suffered, but a longer interval has elapsed, and there are no houses
propt up, though there are many half ruined. The cathedral is a large
building of Norman times. The front displays a sort of Italian Gothic,
with a little modernization, the whole forming a very poor composition.
In the flank is the ornamented window, published from Mr. Smirke’s
drawings, in the Archæologia, which has excited so much controversy; but
it is evidently an addition, and probably of the fifteenth century. The
inside is divided into three naves by two ranges, each of twelve antique
columns. They are not all of a size, but on an average may be considered
as about five diameters apart. These are the spoils of more ancient
structures, but the capitals are of the date of the church. The bases
are all Attic, badly shaped, but without any indications of the Gothic
taste. Two are new, and one of these is decidedly the worst in the
church. In the choir, the half dome is covered with an early mosaic. The
effect of this arrangement, _i. e._ of a double colonnade leading to an
enriched recess, is as usual, very fine, though many of the details are
bad. A well proportioned range of pilasters and arches of the _cinque
cento_ occupies part of the side-aisles, and there is a good tomb of the
same date, and also some altars. Two of these are alike, each of two
columns, whose distance apart is about two fifths of their height;
behind each column is a pilaster, and both columns and pilasters are
covered with carving, and the niche between them is surrounded by two
bands of ornaments, but these are for the most part lightly marked, and
the whole forms an elegant composition. Another altar of the same
period, and similarly enriched, would perhaps not be inferior, if some
panelling in the back wall were not objectionable. Yet here the columns
are their full height apart. Proportion is no doubt of great importance
in architecture, but it is not only one proportion which will please.
When I first entered the church, it was the evening of a _festa_. The
end altar of each nave was splendidly illuminated, and the long,
half-obscure avenues, each leading to a blaze of light, produced a
sublime effect. Yet the columns had begun to receive some tapestry of
spiral stripes, and the capitals were shrouded with canopies of crimson
damask fringed with gold, preparatory to the fuller decorations of the
following day; and these in some degree disturbed the harmony of the
scene. Of these capitals, one or two are ancient Corinthian, of good
style, but damaged; the others are Gothic imitations of an early date,
that is, with distinct leaves and no running foliage. The guide books in
Sicily do not condescend to notice Gothic antiquities, and we do not
readily find the histories of these buildings. Some of the churches
present a great deal of inlaid work of marble and hard stones, and we
may sometimes see one part of a building thus highly finished, while the
rest is merely whitewashed. The pictures in general seem to be very bad.
Six columns on the inside of the Church of the Vergine Annunziata della
nazione Catalana, and a few fragments on the out, are said to have been
taken from a temple of Neptune. At San Giovanni Battista della nazione
Florentina there are six columns, which are supposed to have once
belonged to a temple of Hercules; but they are probably from different
buildings, since three are of granite, two of cipollino, and one is of
marmo Greco; the bases are Attic, but with rather deep hollows, and were
probably made for the church. The side doorways have an ornament
seemingly made for them, which is completely Roman, and not ill
executed, while it is applied to a disposition of the parts which we
should call Norman.
The mountain behind Messina is said to be 3,500 feet in height. It is
the usual storehouse of snow; but this failed last winter, and they were
obliged to import it from Calabria. The mountains there form a more
solid and continued mass, but they break down in pyramidal buttresses
like those of Sicily, and the nearer ones have the appearance of a
similar, sandy, or gravelly composition. The principal range retains the
snow till the beginning of June, and may therefore be about 6,000 feet
in height. The harbour of Messina is said to be too deep, part of it
being as much as forty fathoms.
I engaged a place in a _speronara_ to Palermo for eight dollars; it was
called L’Addolorata, which appeared rather ominous. An awning at one end
would protect a few passengers from the sun, and I was to share this
part with only one companion; but the master, whose name was Santo la
Camera, cheated me in that, and in everything else that he could. To
endeavour to elude his share of the bargain, and yet claim the full
execution of mine, seemed not to be against his moral code. The distance
is one hundred and ninety miles, and it is usually performed in two
days, or at most three, always coasting along the shore. The _speronara_
is an open boat, above 40 feet long, and I suppose 10 wide in the
broadest part; the first 4½ feet from the stern is a space allotted to
the steersman; the awning extends for about as much more; next are
benches for eight rowers, and towards the prow a single mast, to which
they contrive to fix four sails when the wind is gentle and favourable.
