which took place in these days. I do not even find in its irregular
columns any mention of a franc which I am sure I paid to the porter, and
which, I faintly hope, has been put to my credit elsewhere. Despite this
absence of _pieces justificatives_, the visit still remains so freshly
in my memory that I may venture to speak of it. The elder neophyte not
having been with us before in Venice, the convent was new ground to her.
We who had already seen it felt much more at home on the occasion of our
second visit than of our first. For Padre Giacomo had answered our
invasion by a friendly call; and did we not now know him to be a most
genial and hospitable person? Had we not, moreover, made ourselves
familiar with his religion, on our late voyage, by frequent converse
with two priests of his profession? Did I not possess Father Michel's
views concerning the _demonio_, as well as his version of the Book of
Job? And of Pere Isaak did I not know the polished, uncommunicative side
which covered his intimate convictions, whatever they may have been? The
Armenian ladies, too,--had they not made me free of the guild? One of
them had shown me her prayer-book. The other, being but fifteen years of
age, had no prayer-book. So, with an assured step, we entered the sacred
parlor, and demanded news of Padre Giacomo, and of his monkey. And the
father came, smiling a little better than before, but with a sweet
Oriental gravity. And he showed us again the library, and hall, and
chapel, with the refectory, from whose cruel pulpit one brother is set
to read while the others feast. We saw again the printing presses,
worked by hand. And in the sacristy he commanded two of the younger
brethren to bring the chiefest embroidered garments, reserved for high
occasions, judging of us unjustly by our sex. And these satin and velvet
wonders were, indeed, embossed with lambs, and birds, and flowers, in
needlework of silver and gold, and of various colors, meet for the necks
of them that divide the spoil. And we saw also a very fine mummy, as
black, and dried, and wizened, as any old Pharaoh could be. A splendid
bead covering lay over him, in open rows of blue and white, with
hieroglyphic-looking men in black and yellow. This covering had been
lately cleaned and repaired at the glass-works of Murano, as Padre
Giacomo recounted with pride. He showed us in the old part of the work
some curious double beads, which Venice itself, he said, was unable to
imitate. The colors were as fresh and clear as if the mummy had clothed
himself from the last fancy fair, with a description of afghan well
suited to the Egyptian climate.
Having done justice to this human preserve, the padre now regaled us
with a preparation of rose leaves embalmed in sugar. He also bestowed
upon us one of the convent publications, a tolerable copy of verses
composed on the spot itself by the late Louis of Bavaria, celebrating
its calm and retirement. I myself could have responded to the royal
_suspiria_ with one distich.
"Here no people comes to beg thee,
Here no Lola comes to plague thee."
As we passed from the building to the garden, the wicked monkey, chained
and lying in wait, sprang at my hat, and, snatching my lilac veil, bore
it off with a flying leap of animal grace and malice. Padre Giacomo
anxiously apologized for his pet's misconduct, which was certainly
surprising. But the monkey's education, as every one knows, is
dependent, not upon precept, but upon example, and Padre Giacomo's
example, to the monkey, was only a negative. We parted from our
cloistered friend, sincerely desiring, if not hoping, to see him again.
Of our last day in fairest Venice the diary gives this meagre account:--
Sunday, August 4. Early to Piazza, where we encountered the Bishop of
Rhode Island. At San Marco's, visited Luccati's beautiful mosaics in
the sacristy. The three figures over the door are especially
fine--Madonna in the middle, and a saint on either side. A colossal
cross adorns the ceiling, and the wall on one side is occupied by
figures of twelve prophets; on the other, by the twelve disciples. The
cross almost seems to bloom with beautiful devices. Luccati was
imprisoned, they say, in the Piombi.
To the Italian Protestant service, held in a good hall in the
neighborhood of the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. The hall was densely
crowded. I found no seat, and barely room to stand. The audience seemed
a mixed one, so far as worldly position goes, but was entirely
respectable in aspect and demeanor, the masculine element largely
predominating. Signor Comba, a young man, is quite eloquent and taking.
He delivers himself clearly, and with energy. He criticised at some
length the unchristian doctrines of the Romish church--this is part of
his work.
