keen relish of youth. What have I kept of you? What good seed from your
abundant harvest has ripened in my stony corner of New England? Your
forms have filled and beautified the blank pages of life, for every life
has its actual blanks, which the ideal must fill up, or which else
remain bare and profitless forever. And you are here, my Seggiola, and
you, my Andreas and Peruginos and Raphael; and Guercino's woman in red
still tenderly clasps the knees of the dead Savior. But O! they have
restored this picture, and daubed the faded red with savage vermilion.
Scarcely less ungrateful than the restoration of a beautiful picture is
the attempt to restore, after the busy intervals of travelling, the
precious impressions made by works and wonders of art. The incessant
labor of sight-seeing in Florence left little time for writing up on the
spot, and that little was necessarily given to recording the then recent
recollections of Naples and Rome. It was in Venice that I first tried to
overtake the subject of Florence. It is in Trieste that I sit down and
despair of doing the poorest justice to either. My meagre notes must
help me out; but, in setting them down, I forgot how rapidly and
entirely the material, of which they gave the outline, would disappear.
I thought that I held it, so far as mind possession goes, forever. At
the feast of the gods we think our joys eternal.
On reference to the notes, then, I find that the best Andreas and Fra
Bartolomeos are to be found here, and quite a number of them in the
Pitti. Some of the first Raphaels also are here, and some Titians. The
Seggiola looked to me a little dim under her glass. The Fates of Michael
Angelo were strong and sincere. Two of the Andreas are the largest I
remember, and very finely composed. Each represents some modification of
the Madonna and Saints, subjects of which we grow very weary. Yet one
perceives the necessity of these pictures at the time in which they were
painted. The aesthetic platform of the time would have them, and accepted
little else. A much smaller picture shows us the heads of Andrea and his
beautiful wife, the _Lucia_, made famous by Browning. The two heads look
a little dim now, both with age, and one with sorrow. Raphael's
pictures, seen here in copious connection with those of his
predecessors, appear as the undoubted culmination of the Florentine
school, grandly drawn, and conceived with the subtlest grace and spirit.
The Florentine school, as compared with others, has a great weight of
aesthetic reason behind it. It reminds me of some rare writing in which
what is given you represents much besides itself. The best Peruginos
share this merit, so do, in a different manner, the works of Beato
Angelico, whose wonderful faces deserve their gold background. How to
overtake these supreme merits in the regions of prose and of verse, one
scarcely knows. By combining bold and immediate conception with untiring
energy, unflinching criticism, and a nicety that stops before no
painfulness, one might do it. Life runs like a centiped; one dreams of
being an artist, and dies.
Here it may not be amiss for me to recur to the form of my diary, whose
inartistic jottings will best give the order of my days and movements.
Wednesday, May 29.--Walked to Santa Croce, hearing that a mass was to be
celebrated there for the Florentine victims of '48. When I arrived, the
mass was nearly over; the attendance had been very numerous, and we
found many people still there. Near the high altar were wreaths and
floral trophies. I should be glad to know whether the priests who
celebrated this mass did so with a good will. The ideas of '48 are the
deadly enemies of the absolute and unbounded assumptions of the Roman
papacy and priesthood. I hear that many of the priests desire a more
liberal construction of their office. Would to God it might be so. It is
most mournful that those who stand, in the public eye, for the religion
of the country, should be pledged to a course utterly out of equilibrium
with the religious ideas of the age. Thus religious forms contradict the
spirit and essence of religion, and the established fountain-heads of
improvement shut the door against social and moral amelioration.
