It is a happy day in every one's life when he commences his journey into
Italy. That glorious land, "rich with the spoils of time" above all
others, endeared to every heart possessing any sense of the beautiful in
poetry and art, or of the heroic in history, rises up before him as it
was wont to do in the days of his youth, when Childe Harold's glowing
numbers gave a tone of enthusiasm to his every thought, and filled him
with longings, for the realization of which he hardly dared to hope. For
the time, the commonest actions of the traveller seem to catch something
of the indescribable charm of the land to which he is journeying. The
ticketing of luggage and the securing of a berth on board a
steamer--occupations which are not ordinarily considered particularly
agreeable--become invested with an attractiveness that makes him wonder
how he could ever have found them irksome. If he approaches Italy by
land from France or Switzerland, with what curiosity does he study the
varied features of the Piedmontese landscape! He recognizes the fertile
fields which he read about in Tacitus years ago, and endeavours to find
in the strange dialect which he hears spoken in the brief stops of the
diligence to change horses, something to remind him even faintly of the
melodious tongue with whose accents Grisi and Bosio had long since made
him familiar. Meanwhile his imagination is not idle, and his mind is
filled with historical pictures drawn from the classical pages which he
once found any thing but entertaining. Though he may be fresh from the
cloudless atmosphere of fair Provence, he fancies that the sky is bluer
and the air more pure than he ever saw before.
It is a great advantage to enter Italy from the sea. In this way you
perceive more clearly the national characteristics, and enter at once
into the Italian way of life. You avoid in this way that gradual change
from one pure nationality to another, which is eminently unsatisfactory.
You do not weary yourself with the mixed population and customs of those
border towns which bear about the same relation to Italy that Boulogne,
with its multitude of English residents, bears to France. It was my good
fortune when I first visited Italy, years ago, to make the voyage from
America direct to the proud city of Genoa. Fifty-five weary days passed
away before the end of the voyage was reached. Twenty-six of those days
were spent in battling with a terrible north-easter, before whose might
many a better craft than the one I was in went down into the insatiable
depths. My Italian anticipations kept me up through all the
cheerlessness of that time. The stormy sky, the wet, the cold, and all
the discomfort could not keep from my mind's eye the vineyards, palaces,
churches, and majestic ruins which made up the Italy I had looked
forward to from childhood. My first sight of that romantic land did
somewhat shock, I must acknowledge, my preconceived notions. I was
called on deck early one December morning to see the land which is
associated in most minds with perpetual sunshine. Facing a biting,
northerly blast, I saw the maritime range of the Alps covered with snow
and looking as relentless as arctic icebergs. My disappointment was
forgotten, however, two mornings after, when Genoa, wearing "the beauty
of the morning," lay before our weather-beaten bark. It was something to
remember to my dying day--that approach to the city of palaces.
Surrounded by its amphitheatre of hills crested on every side with heavy
fortifications, its palaces, and towers, and domes, and terraced gardens
rising apparently from the very edge of that tideless sea, there sat
Genoa, surpassing in its splendour the wildest imaginings of my youth. I
shall never forget the thrill that ran through every fibre of my frame,
when the sun rose above those embattled ridges, and poured his flood of
saffron glory over the whole wonderful scene, and the bells from a
hundred churches and convents rang out as cheerily as if the sunbeams
made them musical, like the statue in the ancient fable, and there was
no further need of bell ropes. The astonishment of Aladdin when he
rubbed the lamp and saw the effects of that operation could not have
equalled mine, when I saw Genoa put on the light and life of day like a
garment. It was like a scene in a theatrical pageant, or one of the
brilliant changes in a great firework, so instantaneous was the
transition from the subdued light and calmness of early morning to the
activity and golden light of day. All the discomfort of the eight
preceding weeks was forgotten in the exultation of that moment. I had
found the Italy of my young dreams, and my happiness was complete.