The service ended, I passed into the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo, and
enjoyed my visit unusually. The vivid light of the day and hour made
many of the monuments appear new to me. The doges in this, as in other
churches, are stowed away on shelves, like mummies. Found a monument to
Doge Sterno, dated early in the fifteenth century, and beside it the
effigy of a youth designated as Aloysius Trevisano, aet. 23, deeply
regretted, and commemorated for his attainments in Greek, Latin, and
philosophy. The figure is recumbent, the face of a high and refined
character, with the unmistakable charm of youth impressed upon it. The
date is also of the fifteen century. From the church to the sacristy, to
take a last look at the two pictures, Titian's Death of St. Peter,
martyr, and a fine Madonna of Gian Bellini. The Titian was glorious
to-day. It has great life and action. The Dominican in the foreground,
who has his arm raised as if appealing to heaven and earth against the
barbarous act, seems to have communicated a touch of his passion to the
two cherubs above, who bear the martyr palm. They are stormy little
cherubs, and seem in haste to bring in sight the recompense of so much
suffering.
Of the Protestant preaching I will once more and finally say, that it is
a genuine missionary work, and commend it to the good wishes and good
offices of those whose benefactions do not fear to cross the ocean. May
it permanently thrive and prosper.
Of the pictures I can only say, that I doubly congratulate myself on
having paid them my last homage before leaving Titian's lovely city.
For, not long after, a cruel fire broke out in or near that sacristy,
precious with carvings in wood and marble bas-reliefs; and all the
treasures were destroyed, including the two pictures, only temporarily
bestowed there, and many square yards of multitude by Tintoretto,
bearing, as usual, his own portrait in a sly corner, representative, no
doubt, of his wish to watch the effect of his masterpieces upon humanity
at large. The Madonna by Bellini was a charming picture, but the St.
Peter is a loss that concerns the world. The saint, one hopes, has been
comfortable in Paradise these many years. But the artist? What Paradise
would console him for the burning of one of his _chefs-d'oeuvre_? He
would be like Rachel weeping for her children, which reminds me that
ideal parentage is of no sex. The artist, the poet, the reformer, are
father and mother, all in one.
We left Venice, the diary tells me, on the 5th of August, with what
regret we need not say. The same venerable authority records a grave
disagreement with the custom-house officers, of whose ministrations we
had received no previous warning. So, two very modest pieces of dress
goods, delayed in the making, caused me to be branded as a
_contrabandista_, with a fine, and record to my discredit. I confess to
some indecorous manifestations of displeasure at these circumstances.
The truth is, forewarned is forearmed. Venice is a free port, and the
traveller who leaves her by railroad for the first time may not be aware
of the strict account to which he will be held for every little
indulgence in Venetian traffic. Now, to have the spoons presented to you
in the house, and to be arrested as a thief when you would pass the
door, is a grievous ending to a hospitable beginning. So it came to pass
that I anathematized beautiful Venice as I departed, gathering up the
broken fragments of my peace, past diamond cement. But here, in
trunk-upsetting Boston, I bethink me, and confess. I was wrong, utterly
wrong, O custom-house officers, when I frowned and stormed at you,
contending inch by inch and phrase by phrase. You were neither unjust
nor uncivil, although I was both. Only I still attest and obsecrate to
the fact that I did not intend to smuggle, and entered your jealous
domain with no sense of contraband about me. Yet to such wrath did your
perquisitions bring me, that the angry thoughts slackened only at
Verona, where the tombs of the Scaligers and the rounds of the
amphitheatre compelled me to quiet small distempers with great thoughts.
At railroad speed, however, we visited these rare monuments. Can Grande
and his horse looked flat and heavy from their eminence. We admired the
beautiful iron screen of one of the tombs, hammer-wrought, and flexible
as a shirt of mail. And we remembered Dante, paid two francs to the
guardian of the enclosure, and drove away. The afternoon's journey
whirled us past some strange antique towns, with walls and battlements,
and at night we were in Bolsena, Germanice _Bottsen_. And when we asked
the hotel maid if she had ever been in Verona, she replied, "O, no; that
is in Italy." And so we knew that we were not.
FLYING FOOTSTEPS.