In Santa Croce we hastily visited the monument erected to Alfieri by the
Countess of Albany, and the tombs of Machiavelli, Galileo, and Raphael
Morghen. The last has a mural background of florid marble, of a light
red color, with a recumbent figure in white marble, and an elaborate
medallion of the same material, representing the Madonna, infant and
saints. I fully hoped and intended to revisit this venerable and
interesting church, but was never able to do so. It has lately received,
as all the world knows, a fine front in pure white marble, adorned by
bas-reliefs executed by the popular sculptor Fedi. In the square before
the church stands the new statue of Dante, which I found graceful, but
not grandiose, nor indeed characteristic. The face bears no trace of the
great poem; the awe and dignity of super-human visions do not appear in
its lines. He, making hell and heaven present to our thoughts, did a far
deeper and more difficult work than those accomplished who made their
material semblance present to our eyes.
The remainder of this morning we devoted to the gallery of the Uffizi,
the artistic _pendant_ of the Pitti. We hastily make its circuit with a
friend who points out to us the portraits of Alfieri and the Countess of
Albany, his lady and companion. The head of Alfieri is bold and
striking, the hair red, the temperament showing more of the northern
energy than of the southern passion. The sobriety of his works and
laborious character of his composition also evince this. The countess,
painted from mature life, shows no very marked characteristic. Hers is
the face of an intelligent woman, but her especial charm does not appear
in this portrait.
The Uffizi collection appears to have been at once increased and
rearranged during the three and twenty years of our absence. We find the
Niobides grouped in an order different from that in which we remember
them. The portrait gallery of modern artists is for us a new feature,
and one which, alas! we have not time to study, seeing that the great
_chefs-d'oeuvres_ imperiously challenge our attention, and that our
time is very short for them. We spend a dreamy hour in the Tribune,
whose very circumscription is a relief. Here we are not afraid of
missing anything. This _etui_ of gems is so perfectly arranged and
inventoried that the absence of any one of them would at once be
perceived. Here stands the Venus, in incomparable nudity. Here the Slave
still sharpens his instrument--the classic Boxers hold each other in
close struggle. Raphael, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Carlo Dolce, are all
here in concentration. You can look from one to the other, and read the
pictorial language of their dissents and arguments. A splendid Paul
Veronese, in half figures, merits well its place here. It represents a
Madonna and attendant female saint: the hair and costumes are of the
richest Venetian type; and though the crinkles of the one and the
stripes of the other scarcely suggest the fashions of Palestine, they
make in themselves a very gorgeous presentment. In the other rooms we
remember some of the finest Raphaels, a magnificent Perugino, Sodoma's
beautiful St. Sebastian, a famous Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth, by
Albertinelli, a very tipsy and impudent Silenus by Rubens, with other
pictures of his which I cannot characterize. The Vandykes were all hung
too high to be well seen. They did not seem nearly so fine as the
Vandykes in the Brignoli Palace in Genoa. Here are some of Beato
Angelico's finest works, among others his famous triptych, from whose
bordering of miniature angels so many copies are constantly made. Here
is also a well-known Leonardo da Vinci, as well as Raphael's portraits
of Leo Tenth, attended by a cardinal and another dignitary. A narrow
gallery is occupied by numerous marble alto relievos by Luca della
Robbia and Donatello; here is also a marble bas-relief of the Madonna
and Child, the work of the great Michael.
By knocking at a side door you gain admittance into a small chamber,
whose glass cases contain works of art in gold, crystal, and precious
stones. Here is a famous cup, upon whose cover a golden Hercules
encounters the many heads of the Hydra, brilliant with varied enamels,
the work of Benvenuto Cellini. Miniature busts in agate and jasper,
small columns of the same materials,--these are some of the features
which my treacherous memory records. It has, however, let slip most of
what is precious and characteristic in this collection. The Uffizi
demands at least a week's study for even the slightest sketch of its
contents. We had but a week for all Florence, and tasted of the great
treasure only on this day, and a subsequent one still more hurried. In
remembrance, therefore, we can only salute it with a free confession of
our insufficiency.
Thursday.--A _dies non_ for the galleries. It was a Festa, and they were
all closed. So was the Bargello. The Boboli gardens were not open till
noon, at which time the heat made them scarcely occupable. We visited
the Church of San Michele, which was formerly a Loggia, or building with
open sides and arches, like others still existing in various parts of
the city. The filling up of these open arches changed it into a church.