In the covered part I found two companions. The first a cavaliere, who
was always called _eccellenza_, and treated with great respect by the
rest of the party; the other a priest, whom the captain of the vessel
assured me had previously paid for his journey from Palermo to Messina,
but now on his return gave nothing for his passage; but he himself
informed me at first, that he paid four dollars, afterwards he said six.
I believe they were both lies to serve a countryman, as my inquiries
were evidently directed to ascertain the justice of what I paid myself;
and afterwards, when I reproached the captain with being paid twice over
for the use of the cabin, the truth made its appearance. The space
immediately before the awning, and between the benches, was filled up,
and mattrasses and rags were spread for four women, two men, and three
children, all of whom the captain had taken out of charity, _i. e._ on
their paying for the passage; the crew consisted of seven men and three
boys, and one other passenger was stationed in the prow.
We left Messina on the 9th and rowed all night against the wind: of
course I saw nothing of these celebrated straits beyond what I had
enjoyed from the neighbourhood of Messina. The northern coast of Sicily
is very mountainous, higher ones rising inland beyond those which skirt
the shore. The latter expose a mixture of wood and cultivation, and
there are frequently small cultivated plains at their feet, forming
altogether a delightful appearance. Ætna I did not see, I believe
because hid in the clouds, but the nearer hills present such a continued
barrier that it could only have been visible from a few points. About
twenty-five miles from Palermo is the wide open valley of Termini, the
ancient Himera, and this was the only considerable opening I observed,
but we might have passed others in the dark; for partly rowing, and
partly sailing, we continued our course without intermission. On the
right were the Lipari Islands, all mountainous, and almost all inclining
in form to a single truncated cone, or to a combination of cones;
nevertheless there are some which, from their shapes, I should suspect
not to be entirely volcanic. We reached Palermo on the evening of the
11th.
Palermo is situated on a beautiful bay, which bears a competition with
that of Naples, but the situation of the city is nearly on a flat, and
the mountains which encircle its noble plain, have throughout a
similarity of character; both which circumstances limit, not the beauty
of any particular scene, but the variety of the whole. These surrounding
mountains are nevertheless finely broken and varied in their details.
The highest summits may perhaps rise between three and four thousand
feet, but in the back ground we distinguish, in clear weather, the vast
mass of the Nebrodes, now called mountains of the Madonnia. I was led to
expect, before I reached Sicily, that they always had a snowy cap, but
this is not the case, though they may perhaps always preserve snow in
their hollows. You enjoy this scene to great advantage from the Marina,
a public promenade extending along the shore, bordered by good houses,
which however, are irregularly disposed, rising mostly upon a continued
terrace. At the extremity of this place the view is embellished by the
fine groves of the botanic garden; beyond this we see the spacious and
well cultivated plain rising gently towards the abrupt mountains I have
already mentioned, which recede in successive distances, till the series
is lost in the Nebrodes. In the opposite direction is Monte Pellegrino,
a fine detached hill, but deficient in wood.
If an Englishman were transported in rapid succession to the bay of
Naples, to Corfu, to the citadel of Athens, to Messina, and to Palermo,
which would he prefer? or if he contemplated the morning sun gradually
lighting up Ætna from the theatre of Taormina, would he not pronounce it
finer than any of them? I have seen each at no very long interval, but I
cannot decide; that which is present always seems the most beautiful,
and if I give to Athens the preference, it is, perhaps, that a thrilling
sensation of its past glory mingles with the emotion produced by the
scenery; and certainly it is that in which the circumstances of beauty
to which we are habituated in England are most deficient. There are no
villages, no gentlemen’s seats; no trees near enough to be distinctly
seen, except in the gray stripe of the olive-grove. No mixture of shade
and cultivation; no farm-houses; no ivy-covered ruins; no running
stream; no bold cliffs; and if there are high mountains, they are at
such a distance, that all their asperities are softened down into an
even tint. What then is there at Athens? There are the brilliant aerial
tints shed over sea and land; a succession of hills of finely varied
forms, with the waters of the Saronic gulf glittering among them at
different distances; the mountains of the Peloponnesus; the Acropolis of
Corinth; the isles of Egina and Salamis; the Piræus; the plain of
Athens; and the gray olive-grove finely contrasting with the yellow hue
of the plain. Nearer are the Pnyx, the Areopagus, and the remains of the
Propylæa: and the white marble columns of the Parthenon, against one of
which the spectator is leaning, though they hardly make part of the
view, yet certainly contribute to its effect.