The journey which we now commenced was too rapid to allow of more than
the briefest record of its route. The breathlessness of haste, and the
number of things to be seen and visited, left no time for writing up on
the subjects suggested by the meagre notes of the diary. To the latter,
therefore, I am forced to betake myself, piecing its fragmentary
statements, where I can do so, from memory.
Tuesday, August 6. Started with vetturino for Innspruck, via Brenner
pass. A splendid day's journey. Stopped to dine at a pretty
village,--name forgotten,--at whose principal inn a smart, bustling
maid-servant in costume, very clean and civil, came to the carriage,
helped us to alight, and carried our travelling bags up stairs to a
parlor with a stout bed in it, upon which our chief threw himself and
slept until the cutlets were ready. This old-fashioned zeal and civility
were pleasant to contemplate once more, probably for the last time. For
a railroad has been built over the Brenner pass, the which will go into
operation next week. Then will these pleasant manners insensibly fade
away, with the up-to-time curtness of modern travel. The porter who
helps you to carry your hand luggage from the car to the depot will
sternly demand his fee for that laborious service. All officials will
grow as reticent of doing you the smallest pleasure as if civility were
a contraband of war. And it does indeed become so, for the railroad
develops the antagonisms of trade. Its flaming sword allows of no
wanderings in wayside Paradises. Its steam trumpet shrieks in your ear
the lesson that the straight line is the shortest distance between two
points. It swallows you at one point and vomits you at another, with
extreme risk of your life between. And it vulgarizes every place that it
touches. The mixed stir and quiet of the little town become concentrated
into fixed crises of excitement. For the postilion's horn and whip, and
the pleasant rattling of the coming and going post-chaise, you will
have, three or four times in the day, those shrill bars whose infernal
symphony is mercifully allowed to proceed no farther; and a cross and
steaming crowd; and a cool and supercilious few in the first or second
class _wart-saal_; and then a dull and dead quiet in the little town, as
if steam and stir came and went together, and left nothing behind them.
The buxom maid-servant mourned over the impending ruin of the small
tavern business, as she showed us the curious arrangements of the old
house. It had formerly been a convent of nuns, and was very solidly put
together. The back windows commanded a lovely view of the mountains. In
the garden we found a pleasant open house, no doubt formerly a place for
devout assemblages and meditations, but now chiefly devoted to the
consumption of beer.
After dinner we walked to the church near by, and looked at the curious
iron crosses and small mural tablets which marked the final
resting-place of the village worthies. Their petty offices and cherished
distinctions were all preserved here. All of them had received the "holy
death sacrament," and had started on the mysterious voyage in good hope.
Through this whole extent of country, the crucifixes by the wayside were
numerous. Resuming our journey, we reached Mittelwald, a picturesque
hamlet, composed of a small church, a stream, a bridge, and a short
string of houses. Here we defeated the future machinations of all
officers of customs, by causing the two offending dress-patterns,
already twice paid for, and treated at length in various printed and
written documents, to be cut into breadths, which we hastily managed to
sew up, reserving their fuller treatment for the purlieus of civilized
life.
Our two days' drive over the mountains was refreshing and most charming.
Our vetturino was not less despondent than the maid-servant before
alluded to. In our progress we were much in sight of the scarcely
completed railroad, whose locomotive and working cars constantly
appeared and disappeared before us, plunging into the numerous tunnels
that defeat the designs of the mountain fortresses, and mocking our slow
progress, as the money-getting train of success and sensation mocks the
tedious steps of learning and the painful elaboration of art.
"This is my last journey," said the vetturino; "the railway opens on
Monday of next week."
"What will you do thereafter?" I inquired.
"Sell all out, and go to work as I can," he answered; adding, however,
"In case you should intend going as far as Munich by carriage, I beg to
be honored,"--of which the Yankee rendering would be, "I shouldn't mind
putting you through."
