merit, there is little in Pisa that is
distinguished or worth seeing. The place is like a desert, and in this
respect, and in the fashion of the buildings, and in its size, and in
the wideness of the streets, it strongly resembles Pistoia. Its chief
disadvantage is its bad water, which has everywhere a marshy smell.
These people are very poor, but at the same time very arrogant and
unfriendly, and discourteous towards strangers, and towards the French
especially since the death of their late bishop, Pietro Paulo Borbonio,
who claimed kinship with our royal house.[89] Certain of his relations
still reside here. This prelate was so liberal and so well disposed to
our nation that he made it a rule to entertain in his palace at once
any Frenchman who might arrive in Pisa. To the Pisans he has left an
honoured memory of his righteous life and bounty. He died only five or
six years ago.
On July 17th, I joined with twenty-five others, at a crown each, in a
raffle for some things belonging to Fargnocola, one of the aforenamed
players. We began by drawing lots as to who should play first, second,
and so on; and then made the rule that, as there were several lots of
things to play for, they should be divided into two equal parts. One of
these was to fall to the player who threw highest, the other to the
lowest throw. It chanced that I threw second highest.
On the 18th, at the church of S. Francesco, a grave tumult arose
between the priests of the cathedral and the friars. On the previous
day a Pisan gentleman was brought to be buried in the cathedral,
whereupon the priests got ready all their paraphernalia for the funeral
office, asserting their ancient right and privilege. But the friars on
their part declared that they and no others had the right to say mass
in their church. One of the priests attempted to get possession of the
table, having gone up to the high altar, but a friar forced him away,
whereupon the vicar, the head of the priests of this church, gave the
friar a buffet. Then arose a hand-to-hand fight, fists, bludgeons,
candlesticks, and tapers being used freely, and the upshot was that no
mass was said by either party. This outbreak of rage and riot caused a
great scandal. As soon as I heard the report thereof, I went to the
cathedral, where I received true report of what had happened.
At daybreak on the 22nd three Turkish pirate ships made a raid on
the adjoining sea coast and carried off fifteen or twenty poor
fishermen and shepherds as captives. On the 25th I paid a visit to
Cornacchino,[90] a famous Pisan physician and teacher. He lived
according to a rule of his own, which differed vastly from the rules of
his art. Immediately after dinner he would go to sleep and would drink
a hundred times a day. He read to me some rhymes of his own written
in the Pisan dialect which were not unpleasing. According to him the
baths near the city are of no great account, but he had a high opinion
of those of _Bagno Acqua_,[91] about sixteen miles distant, which he
declared to be marvellously good for liver complaints, detailing
to me some wonderful cures, and for the stone and colic as well. He
recommended me, however, before taking these waters, to drink some of
the Della Villa spring. He is of opinion that, after blood-letting,
medicine has no curative agent to compare with baths, if only they
be used with understanding. He also told me that at Bagno Acqua the
lodgings are good, and that I might make myself very comfortable there.
On Thursday, July 27th, I left Pisa early in the morning, being highly
gratified by the courteous and friendly treatment I had received from
Signor Vintavinti, Signor Lorenzo Conti, Signor Miniato in whose house
lived the Cavaliere Camillo Gatani--who offered to let his brother
return with me to France--Signor del Borro, and divers other craftsmen
and merchants with whom I had dealings. I am certain that I could have
raised money from them, had I needed it, albeit the Pisans have the
name for churlishness and arrogance. But in every case a courteous man
wins a return for his courtesy.
This country abounds in pigeons, nuts, and mushrooms. We went for a
certain distance over the plain and arrived at the baths of Pisa, of
which there are several. One of these bears an inscription cut in
marble which I could not rightly decipher. It is in rhymed Latin verses
and seems to celebrate the virtues of these springs. As far as I could
gather it was written in 1300.
The largest and the most seemly of these baths is square-built with one
side open, very well fitted, and having marble staircases. It measures
thirty paces square, and in one corner the spring flows in through a
spout. I took a draught of it to test it, and found it lacking in taste
and in smell also. I only detected a slight roughness on the tongue.
It is scarcely warm at all and very pleasant to drink. I looked at
the water as it flowed from the spout, and perceived therein the same
minute particles, white atoms, which had offended me at Baden, and
which I judged to be some dirt come in from without. Now, I believe
these atoms to be connected with the mineral properties of the water.
Round about the outflow these atoms are thicker, where forsooth the
waters ought to be the clearest, as I found them to be at Baden. This
place is a desert and the lodging very bad; indeed these baths are
almost forsaken, the few people who use them preferring to come out in
the morning from Pisa, which is only four miles distant, and return in
the evening. The chief bath is uncovered, and is the only one which
shows any trace of antiquity. It is called the bath of Nero, and the
story goes that this Emperor caused water therefrom to be led by an
aqueduct to his palace at Pisa.[92]
There is another covered bath, filled with the purest water, which
is used by the people of the district. It is said to be good for the
liver and for the eruptions caused by liver disorders. The same draught
is prescribed here as at other baths, and exercise after drinking is
commonly taken: or you may take a sweating bath, or use it in other
forms. By ascending this hill I got a very fine view, looking over the
great plain, the sea, the islands, Leghorn, and Pisa. After coming down
we again traversed the plain in which Lucca is situated, and arrived
there after a journey of ten miles.