They tell us that it is to be reconverted into a Loggia, to answer the
present necessities of the over-crowded city. Here we found a curious
tabernacle, carved in marble--a square enclosure, with much detail of
execution, and, on the whole, a Gothic effect. Tombs, monuments, and old
mosaic pavement this temple also contains; but I cannot recall its
details.
The afternoon of this day we employed partly in a visit to the two tombs
beside which American feet will be sure to pause. Here, in this
sculptured sarcophagus, sleeps the dust of E. B. B. Here, beneath this
granite cross, lie the remains of Theodore Parker. At the first, I
seemed to hear the stifled sobs that mourned a private sorrow too great
to take account of the public loss. For what she gave the world, rich
and precious as it was, was less than that inner, unalienable jewel
which she could not give but in giving herself. And he who had both, the
singer and her song, now goes through the world interrogating the ranks
of womanhood for her peer. Seek it not! She was unique. She died and
left no fellow.
A soberer _cortege_, probably, followed Theodore to his final
resting-place. The grief of poets is ecstatic, and cannot be thought of
without dramatic light and shade, imagined, if not known of. A
sorrowing, patient woman, faithful through all reverses, stood beside
the grave of the great preacher, the mighty disputant. She remembered
that it had always been peace between her and this church militant. From
every raid, every foray, into the disputed grounds of theory and
opinion, she kept open for him a return to the orthodoxy of domestic
life. The basis of his days was a calm, well-ordered household, whose
doors were opened or shut in accordance with his desire of the moment.
Would he receive his whole congregation, or a meeting of the clergy, or
a company more mixed and fashionable? The simple, well-appointed rooms
were always in order; the lights were always clear; the carpets swept;
the books and engravings in nice order. The staid New England
women-servants brought in the refreshments, excellent of their kind, and
carefully selected for their suitableness to the occasion. The wife sat
or moved unobtrusively among her guests; but she loved Theodore's
friends, and made his visitors welcome. If Theodore had war without, and
it became his business to have it, he had ever peace within. And this it
was pleasant and exemplary to remember, standing beside his grave.
How often have I, in thought, linked these two graves together, striving
to find a middle term or point of meeting for them both! The distant
image of the spot was sacred and dear to me. The person of the one, the
character of the other, were fixed among my affections. For let me say
here that though I have criticised Parker's theology, adopting neither
his methods nor his conclusions, of Parker himself I have never ceased
to think as of a person with a grand and earnest scope, of large powers
and generous nature. He was tender in large and in little, a sympathist
in practice as well as a philanthropist in theory. My heart still warms
and expands at the remembrance of what he was in the pulpit and at the
fireside. Nor was he the less a stern moralist because he considered the
ordinary theories of sin as unjust and insufficient. No one would better
console you for a sin deplored, no one could more forcibly deprecate a
sin contemplated. He painted his time more wicked than it was, and saw
it so. A modern Dante, all in the force of prose, E. B. B. lies here
like the sweet Beatrice, who was at hand when the cruel task of
criticism was over, to build before the corrected vision of the great
pilgrim the silvery shrines and turrets of the New Jerusalem. So will we
leave them--a lesser Dante, a greater Beatrice, and one who has borne
record of herself.
VENICE.
Venice, which I seek to hold fast, is already a thing of yesterday.
"Haste is of the devil," truly says the Koran, whose prophet yet knew
its value. But the strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as those
of the sword need swiftness. Strength goes with Time, and skill against
him.
Little of either had I after a night in the cars between Florence and
Venice,--hot, dusty Florence, and cool, glassy Venice,--a night of
starts and stops, morsels of sleep set in large frames of uneasy waking.