Palermo has two good, straight streets, crossing each other at right
angles; two squares, one of which is in front of the royal palace; and
the Marino, which bounds the city on the east. The rest of the town is
composed of narrow, crooked and dirty streets. Indeed this was the state
of the whole city till 1564, when the viceroy, Don Pedro di Toledo,
began to form the two principal avenues. These are of good width; and
the palaces which border them, though not of correct, are by no means of
contemptible architecture. The antiquities are principally of Norman
times, with one or two edifices which claim, and probably with justice,
a Saracenic origin, without being of a much earlier date. To me, who
have been so long examining the remains of Grecian liberty, these seem
quite modern; however, some of them are of great historical value, and I
shall proceed to give you a little account of them, observing by the
way, that the common people of Sicily have lost all pride of their Greek
ancestry, and confound in their accounts all who were not Christians, or
rather Roman Catholics, under the name of Saracens; or if they
acknowledge some difference of nation, they do not at all doubt that
they lived about the same period, and one very wise cicerone assured me
_on his honour_, that some of the city walls built by the said Greeks or
Saracens, had been injured by the universal deluge. A priest in one of
the churches maintained that one part of the building had been erected
by the French; I asked at what time? At the time the Romans governed the
island.
There is a Saracenic castle called Zisa, just out of Palermo; its origin
indeed has been disputed, but there is a peculiarity of style in its
architecture, and a correspondence with some of the buildings existing
in Turkey, which leaves no doubt of the fact. The windows have been
altered, except a few small, square ones in the lower part, but the wall
is ornamented with obtusely pointed arches, very slightly recessed, and
without ornament. The principal entrance is under a scheme arch within a
very highly pointed one, which is probably an alteration. This and two
others open into a corridor which has been modernized, and opposite to
the middle arch of the corridor, there is a large archway opening into
an ancient hall. Three sides of this hall retain their original
disposition, and it is altogether the most curious part of the building.
It is a square room with four recesses, one of which communicates with
the corridor, as above mentioned, and gives air and light to the room.
The roof is a groined and obtusely pointed vault, but without ornament;
a very small shaft stands at each salient angle of each of the three
recesses. There are some ornaments in mosaic in the upper part of the
walls, and above these an arch, which is neither groin, vault, nor dome,
but a combination of little arches, and bits of arches, so intricately
disposed, that after spending three or four hours in the endeavour to
express it on paper, I have been at last obliged to give it up. There is
a fountain in the middle, and did the corridor open on a lawn, or into a
garden, you could hardly imagine a more delightful retreat on a hot day.
Another Saracenic ruin, but at some distance from the city, is called
Casteddu, _i. e._ _Castello_; the Sicilians uniformly changing double
_l_ into double _d_, and the terminal _o_ into _u_. It is of
considerable extent, and ornamented with obtusely pointed arches, and
very slightly retreating faces. It also exhibits some arches nearly
flat, which are probably modern; and there are small square-headed
windows which belong apparently to the ancient work; and long
loop-holes, which are likewise terminated by a lintel. Among the arches,
some have key-stones, and others have not. Close by this building there
is a smaller edifice of the same sort, and there are other remains of
walls and mounds, on one of which is an old olive-tree, 12 feet in
diameter at the base. These are all seated on a pool called _Mare
d’aquadolce_, which is supplied by copious springs of fine water, rising
at the foot of the mountains; and close by these springs there is
another fragment, consisting of a mixture of squared stones and
brickwork, and having pointed arches, which may perhaps be Saracenic.
These are the principal objects referred to Saracenic times, and though
the arches are pointed, yet they can hardly be said to be edifices
belonging to the pointed style of architecture. They have a character
peculiarly their own, and are readily distinguished from the Norman
edifices of this country. To these I now turn; and first, as is
reasonable, I must say something about the Cathedral. This was founded I
believe, by William the Second, called the good, in 1187. It contains
the sepulchre of his grandfather Roger, first Norman king of Sicily, and
of his father, William the bad. These were at first deposited in a small
chapel built by Roger, which was pulled down to make way for the church.
The tomb of Roger is a plain sarcophagus, composed of slabs of porphyry,
under a canopy, having the form of a little temple, with four columns,
and an architrave enriched with mosaics. Those of some other Sicilian
princes are disposed in the same manner, but with more ornament.