XIII
RETURN TO LUCCA
This morning I passed another stone somewhat larger and looking as if
it must have been detached from one much larger. God knows whether it
is so. Let it be as He wills. We made the same terms at the inn as at
Pisa, four giuli a day for ourselves and three for the servants. But
on the 28th, being in a way compelled by the most courteous proposals
of Signor Ludovico Pinitesi, I went to occupy a ground-floor apartment
in his house. It was very cool, excellently arranged, and contained
five chambers, a dining-room and a kitchen, the furniture of all sorts,
of the finest and handsomest style, being supplied to me according to
Italian custom, which in many ways equals our own and in some surpasses
it. These fine large lofty arched ceilings are in truth great
ornaments in Italian houses. They give a pleasant and dignified aspect
to the entrances, because all the lower storeys are built in this
fashion with wide and lofty doorways. In the summer all the gentle-folk
of Lucca take their meals in public in these entries in full sight of
the passers-by.
I may declare with truth that wherever I have stopped in Italy I have
been lodged, not to say well, but excellently, except in Florence--and
there I did not leave the inn in spite of the discomforts I had to
endure, especially in the summer heat--and in Venice, where we lodged
in a noisy ill-kept house, as our sojourn was to be a very brief one.
My chamber here was apart, supplied with everything I could need,
convenient and perfectly quiet. I rejoiced that the people of the place
did not call upon me--or only one or two--for even civility sometimes
becomes irksome. I slept and read as I was inclined, and when I went
abroad I always found conversation in plenty with the people in the
streets, who would be ready for a chat at any hour of the day; and
then there were the shops, and the churches, and the market-place.
Going about like this, from one country to another, I was never at a
loss for material for the satisfying of my curiosity. And all this
time I felt my mind at ease, as much as ill-health and old age would
allow, and little prone to seize opportunities for disturbing itself
from the outside world. The only loss I felt was that of a sympathetic
companion, for, being alone, I had to enjoy all these pleasures by
myself, and could not share them with another.
The people of Lucca are greatly given to, a game called _Pallone_, and
they often meet for matches. Men seldom ride on horseback through the
streets, and it is the rarest sight to see one in a coach, but ladies
go on mule-back with a foot-servant. Strangers coming here have great
difficulty in finding houses to let, the city itself being very thickly
populated and the travellers visiting it very few. For an ordinary
house with four furnished chambers, a dining-room, and a kitchen I was
asked a rent of seventy crowns a month. It is hard to find any society
in Lucca, for the reason that all the people, even the very children,
are taken up with business incessantly, and with winning riches by
means of traffic. On this account Lucca is somewhat unpleasant as a
residence for foreigners.
On August the 10th we rode out into the country with certain gentlemen
of the city who had lent us horses. All round about I saw a vast number
of delightful villas for the distance of three or four miles, built
with porticoes and loggias, which add greatly to their beauty. One
had a very large loggia, arched all along inside, and clad without
by the branches and tendrils of vines which were planted and trained
over certain supports, the effect being one of coolness, verdure, and
natural beauty.
The pain in the head would sometimes leave me for five or six days or
even longer, but I could never feel myself safe from it. I was taken
with a fancy to study the Florentine tongue, and I gave much time and
trouble thereto, in return for which I reaped very little profit.
The heat this summer was much greater than usual. On the 12th I went
outside the city to visit the villa of Signor Benedetto Buonvisi, a
fairly pleasant house. Amongst other things there I marked certain
fair little thickets planted in sloping ground. They plant some fifty
paces apart clumps of trees of that sort which holds green all the year
round, and they surround these with shallow ditches, and construct
certain covered ways within, and in the middle of each is a station
for the fowler who, by means of a silver whistle and a quantity of
captive thrushes trained for the purpose, and by setting limed twigs at
every corner, will catch in a single morning two hundred thrushes at
a certain season of the year, to wit, in the month of November. Such
sport is only to be found in one district near a certain quarter of the
city.
On Sunday the 13th I left Lucca, having settled to hand over to Signor
Ludovico Pinitesi fifteen crowns for the hire of his house, making one
crown per diem, a sum with which he was fully satisfied. We saw on our
way a vast number of villas belonging to the gentle-folk of Lucca,
handsome, neat, and graceful houses with abundance of water, but the
supply is intermittent and does not come from natural springs. It is
indeed wonderful to see so little running water in a land mountainous
as this. Their habit is to tap the rivulets by small channels, and lead
the water through fountains, vases, and grottoes and other devices
of the sort for the ornamentation of the gardens. That same evening
we arrived in time for supper at the villa of the Signor Ludovico
aforesaid, his son Signor Oragio having been of our party on the
journey. He gave us excellent entertainment, regaling us with a most
sumptuous supper at night, set out under a wide portico exquisitely
cool and open on every side, and giving us fine bed-chambers with
clean delicate linen like that we had rejoiced over in his father’s
house at Lucca.
We left early on Monday morning and rode without dismounting for
fifteen miles to Bagni della Villa, where we arrived at dinner-time.
On our way we halted a short time to see the villa of the bishop who
was there in residence. We met with the kindest reception from the
whole household, and were pressed to take our dinner with them. On
our arrival we were heartily welcomed by all the residents; indeed,
it seemed as if I had returned to my own home. I had lodging in the
same apartment as before, at twenty crowns a month and the same other
conditions.