The steep ascent of the Apennines is only partially descried through the
darkness. It begins at Pistoia, and when it ends, Pistoia lies
vertically under you, at the bottom of what seems in the darkness an
abyss, in which its lights shine brightly. Tunnels there are in plenty
on this road, and one of these threatens us with suffocation. For the
engine was unduly replenished with coal at Pistoia in view of the hard
task before it, and the undigested food vented itself in unwholesome
gases, which the constraints of the tunnel drove in upon us, filling the
lungs with mephitic stuff which caused them to ache for more than an
hour afterwards. This part of the journey was made pleasant to us by the
presence of a Venetian lady, handsome, intelligent, and cordial. At
Bologna we lost her, making also a long stop. The hour was three in the
morning; the place, a bare railroad depot. The hour passed there would
not have been patiently endured by an American public. But Italians
endure every possible inconvenience from the railway management, which
is clearly conducted on _pessimistic_ principles. On reaching the cars
again, another pleasant companion shortened the time with easy
conversation. Not but that we dozed a little after the weary night; and
the priest in the opposite compartment fell asleep over his morning
prayers. But my new companion and I made our way through a shoal of
general remarks to the _terra firma_ of a mutual acquaintance, in whose
praises both of us grew warm. And at length we began to see marshes, and
waters, and a fortress. "That is Venice," said the captain; and I
replied with sincere surprise, "Is it possible?" For Venice, as
approached by the railroad, makes no impression, presents no _coup
d'oeil_. And this marks a precaution for which the devisers of
railroads in this country may deserve praise. Being pure men of
business, and not sentimentalists, they do not wish to find themselves
mixed up with any emotions consequent upon the encounter of the sublime
and beautiful. They cannot become responsible for any enthusiasm. And
so, in their entrances and exits, they sedulously avoid the picturesque,
and lead the traveller into no temptation towards stopping and lingering
by the way. Of two possible routes, they, on principle, choose the more
prosaic; so that the railroad traveller nowhere gets less beauty for his
money than in this same Italy, the flower-garden of the world.
The arrival even in Venice becomes, therefore, vulgar and commonplace in
their management. And soon one gets one's luggage out of the clutches of
guardians and porters, and cheaply, in an omnibus gondola, one swashes
through a great deal of middling water, landing finally at Hotel
Barbesi, where breakfast and the appliances of repose are obtained.
We did not prudently devote this first day to sleep, as we ought to have
done. The energy of travel was still in us, and we aroused ourselves,
and went forth. The _valet de place_, with high cheek-bones, a fresh
color, and vivacious eyes, led us on foot to the Place and Cathedral of
St. Mark, the Ducal Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, and prisons of the
condemned. We visited the great council-halls, superb with fretted
gilding, and endless paintings by Tintoretto and Bellini. We saw the
Lion's Mouth, into which anonymous accusations were dropped; the room of
the Ten; the staircase all in white and gold, sacred to the feet of
Doge and Dogaressa alone. As magnificent as is the palace, so miserable
are the prisons, destitute of light, and almost of air--a series of
small, close parallelograms, with a small hole for a window, opening
only into a dark corridor, containing each a stony elevation, on which,
perhaps, a pallet of straw was placed. Heaven forbid that the blackest
criminal of our day should confront the justice of God with so poor a
report to make of the mercy of man! In the dreaminess of our fatigue, we
next visited a bead factory, and inspected some of its delicate
operations. And then came the _table d'hote_, and with it a little whiff
of toilet and hotel breeding, sufficiently irksome and distasteful. In
the evening there was to be a Fresco, or procession of gondolas on the
great canal, with lanterns and music, in honor of Prince Plomplon, who
was at Danieli's hotel. Uncertain whether to engage a gondola or not, I
sat in the garden balcony of Barbesi's, immediately over the canal. I
saw the gondolas of high society flit by, gay with flags and colored
lanterns, the gondoliers in full livery. Their attitude in rowing is
singular. They stand slanting forward, so that one almost expects to see
them fall on their faces. In the gondola, however, one becomes aware of
the skill and nicety with which they impel and guide their weird-looking
vehicles.