Considerable alterations and additions have been made at different
periods to the church, and lately the artists have proceeded with a view
of imitating the old style, which renders the analysis more difficult,
but if there are parts certainly of more recent dates, and others very
doubtful, there still remains externally a large portion undoubtedly of
the original work. In the succession of slightly retreating faces, and
the obtusely pointed arches, the Norman architects appear to have
followed their Saracenic predecessors; they introduced a greater
quantity of moulding, but still there is less of this than we should
find in Norman buildings of as high a finish in France or England. They
brought with them also their zigzag, of which no traces occur in the
Saracenic remains; but instead of forming it by carved mouldings, it
generally consists of black marble inlaid on a white, or light-coloured
ground. Other Norman ornaments also occur, partly in relief, but more
often in inlaid work. The western extremity has a square termination,
instead of a gable; and it is flanked with a little tower at each angle,
of a very whimsical taste. In the centre is a large and lofty arch, but
interrupted, as in the annexed sketch.
[Illustration: Illustration of arch]
The upper part contains a comparatively small window. The doorway below
preserves its arch entire, but the external moulding is broken and
recomposed in a zigzag manner. The composition has no beauty, and is
certainly not coeval with the building. I cannot pretend to assign it a
date, but there are in it no traces of the restoration of Roman
architecture. The principal entrance is on the south side, by an open
porch of three arches, and this is also an adjunct, perhaps of the
fourteenth century.
There are several buildings of the middle ages in Palermo, which enable
one to trace the progress of the art. The most interesting is perhaps
the Church of San Niccolò della Kalsa, the tower of which abounds in
inlaid work, and we may trace in it imitations, both of the Norman
ornaments, and of those of Roman architecture; but the combinations of
the former are more complicated than those of the cathedral. This was
probably erected in the twelfth century. In the Saracenic architecture
we find no carved mouldings, the artist depending entirely for their
enrichments on inlaid work and mosaics. The Normans adopted this style,
but applied it to their own favourite ornaments, and mixed with it
carved mouldings; the carving came gradually more into use, and inlaying
and mosaics diminished, and the latest example pointed out to me of the
latter, is in the Palazzo de’ tribunali, erected in 1307. Even the
zigzag ornament was in use till 1302, as it is exhibited in the church
of St. Francis, which is of that date. The front of the church of San
Niccolò della Kalsa, was probably erected after the tower, and indeed
after 1306, which is the date of the earliest tomb in the church; the
ornaments are less Norman, and the effect is made to depend on
mouldings, and not on inlaid work. Yet the distribution is simple, and
it is very far from the richness or intricacy of the portals of the
French or English ecclesiastical edifices of that period.
[Illustration:
J. Hawksworth Sculp.
S^T. NICOLÒ DELLA KALSA AT PALERMO.
_London, Published by J. & A. Arch. Cornhill. March 1^{st} 1828._ ]
There is a good botanic garden at Palermo, and the warmth of the climate
gives us an opportunity of seeing many of our green-house plants growing
freely and in great perfection in the open air. Among them we may
observe the sugar-cane, the papyrus, and the banana; and the botanist
will also be gratified by meeting with many Sicilian plants, which are
hardly to be seen elsewhere. The casino was designed by M. du Fourny,
whom I have already mentioned to you at Paris: the general form is good,
but the details do not please me. The metopes (for the order is Doric)
are ornamented with different fruits. The idea is ingenious, but it
ought to have exhibited the various modes of fructification, especially
such as tend to elucidate the different families of plants. In the
present instance, they have neither been well chosen nor well executed.
LETTER LV.
AGRIGENTUM—SELINUS—SEGESTA.
_Naples, 22nd Sept. 1818._
I BARGAINED with a _sensale_ to be taken to Girgenti in two days and a
half for six Sicilian dollars, each of which is a trifle less in value
than the Spanish dollar. These _sensali_, who are the brokers of the
horse-keepers, generally take care to have a good share of the profit;
and I found in this case that the owner of the horse, who accompanied me
on foot, and who was on his return to Alicata, was to have forty _tari_
for his portion, a _tari_ being the twelfth part of a dollar. We set out
on Monday the 17th. The road lies for some distance along the shore,
then winds up a fine valley, the varied forms and receding distances of
whose boundary mountains offer a succession of beautiful scenes.