This time, however, I entered Italy from the north. I pass by clean,
prosperous-looking Milan, with its elegant churches, and its
white-coated Austrian soldiers standing guard in every public place. I
have not a word of lament to utter at seeing a stranger force sustaining
social order there. It is better that it should be sustained by a
despotism far more cruel than that of Austria, than to become the prey
of that sanguinary anarchy which is dignified in Europe with the name of
republicanism. The most absolute of all absolute monarchies is to be
preferred to the best government that could possibly be built upon such
a foundation as Mazzini's stiletto. Far better is the severest military
despotism than the irresponsible tyranny of those who deny the first
principles of government and common morality, and who seem to consider
assassination the chief of virtues and the most heroic of actions. I
pass by that magnificent cathedral, with its thousands of pinnacles and
shining statues piercing the clear atmosphere like the peaks of a
stupendous iceberg, and its subterranean chapel, glittering with
precious metals and jewels, where, in a crystal shrine, repose the
relics of the great St. Charles, and the lamps of gold and silver burn
unceasingly, and symbolize the shining virtues of the self-forgetful
successor of St. Ambrose, and the glowing gratitude of the faithful
Milanese for his devotion to the welfare of their forefathers.
I lingered among the attractions of Genoa for a few days. I enjoy not
only those magnificent palaces with their spacious quadrangles, broad
staircases, and sculptured facades, but those narrow, winding streets of
which three quarters of the city are composed--so narrow indeed that a
carriage never is seen in them, and a donkey, pannier-laden, after the
manner of Ali Baba's faithful animal, compels you to keep very close to
the buildings. Genoa is the very reverse of Philadelphia. Its streets
are as narrow and crooked as those of Philadelphia are broad and
straight. The Quaker City was always a wearisome place to me. Its
rectangular avenues--so wide that they afford no protection from the
wintry blast nor shelter from the canicular sunshine, and as
interminable as a tale in a weekly newspaper--tire me out. They make me
long for something more social and natural than their straight lines.
Man is a gregarious animal. It is his nature to snuggify himself. But
the Quaker affects a contempt for snugness, and includes Hogarth's line
of beauty among the worldly vanities which his religion obliges him to
shun. Every time I think of Philadelphia my disrespect for the science
of geometry is increased, and I find myself more and more inclined to
believe the most unkind things that Lord Macaulay can say about Mr.
Penn, its founder. Cherishing such sentiments as these, is it wonderful
that I find Genoa a pleasant city? I enjoy its gay port, its thronged
market place, its sumptuous churches, with gilded vaults and panels, and
checkered exteriors, its well-dressed people, from the bluff coachman,
who laughed at my attempts to understand the Genoese dialect, to the
devout feminines in their graceful white veils, which give the whole
city a peculiarly festive and nuptial appearance: but it must be
acknowledged, that the up-and-down-stairsy feature of the town is not
grateful to my gouty feet.
I must not weary you, dear reader, with any attempts to describe the
delightful four days' journey from Genoa to Florence, in a _vettura_.
The Cornice road, with its steep cliffs or trim villas on one side, and
the clear blue Mediterranean on the other,--those pleasant old towns,
pervaded with an air of respectable antiquity, Chiavari, Sestri,
Sarzana, Spezzia, with its beautiful gulf, whose waters looked so pure
and calm that it was difficult to think that they could ever have
swallowed poor Percy Shelley, and robbed English literature of one of
its brightest ornaments,--Pietra Santa, Carrara, with its queer old
church, its quarries, its doorsteps and window-sills of milk-white
marble, and its throng of artists,--the little marble city of Massa
Ducale, nestling among the mountains,--the vast groves of olives, whose
ash-coloured leaves made noontide seem like twilight,--all these things
would require a great expenditure of time and rhetoric, and therefore I
will not even allude to them.
Neither will I tire you with any reference to my brief sojourn in Pisa.