This, however, was hardly to be thought of, and at Innspruck we took
leave of this honest and polite man, whose species must soon become
extinct, whether he survive or no. Here recommenced for us the prosaic
chapter of the railroad. Our route, however, for a good part of the way,
lay within sight of the mountains. The depots at which we took fiery
breath were in the style of Swiss chalets, quite ornamental in
themselves, and further graced by vines and flowers. The travellers we
encountered were not commonplacely cosmopolite. The young women were
often in Tyrolese costume, wearing gilt tassels on their broad, black
felt hats. We encountered parties of archers going to attend shooting
matches, attired in picturesque uniforms of green and gold. At the
depots, too, we encountered a new medium of enlivenment. We were now in
a land of beer, and foaming glasses were offered to us in the cars, and
at the railway buffets. Mild and cheerful we found this Bavarian
beverage,--less verse-inspiring than wine,--and valuable as tending to
reduce the number of poets who tease the world by putting all its
lessons into rhymes, chimes, and jingles. Whatever we ourselves may have
done, it is certain that our companions of both sexes embraced these
frequent opportunities of refreshment, and that the color in their
cheeks and the tone of their good-natured laughter were heightened by
the same. One of these, a young maiden, told us how she had climbed the
mountain during four hours of the day before, visiting the huts of the
cowherds, who, during summer, pasture their cows high up on the green
slopes. The existence of these people she described as hard and solitary
in the extreme. The rich butter and cheese they make are all for the
market. They themselves eat only what they cannot sell, according to the
rule whereby small farmers live and thrive in all lands. The young girl
wore in her hat a bunch of the blossom called _edelweiss_, which she had
brought from her lofty wanderings. It is held in great esteem here, and
is often offered for sale.
In the afternoon we turned our back upon the mountains. A flat land lay
before us, green and well tilled. And long before sunset we saw the
spires of Munich, and the lifted arm of the great statue of Bavaria. Our
arrival was prosperous, and through the streets of the handsome modern
city we attained the quiet of an upper chamber in a hotel filled with
Americans.
MUNICH.
Our two days in Munich were characterized by the most laborious
sight-seeing. A week, even in our rapid scale of travelling, would not
have been too much for this gorgeous city. We gave what we had, and
cannot give a good account of it.
My first visit was to the Pinakothek, which I had thoroughly explored
some twenty-three years earlier, when the galleries of Italy and the
Louvre were unknown to me. Coming now quite freshly from Venice, with
Rome and Florence still recent in my experience, I found the Munich
gallery less grandiose than my former remembrance had made it. The diary
says, "The Rubenses are the best feature. I note also two fine heads by
Rembrandt, and a first-rate Paris Bordone--a female head with golden
hair and dark-red dress; four peasant pictures by Murillo, excellent in
their kind, quite familiar through copies and engravings; some of the
best Albert Duerers. The Italian pictures not all genuine. None of the
Raphaels, I should say, would be accepted as such in Italy. The Fra
Angelicos not good. Two good Andrea del Sartos; a Leonardo da Vinci,
which seems to me a little caricatured; a room full of Vander Wertes,
very smooth and finely finished; many Vandycks, scarcely first rate."
The afternoon of this day we devoted to the Glyptothek, or gallery of
sculpture. Here our first objects of interest were the AEginetan marbles,
whose vacant places we had so recently seen on the breezy height of the
temple from which they were taken.
We found these rough, and attesting a period of art far more remote than
that of the Elgin marbles. They are arranged in the order in which they
stood before the pediment of the temple, a standing figure of Minerva in
the middle, the other figures tapering off on either side, and ending
with two seated warriors, the feet of either turned towards the outer
angle of his side of the pediment. All seemed to have belonged to a
dispensation of ugliness; they reminded us of some of the Etruscan
sculptures.
This gallery possesses a famous torso called the Ilioneus, concerning
which Mrs. Jamieson rhapsodizes somewhat in her Munich book. The
Barberini Faun, too, is among its treasures. As my readers may not be
acquainted with the artistic antecedents of this statue, I will subjoin
for their benefit the following narration, which I abridge from the
"Ricordi" of the Marquis Massimo d' Azeglio, recently published.
At the time of the French domination in Italy, the Roman nobles were
subjected to the levying of heavy contributions. The inconvenience of
these requisitions often taxed the resources of the wealthiest families,
and led to the sale of furniture, jewels, and the multifarious
denomination of articles classed together as _objets d'art_. Among
others, the Barberini family, in their palace at the Quattro Fontane,
exposed for sale various antiquitties, and especially the torso of a
male figure, of Greek execution and in Pentelican marble, a relic of the
palmy days of Hellenic art.