The Fresco was to be at nine o'clock; but by an hour earlier the
gondolas were frequent. And soon a bark, with lanterns and a placard
announcing an association of artists, stopped beneath our balcony, while
its occupants, with vigorous lungs, shouted a chorus or two in the
Venetian dialect. The effect was good; but when one of the singers asked
for a "_piccola bottiglia_" and proceeded, hat in hand, to collect from
each of us a small contribution, we felt that such an act was rather
compromising for the artists. In truth, these men were artisans, not
artists; but the Italian language has but one word for the two meanings,
contriving to distinguish them in other ways.
The stream of gondolas continued to thicken on the canal, and at nine
o'clock, or thereabouts, a floating theatre made its appearance--a large
platform, brilliantly lighted, and bearing upon it a numerous orchestra
and chorus. The _chef d'orchestre_ was clearly visible as he passed,
energetically dividing the melody and uniting the performers. This
lovely music floated up and down the quiet waters, many lesser lights
clustering around the greater ones. Comparison seems to be the great
trick of descriptive writing; but I, for my part, cannot tell what the
Fresco was like. It was like nothing that I have ever seen.
And I saw it in the intervals of a leaden stupor; for, after the
sleepless night and active day, the quiet of Barbesi's balcony was too
much for me. Fain would I have hired a gondola, have gone forth to
follow the musical crusade, albeit that to homage a Napoleon be small
business for an American. But by a new sort of centaurship, my chair and
I were that evening one, and the idea of dividing the two presented
itself only in the light of an impossibility. Roused by the
exclamations of those about me, I awoke from time to time, and
mechanically took note of what I have here described, returning to sleep
again, until a final wrench, like the partition of soul and body, sent
me with its impetus to the end of all days--bed.
The fatigue of this day made itself severely felt in the waking of the
next morning. Shaking off a deadly stupor and dizziness, I arose and
armed for the day's warfare. My first victim was the American consul,
who, at the sight of a formidable letter of introduction, surrendered at
discretion. Annexing the consul, I bore him in triumph to my gondola,
but not until I had induced him to find me a lodging, which he did
speedily; for of Barbesi and many francs _per diem_ I had already
enough, and preferred charities nearer home to that of enriching him. I
do, moreover, detest hotel life, and the black-coated varlets that
settle, like so many flies, upon your smallest movement. I have more
than once intrenched myself in my room, determining to starve there
rather than summon in the imps of the bell. With the consul's aid, which
was, I must say, freely given, I secured to myself the disposal of a
snug bedroom and parlor, with a balcony leading into a music-haunted
garden, full of shiny foliage, mostly lemon and myrtle trees, having
also a convenient access to the grand canal. After this, we proceeded to
the Church of the Frari, rich with the two monuments of Titian and
Canova. Both are architectural as well as sculptural. That of Canova is
a repetition of his own model, executed in the well-known Vienna
monument, with the addition, I thought, of a winged lion and one or two
figures not included in the other. The monument of Titian stands
opposite to that already described. The upper portion of it presents a
handsome facade enclosed in three arches, each of which contains a
bas-relief of one of his great pictures. The middle one presents the
Assumption, in sculpture; that on the right the Entombment of Christ;
that on the left the St. Peter Martyr--the picture itself being in the
sacristy of the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The Frari also
contains a curious and elaborate monument to a doge whose name I forget.
Above sits the doge in his ducal chair; below, four black slaves clad in
white marble, their black knees showing through their white trousers,
support the upper part of the monument upon their heads. Two bronze
Deaths, between the doge and the slaves, bear each a scroll in white
marble, with long inscriptions, which we did not read. The choir was
adorned with the usual row of seats, richly carved in black walnut. From
this rich and interesting temple we passed to the Academia delle belle
Arti.