I will not tell how delightful it was to perambulate the clean streets
of that peaceful city,--how I enjoyed the view from the bridges, the
ancient towers and domes, and the lofty palaces, whose fair fronts are
mirrored in the soft-flowing Arno. I will not attempt to describe the
enchantment produced by that noble architectural group,--the Cathedral,
the Baptistery, the Campanile, and the Campo Santo,--nor the joy I felt
on making a closer acquaintance with that graceful tower, whose
inexplicable dereliction from the perfect uprightness which is
inculcated as a primary duty in all similar structures, was made
familiar to me at an early age, through the medium of a remarkable
wood-cut in my school Geography. I will not tell how I fatigued my sense
with the forms of beauty with which that glorious church is filled,--how
refreshing its holy quiet and subdued light were to my travel-worn
spirit,--nor how the majestic cloisters of the Campo Santo, with their
delicate traceries, antique frescoes, and constantly varying light and
shade, elevated and purified my heart of the sordid spirit of this mean,
practical age, until I felt that to live amid such scenes, and to be
buried at last in the earth of Palestine, under the shade of those
solemn arches, was the only worthy object of human ambition.
I entered Florence late in the afternoon, under cover of a fog that
would have done credit to London in the depths of its November
nebulosity. It was rather an unbecoming dress for the style of beauty of
the Tuscan capital,--that mantle of chill vapour,--but it was worn but a
few hours, and the sun rose the next morning in all his legitimate
splendour, and darted his rays through as clear and frosty an atmosphere
as ever fell to the lot of even that favoured country. I have once or
twice heard the epithet "beautiful" applied to this city; indeed, I will
not be sure that I have not met with it in some book or other. It is, in
fact, the only word that can be used with any propriety concerning this
charming place. It is not vast like Rome, nor is the soul of its
beholder saddened by the sight of mighty ruins, or burdened with the
weight of thousands of years of heroic history. It does not possess the
broad Bay of Naples, nor is it watched over by a stupendous volcano,
smoking leisurely for want of some better occupation. But it lies in the
valley of the Arno, one of the most harmonious and impressive works of
art that the world has ever seen, surrounded by natural beauties that
realize the most ecstatic dreams of poesy.
_Firenze la bella!_ Who can look at her from any of the terraced hills
that enclose her from the rude world, and deny her that title? That
fertile plain which stretches from her very walls to the edge of the
horizon--those picturesque hills, dotted with lovely villas--those
orchards and vineyards, in their glory of gold and purple--that river,
stealing noiselessly to the sea--and far away the hoary peaks of the
Apennines, changing their hue with every hour of sunlight, and
displaying their most gorgeous robes, in honour of the departing day,--I
pity the man who can look upon them without a momentary feeling of
inspiration. The view from Fiesole is consolation enough for a life of
disappointment, and ought to make all future earthly trials seem as
nothing to him who is permitted to enjoy it.
And then, those domes and towers, so eloquent of the genius of Giotto
and Brunelleschi and of the public spirit and earnest devotion of ages
which modern ignorance stigmatizes as "dark,"--who can behold them
without a thrill? The battlemented tower of the Palazzo Vecchio--which
seems as if it had been hewn out of solid rock, rather than built up by
the patient labour of the mason--looks down upon the peaceful city with
a composure that seems almost intelligent, and makes you wonder whether
it appeared the same when the signiory of Florence held their councils
under its massive walls, and in those dark days when the tyrannous
factions of Guelph and Ghibelline celebrated their bloody carnival. The
graceful Campanile of the cathedral, with its coloured marbles, seems
too much like a mantel ornament to be exposed to the changes of the
weather. Amid the other domes and towers of the city rises the vast dome
of the cathedral, the forerunner of that of St. Peter's, and almost its
equal. It appears to be conscious of its superiority to the neighbouring
architectural monuments, and merits Hallam's description--"an emblem of
the Catholic hierarchy under its supreme head; like Rome itself,
imposing, unbroken, unchangeable, radiating in equal expansion to every
part of the earth, and directing its convergent curves to heaven."