A certain sculptor, Cavalier Pacetti, purchased this last fragment, sold
at auction for the sum of seven or eight hundred dollars. The arms and
legs were wholly wanting--the narrator is uncertain as to the head.
Pacetti had made this purchase with the view of restoring the mutilated
statue to entireness. He proceeded to model for himself the parts that
were wanting, and in time produced the sleeping figure known as the
Barberini Faun.
This work was esteemed a great success. Besides the value of its long
and uncertain labor must be mentioned the difficulty of matching the
original marble. To effect this the artist was obliged to purchase and
destroy another Greek statue, of less merit, whose marble supplied the
material for the restoration.
In the mean time the Napoleonic era had passed away; the pope had
returned to Rome. Foreigners from all parts now flocked to the Eternal
City, and to one of these Pacetti sold his work for many thousands of
dollars. Before it could be packed and delivered, however, a
governmental veto annulled the sale, directing the artist to restore the
statue to the Barberini family, under the plea of its being subject to a
_fidei commissa_, and offering him the sum of money expended by him in
the first purchase, together with such further compensation for his
labor and materials as a committee of experts should award.
The unfortunate Pacetti resisted this injustice to the extent of his
ability. He demonstrated the sale of the torso to have been made without
reserve, the money for its purchase to have been raised by him with
considerable effort. The further expense of the secondary statue was a
heavy item. As an artist, he could not allow any one but himself to set
a price upon his work.
In spite of these arguments, the Barberinis, remembering that possession
is nine points of the law, managed to confiscate the statue by armed
force. Before this last measure, however, a mandate informed the artist
that the pitiful sum offered to him in exchange (not in compensation)
for his work, had been placed in the bank, subject to his order, and
that from this sum a steady discount would mark every day of his delay
to close with the shameful bargain.
Pacetti now fell ill with a bilious fever, the result of this bitter
disappointment. His recovery was only partial, and his death soon
followed. His sons commenced and continued a suit against the Barberini
family. They obtained a favorable judgment, but did not obtain their
property, which the Barberinis sold to the King of Bavaria.
I have thought it worth while to quote this history of a world-renowned
work of art. I do not know that a more perfect and successful
combination of modern with ancient art exists than that achieved in
this Munich Faun. The mutilated honor of the Barberini name is, we
should fear, beyond restoration by any artist.
The Glyptothek closed much too soon for us. With the exception of the
sculptures just enumerated, it possesses nothing that can compete in
interest with the noted Italian galleries, or perhaps with the Louvre.
But the few valuables that it has are first rate of their kind, and it
contains many duplicates of well-known subjects. The building and
arrangements are very elegant, and seem to cast a certain pathos over
the follies of the old king, to whom it owes its origin, making one more
sorry than angry that one who knew the Graces so well should not have
fraternized more with the Virtues. The AEginetan Minerva is stern and
hideous, however, and may have exercised an unfortunate influence over
her _protege_.
We closed the labors of this day by visiting the colossal statue of
Bavaria, who, with a strange hospitality, throws open her skull to the
public. The external effect of the figure is not grandiose, and the
sudden slope of the ground in front makes it very difficult to get a
good view of it. With the help of a lamp, and in consideration of a
small fee, we ascended the spinal column, and made ourselves comfortable
within the sacred precincts of phrenology. The circulation, however,
soon became so rapid as to produce a pressure at the base of the brain.
Calling to the guardian below to impede for the moment all further
ascent, we flowed down, and the congestion was relieved. Of this statue
an artist once said to us, "As for such a thing as the Munich Bavaria,
the bigger it is, the smaller it is"--a saying not unintelligible to
those who have seen it.
Our remaining day we devoted, in the first place, to the new Pinakothek.
Here we saw a large picture, by Kaulbach, representing the fall of
Jerusalem. Although full of historical and artistic interest, it seemed
to me less individual and remarkable than his cartoons. A series of
small pictures by the same artist appeared quite unworthy of his great
powers and reputation. They were exceedingly well executed, certainly,
but poorly conceived, representing matters merely personal to artistic
and other society in Munich, and of little value to the world at large.