There is no city in the world so full of memories of the middle ages as
Florence. Its very palaces, with their heavily barred basement windows,
look as if they were built to stand a siege. Their sombre walls are in
strong contrast with the bloom and sunshine which we naturally associate
with the valley of the Arno. Their magnificent proportions and the
massiveness of their construction oppress you with recollections of the
warlike days in which they were erected. You wonder, as you stand in
their courtyards, or perambulate the streets darkened by their
overhanging cornices, what has become of all the cavaliers; and if a
gentleman in "complete steel" should lift his visor to accost you, it
would not startle you so much as to hear two English tourists with the
inevitable red guide-books under their arms, conversing about the "Grand
Juke." Wherever one may turn his steps in Florence, he meets with some
object of beauty or historical interest; yet among all these charms and
wonders there is one building upon which my eyes and mind are never
tired of feeding. The Palazzo Riccardi, the cradle of the great Medici
family, is not less impressive in its architecture than in its historic
associations. Its black walls have a greater charm for me than the
variegated marbles of the Duomo. It was built by the great Cosmo de'
Medici, and was the home of that family of merchant princes in the most
glorious period of its history, when a grateful people delighted to
render to its members that homage which is equally honourable to "him
that gives and him that takes." The genius of Michel Angelo and
Donatello is impressed upon it. It was within those lofty halls that
Cosmo and his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, welcomed pontiffs and
princes, and the illustrious but untitled nobility of literature and
art, which was the boast of their age. The ancient glories of the
majestic pile are kept in mind by an inscription which greets him who
enters it with an exhortation to "reverence with gratitude the ancient
mansion of the Medici, in which not merely so many illustrious men, but
Wisdom herself abode--a house which was the nurse of revived learning."
I wonder whether any one ever was tired of strolling about these old
streets and squares. At my time of life, walking is not particularly
agreeable, even if it be not interfered with by either of those foes to
active exercise and grace of movement--rheumatism or gout; but I must
acknowledge that I have found such pleasure in rambling through the
familiar streets of this delightful city, that I have taken no note of
bodily fatigue, and have forgotten the crutch or cane which is my
inseparable companion. It is all the same to me whether I walk about the
streets, or loiter in the Boboli Gardens, or listen to the delicious
music of the full military band that plays daily for an hour before
sunset under the shade of the Cascine. They all afford me a kind of
vague pleasure--very much that sort of satisfaction which springs from
hearing a cat purr, or from watching the fitful blaze of a wood fire. I
have no fondness for jewelry, and the great Kohinoor diamond and all the
crown jewels of Russia could not invest respectable uselessness or
aristocratic vice with any beauty for me, nor add any charm to a bright,
intelligent face, such as lights up many a home in this selfish world;
yet I have spent hours in looking at the stalls on the Jeweller's
Bridge, and enjoying the covetous looks bestowed by so many passers-by
upon their glittering contents.
There are some excellent bookstalls here, and I have renewed the joys of
past years and the memory of Paternoster Row, Fleet Street, Holborn, the
Strand, and of the quays of Paris, in the inspection of their stock. I
have a strong affection for bookstalls, and had much rather buy a book
at one than in a shop. In the first place it would be cheaper; in the
second place it would be a little worn, and I should become the
possessor, not only of the volume, but of its associations with other
lovers of books who turned over its leaves, reading here and there,
envying the future purchaser. For books, so long as they are well used,
increase in value as they grow in age. Sir William Jones's assertion,
that "the best monument that can be erected to a man of literary talents
is a good edition of his works," is not to be denied; but who would
think of reading, for the enjoyment of the thing, a modern edition of
Sir Thomas Browne, or Izaak Walton? Who would wish to read Hamlet in a
volume redolent of printers' ink and binders' glue? Who would read a
clean new copy of Robinson Crusoe when he might have one that had seen
service in a circulating library, or had been well thumbed by several
generations of adventure-loving boys? A book is to me like a hat or
coat--a very uncomfortable thing until the newness has been worn off.
It is in the churches of Florence that my enthusiasm reaches its
meridian. This solemn cathedral, with its richly dight windows,--whose
warm hues must have been stolen from the palette of Titian or
Tintoretto,--makes me forget all earthly hopes and sorrows; and the
majestic Santa Maria Novella and San Lorenzo, with their peaceful
cloisters and treasures of literature and art, appeal strongly to my
religious sensibilities, while they completely satisfy my taste. And
then Santa Croce, solemn, not merely as a place of worship, but as the
repository of the dust of many of those illustrious men whose genius
illumined the world during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries! I
have enjoyed Santa Croce particularly, because I have seen more of the
religious life of the Florentine people there. For more than a week I
have been there every evening, just after sunset, when the only light
that illuminated those ancient arches came from the high altar, which
appeared like a vision of heaven in the midst of the thickest darkness
of earth. The nave and aisles of that vast edifice were thronged: men,
women, and children were kneeling upon that pavement which contains the
records of so much goodness and greatness. I have heard great choirs; I
have been thrilled by the wondrous power of voices that seemed too much
like those of angels for poor humanity to listen to; but I have never
before been so overwhelmed as by the hearty music of that vast
multitude.
The galleries of art need another volume and an abler pen than mine.
Free to the people as the sunlight and the shade of the public gardens,
they make an American blush to think of the niggardly spirit that
prevails in the country which he would fain persuade himself is the most
favoured of all earthly abodes. The Academy, the Pitti, the Uffizi, make
you think that life is too short, and that art is indeed long. You wish
that you had more months to devote to them than you have days. Great as
is the pleasure that I have found in them, I have found myself lingering
more fondly in the cloisters and corridors of San Marco than amid the
wonderful works that deck the walls of the palaces. The pencil of Beato
Angelico has consecrated that dead plastering, and given to it a divine
life. The rapt devotion and holy tranquillity of those faces reflect the
glory of the eternal world. I ask no more convincing proof of the
immortality of the soul, than the fact that those forms of beauty and
holiness were conceived and executed by a mortal.
It is enough to excite the indignation of any reflective Englishman or
American to visit Florence, and compare--or perhaps I ought rather to
say contrast--the facts which force themselves upon his attention, with
the prejudices implanted in his mind by early education. Surely, he has
a right to be astonished, and may be excused if he indulges in a little
honest anger, when he looks for the first time at the masterpieces of
art which had their origin in those ages which he has been taught to
consider a period of ignorance and barbarism. He certainly obtains a new
idea of the "barbarism" of the middle ages, when he visits the
benevolent institutions which they have bequeathed to our times, and
when he sees the admirable working of the _Compagnia della
Misericordia_, which unites all classes of society, from the grand duke
to his humblest subject, in the bonds of religion and philanthropy. He
may be pardoned, too, if he comes to the conclusion that the liberal
arts were not entirely neglected in the age that produced a Dante and a
Petrarch, a Cimabue and a Giotto,--not to mention a host of other names,
which may not shine so brightly as these, but are alike superior to
temporal accidents,--and he cannot be considered unreasonable if he
refuses to believe that the ages which witnessed the establishment of
universities like those of Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Prague, Bologna,
Salamanca, Vienna, Ferrara, Ingolstadt, Louvain, Leipsic, &c., were
quite so deeply sunk in darkness, or were held in an intellectual
bondage so utterly hopeless, as the eulogists of the nineteenth century
would persuade him. The monuments of learning, art, and benevolence,
with which Florence is filled, will convince any thinking man that those
who speak of the times I have alluded to as the "dark ages," mean
thereby the ages concerning which they are in the dark; and admirably
exemplify in their own shallow self-sufficiency the ignorance they would
impute to the ages when learning and all good arts were the handmaids of
religion.